Gets Familiar

Oh well. Hello there 2:53 AM. You're a surprise, not falling into any of the previous nonsensical wake up times I was getting accustomed to. I am charmed you exist, but wish you would have picked a weekend to greet me.

Right now: people are stumbling into their houses after post-club breakfasts.

Right now: people who barely know each other are having sex for the first time.

Right now: a mama is rushing out of bed to feed a baby.

Right now: a man is watching another man walk to his car, and plotting something.

Right now: cocktail waitresses, barbacks, bartenders and hostesses are doing free shots and considering random hookups.

Right now: I have Prince's "Blue Light" stuck in my head on loop.

Right now: My body is aching with tiredness and I still can't sleep.

The hell with it. This is my new cure. My friends mention to do lists, body exercises, guided meditations, pills of all kinds and calisthenics. I don't have the patience or the willpower to try out new things. I have a million doubts. Words seem to work, as they are the things doing startled bat flying patterns inside of my head at this time of night. I have the need to share some things that need to be shared with a very specific person and no very specific person to share them with.

I share them with ether.

You exist in that same abstract way that my one true love does. You're an idea taking form. You aren't concrete. You matter, but you are not concrete.

And I love you. You have that in common as well.

Tonight was a holiday dinner for an investment banking firm. Delicious cocktails, beets and goat cheese and multiple glasses of wine at once at the kind of place where when you are walking to the bathroom all of the staff gets all deferential and moves to the side as if you're visiting royalty. I like and hate that simultaneously. It feels like slavery times. Are rich people still really that silly that they can't share a hallway with the dude who fills their water glass?

Next to me was a big Brazilian with a loud voice, lots of jokes and a stellar head of hair. He thought I was Peruvian. That was a first. I think I've heard about 10 or 20 things people think I am, and I'm always a bit displeased with their reaction when I try my best to set the record straight.

But what am I, anyway? Is "sistah" a race? If not, it should be. In fact, I think it might be a good idea for all races to divide up again with a word for the women and a word for the men. If only to lend a little flavor to cocktail party discussion.

On my right was a guy more than a little bit older than me who used to ride motocross and trade futures in Chicago. I was completely intrigued, cause I've seen that sort of stuff on TV before and I never could figure out how anything gets done with all of that yelling and pushing.

He told me a guy had his spleen burst once from the crushing. It's like a money mosh pit, or something.

He explained to me how it's a series of hand gestures and an agreement from across the room, and how it's an honor sport. If a guy (he didn't mention any women or sistahs) you exchanged hand gestures with once didn't follow up you assume it was a miscommunication. Twice, and you don't trade with that guy anymore. Neither does anyone else.

An honor sport. Like someone taking slop in pool and claiming they didn't call it because it was obvious. You explain to that person very patiently one time that they need to call every shot thereafter. Then you stop putting your money on the table.

I'm nursing crushes and wounds in equal measures. It's all too complicated to go into right now but my stars have aligned and spell MOJO really big in my sky but I'm finicky and prone to staring at the sand for treasures while I walk.

Feelings of rejection suck. Fear sucks as well. Wanting and needing suck worst of all.

I'm complete, but not completely there yet.