taking a ramp to god

Which is just another way of saying: "looking for happiness."

Yesterday was a profound day. (And that kind of sentence cheapens how profound it was. Also, this is going to be a very stream-of-conscious post. Just imagine me looking at my life and recent past, and trying to make sense of it all.)

I fulfilled a dream, of sorts, yesterday. I spent the afternoon with Bill at BXL, a Belgian bar in Times Square. It's behind the Condé Nast Building, and though I always tell people I learned of this tourist-free oasis from working at Traveler, I actually found it when I was on a date with a stranger.

When I was a high-school student, Bill pretty much took me under his wing. He showered me with compliments after seeing my amateur performance in a play, and slowly but surely our friendship grew because of our proximity to each other (my locker was next to his room) and his kindness (the compliments). I quickly learned he taught college-level psychology and played Pink Floyd during tests. I told him I didn't like Pink Floyd because 1) my dad liked the band, and anything my dad liked was dead to me like he is and 2) I had a nightmare of the marching hammers from The Wall movie when I was younger, so I figured it was my subconscious telling me Pink Floyd was bad for me. That was sophomore year.

I don't really remember our relationship in junior year so much, except that I committed the notes he left on the chalkboard to memory -- his nice handwriting drew me in -- and he couldn't believe how much stuff I kept in my locker ("You keep your life in there," he observed, and it was true: I had a part-time job after school and wasn't going to wear my uniform while doing it.)

Senior year cemented our bond. In a mish-mash of memory, I remember getting suspended and interrupting his class so he could fight for me, he hired me to copyedit the school newspaper, we finished the other's sentences, we fought constructively, and I trusted him with my darkest secrets, the ones that got me suspended when revealed to anyone else.

Thinking back on when I would visit him during college, he always asked about my family: my mother, my brother, and my grandmother. Ever so thoughtful.

I remember him as a jovial figure -- always with this wide, welcoming smile -- and as he related to me yesterday he remembers me as "feisty." Oh, and about another smile: he told me mine could brighten up a room, that the energy I brought to his class affected him; on my bad days when I walked past his desk without so much as a wave he wondered what he did wrong, and on my good days when -- shit; I'm drawing a blank here, because honestly I don't want to think about me smiling in high school when I was thirty pounds heavier. Anyway, we each fed on the other's energy in a good way.

Sorry I got off track there. Tangents happen.

Bill at his best would diagram my problems -- put them right in front of me -- and change the angle. That incremental shift eased them.

Here's a recent example (although not from Bill, but it's a good one): I was out on Friday with the Skint Dude, someone whose company is an ensured good night out. We attended a comedy show headlined by Kristen Schaal. Part of her act included porn-star names: your childhood pet + the street you grew up on. She opined that a better formula would be to take your favorite alcoholic drink and biggest insecurity. She asked the audience for new porn-star names following her new rules. No one said anything. After a few moments of silence, I yelled: "MARTINI FRIGIDITY!" She repeated it in the microphone and moved on to the next joke. I thought I was a failure because she didn't have any comeback. When I told this to Skint Dude after the show at another bar, he thought it was genius: "You stumped her."

See how easy that is? Why can't I do it myself instead of depending on these men?

Anyway, Bill and I grew distant when I graduated college because I had a full-time job and couldn't visit him as often as I had been. We tried e-mail, but our conversations are enormous and neither of us can say what we really want to say through sterile typed words and without the flourishes of body language (the latter reason explains why phone calls don't work either).

It's really no secret that I love this man and had devised a mythology years ago: I was actually his wife before she found a time machine and "met" him when she was a bit older using the time machine to make him younger. It's crazy, I'll admit, but explains why I never saw a picture of the woman while riffling through his office. Had I seen her -- really me -- the space-time continuum would have collapsed on itself. Duh.

Unfortunately the recent years have not been friendly to Bill: his wife hurt him, dissolved their marriage, and ruined his lovely family. Obviously, I am not her. He got involved with this other woman, doted on her, and wound up with his heart broken yet again so soon after the divorce. Since this second break-up, he stopped writing his one-sentence e-mails, wouldn't return any of my calls -- including the ones of me crying, begging him to call me back, because I had lost my job -- and all but disappeared.

At the end of my crisis-filled summer (job loss, health issues, and Prom King), Bill called me out of the blue one night and invited me to see Porcupine Tree the next day. We had a beer or two before the concert. I cried over Prom King. He told me about his problems. I got angry at him for ignoring my messages from the summer. "Don't you ever keep me in the dark like that again," I demanded after he apologized, admitting how hard it's been for him.

Well, he disappeared again. (Or, perhaps I disappeared from him.) We were supposed to do something during xmas break, but nothing happened. I have pretty much been depressed (clinically, I daresay) since Prom King left me and have been very occupied with getting my health issues resolved. There are other things going on that scare me too, like drinking too much wine daily in order to fall asleep. The drinking leaves me just as alone and just as unmotivated -- and without any real rest. It's horrible.

