On the Block

A Series of Unfortunate Events

2005-07-26T22:04:00.000-04:00

Propelled by a series of happy coincidences, I was contacted yesterday by an old friend that had stopped talking to me after I flaked out on his birthday. I was not expecting the call but I think I needed it. Josh is the only other writer, caffeine addict, eccentric that I know, and after spending 2/3 rds of my summer on the block, I needed a break from the monotony of it all. I needed to feel creative again, weird again, alternative. Josh does that for me. Wrapped up in his own altered reality writing a novel, holed up in his parents basement, with his vintage style, and his piercings and even though I think the whole thing is bullshit, his whole persona, it rubs off on me. You see he actually believes his bullshit. And when I'm around him I become part of it, part of his story, and it's too easy to play along. Josh hates blogs, in fact he would never read this even if I told him he was in it and I gave him the address. Self righteous stubborn too cool asshole that he is. But the truth is, I haven't looked at this damned thing in month, and now I'm writing again, and I have ideas, and the dream is alive. 264 is draining for me. Being around it sucks the energy and the creativeness right out of me. But here I am still torn. Torn between the two people I want to be. Torn between friends that represent all the different facets of my own personality. It's always been too easy for me to play along. To become the person I need to be when I'm suppose to be it. I've always been too easily compromised. I don't think I can ever be like Josh, but I also don't think I could ever be happy being the girl from 264. I know I'll never get far enough away from it, from the people, from the group. It will always be home, which is not necessarily a happy place. Like any home, it is filled with the things and people that make one who they are. Writing about it helps me. Right now it is the only real way I can be both. So, until I figure out where my life is going and how I'm going to get paid to do the only thing I love to do and still be the girl from 264, this blog will have to suffice. Sorry Josh, that your series of happy coincidences led me to write this series of unfortunate events.

When it Comes Down to It

2005-06-29T14:42:00.000-04:00

In the beginning, before the group, before boyfriends, it was the four cousins swimming alone in the only inground pool in floral park. I was watching home movies sunday night, which are always eerie for me, and I saw us like ghosts of the past imprinted on a certain time in a certain place. Who were those people dancing away at that backyard party six years ago? I saw people on film that I haven't seen in years and I'll most likely never see again, and I was depressed because we were happy then. Billy and Patty and Andrea and Eric when they first started going out. I think about what six years did to us all. Billy is married to the girl he cheated on my sister with. He has a kid with her and we haven't seen him in years. Andrea and Eric are still together but I think about what they went through in their relationship over all this time from braces to almost being ready to get married. I saw Sable who went crazy and moved away. I saw Dave which stung because I thought me and him were in it for the long haul. We were best friends. It still frustrates me to think how girlfriends and boyfriends and sex change everything. I hate that girl for taking my friend away. I hate her for shitting on one of the most pure friendships I have ever had. She made it dirty with her jealousy and her suspicions. I saw Will who moved away, Chris who joined the army and is now serving his third year overseas. I saw Nina, his girlfriend, now fiance, who became born again, burned her rock music, and stopped hanging out with us because we were sinners. I hate home movies. When you remember things, you change the details around so they hit you a little softer, you make people mean, you make events less interesting, you convince yourself that life is better now. But is it? My cousin said it simply and right "We lost our innocence." I think that's what it was. The group will never be the same, I lost a lot of people I cared about to time to significant others to life, I lost faith in forever, because nothing is forever. When it comes down to it, years from now, it will be the four cousins and whomever we choose to be our partners, and that will be the group, and we will be family, which is what has been missing since people started moving on with their lives. When were all together, we were like family, and that's why people hung around as long as they did until we lost our innocence. Until we broke the trust. Until we grew up.

Over and Over Again

2005-06-21T20:10:00.000-04:00

What is it about the past that keeps us enfolded in it. It seems the more I try to distance myself from it the more I realize that I will forever be a part of it. What really bothers me is that I'm comfortable there, it comes naturally to me because I've lived it all before. Why do I allow myself to make the same mistakes over and over again. I guess it's that hope that I can rewrite history and live it with a happier ending. Well, the story is that after a year of snide comments and cold shoulders, my cousins and I have mended our friendship, and after a year of silence Miguel and I have attempted to "rebuild the trust in our friendship." Those are his words which, from personal experience, I know mean absolutely nothing. But being with him, and all of them felt good. It was like old times. There was no awkwardness. We fit together. Me and the group. Like an old smelly sneaker and a foot. And now I've gone and put myself in a predicament. Is it that easy? Can I just resort back to my old life, back to 264 like I had never left. Maybe I didn't leave. I don't know. I'm trying to approach every situation carefully, trying to feel people out. Miguel and I, we can't be friends. I've learned that much in the two weeks since we've started talking. The two of us, we click, and I can't figure out why because we have nothing in common. He obviously doesn't want a girlfriend or maybe he just doesn't want me, and I can't wait around to be the subject of another public humiliation. His ex girlfriend is right. She said, "I don't want a repeat of last year," and you know what that's the most sensible piece of information that girl has ever uttered. The group. It's beyond all of us and our baby bullshit. It seems that after all of the destruction of last year we have a chance to rebuild from a shoestring. The shoestring of an old dirty sneaker that magically fits us all. So Mig, if you're out there, I'm warning you. My guards are up. Don't screw me over again.

