XVII. maybe this time

on 2018, dads, and rats

A real life dialogue I had with myself a few weeks ago was that I could not start writing the film treatment I need to write because I didn’t have a pencil and it would be impossible to start the project in pen. Then instead of finding, borrowing, or purchasing a pencil like a human being I decided I had to order a specific pack of pencils online; and then of course I had to wait for their delivery thereby securing another week of “excused” procrastination. I received my pencils about a week ago. The only thing that has been drafted is this newsletter…and it’s late. In my defense, over the past month I have secured four part-time jobs to supplement the round the clock auditioning and rehearsals. I’m finally living in New York at pace. This is the crushing tide everyone warned me about, and I love it. I kind of feel like Thanos when he gets all the infinity stones: crazed, but at peak power.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the first time I tried to live in this city. It was the summer after sophomore year; I was hosting the closing shift at a restaurant on 43rd and 9th six nights a week. By mid-July I had ghosted my unpaid internship. After half a semester and two particularly terrible nights of binge drinking, I quit alcohol for the summer. I got a therapist I both couldn’t afford and didn’t like. Every day I watched Grey’s Anatomy until an hour before I had to work. Then I would go to St. Kilda Coffee on 44th and get a double cappuccino that cost close to what I made hourly. Often I was sat thigh-to-thigh with Zachary Quinto and Andrew Rannels who were in the 50th anniversary revival of The Boys in the Band that year. It was not exciting to be in their proximity. They were off to do what I could only dream of though I was constantly surrounded by it. We shared nothing, even while using the same table.

I talked to my dad almost every night that summer. He is three hours behind in LA and very patient. I would walk from 43rd back to 110th at two in the morning and he would listen to me complain and make me laugh. I don’t remember any of our conversations, but he appears in my memory as the only solid during a very slippery time. Almost everything is different this go around in New York, but my dad remains a nightly confidant. One of my four jobs is bartending. I close alone on the Lower East Side when the streets are almost overrun with rats. After the train home, I call my dad and recount the private conversations people have while I’m standing two feet away from them. Sometimes he tells me stories of his bygone bar days and I have trouble reconciling my calm, sober father with the rowdy patron he must’ve been.

end of a shift w. my beloved roommate

My taxes are going to be really hard this year. I am not getting enough sleep, nor am I eating well. There are sides crumpled at the bottom of my backpack, and in my trashcan and between my bed and the wall. I have turned down three invitations to hang out from one of my close friends. I am also not yearning for a different life. It looks how I’ve always wanted—packed to the gills, challenging, joyful—there will be bigger successes and failures but those are just the signposts. You cannot manifest what you fear. My friend Charlie and I have a running bit that when everyone is doing well it’s like the first part of A Little Life, pre trauma-porn, when everyone is young and unreasonably successful in the city. It is also the perfect time to start fearing and doubting because what if it all comes crashing down? That anxiety remains with me, appearing in unusual ways—like bulk ordering pencils in order to avoid a deadline, or dreaming, as I have the past three nights, of needing to repot my plant but not being able to find a suitable pot. We are all doing our best.