Written on a pillar in an NYU classroom at 194 Mercer street:

1. PKE...are weenies
2. Ruben St. Awesome was here
3. Listen to Neil Young....he knows
4. Where can I go to get away from these ghosts inside my head?

All seemingly written at different times and by disparate pens...all having stuck out in my mind, bugging me until I wrote them, list like in my journal, and acknowledged them as a funny and oddly poignant combination.

The Cheese Stands Alone.

I’m sitting in Bobst, around 6pm on a rainy Monday afternoon, reading about Keith Harring and waiting for a friend. I’ve lucked out, landing myself a spot in one of those big blueish grey armchairs with a bonus round end table for a footrest.

I’ve barely noticed the girl sitting next to me, not until her seat is approached from behind and a big pair of hands clamps down upon her shoulders. It’s her boyfriend.

He asks how she is, about her exam and whether she’d been napping or reading before he arrived. In a moment, and quite surprisingly, I felt myself a little drained, deflated by their affection and my solitary spot beside it. Most times I think I am not the girlfriend type, particularly because, thus far, those who wanted to match me were not the men I hoped would try.

So maybe the right fit just hasn’t come along yet, or maybe he never will. Maybe it’s all just as much of an illusion as I’ve worked to convince myself it is. I’ve never played pessimistic for long in my life, but I’m feeling it now. Or just hopeless maybe.

My old flames have now all settled comfortably into facebook photographs of them with their significant other, while I, the cheese, still stand alone, with a foot on each side of the great optimism/pessimism divide.

This weather reminds my heart of so much. Like getting off the bus in Walpole at four o clock on a November afternoon, rushing into barn chores until 6:30 before getting gas for the black Volvo at the Texaco in Bellows Falls and picking up Chinese take out from Joy Wah on the hilltop. Heading home, smelling like horse, Dad in the drivers seat and darkness closing in over the valley. Rolling uphill, a long ascent to the big house on valley road, zipping fast around the road’s curves, the smell of Chinese food wafting from behind the passenger seat.

I wish I could remember arriving home but my memory stops on March Hill road, right at the dip in the asphalt where we speed up and for a moment, my breath catches in what dad calls a “thank you m’am”
After that, the screen goes blank, and like a poorly spliced reel of film, my memory skips ahead, passing over years, denying me the scenes of my mother in the kitchen, unpacking a paper bag of Chinese food as I know she must have done.