like louis' in the bronx

at last.

you'd think after all this angst the past couple weeks and maybe even, safe to say, months? the fact that today is finally today would be almost boring, a trifle, something maybe worth mentioning but definitely not more deserving of time above touched on. you'd think.

but it's more of the feeling that comes the day before the big exam i'm worrying my brains out over. those exams, while we're here, have been, in order: civil procedure i and ii, family law, and corporations. i predict, with my sneaky little brain and power of telling the future (just like a recent verdict: i was right then too), the next and final two will be wills and remedies. but hey, who's asking?

you will know our velocity. it's that same feeling, is what i mean. nervousness that begins to just be acidic, and grating, and a restlessness that can get me tossing and turning and wishing my heart wasn't beating so fast. so then i get up. and go to the computer, i mean this computer right here, and i talk talk talk. and not one word of it goes well, really. you know those times? when the magic power of the internet gets weak all of a sudden, and you're ruined and spelling everything wrong? i hope you do. and if you don't, watch out. it will happen. and then you will know all too well. or lack of it, as it were.

the other way i feel is like right before i have to go in for surgery. have you had surgery? then help me out here and fill in the details i miss. you know, when you're in the bed and they're wheeling you into the operating room, and it's so fucking cold number one because it's like ice in those rooms and number two and probably most important, they're pumping saline through your veins and you can feel the ice going up your arm and into your chest and down the other arm. i don't feel the cold like that, but i do have the shakes, just like you get after it gets so cold. but only because you're so nervous, you know. it's time, and you know it's time, and your body knows it's time, so then you all get ready for it. and they ask you to get on the operating table yourself, which is fine, except it feels a little funny and you have that split-second thought: why am i having surgery if i can climb onto a bed? and then they're all very nice to you and the nurse comes and then the anesthesia needle goes in and that shit burns like fucking hell, all the way up, and they always ask does it hurt? and you say, yes it hurts like fu....but the mask's on already and you, sucka, are down for the count.

the point of all that was: nervous. that feeling, and that particular nervous-feeling, too. along with the before-exam ulcer. those two combined. and a late coffee. two-shot coffee, i mean. those things and i'm nervous. nervous and anxious and worried.

you see, i'm nervous because tomorrow ends a year of having a very safe and very comfortable place and person, who i owe nothing to, for talking to and confiding in and crying in front of. a person that i didn't have to worry a single minute about offending, or tiring, or taking care of. and there was no having to worry if i was belaboring a point, or not being fun enough, or sounding stupid and childish and whiny. and there was no having to make it up later, you know, and no having to feel guilty because i talked too much, and no having to cheer up or calm down or chill out. none of any of that. and not even a single problem with doubting, either. doubting that i was being heard, or i was still respected, and still cared about, and still important and not less than i was before. none of the stock insecurities that come along for the ride.

so i'm nervous about that because, well, it's over then. and i start again, or rather, continue on, and of course in a new direction and towards the next thing, but i am worried i have ruined everything somehow between everything and everyone else in the meantime. worrying about this. worried because i was worrying. that sounds an awful lot like me, now doesn't it? yes, sure.

i appreciate thoughts. and prayers, if you pray. and remembrances, especially with a smile. that would be nice. and a comfort, tomorrow, when tomorrow is really and finally here and not just the early hours of what will become today. and i will make you a promise that i will believe you above all the stock insecurities.

and you know, afterwards i see it just like that scene in the godfather, just like louis' italian-american restaurant in the bronx. michael goes there to meet with the chief of police and a don, really to kill them and thus destroying almost the whole framework of mafia family in new york city, and he takes the gun taped to the toilet in the men's room and comes out and shoots them both. and afterwards, after that huge moment that changes michael forever, michael gets shipped off to italy, alone, and the rest of them hole up in a one-room apartment, waiting it out, while clemenza cooks pot after pot of pasta. waiting it out, really. that's all i had to say, and skip the rest.