Well, here I am. Back in town. Exactly where I didn’t want to be. Oh well. It’s not that bad. The apartment is fabulous, the cost is insanely low, and the organizational projects are coming along. I spent time planning out the space beforehand, so it’s much easier to follow a diagram. It’s a refreshing change from the chaos and clutter and endless piles of boxes at home. I’m ready for a new start.

My first night back downtown was… interesting… to say the least. And by that I mean, I had a very strong, very clear dream about… Bloody Mary’s, of course, where else? It’s just Sam screaming at me to leave and me calling him a jerk in response because obviously, Bloody Mary’s is a hit. He just looked sad and old. So then I woke up and that was that. Pretty unpleasant, but essentially a clear and concise summary of everything that happened last season and where the story left off. Will Bloody Mary’s be renewed for another season, or will it finally be canceled once and for all? I vote we cancel it, tbh. It totally jumped the shark when that bartender moved in next door to me. That was just completely absurd. It all went off the rails after that. 0/10, would not renew for Season 3.

Anyway, the dream reminded me of the night I left my cousins’ house in NJ to come back home in 2020 and stopped in NoVA for a couple of nights. I had a very intense dream about coming back here and getting kidnapped/tortured by the whole Bloody Mary’s cult. Scary. Yeah, so, feelings are fun, and I have a lot of them. Oh, but that dream ended on a funny note. They were threatening me to rape me with farm animals and I said, “Oh, I thought only SDSU students do that.” And then everyone laughed. It was all one big joke. Good thing, too. Things were getting pretty intense there for a moment. Lol, but ha ha, right? So funny? Get it, get it, because rape is the punchline of the joke. Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Wait.

Anyway, yeah, and in the end it was all a joke and she was just being overdramatic and they all lived happily ever after, The End.

…

Just kidding, of course. I didn’t live happily ever after. Not even a little bit. Not even at all. In fact, I spent the next morning wandering around Crystal City with my Starbucks in hand, wondering what the fuck I was even doing with my life. Is South Dakota even real? Or was it all… just a strange dream I had while I was lying in a coma in Georgetown Hospital after a car accident? It could be. I know exactly when it happened. I was driving home from Southern Maryland after spending my last night in NoVA with my ex-boyfriend’s best friend at his beach house. I fell asleep while driving home at dawn and ran off the side of the road. And everything that happened thereafter was nothing but a crazy dream…

Then I took the metro into Black Lives Matter Plaza, met up with the Purple Penthouse* (DC’s Only Female-Owned Cannabis Delivery Service), rolled myself a joint, and smoked up outside of Trump’s Wall in what used to be Lafayette Square. I walked up and down the block, looking at the boarded up, grafitti-printed walls, reading every protest sign affixed to the fence, wondering what happened to my beautiful city while I was lying unconscious in a hospital bed. It was just like Resident Evil. The streets were empty. The metro was empty. Everything was closed down and boarded up. Not a car or a person to be seen. No rush hour, no commute, no traffic jams or road rage or crazy NASCAR tricks to navigate the highway. Only zombies and protestors and military and police and rich politicians protected by motorcades. It was as if I’d woken up one day and knew the world would never be the same.

…….

Anyway, so that was a totally random sidebar. Definitely got a little lost in the moment there. Damn, ya’ll wouldn’t even believe the shit I saw when I was on the road during Covid. Hopefully when the weather gets better, I can finally sit on my balcony and just WRITE clearly already!!!

ANYWAY. AS I WAS SAYING…

I often wonder why I get so hung up over these ridiculous people, who I honestly have a very low opinion of after observing their absurd behavior over the course of a decade or more. I think the truth is that I just don’t understand other people and never really have. I have a very long, very complex and difficult history with the Institution of Psychiatry and therefore never really received a straight answer to the question of why I’ve always been so *DiFfErEnT* from everyone else. I am obviously Neurodivergent, but I don’t have a label or a diagnosis. They changed it a lot over the years. The new, hot label always conveniently seemed to coincide with the release of the latest, hottest wonder drug. They say I have emotional problems, and while that is true, the more I work to resolve those issues, the more I wonder if there is something else buried underneath. I wonder frequently if I am somewhere on The Spectrum and that is why I am always puzzling over the strange and odd behaviors of Neurotypicals. I have no idea.

All I can really say is that the Star Wars character I find myself relating to the most is C-3PO, Human-Cyborg Relations. I am a robot fluent in over 6 million forms of communication, yet somehow I descend into a blithering, blathering, blubbering emotional mess over every difficult situation, in spite of my superior intellect to humans. Alas. At least I made it out of the Clone Wars alive, amiright or am I right? TBH, I always felt like he was the one narrating the story. So, in that way, it makes sense. He’s programmed to do a very specific job, which is too be shiny and fabulous while serving drinks, starting conversations, and providing translations on the Master’s Sailbarge, and instead he gets taken for an absolutely crazy ride from one end of the galaxy to the next. So relatable. So on-brand. So totally… me.

