At 5:02 this morning I was in bed, eating a bowl of homemade turkey soup. I was hungry after a night in Manhattan in sub freezing temperatures. That I even left the apartment was notable. Not just the cold, but omicron and money and HOOORMOOOOOONES and all the nursing that goes into a broken heart.

But I didn’t move to NYC to stay in my room unabated. There was a city to see and people to be enjoyed. Namely, Andrea.We got off the F train, paid our respects at CBGBs (now John Varvados) and saw Nikola’s show at Bowery Electric. So did Josh and Dusty. Josh is a happy hobbit. Dusty is a hobbit if they became nihilists. And not the fun kind. The kind that balls up their tiny fists and swings wildly at friends.

It was decided that Dusty, who could no longer stand or walk on his own, should be put in a cab and sent back to Brooklyn to sleep it off. It was good for Dusty. It was good for Josh. It was good for Manhattan in general. And for me specifically, because Tyler is the one who accompanied Dusty home.

I stood Tyler up on NYE. He knows why, or at least he should. Yes, that broken heart I mentioned earlier. I’ve never stood anyone up for anything ever. I don’t have it in me. I didn’t revel in doing it either. Well, maybe I reveled a little if only because I was doing unto him what he’d been doing unto me.

I love him in ways that don’t have words to explain them. Except that none of them are romantic. They only look that way because no one has come up with a word that I’m aware of yet to describe why I love him so much. It’s always the ones you love the most are capable of wounding you the worst. We hadn’t talked since the NYE incident. So, thank you, Dusty, because my night would probably have ended there if Tyler had come along. That can of worms can wait another week or so before I open it.

After Bowery Electric, we hit up The Library and KGB. The thing no one tells you before you move to NYC from the desert is how people still make it out in below freezing temperatures. Every bar was packed to the gills (we went from tinned worms to tinned fish there…). The Library was so packed that my glasses fogged up and my hair curled…and yes, I was thinking about our fearless leader COVID. How can you not? Was I wreckless? Yes. But I’ve been a very good girl and I need nights like this every once in a while. Believe me…I’ve been saying no to more invites than I say yes to, even when I really wanna see the people who invite me. It doesn’t justify anything. We all of us, dearly beloved, have to find a way to get through this thing called “life.”

A happy thing to report: the bouncer at KGB remembered me from pre-COVID days when I used to tell stories up at the Red Room on the 4th floor. I remembered him. We remembered each other. I remembered myself…the one who used to get up on stage and make people laugh ON PURPOSE!

What I love about this pack I travel with is that none of us went anywhere to be seen or particularly cared about meeting strangers or hitting on anyone or getting hit on or impressing or blah blah blah. No one was performing. Well, Nikola was performing, but that was LITERAL performing on stage. You know what I’m saying.

It was real. Real is my favorite flavor. It’s my favorite song. It’s my favorite season. It’s my favorite color. It’s my alpha and my omega. It’s why I love Tyler when it’s just us together in a room and why I despise him when we’re around others. It’s my true north. I set my moral compass by it and everything that emanates from it is what I choose to call a “life.”