I know I have said this before, attributed my out of controlness to this specific type of alcohol, but I am going to do it again merely because I really think it is true. Certain types of liquor produce a certain type of drunkeness. No one disputes the distinction between being drunk off beer and that of being drunk off wine, but not so many people claim a distinction between being drunk off of the various hard liquors. Rum for me is a distinct drunk, a completely inhibitionless horny person, out of control to the nth degree.

I will say that my lips are sore today and a little overdry. I was make out crazy last night, but not only make out crazy, everything crazy. I went to the Cock with Joe because it is closing soon, moving to the Hole, and for me, the Cock in that location is the scene of so many wild nights, of the excitement of New York that I was hoping to find when I came here - and when I first went to that bar on a Monday night two or so years ago because that was the night where they didn't have a cover and they played really fun music, I was totally smitten and liberated in ways I had yet to be. I went there pretty much every Monday night for the first year I lived here, and only after that much time did the thrill of the place eventually start to wear itself off. The place is the diviest bar in atmosphere I can think of in New York. It has no embellishments, barely any lighting, let alone mood lighting. It is small space with painted black walls, signs taped up telling you to watch your wallets, that people steal them. There is something so magical about the place. No one goes there to meet a nice boy. Everyone there has sex on their mind somewhere and the acknowledgement of this gives the place an honesty and a grunginess that you really cannot find anywhere else.

And yes, perhaps because I thought it might be my last time in this place, this place that really when gay-hating fundamentalists conjure up imaginary scary scenes of gay life, this is the place that they would be thinking of, if they knew it really existed. People snorting drugs in the bathroom. Public sex on the dancefloor. A small, smokey place packed full of underdressed men looking for, or having sex. And yeah, there was lots of beer consumed at my house and then there was lots of rum consumed at the Phoenix and then at the Cock, and I started dancing with this really hot boy, and then in a blur of events, he came in my hand after we had exchanged blowjobs. And I probably should have come then also, that it would have made my numbers a little smaller, but instead there would be three more dicks in my mouth, my dick in three more mouths. The last boy was also really hot and really out of control, that even in my already out of control state, I was like whoah, this kid is naughty. He was giving me head in the stall, really wanting me to come in his mouth and meanwhile there is some angry homo that has pushed his way into the stall and is yelling about how he has to use the bathroom and this boy, the one giving me head, ignorning him, and I finally quit and left the stall because the angry homo was being very persistent about his need to use the stall.

Um yeah, so what did you do last night?

The Zach chronicles continue here in a fashion that you can easily predict. And when you call a plot predictable or trite and use that as your grounds of critique, aren't you really critiquing reality and the way things actually operate? That the world does operate in predictable ways and your interactions and relationships with other people can be predicted twenty pages before you get to the ending? So yes, sorry for being so predictable. Zach and I make plans and then he cancels them or doesn't cancel them and doesn't call me, and then we make plans again, I get reexcited, and then again, that excitement crashes into disappointment. And the cycle keeps repeating itself.

And so, even though it was him who suggested we hang out yesterday in the afternoon, drink forties and watch Swingers - the plan did not realize itself because Zach never called me. I was a little bummed, but not too much, because that's stupid and that's predictable. The actions of the world and the people on it may be predictable, may be trite, but our reactions to them need not be. The weather was amazing yesterday. Amazing. Blue skies, warm weather, the sun was out, everyone was out because it was Memorial Day weekend and it felt so good to be here in this town. I biked around town, to Paul's house, and then over the Williamsburg Bridge and right back over it again when Niki turned out to not be at her house but at my house. My ass is still sore today from riding Peter's old, heavy bike with a seat that stabs you. I ate a burger, hot dogs and drank lots of beer at our barbecue. In addition, I consumed a delicacy I have not had in probably over two years: cheese curds!

Josh had a bag of them from his recent trip to Wisconsin and I was in heaven, eating them like chips because they are so fucking out of this world yummy and seriously as soon as I have some cash, I am going to make a tour of the cheese shops in New York and find out if any of them sell cheese curds. Surely, if you can buy any random, foreign food here, you must be able to find cheese curds. Why aren't they sold in grocery stores everywhere? Why just Wisconsin? Eating those cheese curds and having the thoughts and memories they provoked was my reaction, my nonreaction but a reaction nonetheless to not hearing from Zach. Those cheese curds were so good. I relived three summers ago eating them on my neighbor's rooftop here in Brooklyn, felt so good to be living then and now with the knowledge of all these numerous thens, so many in number.

