The wind whipped my hair, slathering it around my skull. I was standing alone outside my family’s church, looking up the hill to the grotto where the Mother Mary statue stood. We went to a Protestant community church, even though my parents were raised Catholic, and they raised me hair-shirt New Age. My pants rippled against the wind.

The “church” was a rec hall the congregation rented from a convent. We hired a visiting priest every week to give the sermon, and took turns bringing wine and bread for the sacrament. The convent was perched on the New Jersey cliffs overlooking New York City. For a while, Gwyneth Paltrow’s aunt went there.

It was after Service as I stared up the hill. Maybe I was eleven. Wind, dark clouds, the manicured humble grandeur of the grotto and its winding approach; it dripped dramatics.

I lived in my head, a verified space cadet, as my aunt put it. I’d wander around, head down, too scared to look the world in the eye, lost in stories I told myself of saving the day from incursions of Saturday morning cartoon villains invading the real world. I didn’t identify with kids who saw fantasy as an escape. It was fun! Just an interesting place. Why imagine what you already see when you could imagine anything? Why then, did I always imagine a fight?

I was a good boy. Very dutiful. Unwavering dogma at home; things would have to work out if I did everything I was told. “This is my son, of whom I am well pleased,” my mother would coo, reciting the Bible, God speaking of Jesus. Escape was for lesser minds. I was too mature, too knowing, too far down the rabbit hole.

Everything I did and thought and felt needed a definitive ending. A purpose. An answer. Leaving questions open felt like a cop out. No, a betrayal. I had divine expectations to live up to. It was my destiny, an inalienable fact. And yet, I could still fail at it. I was failing. The gap from what I was, to what I must be, was immense. Of course it was. How can that gap ever be closed?

Yet that day, it all fell into place. I had claimed my birthright. There was no one else around to tell me otherwise. I lifted my head, eyes raised, invigorated, a hero. I saw my path—mine! It was snaking up the hill, to the grotto. I knew every curve. I knew it. I would meet The Devil at the top. There would be a fight, of course, and I would win.

I’ve known Byrd and Valentina for over a decade. Byrd and I met doing improv in New York, before we both burnt out. I ended up returning several years later, but Byrd decided he’d had enough of that shit, and became a school teacher. Byrd was always an encyclopedia, and emotionally intelligent, so I can only imagine he’s an excellent teacher. He loves Long Island pop punk, goofy, well crafted jokes, The Knicks, and golf.

Valentina and I met when she and Byrd got together. She’s warm and bubbly, with strong opinions and a stronger belly laugh. She has a background in illustration, and now works trying to make people’s lives better as a UX designer. She loves cute things, tea, books, and silliness.

Byrd and Valentina are lovely people. They converted their second bedroom to an office and exercise room, where they also have a guest bed. I was got to take advantage of that bed several times.

They live in Astoria, the same neighborhood where Laurie and I used to live. We were there for seven years, before Laurie’s art school ambitions and COVID moved us out. We would see them a lot, and I needed to see them again in this new reality, to keep seeing them, to develop a new relationship with the place.

I’d wander the streets, seeing familiar shops, restaurants, street corners, parks, all soaked with my past life, someone else’s life. Putting into context all the memories. So much time. Was it always good? Always bad? Always both? Why didn’t I leave, even as the whole thing crashed. Just trying, trying, trying to pull the vengeance out of the ghosts around town.

There are three cats—Peter, Bernie, and Chantelle.

Peter is the oldest, a grumpy tabby. He is a dick. He howls and tries to fight the other cats, and slops around because, as Valentina sarcastically whines in his pretend voice, “my life is so haaaaaard”. He likes to be pet with wet hands.

Bernie is a large, sweet, shy black cat, who mostly spends his time hiding. He’s very affectionate when he feels safe, which, in my experience, ends up being about six minutes a day.

Chantelle is the youngest, the only girl, lithe, with an orange coat, and a born hunter. She has her own time zone, mostly ignoring the boys, and is not very bright. She has a blithe swagger that demands attention without seeking it. She’ll often be in the closet, not so much hiding, but lying in wait.

There’s a big cat puzzle in the middle of the living room. It’s this big, plastic spiral, with clear tubes wrapping around it. Treats are put in the top, and the cats have to bat them around the twisting tubes through periodic slots to get them down to the bottom and out through a dispenser.

Chantelle was very good at this game. Peter was okay. Bernie would watch from under something.

While Byrd and Valentina were on vacation, I played the first few dungeons of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for the Nintendo Switch. The game’s art direction is gorgeous, recalling shiny plastic toys come to life, but with a human, lived-in warmth. The whole time I played, I felt a blanketing sense of childhood, in small part from the narrative tinged with innocence, longing, and impermanence, but mostly because it’s a remake of a game that came out when I was a child. Guiding the hero Link through the dungeons felt safe, and I relished the indulgence of the escape.

How long could I allow myself to stay in the fantasy, the enforced hallucination, the tunnel vision of solving imaginary problems, secure in the non-reality, yet aware of the indulgence, aware of the pushing away of the hard table in front of me, the unread emails? I craved the escape, and allowed it—we all need a break, right?—but not for long. It couldn’t be the last thing I did before bed. I couldn’t play in the morning before work, or during a lunch break. There had to be rules. I couldn’t afford to get lost.

