re-entry

Monday morning I landed at 10 a.m. and was back at $chool within two hours. I spent the next two evenings with The Ex and two other surprise visitors from San Francisco that night and the next, making it a very exciting but stressful re-entry to civilization. I actually forgot to go to a class Thursday, and it just might screw me, seeing as I've missed the first two classes now.

My last few nights in the desert were so tranquil and amazing, and I keep looking back at my photos to try and return to that mental place where I felt so calm and in control of my destiny, but it is hard. When I returned to my apartment in New York it was bathed in a blue glow and the next morning The Ex was snoring on my futon and there were workers drilling on the fire escape and I was in the midst of midterm hell and running on an average of 4 hours of sleep per night for the past few weeks.

In San Francisco, when insomnia got really bad, I could feel it as soon as I got on my motorcycle. I knew it was bad, because it felt dangerous. I thought to myself, "I could die," and I would force myself into hiding, usually with booze and a retreat into the Bat Cave, my windowless bedroom. I would take sick days. In New York, things are different. Things don't seem to stop. The city seems to encourage insomnia. You don't have to drive here. You can get on the subways and ride for hours, always find people who are awake, people who are just as damned if not more than you, people running on even less, and it makes you feel like a pussy. So you don't stop, you just keep going. And then, inevitably, your friend Ti asks you if you have a black eye, and you just say, "No, this the way I look."

I am tired. I drift in and out. I hear my voice and it sounds strange.

I lie awake, but I rest. It is getting better. Last night I slept for 6 hours. It was startling unconsciousness, and then I was awake, so different than the past few weeks.

I think of the desert. I think of my desert love affair. I think of The Ex, and the brief time he flitted in and out of New York, and how I was barely present, how it was to be with someone I still love so much. I wonder what I've been doing lately, what I've been thinking, and I don't really know.

It is my 29th birthday tomorrow. I'm having a birthday party. I'm excited. New Crush is coming, or so he says. I haven't seen him all semester, and then I ran into him on Tuesday and invited him, and he said he would come! This makes me very happy indeed.

When you feel so close to death, it is so important to celebrate life.

There is so much I want to write about, but I just can't at the moment. I want to wait for the moment when I can do it justice. I want to write about my desert love affair so badly, actually I want to write to my desert love affair so badly, but at the moment I think I am finally ready to crash and to sleep for several hours, then to wake up, eat a bunch of food, and then sleep some more.