All right, last night I watched Pretty Woman again because TBS loves to show the same movie all weekend long and my roommates were all watching it. It was not nearly as good as when I watched it in that maudlin mood of Friday night. When I was watching it Friday night, I was thinking about my enjoyment of it and how much pleasure this fluff movie gave me and I felt mildly guilty about ever having looked down on this genre of movies and the people who take enjoyment from them, the people who really just want love so badly that they are pricked and made sad by the same drama played out large with attractive stars and a soundtrack.

Last night, however, I was no longer in that mood and could not watch the movie nearly as earnestly. Also, during the movie, Zach did end up calling. I saw his name, pressed silence so it would stop ringing, and stared at his name on the little screen, really happy that he called. I let him leave a message and listened to it, telling me that I should go to Metropolitan, but since I had three dollars, I did not go and did not return his call. Later on, while I was watching the original Ocean's Eleven, he called again, and that made me so happy. I looked at the phone and could not not answer it, his name there, me so happy, and I told him I was not going to make it out last night. He said we should watch Swingers in the afternoon today, and so supposedly he is going to call me to hang out. And I need to get over the fact that we are not going to make out and not be disappointed to just hang out with him, because he is a really cool person and he would make an excellent friend.

The question of what exactly it takes is the question I can't stop asking in these moments, these moments that seem to be occurring in more frequency, no doubt because it is springtime, but also because at this time in my life I am lonely and looking to end it with what so many people look toward. But yes, what it takes - because really, I am convinced that it is something. That it does not take all kinds, that there is one kind, my kind and seemingly most of my friends, who it does not take. So when this boy, Zach, who I have had a crush on for a while and who I am now pretty certain at this point does not like me - when this boy, Zach, cancels our plans for tonight, flakes out on them for the umpteenth time and I am sitting at home alone on a Friday night, stuffing my face with a steak and cheese sandwich from Crown Fried Chicken and watching Pretty Woman on TBS, I have to ask myself why it is that I have no luck whatsoever with boys, have to ask myself what it takes to be successful with boys. Is it something physical? I am fairly certain it is not since I see ugly couples often, but still that does not in moments of rejection make me certain that it is something physical. Or is it something emotional? Do I have some sign over my body that says I have deep seated issues with trust and intimacy perhaps stemming back to issues with my father that people can see from a mile away, the sign taped to my back no one is telling me about? Honestly, I don't know, but I do know that some people have something, that there are people whom there does not seem to be anything terribly special about, but always seem to be involved in a caring relationship at pretty much all times.

So yes, I don't know. I know that I feel pretty pathetic and I saw my one and only ex-boyfriend Matt yesterday at the Bellwether opening and couldn't stop staring at him when he talked. I was trying to figure out the answer at that time to a question I had yet to fully articulate. It has taken Zach's flaking out on me to bring that inchoate question into language. But looking at Matt yesterday, I was staring at how deeply recessed his eyes wore, at his slight overbite, at other imperfections of his, and thinking how perfect he looked, how these things made him so attractive to me. And yes, seeing Matt inspired a certain desire in me and even though Zach had not called me back to hang out like he said he would, I found myself calling him last night, a little boy crazy.

He was so sweet when I talked to him, told me that he had wanted to call me the night before at three, and that he definitely wanted to hang out. And so, plans were made for this evening for Swingers and forties at my house after I got off work. All day at work, I was looking forward to ten o'clock, not just because I would be done with work, but because then I could rush home in anticipation of a boy I liked coming over. And I finished work fifteen minutes early, was so giddy, rushed home on the subway, walked really fast to catch a quick transfer, and got home, called him and you know the result. He said he was tired and that he had to meet up with some ex-boyfriend. I don't know. I honestly don't recall all the details because as soon as he said he had a headache and I knew he was going to cancel, I wanted to get off the phone. I didn't want him to hear my voice's happiness come crashing down. He said we should do it tomorrow and guess what? I am not even going to mentally pencil this in because I am pretty sure that it is not going to happen.

But as nice and cute as Zach is, this is more about the pattern of late, the pattern of my life. It isn't that he is not interested in me that makes me sad and makes me enjoy Pretty Woman more than I should have, that has me screaming "Idiot!" at Richard Gere's character - it is that no one else was home and so I could scream at the television, at TBS, and it is also because this is always the case, that I have never had a serious boyfriend, that the only people who want to sleep with me are dirty sixty three year old men into watersports. And watching stuff like this is surely bad for you in these moments because this is already the framework that your life fails to conform to and you watch another idealized version of this framework, of tender moments in bed together and you want it all the more.

