And Before I Knew It, My Kitten Heels Were No Longer Kittens

According to my high-quality (psssh) camera imbedded in my computer screen, this is what I look like, after a really unorganized day working at the TFF.

I've been working a lot. And when I'm not working, I quite honestly spend my days smoking weed and watching movies. This is honest and I think nothing bad of it, except that it's sometimes hard to get off the couch once smoking commences, so I have to start planning accordingly.

I go through stages, in about time periods of three months. Stages include but are certainly not limited to men, diets, workout routines, smoking, working in a bar, video-ing, drinking, writing-- all my general lifestyle kicks.

For the last three or so months (probably somewhat less than that) I have been dating someone new, not writing anything that isn't absolutely required of me, working in a bar, smoking cigarettes again, drinking probably too much (I'm not quite ready to admit that though, so shh) and also have taken a liking to marijuana.

Basically, in terms of my life, I have accomplished nothing more than making good cash and am considering blowing most of it on a Vespa or a trip somewhere on a whim something random like that. But I probably won't do either.

All of these confessions of sorts of what's been going on in my life have come at a time that coincides directly with what apparently was the end of a large change for me. November through January held really strange, fast-paced, rapid changes in my mediocre twenty-something, pretty city-chick life.

I say "pretty" as almost a negative thing because god knows that will get you no where in this city. I guess unless you're really fucking pretty, and even then, we get sick of seeing the same really fucking pretty people's faces anyway. It's talent that tends to back a pretty face in the crowd up. Continuous, new ever-changing talent.

Within these last three months I also had a few amazing interview opportunities, both of which I did not land the job, however I will be back-- that's my motto for that. So, no I didn't get the gig at The Onion.

On my way back from the TFF (said as if the TFF is contained at one large venue, because apparently Tribeca is just not large enough to contain it's film festival), I walked far too close to a construction site, whilst on my way to score a "free-if-you-bring-this-advertisement" manicure. I was wearing some business attire that made me feel both dyke-y and tool-like and I say that to no offense as I love the occasional special lady and bridge and tunnel-er, but I am neither those types (I think...?). And I am also not classifying myself as anything because putting people (including myself) in boxes is something I'm consciously trying to not do anymore.

I can't stand change. Truly, I cannot. I naturally do not welcome it, at all, whether good or bad, it makes me uneasy. I know it is an inevitable force that I must make amends with at some point, but I go out of my way to fight it constantly.

Getting back to November through December. Throughout those months I lost a steady job, as Gin Lane closed. Gin Lane being the bar I used to work at for just under a year, under the management of my once ex-boyfriend turned best friend, Scott. Upon the closing of Gin Lane, I needed a source of income to fuel my "projected artistic lifestyle" so I immediately pick up a new gig at The Pegu Club, where I still am employed. It has been nearly six months and I am just now for the first time, sincerely feeling the pull of needing to write my way out of the bar scene once and for all.

Mind you, the bar scene I happen to find myself in happens to be what is understood as the very top of the bar scene in the world. However, I find minimal prestige in that, simply because it's not what I want to be doing and not because I don't respect it, because I do. As I continue to perpetually work in bars, this all just becomes more apparent to me.

However, there are bills. Lots and lots of school to pay for and lots and lots of things I'd like to do that require denominations I have yet to even nearly acquire. For instance, I'd like to spend three weeks in Paris, because hell, who wouldn't like to spend three weeks in Paris? Or what I imagine Paris might be like, which is probably nothing is which Paris really is or can be.

Beside having a change in my source of income in November, two of my best friends, my New York family if you will, started to spiral down into the big black hole that sometimes is New York. I had seen it happen before and I was seeing it happen again. It was happening again, all around, come to think of it. New York had opened it's big, wildly gritty mouth and started to chomp away at people so very dear to me.

I had also been in love with infidelity, really, sometime before November. I had been in love with this string I was being pulled on, just in hopes that the person pulling the string would basically, be mine. Whether for a night, or a few months, or forever, I was somewhat madly infatuated with someone I could not have although I was absurdly hopeful and with reason to be. I wanted to be around this person all the time. I wanted to know what was going on in this person's life all the time. I spent my days imagining what this person was doing at certain times. I spent my nights quivering in my bed alone mostly after working or staying up late talking to this person, just imagining this person sleeping next to someone else. I simply liked being surrounded by him and that's the sort of love it was-- some sort of mediocrity but burning none the less.

