"He likes you. Really. He told me he loves talking to you. He just doesn't know how to deal with your feelings." The Amazon is slurring. She's been drinking vodka. I'm watching her because she gets mean on vodka. Hunter S once said never turn your back on a drug. I never turn my back on the Amazon in the throws of a vodka binge. It's just as dangerous.


I would answer her, but she wouldn't understand. Who does? I've only found one or two people who do, and both of them have spent time in a looney bin. For suicide attempts.


I would tell her, if she could listen, if she could understand, I don't know how to deal with my feelings. If I did, would I be in this bar so often? Would I be drinking four or five nights a week? Would I have managed to lose ten pounds in two weeks because I just stopped eating and had nothing in my system but alcohol and tylenol? Christ, if I knew how to deal with my feelings my apartment would be clean, my sheets freshly laundered, my papers filed, and my clothes dry cleaned. I wouldn't end up staggering home at five in the morning on a Saturday night throwing myself on the couch and watching Constantine, again, because I can't sleep. All that liquor can't put that voice in my head to sleep. You know the one. The one that keeps telling you that you're a failure. That you're this weak pathetic imbecile who just pretends to be smart. Some idiot savant who can reference Alan Bloom and Mark Edmondson, but can't really do anything useful. Can't even do performance art. Christ who fucks that up? Really? Who fails at performance art? But even at open mic nights, I'm the outsider. Why? Because unlike them I've been able to hold up well enough not to end up in an insane asylum. To hold a job for five years. Even what should be strengths count against me in the end. It's September, and I'm looking at running through that gauntlet of holidays without a boyfriend, again. Again. For what? So I can spend another year watching bad horror movies alone on my couch.


Can't deal with my feelings, huh? Join the fucking club. I should give out membership cards.


But I don't answer her, because she wouldn't be able to understand. She's part of it now. That inability to explain myself to people like her. And it seems like the whole world is populated with people like her. The ones who don't understand. Or pretend not to.


I order a vodka on the rocks.


"Don't worry. You won't have to see him as much. He's moving to Brooklyn." I smile. "I'm not the type of woman men fall in love with. I'm the type of woman men emigrate to aviod." "Oh please. You aren't that important." I flinch. That is precisely what hurts. No one ever loved me that much. Eric who called me the love of his life doesn't even bother to pick up a phone and see if I'm still alive. And he was the one who was supposed to love me most of all. Of course I know I'm not that important. Ivan the imbecile doesn't even bother to call or send and email despite his "I want to keep you in my life" claims. Right as what? A voice in your head apparently. ANd this one. She can't even get the joke. What are the odds she would understand the rest of it?


Not enough liquor in the world to buy me membership to their club. But lord knows, I still try.