Repetition and Compulsion

It's been a relatively quiet weekend around here, with the dreary weather, my awful cold, no Narc-contact and NDN off in Amsterdam.

On Friday I was stuck at home all day feeling sick, but I was cheered by the arrival of Hammer and Val (another girl in our program), to watch some movies for class. The first movie was about Roma and Sinti gypsies and the Holocaust. After the film Hammer biked up to Blockbuster to pick up the second film-- Paragraph 175, about Homosexuals and the Holocaust. Val went to get herself a sandwich, while I stayed home and played piano, waiting for Hammer to return. It's strange-- even though I'm sick, I was still able to sing with a pretty full voice. I was quite pleased.

Val got back to my place first and we talked for a while about school stuff--primarily, where we're heading in terms of our dissertations, how we feel about teaching, and more. When Hammer got back, we ended up hanging out and talking for a lot longer before actually watching the second movie. Val started a year after Hammer and I, and so we updated her on gossip about people in our department, regaling her with funny stories about our past dramas. It was good to hang out with girls for a change and especially to hang out with other historians. We all share a certain frame of references and know what it's like to go through this insane PhD process!

Anyway, Val had to take off before watching the second film, but Hammer and I got through it and it made us sad. After the movie, she hung out for a while longer. We mostly went on about sex and relationships. A favorite Hyde-Hammer topic! Hammer is a little "boy crazy" at the moment, whereas I am being self-dramatizing and devoted in my Narc-obsession, so it makes for an interesting dynamic. But while we seem to be in such different places on the surface, underneath, we're experiencing many of the same anxieties.

After Hammer left that night, I donned my favorite blue sweatshirt, pulled the hood up over my head, stuck a pack of cigarettes in my pocket, ignored my slight fever, and went out for a walk in the rain. It was strange to walk past Cheers with its open doors and the roar of the Friday night crowd, with no intention to go in. BarMan was at the door checking someone's ID.

"Hey, Hyde!" he called out to me as I walked by.

I have to say, I really really like BarMan. He can be a little abrasive at times because he has an off-beat sense of humor, but I think he's at his core, a good guy. I will never forget something very sweet that he said to me when I was going through hell with Narc in early June. I can't quite repeat it here without going into unwanted detail, but you get the point...

Sometimes I feel like life just goes in circles. Remember I ran into the Texan the other day? The same guy that I met at Cheers last May? Well, on Friday night, on my way back from that walk, I ran into Mohammed, the deli guy again! I was debating which deli to go into to get something for dinner-- the one where Mohammed works, which would run the risk of an awkward encounter, or the one closer to my place, which could potentially be embarrassing, as I was very drunk when I had been there the night before. As I walked past the Mohammed deli, I saw him outside smoking. Once we had made eye contact I had no choice but to stop.

"Hi! How are you?" he smiled. "Why are you hiding under that hood?"

"Oh, I'm kind of sick," I said. "That and the rain."

"Where have you been?" he asked. "How come you never come in here? I still have your number, you know."

"Oh, yeah... Okay. I guess I've been busy. Teaching... school... you know." (What the hell was I supposed to say?)

"Oh, yes-- the teaching. So, do they call you 'doctor' yet?"

"No. Not just yet."

"Well, you should stop by sometime and say hello. You don't have to buy anything!"

"Oh. Okay. Well, I better go now."

I finished my cigarette in the rain and went home.

It's strange that I bumped into him the night after bumping into the Texan. Repetition... repetition... repetition. Being "Hyde" gets so fucking repetitious!

And compulsion.

I still had that aching compulsion to call Narc. But I couldn't let myself do it. So, I went home and went to bed.

On Saturday, I was sick and slept most of the day away in anticipation of Anxious' party that night. B stopped by in the late afternoon and we hung out for a few hours. West Side Story was on TV, and that lifted my spirits. I even managed to squeak out a few notes, singing along with my favorites.

