Miss Misery (6 page)

I didn't have a good answer for that, so I told Ashleigh to be good and good night. But I didn't go to bed yet. I don't know if it was because I didn't want to face the covers alone or if I didn't want to face them drunk, but I logged onto Miss Misery's diary instead. There was a new entry:

So.

I did it.

I told my dad and it's official.

I. Am. Moving. (I'm typing it slowly, the way I'd want to say it if I could talk out loud without my dad thinking I'm either (a) insane or (b) insane enough to have snuck another guy into my bedroom after the Shane fiasco.)

So: I am FUCKING MOVING!

TO NEW YORK!!!

Wow. I just took 20 seconds to read that on the screen. I can't believe it's happening. But it is. At the end of the month. Tracee said she can hook me up with a waitressing job when I get there and I'm going to take art classes at CUNY. I'm moving in with Stevie. I am totally joining the VSC. It is so on.

!!!!!!!

Wake the fuck up NY! Get ready bitches! YOU ARE NOT READY FOR THIS!

Au revoir Toronto! Later Queen Street! Sayonara bubble tea in Kensington Street Market! Bye mean old cat lady who yells at me at the bus stop every morning!

Hello, life.

I pounded the rest of the beer and opened another. She was moving.
Here.

Jesus.

One door opens…

(I looked at the empty bed behind me.)

Another slams shut.

Hello, life?

But suddenly, I had an idea.

 

The screen swam in front of me as I logged into my deleted and dormant Web diary and hit
EDIT
and
DELETE ALL
. The prompt asked me if I was sure. I took another swig of beer and clicked
YES
. I would have clicked
HELL YES
if it were an option, but my computer is polite like that. I thought of Amy walking through the predawn streets of the Netherlands, eyes alive and bright, taking in the sudden and beautiful reality of a career dream achieved. I thought of Bryce in Los Angeles, driving a beat-up convertible under palm trees, blasting his hip-hop mix tapes too loud, always between hot-spot destinations and the impossibly sexy women that frequented them. I thought of Jack and Pedro high-fiving over glasses of unmixed vodka, confident and totally zooted, refusing to give in to the realities of tomorrow. And I thought of Miss Misery, dreaming bigger than I ever could, zigging and zagging across a path that's meant to be walked in a straight line.

I clicked on
NEW ENTRY
.

I cracked another can of beer and closed my eyes. And then I started typing.

Went for it tonight with J and P–head still swimming. Started at Sparrow: 3 whiskeys, 4 keybumps in the bathroom. The night–hell the whole day–felt a lot better after that. What I realized–as we were screaming and smoking in the cab as it flew across the Manhattan Bridge, as J was charming the doorman and cutting the line for us at APT–was that any night can be a Saturday. It's just a question of how you treat it. I could have been sleeping or sulking but instead I was dancing and moving and flirting– feeling my heart triple-timing in my chest, too many straight vodkas burning in my veins.

Pushed on to the second party–downtown, this time, no awning, no name. Every place we go it's just laughs and laughs and no waiting, and no problems, and no room to breathe. Someone said it was an afterparty and asked what band I played in. I just smiled and smiled. So many girls there; J and P seemed to know all of them. Introduced me to them, left me alone with drugs and drink money to talk to them. But the DJ was relentless–some screwed and chopped remix of an import white label that hasn't been released yet. Sounded like Chamillonaire fronting Gang of Four, or that might have just been my own voice, my own pulse in my ears. More lines, more drinks, more girls. Cornered one on the dance floor–dark hair that twirled like ski jumps just when it should have been touching her shoulders. She had a bull's-eye tattoo on the back of her calf, black tank top, red bra straps.

Her mouth tasted like spearmint and cigarettes when we kissed out on 2nd avenue, shielded by a pay-phone kiosk. I can still taste it. And I never even got her name.

This is me now. I have an appetite. I'm wired and my eyes are acrobats. I don't think I'll ever go to sleep again.

When I was finished I felt excited and guilty, and I read and reread what I had written at least four times. Then I hit
POST
and sent it out into the world. No one wanted to read about what was really happening to me—I didn't even want it to be happening. This way was better. This way felt…well, it felt more honest. For the first time in a while I felt…satisfied. Tomorrow I'd wake up and I'd do what I had to do. But with my new diary I could also do what I couldn't—or wouldn't—ever do. I liked my new phantom life. I liked it a whole heck of a lot better than the life of phantoms—Amy, Miss Misery, the impossible book contract weighing down my desk—that I had woken up to that morning.

It was almost three in the morning. I was decidedly drunk. And it was definitely time to go to bed. Again. I shut down the computer, changed quickly, and slipped between the sheets.