When I had surgery to remove pre-cancerous tissue, I left as fast as I could from the operation in downtown Manhattan, headed to Bill's classroom in Queens, gave him the biggest hug, and couldn't stay because he had a class and no further free periods during the day. When I took a sick day last Wednesday because of terrible sniffles, I made the trek to Queens again and again was too late to chat with him. He promised we'd do something on Presidents Day.

Earlier when I said I fulfilled a dream yesterday, I'm referring to a story Bill told me years ago: a friend/former student shows up at his doorstep one evening with a six-pack, and they spend the night on his living-room floor just shooting the breeze. I have been waiting for that day to come, and yesterday was the closest I got to it.

I started off by complaining about my landlord, who threw two separate birthday parties for himself, keeping me up until 1am on Wednesday and 3am Sunday. Then we got to the personal stuff, and I hogged the conversation like always. I seek him out to help me. It's not a very balanced relationship is it? As much as I idolize him as a penitent does a priest, he calls me Santa Claus: always giving, never expecting anything in return. It's true, in a way; he'd get my right arm, a kidney, you name it, by asking -- and so would a handful of other people I consider my friends, no matter how little time we spend together, because I'm too damn loyal. And, on the other extreme, I cannot forgive abandonment without cause.

That's really what I want: Someone who needs me as much as I need him and who realizes that I'd return the favor and drop everything in return. I don't like flippant people who keep you at an arm's length, or dishonest people who lead you on to believing something that isn't true. I prefer blunt honesty, setting up boundaries right off the bat if it feels necessary and opening your heart when intuition tells you to run with it.

I've opened up to too many people: those who betrayed me in high school, those who abused or abandoned me in relationships -- all under the guise of being sympathetic, sensitive "nice guys" -- and those who disappeared from friendships for no discerning reason. It hurts all too much, so I'm quitting being vulnerable for the time being without quitting on those who've earned my trust -- like Bill.

When our conversation got too upsetting, we changed the subject. Talking about Istanbul -- I had visited Meg and Alex in January -- put a smile on my face, but the tale told about the adventure has become rote (I know exactly the notes I want to hit when I get around to writing up the experience), and Bill didn't deserve the same old story. Surprisingly, he didn't get it.

It was during the part when I told him that I found the Hagia Sophia's Islamic medallions more impressive than the (much older) Christian mosaics that we skipped to the Blue Mosque. He asked me what I saw when I looked at the ceiling.

It's hard to explain, but I envisioned the circular chandeliers suspended from the ceiling by hundreds of cables. If viewed from the right angle, they seemed to spiral top the top. This image influenced my answer.

"A ramp to god," I replied -- and smiled at the language.

"You saw a ramp to god, and you liked it," he said.

True, as an atheist I felt awe in Istanbul. Mosques dominated the landscape, yet were not foreboding. You could catch your breath inside before losing it again in the chaos that fills an ancient, bustling city spanning two continents.

Somehow after speaking with Bill things clicked, and I made changes to improve. I remembered that acupuncture had provided some relief after a previous devastating breakup, so I started going to check my anxiety. Because it's hypocritical to simultaneously take care of and poison yourself, I've cut back drastically on my drinking. The warmer weather means bike-riding adventures with Joe Katz, and I was surprised that my body didn't go through torture on our first trip. It's inspired me to train in earnest for the five-borough and century tours.

It took me months to get here, but I'm taking a ramp to god. The filaments are strong but thin, so it's just me -- but at least I'm escalating.

a lifetime of experience in just two days

I had my pre-op yesterday morning¹, before which I saw a dead body outside the building next to the doctor. A woman jumped off a building on Maiden Lane.

Had a blast with Joe Katz and the Skint last night. (Two men -- both myths and legends -- meet!) We attended the Adult Education Series on Brooklyn and drank too much afterward.

Woke up with a hangover today. Saved by a delayed opening.

And here's the kicker: for the past few weeks, the front door to the the building has been either open, unlocked, or both. Roommate Prime and I have asked the newbie to be more thoughtful about it, but it may not have been her fault.

When I left for work this morning, I found the front door open and doorknob unlocked. Not knowing whether it was done intentionally if someone was shoveling², I yelled: "You left the door open," and someone -- who I later found out was the landlord's mom -- came out and blamed the new cleaning lady. When I started explaining that the door's been left open on more than one occasion, she shoved me out the door. When I went back in to continue, she said I should get a boyfriend and move out. She walks into the landlord's apartment and shuts the door. I'm screaming in the hallway so she can hear me through the door, and she comes out again and we argue. Ultimately, once she said she'll "never leave [her] son's door open," I left.

The whole day I've been seething over this. It's totally disrespectful, and our relationship with the landlord continues to deteriorate. I've never had this much trouble while renting, and no matter how much we complain about certain reasonable things nothing changes.

On the bright side, my mom's photography was featured on New York Shitty. She's convinced there's a garbage conspiracy. Ever since the first blizzard, waste pick-up has been sporadic at best. If it weren't for the ice storm, I'd have asked to her walk around and take pictures of more orphan mattresses.

¹ I'm having minor surgery next Friday, and I'm scared shitless.

² The landlord shoveled half the sidewalk and didn't bother doing inside the gate. I took a picture. I would have done it myself, but I couldn't find the shovel.