A year and a half ago, when I first moved to New York, I wrote the following passage in my journal:

"New York buzzes. Caught in the wave of activity, I feel like a small conduit for something greater. I could do anything here, and feel like it means something. The toothless, homeless woman that I met today warned me against the dangers of not wearing a winter jacket. "You could catch neumonia", she said. I could be that woman, and still feel like I was part of something more significant."

With this said, I will describe a portion of my day.

I was sitting in front of my computer screen, anxiously watching the minutes blip by on the upper right hand corner of the screen. My head felt like it was filled with that goo that surrounds the useless, undefinable meat in a can of spam. I attempted to feign some sort of productive and thoughtful expression on my face. At 12:15, I was able to justify leaving my desk for a lunch break.

The day was beautiful. The sun hit my screaming cornias, which took a moment to adjust to the natural light. I grabbed some take-out and headed to the park. The sight of the park lifted my spirits momentarily, until I remembered that the rolling green grass was not accessible to the mangy likes of someone such as myself. A wrought-iron fence surrounded it, taunting me. So, I picked the shadiest bench. My skin and eyes still hadn't adjusted to the full UV rays that were beating down on me, no thanks to the quickly depleting ozone layer.

So I tried to make myself comfortable, despite the fact that I was sqeezed between two strangers (one of them was an older man who smelled suspiciously like a combination of cat urine and Jack Daniels). I began to cut up my food with my plastic utensils, convincing myself that I was content to be surrounded by "nature".

I was lifting a bite of zuchinni towards my open mouth when I noticed the homeless woman who was sitting across from me, jotting notes in an old journal. for one paranoid moment, she seemed to be observing me. My eyes were caught by the sight of one of her large, swollen feet, which appeared to be gangrenous. Then I realized that the bite of zuchinni had not actually entered my mouth, but was hovering just in front of it. Realizing how odd this must have looked, I put the bite in my mouth and swallowed it, begrudgingly.

I wasn't able to get up and move. I just couldn't justify moving because I didn't want to look at a homeless woman while I ate my well balanced meal. So I choked down as much as I could and trudged back to the office.

Hope.

Definition:

1) a sloping plain between ridges of mountains.

2) a desire for some good, accompanied with at least a slight expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that is obtainable.

hmmmm...

You lack any sense of grace. You clunk around in your giant shoes, hunched over like a neanderthal in a button-up shirt. I don't know why this bothers me so much...

ALCHOHOLIC

Some people label themselves as an “Alcoholic” as if the label will instantly redeem them of all harmful and insensitive deeds. If a person’s life is a string of selfish and wrongful events, then that person is ostracized. Yet, the moment that they mutter the word “alcoholic”, they are instantly redeemed of all past sins. It is expected of all those in the path of their misjudgment, that the gold badge of hardship be respected. As if the mere admittance of weakness is enough to merit forgiveness.

There are two types of people in the world. There are people that identify themselves as victims, and others who understand the value of life’s struggle’s, and therefore, aren’t afraid to fight. I wasn’t given an option, because true victims know that self-defacing weakens the spirit and doesn’t leave the option for survival. When faced with rejection of any kind, a person can either recognize it and move on or let it weaken them. As I’m writing, I’m enjoying the last sip of a glass of wine. Does this make me a hypocrite? Some might say so. But before I pour another glass, I’ll relive past memories and use them as a guide for my actions.

When I was a child, I was the daughter of an alcoholic. My childhood memories were set in loud and smoky environments. I was always surrounded by adults with impaired judgment. I was usually amused by their antics, and more than a little confused. But there were also many nights that I was left alone in our unfurnished apartment, with only the company of a small black and white television, and my older sister. My mother would leave us alone at night so that she could pursue random men at the local bar, sometimes leaving us alone until the next day. The odd thing was that my sister and I valued our time alone. We knew that there were two options in the later hours of the day. Either our mom would stay at home, and get into a drunken rage. Or, we would be left alone. Although, we would oftentimes be fighting off pangs of hunger and loneliness, anything was better than the alternative.

There is one memory that I hold on to with all of my might, when I find myself slipping into the depths of alcoholism. I was five or six years old. It was one of the nights that our mother decided to stay at home, and invited some “friends” from the local bar. They were mostly men, who were most likely competing for our mom’s attention. They sat on the ground in a circle, snorting lines of coke, drinking, smoking, and cackling until dawn. I had stayed up, observing them in awe. I finally decided to go to bed (which was a blanket and pillow on the floor). I curled up in my blanket. Usually in situations like this, I managed to get to sleep at some point in the night. But tonight, the “guests” were particularly rambunctious. Finally, I walked into the living room sleepily. The room was smoky and full of a kind of tension that I didn’t fully understand until I was older. I stood behind my mom and tugged on her sleeve. She didn’t respond, and just kept sipping her beer and laughing whenever one of the men spoke.

