The Weeklies: June 9 - 16

Last week was a week of rushing. Alistair was in Boston, I was planning to join him at the end of the week. I would be having a houseguest at my place while I was away. I cleaned, I had groceries delivered, I shopped, I dropped of keys with a friend-of-a-friend. I packed an overnight bag. 

I was exhausted by Friday morning when I threw my bag on my shoulder and took the 1 train downtown and to the M60 bus across town to LaGuardia Airport. I got a window seat, put my bag in my lap. I lamented everything I saw out the window. At the stops on 125th Street I thought about my early New York memories with my aunt who lived about 20 blocks north. We would go to the street sellers for coco butter and incense and "Harlem" shirts. Now I can't even afford the neighborhood, the Whole Foods on Lenox seems threatening. What the fuck are we doing?  I ask myself as I see the glass and concrete modern floor-to-ceiling window luxury towers sprout up, mostly empty. I want to tell them what its like to be like me, to hold your ailments in while you wait for enough paychecks to go to the doctor and finally get that test. But then I say, maybe they did all that. But please don't let them forget. 

I think about everyone around me. Most of my friends have more. I remember one of them a few years back, drunkenly suggesting a movie to me because I reminded her of the lead character. "You'd love it, it's about girls failing." Then I realized that among them all, yes, I was the least successful. They had an ivy sheen you could smell from far off and the confidence that comes with it. That knowing what you know whereas I exude, I'm faking it god damnit give me a chance.

We're now in Queens. Faster than my last M60 ride, we're at the airport terminal. I remind myself that I'm the only person I know that thinks LaGuardia is an OK airport despite ending up in a dead looking terminal with only stale sandwich shop and a grim crowd. I find a seat. 

I always ask myself the same question when I'm brooding alone: what kind of life are we meant to live? I always, quickly, in a half a second later, remember that there is no such thing as the "right kind of life." I decide I'm going to draw up a list of things I hate and never do them again for the sake of personal happiness. Then I got on a plane and went to Boston.