I forgot. It's
Halloween. No one will be home. I can't leave messages on
answering machines because there's no way for them to get back to me. That will only lead to worry. I worry enough. I'll tell them later, if they ever hear, once the
predicament is passed. So, a stone bench by the library is for me, and walking around, and payphones and hope.
This is cutting it close. Maybe tonight i will literally have no place to sleep. Joe calls it apathy, but that's not it. Chris says i'm strong, but it's rooted in weaknesses. I'm sure i'll survive, i am full of social fears and awkwardnesses, i am perhaps too willing to face the repercussions of my mistakes and misjudgements. Take my medicine, as it were.
So, is my medicine cold? I could have called people yesterday instead of sleeping, sick, all day in a haunted empty house. No one knows you're nauseous on the phone. So, if cold is my medicine - well, i'm not alone. It's not so cold. It's not raining. There are probably hundreds of others taking that medicine, in this city, tonight.
A woman passes, in all black Victorian, in black veils.
I hate to ask for help. It comes down to - i don't know how to ask for things. When we juggled in
Grenoble to earn money for food, the Parisians we met asked people for us. Despite how i generally tell the tale, i did know enough french at the time to do it myself. I will stay hungry until food is offered or i can pay for it. I'm not hungry now, though. Things are good.
I am a quick learner in almost everything else. All but life. How to talk to strangers on the phone - how to deal with a compliment - how to say no - how to ask for things. These i just can't learn. So far, the consequences have always been mild, or nothing i couldn't handle. So i am cavalier, because the last i want is for people to worry.
Music chosen for optimism.
I'll try calling people again. It's early yet. Too early to go to late-night wild parties. Too early, of all things, to give up. I'll be fine.
If people wore facepaint every day, how would the world change?
And of course, it
is fine. I am not yet out of friends i can impose on. A sofa tonight, and reunions, and a party too! I am a good-luck child.