Chapter 1 (just to keep track)

I awoke to a pounding sound. My heart? Footsteps? A fist at the door? I couldn’t be sure. Heart and mind cloudy with sleep and sweat, I push myself from my overused mattress and stumble to the broken down door. My eyes refuse to open and my knee meets the wall violently, loud curses fling themselves from my lazy lips. The wood floor creaks achingly under my gentle footsteps to the door and I peer through the viewer, conveniently placed 6 inches above my short frame. Nothing. The hallway is as black as pitch and still as the wind on this painfully humid night. Must have been a dream I reassure myself and dangerously make my way back to the bedroom.

The morning is always a difficult time. My fingers meet the snooze button time and time again over a period of about an hour, until the time catches up with me and I have no time. A quick brush of the hair and teeth, two slices into the toaster, jeans, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt to cover the tattoos and flip flops. Fill the tote with all the necessary items for the day, am I working tonight? Thankfully, no. Two jobs and a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. I pretend to hate it. I make sure I have everything and shut my bedroom door, my knee aches with the memory of my rude midnight awakening and I spend most of my morning commute to work scrunching my eyebrows at negligent Boston drivers and trying to remember that dream, or even if I had one at all. I pull into a parking spot at work, repack all the things that I pulled out of my bag during the drive and slam the door, my sweatshirt catching in the crack. I tug at it violently hoping that it’s just slightly stuck, but instead have to dig deep in my bag to find the keys, unlock the door, pull my sweatshirt out, drop the keys, nail my head on the door, shut it with a furrowed brow and head to my desk.
The day ends in a flurry. I’ve thrown back two or three coffees, I’m not really sure, and I’m on my 2nd liter of water. I wave goodbye to my co-workers, clock out and head to my car, removing my sweatshirt, now that the sun has graced the day with its presence. I slather a generous helping of SPF 30 onto my left arm to properly protect my tattoos from the beautiful rays of the sun, pull to the end of the drive way, slide on enormously oversized sunglasses, and light a menthol cigarette. My ride home is equally as enjoyable as the ride in, clear on the highway for the most part. I gracefully tuck the tail end of my burning cigarette between my thumb and middle finger and flick it forcefully out the window, watching it violently land on the pavement in my side view mirror. I contemplate dinner plans and think if there are any errands I need to run before landing at home. I decide to rightly discipline myself, head home and finish all the projects that I had told myself I would do when I moved in over a month ago.
Checklist:
1) Hang curtains
2) Living room extension cords for lamps
3) Clean dresser and dispose of dead flowers
4) Collect clothing for consignment.
A never ending checklist I must keep in mind. Every time I manage to knock off one thing another three creep upon me. Perhaps I should actually treat this apartment like home, as I never have for any of my previous apartments. I park around the corner as I still do not have a sticker to park on the street I live on, and head inside for the night, which I’m almost sure will end up wasted. My key sticks in the door, but with a little shoulder grease I bash it open and proceed directly to my bedroom. A quick check in the mirror to make sure I’m not dead, dry off the hands and I stand at the center of my room, glaring at the curtains, possibly trying to will them to just simply hang themselves. The truth is it will only take 5 minutes, but it’s 5 minutes that I would much rather be doing something totally unrelated and not nearly as productive. And I begin to ponder, why curtains? Why anything? A topic that I’m sure I will have to sleepily jot about in my spiral bound journal later on in the night with a glass of red wine in one hand and bleeding ink in the other. The stereotypical writer; a drunk. I begin contemplating pouring a glass for myself at this precise moment, but think better of it as I’m trying to save that Renaissance for perhaps a special visit later this week. A special visit that I desperately wish I would stop looking forward to and rehearsing in my head as if I would be tested later. A special visit that is truthfully, not special at all. I propose to throw what seems like a mere handful of laundry from the tower building in the corner into the washing machine and snatch up a chair from the kitchen in order to properly wrestle with the curtains.
With the curtains hung, the washing machine spinning and flowers still rotting away as graciously as ever, I decide on hot dogs for dinner. I gently make slits along the dogs, listening and watching intently as they snap and pop in the fry pan. How did I get here? Why curtains, who cares? Is Boston really my home? Do I really love that dirty water? I feel like a traitor just thinking it in my own head. My disconnection with reality sometimes feels so great that I feel like my own overcooked hot dog. Burnt around the edges, just enough that my friends want to ask me what’s wrong, but still soft and juicy in the middle, laughing at the politically incorrect jokes and the consequentially misshapen faces, drinking at the bar and engaging in paper thin conversations and concerning myself with the placement of my bra strap. I’m thinking too much about it. This is too intense of a thought process for a simple Tuesday night. Slowly turning the burner to off, I roll the hot dogs over for one more quick sizzle. I empty the contents of the pan onto my brightly colored dinner plates, which I hoped would bring some life to this kitchen, but only make me sad each time I remember that I spent $8 per plate. I numb myself by the light of the History channel, my mind spinning until finally I shut it off and turn myself in for the night.
One glass of wine, which I am making up for because I didn’t drink with dinner. Another to warm my sullen bones. Perhaps a third just because I love the way it makes my letters look on the $.99 pages. I wish I could cry tonight, but perhaps the sodium in the hot dogs has dried me up. I keep writing. Write here, write now. Writing the wrongs, the cigarette burns, the humiliations and catastrophes in a mere 24 hours. Write. My pen bleeds and smudges, streaking my palms and finger tips like black blood. Or perhaps it is my blood and I just have no color left in me. I contemplate rising for another glass but my movement is muddied and thick. Twenty pound toes, and fingers with such fortitude. I continue on writing, not so sure what is with the fascination to fling myself so violently against this page, but I am here and I am not leaving. I linger for moment on the deep brown eyes of the kind face sitting opposite from me in last nights Al-Anon meeting. I didn’t catch his name, but perhaps it could be Dave, or Ben, or Mike. The options are endless, but what’s in a name truly. I ponder how perfectly the tiny tornadoes of toxic air flittered around his thick digits while waiting for the bus. Around mine, they seemed significantly less graceful, almost menacing and malicious in nature. My attention to this single detail irritates me and I try to move on, but somehow I always manage to motion back to some utterly mindless simplicity surrounding the mystery of Dave/Ben/Mike…. Whatever his name is.
My eyes lids begin to droop with a soupy movement. I drink down the last sip of wine, feeling one last wave of warmth move over my thick body. Click off the light, and rest my bones.