Anxious had a pre-party dinner set for 7:30 at a place called Sala in the East Village. It was pouring rain when I set out, but I still managed to get there on time. The only problem was that I was the only person to get there on time! I sat at the bar, in a very grumpy mood, as I had promised B I wouldn't drink, due to my cold and fever. I waited there for a while, damp and disgruntled. Fifteen minutes passed. Still, no one else had showed up. I called Anxious to leave her a message.

"Sorry! We're just all running late!" she said. "But isn't Contessa there?"

"No. Not yet. I'm the only one."

"Well, we'll be there in another 15!"

I was pissed off and ordered a Jack Daniels at the bar. It burned as it went down. The bartender smiled at me and tried to cheer me up.

"Everyone's late today!" she said. "Don't let it get to you! It's because of the rain!"

I ordered another drink. Like magic, I started to feel better. In fact, I felt better than better. I hardly felt sick at all anymore. A few minutes later, Contessa and her boyfriend arrived. They pulled up seats next to me and we managed to squeeze in a little Anxious-Buke gossip before the birthday girl showed up. Soon enough, Anxious came in in her little black party dress, along with her parents, her sister and brother-in-law and two cousins. We all settled at a table in the upstairs area of the restaurant. Dinner was yummy. Contessa, her boyfriend and I shared an enormous pan of paella. I sat next to Anxious' mom, and she asked me all sorts of questions concerning what I've been doing with my life. I dutifully replied with my most Jekyll-ey scripted answers.

Towards the end of the meal, Buke showed up, a little early for the "party" part of the party. It was awkward. He and Anxious dated for eight years before breaking up last fall. We used to have such a tight little circle--Anxious and Buke, me and B, Contessa, GoldenFinch and Liu... But that circle has long since been broken, and this was the first time Anxious and Buke had seen each other in almost a year! To make matters worse, Contessa and Buke had a falling out about a year ago as well, and hadn't seen each other or spoken to each other since. I think their friendship ended up being a casualty of the Anxious-Buke breakup. I hugged him hello to ease the tension.

The party relocated to the bar area downstairs. Before long, Hammer and the Arch showed up to the party. Arch (a new character, whose name should be properly pronounced with a hard -ch) is an architect that she has been dating for the past few weeks, a guy she met online. I had yet to meet him, but I told her to come to Anxious' party, and so they arrived together. He is cute, but arrogant, we both agree. He's got a little "narc" in him, if I do say so myself, but she's pretty into him for the moment, so at least she's having fun.

NiS and his girlfriend also came to the party, which surprised me, and I was glad to have a chance to catch up with them. NiS is a composer and just had a piece performed in a concert. It was really well received, so I was psyched for him. Hammer was met by a few of her other friends as well, including her high school prom date.

The party was fun. I drank a lot, ate some birthday cake and circulated through the crowd. Later on, another friend from college, JKd, showed up. I hadn't seen him since his communist-themed birthday party, (the night I went out with Anxious and the Stallion and Anxious hooked up with BulgarianGuy for the first time). Anyway, there were a few interesting moments-- fist of all, when Buke went to introduce himself to Contessa's boyfriend he walked right up to him and said:

"Hi! I'm Buke. I used to be very close friends with Contessa until she decided to start ignoring me for a year."

Contessa got all upset and glassy-eyed and walked past me saying "not cordial! not cordial at all!" It was pretty awful.

Later, Buke defended himself to me.

"I'm just not going to let people shit on me like that, Hyde!" he said.

Yikes.

Later on, I shared a cigarette with BulgarianGuy, only to find out that Anxious still hasn't told her parents that he's her boyfriend. She can be such a user! Of course, she was there in her brand new necklace from him.

At another point, Anxious' mom came up to me and started telling me how important it is to have "life long friends," like me and Anxious. I couldn't help but think that Anxious must have told her mom about our tension and fighting over the past year, and that her mom was making very pointed remarks. But, whatever...

The more I drank and the more my feet began to tire, I had the urge to settle myself on a sofa on the other side of the room. I took a seat and got a call from Oc. He was partying somewhere in Brooklyn and wanted a number to buy some marijuana.

"I'm not sure if the service will come this late, but you can try!" I said. I told him I would text him the number and that if there was a problem, he could call me back.

