Scarves

I lost two scarves this winter, but I found one of them last week. I had apparently left it at Alia’s house, and so of course I immediately lashed out and accused her of deliberately stealing it from me. She hadn’t, but you must admit it’s odd for someone to find some article of clothing of their friend’s at their house, but not let the friend know. I had to come upon it by accident in her living room, for chrissakes.

I find it a little bit odd to lose things like scarves. Since leaving New York and moving first to Los Angeles and then to Nashville, I have lost many items—wallets, iPhones, keys, hats, scarves. I suppose I left them in bars or in cabs, and probably when I was more than a little drunk—it takes some effort to leave behind a scarf when it’s cold, or an iPhone when one is usually glued to one’s iPhone. Only once in my life—and this was way before I moved—have I suspected that a scarf had been actually stolen from me, and I don’t remember why I suspected that. I think it may have been because it was in my apartment before a random trick came over, and then after that, I couldn’t find it. It was beautiful—red and blue and white, and I vividly remember getting it at the Warehouse Sale and putting it on my desk at work at Harcourt, where Andrea saw it and complimented me on it, and I blushed and said, “tee-hee!” because of my odd crush on her. Now it’s gone. I still feel the loss of that scarf.

I still feel the loss of Harcourt, too. That was my favorite job ever, with my craziest boss ever, Jennifer. When I first started working for her, in 2005, I was trying a new persona on: Normal Gregory—newly and secretly sober from alcohol and trying to fit in in an office setting, instead of not fitting in—at Sotheby’s, Lehman Brothers, Worm Capital, Capital Z, and MultiPlan, for example—where I was the weird secretary who just didn’t know his place. Jennifer seemed unsatisfied with Normal Gregory, or perhaps she saw through him, because she coaxed Crazy Gregory (Normal Gregory) out of his hiding place—nay, demanded his presence—until finally it was Crazy Gregory working there in all his glory, and not at all the Gregory I had intended to be.

I got a cat around this time. His name was the Colonel, and it took him a looooong time to get used to me. I used to walk the three blocks from my apartment to Harcourt trying to hold my head up high, my hands bloodied from scratches from the Colonel. All I wanted was to pet that cat, but clearly the Colonel felt that that wasn’t meant to be. When Jennifer found out I had a cat, she immediately found it necessary to disparage all cats—cats everywhere!—as disgusting creatures, which confused me. Then she revealed that she was allergic to cats, which I guess sort of excuses it. I was quick to inform her that I, too, was allergic to cats, and that when I first got the Colonel, it was as though I had put on a scarf made of flames!

How did I do it back then? Be sober, I mean. I was sober all throughout my time at Harcourt, then all throughout my time at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, after the merger, and then well into my tenure at HarperCollins. I had been sober for six years when I finally drank again. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my sobriety then coincided with a gradual uptick in a grand, white-hot rage inside me that got fiercer and hotter the longer I remained sober. I would go to my AA meetings and share and help people and tell my story at detoxes and prisons—but all the while I was seething inside, without even knowing it. I didn’t know how to identify the feeling of anger, and finally the great, unseen anger within me turned inward, and became a depression unlike anything I’d experienced up until then. I had a crazy thought, then—I don’t know how to recover from this depression, but I know how to recover from alcoholism. So I drank. But then the depression changed shape again, and went to the complete opposite end of some sort of spectrum within me, becoming a horrible panic of a high that I experienced as a furnace-like heat within my chest, all the time. I was vibrating with a fight-or-flight terror for weeks, and then I went to a psychiatrist. She gave me a word for what I was feeling—bipolar disorder—and then at least I could search with her for the medication or medications that would give me some relief from it. (And I’ve since come to the conclusion that I’m bipolar in the same way that most people are bipolar).

Many people know that I just got sober again. Although I’m not feeling angry right now, I know that I must carefully monitor my feelings and become alert to any hint of the anger I felt before. I know what it feels like now. I know, it probably would surprise my friends to know how angry I can become. When I am Angry Gregory, I get banned for life from things—as I now am banned for life from Uber, from Hertz car rental, from the Beverly Center. If I allow my anger to take over my life, I might drink again, and I mustn’t drink. I simply mustn’t. Tonight, when I get in my little car and motor down West End Avenue at night with the window open, freezing and smoking cigarettes, the Oxcarbazepine I take twice a day courses through my bloodstream like an electrical hum, steadies my breathing, and protects me from my environment, and my environment from me. Scarves do that too.

PACO!!!

On the second day that Alia granted me access to her on her visit to NYC, I went to meet her and Paco in Brooklyn for brunch. I haven't seen Paco since she dared to challenge me to a sing-off during my birthday karaoke party two years ago, and I demolished her with a cover of Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." Paco, still embittered, spent the entire day trying to make me uncomfortable with excessive body contact, kissing, putting her face thisclose to mine during casual conversation, etc. Little does Paco know, I was not made to feel uncomfortable, though as the day stretched out I began to become a little confused why she wasn't getting tired of her own joke. That said, both Alia and I have an alarming fondness for our own senses of humor, and sometimes our running jokes go on for years, so I guess I can relate. Alia's been doing farting noises when I walk since high school, cracking herself up as though each time she does it is the first time. I've been saying "pound THIS" and "collate THIS" since 1995, when Rebekah from MultiPlan first hipped me to that jive.

