I went up to the evil city today -- even though there is a not-insignificant part of me that will miss ye olde log cabin, I'm glad that I'm moving back to the place that I love to hate. It was raining off and on throughout the day (a v. rare occurrence in June -- only 3-4 other Junes since records started being kept in the 1880s have had as much rain as we've already had, and it's only the 4th), but since San Francisco is never what one would consider consistently summery, it wasn't a big deal.
I got to the city later than I had planned; I had to go to Kinko's first to scan the lease for the new place, which took much longer than I anticipated due to a) incompetence and b) their usage of v. slow computers, no doubt to increase the time it takes for you to complete tasks since they're charging by the minute. But, I still wasn't the last one to arrive at Katrina's house, and I got there just in time to eat. She was hosting a small, lovely brunch in her new apartment for the first time, and the place is super cute -- one of those quirky apartments that abound in San Francisco, with hardwood floors, interesting woodwork, etc. This one is nicer than a lot I've seen, though, and Katrina's made it feel quite inviting, even if her cat does have a particular disorder that I won't discuss here for fear of hurting its feelings (I'm always surprised to discover who's been keeping up on the blog, and on some level I wouldn't be surprised if he was, too).
Adit and Vidya were in attendance, too (and came as a package deal, of course, since Adit is Chandlord's permahouseguest -- although he supposedly was moving out today), as was Jess (alone, since John didn't come up to the city with her for her voice lesson before brunch). Raja and Akash showed up shortly after me, and while I haven't spent all that much time with either of them, they were quite entertaining (and the contribution of pastries one of them brought was much welcomed). So, we all hung around and made a variety of jhokes; Jess had to leave early, but the rest of us stayed until promptly 1:55pm, since Katrina had warned us in the invite that she was kicking us out at 2pm. As it turned out, she didn't need to kick us out, but we went anyway -- and then all of us trooped over to Adit's new apartment to check it out. It's only a few blocks from our old apartment, and v. conveniently a block away from the Samovar in the Castro, so he may see more of me than he bargained for. It's also quite spacious, and I'm sure will look great once they have more furniture than a bare mattress on the floor and a janky table that the old tenants left behind.
The boys all parted ways then, but I pressured Chandlord and Katrina into going to Samovar with me, where we continued the merrymaking for another couple of hours. Chandlord and I both got tarot readings from the dude who reads tarot cards at Samovar on Saturdays -- in retrospect, perhaps we should have asked for guidance on whether we would murder each other in Germany, but we both were more career-focused today than anything. Then, I dropped both of them off at their respective homes, made a quick stop in Hayes Valley to buy some soap (crazy, I know), and got hit on by the cashier at a cafe when I stopped in to use the bathroom and get a cup of coffee before driving home. After flirting with me, he gave me my coffee for free, which was a) entertaining, since my rule-abiding soul secretly sympathized with the 'uptight' coworker who shot him dirty looks over it, and b) welcome, since as it turned out, the coffee was terrible.
I spent the rest of the evening at home, taking a nap because I was so wiped out from the day, taking a shower because I was so wiped out from the nap, and then writing in my journal. I will spare you the full extent of the melodrama, but I'm spending a lot of time these days pondering how I can stay more 'present' in my daily life. I know that sounds all psychotherapeutic or new-agey or something, but the point is that I don't let myself sift through the mess of my emotions, and I either numb everything (using the internet as my number one anaesthetic), or I give in to my desire to cut my hair / destroy a relationship / run away to a different country / do something crazy whenever everything gets calm enough that I'm able to hear all the emotions that are usually buried under the general cacophony of my purposefully chaotic life.
Numbing everything worked pretty well when I was trying to stay a moderately productive cog in a corporate machine, but if I'm going to write the stories I know I need to/want to write, I can't keep hiding. Ellie and Nick's story is killing me because it starts off with a bang of emotion -- there's no easing into it like there is with most romances, because they knew each other a decade earlier and were secretly engaged before she threw him over for his cousin, and so their interactions from the very first page are filled with hatred, longing, love, desire, loathing, and regret -- all those messy emotions that I usually sublimate and turn into jhoketime. If I'm going to write their story the way that I know it needs to be told, I have to force myself to sit at my desk and let those emotions come out, no matter how hard it is and how much I want to pull away from the flame.
So I didn't do as good a job of sparing you from the melodrama as I intended -- my bad. But now, I should think about going to bed; my landlord's coming over sometime tomorrow afternoon to clear the leaves off the patio, so I should probably get up and dressed sometime in the morning so that I don't look like the sloth I usually am when I'm home during the day. Goodnight!
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