Bright Lights, Big City

The film version does not do the novel justice, but it captures some of the sights and sounds of the 80's you might not accurately imagine whilst reading the novel if you're a millenial fated to live and die in the age of social media, smart phones, and ubiquitous prescription drugs the likes of which a sad face could never have imagined at another time in human history. McInerney's powers of social observation are striking, spot on, and mind blowingly resonant.
I find that the only thing missing from most of my favorite authors, is that they are betas one and all the same: Fitzgerald, McInerney....they're always nursing some golden girl crush, some lost girl that left them.....Le sigh. But then, I remember my phase with such a longing for my ex from before the marriage, and after I completely raped that relationship to death with behavior deplorable even considering my previous treatment of women prior to that point....and I see that it took me this long to completely move beyond that phase of my life and accept that I will be a serial monogamist and philanderer as long as my options allow.

In the first part linked above...McInerney very astutely captures the nightmare of walking into the sunlight following a night that transmogrified into a debauched train ride directly past "go" and "reason" and "normalcy" and "convention" and stops directly in the purgatory of waking hours spend debilitatingly hungover at work, late for the hundredth time.
That heart racing pulse in your chest balanced only by the cavernous feeling in your stomach which despite a metabolism hyped up by hours of ******* use in a bathroom stall or otherwise remains empty b/c you haven't eaten since you devoured a paltry bagel with cream cheese the afternoon before at a morning also spent hungover.....and you are left to marvel at the fortitude of the human body and mind working in tandem to present a facade of presentability and professionalism.

-----

Got hurt training.
Taking a night off.

Planning my jaunt across the city.
This is one of my favorite parts of dusk-time.
The potential....the quaint imagining(s) of walking into a venue, locking eyes, and something magical happening through years of study and non-verbal cues.
Paraphrasing McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City: hoping to meet someone you wouldn't expect to meet at a place like this

Like back in December when I met homegirl on the *****.....I do not expect such things on a daily basis, but I'm aware they exist, that magic and illusion are real, sometimes synonymous, and strike when our head is pointed at our feet or buring in a magazine killing time on day we'd just as soon spend a thousand miles away.....but know that these moments cross your path if you are open to their existence.
Or the night I met the stripper and spent the entire night partying at a speakeasy until 6am.
Or the night I banged the Indian girl in the penthouse downtown overlooking the city only to discover it wasn't even her place.

Speaking of moments, I'm sitting in the one chair I have left in the apartment.

The couch is gone.
So are the other chairs.
Every device in the kitchen.
TV? Yeah, that's gone too.
The ex came while I was out with the girl I'm seeing and jacked stuff we'd agreed I would keep.
I recall that I owned no furniture save a twin bed for virtually all of my 20's until I got married and let go of my need for possessions which now have gone to the passions and vindictiveness of the fairer sex otherwise known as my ex-wife.

Bitches be crazy.
Fuck it.

I accepted I would lose most of what was accrued in the marriage once I told her I wanted a divorce.
While irritating, this recent turn of events does not prove surprising.
I mentally prepared for the heavy financial cost and loss of possessions and comfortability telling her I wanted out would likely cause.
Besides, I'd rather not give her the knee jerk emotional response she expects and flagrantly demand the shit back.
Through that sense that all women have, she knows or has heard somehow that I've been out and about with a girl or two on my arm...and this is her lashing out/back at me.
She was right about one thing though....I "am living the life [I] wanted and missed while we were married."
I am living it and tough as the finances may be, I've felt more like myself in the past several months than I did for the two years I was institutionalized.
I feel the freedom from expectation and lack of accountability to none but myself I so dearly missed.

The tiger cannot change its stripes, and such other maladies.

I light a candle,  get ****, plan my glorious outfit, sip some coffee, and let the stress of the daytime and working hours slide off of my shoulders like a bra silently unclasped or yoga pants gently tugged loose enough to fall off the lithe figure of a girl aching for me to stretch her out and desiring nothing other than to please my lust.

The girl I'm seeing appears and seems by all rights to be falling hard for your humble narrator.
This is not unexpected, but at moments like this, I wonder, is my game that tight or is other guys game just that bad?

To hear her tell it, I've swept her off her feet, like we're in some independent and unintentional and deliberately ironic unromantic noncomedy.

As it is, I get up to shower, dress in debonair fashion, and dive into the maelstrom of whatever comes my way. I can only hope those others like me in their gilded cages of vice elect to flit into the night sky and dart between the stars as they watch silently in acceptance.

     - Yrs. in Christ