Yes, you watch the commercial for the product, for the new camera phone, and you want that product, and I watch these commercials for love - I've watched them, read them my whole life and it has always been the product unattainable for me, the one I never have luck with at the store. The clerks there are mean and they act like I don't belong in the store and then I have to wonder why that is. Are my ratty sneakers giving me away here? What does it take? Forget love. How do I even get a boy I like to make out with me and to do so even when sober? I just want to get giddy about hanging out with someone. I felt so good today to have this to look forward to, and that's all I want - that happiness of thinking something is cute - some other person on this earth - being happy. So yeah, Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, and this boy Zach have been beating the shit out of my self-esteem tonight. The cheesesteak did a little repair work, but I am hungry again, listening to a dead Eva Cassidy sing about a sweetheart and there are things besides cheesesteaks that I want and I hope at this point you know what they are.

Riding the subway home from work this morning at five thirty in the am, I could not figure out who on the train was starting their day and who was ending it. No one is alert at that hour, everyone looks tired, like they could either just be waking up or getting ready to pass out in their bed. There were one or two obvious ones who were holding a cup of coffee clearly starting their day, but the rest of the people were surprisingly hard to decipher.

By the time I got home, the sky was already lighting up, not in a glorious purple way, no "rosy fingered dawn," but instead the day barely declared itself, a sky of gray, none to different from the sky at noon today. I hung a blanket over my window to try to help me sleep, but there was still a little bit of light that seeped in and my body knew that something was wrong and would not go to sleep easily. I tossed and turned, finally getting a few hours of sleep before waking up at one, selling some books at Spoonbill to make some money and making it to my two thirty interview right on time.

The offices for Advocates for Rasiej were on the ninth floor of the Strand, and of course, riding the elevator up there, I would get stuck along in that terribly slow elevator with Nancy, the scary owner of the Strand. She looked at me coldly and I wasn't sure if that was a vague recognition that I might be an employee of the Strand and that she could exert power over me, her cold stare, or if that is just how she looks at anyone besides rich, old ladies who want a library of nice books they are never going to read.

I got off at the ninth floor, had my interview to gather signatures to get this guy on the ballot, and campaign workers are all of the same breed, so nice, so peppy, so clean cut - the type that look like they've never even in perverse moments thought about sticking anything in their ass - they look like the type that do not even have those perverse moments, so nice, so singularly energetic in that campaign worker type. I think my interview went well and hopefully I will hear from them and get to walk around to people's houses for ten an hour for a few weeks. I didn't even go to my four thirty interview. One, because I was tired. And two, because it was for the Independence Party.

The Princeton Review canceled tonight's graveyard shift right as I laid in bed to nap in preparation for working tonight, so instead I am going to go to Bellwether and a couple other gallery openings and then probably going togo to sleep, a nice exhausted sleep. I was so ready to fall asleep today doing these errands. I love it when you are tired and look forward to getting a good night's sleep. There are few things more comforting, more refreshing than knowing you are going to have good, deep sleep and having it.

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That above gibber gabber is what I titled one of the emails I sent out last night when I was applying for jobs. It was an awesome job at Barnes and Nobles corporate offices, and I had meant to paste the title of the job in the title line, but ended up pasting something else and did not realize it until this morning. Last night, I applied to about twelve jobs. One, a copyediting position, as soon I clicked send, I realized I had forgot to spellcheck my cover letter and had misspelled a few words. So there are at least two out of the twelve jobs that I definitely will not hear back from. However, I have already heard back from two of them, both jobs gathering signatures to get crazies on the ballot, and have interviews with both on Thursday.

Thursday and Friday are going to be rough days. I work Wednesday night until five Thursday morning. Then I have to try to get some sleep, but not too much because I have an interview at 2:30 near Union Square, then an interview at 4:30 near City Hall, and then work at the Princeton Review at ten that night. Work till five am, get some sleep and then be at work again by three pm.

Other places I applied: Fox News, Good Housekeeping, Bodum, the Princeton Review, some "phone research firm", and a few other places that don't have any humor value.

Jonathan Safran Foer is such a lit student, and his first novel, Everything is Illuminated is such a book that a lit student would write. That doesn't mean it is not good, it is quite excellent - but I need to read his second novel to see if he develops a unique voice. In EII, he writes Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Philip Roth filtered through the cutesy voice of Dave Eggers (specifically A Heartbreaking Work). Those are the three big voices that dominate his novel, writers he obviously likes and has imitated successfully. I like all three of those writers and so, of course, I really enjoyed EII.

