2003-02-24 - 4:10 a.m.

Turn a corner and there�s more downtown, and more of it, and still more around the next one, reassuring--it'll never run out. The graffiti, the folks, the frightening law-office ad on the subway--an illustration of a hispanic toddler zooming a toy firetruck round the corner of a dilapidated apartment with one hand, eating lead paint with the other.

I could live in New York City--in fact, I think I�m meant to.

But not now.

I told my dear friend S. (from college), at Odessa�s, I think,

I�ve waited for everything I�ve ever done in my life, with the exception of losing my virginity at a normal age. I didn�t drink in the bars until I was actually 21. I didn�t get my first apartment until after graduating college. If I moved here, it�d be too early. It�d be the biggest step I could take.

Not that he was trying to pitch NYC to me. Maybe it was the unduly long bus ride talking, or the beers--but I think it was that I really got it. The city was not beautiful on its own--of course it would be terrifying were it devoid of everything but buildings, no, that�s not what I mean. Everything was beautiful--the city, the internal logic protected from the rest of America by gigantic parenthesis.

I moved to Allston at a stage in my life where I should have been leaving it. And that was cool--I still have yet to enjoy the pleasure of playing in a McDonald�s ball-pit, but catching up to the curve with Allston was fine.

There�s no time limit on NYC, though, unless of course I give up on life, which isn�t likely when there�s so much to worry about and so much to enjoy.

Just as I said to S.�s S., it�ll be there for me when I�m ready.

And I also said what happens if I move here? I�d be living here for the rest of my life--no big moves on the horizon, ever, �cause anything else would be a step down.

I�ll wait.

I�m exhausted--around 10 hours of being on a bus in one weekend, and that beautiful city, and seeing S., and getting home and giving the Roommate her still-packaged-but-made-in-the-80�s legwarmers (which she loved), and needing to wind down and watching The Others on DVD (ever so good).

And at the same time, I could go for hours right now--drinking beers, watching DVDs (I was up �till 7am last night), but obviously I know I can�t, so I won�t (thank God).

That bus--and confirmed a warranted suspicion. I cannot not live in a city. (Double-negative, I know, but that�s how I wanna say it.)

I�ll walk over the Longfellow Bridge (the Salt and Pepper bridge), the Mass Ave bridge, I�ll take the Green over that dam thingie that spans Lechemere and Levrett Circle, and I always stare down at those cold wide arms of the river Charles, and imagine how helpless I�d be were I (plunged or otherwise) in the middle of any part of that body of water, soaked, cold, with shoes, fucked.

That city-to-city shuttle, that Greyhound, passing through tiny Massachusetts, tiny Connecticut, and it was suffocating, not being in a city. I almost wished it stopped in New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, and Worcester, I almost wanted sit on that stupid bus for hours longer, just so I could be on an avenue and not a highway.

The way back especially, at night, and I�d stare out that window at nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing, and it was scary. I had a book, but I couldn�t read it even though I like it. Instead, I�d search for civilization--I�d look for main roads, or houses, I�d stare at strip malls as they passed, gasp at loading docks, go ga-ga over factories, but mostly just gaze at any streetlight in the distance, like a stupid winged insect would. Wishing for cityness, for urban pastures, for a street I could survive on if I was randomly abandoned there in the cold with nothing but $20 cash and a credit card that probably has something on it.

In terms of living, Somerville is about as suburban as I can be. Beyond that, at least �till the next city, it�s all farm country to me.