First Star of the Night

On West 23rd Street in Chelsea, there is a strange little house/performance space called The Cell Theater.  I went there early this evening to listen to my friend W read.  Simon Van Booy and another writer whose name escapes me at the moment were also there to read.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that I thought Van Booy's book, Love Begins in Winter, was too sentimental.  It is.  But it is good.  What is it about certain stories and certain words that make me, the rather jaded and overcritical reader, eat my words? And he is an excellent reader.  He was sitting on an old loveseat, legs crossed.  His voice was mesmerizing, his Irish accent not bad.  He signed my book: "To Z----, the first star of the night." He'd asked me what my name meant and so I told him.

After the reading, W and I, along with a few other people, ogled the arrival of movie stars for the premiere of the movie Brothers.  A man in a black suit approached us and handed us tickets to the screening.  So off we went.

The movie was good though not one I would choose if I had to pay.  

On Friday night (and this afternoon), I saw the Maelstrom sculpture and the Vermeers at the Met.  Then M called and he picked me up on the bike. We rode in the cold down to the Lower East Side.  M and I are friends again, I guess.  I am probably too nice by tolerating his weirdness. But he is what he is and sometimes what he is is stupid.  

Here is Maelstrom in the late afternoon:

I expected to spend the whole weekend alone, save for the Sunday dinner with W.  But it turned out that the last couple of days have been all about finding people. I may never see any of them again, but there is something good in knowing that there is still a whole world out there and that I am not incapable of seeing it and taking from it and hopefully, in my way, giving to it. 

Anhedonia is not one of my problems. Whatever weeping I do and wherever I may choose to give in to it, I am still present.

My friend JV is back in my life.  I don't know how long she will stay. But no matter.  More on her later. Professor Dick is back.  Maybe he never left. One of these days, I hope he will just leave me or not write me notes about missing me. Whatever his intentions, he creeps me out.