The Alone Life

I'm a little torn between self-pity and self-analyis, with a little bit of spiritual crisis thrown in.

Yesterday in the blazing New York heat, I took a D train to Coney Island.
When I was wee, an elementary school teacher picked me up at my home and took me to Coney Island once. I don't know why. In my mind, she was reaching out to a troubled youth, going beyond her duties as a school teacher--the kind of model that today's PSA TV spots from the Teaching Fellows are all about. I look back on that day and I realize that I was a mess as a kid, but that's not the first time I've come to that realization.

Anyway, she had an orange Volkswagen, and I lived in Spring Valley NY, so she drove from her home on the Rockland Co. border to pick me up, then drove with me to Coney Island (and the NY Aquarium), and took me back home. Perhaps she was trying to insure my behavior in her class later on that week? Possibly.

Anyway, Coney Island held a good memory for me, so I went, despite the heat. The amusement park itself is a lot smaller than I remembered it! But of course, I was smaller then. I recognized the rides though, that I'd ridden when I was smaller. That is, when I'd gone there with my mother, not my teacher. With my teacher we didn't go on any rides. Just the beach and the aquarium. She was a tall white lady in her twenties, I think. She had long black hair like a hippie. I know her name, but I'll reserve that for my own private websearch, which I hadn't thought of doing until yesterday. She made a good impression, in other words. And now here I am, trying to do something similar with these at-risk youth, who still manage to duck out on me week after week. (Good thing I'm almost done with the NY license procedure. This NJ stuff is not what careers are based on. God bless all the independent contractors of the world. I need a job with bennies and an HR department).

ANYWAY. I was alone yesterday. I think I was lonely too, but I wasn't sad. I was just me. Used to it. Isolation on a boardwalk full of people. I was even in a wooden gazebo with three other people, two young homies scoping out the hotties and a man who looked about my age, all of us black, and none of us speaking to each other. For, like, an hour! (Or at least, long enough for me to eat my Nathan's hot dog and fries, and then watch the breakdancers celebrating Michael Jackson's acquittal by blasting his 'Don't Stop Till You Get Enough'). I didn't like their performances.

When one of the two homies made his babe connection and they commenced to sitting nearby in various clenched positions, I began to contemplate me again. I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life really?

There's so much I like about being alone. It's selfishness, no doubt. No added responsibilities of having to maintain another person's (except my cat) happiness through my actions or inactions. All my plans are all my own. No negotiations on what to do with my time, except for what will bring money into my pocket.

So antisocial.

Hence, eHarmony. I've filled out a profile there, and I need to upload a picture and pay for a month and I'm going to see what happens. Those commercials and Natalie Cole singing 'This Will Be' roped me in with all its' cheesy, dopey goodness. Financially, I've got enough to sacrifice on this pursuit since I have a new landlord, and thus a new lease on irresponsibility. Plus with all these no-shows with the kids, I really am not getting financially better, and prolly will stay in peril until my NY license can plug me into a social workers' job here in the city. (And won't that be fine?) This I will explain to my new landlord this Friday, when I make my second but insufficient payment. No, I'll leave out the part where I'm going to spend money on eHarmony and on dates instead of giving it to him.

Don't think I won't be back here reporting the scoop!

Me at 6/15/2005 10:13:00 AM

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