Graduation

2005-05-23T16:02:00.000-04:00

My cousin Andrea graduated college on Saturday and my sister and I were invited to go out with remaining members of what used to be the group to celebrate. I wouldn't have gone but since my cousins attended my sister's 21st birthday last weekend, I felt obligated. The truth is, I really wanted to be there to celebrate with my cousin but the thought of revisiting the place of so much hurt made me sick. I went regardless, pumping myself up for hours with music and dancing and shopping and saying out loud "It's on, Bitch, It's on" complete with air punching and karate kicks. It didn't help my churning stomach that curdled at the thought of seeing miguel, the anti christ, who was the catylist in the downfall of the group. Well, when we got there the whole thing was anti-climactic to say the least. Seeing them again was no big deal, I looked hot, and miguel was trashy, and so was heather, his ex-girlfriend/friend with benefits/girlfriend/whatever. I am so glad that he chose her over me because I see now more than ever how perfect together they truly are. And I am so glad that that part of my life is over with. I miss my cousins, but honestly, I don't miss the group. The bickering, the changing everyone's life to accomadate two nineteen year olds, the coldness from andrea's boyfriend, the whole dynamic of the group after we started losing all the good members, and letting in all the trash just so we can have a head count over 5. My two cousins were fighting with heather, she refused to use one of our id's so that she could get into a decent club, she threw a fit when we wanted to leave, she called miguel who then started calling all the shots because miguel is best friends with eric who is andrea's boyfriend, and eric runs the show, because all he has to do is give my cousin a look and she'll back down on anything. They all had to stay in that shitty bar and let heather win. Then they all had this phony group hug to simulate the lie that everything was fine. Whatever, I left. I took my sister, and I left, and I wasn't even upset at the nerve of that C.S.(dirty word) to offer to buy me a drink. I realize now that I'm done with all that, I know who my friends are, and I graduated from the group.

Group Dependant

2005-05-19T01:02:00.000-04:00

So I had this friend who's name was Dave. He was my best friend since we met on the block back in 96 when I was fifteen. I talked to him tonight after a year of rumors, hearsay, and absolutely no contact whatsoever. I asked him if a ten year friendship meant anything to him and he dodged my question by asking about the group. "How is the group? What do you all do on weekends?" I told him that there was no group, that no one hung out, that it was all over. "But what about our friendship," I asked. "It was never dependant upon the group." But it was, Stupid hopeful girl. "I can't take all the drama," he said through miles and computer wires. "Everyone talking about eachother behind their backs, all the cutting up." But why then, were you so concerned about the group. What did our friendship have to do with them? Of all the things I thought were real, of all the truths that showed their ugly faces since the great group breakup, I thought for sure that this pure friendship was the real thing. I told him this and he had no answer. It was like playing dodgeball in the street except with lies and words and painful indecisions. The truth is there is no group anymore, only Dave copped out before the explosion that caused the end of all things. Dave left for long island with his girlfriend that doesn't like me, and he was too much of a coward to tell me the truth. But that's ok. I'll say it for you so you don't have to write me that email you promised. "My girlfriend was so threatened by our friendship that she forced me to choose between you and her and I chose her because honestly, I don't think much of myself, and I'm too scared to lose her because I'm afraid I'll never find anyone else. On top of that, now that the group is no longer together, there is really no reason to hang out anyway, despite our long friendship, because the truth is you were my 'in' to a large social circle that wasn't bent on accepting me, and now that the circle has diminished I have no use for you. Sorry for decieving you into living a lie." That's ok, Dave, most of life is a lie anyway. People move on, they grow up, they change, but a part of me still longs for that crazy happiness that came with those friends and that cornor. A part of me still needs 264, especially since it seems to be bigger than all of us, all of our individual friendships, our drama's, our lives. It was the group combined, it was never us alone or even us in pairs that brought the magic. Look at us now, all wandering through our twenties like junkies looking for the ecstasy of their first hit never forgotten, but never found again. The group was a moment, a dynamic that happened at a particular time in a particular place. It will never happen again for any of us in our lives or personal relationships. Everyone who hung out in the days of the group was somewhat dependant on it. We all made new friends, and we are all doing different things, but none of us will ever find that ecstasy, that quality of all of us together. It can't be recreated. In all my best efforts to preserve it, Dave, our friendship spoiled with the group. I believed in the lie so much that I thought we were more than it, better than it, but once again the truth reveals itself under a mound of bullshit. I should have never dug it up, brought you back to it. I should have left you on long island in your great escape to reality.