 

Just as I finally felt the heaviness behind my eyes relax and start to give a little—that wonderful warm ooze right before sleep—my cell phone let out a pitiful little chirp. I groaned and reached out a hand to my bedside table. It had to be Amy. She had made it safely across the ocean and wanted to let me know without waking me. She was sweet like that. Considerate. At least my nothing day would be bookended by her almost presence.

I flipped the lid of my phone and peeked one eye open.

I closed my eye and went to sleep.

We are so dramatic I could kiss myself. Wait–why do I say “could” like it's some sort of impossibility? I can. I will. I shall.

**KISS**

There. I did it. On my knee which is raised up to my mouth (this is comfortable, honest; this is the way I always sit at my desk). I used to kiss my knee all the time, actually. Practicing, dontchaknow. It makes sense–why go into any fight unprepared? So prepared was I that I half expected to kiss Chris McKenzie on his hairy knee instead of his lips that day in grade 8 in the auditorium after school.

No tongue, tho.

Forgive me if I'm less than lucid. I copped two vicodins from Sarah (via her mom's prodigious medicine cabinet) and took them both with swigs of very very cheap pinot grigio at the end of my shift tonight. They don't make me feel drunk or messed up. They make me feel glowey. I like feeling glowey. Who wouldn't?

Tonight I was NOT feeling glowey at work. I was feeling slow and bad tips and blah blah blah. But then Sarah and Cody came and rescued me. Sarah was wearing a tiara that she found in the trunk of Cody's car and Cody was wearing…well, ordinary clothes, really, but he still looked cute. I was sitting in the kitchen counting my nothing money and wanting to cry but not in front of the busboys and well DROWNING basically. And they came and grabbed me up and swept me away from all of THAT like the way those naked baby angels picked up Venus in that Bottocelli (sp?) painting and boogie-boarded her on a seashell to a place where she was better appreciated.

Note: I am not the goddess of love nor am I irresistible (nor was I naked and nor–I LOVE TYPING “NOR”!!!!–is my hair long enough to cover my boobs). I was just lifted up by my own private-not-chubby angels.

So I popped some pills and hopped in Cody's car and away we went to Jiminy Chengs in Cabbagetown. Listened to Head on the Door because my angels know its my favorite Cure album. Sarah and I both sat in the back and made Cody drive us–we didn't wear seatbelts and we danced like 11 year olds in the backseat, hopping up and down, making faces at other drivers. Before we went into the bar Cody pulled three yellow roses out of his glovebox and said that we were a team tonight and nothing could ever split us up. So he pinned the flowers on our shirts and kissed me and Sarah on the forehead.

Isn't that amazing the way any boring typical night can be transformed into extraordinary? That's alchemy. That's REAL alchemy–boredom into happiness, down into up, night into NIGHT. Life into gold. We should call Webster's and revise the definition of the word–my version is doable but no less astounding. So suddenly an evening that was all tattered and frayed around the edges started shining and looping in on itself until it never really had to end.

We went into the bar and ordered a bottle of wine–which they don't sell but they made an exception because Cody told the tender that Sarah and I were twins and it was our birthday. So we drank one bottle and then two and three more and embarrassed no one but ourselves. We played Felt and then the Arcade Fire on the jukebox and I distinctly remember lying on the floor of the bar while the songs crash-landed all around me, raising my hands up into the air and feeling like if I really, genuinely tried, I could reach forever.

Later a guy who said he was a student but was actually 54 years old (!) asked if he could dance with me and I said of course. He had a beard (!!) and smelled like garlic but was impossibly delicate–he held me the way I'd like to be held when I'm older and quieter and moved me just so. We slow-danced to this song called “Glorious” by this band called Adorable. The song is fast but we were slow. Good enough.

Now I'm home. Thank you angels. Thank you city and thank you springtime.

Happy birthday, Mom. I wish you were still alive. I know you would have danced with me, regardless.

David! Daaaavid! Guess who? Ha, ha! It's your humble editor, David. Not worried—no not me! Just…concerned! We're concerned, David! Estamos nerviosos! You and I have a deadline coming up and you have a manuscript for me…correct? Correcto? Si? No? Ha, ha!…No, seriously—David, call me right away. Seriously. Call.

David? David? Are you there? Screening? No? Pick up if you are. This is expensive…. No? OK. I'm sorry I missed you. Again. It's me. I'm just back from work. The people here have been really wonderful—the city is great. You should…um…see it. Have you ever had Indonesian food? I think you'd like it. It's everywhere here and it's just your thing—endless courses, very little dishes…I miss you. I do. I hope you're working. I hope you're there…. You can…call me too, you know. I hope you know that. I lov—

Was at the Bowery tonight for the Futureheads show–went with some of the Transmission mag crew which meant tons of pre-drinking, which occurred, of course, before the during-show drinking and the subsequent after-show drinking. Concert was good, spiky, loud. Found myself pogoing in the VIP area with two or three assistant fact-checkers who were totally cute and unhealthily into the band. They were all drinking Sparks which made them even more hyper, leading one of them to give me a ritalin since “she didn't need it.” Felt full of energy after that. Fully focused.

