I wake up feeling sick. My friend has gone to work already and I cannot believe I slept through the alarm. I am on holiday in the city in which I had visions of myself as somebody different. I had plans for this day. The sun is shining and makes the shadows from the orchids on the windowsill look like big trees on the ceiling. I am not wearing my contact lenses and everything is out of focus. The day is warm and I am in pain. The bachelor's pad smells of something strong and strange. I hope it is the big, blue flowers she brought home from work. The card accompanying the flowers said: "Welcome home!" We laughed when I read it. Home. She could be my definition of home this time. She knows me, we talk and come to conclusions. I get to know myself through her, I remember who I used to be when we first met, when she came to visit in Europe and now I see myself reflected in her. Together we feel at home. We look at contact sheets from all her travels. Bali, Japan, Ireland, America. Home. 

I think of why people make the decisions they make. Why this apartment? Why this city? She shares it with a man who could have been her father. Her own father died when she was very young. Eight or so. Does not remember much about him. He was a drunk and abused her mother. This is the lesson for the day. At night when we are lying awake talking, she says: "My mother always said to me 'Watch how he treats his own mother because that is the way he is going to end up treating you.'" And now look at us, look at what we are doing, ashamed of the fact that our judgment is poor, unwilling to admit we are in denial. 

The 40-something roommate comes home for an hour every day to play a computer game where he is a medieval knight trying to conquer England. He works at a hospital, comes home, changes into leisure wear, plays the game and then leaves to spend the night with his girlfriend. My friend works long hours, goes to the copying center to type applications, comes home, writes a letter to her lover in Europe and falls asleep on her mattress on the floor in the corner surrounded by her images. Always remember to watch the way in which he treats you. Long letters to a lover long gone. 

I manage to pull myself out of the heap of sheets and blankets. Drink more water. Wash my face. I want to get out for a while and decide to try to make it to one of the local diners for a late breakfast. Yogurt and cereal. That is another thing. There is no food in the apartment and this makes me feel slightly depressed. How do people live? Why here? Why no food? Where do they eat? I get some clothes on. Some scent. I am on holiday after all. It is very late and I have most certainly missed the opportunity for adventures. Down the hall, the elevator shakes in strange way when taking me down. Think of Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers and how awful it would be if someone got crushed underneath the elevator just because I was too lazy to use the stairs. How do my actions affect other people? Myself? Would it be a different day had I showered before leaving? 

I go to the Swedish restaurant and feel a bit better. A sense of belonging. Something familiar. Home. There are mural paintings on the walls and they do resemble something I can vaguely relate to. Yellow and blue. People in the countryside engaging in festive activities. Order a healthy meal. Granola and yogurt. Some toast. The controlling part of me wants things to be like this. For years I was fighting the need for safety. I threw myself into all kinds of strange situations just to defy the stillness, the boredom. It never worked. I now accept that this is how I want it. No matter where I go this is how it will be. Tea and toast and cereal. Fibers. There is a man and a woman sitting at the table next to me. The restaurant is tiny and I can hear everything they are saying. Try not to notice. Look at the mural. Watch the people walking past, into the store next door, hailing cabs, struggling to keep a composed expression in the wind. 

He asks her about her work. Has she sold anything lately? No. And what about the contacts? Going well. She blows her nose. 
"But it's only the one sinus that's infected. Isn't that weird?" 
He looks uncomfortable but detaches himself enough from the situation to find it amusing. 
"And you really have to share that with the whole restaurant?!!" 
"Isn't that weird?" 
(Goes up at the end. Sounds like a parody of American intonation. Keeps blowing. Endlessly forcing all that snot out into her napkin. Never ends.) She pauses: 
"Oh my Gooooood..." 
And continues again. More snot than anyone had ever thought could be produced in such a short time by a single human being. He is very embarrassed now. Takes the napkin from his lap and puts it firmly on the table. 
"Time to go." 
She is being loose and relaxed. Doc Martens and tights. Long thick frizzy hair. He is not relaxed at all. They get up, he pays the bill and they leave. 

I stay. I am home. All these images imprinted on my brain. I will always remember this city, this street. I lived here once and I may live here again one day. This is my intuitive knowledge, my own logic. Knowledge through emotions. I feel strongly about this place. Never took a lot of photos here though. Remember one day by the lake before Valentine's Day. My English roommate and I went outside in the evening with a Polaroid camera and took pictures in the park. With blue face paint we had written I miss you terribly across our chests. Naked torsos under big Chicago thrift store coats, we flashed ourselves before the camera. We used our European boyfriends as excuses for not living fully in this new world. Spent hours taking pictures of ourselves and our new home to send to them.