Newsletters from Manhattan — Monday

Monday

I’m still tired. And sad. Always sad. Today I abruptly stopped what I was doing. I left Eliot to do things for himself for once and went to my room. I listened to Damien Rice and cried. The last heartbreak soundtrack album had been Lana del Ray’s Norman Fucking Rockwell. That boy can double go fuck himself. Why do I need, even sometimes beg for their attentions? Just one man made of mistakes will do and I’ll watch him magically disappear all of the memories of the one before him. Why am I always so desperate to want to talk to someone who is a waste of everything? All of my breaths, all of my thoughts, every ounce of energy. And why always why? No one ever answers. Eventually I started singing along to the words (i can’t take my mind off of you, my mind, till i find someone new) and went back to my charge.

I’m not so charmed by the streets today. I haven’t looked beyond my feet on the sidewalks, always having to imagine ways to make Eliot’s life easier. Trying to be aware, to listen, to breathe for him. I think I might be dying because I can’t make art. Because I can’t be allowed to speak my ideas out loud for fear that they aren’t as important as Eliot’s needs and need for control. I think I’m being grouchy. It isn’t all bad. It’s just that my spirit is dull and dying and I need to be myself and have my own thoughts.

Tuesday

I hate TV. I mostly always have. Here I am waiting for Eliot in a doctors office where we had to take a wheelchair lift to get to and I’m being held hostage by the voice of a judge’s loud dramatic rant mediating cases on People’s Court. Ugh.

Later.

Elliot’s mom is here. I’m usually really good at parents but I don’t feel like it right now. I’m hiding out in my blue hued room with my cat and the sounds of warm rain falling outside. A flash of lighting and the loudest rumble of thunder I think I have ever heard just clapped at my window. I’m bored but not bored. My neck hurts from sitting for hours waiting. I have nothing interesting to say. I am bleeding to death and have the worst cramps ever due to being tear gassed all last summer.

Wednesday

It’s not quite midnight but I guess it might as well be. Tuesday Wednesday? who gives a fuck. Has there EVER been a night that I don’t go to bed and immediately begin thinking of someone I can’t stop thinking about? Someone who very obviously does not think of me. Maybe it’s just a game. Maybe I just want to capture him all of the way and after I do I won’t want him anymore. I’ll break his heart. And I won’t care. It will be brutal. I do have that super power of discarding people like dropping a pin in a silent room. Does he deserve that? No.

So everyday in NYC I’ll be thinking these same fucking thoughts. This is what I get for my boredom. I should bet myself whether or not I can lose them by the time I go home. Leave them right here in Manhattan. And later, months or maybe years later, I’ll read this and roll my eyes. I probably won’t even be able to remember the deadly depths of my obsession.

Thursday

I walked something like 4 miles today for a wifi router. For air. For things like Twitter and Instagram and emails that don’t cost too much to send that you can’t send them anymore.

I bought a 65 dollar pair of flip flops. If i’m gonna walk so much I’ll need better shoes.

There are more white people on Broadway than on 125th. Maybe because it’s fancier. The sidewalks are sometimes just as crowded as the busy streets next to them. Bobbing and weaving. Slamming on the breaks making wide turns. I’m always noticing the sounds of the honking horns. A sing-song ballad that I have to imagine in my head since I am not the one hitting the steering wheels. It’s such a common sound that maybe the people driving have ceased to hear them. I wonder how long it will take until I cease to hear them too.

Friday

A care nurse was here from 9–5 again today. It was nice. I got some free time. I will have to start making myself stay up after Eliot’s morning poop ordeal so I can actually get to do something before 5pm. Today I slept till 2, went to the Duane Reeds and got some black fingernail polish and then made Eliot curry lentils and chicken for dinner. The whole time listening to him explain every single thing that happened with his body today. Everything. Like I don’t already know it’s fairly fucked up. Next topic please.

P.S. I ditched the extra med tactic. I tried it for 3 or 4 days and it’s just not my style. I mean maybe it’s more of my style, and I don’t like it. I already really don’t give a fuck and it just makes me give less fucks. So, it’s off to the races again.

…..continued