I was used to this response. I knew that if I was persistent, she would eventually acknowledge me. I continued to tug on her sleeve, and she continued to ignore. Finally, she turned to me. There was a look of spite and intolerance in her eyes that seemed to decorate her expression more often than not, so I wasn’t taken aback. I reflected her expression, a trick that I had learned recently. It was the only thing that seemed to make her notice me. I looked at her with the same look of disdain, and spoke clearly and boldy.

“Mom, you drink too much”. Although at the time, I couldn’t pronounce my “r’s” fully, so it came out sounding more like, “Mom, you dwink too much”. Without changing her expression, she lifted the hand with the beer in it and tipped it over my head. This was the first time that I tasted beer. I remember the feeling of the cold liquid soaking through my hair and wetting my dirty clothing. As she poured, I squinted my eyes and held my breath, feeling the shock of the cold. When the bottle was empty I opened my eyes, trying to hold the stoic expression on my face. “You’re not spos’d to do that”. I said, with anger in my voice. She smiled callously and said “It’s good for your hair”. Laughter erupted in the room. My mother turned to her captive audience and bellowed with laughter. I turned, trying with all of my might not seem sheepish, and walked out of the room at the same pace that I had walked in, with my tiny fists clenched.

I went to the bathroom to clean myself before returning to my blanket and pillow, trying with every ounce of my being not to shed a tear.

To this day, I find it very hard to cry. I am terrified of showing even an ounce of weakness. I guess that I don’t understand the reasoning of an alcoholic, especially the self-defacing ones. If it’s a problem, then it shouldn’t be nurtured (unless you want it to grow). So, I’m choosing to pour myself another glass of wine. Perhaps that makes me an alcoholic. If so, then that is a choice that I’m making.

It isn’t a choice that’s making me.

MY TIME IN A LAS VEGAS TRUCK STOP BROTHEL
(PART 1)

We were just a few miles outside of Las Vegas. Our faces were drained of the delight that had decorated our expressions when had first approached the sparkling strip, 3 days before. The air conditioner in Sabrina's '87 Honda Caprice had sputtered out days ago, leaving us to wither in the dusty heat. To make matters worse, her window's (which had been stuck open on the moist and foggy San Francisco freeway) were now stuck shut. I held my hand out of the skylight, trying to direct the rushing air into the car, while I stared at the passing hazy landscape. Joshua trees reached their pointed thistles towards the cloudless sky.

"God, everything is so dead in the desert", Sabrina remarked, fanning herself exhaustedly with the map. My eyes scanned the patches of dusty shrubbery, thinking of all of the creatures that may inhabit the arid land. I refrained from making one of my annoying and unfounded comments like, "the desert is probably full of all kinds of undiscovered species", and continued to stare out of the window silently, letting my mind drift.

A man a few towns back had sold me a fossil of a seashell. He had, supposedly, found the fossil in his backyard (which was in the middle of the Nevada desert). I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the rolling terra cotta scenery at the bottom of the ocean. I began to think of all of the hidden treasures that a person could find in the vast "nothingness". When I opened my eyes, I saw a trace of smoke drifting past my window. At first, I dismissed it as my imagination or a heat-induced hallucination. Then the trace of smoke grew to a billow, and clouded my view, snapping me out of my trance.

"Oh shit!" I cried, my hands grabbing the dashboard, "The engine's on fire! FUCK! Pull over, pull over!". A sulfiric smell filled the car. Smoke was now washing over the windshield. The first thing that I thought was that we were both about to become one of those hidden treasures in the desert that I had been dreaming of. Our fossilized bones would be found ages later, and sold to some unknowing young girl.

I got out of the car, heart pounding, squinting my eyes and dodging the cloud of smoke. "I thought I saw smoke, but I wasn't sure", said Sabrina. She began to bite her nails viciously, with a concerned look on her face. I could see her slipping into that familiar state. As her best friend since childhood, I knew it all too well. She simply couldn't handle the stress. In a few moments, she would be practically catatonic.

I put one hand on my hip (something that I often did to convince myself that I was in control), and the other hand over my brow, to shield my eyes from the sun. I scanned the terrain for a sign of life. When I saw the giant sign that read "Angel's ladies" I breathed a sigh of relief. The sign was at the entrance of a long driveway that led to a group of trailers. It took me a few moments, but I eventually realized that "Angel's Ladies", our only hope of survival, was a truck-stop brothel.