magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

the night ended close to three with me popping some pills (decongestants and tylenol), brushing my teeth, and saying goodnight again to lindsey as we cross paths, me on my way back to my room, and her back to hers having left a note for dylan about running in the morning.

moments before, we were standing in her bedroom, she reaches out to hug me goodnight, we sway a little and her head bumps lightly against the much too low ceiling beam. "it's okay, it didn't hurt." not surprisingly, i didn't want to let go, but i think that it was me that ended up doing so.

walking from the bus stop at largo argentina back to the cenci, my head pounding, lindsey walking too fast for me because it is late and she is tired and a little cold. and i reach out to grab the back of her shirt. "normally i can walk real fast, but my head just can't keep up."

night bus 45. "i don't know if it is distorted, but in the reflection in that window we seem much further apart than we actually are."

night bus 40. i just want my head on her shoulder again.

we're waiting at stazione tiburtina for the only night bus that stops there, along with a bunch of still somewhat rowdy calcio (soccer) fans who just returned from a game. she's sitting on the top rung of a fence. i'm standing beside her. i lay my head on her shoulder. she plays with my hair. my headache seems much further away.

"maybe because i've never been in this part of rome before, or maybe because this is the first concert that i've been to since i've been here, this doesn't really seem to fit. why am i walking along this street? why am i here with you, in this context? it seems perfectly natural, but at the same time odd."

lindsey tells me about a girl she met on an airplane with whom she had all sorts of things in common, and regretted not asking for her phone number. about how by a number of coincidences she ran into the same girl at a concert a few weeks later. and asked for her phone number this time. but never called.

leaving la palma club, lindsey asks me if i'm okay. "that last song they played.. about two weeks before leaving for rome, stef took off on a whim to new york for a couple of days with her friend kc. she left me voicemail and i got really upset because i was leaving in two weeks. for eight months. i stormed around my apartment and listened to depressing music. then i put on that song. it has the line in it 'today you missed her getting up once again / boy you've got to listen to me / promise her you'll rise this day next year / from this very bed / from this very bed.' and i realized that i was leaving, but i was coming home, and was planning on coming home to something. i made stef a mix tape, starting with that song, 'this day next year'. and now.." i don't tell her the part about emailing stef when i found out that karate was going to be playing rome at the same time that she was supposed to be here.

karate finished their set with "this day next year". i'm standing behind lindsey. i'm thinking about stef. my head is pounding. i'm trying to dance. i'm trying not to start crying.

karate started an hour and a half late. the crowd was getting restless. geoff says, "siamo un po' tardi. mi dispiace."

standing up now, "er!n asked me the last time we talked if i thought i could be the most amazing, wonderful, special thing in your life. and i said no." "because i won't let you?"

lindsey and i are sitting on the floor of la palma club. italian couples are making out. "so i told er!n that i had to go because i needed to eat something and go to this show. and she said, 'you make it sound like torture.' and i told her, 'no, i'm going to enjoy it, there will be a small tortuous aspect. i wasn't even thinking about the headache. so there's that too, but also something else." lindsey understands what i'm talking about.

i'm starting to get a headache from all the cigarette smoke. i forgot to take that tylenol before i left.

we're standing in line. the people around us are speaking italian. this is the only thing that would clue you in to the fact that we're in italy and not some nearly identical industrial part of anycity, anywhere.

bus 492 to stazione tiburtina. my best guess at the direction we're supposed to be walking once we get off the bus. turns out to be right.

three different bus maps to find out where we're supposed to be going. some notes scribbled on a scrap of paper and stuck in my back pocket.

i put on my risd t-shirt. rhode island represent. standing in the bathroom i think, "don't forget to take some tylenol before you leave."

left over soup from lunch for dinner. emily.a tells me she can't come to the show. it's just me and lindsey.

i'm on the phone with er!n. i'm wanting to talk about lindsey, but being cryptic because i'm sitting in the hallway. she's working on her cooper union application. "is she doing anything to encourage you? to lead you on?" "i'm pretty good at leading myself on. i read way too much into every little thing."

email from er!n telling me that she won't be coming to visit in rome.

i'm sitting at my desk in my studio. i just noticed a note from lindsey about the caravaggio paintings she saw this morning. i'm probably listening to "pneumonia" on repeat. maybe a sloan song with the line, "put me back into the same shape / how you found me / before you broke me."

"i'm thinking we should probably leave here by about eight-thirty." "oh. i totally forgot that was tonight. i told some kids i'd go out to dinner with them. i'll go clear that up. so we'll meet in the downstairs lounge at eight-thirty?"

i do some work on a couple of paintings.

i'm lying on the big table in the library. lindsey comes in and sits down. "so i went to this church with three caravaggios this morning. you should come back there with me some time."

i walk past this girl in the vatican. we make eye contact for a brief moment. she's wearing glasses. she's carrying a camera bag. i wonder how you ever know. maybe she's vegan. maybe she's magical. or, maybe she doesn't even speak english. maybe she's a lesbian. i wonder how you ever know. i turn and look back. squint into the sun. i can't see her anymore.

second stab at my map project. a square just north of the vatican. a spaceship-like public toilet. a park bench. thinking of stef. feeling broken.

lunch. soup with pasta from standa. reading four day's wonder by a. a. milne.

i pass alex.l on ponte garabaldi. "i was at the flea market, and didn't get much. and then standa, and didn't get much. one per pocket." i show him my coat pockets.

standa. a fruitless search for organic foodstuffs.

porta portese flea market. passing up old stereographic photos, all but one old book, a most likely broken polyphonic keyboard that runs on three triple-a batteries.

i wake up from a dream in which stef and i have been back together for a few months. she tells me that she's pregnant.