NYC Diary #21

MONDAY

7:19 a.m. Ugh I’m awake. But I’m in Paris. Hungover. From drinks at Bar Hemingway with my favorite Leo the night before. I stayed late. And made friends with the bartender. Also a Leo. He kept telling me he hated Paris and I was so drunk, I just kept calling him crazy. It’s so much better than New York, I said. And ordered my last drink. Champagne.

I don’t even remember which. I let him choose. He also kept asking me about love like I knew something. His girlfriend lived in the small French town he was from and he was so in love with her, he wanted to go back.

That’s crazy, I told him. You’re a Leo. You need to become something great independent of love.

And at that point the conversation sort of broke down because all this was in English and he just kept nodding.

Have you guys seen The Talented Mr. Ripley? The book is better. But the film rivals it. Anyway. I feel like I’ve been in it for the last year of my life.

You know what has saved me?

Art. Art and Leos. (Who are art.)

7:58 p.m. I go to my friend’s reading at Shakespeare & Co. I am late but only because I thought I wouldn’t be able to go at all.

It is very hard to be in love and then have it fall apart.

If I couldn’t make something out of life (like a poem), and had to just live it, I definitely would kill myself. What is the point.