Nothing to say. Reflecting on my absence in life. It’s like I’m not here. So much forgotten. Walk to work, run to the subway, pretend to be invisible when I only feel that way. I have always wanted invisibility. I saw the number 1422 on a sidewalk just now. It was a receipt. I might have picked it up but it was wet with rain water and filthy with ooze coming from garbage bags left on John Street. 1422 is the number of the first room I had to myself in New York City. I am not genuinely supersticious about numbers or numerology. But some numbers seem like they call out to me. In no particular order: 1422, 317, 166, 207, 61, 181. Seeing 1422 today reminded me that every ending is a beginning, and every beginning an end. 1422 was a beginning. It segued into 317. But don’t let me ramble on about numbers that mean nothing outside my head. Room 1422, at 166 West 75th Street. That was my first room to myself in New York. I stayed with college friends until 1422. I felt incredibly lucky to get 1422, and in time I would affirm that sentiment. It had a private bathroom and was free of roaches. It was a higher floor than 317, where I moved next to save money. That room had no shitter. I shared a bathroom and shower, but like many things in life I have blacked out any memory of the shower. How can that be? In my memory I do not even see the shower curtain or the shower head. All I see of that bathroom is a sink with a sign reading “PLEASE DO NOT URINATE INTO THE SINK.” I had shared showers before, in college. That much was not new to me. I do not understand why that place in time, the 3rd floor shared shower at the Parc Lincoln, is erased from my mind. You would think I would remember exiting the shower and walking the length of the hallway back to my room. I may have done that walk naked, or nearly so. This particular memory void is in company with much if not most of the sex I’ve been a part of. I don’t remember most of it. Perhaps the adrenaline and anxieties were high enough to put me into blackout mode. Memory itself is lightweight compared to the experience as it happens. Everything is heavy to me. Everything is waste. I am at my place of work. I blacked out huge portions of the first couple of months. Taking this job was a big deal for me. The first “job” job I’d had in 20 years. There was a comfort in it. I knew I’d be fine at the job. I’m smart like that. But I’m oversmart sometimes. I overthink and make simple tasks agonizingly complex and results can be disastrous. Nothing is easy. Nothing is simple. Being touched is, itself, a complex process of permissions and acceptances, with requisite rejections. Why did I let her touch me? Waste is heavy. It might be the heaviest, densest substance in the universe. I eschew waste, yet I am waste. This chair on which I sit is but a metaphor for the waste that my life now stands upon.
