Mushrooms

17:36, 21 July 2003

It's probably not a good idea that I just blew half an hour browsing the Internet for apartments in New York City. Why do I torture myself like this? Well, it is not really torture but rather a dream deferred, as I will end up in New York and that is just the end of the story. But right now I'm back here in LA and feeling decidedly wretched, I must admit.

My weekend finished off splendidly. At the family party, my fear of smalltalk and tendency towards escapism manifested themselves in my shouldering of the "cocktail waitress" role, busily scampering around refilling drinks and generally operating at a mile-per-(diet-pill-fuelled)-minute. I left the party early to go to New York to hang out with Blake.

Screeeeeech! Hold up just a second. I think we need some background info. I met Blake two years ago, mid-way through my senior year of college; he was a junior theatre major: tall, handsome and a little bit strange, as most of the theatre majors are. We began emailing, running into each other at parties... it was all very loose and noncommittal, although I overthought the whole thing, as usual. As the months rolled on we hung out, hooked up, went out and drank, stayed in and smoked, laid around in the grass on Sundays, etc. etc. All the things people do in relationships, except I would never have considered him my "boyfriend" since the whole thing seemed so indefinite and incidental.

Blake is immature about relationships (I seem to recall that he had some past girlfriend problem) and totally flaky. A lot of his pontifications on acting and life and people and philosophy struck me as pathetic and desperate, but I liked him all the same. Probably precisely because he was flaky and therefore treated me indifferently enough to keep me slavering at his heels but tempered that dismissiveness with just enough affection to keep me from getting discouraged. He had found the magical balance of "treat 'er mean, keep 'er keen" that John Steadman and Piyush also managed to acheive at certain points in our relationships.

I saw Blake twice during my first year of law school: once when I went back to Evanston to visit and once when he came out to California to visit his mom. When he came to visit me I got so completely over him that it was almost comical.

When he came to visit me in LA, Blake and I ate pot brownies that he'd brought for us, and as soon as they hit I was so inundated with negative feelings about him that it became almost impossible to hang out with him any longer. In order to make it through the remainder of the evening I had to obliterate myself with multiple cocktails. When he left the next morning, we fell out of touch for over a year. Somehow we re-established email contact this spring and I found out he was living in NYC, trying to be an actor. I told him I'd let him know when I was next in town. It had been a really long time and I thought, "what the fuck? This could be interesting..."

So a little tipsy from the garden party, I got on the train to NYC. Blake met me at 125th St., as he lives in Harlem. His place was huge and beautiful: hardwood floors, high ceilings, dark wood mouldings, spacious rooms, great light streaming through massive windows. I met his roommates and we all planned to go out together; Blake and his roommates were planning to take 'shrooms. I opted in. I asked to participate in the 'shrooming, despite my horrific, near-suicidal experience with them the first and only other time I'd done them, in college.

Everything was fine at first. I didn't get sick, as I had the first time I 'shroomed. I got totally woozy and hilariously intoxicated. Blake and I were shameless right from the start: I don't know when the first kiss was initiated but I do recall walking into the bathroom while he was taking a shower and doing my make-up while he was nakedly sudsing next to me. We both seemed to find it uproariously funny.

We left the apartment to go out but upon crossing the street to catch a cab, I instead caught my heel in a sewer grate and broke my shoe right off my foot. Blake got me his Reef flip-flops to wear, which, I might add, did not quite do my pink flouncy party dress justice. Our entire party thought the scene was insanely amusing, given that we were all immensely fucked up at this point.

Going Out on the Town, Take #2: we hail a cab, get in... and I lose it. I just had one of those moments like: "I just can't be here. I just can't be here. I have to go inside. I have to lie down right now." So Blake took me back to his place. I recovered in ten minutes or less, but for some reason we didn't go out to rejoin his friends. I think maybe we just decided it would be more fun to stay in his king-sized bed and make out all night.

While making out and talking and wrestling and whatever else (all PG rated, of course) I was struck by the fact that Blake was talking about our time together in college as if we had been together--as in boyfriend/girlfriend. I found it so interesting how differently the two of us had perceived the same relationship; I thought it tentative and informal and would never have referred to him as my boyfriend, while he, apparently, considered me his girlfriend. Odd. I hope he realises now that he's going to have to be a lot clearer about his feelings and a lot stronger with his committments if he wants his girl to consider him a "boyfriend". But he probably does not. And I did not attempt to teach him any lessons.

In the morning, all was cool, at least on my side of the court. I had no regrets, no emotional entanglements... actually, I was so nonchalant about the whole thing that I didn't even care that I'd ruined the whole night by losing it on 'shrooms. If I'd been with someone whose opinion concerned me, I would have been shrouded in mortified chagrin. As it was, I kissed Blake goodbye on the cheek and skipped off into the sparkling Sunday morning, still wearing his flip-flops.

Speaking of carefree attitudes, I suppose I should close the book on Piyush, despite that the topic interests me so little that I find this conclusion boring to write. We parted ways Friday night after Lotus and that was the last I saw of him all weekend. On Sunday I was to drop off the things I brought him from Los Angeles, but when I called he was not home and I left the things with the doorman. Part of me began to think it was disappointing that we did not have a proper goodbye with hugs and pathos and promises of keeping in touch and visiting... but then I realised that I actually prefered it this way. I didn't really want to see him again and act like saying goodbye was something meaningful to me. We have already said goodbye a million tiny icy times since the beginning of June; there is no point in shedding crocodile tears for the sake of a Hollywood ending.