I wonder where Rebekah is today? She is one of the few people in my life to have dropped me as a friend because of my sense of humor. She had explained to me her paranoia that she had been secretly filmed for the Michael Moore documentary "Sicko" (she was a drug rep when I knew her). She was so worried that she would be featured in that movie. So, to make fun of her and try to bring her to her senses (because I was worried for her sanity), I kept joking that I would visit her soon, unless she was attending the gala premiere of "her movie." I called her and left messages for her twice after that, but she didn't return my calls, and I got the message and never called again. I feel that when people stop speaking to you, it's the least you can do to respect them and go along with it. I also feel that sometimes people who call themselves "neurotic" should actually just tell the truth and call themselves "egomaniacs."

Last year I stopped speaking with two friends of mine. Both were sober, and I think that in both cases, I was consciously trying to take a step away from that insane sober world where no one shows up and I was always alone, or trying to talk to people with no interest in me at all. But also in both cases, they were sort of control freaks who wouldn't do anything with me unless it was their idea. I'm not the world's best friend, but I sometimes go along with group consensus. These were people who would just not show up unless the activity was their idea. Do you have friends like that? I don't anymore, but I do wish them well, and I do still love them, albeit from afar. It really sucks. :( (And I also think that Johnathan has left me for the gays.)

I told my therapist recently that I have a weird lack of curiosity about people's life stories. Sometimes I'll be talking with people at parties or meetings or such and they'll ask me about my family history. Usually I'll demur, because nothing could derail a party or meeting like Gregory detailing his family's history. But recently I told a couple of people my story--Caitlin Moran and Hanna Rosin. Hanna immediately told me that I had to read A Change of Climate by Hilary Mantel, which I actually already own, but hadn't read yet. (It's now next in my queue). I need to get more curious about other people, I think.

Still, conversations that I prefer to conversations about family and death and so forth are the kind of conversations I ALWAYS have with Alia and Paco. We keep it light, for the most part, and nonsensical. We mocked the host of the so-so restaurant we went to. I was chased, as always, by a bee. We played "you like that?" in Brooklyn, and they both got into it, even Alia, who usually chooses death as the unspoken fourth option in "marry, fuck or kill," rather than having to marry or fuck someone she deems substandard. (Most people). She'll kill willy-nilly, though. Over the course of the day, I got to know a little more about Paco, which was one of my main goals of the day. When I was saying goodbye, I grabbed her by the hips and pulled her close to me, to show her just how uncomfortable I was with her, but I wasn't sure what to do next. Then she spun me around and kissed me, as Alia snapped this pic. I made a funny face, as is my wont, but believe me, I was into it.

You wear THOSE, shoes, I decide

Seniors like me rarely get "tuned in" to the sounds of the young, since we go to bed too early and fear the radiation that seeps from computers. But from time to time over the past decade or so, some new bands have come to my attention. I adore the Noisettes, for example, and the Silversun Pickups, and Jean on Jean, and Joan as Police Woman, although I do think her second album sounded a little rushed. (Ah, well. Again, we've all been there, album). Perhaps the most unlikely band to incur my approval, though, is the local rock combo Interpol, whom I went to see last week at Radio City Music Hall.

Interpol first showed up on my radar when I was watching the video show "NewNowNext" on LOGO. The video for "The Heinrich Manuever" came on, and I was watching it in a theatrically neutral kind of way. I thought the visuals were sort of frightfully dull - a waiter is running, a lady gets hit by a bus (but the bus seems to only be going five miles an hour, so where's the harm in that?). But then the singer, a pinched-sounding young man who sings in a kind of over-earnest way, said to the lady he was singing the song to: "you wear those shoes, I decide."

I must say, I fell a little bit in love with Interpol with that line. Imagine - a straight man who tells his lady what shoes she must wear! How silly and vaguely threatening, simultaneously. Guiltily, I began collecting their music, although because I suspected that they actually were not really "cool," I got most of their records from the library. I sort of feel weird about supporting acts that are openly derivative of other bands (like Interpol and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) even when I enjoy their music. That's the hypocrite in me, I suppose. Anyway, I laughed my head off at Interpol's cds - the cocaine imagery, the veiled threats of violence, their little suits and stuff. But I rocked out a little bit to them, too. And I decided that I would go, in all my ruined glory, to see them live.

Sadly, I quickly learned that when an old person hears of a band, it's likely that the young people have heard of that band years ago, and when Interpol played that year, it was at Madison Square Garden. I refuse to go to such a large arena! I remember some fellow I used to chum around with when I worked at MultiPlan named Justin Cherno telling me that he liked Tracy Chapman, but that he wouldn't go see her live until her popularity inevitably waned, and she was reduced to playing at the Academy. (Of course, Tracy Chapman threw a monkey-wrench into that plan with that unstoppable blues jam she dropped a few years ago. And there isn't even an Academy anymore, alack).

Long story short, years passed, and Interpol finally toured again, and I snapped up one ticket to see them. This is a picture of them, but I took it with my crappy Blackberry, so it's inscrutable. I was afraid that I would be wading through hipsters at Radio City Music Hall, but it appears that the hipsters have moved on from Interpol. When a band is kewl, but their fans are no longer kewl, it seems to indicate that a break up is coming, so I am glad that I attended the Interpol show, as it may very well turn out to be their last. And whom have the hipsters moved on to? I'll let you know in approx. five years.