Life and Times of AlieMalie

Day eight dawned a little grey and rainy – I should have realised it might not be the best day on the trip. How could it have been, anyway? I had plans to meet with VL for dinner that evening and to possibly go dancing afterwards. I didn’t know exactly what time I would be meeting her though, but I knew that I had to be out of where I was by noon. I decided to grab some breakfast downstairs and then leave my bags in the basement. I hoped they’d be safe there, and to be completely honest, I really didn’t care what happened to them. I have trip insurance, nothing has ever been stolen before, and I didn’t think anything could bring me down off of the high I was floating on. I decided to make my way down to Battery Park City to take the Staten Island Ferry to – where else? – Staten Island. I do this every time I’m in New York because it’s free, it’s fun, and I get to see the Statue of Liberty without having to stand in a four hour line while being swarmed by a bunch of people selling fake Chanel purses and Gucci sunglasses. I also don’t stand out as the tourist that I am. If there’s one thing I try the most to do when I’m traveling is blend in. I did it well enough in Budapest to where the natives were asking me for directions. Too bad I don’t speak much Hungarian.

Anyway, my camera died on the ferry and though I bought new batteries, they were apparently duds because they didn’t work but for one photo on the ride back. After the ferry I made my way over to Broadway to see the bull and then mosied on over to Wall Street to take a peek at the New York Stock Exchange building. It was Saturday, so not much business was going on, but it was still nice to see. What I find funny about the NYSE building is that it’s enormous and stuck on this tiny street where you can’t really get a good idea of just how big the building is because you can’t get far enough away from it to have it in full perspective. I just find that odd. Maybe it’s telling of our society – we never really look at things in a greater perspective – especially our economies.

I gave VL a call then to see what time we were meeting up because I wanted to go retrieve my bags and then leave them at her apartment. Her response was that we wouldn’t be able to get together ’til at the earliest 5 but that I could get my bags and then spend the afternoon in a coffee shop. I had no want to spend five hours in a coffee shop on my last day in NYC so instead I decided to go get my bags and take them down to Grand Central. I had a sneaking suspicion that they had gotten rid of the lockers and coat check they used to have in Grand Central after the September 11th attacks, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to see. Sure enough, when I got there, no lockers.

Enter AlieMalie’s brilliant idea. I was dressed fairly nicely and I can always command an air about myself if need be. I spied the Grand Hyatt just next door to Grand Central and decided to make myself into a Very Important Person. Right. Who carries a backpack when she travels and doesn’t have a huge ass entourage. Or a chauffer to take my bags while I burn the rest of the afternoon in the city. But I went on ahead, stood up straight, head back with a terribly snotty air and approached the bell hop desk.

AlieMalie: Would you please check this for the afternoon?

Bell hop: We don’t hold bags, hon.

AM (making grand sweeping motions towards the city): I have an entire afternoon in the city and I don’t want to have to lug my bags all over with me.

BH: We can only take the bags of guests here for the night.

AM (lying through her teeth): I was here last night but have just checked out. Is there any possible way you can take this just for the afternoon?

BH: I’m not supposed to do this, but I’ll get you a tag.

I promise you I was nice enough to the poor lad. Thing was, I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. After all, to him, I’d just spent probably $500 for one night in his hotel, plus he had no idea of knowing who I was either. That took care of that. No bags for the afternoon, they were centrally located right next to Grand Central so that no matter where I decided to go, I could easily just swing by the station to pick up my bags that evening. I was rather proud of myself. It’s all in how you present yourself, I suppose.

I decided to run down to Times Square just for the hell of it. I’ve been there before, and I wanted to go again but I didn’t want to have to drag my friends down there because to be completely honest, no self respecting New Yorker will ever go into Times Square unless they have a gun to their head. It’s the busiest place on the face of the planet and nearly every single person there is a tourist. With a camera. And none of them know how to successfully put one foot in front of another at a reasonable pace. I wasn’t going to subject my New York friends to being a tourist. That’s a four letter word.

Like I had expected, it was just as bad as before. Lots of southern accents walking around just so dayum pleased and in awe. Oh my word would you look at that? And the teeny boppers going completely insane at the idea of seeing the MTV studios. I high tailed it out of there faster than you can say lickety-split. Too many people.

