6 am, again. Not sleeping, again.

Today I closed the restaurant before Raph came back from his peregrinations. So I went to Madame X, a bar that is usually his last known address when his favorite waitress at the Vbar is not on duty. I ran into him before I reached Madame X and recognized him only thanks to his orange and kaki cap. Môssieur Raph was busy kissing a girl. It looked like it was going to take some time so I leant against a wall and lit a cigarette. When they deemed that they had exchanged enough bodily fluid for the moment, I made my presence known and was promptly carried into the closest bar where I had a Corona, even though I didn’t really want to drink because I expected to go home early and do some work; but it would have been rude not to, so I had a Corona, introduced myself at great length to Raph’s new conquest and then I smoked another cigarette because these days I must be under the impression that I’m running late in my cancer program and then Raph and Lisa kissed more at the counter while I was reading my book and making the Corona last. The barmaid told me, “Your friend is having more fun than you. You’re reading.” And I said, “Yeah.” Because sometimes “Yeah” just seems to be the most convenient answer in the world and the barmaid said, snapping her fingers, “You know with his French accent he got her just like that.” And I said, “I wish it was that simple.” Opening someone else’s beer, she said that it obviously was. And then Lisa left, too drunk to remember to say goodbye and Raph hailed a cab for her because he is a gentleman and then he returned and we walked to the subway entry.

Later, standing on the platform, waiting for the J train at Canal Street, Raph said that he was supposed to see her at the restaurant where I work and that he hoped she would come. He said, If she doesn’t at least we’ll have a bottle of wine to drink. In between two lines of Hubert Selby, Jr. I told him that, to sum it up, his biggest problem right now was to somehow manage not to make a new girlfriend till 8 pm tomorrow.

It really eats me inside that I can’t share all that with No.2 as Raph made me promise not to. Damn, all those joke opportunities that David and I miss…

I just thought I’d share it with the rest of the world though. After all, all he said was, Don’t tell David

I called Columbia and NYU and it seems that I have solved the problems I encountered so far. The next big step now will be to actually read the "Proof of Funds" sheet and see how I can deal with that. I know I shoulda started with that (and especially the requirements etc. for a scholarship) but it looked so ominous that I thought I would lose all my courage even before starting the application process and maybe it would just as well to just start applying and deal with the problems as they come. For good or ill.