Afterparty was at Rothko. Stuck with my new best friends and ended up at the roped-off table with the band. Drank their vodka, scored off of their roadies. Since all people in bands do is talk about being in bands, I went off with my fact-checkers to the claustrophobic miniature dance floor in the back room downstairs where a friend of theirs was DJing nothing but Prince and Rick James. Danced with them, made out with them, danced some more. Eventually–when I was seeing the bass lines in the air and felt like I could draw rainbows of strobe lights with my fingers when I caught the rhythm–someone pushed me behind the decks and so I ended up DJing until the place closed sometime after 5. I played hip-hop, mostly. Mid-'90s stuff that Bryce and I used to drive around listening to like Biggie, Raekwon, Jeru. When the fact-checkers would get bored, they'd come over to me and hotbox cigarette smoke in my mouth, run their hands through my hair, try to distract me. But they couldn't distract me. I liked playing the songs I wanted to play, being in control. Feeling a whole room full of people respond to my every whim. It felt like telepathy, beaming my thoughts, my music, straight into their brains. It made me feel golden. It made me feel alive.

My dad always tells me to get my head out of the clouds and mom always tells me to stop living in the past–because I'm so obsessed with finding things in my closet like Strawberry Shortcake dolls or (gulp) Britney's first album. ::blushes:: Or how I'm always making her dig up the videos of our trip to Disneyland in 1994 or the photos from the time Dad's aunt Susan died and we had to go all the way to Boston for the funeral and we went to the aquarium and science museum there even though Jessie had the chickenpox. They all want me to live in the here and now and be here with them but they'll never get that that's the one place I don't want to be–even though it's the only place I CAN be. I want to live in the future. I don't want flying cars or picture phones or handsome screamo boys with studded belts to ask me out. I just want to be past here.

I hate the present. And I'm always stuck in it.

Sarah told me that the reason I was stressed and freaking out had nothing to do with the move and everything to do with the fact that I haven't gotten laid since approximately Never (B.C.). I didn't agree with her, but after 3 margaritas in the afternoon I started to come around to her point of view.

So I got dolled up in that black dress (the one that I wear over the jeans and shut up if you hate that look I think it's cute), shaved my legs, bought a bottle of Popov, and cruised by the restaurant at closing time to pick up Shane. (Pause for jaws to hit the floor.)

OK defense: your witness. Ready? Ahem: I'M SORRY BUT HE'S REALLY FUCKING CUTE!!!

Also:

Exhibit A–excellent bestower of hickeys

Exhibit B–has own apartment near Kensington Market

Exhibit C–can see floor in said apartment and has sheets with high thread count

Exhibit D–will be omitted in case in some bizarro future my father ever finds this, but rest assured **it's worth it**

I know he's bad news, people. But bad news is better than no news, right?

(Oh, and you can't TELL he's 38–especially in the dark!)

One empty bottle, one sleepless night, and one very red neck later, I am sore but not so stressed. Thank god for unshaven horndog bartenders.

Still no sleep though. I'm thinking of starting a business that rents sensitive emo boys out for the night–not for sex or anything, but just for sleeping/ holding/etc. That's all they want and that's all I want out of THEM. All we'd need is a van (for delivery purposes), a closet full of clean pajamas, and easy access to a college town (for the boys). Seriously. We could make a fortune with this. Think about it.

It is weird, though, isn't it? That sleeping with someone and Sleeping With Someone are two completely different things?

My father laughed at me at breakfast this morning. Since I'm leaving him and moving away in two weeks, I must remember to behave.

Yo man, it's Bryce. It's awfully weird for it to be the middle of June and not be sweating to death, you know? Or swallowing air that's like ninety percent water? You feel me? Hello? You gotta start picking up this phone, dude. I know you're screening. I haven't heard from you in weeks and you should be in a work coma but God knows what you're really doing. Anyway, check it: Last night I was coming out of this dive bar in Echo Park called The Shortstop, and Sunset was completely deserted. The only person on the sidewalk was this dude—I shit you not, he had to have been like seven feet tall with enormous dreadlocks and a top hat. And he's beating on a drum like he's in the Cornhusker Marching Band screaming, ‘WMDs! WMDs!' Thoughts? No? The women here are smokin' hot, by the way. Not that you'd care. Call a brother up! C'mon!