By this time I was utterly exhausted and thinking that I wasn’t going to be able to make it through a night of dinner and dancing, but I knew I was going to have to because other than my days in RU, dinner with VL on Saturday night was the only thing I’d cemented before I went up. Plus I couldn’t flake on her like she’d been flaking on me, that nullify my arguments. So I grabbed a mocha at – gasp – a Starbucks. When in Rome …

I spent about an hour reading the New York Times and deciding what it was that I wanted to do for the rest of the afternoon. I figured bumming around some of the shops would be fun since I don’t get to wander down Fifth Avenue just every day to go shopping so that’s exactly what I did. Around 5, VL called to say she was finished working and that I could meet her in her neighbourhood. I was a little perturbed because she knew that I wasn’t anywhere near getting my bags and that it would be hellish for me to get to where she was – why didn’t she just meet me in Grand Central and then we could go on together? I won’t go into details because it’s really all very petty and stupid to write about, but boiled down it came to the fact that she didn’t want me staying at her apartment so she rented me a room instead. Ah well. It was nice enough, at least I had a nice bed, control over the thermostat and a real shower to myself instead of having to share one. After depositing me at my room, she needed to go home to straighten some stuff out and said she’d call me when she was ready. By 8, she was ready to go but had no idea where we were going to eat and kept asking me where I wanted to go. I’d told her previously that I wanted to get some Italian food since I had been on Italian fix ever since I’d eaten at Lombardi’s in Montréal. Not to mention that I don’t live in New York, I’d never been in her new neighbourhood ’til then, I had no idea. We finally settled on a place called John’s that seemed to be pretty nice. Very expensive, but I was prepared to shell out a little dough for a really nice night on the town. Seated next to us was a guy who works as a colourist at the Elizabeth Arden Salon on Fifth Avenue. He was a trip. Tons of plastic surgery, lots of crazy conversation and then he and VL got into a long discussion about where the best strip joint would be. I was embarassed and very miffed. Here I was, out with VL, and she couldn’t give me the time of day, let alone a real conversation and not only that, she and this guy were talking loudly in a very nice restaurant about where to go for strippers. I wanted to fall under the table.

After leaving John’s, VL wanted to go out for some drinks. We’d both decided that we were too tired to go dancing, so drinks it was. I specifically told her that I don’t like going to hookah lounges because I don’t like the smoke and also, I don’t like getting my clothes completely saturated with the scent. Where was the first place we went? A hookah lounge. I nixed that about five feet through the door. Next on the list was a Chinese restaurant that had a lounge/bar in the basement. It was actually really nice and we spent a bit of time people watching ’til a group of guys came in and sat down next to us. VL started chatting them up as I wasn’t really interested in getting picked up. I’d just spent two of the best days of my life in Montréal with a guy I’m head over heels for. Why would I want to flirt or send the wrong signal to a bunch of guys? I didn’t. VL pulled me into the conversation by bring up the fact that I’m from Texas and was in the city for a little while, and had just gotten back from Canada. It turned out that these guys were originally from New Hampshire and were in the city for one of their birthdays. Both of the boys we were talking with were well versed with Québec since it’s just a hop, skip and a jump away, so VL went on about my love for the province, how I might go get my MA in Canada and how I have honorary Québécois citizenship that I got from Lucien Bouchard when he was the premier of the province. It’s a joke, I have nothing to prove it. When I was in Québec in 1999, we were on a tour of the Parliament House when we ran into him. He took the time out of his day to talk with us. I went on my usual rant about how I really don’t like the United States and how someday I want to move to Canada to live because I feel more at home there and he bestowed honorary citizenship on me. Nothing formal, nothing real, just a nice thing to brighten that day for me. So VL took that and ran with it. Of course, what do you think the guys we were talking with thought? Probably something along the lines of these chicks are nuts. At least one of them was – VL. I was livid. It’s my life, let me talk about it; or at least tell my own stories if you can’t get them right.

