Random Travel, Part 5

New York City, all day, (10/23)

So this morning I got up and got to the theatre to do what I could to help in the theatre. At first there wasn’t very much to do, but I put my obsessive compulsive to use and got to organize some costumes and things like that. Actors are sloppy- I know this, I am one. It was really exciting and relieving to be back in a theatrical environment again, getting to work and be in the theatre at all… there are some chances in VA, but none of them are really current. While I was working on all of that, I got a phone call from my grandmother about the family session that they (my sibling and grandmother) had with the doctor and social worker.


Per usual, I was blamed more than usual for things that are either completely out of my control or completely not my fault. This is an ongoing issue…and to think that there was talk of releasing her. If the family meeting ‘set her back a bit’ (because the social worker was ‘harsh’ with her), then what exactly does she think life is going to be like once she’s out and confronting me directly about her issues? I think it’d be unethical and unfair to release her before she’s ready, because that would essentially seal the deal for my sister and I becoming her permanent watchdogs and guardians. That is a job that I don’t think either of us should feel obligated to do when she’s in a hospital supposed to be getting better and away from this kind of destructive behavior.

My sister says that they’re going to be trying shock therapy on her. I don’t know exactly what that means, but things must have gotten pretty bad if she’s not responding to all of the other conventional methods of psychotherapy. A big, sloppy mess is waiting for me when I get back to VA, and I’d be lying if I said that I was looking forward to deal with it. I know that every time I ever talk about it, I just seem cold and heartless and unwilling to be sympathetic and caring. But that’s very much not the case- I’ve been trying my hardest to be there for her and my family, but I’ve been lied to and about so much that I can’t possibly give anymore. A line had to be drawn, and everything that we’re dealing with now is being dealt with in post-line-drawing rhetoric.


I digress, for lunch B and I went on a long walk to find something nommy to eat. We walked for blocks and blocks and settled on this little Italian place on Greenwich. I had a delicious sandwich, and while I was eating, a mother and her two kids came in. They were really cute, really precocious kids and they were adorable. Mama bought herself and the both of them a slice of pizza and seated the kids at a table right by ours. While she was paying for the food, the kids started talking back and forth about how much they love salt and pepper (keep in mind that neither is more than four years old). From here, they begin a salt, pepper and red pepper siege on mommy’s pizza. They poured TONS of this stuff all over her and their pizzas, and it was so cute not because they were being mischievous, but because to their little brains, they were really doing the right thing for the taste of the pizza. Mama was surprisingly patient with them when she realized what’d gone down, and just scooped all of the nonsense off of their pizzas and let them know that it would taste yucky while commending their creativity. I thought it was nice. That’s how I hope to deal with my children one day.

Back to work. One of the things that I volunteered to do was return the rental truck to the place in Brooklyn. This was a huge adventure.

Firstly, it was due back by five PM. I got there at about 5:15, and the Jewish man who owned the place was very frustrated with me about keeping him from getting home to his family for dinner. He went through the checklist and asked if I’d filled the gas tank back up. Shit. We’d forgotten to do that. He gave me directions to the closest gas station (and there aren’t many in New York) and five minutes and told me to make it quick. I flew to the gas station a few blocks away and filled the tank back up on my credit card… but the machine had an error printing my receipt and the man inside was METICULOUSLY poring over lottery tickets, so I just left without one. I got back to the rental truck place, the man finished the checklist and we came to find that we’d ALSO forgotten to remove the palettes that the boots had been on. I told the man where the house was (only a block away) and he said that he’d take me there and drop me and the palettes off. After I signed for the truck, I got in the middle of the cab with him and his friend (I don’t know if I metioned this explicitly, but these were big, flushed, frustrated Chasidic Jewish men) and they drove me (rather roughly) to the house where I took the palettes and got out.

So great, the truck was back, I avoided TREMENDOUS clean up and refueling fees, and got back to the WowHaus in Brooklyn. Great.

Except now… I’m in Brooklyn…without a car….and I have no idea where I’m going. I’ll ease up on details here to tell you that I basically walked for over an hour, trying to find a subway station. Every person that I asked wasn’t able to help me (in English). After a while, I’d wandered into a place I didn’t even know existed. A community consisting almost only of Chasidic Jews, and I felt very out of place. They were all very busy, rushing to and from whatever they were doing. And it made it very difficult for me to stop one of them and ask for directions.

I walked for about an hour and found a G train stop somewhere on Flushing. From there, I was able to get help getting back to the theatre, but at this point, I was very cold, very tired, and very annoyed at having gotten lost on foot. I hate getting lost period, and getting lost on foot is worse because the correct path is going to take an especially long time to get to.

I helped out in the theatre as best I could, but was just so, so tired. Got home and crashed. I crashed knowing that I was going to be able to visit Heaven (aka H&M) in the morning, and that no pain or weariness could bother that joy.