But it seems as though that was just a phase-- the trimester of months right before the ones I am talking about.

November began and with it I was caught off-guard by someone I had just met, all while my good friends were being swallowed up all over New York, by New York itself. One of these friends was even staying on my couch throughout, so I saw it first hand.

My drinking too much, cigarette-smoking, residue of the past summer-self had met someone in early November who kissed me right in front of a goddamned jukebox in a dive-y bar the East Village. It couldn't have been any less magical, although that's just what it was when I look back at it. I was surrounded by some of my best friends that night-- all in once place-- which happens only a few times a year, come to think of it. And, in that comfort, comfort itself was bestowed right smack on my lips in front of a jukebox.

What I remember from that exact moment was when I pulled away, only to open my eyes and see his eyes smiling. I remember scrambling in my mind to try and collect some witty phrase I could use to elaborate on in a future essay. Something about how eyes can smile, too. And his surely could.

We shared our most private writings with each other later that night and kissed hard against the brick walls in his apartment before I decided not to spend the night.

I sort of tripped through November and December. I had a birthday and apparently Jesus did too, both of which were very untraditional but very classic none the less. It has become to the point where I cannot remember how I am supposed to appropriately spend birthdays and holidays, so I live off the past year and compare it to the present. I honestly fear next December for that fate.

Tripping through those months meant people coming and going out of my life, and quick. If I would of known I would have been left in New York by myself, surrounded by new coworkers at my new job, I would of valued those moments differently.

The boy who had kissed my in front of the jukebox came on hard and fast and was reading to me while I fell asleep, before I knew it. I held his arm when we walked and feathers and brick walls remind me of quaint times spent in his apartment. I can't even believe I'm saying this, but I think he also taught me how to eat healthy.

I was really reserved and I sort of wish I hadn't been quite so much because I think he would have liked me. But alas, I wasn't really given the chance to open up, as I sort of am now, with someone new.

With January came loneliness but motivation, aspiration, and all of those feel-good, life is good, sort of feelings. I basically felt like I could make a huge dent in the world and become noticed really rapidly, although this is not the case as seen here in May. May! Tomorrow is the first day of May!

While three of my best friends faced their defeat and left New York, it seems my other friends faced their own lovers. Whether their lovers be people or professions, everyone seemed preoccupied with personal passions. And I was also preoccupied with saving the world with an essay and a thesaurus and being crowned queen because that's just how ambitious I felt after I was left alone. I wanted to make my friends proud; I wanted my new lover who came and went so quickly to think I was disciplined and ambitious and beautiful, all at once. I wanted to "show them".

This attitude quickly wore thin after a month of intense working out, eating healthy and sometimes not eating at all while fasting and cleansing. I was also writing like mad and applying to colleges like mad. I submitted some three or four incomplete features to screenwriting programs and I was damn proud of them and still am. I had multiple interviews at newspapers and independent film production companies that were constantly opening my eyes to the potential of more opportunities.

No body came back to New York and when I called out to them, they were busy living in their new day-to-day.

Which is when I slowly started to trickle down into a new sequence of rebuilding my own day-to-day. However, I feel as though I've rebuilt it somewhat incorrectly.

Working at the bar became addicting along with most things I latch onto in my life. I was working out two hours a day, five times a week and going to work at the bar after and making "good" cash. I'd come home, sober, and write, write, write. Drinking just didn't fit into my lifestyle.

When I first started working at the bar, I immediately targeted a coworker who reminded me of many people I have been attracted to in the past. He showed interest, of course. I say "of course" only because to me it seemed inevitable. I always attract the same types of people, and I think that can be said fairly for a lot of people. Which is why I'm always thoroughly excited to meet someone who is totally out of my world but am always comforted to meet people who are very much like me and people I have surrounded myself in the past with.

I was hesitant and reluctant and tried to fight it with this dude from the get-go. I feel as though you probably shouldn't date someone you work with unless you are willing to lose your job. I believe the first lines that started this all were, "You live in Greenpoint? Oh, I live in Brooklyn, too. Want to split cab?".

And just like that, those words, want-to-split-a-cab, commenced a late winter affair with champagne, cocktails, marijuana, and cigarettes in no particular order.

And now, I’ve become dependent on him to get me coffee in the morning.




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And I thought today, walking through my pretty, trendy neighborhood, "What happened to the days we used to build our own houses?".