Poor cats.

Do you remember the blizzard four years ago, when I stayed at Mark's house? We stayed up all night with Melanie and her boyfriend drinking beers and yelling at the TV, and we had a great time. The next day, there was a foot of snow on the ground, and I had to get home wearing cowboy boots to feed my cat. The boots acted, more or less, like sleds. It was a treacherous walk, and I slipped many times. When I got home, the cat was starving. She was frantic, skittering around in circles by her food bowl and meowing. I guess I'd been gone for over 24 hours.

This morning I've woken up and drank the coffee that Billy made before he left, and I've observed the cats (I have two now) sitting hopefully by their bowls. There's no food in the house for them. In general, I like to think I'm a good owner, a talented nurturer, but I have to tell you that I can be totally selfish sometimes. I have no plans of going to the store. Let them starve, I think uncharitably as I drink my coffee. Of COURSE I'll get them fed eventually, but you have to understand, what I'm trying to say, is that I'm not motivated. I think there's something a little wrong with that.

First try.

It's been a difficult year. Not the worst I'll see or that you've seen, but harder than most of its predecessors. It's been a hard week, crying on the subway and, embarrassingly, to Bette Midler while sitting in a crowded room. It was supposed to be a joke - Jamie put it on at his going away party, and I was laughing at first and then I wasn't. I sat there and just...cried. I wiped my face again and again. Peony looked at me like I was making her uncomfortable. Who cries to 'Wind Beneath My Wings'? Well, me, I guess. It's alright, it was funny. We can all laugh.

Then, tonight I cried at the bar over an expensive Earl Grey-infused gin martini (real raw egg [white], can you believe it). James held my hands and I cried, and then we left and I got on the subway and cried, and then I got off the subway and wandered into the overpriced organic supermarket and looked at chocolate bars and cried.

So. I'm thinking that I will feel sad for a while. Most people don't understand what's so heartbreaking about a friend moving to the other side of the country. It's a bummer - that's what it's supposed to be. A major bummer. Something that 'sucks'. Buuuuut it feels more like heartbreak to me. I may as well say it. I took half a pill and drank some week-old shiraz, and no, this isn't going to be a chronicle of drug abuse and avoidance of emotions through blah blah blah, I'm just being honest. And fuck it, I thnk drinking week-old wine is funny. It's a little desperate, and I like desperate things. (When they're not truly desperate, just a little desperate, just a [safe] taste.)

Ehhhh, I feel alone. (Welcome to the world, sweetie!) - I just imagined some old Maxine-type character hacking that at me through a phlegmy smoker's throat. Welcome, indeed. Day one. Of how many.