I feel the same way about Toto in the Wizard of Oz. Everyone is making this big deal over me, but really I’m just chillin’ in a basket, getting taken along on this crazy ride. The magic was never inside of me, Dorothy. It was in you all along. There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…

On the other hand, I am a Scorpio and a Dragon, so it’s also completely on-brand for me to be obsessed with betrayal and revenge. It is practically in my nature to become offended over any disrespect to my most powerful being. I hold life and death in my claws. How dare you try to squash me as if I am nothing but a pest beneath your feet?

Who knows the answers to these questions I have on the ultimate search for myself? As Shakespeare would say, “The fault is not in our stars, dear Brutus, but in ourselves.” If there’s one person I’ve always been able to turn to for answers in my lifetime, it’s that one specific dead white guy. Talking about my main man Willy Shakes, of course. Not Brutus. Fuck Brutus. He was literally the biggest backstabber of all time. We all know how I feel about backstabbers. Definitely at the top of my Most-Hated People in the History of Ever list. Dante was right to place him in the coldest, darkest levels of hell, reserved only for the backstabbiest of the backstabbers. I like to call this circle… South Dakota. Lol, lol, get it, get it? Because of the winter and the backstabbers. Yeah, I thought it was pretty funny too.

Anyway, so yeah, back to the dream. In the morning I woke up and looked out the window and noticed how spooky the tree outside of my window was. Over the course of the day, I watched the snow melt around it and leave a mass of wet black soil. It was as if everything around the tree had gone up in flames and burnt to a crisp, yet somehow this tree was the sole survivor of the blaze. It was as if it was saying… in death, there is life, in the end is a new beginning, we can always return to the source of life. It was a very beautiful moment of clarity for me. Yes, this book (or should I say these books) are ending, but new ones are beginning.

It’s different now than it was before. This time, I have a plan. I have knowledge and experience. I learned from the many mistakes I made. I’m no longer nursing the wounds of broken hearts past, or tempted by the lies of dangerous men, or vulnerable to getting sucked into the drama this town inevitably creates. I’ve failed. I’ve been rejected. But I’ve also took classes, attended workshops and conferences, networked with other writers, subscribed to writing magazines, joined organizations for professional writers, and basically got out and Did The Thing. And I’m gonna keep doing The Thing. That’s all there is to do. I’ve got plans, I’ve got outlines, I’ve got pages on pages on pages. I’m also in a WAY better situation than I was before. I have a good job, cheap rent, a nice apartment, a fabulous wardrobe, a loving cat, and my brother by my side, supporting me every step of the way. It’s not the worst thing. I could be homeless on the street, ya know. I think about that every single day. It’s not going to happen to me. I’m not going to live in a tent camp. I am going to live my life and make my dreams come true.

So yes, here we are in the middle of my stream of consciousness. Fascinating, isn’t it? Who knew there was so much going on inside the mind of that weirdo single woman in her 30’s sitting alone in the corner, writing in her notebook. Who is she? Why is she here? Why doesn’t she have a man or a child or a friend to explain her presence in public? What is her deal?

Anyway, I’m off to stare into space and think about writing. Wish I was in DC right now, ordering weed from the Purple Penthouse with the same ease as ordering a pizza for delivery. Alas. *Deep, Heavy Sigh*

I miss DC sometimes. I really do. I was so ready to move back there. I had all my money saved up. Then, my dad died. And now… now I’m stuck here for another year. Oh well. It’s not the worst thing. After all, I’m only paying $375 a month in rent. Really! I know, living here sucks, but you can’t even get an apartment that cheap in Mexico anymore! Wild!

Anyway, yeah, I have no idea where I’m going to go now. Safari across Africa? Carnaval in Brazil? Sailing across the Mediterranean in search of ruins from ancient civilizations? University in the south of France? Paris? London? New York, New York? A yoga retreat in Bali? Who knows, who knows? Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Maybe sunshine or maybe rain. But as for me, I’ll wait and see. And maybe it’ll bring my love to me…

Sorry, that’s the wine talking. Guess it’s time to go.

The End.

—–

*Purple Penthouse is in compliance with DC Initiative 71 and DC Initiative 81. They DO NOT sell any cannabis, mushroom, or psychedelic products on their website. Instead, they sell a physical tarot card that comes with free gifted cannabis or magic mushroom. Yes, this disclaimer is 100% real and copied directly from their website.