I finished it last night because I drank too much coffee too late in the day and was anxious and thought about death. I finished it at about two and still could not sleep, still felt scared and anxious, so I started reading Chang-Rae Lee's Native Speaker, which I am not sure if I like. I have been on an American Jew reading kick forever, all those Roth books, and then Bellow, then Safran Foer, I needed to switch it up a little. Last night, I was not in love with Lee at all. The book tried to declare itself as a book about ethnic identity so early on and it drove me crazy. But this morning, reading it, I really liked it. Later this afternoon, the heavy handed concern with identity started to irk me again. I am going to try to finish it, though, just because I don't know who or what I am preparing myself for, but I have this idea that I need to have read all the big names in fiction, every single one of them. I don't know why, perhaps just to be able to talk to people about any book they are reading, or perhaps, it is an ego thing and want to be able to reference everyone and understand every reference. I don't know.

I am going to work at the Princeton Review this week, which is awesome, because it will give me money to pay my June rent. Working there for thirty five hours, not even forty, will give me five hundred dollars. I need to get a job and have a sizable income like that every single week. I am in the lowest pay tier at that organization also. I couldn't even imagine if I had a real job there (which I am applying for, btw, as a content editor), and I am terrified when I think of how much the IT people must make there, if they pay the people that feed scanners so much. However, my sleep schedule is going to be a little erratic this week. My schedule:

Wed 10pm-5am
Thurs 10pm-5am
Fri 3pm-10pm
Sat 8am-3pm
Sun 8am-3pm

Last night, I went to galleries with Niki and within two hours had seven beers. After that, I went to Capone's and had a couple more. Not surprisingly, today, I do not feel so hot. The weather is crappy and grey outside. I am not sure if this is for the good or the bad, that if I am going to be in a bad physical state, the weather should be also - or that, perhaps if the weather was brighter, I, too, would feel brighter.

Surprisingly though, I did manage to win a game of Scrabble against Jesse Weiner who was in my apartment last night because Niki was, and Niki passed out about two minutes after his arrival, leaving me to try to make conversation with a boy who does not do so, but instead smiles silently. I kept staring at his hands last night while he was arranging his letters and imagined his fingers doing dirty things. The things your mind is capable of is awesome. I saw those muscular fingers clutching his dick, reaching in someone's asshole and then he played his letters, and he was dressed again, he was that awkward boy again who makes me mildly uncomfortable and it was my turn.

I am reading Everything is Illuminated right now. Years ago, when it was first published, I tried reading it and could not make it past the first ten pages because I was so annoyed with the way it was written. I picked it up again at my mom's house when I was home in Virginia and now, I love it and think it is so good and so well written, startlingly so. I emailed Peter a passage from it yesterday because it was so intelligent, and this was the kicker of that passage:

They reciprocated the great and saving lie - that our love for things is greater than our love for our love for things - willfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, willfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life. (83)

I am hungry and I am going to go spend the last six dollars I have on General Tso's chicken with pork fried rice. I need to do some work tonight but that is not going to happen because of this hangover, so tomorrow, I will have to if I want food to eat. I am starting a sex worker group with Adrian. Meeting at my house June 1 for any interested sluts.

Oh my god! Oh my god! News that proves what again a space cadet I am, what an incredibly large one, but good news, nonetheless. Today I picked up my emty glasses case when I was moving stuff off my dresser and set it on my bed. Just now as I was going to bed, I was moving stuff off my bed, came across the glasses case and picked it up, ready to move it so I could go to bed. When it was in my hand, I shook it and thought how awesome it would be if I still had glasses, and I felt something inside. I opened it and my glasses were right there. The glasses I had looked for, moved around furniture multiple times looking for, and had given up all hope of ever finding months ago have apparently been sitting on my dresser. I don't know how I never saw the case. I am an idiot of the highest order, but it is all right, because I am an idiot of the highest order with boxy glasses again.

I got off the phone with Wyatt today and wondered what happened. I didn't want to go out today, especially not to galleries, but I had agreed to and I found myself asking how that happened when I got off the phone. Some people are just so good at directing you at what to do that you don't even have the option to say no or to suggest alternatives. I am not sure if this is a good or a bad technique. There is something cool about just saying, "All right, so there's just a couple openings, so we'll just go to those ones, stay for a while, and ..." as opposed to asking "Do you want to go to ...?" In the first, there is just the assumption that you will go, no asking about it, and that is the type of talker Wyatt is, and I apparently have little willpower and will go along with these types of talkers.

I told him that I was going to leave at 7:30 though to watch the season finale of The O.C. and he did very much not approve, but I resisted the guilt and the desire to please that made me almost reverse course and AM going to leave at 7:30.

I finally got around to watching Tarnation last night and it was really good just like everyone has been saying and it made me think about my own childhood, my own family - even though it was nothing like his - but just the montage of family photos has the ability to inspire these nostalgic thoughts.

