August 1–10, 2003 — Self-interest

My trip started in Richmond. It was the first time I’d been home since my family had replaced the now-deceased cat that had given me allergy attacks for so many years with two new cats. I went expecting the worst and refusing to take allergy medicine because I like to martyr myself to no particular cause.

The plan was for me to spend a couple of days with my family before leaving for New York with Marika. I worried that my allergies would destroy my immune system and that the 12–hour bus ride would finish me off, but I tried to hope for the best. Without my positive outlook on life, I don’t know what I would do.

But despite the guilt trips I’d forced my parents to endure after they told me about the new cats, and despite my talk of never going home again if it would only make me sick, I didn’t feel much different at home than I do in Toronto. And the problem with kittens that cling to my feet and gently gnaw at my toes is that they test my ability to maintain a front of disapproval; I outright failed by the end, spending the hour before I left playing in the yard with the younger of the two kittens.

My mom drove me to Marika’s house, her parents having offered to drive us to the bus station. Her mother turned on a light that I was standing underneath and the light bulb flashed and died. Marika said I had jinxed the trip.

I never know how to act around other people’s parents. They asked what I am studying in school, and I tried to make light of my status as a dropout and failure in life. I said I pay my rent by doing internet programming; I tried to avoid explaining that I have no interest in making money and am only trying to break even: I’ve found that many people who pay taxes are less than excited to know that I am relying on the health care that their taxes pay for so that I can live without any sort of insurance.

Between Marika’s house and the bus station, her parents asked three times that I look after their daughter while in New York. I don’t know that they appreciated my observation that, if anything, Marika would be taking care of me.

And then we were in line for the 9:00 pm bus to Montreal.

Two or three hours later, we were in line for the bus to New York.

Two hours after that, we were at US immigration, and I was being interrogated about my place of employment, the purpose of my trip, whether I had a return ticket or not, the reasoning behind my B1 work visa (a remnant from my travels with Cuff The Duke) and where I would be staying. If I didn’t have a file with US immigration before, I do now — there was considerable typing, but I couldn’t see the computer screen. Marika was waved through and teased me for holding up the line.

Back on the bus, hours passed, and I stared out the window. I don’t know that I slept at all. If I did sleep, it wasn’t for more than an hour. We arrived in New York an hour late, and it was 8:30 am. Trisha was waiting for us.

I didn’t pay attention to the route we took back to Trisha’s. She told us that she felt badly about having so many visitors, so we had a story as to why we were staying with her, something about the hostel we’d made reservations with being overbooked. I never had to use this lie, so I don’t quite remember if it was more plausible than that as it was first explained.

We didn’t sleep that morning; we went shopping instead. I don’t remember much of that, either. We were in a clothing store I’d never heard of (but that I would go on to visit several other locations of) and I saw the bass player for Saves The Day. I found this very exciting, but Trisha seemed less enthused, and Marika was trying on clothes.

Later, exhausted, we sat in Urban Outfitters and critiqued passersby. We had a dialogue that we acted out every few minutes, complaining about our friend Nathan and the length of time he spends trying on clothes. (You know, just in case anyone thought we were only sitting in the middle of a crowded store to stare at other shoppers. It was a clever ruse.) I am never entirely comfortable joining in on this sort of criticism, though: I suspect that Trisha and Marika would be equally unforgiving in their assessment of my style sense if they didn’t know me and I were to walk by.

And it was somewhere around here that an exaggerated sense of awkwardness and self-consciousness set in for the week.

Marika and Trisha became frustrated with me as the week progressed because I am seldom fun and not always able to put on a good face. I found myself less and less able to fake an interest in wandering around stores and looking at women’s shoes and talking about boys.

But there were a lot of good parts, too. More than there were bad ones. I loved going onto Trisha’s roof and looking across the river into Manhattan, and I loved how scared I felt trying to climb back down the fire escape without falling to my death. I loved the night I stood alone in the rain watching a band I’d never heard before, feeling my clothes become saturated with rainwater and not minding at all. The next day, I spent six hours in an art gallery with Marika and didn’t feel bored. And there were dinosaurs: We went to a museum and I saw all the dinosaurs whose bones I’d’ve forfeited my allowance for a decade to see back when I was seven.

Marika and I took a bus to Ottawa on Friday night and talked a lot less than before. I worry that I’ve used up a lot of the goodwill I might have built up with Trisha and Marika before the trip, and I feel sorry about that.

And so I’m left at a strange point. I spent the last week with a sense again of what I’m missing, the memory of having someone to spend time with and to feel comfortable in the presence of. But the sense that no one I would be comfortable in a relationship with would want a relationship with me is stronger than ever.

When I first arrived back in Toronto, I sat in my room and was relieved to be alone. Now I’m less sure.