Guppy calls and by this time I am already gone, oblivious. It's been a long week and I didn't mind staying home, getting a little boomed.
Her on and off guy, SS is in town and while I was supposed to go hang out her place
Gup: (having broken up three weeks ago) so come over tonight
Me: Ok
--think--
Me: Is SS staying with you?
Gup: Yeah
Me: In that case, no.
I decided not to.
She calls at 12:30am. I'm drifting slowly, sinking into the bed feeling the sides rise up as walls.
She doesn't sound too happy. She asks me to come over and get some maal. I talk to SS and and I feel as though part of him wants me to not come but he can't quite admit it to himself (in hindsight, this will perhaps be a no-duh! but I am still quite spaced out). But I talk to her again and does seem to want me there. Honestly, I get this feeling that doesn't accrete until later, something I can feel at the back of my neck but can't quite articulate, it's there but not quite.
I go over and Gup and I boom but I can see SS isn't too happy. Don't get me wrong, SS and I were friends way before he and Gups happened but there was a bit of friction since at times he felt she was closer to me and came to me when she was upset with him.
I guess I don't blame him and that's the reason why we still are so close, SS and I.
She and I boom. But I can feel the barbs between them already.
SS: I need some trace
Gup: I don't know if I have any (getting up to check which is a big deal considering it is her and she is possessive about her music taste)
Gup: (puts one a fairly decent trance track if you are into it)
SS: Yeah, of the three she has
Gup: Actually, it's Madonna
SS: Ah yes, of course
Gup (to me): SS once said I remind him of Madonna, she's a bit bitchy just like me.
(I can hear in her voice why she wants me there but I can't quite articulate it but I feel bad for her because I guess I see her trying in ways that he seems to smash out of the park)
Snippets like this help me articulate it, two people who want to be with each other, hating the fact they hurt but unable to hate the other person who they feel is responsible, two people who just won't seem to work but still love each other, perhaps me being around stopping them from getting angry and yelling at each other, me being the only thing keeping the barbs, barbs instead of an all out hurt fest.
Even tho I am quite gone at this point, they still seem to follow, to the bar, outside for a smoke.
Gups dad's company came out with this CD with the best old hindi songs (not the weepy kind I wouldn't hex on someones funeral) and she got me a copy.
Me: Oh damn, I forgot the CD at your place again
Gup: Will remember tomorrow...(to SS) did I get you the CD?
\Me: (still spaced and mumbling) ....'twas good music, must send...a copy to dad
SS: Oh so forgetting me now (with a smile)
Ugh, I feel like a kid in a bad precustody hearing night dinner
I take a cab and think about something Fish commented on...that that is what Kundera may have meant in Unbearable Lightness of Being...perhaps in the end, it really doesn't matter...our choices don't and the importance we give each one is foolish. But the way I see it, our choices are the ones that shape us and give us some (illusiory perhaps?) degree of control.
But now you can see the reason behind the name of the blog -- Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, Book of Luaghter & Forgetting in irony that this seems to be a city where everything moves to look over the grey shades and slide the pain and bitterness down with the old underground veins (the original levels still exist, the current level of the Subway has been built over the old ones...no use spending time redoing the old ones, as the City grows taller, just build over it...won't they give way at some point though? We will see)
And as for Forgetting, I don't think any other city has afforded me so much time in this little space I seem to occupy behind my eyes.
I go into Grey's Papaya. The 40's African American guy really is African American, a neatly trimmed moustache and his baseball cap facing the right way. Even though it is 3:30am, he takes it seriously, wonder what his story is, working the late night shift Saturday night when everyone my age would be out getting drunk or what ever their drug of choice may be. Does he have a family. His accent belies his recently shifted roots.
The younger black guy, the one with a chipped tooth and a gold chain can't even seem to comprehend the difference in their lives:
Him: That will be $4.19
Me: (give him the money) I have 4cents as well (I hate pennies and have way too many, besides, nickels I can use for laundry)
Him: (unable to figure out the change)
Wasn't it a function of circumstance that they are different? But then doesn't that once again indicate that perhaps we attach too much weight to our choices?
Somehow I can't quite reconcile that and make the argument that some where along there were choices to be made and well, who made the right or the wrong ones is to be seen.
I walk back to my place, a bit unsteady. I look down to see the outlines of the concrete slabs paving the sidewalk and I wonder, how come there aren't straight lines to follow in life, one's that seem to lead home?
------------------------
Zaphod feels special:
Gup: so I told my mum you crashed girls night out
Me: oh hm well (thinking: I didn’t mean to…just wanted to be around friends)
Gup: She said that not many guys can do that
Me: Oh
:o)
------------------
3am, Sunday morning
How much of the grey grit do you want to see? How many times do you want drunken fingers stumbling across the keyboard, wondering what, like an ouija board, they spurt out?
How many homeless do you want tugging at the $200 coat before you wonder how much everything matters
You see the rich-20something-blackberry
Shorty, do miss you..... It's, amongst other things, finding someone who understands the why behind the eyes
Its this tongue, thickened by alcohol, confusion and then some...wondering where this confusion came from, finding happiness, that which matters most, alcohols burning the insides…
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