This Is No Longer Home

New York has it's women. That and the delivery system. I mean, I haven't been here for six months but give 'em the ol' ring, ring and they're answering for me by name (pronouncing better than the whole of New York could ever get straight in the five years I some how managed to call this place my home) and showing up at my 'temporary' address without question in less than thirty minutes on a Sunday. I mean that, and the butt cheeks shifting side to side in those tight maroon corduroys in front of me, as I fake a half speed walk just to soak in the mesmerizing movements, blocking out the thin, bitter air smacking and tightening every pore in my chapped face for just a few moments. Those are the only things New York has going for it.

I need face Chapstick. Does that exist? I look like I'm sunburned when I get inside. That's too fucking cold. I'm sorry, fuck this place.

Do I find it weird that I turned with the maroon corduroys into the Starbucks? No, I had planned on getting Starbucks anyway, maybe not that soon, but what's the difference? I'm coming from a city, scratch that, an island, that resembles this manhattan in size but has 1 person for every 100,000 comparatively. I mean, I go hours walking around on that island and don't see a single person. I go walking around for weeks without seeing 1,000 unique faces. And I could go 3 months without seeing someone my age if I just avoided the gym and the Starbucks -- and even then, it's the same maybe 12 girls that I've learned to love. I have no other option. Much the same as your bunkmate's (almost) hairless ass might become (at least) a part of your dreams after three years in prison. I think. Kind of like that.

So, for the women I am grateful. For the easily obtainable (decently priced for it's selection, availability, and reliability) ganja, I am also grateful. But for everything else, I fucking hate this city, I really, really hate it.

The girl in the maroon corduroys, now in front of me in line at Starbucks, hits the register and I get more than a profile and well, there it goes, there she goes from being the cutest thing I've seen in god knows, to just a blah blonde crevassed in surface only deterrents. And isn't that a metaphor for my new look at this city. Since leaving. Since seeing something new.

When I was packing up to leave here 6 months ago. I was so mad at this place. I was done with it. I was blaming it for every problem I had and I couldn't get away from it fast enough. It had taken five years, but the city had finally crawled it's way entirely into me, every muscle moved because of it, every eye opening, eye closing, it was there inside of every atom. And I was drowning in it.

I've attributed a lot of changes in my life in the past year to mushrooms, to linking in, to those moments 'truly awake', asking myself questions my body was (for the first time) unable to lie to itself about. I knew when I was tripping in July, on my rooftop in Queens, that I was not where I wanted to be. I was looking out at the rooftops below me, stretching to the mecca of Manhattan, and like the isolation moments in A Beautiful Mind, the trees started to pop up in front of me. Shining brighter than everything else. I had looked at that same skyline for three years and I don't think I ever saw the trees that brought actual life to the scatter of breathless structures polluting the world around me. And I mean, once you've realized that, once you've processed it fully, understood it and believed it wholeheartedly, I promise, there's no turning back. I knew that I had to move on, stretch out. Find more trees, more earth, more life and--

I fear the lot of them would call me a hippie after hearing such garble. But whatever man, I've seen the other side.

It makes it harder to come back here with every second I have spent away. Six month on that island changed me. I know that I'll never come back here. I don't think or assume or wonder ... I know.

Without a home, without some small slice of this island to call yours. To cover in your shit, to scent in your liking, warm to your temperature, to truly feel comfortable in, this city can be and feel fucking awful, depressing, uncomfortable, and fucking cold. The saying "home is where you feel comfortable pooping" is the most truthful statement I have ever lived and understood. And I, ladies and gentleman, no longer feel comfortable pooping in this city.

