magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

Last night at the show, 'I have that chair, but in green.'

'It's like a little kid's chair,' Jen says.

'It is. All the furniture I have is kids' furniture. That chair. And three other chairs that I found on the street. Just like in Providence where Chris and Garth and I had about a dozen old-fashioned, wooden, school chairs that Garth found in a dumpster.'

'Did you guys keep any of those?'

'Chris has one or two in Brooklyn. I'm sure Garth held on to a couple. I own one, but it's one of the things that is still in Stef's possession. It's been over a year and a half, and I still have absolutely no desire to deal with her.'

This morning, email from Stef. Every few months she contacts me, it's time to finally deal with this she says, it's time for some sense of closure. And I make vague pronouncements that I agree, but then don't make any effort to do anything about it. I know she's right, this has already dragged on much too long. And there's a million reasons for that, ranging from wanting to hurt her by making her live with a physical reminder of how badly she ended things, to wanting to keep some connection between us no matter how tenuous and unhealthy because part of me still misses her, but none of them are good reasons.

It seems like I've moved on, she says, I'm in an awesome place doing awesome things while she's living in the middle of nowhere with all my stuff in her basement. And to be fair, I have been generally happier in New York than anywhere else I've ever lived for any extended period of time. (Not counting my time with her.) Generally. Today turned out awful. And I'm worried that it's a sign of the way that things are going, but I'll get to that.

After a month and a half of 40+ hour weeks at work, this week ground to a halt yesterday afternoon, and despite a full day in the office today I only racked up two or three billable hours. Although there seems to be enough work on the horizon that things aren't going to dry up again, so I'm not particularly worried about it.

At the end of the day I called Chris. 'Hey, what's up?'

'I'm leaving work soon and was calling to see if there's anything going on tonight,' I say.

'I'm with a bunch of people, just hanging out in Prospect Park right now. But we're probably going to do something soon. Most likely come into Manhattan for dinner. You probably don't want to come out here, because then we'd just turn around and head back.'

'Well, how long are you going to be there? If you're going to be there for an hour, I'll come out. It'll probably take about half an hour to get there.'

'Julia is on her way. She's going to be here soon, and then we'll figure out what we're doing. She's got to take pictures of boys.'

'Doing anything in particular?'

'Probably just being drunk. I'll give you a call when she gets here and I know what's up.'

An hour and a half later, not having heard back, I called him again. 'We're all still just sitting around in the park,' he said. 'Julia's still not here, but should be here soon.'

And I kind of lost my temper and got snippy. I knew there was no reason to be snippy, but once I start down that road I have a hard time stopping. I did feel justified in being upset though. 'Do you at least understand why I'm upset? I asked if you were going to be there for a while. I said that I'd come out to Brooklyn if you were.'

'I didn't know if we were or not. No one wants to make any plans. I thought that Julia was already on her way from Queens and would have been here about 15 minutes after I talked to you. She probably is going to be here soon.'

'Well, are you going to be there for another hour? Because I'm still willing to come out to Brooklyn.'

'I don't know. No one is committing to anything. I think it's going to rain though, so we won't be in the park for much longer. Just go get something to eat. I'll call you when I know more.'

'Is that going to be in half an hour? Or am I not going to hear from you for another hour and a half? Or at all? Because if nothing is going to happen, I'd be better off going home and eating what I've got in my fridge than paying to eat out.'

'Just do whatever you've got to do. Get something to eat. I can't tell you any more now. No one wants to make plans. I'll call you when I know what's up.'

It was back and forth like this for a while, until I hung up. I got dinner. Drank a beer, which did help, briefly, to take the edge off. After dinner, still with no word from Chris, I felt the same call as I did at the end of last night, of water. To stand on a bridge over the East River, or Battery Park looking out over the bay.

Battery Park won out, simply because the walk down Broadway lead me there. I stared out at the rolling black water for an hour.

At 10, having heard nothing, I tried Chris. He wasn't answering his phone. Julia didn't answer hers. I called Dave. 'What's going on?' he asked.

'Is Chris there, by any chance?'

'I think he's still around. I've been up on the roof. He might be in the bathroom. He's probably really drunk by now.'

I briefly thought about titling today's entry 'Chris Kitten is an asshole', but I'm not really specifically upset with him. I'm mostly upset with myself. I've always been kind of difficult. Mostly unintentionally, because I'm shy or because I sometimes have a short fuse. But lately I think I've been getting worse. I've been difficult professionally, socially, romantically. I don't know if it's a factor of New York City, or something to do with getting older, or what.

I really don't have any friends, any real friends, beyond maybe Chris, in New York. And I don't mean this as a slight to anyone, other than myself. I know some really cool people, I just don't make an effort. I'm afraid to call people, to ask what they're up to. I'm afraid that I'm imposing, that they wouldn't be interested in spending time with me anyway, that if they were interested they would just call me. But I project this fear as indifference in them, and of course they are not going to call. And so I'm profoundly lonely. My greatest fear is being alone, and my stupid neurotic hangups perpetuate that as the dominant state of my life.

I haven't been able to insinuate myself into the social life of the people I work with. Largely because I view it as something that I need to insinuate myself into, not just be part of. And when I do hang out with them I feel out of place. It's not their problem. It's mine.

In spite of the year and a half I've been in New York, Chris is still my primary point of connection to most of the other RISD kids here. And not because I'm not friendly with them, but because something in me says that they've got their own lives, their own lives that were going on before I ever met them, before I ever lived here, what could I possibly have to add to that.

It's the same with Marisa. Emily. It's a large part of what didn't work with Ellen.

And it's why New York, whatever good it's offered me, is still in some ways short of how things were when I was with Stef. She helped push me out of my comfort zone. And even when she didn't or that didn't work, she was still there. And maybe I relied too much on that, and maybe my introvert tendencies pushed back a little bit too hard sometimes.

I spent Friday night alone. I got home about midnight, upset with myself, upset with my friends, upset with the world.