2002-05-14 1:25 p.m.
I need this.

It's crazy what you could have had
I need this, I need this

So many weights lifted off of my shoulders this week. I can't say I'm euphoric by any stretch of the imagination, but I do feel freer than I have in a while.

• D & Rachel leave tomorrow, making tonight my last time seeing them, at least until I visit them in Miami Beach (where they're moving).
• S has a new someone in her life, something seemingly getting serious, freeing me from any illusions about being her lover. (As with all things, there's a wide gulf between saying you're something and actually being that.) Friends it is.

• I found a place to live. *booming applause* Yes, yes, thank you. It's a gorgeous share for a bit more than I'm paying now in a chill area of Brooklyn, near the same trains as before, but slightly more convenient. More space than before, and I think I'm going to buy a hammock.
• Tabi and I are back to hanging out like we haven't in over a year.
• D was going to buy me a membership to the city gym network (NYC Parks and Recreation � $25 for the year for every city gym; beat that anywhere � but I think I'm just going to buy it for myself. (I don't think he's got the time anyway.) Despite the fact that I might run into S, I want to start swimming and working my body as much as my mind.
• My mind is back to flowing ideas, and I'm actually writing them down instead of talking about them.
• I don't feel like apologizing anymore. Least of all about what I like.

Cast off ties, clear all moorings, push off.

Finally.

I'll have two weeks or so alone in the house, which I'm glad for. I haven't had that kind of stillness in my life in years, not since Athens, and the silence will do me good. No one to talk to but myself, which is good, because me, myself and I need to have some words.

My new room is really nice: it has a nonfunctional fireplace (I've always wanted a mantle to put stuff on), it's a nice size (12'x13'), sponge-painted dark red (though I'm thinking of sponge-painting two walls orange and sun-gold, over the red; I think the effect will be interesting). The rest of the house, the shared space is really nice...large, no interstitial walls on the bottom floor, just a straight shot from the front windows to the back ones. The breakfast bar is really adorable (white marble and oval-shaped, with the sink on one side), and as they want to keep a vegetarian kitchen, that'll encourage me to eat better, something I wanted to do anyway.

All three of them are friendly and busy...the house, when I first looked at it, had this nice warm feeling to it. I didn't think I wanted that feeling out of my next living space, that sense of hearth and home, of comfort...but with all of the changes in my life, I wanted a center, a base of operations, at least for the next year.

This is going to be good.

The next few things I want to write (a play, a few short stories) are for purging, putting the last year of my life into words and into perspective, making the lessons positive ones, the experiences absorbed, reconfigured, and reflected out into the world. Like the talk D and I had the other night, they're full of and about hard truths that have to be faced, otherwise you never leave the prison you make for yourself. (Dedication for the play: "to the microcosm: D, R, S")

I know some folks keep reading this, because you worry about me, because you wonder what I'm up to, despite the fact that I haven't written regularly in almost a month. Thank you. You know who you are.

I'll put up some older entries today too, if not for you, then for me.