you say good-bye, I say hello.

Not only did I just wake up, but someone is tapping on my window. I walk out of my room in a haze, stumble through the living room and walk outside in my pajamas. I should be awake, it's sometime in the afternoon. But I have a high fever which I've been sleeping off, I've been dreaming so deeply for so many hours that it will take a few minutes before I realize where I am or can process the information in front of me. When I open the door a dude my age is standing there, he is tall with shaggy hair. I want to ask him if he's come here to be wed, maybe this is the arranged marriage that I long for. He will come in, put a ring on my finger. It will be in exchange of my fathers 4 best goats, or I guess since my father has no goats, I will force him to offer up his four best kung-fu students. They will protect this shaggy haired man wherever he goes, they will guard his neck if he ever attempts to use a razor and walk two behind and two in front of him when we go to find the land to build our dream home in...I don't know, East New York?

"The woman upstairs is yelling for you..."

"What?" my eyes are barely open and of course this asshole has to ruin my fantasy (in the way that tall men always do) by speaking

He points up with his fingers.

"She says she has three rules for you...."

"What???"

And when I turn my head, I see that the woman upstairs is in fact yelling for me. She is hanging her eighty-six year old body outside of the window 

"DANIELA!" Where have you been I've been calling your name?" by this time my fiance has fled the front porch, I am left alone with my building. 

;"I was sleeping...I'm not feeling so...is everything alright?"

"I have three rules for you."

I must look like a mess. I want a really good sandwich, I want to collapse on the pavement. I am listening to what the three rules will be.

"Number One! When are you and Kiley home? When are you girls ever home? What days are you home? What times? I've been knocking all morning."

"Oh well..we both do a lot of writing from home...we are home a lot...school is over for now and I don't really have a set schedule or anything."

 A woman who is wearing a mu-mu walks by and says "Hey Angie!" to which Angie just nods her head, like a queen or maybe a police officer

"Number Two! You have to put your name on the mailbox! Did you get that package I put downstairs? It was waiting for you for two days! Two days and no one came for it!" 

The funny thing is, I did get the package, and it's a good thing she did not open it because it was 4 porn dvds I was sent to review. Something about a Dominatrix and Double Penetration Paradise. I really do have to remember to put my name on the mail box. Honestly, I should get a P.O Box but I know that I wouldn't check it. I can say that I would but when it came down to it, I would never walk ten blocks for my mail, I barely walk next door for my mail as it is. Even if I was walking by the post office, I probably would not stop there. This is the kind of laziness that I have built into me, the kind that really seems to have no pattern and make no sense. I rarely transfer trains because I would prefer to walk then wait in the station, but if it comes down to me having to walk to a P.O Box I know it's just not going to happen.

"Oh yeah. I will put our names on the mail box right away."

"Number three! Why don't you ever come and visit me?"

Shit. You see, we try and go visit. We sit with the Romanian woman that is there to take care of Angie. She tells me, pulling me in closely by the arm "We have a lot of Danielas in my country," and I like this. I like a woman who uses this as an opening sentence. But this whole scenario is really turning up my Catholic guilt. I like- have always liked- hanging out with old women. From the time that I was four years old I have loved to set up camp on a front porch or in a back yard and here half a dozen decades worth of stories. I love it. But just like the mail, here is the problem. I become commited to people, whether they are men that tap on the window or relatives that I phone overseas, I become commited to them, I offer them up large parts of myself and then without warning or notice, something will happen, and I will withdrawl. And these relationships are so sensitive, so delicate, it's so easy to disappoint. I have lived here for two and a half weeks, and already, it's so easy to dissapoint.

Angie shuts the windows, I run inside to gather tape and notebook paper. I write my name and then my roommate's onto the middle mail box &then I rush back inside, climb into bed. I keep downing mugs of thera-flu and different people come over. 

Our futon arrives from Target, my roommate assembles it so I can camp out in the living room and watch television. I try and write up a review of a show I went to Sunday night, to no avail. I watch Oprah so I can hear about a polygamy cult (I end up defending polygamy to the television the whole time) and then I putt on CNN. Jackson Davis accused me of watching CNN the other night as we chatted. He favors MSNBC, he explains to me that you can always tell where a person gets their news, and it's true. I watch so much CNN that I quote it without realizing it. I probably talk to you with my hands, not knowing that my own fingers are plagarizing the hand motions of John King. All I need is a large map of the United States and with the wave of a finger I will make states turn different shades of blue. 

I scoot closer toward the TV because John Edwards has endorsed Barack Obama. I get particuarly giddy about this. I know everyone is sick of hearing all of this, but I'm sucked in. I'm hooked. Different visitors come over through out the day, they ask if I've been eating , if I've been drinking enough water and what I really want to say is "shut the fuck up shut the fuck up shut the fuck up," instead I offer them cups of thera-flu or try and start an argument. I am bored with a fever. I want someone to take my pants off and have a good debate! Instead everyone half heartedly insults Hillary Clinton (whom I defend) and besides, I didn't even bother putting on pants today.

Later in the evening we all watch America's Next Top Model. The ladies have come over and we are all scattered across the floor, slathering lotions on to our legs, I am recommending vitamins. We all want Whitney, the plus-sized model to win. In reality, she doesn't seem very plus-sized at all, but I guess that's modeling. Regardless, we all want her to win, and she does. In my fever haze I am happy about it. The little things, like reality television, probably don't mean as much as I feel like they do at the time, but I enjoy in this moment. It feels good to sit among friends and watch these girls cry, better then it would feel to watch commentary about  how offensive Barack Obama can be as he as reffered to two women as "sweetie" during his campaign.

But he can call me "sweetie" any time. Him or the man at the door, in exchange for all of my father's farms, all the tea in China and we'll fly on some hot air balloon, watching the states change different shades of blue &always forgetting to check the mail.