When I woke up at Josh’s place, it was again around 8am. Slightly confused and not knowing where I was, I started to panic. Josh’s roommate came out and went to the bathroom. At that point, I still had no clue to where I was and decided it was best to leave this strange place. Only after seeing the immense movie collection did it register to where I was. Not wanting to wake Josh up, I told his roommate to tell Josh to call me and that I’d catch up with him later.

I walked backed to Connie’s place where all my stuff was. I showered, packed my stuff, said goodbye to Connie and co, and went into the Manhattan. I get out at Rockerfeller Center when I realize something: I have no place to go. Here I am in the city, with all my luggage and some of Mira’s, and I don’t have a place to crash for a few hours. Greg, our hospitable host for the first night, won’t be returning from a wedding in Hartford until the mid-afternoon. Max and his girlfriend were leaving for a vacation. John and Ashley, whom I wanted to meet up with, weren’t going to have a place for me to stash my stuff. I was officially the stranded person in the middle of the city, luggage in hand. I felt like such a cliche and remembered back to my first attempt to live in the city. I had a car back then, and I stashed it in free side street parking and used that as home base. I thought about going to the movies – just wasting time until I heard back from someone. Instead, I parked my ass down near Times Square and used the free CBS Internet connection and surfed the web and wrote.

Writing in NYC is something that hurts. It’s my muse but there are so many emotional connections that it brings up. There’s a sour taste in the words I write, and those demons that I haven’t quite conquered completely. As I sat in the city, writing new chapters to the same old stories, I decided that maybe soon it would be the time to share everything with someone. Just one person – so that these demons can finally be conquered.

Finally, my blackberry buzzed and I got a text from Greg. He was home and I could come crash at any moment. The intense NY heat finally started to get to me, and by the time I got to Greg’s I crashed in front of the television watching football. A normal Sunday, no matter where your longitude is.

Mira arrives from her Brooklyn rendezvous and we start to get ready for Chris’s party. Mira bought this dress in SoHo and she looked great. I was excited because I haven’t really had a chance to catch up with Chris for a long time. We arrive at Chris’s house – a small penthouse apartment on W 72nd and Broadway. We enter, drenched in a thin layer of sweat from the humid New York night, and start to party.

Overall, everything was great. I got to see Chris and Pete. Mira enjoyed hanging out there and disappeared for a few hours with Chris’s brother Jay. The view from the penthouse was amazing – seeing the NY skyline from inside of it. I had an amazing discussion with Chris’s drummer which will probably come up in some form or another in this blog. Overall, it was a typical party with Chris – but a little tamer. As we ate Gray’s Papaya at 5am in the morning, I couldn’t help but miss living in the city.