I did just that, but while in texting mode, I had a sudden craving, a compulsion, to text Narc. (Yes, I was drunk). I was mid-text, telling him "Welcome Home," when Hammer and the Arch approached. I closed the phone without sending it. Hammer told me not to do it.

Before long, the Arch initiated a rather strange conversation.

"So what do you think of anal sex, Hyde?" he asked.

I'm in Jekyll mode, while writing this post, so you're not going to get the rest of that conversation out of me. It was amusing though. From there we moved on to talk about art. The Arch said that his favorite artist is Marcel Duchamps.

"I love Duchamps, too," I said. "I remember in high school when I had a sort of revelation that Duchamps raised a question about the representational nature of art that wasn't answered until Jackson Pollack. It started to fit together as a narrative for me. Pollack stopped trying to represent, but rather, recorded energy-- a moment on canvas."

After that, I got up to go to the bathroom, and Hammer told me that the Arch was distressed by my comments because he can't stand Pollack and he thought that I was saying Pollack somehow solved a problem that Duchamps couldn't have. Of course, I was speaking theoretically. Whatever. That's enough said about it here.

Soon enough, I did get that text out to Narc. It must have been around 1:00 am. I wrote:

Hi.

After that, I tried to put it out of my mind. Oc called back and said that the pot-service wouldn't deliver so late.

"Do you have any at your place?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I'm not going to be home for a while," I said. "I'll call you when I'm leaving the party if you want to try to meet up."

The Arch said he had some stuff at his place and asked if I wanted to go with him and Hammer to smoke there. I wasn't quite ready to leave yet, because JKd had just arrived and I wanted to talk to him. Hammer was anxious to get on with her night though (there's a good reason she's so into the Arch... ;)) and he seemed ready to go as well, so I told them to go on without me. But first, I grabbed Hammer and we went back to the upstairs part of the bar to gossip about the Arch for a minute or two before they left.

They took off at around 2:00 am, and shortly after that, the party started to slow down with a lot of people leaving. I found myself wishing I had gone with them. I called Hammer and asked her for the Arch's address, knowing he lived nearby in the East Village. I scribbled it onto my hand, said my goodbyes and was off.

At the Arch's place, we drank a few beers and he rolled a joint mixed with tobacco. I don't remember much of what went on there, as I was already really drunk, and I think the drugs just put me over the edge, so if you really want to know, Hammer will have to fill us in. She was editing something for him, and I told him how smart she is. I think I was a little annoyed with the Arch, thinking he was arrogant, because Hammer told me that I nearly said as much to her, but stopped myself. At least I still had some "ego" controls left!

I must have left there around 3:00 am or so. I think I might have stopped by Cheers, but I can't be sure. If I did, I must have been insanely far gone. I woke up the next morning, not remembering when or how I got home. I noticed I had a 3:11 am outgoing call to Oc and a 4:23 incoming call from Narc. (He didn't leave a message). (Oc called me later to thank me for being so diligent and remembering to call him on my way home). Stumbling into my kitchen, I found six cans of red bull and a bagel. Yay! I love my drunk self for having thought ahead!

I felt like absolute hell though. I was even sicker than the day before and my weakened immune system did absolutely nothing to get the toxins out of my body. I drank two of the red bulls and stayed in bed until nearly 5:00 pm, watching hour upon hour of The Surreal Life, season five on VH1. It was one of the worst afternoons imaginable. But around 5:30-ish, my body finally got it together and I started to feel some relief. By 6:00 I was able to get up and walk around a bit, going across the street for some groceries. By 9:00 that night, I was almost back to my usual self.

This morning I slept in again. I woke up around 10:00, still feeling sick, but nowhere near as bad as the day before. I went to a voice lesson, came home, and am now trying to organize myself in order for some work to get done. B is coming over around 5:00 tonight, and we may go to the movies, so I'm really looking forward to that. I haven't been to the movies in forever.

So that's it for now...

I'm still here, trying not to think of Narc, trying to organize my time better, and looking forward to a more relaxing week. (I don't have to teach this week, thanks to Columbus Day and Yom Kippur!)

Hope you all had a great weekend!

-H-