I was ready to go then – there was no point in trying to further talk with those two boys now that things were a little awkward. I’m just more of a cut and run type of girl with bars and those types of conversations. Why continue to pull teeth if you know it’s going to be painful? So we left. As we were walking down the street VL kept getting upset because I was walking so much faster than her when in reality I was walking slower than I normally do. In my own opinion, I think she felt a little out of control of the whole situation so walking exceptionally slowly and then complaining about me walking really fast was her own little way to regain some control. It didn’t work. Finally, after about five blocks of me walking at a snail’s pace and her continuing to slow down to the point where I would take a step, stop and wait for about two seconds, take another step and stop again, she said something along the lines of it feels like you’re really upset about something. Well no shit, Sherlock. I was. So right there, in the middle of the Lower East Side, I let her have it.

I was so pissed off about her behaviour all week long, flaking out on three occasions, and acting as if the entire world revolves around her. Her response was that I’m only 23, I’m acting like I’m a college kid on spring break who only wants to have fun and get drunk and I don’t fully appreciate the fact that she has different responsibilities. Not only that, she said, but she’s on a different level than me. Now it must be understood that she and I have been friends for six years, all through which she and I have considered each other intellectual equals. Yes, I’m younger than she is (by 8 years), but when it comes to what she had just said, something inside of me broke. I’d already let her have it about being flaky, but obviously she misunderstood something about this trip for me. It wasn’t a vacation, it wasn’t a trip for me to be a college student and get drunk all of the time, it was a gift given to me by B’s parents who realised that I needed to get away from home to be able to process everything that happened last semester. If I hadn’t left home to get away and decompress, I probably would have died over the same week. Not only that, it has become obvious since I’ve been back (granted hindsight is 20-20) that I was ready for a shift in my life and the only way this could have happened was for me to get away to be able to think on my own and find a new perspective to look at my life at home through. After my rant about that, where she just stood there in the middle of the street asking if I wanted to let the entire Lower East Side hear me – to which I replied that I didn’t fucking care – I walked off. I realised in that instant that I didn’t want a friend like that. I don’t want a friend who only thinks of herself and cannot, even when I tell her in minute detail the goings on in my life, can still only think of me as a stereotypical, 23 year old college student. I was finished with that friendship right then and there. I didn’t look back as I started walking away because to be completely honest, I didn’t care about her anymore. It felt like she had dismissed me, and I had just dismissed her. What more was there to say?

After about a block I thought better of it and decided to turn around and go back to see if she was ok. I’m too nice, I tell you, but like I said, I’ve known her for six years, through countless ups and downs in my life and I figured I should at least tell her things rationally instead of yelling in the middle of the street. I might as well temporarily patch things up so that we could sit down at a later date and figure things out. She was still standing in the same place with her coat over her face crying. I think she had gotten my point and had finally realised that my trip up there hadn’t been anything she thought it was – it was more of a time for me to relearn who I am and try to get my life back on track. Very profound, I think, and the fact that she realised it about me I think hit her pretty hard. So we ended up walking back to the apartment I was staying in and talking for about an hour and a half about what it was that I was going through.

Though I think she got a vague picture, I’m not sure she fully understands, even now and even after I sent her a copy of what I wrote about what I learned while I was gone. Maybe she and I can sit down and talk about it someday. It would be such a waste to allow such a long friendship go by the wayside because of one person’s not understanding what’s going on in the other’s life – but then again, isn’t what what a friend is supposed to do?

I had the opportunity to spend the entire afternoon and evening with CC yesterday to tell her about my trip, what I learned and where I feel that I am at the moment. It was really quite nice. Knowing that she’s one of the people that I can turn to at any moment and know that she’ll understand pretty much everything that is coming out of my mouth is so comforting. I can tell her the most off the wall things, talk about “energies” and the like and she’ll know what I mean, sometimes better than I do, and help me further understand what it is I’ve been thinking about.

Last night we got into a discussion about the fact that I feel more awake than I ever have previously and why. I think it has to do with wanting to be aware and finally getting to a place where I could disconnect from everything in my daily life, look back at it and decide what it is that I’m doing. Not only that, but I finally got some space to process some of the things that happened in the past eight months. I still have more to think about, like my mother and her nearly dying in September and also the fact that eventually, she’ll die. That’s something I’ve been avoiding thinking about.

