Near-Death
November 16, 2002
Tonight I went out with my friend Stephen and a few other people. One girl we were with is an agent for supermodels. She hates her job. Another girl was a British lush. After dinner, we went to an annoying bar/club where sad beautiful people were dancing and drinking. I flirted with the British girl while the agent girl yelled over the music into my bad ear about how unfulfilled she was. We left at about 1:30 AM and a guy who was with us said to the drunken English girl, "It's early for you to be walking like that." She said that she’d had an early start.
"Yeah,” he said. “I was trying to catch up with you, but I ran out of money.”
I shared a cab east with the Brit. I was going to take it to Williamsburg, but I didn't think I had enough money. So I got out when she did and walked the extra 14 blocks to the subway.
Raymi was visiting, but she’s gone. She was gone before she left, but now she is gone, gone. She took so many baths in my leaky bathtub that my ceiling nearly caved in. Who cares? They’re selling the building, and I imagine whoever buys it will gut it, anyway. When I was driving Raymi to the airport, we nearly had an accident on a bridge. I saw the whole thing coming and didn't feel a thing—no panic—just resolve. I thought, "Here it comes.” But it never did. We narrowly escaped death by a matter of centimeters, and after a few seconds, I turned to Raymi, who up until that point hadn't said a word or shown any signs of panic either, and said, "That was close". And then we laughed.