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About last night 

I couldn't sleep again last night. After coming back from the walk and going to bed I was just so tired. My body collapsed into the mattress but my brain would not stop working. I thought about the new bike and about the beautiful walk and about a friend that I haven't seen in a while and who's coming over to have brunch. At some point it felt, at times, as if my body drifted into sleep while my mind was left switched on. I looked at the watch, it was 4:00, then 5:00, then 6:00. I got more worried about not waking up tomorrow for when she comes in. Eventually, at about 7:00 I got up to take a piss and have a large drink of water from the bathroom tap and finally, as the sun was coming up, I fall asleep.

Family dispute

At around 11:00 I barely opened my eyes, the alarm clock rang, but that wasn't what woke me up, something else was ringing, it took me a couple of seconds to understand that it's his phone. I was all sleepy and somehow pushed him out of bed to go check who it was. By the time he got out of bed, the phone stopped ringing. He checked the massages, I could here a voice  talking in distress from the other side, through the haze of sleepiness, but I couldn't hear the words, or recognize the voice.

He punched the buttons to dial the numbers. "Ho no" I heard him say "Ho no" and then "Where are you now? do you want me to come over". I thought something happened to his dad, that he's in the hospital or something, but then, after putting down the phone and starting to get dressed, he was telling me how this guy we know from the restaurant we eat in almost every day had a big fight with his partner and ex girlfriend and how she threatened to close the restaurant and to get him arrested. We walked there. It was so sad, the place that just got opened was closing down, in the back the kitchen workers were wrapping all the food up and he was sitting in the bar, talking on the phone and trying to see what he can do.

Then he picked up his 2 laundry bags and a couple of other things and walked outside with us. He was talking really fast, apologizing and explaining and almost crying. He's going through so much shit right now with the break up and with his step dad being in the hospital. He's such a big guy and it was sad to see him so lost, like a kid. Just walking fast and talking fast and jumping from one topic to the other cause his mind was racing in a million direction. I thought about my break up, over 2 years ago and how back then, with my sister trying to kill herself and all that, and how I felt like in s course of one month everything that made sense in life just vanished, just taken away from me, with no good reason.

The friend that was supposed to come for brunch came. One of her biggest goals in life was just achieved, and it was so strange sitting in a room wanting to be happy for her and at the same time being so sad for this guy. We were all talking. It was a harsh moment of just realizing how I can never know what's going to happened for bad or for good - life is just unpredictable and strange.

As this guy told his story, about how things between him and his girlfriend was going bad for ages, how she destroyed paperwork that proved he was a partner in the restaurant. How she locked him out of the apartment and he can't even get his stuff out of there now cause she threat to call police and tell them he beat her up. A part of me wanted to lecture him, to say "It's never a good idea to go into business with your lover" and "It's a really bad idea to be financially dependent on the person you are with" but as I thought about it, I realized that it's a part of what I'm doing now, so I was just quite, I didn't say much. I didn't know what to say.

He left, eventually. He went to a hotel, to get some sleep and think about what he's going to do afterwards. Ned gave him some money, and we were both so tired, we just went to bed.

Family dispute II

We woke up 3 hours later and the phone was ringing again. Ned picked it up, I was still asleep, I head his voice as if from underwater, every break in conversation felt like years and years of sleeping. He finished the conversation and came back to bed, I was still shaking the remains of sleep from my eyes and mind.

He told me about the phone call, it was from the guy's ex girlfriend, she was being all sweet and considerate, calling to tell us that she noticed he was calling us and that he's actually a cocaine addict and not to give him any money if he asks.

We were both confused. It was hard not to take sides, or rather, it was hard not to try and play detective and just see 2 people in pain. It was hard not to feel foolish for giving him money. It was hard to not see one of them as devil and one as angle.

I don't know what to believe. It's such a hard situation. I think they both lie to a degree, but I can't decide who and how much. I'm scared to feel like I was played for a fool, by both of them, and it's also hard to feel how the accusation she made, effected me, how even though I didn't want my confident in this guy to shutter, it has, in some point. I thought about boundaries and about how important it is to have them. About how, though it feels like the most obvious thing in the world, it's sometime almost impossible to say where one person end and another begin.

The World Fastest Indian

Not wanting to do anything and feeling tired and nervous. We watched that movie, it's about this old man who goes on a life's dream to America to be in some bike race. One of the things that was really strange about this movies was how it didn't have any bad characters in it. there were no bad guys. Every person this man met in his journey, from the cashier in the motel in LA, to policemen to the other bikers to a bunch of stranger in a roadside bar were nice and helpful and interested in this man and his story. At first I found that really disturbing. I kept expecting something horrible to happen, like that the bike would get stolen or that the guy would die or something.

Then I thought how beautiful it is, and how much more realistic it is to see a person fight his own limitation, his own fight to live out his dream, then to watch him battle other people. How almost any big struggle I had with my life was with myself, getting my emotions to not overcome me with fear and despair and depression, Getting my body to do what I want it to do. How when I'm whole with myself, the rest of the battles are easy, and how when I'm not, everything becomes a struggle, even putting my shoes on or making a phone call.

A Nightly Adventure

It was really cold outside when we finally got out, and late, maybe midnight, maybe later. but we wanted to try the new bike all day and between the brunch and the crisis and the sleep, and dinner with a friend who also got a bike and the movie, it got pushed to the end of the day. But we did it anyway. It was colder then I thought it would be and standing under the building buckling the helmet and putting on the gloves I half wanted to just go back inside and give up on it. But I didn't and we went.

The little park next to the water, the same one I was in the night before, looked totally different. The water was moving faster and the air felt charged, there were a lot of people walking around, parking their cars and heading to some club, a lot of big cars and loud party people. We stood by the water, wanting to capture that quietness, but eventually giving up and going back on the bike.

When I write about riding, it's so hard to write "I" every thing is "we" or "us" he sits in the front, stirring and I sit in the back but we are one unit, we move together with the motion of the bike. I don't make choices, half the times I'm not even sure where are we heading, the road is unpredictable for me, I can't even react or talk. I just sit, and let him lead me. It is one of the moments in which I feel the togetherness of us more then any other time. It's one of the moments when over the sounds of the road and wind and the protection of the helmets we can't even talk or hear. But our body touches and there's trust that's beyond words, that is instinctive and physical and primal.

We go on the williamsburg bridge and we turn in those small streets that always makes me loose my sense of direction, and there are people everywhere, going out, and looking for a parking space or a taxi or going into bars. And we are surrounded by the city, it's around us, we hear it and feel it and taste it with it's bright lights and fake smiles and shine, but we are not a part of it. The bike that keep us together also make us apart of all that. We are not there to go into a bar, we are there to ride.

But eventually as we circle Manhattan, and pass the piers and the business district, past ground zero and then up again, on the other side, with the beautiful view of the water and New Jersey, and we reach the meat packing district where there are more shiny lights and fake smiles then anywhere else, and everything looks like a movie scene. We stop the bike and go into Florant, his favorite restaurant in the area and we warm up and eat some soup. all around us people on dates or on their ways to clubs, dressed in suits and strapless, high heels and jackets and I feel scrappy in a t-shirt and jeans and motorcycle boots. But the kind of scrappiness I can be proud of, like I'm not a part of that going out of Saturday scene. And we eat and head back, but as the ride goes on I get tired and I can't wait till I'm home and in bed and asleep again.