I asked her why it seems that most of the world is so asleep and how they can possibly stand to be there for their entire lives. I suppose it’s because they don’t know anything else. Thing is, in this instance, what they don’t know CAN really hurt them.

We also spoke about the power I’m coming into with regards to my life and my relationships and the energy I bring to it/them. Or maybe I mean the energy I’m creating or tapping into? Anyway, we were speaking about RK and the fact that it seems like he’s trying every which way to manipulate me again and it’s not working. This seems to frustrate him to no end. I’ve gotten sappy nice emails and the really nasty ones, neither of which I’ve responded to and now he’s resorted to telling me that he “doesn’t like my tone” and wants to hear nothing more from me. Didn’t realise I’d said anything. CC thinks that as long as I keep sending him negative energy, eventually he’ll just beat himself to death on it.

CC also went into a long talk about how she thinks that I have one of the biggest talent, intelligence and energy fields she’s ever encountered, save ME (my Jewish Mother) of course, and she thanked me profusely for not using it against her, or anyone else for that matter. My response was that for the longest time I thought that everyone was created equally in the sense that we all had the same pool to draw from but some people chose to pull more than others, or they were better at tapping into and understanding what it was that they were encountering in their lives. As of late, I’m thinking that there are some parts of us that are intrinsic and better adapted in some of us than others. Fortunately for me, I think I have a pretty good ability to ustilise my intelligence and talents. I also think that since I thought for the longest time that everyone had the same abilities (though that idea is changing in me now), it has shaped the way I think about people so I’m never going to be quick to judge that someone is less able to do it than I am, therefore I’m much less likely to use my energies against anyone else because it takes me some time to get an understanding of where the other person is, and by the time I’ve done that, I’ve learned what kind of person they are, what they might be in my life to teach me about and what I’m in their’s to teach them about, and I’m much less likely to want to harm them. After all, we’re all in this together on some level, eh? Just don’t cross me.

I feel really lonely at times too … I feel like I’ve embarked on a journey of epic proportions and each step forward is taking me further and further away from the norm. Not that I mind, but it’s really hard to leave what I know and go into something that I don’t and not have anyone to go there with me. I’ve been leaving behind FT because he doesn’t get what I’m saying. I tried explaining to him what I meant when I said that I believe everyone has complete control over their own realities. He tried to make it into a political discussion. As we all know, I love a good political debate as much as the next person (hell, probably more) but I was so not trying to be political at that point in time. I suppose if he ever gets to a point where he wants to explore, I’ll be more than happy to be there for him. About the only person who I feel is able to take this path with me is MP. She is the only person my own age, in relatively the same place in life who has decided to take a journey like this as well. I thank her much for being willing to have the long discussions that we do about spirituality, reality and control over our lives. But even then, though we may be on parallel paths, they are still different paths and we’re each on our own.

Anyhoo, I hope this makes sense. At this point in time I don’t particularly care if it does – I’m just needing to get these thoughts out of my head.

This is enough existentialism for 7 in the morning.

As much as I’d like to wring certain people’s necks at the moment, I just don’t have the energy. This is bad – I’m emotionally drained and now I’m coming down with something. Why is it that every time I come back from an international trip – it doesn’t matter how long or short it is – I get sick? Australia was the worst with me ending up in hospital, Canada the first time around I came down with the Australian flu, each time with Europe it was either a wicked sinus infection or some sort of stomach virus, and now with Canada again I’m starting to think it’s another version of the flu. Such nice Canadians, always willing to share. Gotta love ‘em, and I do! Anyhoo … I’m going back to bed.

Oh, and the title is how my heart is feeling – at least a part of me is feeling good. :)
Cheers!

If you haven’t been to this website, go now … it’s fucking hillarious, so typically New York. :) Overheard in New York.

This is one of my favourites today:

Director man: Excuse me, we’re trying to shoot this scene, please move out of the way.

Chick: Excuse me? I’m trying to catch a motherfucking train. I think you can film a movie some other damn place, but I’m trying to catch a motherfucking train and this is where they keep them: in Grand fucking Central.
–Grand Central