Surprise Surprise

2005-05-17T23:21:00.000-04:00

There must be something wrong with me. Once again, I have failed to obtain a job in my career of choice. My superhero powers are diminishing rapidly, and my alter ego is primed for permanent takeover. I will soon be forever the girl from 264. What is it about this place. This isn't where dreams are made, it's where they come undone. I can see us all now at fifteen. Who would have thought that we would all end up where we did? Who would have thought that life would be such a struggle for us? I'm dissapointed, disallusioned, and done for tonight . . .Who can concentrate in this crazy house anyway. Goodnight Floral Park.

I'm just the girl from 264

2005-05-16T23:49:00.000-04:00

So I went on another interview today. The Queens Trib is looking for a reporter and not surprisingly they liked my resume. I look good on paper. I mean, of course I do, I'm a writer. Although now that the managing editor has met me I can go back to being a receptionist. I've never been able to make a good first impression. My mother is probably happy. The last thing she wants is for me to make 18,000 a year, even if it means doing the only thing I can do. If I could do anyhting else in the world and be happy than I would. Where I come from no one grows up to be a writer. I've been told I was a dreamer since I was eight years old. God, if you can't dream when you're eight, then when can you? I was the smart one in the group, the oldest, and the first, and now everyone I have known my whole life is slowly passing me by. Doubting in his office he asked me why I should get the job over anyone else. I lied to him and he knew it because in my eyes he saw that I didn't deserve it. He saw that I was just the girl from 264, the girl that stopped trying when she stopped dreaming out loud when she was eight years old, the girl that doesn't want to disapoint her family anymore, but who's too chicken shit to sell out at 24 because she knows there's still time to screw up some more at her half assed attempts at living the dream. Yesterday I was fifteen kissing boys on a cornor, and an hour ago I was wasting away in a lawn chair in a front yard in Queens watching guys pour corona on eachother in the street smoking cigarettes and sitting in the dark. Where did it all go? When did I become too old and too young in the same moment?

It's not happening on the block anymore

2005-05-15T17:38:00.000-04:00

Andrea was surprised to see how things have changed since we stopped being friends. Last night was the first time in almost a year since the four of us went out together as a complete unit and she was upset to see that the unit of four was now me, my sister, gina, and melissa. The age of the four cousins has passed, my sister and I moved on. We made new friends and left Andrea and Joanna in their old routines. 264 is a distant memory and the block is a place of ghosts and grievances that will haunt us as long as my cousins live on it. There is no group, there is no one to meet up with on the cornor, and the boys aren't playing c low and drinking beers in the street. Last night we celebrated my sister's twenty first birthday. She was the last of the cousins to reach drinking age. She was the youngest of the original group. So it seems that everything has come full circle. It was the unofficial end of old things celebrated in the company of new faces, but good faces. Fifteen people were invited to the bash, and seven showed up but the people that were there were the ones that truly counted anyway. It was tough for the four cousins to be together again when we all know that things will never be the way they were. It was especially tough for Andrea to see me with gina, and I must confess that I felt great satisfaction in Andrea's realization of her own replacability. It was sad too, though. It was sad because none of us never meant to hurt eachother the way we did so many months ago. It was sad because even me, the eternal escapist, can't seem to erase a past where every memory has the four of us in it. The proof is in the pictures, as they say. I have four photo albums of memories of the group, and yet every picture taken last night was of me, gina, patty, and melissa positioned together. Andrea and joanna were in pictures alone. The two remaining inhabitants of 264. I wish they would realize that it's just not happening on the block anymore. It's happening in huge hummer limos with trippy lights, it's happening with four crazy girlfriends in the night partying at Posh and Mirage meeting guys that have stopped frequenting the handball courts. It's happening without judgements or preconceived notions of how I should be, and it's happening without the danger of disturbing the delicate balance of ten people thrown in together on a lonely cornor on 264 where boredom breeds temptation and hate enhances fear.