I set out with purpose. I could see Satan’s face in the clouds, really see it, just about! I could hear his laugh, right there at the edge of my hearing. The wind grew as I crested the hill, painting my clothes against my body. Destiny, doom, extravagance, purpose. Fear scattered like insects brought to light. I glowered, coiled. My inevitability laid before me. The grotto, the statue of Mother Mary, the view of New York City. Giddy, I slashed the air with my fists. Again. Again. Again.

I was breathing hard. Satan stayed in my mind.

Coward.

The days were short, the nights were long.

I’d wrap myself in the thick comforter of the guest bed, pulling the covers up over my head to block out the first rays of the morning sun. While I slept, Chantelle chewed off one of my watch straps. Turns out, the watch didn’t need it, so I guess I didn’t either.

The strap is looser, but here I am, still in time.

Blood spurted from my ring finger.

A chunk of flesh was missing, scooped clean off by a shard of glass. I had been washing the inside of a single serving French press, my hand twisting inside the glass with a sponge, when the top of the glass broke, taking a piece of my finger with it.

I was alone in the apartment. My hosts, Paula and Jack, were staying in their second home upstate, while I looked after the place in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Technicolor red blobs freckled the sink, the floor, my clothes. I rinsed my finger out, then wrapped it in paper towel. The blood immediately soaked through. I ran to the bathroom to get bandages, still leaving flecks of my morbid breadcrumb trail. I used my left hand to rummage through the medicine cabinet, while my right, deprived of pressure, sullenly drained onto the toilet seat.

I didn’t find any gauze, but I did find some medical tape, so I wrapped my finger in fresh paper towel, and wrapped that with some tape. That was enough pressure to staunch the bleeding. Mostly.

Then, I joined a work call.

I go back with Paula and Jack to when I was a teenager. I was friends with their son, Zach. They had him very young, and they were always hip, so they seemed more like a peer than a parent.

Both are artists; Paula a sculptor and painter, Jack a writer and musician. They’re both old-school punks, coming up in early eighties runaway stumble-street survival, now presenting as gentle, eccentric intellectuals.

When Zach was studying abroad in college, and I was taking my first improv class at UCB after graduating, I would stay with them a couple nights a week instead of making the trek from my parents place in New Jersey. They joked that I was their replacement son, which I leaned into. I don’t think Zach loved that.

I was staying at their apartment in this fashion when I got the call that would result in my cancer diagnosis.

Much later, I happened to have a dinner date with them the night after I learned Laurie wanted a divorce. That’s how my itinerant year started; before I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford an apartment for some time, when I just didn’t want to live in the same space as my ex, Paula and Jack offered to let me stay for a while until I got back on my feet.

That while turned into various stays over the year, some with them there, some cat sitting Ashley, their gray kitty who mostly keeps to herself, and sometimes just by my lonesome. As long as there wasn’t family staying or other complicating factors, they graciously offered me a room.

We talked a lot about the particulars of the divorce process, the ups and largely downs there, of art, music, books, the internet. We joked around. We eat sushi at Industry City. Jack had come to many of my improv shows the previous year, so we caught up on how that was going, and what the other people in the scene he knew were doing. Paula would cook savory oat meal, with pine nuts and Umeboshi plums for breakfast, or rice, steamed vegetables, and pan-fried sardines for dinner. It was stable, intellectually stimulating, and safe amidst the chaos.

Staying with Paula and Jack, I felt I could glean meaning from my experience, some deeper insight about myself specifically and life in general, if I just paid enough attention. I kept my eyes wide open and my mind loose and available.

The apartment is well kept, warm, and old. Curios, conceptual art, and books line the walls. The furniture is odd, wooden, and cozy. The shower hangs over an ornate tub, in the middle of it’s length, instead of at the head. The shower curtain drapes around the shower head in a circle, so you stand in the middle of the tub with water coming directly down on your head, ringed by a plastic sheet. This takes some getting used to.

One time, we took the Q train to Coney Island to see a collection of live performance art curated by some of Paula’s friends. Coney Island in the off season is interesting; there’s still people around, and some of the rides were running, but it gives off a haunted quality, even more than normal.

The performance took place where they do the freak show during the on season. We were lead past the warped paintings and strange baubles in the lobby/bar into a black box theater with wooden tiered benches for seats. I am well known as having a bony ass, so I was not optimistic about my butt comfort.

Each performer did some form of abstract dance, largely with a weird aquatic theme, on brand for Coney Island. There was some interesting, gooey sets in one, some more narrative character pieces, some Butoh. The main unifying theme seemed to be that everyone performed in writhing anguish.

The final act was a queer, Satanic dance off. My interpretation is that it was a sort of taking back the demonization of LGBTQ+ peoples, but also just a simple provocation. The costumes were elaborate, with Satan sitting on a fancy demon throne wearing a goat horn headdress. Satan was surrounded by their courtiers, frozen in place, each in various states of ornate, burlesque undress. There was a bearded lady, a trans man, and all sorts of others, who would individually peel off and do their dance, usually shedding some clothing in the process.

