The last time I drank sangria

I'm a little sad tonight. Mostly because I'm a little drunk tonight. And "drunk" almost always equals "melancholy", especially when you are leaving the only city you've ever known to move somewhere where you know no one. I had drinks with Emily and Katie at Mosto and then, after putting a very tired Em in a cab and parting ways with Katie (for probably the last time) on 2nd Avenue, I wandered into a CD/DVD store that was still open at 10:00 pm and a sense of sadness overcame me. One does not wander into late-night record stores in Vegas. My twin sister and my mom do not live in Vegas. Katie and Emily and I will not have dinner on a random Wednesday in Vegas.

I walked to the subway, then to my mom's house, and I passed the tree-lined street that leads to my grammar school and the church where I made my First Communion and I realized that something I had said to Katie earlier that night was truer than I knew it was while I was saying it. The last time is the last time whether you know it or not. When you break up with someone you don't know the last time you are having sex is the last time -- or the last time you kiss them or eat at a restaurant with them or wake up and have coffee with them -- any last time doesn't really present itself as a last time. Unless you plan it. And if you plan it, it's not really the last time. It's a version of the last time you created in order to say goodbye to something -- like breakup sex. Leaving New York -- the city I love and the city I love to hate -- is a bit like going through a breakup. A breakup I initiated.

So the last time I did all of the things that made my life in New York so great, so memorable, so comfortable, so whatever - well, they happened and I misssed it. I might not have even enjoyed them as much as I would have had I known I would never do them again. They might have even happened before I announced the big move.

Deep thoughts brought on by sangria and cold chicken cutlets. Tune in tomorrow for caustic, witty Louise. This sad sack version is going to bed now.