one day i’ll write about how different venice is from all of its stereotypes – but today is not that day, and this is not that post. not after a weekend in which my upstairs neighbors invited a dozen z-list influencers to parade over so that they could all take molly and tequila shooters and blast the most generic placeholder club music until 7am for two straight nights. you know that typical scene in every teenage film where someone throws a house party because their parents are out for the weekend? i feel like the dad who inevitably forgot his fishing rod and decided to come home early. it’s ridiculous how much the hot mess outside my front door reminds me of freddie prinze jr’s IMDB. i feel like i need to wipe down everything.

there’s a line that divides “looking on the bright side” and “grinning through my pain.” whenever i tell someone i live in venice and they immediately begin telling me all their opinions about venice, that’s the line i sit directly on – a buttcheek on each side. while i smile and nod, it’s like as if they think it’s news to me that i live just steps away from a souvenir shop that sells thongs with phrases like “munch time” on them; or that there are yogi couples nearby who respond to social distancing measures by lying on the sidewalk and juggling each other with their feet; or that the streets are teeming with 15-year-old debutantes skootering around in only bikinis and facemasks (both not set up to appropriately cover what they’re supposed to).

i know i sound like a grumpy old asian man right now, but i don’t care – i’ve earned it! i’ve spent the past couple of sleepless nights sternly glaring out between the blinds while furiously chain-eating ginger chews. if only i had pearls, i would clutch them. it’s like zombie spring break in this bitch.

these are the kinds of people who end up in the blind spot of my loving kindness meditations. even the people who have specifically wronged me are easier to emit positive thoughts to. i just “breathe into it” like a tight hamstring stretch. but these other people? you can’t “breathe into” a pain in the ass.

as the outbreak continues, it has more deeply affected me and my loved ones in ways that i never imagined and that i don’t feel like getting into. some days it feels like there is a constant thumping in my head, and it’s not always the shitty music from upstairs. but when it is, i find myself resenting the people who are not taking things as seriously as i am. i resist – often to no avail – wishing that i could transfer some of my anxiety, grief, fear to the people outside who are just skating by (like, literally on roller skates). it’s taken every ounce of my remaining energy to stop myself from hexing the fuck out of them. if i were an actual witch, fools would be turning into toads left and right.

but what this has been teaching me is that empathy goes both directions. that’s what makes it different from sympathy, which entails a power dynamic in which the sympathizer has ample space to put themselves in the shoes of someone less fortunate. when you’re the one going through shit – empathy means not holding it against those who seem to be happily giving no fucks – to even, somehow, embrace them. in those situations, it shouldn’t be so hard to relate – after all, we’ve all given no fucks before. we’re all doing it right now, in one way or another. i imagine all times i’ve loudly, obnoxiously had a wonderful day, and how my joy may have been insult to someone else’s injury.

a few weeks back, the morning after we were terrorized by a whole other wild weekend of adjacent partying, my roommate saw our neighbor and asked him how he was doing. he sighed deeply like he could blow down his hangover. the whole ordeal was breaking him down. the partying has been an ill-guided way for him to not get driven crazy. i know that’s no excuse for his behavior. it still really pisses me off that his way of dealing with the world right now is a direct threat to my own way of dealing with it. venice during the pandemic can sometimes feel like pinocchio’s pleasure island of donkeys. but it has taken me in during dire times, it has been a kind sanctuary, a gentle anchor. it can be a pain in the ass, but it is home.

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