xoxoANP!

I’ve never been very good at hanging out, but, perhaps driven by the fact that I could only muster enough energy to simply hang out these past few days, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Just chilling. Ribs at Ramsey’s, a vegan “BBQ” in Brooklyn, and college 2.0 at 275. And if you think the world is a relaxed, peaceful, loving place, it returns to you the same energy!

It used to be that while hanging out a throe of internal energies would prevent me from being fully present and relaxed in the situation. “You should be doing something more productive; leave!” or “They don’t really want you here; leave!” I assaulted myself with these torments and, unless stoned or incredibly drunk, was neurotic to be with and unable to enjoy a social situation unless I was up to something: spilling beer on someone’s head, chasing down jerks who’d stolen the tap, or otherwise speaking loudly enough for all attention to be directed towards me. A calm, peaceful relaxed ANP n’existe pas.

Schmoozing in business settings? That’s okay; that’s goal-oriented relaxing and I’ve always been a striver. Hell, I started a national not-for-profit women’s networking organization in order to give myself permission to go out to dinner with my girlfriends on a regular basis. Chilling for the sake of chilling? Even while in Aruba I plowed through a stack of magazines nearly two feet tall rather than simply lying on a beach. Must! Produce!

(Is this why, from 2000 – 2006, almost everyone I dated was someone that I met online? Efficiency? Inability to hang out and meet people organically?)

My senior year in college I lived in an off-campus apartment that for years had been the de facto home of the B&K society, a faux secret society winked at in the yearbook by members listing their extra-curriculars as The Society of Benevolence and Knowledge. Really B&K stood for bong and keg, and the originations seem to have gone something like this:

1. A couple of dudes get into the habit of smoking pot and drinking beer on Thursday nights
2. A recent Yale grad, in search of the best college parties in America for an article he’s writing for Rolling Stone, decides to feature his buddies
3. Ever the overachievers, the boys snap to it and in the face of national press, step up their game
4. The Bong & Keg Society is born, and suddenly, real kegs and additional bongs are purchased

So my senior year I lived in the unofficial Bong & Keg house (although another apartment on the aptly named High Street arguably held co-house status at that point). This alleviated some of my social anxiety, as I never had to worry about people not wanting me there or having better things to do. It was my fucking house, after all. (Maybe this is why I still love to host parties.)

I was equally calm and happy when my friends would hang out at my first apartment out of college, up in Westchester. I would sit by the kitchen window while four guys huddled around my kitchen table, drinking beer and smoking pot and snorting Ritalin over a game of Axis and Allies until the wee hours of the morning.

It was my fucking house, after all.

So this week I have been down for the count with mono or the beginnings of chronic fatigue syndrome or I-don’t-know-what. I don’t know what but I, usually an energetic bundle of activity and internal monologues, have been captured by a net of lethargy and swollen glands and attention deficit disorder. It felt like – feels like – being captured in a parachute. But it’s not all of me that’s swooped up – if you saw me, you might not realize what’s going on – it’s the part of me just below the skin. If I were an inflatable doll than the parachute of sleep has suffocated my air.

So the effect of being nabbed by this thing is that I feel hunkered down into a grappler stance or an amateur defense position. Ready at shortstop. Knees bent, on the balls of my feet, back angled forward. Which makes sense – that it’s a defensive posture – because while initiating any level of proactive pay-attention-to-me-at-a-party shenanigans are impossible, I can retort, wittily, to the antics of others.

Which brings me to the issue of just chilling. Inner monologue quieted by therapy, meditation, and fatigue — (Was my afternoon at Matt and Mai’s apartment, a sea of greenery and NPR, the eye-opener? What role did sitting at the Village Zendo play?); arm movements halted by my lack of energy to lift them: my greatest accomplishment over the past few days has been to behave like a normal human being for once. Sit quietly, smile, laugh at other people’s jokes, and otherwise just chill. In this newly tranquil state, with facial expression wan and lids half-mast, I have discovered the joy of socializing for the sake of socializing. There is joy in being a citizen and not the mayor.

This is, of course, related to my impending move to Manhattan. “Human beings are social animals,” n-talked my high school boyfriend from the computer lab in his freshman dorm, to explain why he was dumping me for a fellow freshman at his college.

Brooklyn, my home since the owner of my Port Chester apartment passed away three years ago, has been fabulous. When I worked in Queens, Brooklyn was the ultimate backdrop for a car-pleasant existence. The BQE, alternate side street parking, my little Jetta and I had a beautiful relationship.

But now the streets of Brooklyn, once pure, have been tainted with the sour hue of failed relationships. The Park Slope photographer, the Park Slope film director, the unemployed guy in Greenpoint, the social worker in Prospect Heights: fits and starts, the engine stalls, fifth gear is never reached.

I’m a high octane woman. I can do better than this.

From Red Hook to Greenpoint, Sheepshead Bay to Billyburg: Brooklyn is dead to me.

So naturally I’m setting my eyes on Manhattan, with relatively unspoi – that’s lingua Momma for unspoiled – streets and men who can handle six speeds.

But more importantly, living in Manhattan is the achievement of a vision. Achieve!

When I was 25 and living in the ‘burbs, I asked my then-boyfriend to draw a picture of where he saw himself in five years. Picket fence, car, two story home, and two kids. My picture? Woman in a cocktail dress and heels drinking wine and standing on the balcony of her presumably high-rise building. (We should have parted ways then.) Now, I am finally at the place, psychologically and financially, where I can make this vision reality (minus, perhaps, the balcony).

So I am on my way to The Big City. Selling the car and packing the bags and making it happen. Which will put me in a new center of socializing and chilling, closer to my friends Rachel and Jamie and Aleeece (for now, at least!) and others. Despite all the activity around me, the move will likely make me even calmer and more relaxed. Because in a couple of months, when asked about Manhattan I’ll be able to say:

It’s my fucking house, after all.