Fishlady is my friend.

Last night, at 9:30pm, I stood in Chipmonkey's doorway. I had just left work, walked away from a manager who was acting like a complete pile.

"I really need your partnership. I really need your partnership. I really need your partnership," he chanted. Chipper and mindless. He was berating a fellow employee. I stood for a moment, maybe waiting for him to rip into me. At that second, I realized I had the power not to be humiliated. So I turned around and walked out the door.

I drove and listened to Arcade Fire. A few of the songs skipped.

"Let's go on a bike ride," she said.

Chipmonkey knows that, like every wannabe wiener dog, a lady needs to be let out to play. And run around in circles until her head explodes.

"Let's go to Town Talk. I'll buy," she said.

"Okay," I said.

So we rode through Seward and my black cardigan flapped in the breeze.

We drank our adult shake and ate our garlic fries. And we talked and talked and talked and talked and talked.

We rode back and sat in her apartment discussing our summer theatre project. And, you know, life. I sat there taking notes to start my scene. I stopped and carved the words "wake from my dream" into my right wrist with my pen. It's faded but still on my wrist tonight.

I drove home in a daze. Overwhelmed by my summer theatre project and life.

I ran into my room, took off everything except my underwear and ran into my living room. By the light of the kitchen, I put side B of Wild Innocent & the E Street Shuffle onto the turn table.

I turned off the kitchen light and laid face down on one of my (many) Turkish rugs. This one was in my mom's study forever. It's not as rough and scratchy as all the one's we had upstairs.

In my underwear, I laid there in the darkness, listening to Incident on 57th Street. The sliding door that leads to nothing from our second floor apartment was open. I heard the cars pass on Central and the random holler that is prevelant on my street. My head was turned to the right and my skin melted with the humidity. I breathed in the salt as the record skipped towards the end of the song. In this version on this night, Spanish Johnny would get away unharmed. Maybe he's driving down Central right now.

It wasn't a Rosalita night so I put the needle down ahead and it perfectly landed on New York City Serenade. I laid back down and the thought crossed my mind "Alexa, you don't live alone. You have roommates and if they walked out into the living room right now, they would see you lying on a rug, almost naked. And you're listening to Bruce, so they probably think you're getting freaky with your bad self. But your not. Your lying her dead still." In the end, It didn't matter. It was one o'clock in the morning and I was so tired that my brain felt like it was bleeding out my beautiful eardrums.

So I listened to my song.



I thought about New York. When I heard that song played live at Shea Stadium in 2003. My mom and I sat in the loge section and Roy tapped into those opening piano chords. And the song swelled over the stadium. I saw the Manhattan skyline lit behind the stadium wall, behind Bruce. New York City Serenade, indeed. I thought about Minneapolis. Fishlady lives here, too. The characters in his story are my neighbors and that makes me less alone. My favorite line played out the crackling spearks, "So walk tall or baby don't walk at all." I thought about the way my shoulder smelled. I thought about all the rumors of an E Street band tour beginning in the fall. What could I do, what can I sacrifice, what could I sell, where could I work to afford those shows? I'll make it happen. I always do. "Shake away the city lights. Shake away those street lights." Those street lights spilled into my living room and I danced while lying still.

The record ended.

I wrote my script. I stared at Hopper paintings. I fell asleep late into the night. I woke up and it was pouring rain. My head was pounding and I was lying sideways in my bed, my ragged kitty blanket wrapped tightly around me. I hadn't slept well. I finally got up and trudged to work, my curls messily pressed against my head in my blue faux vintage headband. I ended up taking a half personal day to come home and sleep because if I didn't, I would either have another seizure or start crying. I had two more rehearsals today that I needed energy for and I'm quitting my job soon anyway.

It's just one of those weeks. Besides, I needed to sleep. I had been up all night serenading.