8:41 p.m. - December 28, 2001
the screen hurts
Let me just say that I have never seen a group of people smoke as many drugs in the space of two days than I have over these last two days, although, to be accurate, I should clarify that actually it was only marijuana, and the plethora I speak of is in reference to the many many methods used. In the car on the way up, there was the drug baggiein the front seat. It contained blunts and joints and bowls and papers and loose weed etc.etc., and about every five minutes John would take something random out and smoke it. I honestly think he was high for two days straight. Securiy at the Empire State made him empty his pockets at the checkpoint. He'd left his joints at the hotel, but his container of weed was there. The guy looked at it. "What that?" he asked gruffly.
John laughed nervously and said something in drug tango that I didn't catch. The security guy didn't catch it, either. "Uh?" he grunted.
"Tobacco," said John just as the weed spilled out of the container and onto his glove, clearly green on black. "For smoking. See? Heh. Heh heh."
The security guy looked at John's glove, then at the container, then at John. For quite a while. Then he grunted again and waved us through.
John, at the time sufficiently high to be paranoid about such things, was positively giddy once we were out of range. Jumping up and down. "Did you see that shit? huh? Did you see that? That was some fucked up shit!"

Other than random adventures with drugs (and I assure you there were many; including tossing wine in the jacuzzi and spitting into bath towels and accidentally catching Chris and John talking about bongs on the video Lisa was making to show our parents, finally resulting in me being incredibly tired of pot), New York was all right, at least when I was by myself. Being in that city makes me hate people, as previously stated, but for a different reason. Being with my cousins all the time makes me hate people, particularly my cousins, to be perfectly honest, and I hope to fucking God they don't know where this site is, because, really, they try hard to get along with me, and it isn't their fault, and I feel bad. Because they are family, and all. But I just don't enjoy being around them for extended periods of time. John is painfully friendly, outgoing, upbeat, funny, and perfect, but ALL THE TIME, so after a few days of him being sickeningly perky that you just want to tape his mouth shut with extra-strength tape and leave him somewhere far away.
Chris is quiet. I get along with him the best because he's unimposing; he doesn't try to make everyone satisfied all the time like John, but he isn't completely self-absorbed like Lisa. He does his thing; you do your thing.
Lisa, all right, Lisa I really really don't like, not because she's a bad person, but because we come from different planets. She likes makeup, jewelry, clothes, flirting, and getting a tan. And she's beautiful. at least, she is without all her stupid makeup. And she whines, and gets all the attention, and everybody loves her. I shrug. She gives me a headache. She made us stop at Times Square to see fucking Carson Daly and his fucking TRL for a long time in the cold so she could get video of this whole important event. It was freezing. I looked up at the window. 'Huh, it's some MTV thing." and walked on, only to turn around half a black later and note that all three were still staring, enthralled, although Chris at that point was so stoned he was staring enthralled at everything. I wanted to go to the MOMA. John had promised me were were going to go to the MOMA, and is was four thirty, and Lisa was gawking at fucking Carson Daly and the neon lights of Times Square, the advertisements,the glitz and glamour. All that I hate about New York, or anywhere really, and I told her I was utterly unimpressed but all the commercialism, and of course it made me sound pretentious, but it didn't matter because I don't think she heard me.
A minute later I was on my way to MOMA without them, I was just not interested in the tourist shops they went into, the ones adorned with 'GOD BLESS AMERICA' although, in New York especially, that's everywhere, more than everywhere else. WTC memorabilia. Pictures, poems. It's still potent there. Ground zero. At the site, millions of flowers and letters, to whom? Huge posters. Oregon HEART New York. California loves you!!! Our prayers are with you NYC. Ohio + New York + all USA!!! United We Stand. and such. There was one thing that twisted my stone heart a bit; there was a mangled delivery bike tied to a post, rusted, with flowers placed in its spokes, in its basket, laid over the handlebars. 'In memory of ______, delivery boy. 1989-2001.'
Overall, though, I didn't feel much. I've been to New York before; I know the skyline well, and those two towers create a huge empty space. But my mind doesn't jump to the thousands of people dead, it doesn't replay the images of people running down the street in fear. It's horrible, but all I notice is that, in this one spot, you can see the sky. in NYC. and its blue, wispy clouds, a haven amid the gray squares, and that it's beautiful. Optimistic maybe, but not what one would expect to think.
I never did get to the MOMA. I was too late. Lisa enjoyed her Times Square and I set off walking, the five or so blocks to the MOMA, where the line wrapped around the bloack. I had forty-five minutes. So I went across the street to the library, and read for awhile, then walked back. Twenty-one blocks, it should have been, but there was an accident. A bus ran over six people in the intersection of Sixth, Broadway, and 34th, and killed them on impact. The police blocked the streets for a two block radius around the accident... A stretcher rolled by and I closed my eyes, walked to Eighth Avenue, numbed by the cold and the death, finally got to the hotel a half an hour late. John was there, nonchalantly getting ready for a shower. "Chris and Lisa are out looking at the accident," he said.
Looking at it?
When they got back, Lisa said she'd got footage of the scene of the collision. She was excited. I turned away from her, slowly, made myself keep my mouth shut. Everything exists solely for her entertainment purposes. Right?

Ww saw Cabaret. That was fun. I drank some of Chris's chocolate martini, and I was so shocked at how good it was that I decided I wouldn't have any more. I was tired later and they took me home, went out, brought me back some clam chowder and lemonade. then they smoked and talked until at least two in the morning. I kicked and growled under my breath, disapprovingly, annoyance waves emanating in their direction, but it did me no good. John is blissfully oblivious to anything bad ever going on anywhere ever, and Lisa was probably feeling that I shouldn't be such a drag. I'm sorry. I'm fun around people I like to be around. As I said, it's nobody's fault. But I have to choose these people.
We got back to Ithaca around two this afternoon. When John had asked me, repeatedly, during the trip, whether I was all right, if I was having fun, blah blah blah, I always said everything was fine, because if I hadn't, he would have taken it upon himself to try and fix everything, and for that to work, it would involve him taking Lisa and putting her on a boat to another country, and then magically removing my pot headache. Maybe raise the temperature twenty degrees. And he would have tried. I can't take that. But when my aunt asked if I had fun, I just shrugged. Suddenly I was very tired. She asked me if I would go again if I had the opportunity. "Probably not," I said, and the hurt on her face came quickly, like a shock. I'd never been honest like that with her, not about her children, even though it wasn't her children who were really the problem. I left a few minutes later to catch my plane, thanked her for having me, hugged everyone. Left. I have this headache, and suddenly the screen hurts. good night.
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Oh, will you tell me if the picture at the bottom shows up for you? (you, generally, meaning EVERYBODY, you included, dammit) Because I went on my own site in IE (i use AOL) and my picture didn't show up. so let me know. the one where i'm leaning over a puddle with a camera.

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