I mean, last week I went 4 days without shitting. Me. I went 4 days. I can't remember when the last time I wasn't averaging 3 shits in a day. Fuck this city. I'm over it. And this weather. Fuck it too. 19 degrees and it's almost March. LA hasn't gone below 50 in 6 weeks, but we're all pretending this is normal and just part of it ....  Part of what? The misery? You get to wake up inside your 450 sqft hole and pretend it's normal to layer up just to get out of bed. To maybe get hot water and enough time to eat before rushing through your ice storm commute, suitable for huskies and cunts with thousands of disposable dollars to spend on winter gear. Cram onto that speeding tin torpedo with 100 people that maybe washed their hands and maybe brushed their teeth. Mouth breathing mumblers. You hope the sun is above the buildings on either side of you so that for a freezing second of your journey, you could be brightened by its rays. I'm bitter. Fuck this place. I've seen the other side. Those maroon corduroys are daisy dukes where I'm headed, that's all I'm saying.

Tye Sheridan from "Mud"

I had a dream last night that my dad and I were installing a cardio kick boxing studio in my old loft apartment in Pittsburgh and he kept talking about how my cousin started acting in films (my cousin in the dream being Tye Sheridan from "Mud") with Nicholas Cage and that I was a worthless piece of shit because my cousin was only 10 years-old when he started landing legitimate paychecks, yet I'm going to be 28 in a few months and I couldn't even make 60 thousand dollars last year.

October Sky

Like every morning, the dog woke me up, his primal needs overpowering his urge to spend time in the spot my girlfriend used to occupy in the bed beside me. So, I got out of bed, threw on my coat, even grabbed my beanie, and took the ol' pup out for a stroll. Sounds normal enough, felt normal enough. Had a burst of energy as the 45 degree air smacked my puffy, sleepy face, and I thought that I'd do an extra mile on the walk. Stroll, stroll, stroll, and as the cobwebs started to clear and I got over a half a mile from my door, a rumble on my belt line reminded me of what I forgot to do.

See every morning for the last 2 months, I've taken a shit before walking the dog. Often just a quick colon clearer, feces that's moved it's way to the sphincter over night.

The "oh shit" registered as the feeling began to over power me. Because not only was I over a half mile walk from the front door, but I remembered that in my stoned stupor last night I opened and finished a box of triscuits. Those high in fiber snacks that they actually advise you don't eat too much of at a time.

But they were cracked peppercorn and sea salt, fucking delicious, and I hadn't smoked in a long time, for me anyway, and I loved every fibrous bit of them. But on the clenched stiff walk home, it was all I could do to force right foot in front of left, and I just kept cursing myself. Who eats a whole box of ...

... Uh oh, the cramps were intense, I could feel my hemorrhoidal asshole dilating, and though sometimes it's tricky to tell with the grape sized bushel I have tacked to my hole, I was pretty sure I was feeling the decent of the first turd.

I waddled waddled waddled, I couldn't see my door because my head was so low. Then I lightly tapped my butt through my sweatpants and could feel it. It wasn't a turtle head, it was a log, there was a big log sticking out of my asshole. Somehow still connected, a blessing from the same fibrous triscuits that had brought these cramps upon me in the first place.

I was still another 60 yards from my door when I heard my neighbor start talking to me from behind. I would have kept walking but the dog, the fucking dog, he turned and jerked the leash away. Causing my body to spasm. That fucking dog. And as she went on about the weather this weekend. It's supposed to be 80 you know. I could feel the grape-lets flexing around the log sized turd just hanging from the dilated bushel in my sweatpants.

I forced a smile, jerked back on the leash and made it home in another 50 waddling seconds. Luckily there is a half bath right inside the door. Definitely not my preference to defecate in, but neither are my sweat pants.

At this point I swear I was grabbing at my leg, convinced I had already shit myself while exchanging forced dialog my neighbor, trying to stop the shit from rolling out the bottom of my pants.

But alas, as I yanked my pants down over the toilet that didn't even have the seat down, there was a fraction of a second where I could see through my legs a huge log of shit hanging from my puffy butthole. Right before it exploded from there like the first rocket that Jake Gyllenhal and his buddies build in October Sky ...