As a provocation it wasn’t that effective, given that it was well trod territory being performed to a friendly audience, but as spectacle it was pretty good. It ended with a big fire show thing, but the (probably) unintended peak was the blood dance.

I didn’t know how severe the bleeding was; sometimes you get a real gusher up top that clots pretty quickly. With all the running around and wrapping and washing, I hadn’t really clocked how much of my finger was gone. I figured if the thing was still bleeding by the time I was done with the call in an hour or so, I should seek medical attention.

And wouldn’t you know it, after that hour my finger was still squirting blood at the same rate as before? I had to take it slow and drink some water, because it turns out losing that amount of blood is woozy business. I walked myself the fifteen minutes down the street to the nearest urgent care. I’ve had cancer, and am very calm in emergencies. This sometimes plays to my disadvantage.

“Hello, I cut my finger, and I’m looking to see the doctor,” I said to the receptionist.

She nodded, placid. “Sure thing. And were you looking to see the doctor today?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, great. Um, how long ago did the cut occur?”

“Uhh, about…an hour and a half, two hours ago?”

“Today?”

“Yes.”

“Is…is it still bleeding?”

“Oh, yeah,” and here I held up my makeshift bandaged finger, shot through with eye popping red.

“Oh. Okay, yeah, go right in. We’ll get your insurance on the way out.”

Turns out, enough of my finger was missing, that they had to glue it back together.

“We’ll have to glue it,” the doctor said.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Well, there’s not enough there to stitch, so we need something to bridge the gap in your skin and prevent infection while the skin regrows.”

“No, but what does that mean?” I asked, searching.

It turns out, it meant that they took a chunk of medical glue that looked like a brown sugar cube, they strapped it to my finger and applied pressure for fifteen minutes, and it melted into my hand. After two weeks, it naturally dissolved, and the thing was completely healed. Now, I have trouble remembering which finger it was. I think it was the ring finger.

Every queer Satanic dancer up until that point had been fairly nude; topless, skimpy underwear, tassels, and the like. The woman who now moved out from behind the shadow of the throne was totally and completely naked.

If the other dancers had writhed in anguish, she spasmed and cried and twisted and convulsed and thrashed in horrible agony. At the peak, she violently rubbed her vulva, and after a moment, an enormous gush of blood cascaded from her vagina, streaking bright and angry down her legs and splattering the flood. I was shocked, even after logic kicked in and I figured out that the rubbing had been to break a blood pouch hidden inside her. After the deluge, she dripped for a quite while.

At the end of the performance, everyone smiled with unreserved elation—we did it!—enthusiastically greeting their friends in their thrown–on robes. Human, grounded, now devoid of pretense and art. Pedestrian, even.

I kept my eyes wide open and my mind loose and available.

My ass was numb.

It was time to move to Queens.

After the fallout from my divorce, I was not able to afford an apartment for almost the entirety of 2023. Instead, I spent nine months couch surfing, living entirely out of a small, overstuffed backpack and shoulder bag; I am grateful beyond words to all my friends who were kind enough to let me stay with them. That time was such a wonderful way to get to know friends more deeply, or see folks I hadn’t seen in a while, or meet new people entirely. I felt such a expansive feeling of possibility and connection. It was also exhausting, a constant drum beat of figuring out where I could stay next, usually at fairly short notice.

Combined with a divorce process that was (and in some ways, still is) stressful and dehumanizing, I was ready for my itinerant lifestyle to end, far before it did. Yet end it has. I lucked into a room in Astoria, New York City, that I could afford, with wonderful roommates. I’m still settling in, and it doesn’t quite feel real yet, but the relief is real.

Now that I have a little space from it, I wanted to write about my nomadic experiences, specifically about all the people I’ve had the privilege of staying with. My stays were not a vacation for either me or them—we both continued to work—so I integrated myself into their lives as best I could. Most of the places I stayed were around New York to save on travel costs, but I also spent time in Massachusetts and Texas, and now Los Angeles.

This is the introduction to a series, each a recollection organized by people and places I stayed (not in chronological order).

Some things I’ve learned that was true of everyone I stayed with.

1. Everyone is concerned about their home’s cleanliness/messiness. Folks have wildly different standards here, but universally they feel they are not meeting them.
2. Most of the friends I stayed with have pets. They’re almost all cats.
3. People have different assumptions about what time to go to bed, what constitutes a normal breakfast, what topics to talk about, and what soaps are in the shower. If you relax into it, you forget life was ever any different.
4. Everyone was unaccountably kind to me. I try not to be a dick, but folks were over the top hospitable. I feel very lucky. It was, and remains, overwhelming.

I also (re-)learned that to integrate with folks as seamlessly as possible, you have to be a chameleon. I certainly have plenty of training on that from childhood, and while it’s an incredible asset, I have to be real careful not to lose myself down a pit of someone else’s point of view.

This is really an “issue zero” post, kind of rambling expository introductions, including this sentence itself. Tune in next time for something more exciting, starting with my time in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.