Really, I feel like shit and that is why these thoughts are scattered. I have been drinking way too much, too often. Last night was my first night sober in probably a month and I am not kidding at all when I say that. I wanted tonight to be a sober night also, but that is definitely not going to happen with galleries on the agenda. Things I would talk more about if I weren't so braindead and if I didn't have to meet Wyatt to help him to do his laundry in ten minutes (why did I agree to this?) and which I may elaborate upon at some future time:

-Videology in comparison to Reel Life. Organization versus the cool quality of Reel Life, its surly employees.

-Gay childhoods as inspired by watching Tarnation

-My crush on a boy that does not seem like it is going to happen / how this fits into general crush patterns I tend to reproduce / but why I have a crush on this boy, aspects of him described in detail in an attempt to nail down that certain quality / science experiment / isolate the variables

-What I am and really, what all I am not doing with my life

june 27 and 28

Billy Corgan is playing Webster Hall. Tickets are $35. Does anyone want to go see him with me? Bonnie, are you going to be in NY then? When are you coming?

June 25 is New Pornographers, Stars, and Sadies at Prospect Park. What other exciting free shows are there this summer?

in order

of how excited I was made by looking at these various shows yesterday:

Nobuyosihi Araki at Yoshii [The jerk of an attendent almost tempered my love of the photos. She would not give me a press release or even let me read it there, citing gallery policy, but now, I see that it is posted on the fucking gallery's site. What a jerk! I hate the Upper East Side! I want fireballs to send it and everyone that lives there into the sea! When I was walking there, I was so disgusted by all the black nannies pushing around white kids. It was right around the end of school and it was sunny and the streets were full of black woman carting around white kids. Sometimes I cannot believe this is the twenty-first century. But I digress.]

Neo Rauch at David Zwirner

Amy Gartrell at Daniel Reich

Gregory Crewdson at Luhring Augustine

Richard Prince at Gladstone

****************************

Other things of note:

I got a blowjob from that sixty three year old today.

I sang David Bowie and Shangri-las last night at karaoke and think that I am not going to get to make out with Zach, that he just wants to be friends. He told me about other people he wanted to have sex with. But I might go to an open bar with him tonight in SoHo.

My checking account was closed after being overdrawn for about a month, so now, I am without a checking account.

The weather is, and has been for the last few days, awesome.

homes

It took a couple of years and there were times when I felt as if it were but then wavered and backtracked and couldn't make the commitment yet, did not feel as if this were home, but yesterday when I got off the bus on 40th Street and 7th Avenue after five hours in traffic, I breathed out thinking Home, it is so nice to be home. And there were tons of people on the street, people smoking, traffic, indistinguishable, unexstinguishable noises and I was so happy for all of it. I was smiling ear to ear, someone asked me for directions, another passenger from the bus and I was so friendly, so glad to be back in New York.

But maybe that is a sign that this is still not home, that you don't get giddy when you get home, that you are comfortable and are comfortable doing nothing. So I don't know what this place is, more like a lover, a crush in the early stages. I get so excited by it, every aspect of it. I was proclaiming my love for everything I passed last night. Hot dog vendor, I love you. Dirty streets, I love you. Fashionable and unfashionable people, I love you. Subway, I love you. Underdeveloped section of Keap Street I walk down everyday to and from the subway, I love you. Cashiers at Key Food, I love you.

I went to my old house, what I used to consider home, Northern Virginia and it felt like a place I didn't know. The people, the culture, the slow Metro - it was all alien. Things I had known and perhaps embellished with the soft glow that nostalgic memories will give to things from your past, especially your childhood. But there, I knew that that was not home, that home was the place I had left, the place I was going to return to soon.

Part of this probably had to do with the fact that I know that my mom is only going to be living there for a few months and then the physical ties to the place will be totally severed. Also, her fiancé, Kent was there and he is nice but it was hard to talk to him, and that altered the place also. The day after I got there, we rode down to Williamsburg, my mom, Kent, and I. And there wasn't much talking on the car ride down. I read my book in the backseat. The two of them talked and I occasionally asked about songs on the radio, if either of them knew who sang the specific pop songs that were new to me.

Williamsburg (the Virginia one) was interesting because it led me to evaluate different communities and their own cultures, how notions of cool are so specific to a place and while I can be confident in Brooklyn, do not worry that other people think I am a loser, here in Williamsburg, it was a time warp with so many people in khaki shorts and oversized dress shirts. People do not wear shorts in New York, really, is something that I thought about there. Of course, it has not been real warm, but even in the summer, many people don't wear shorts. But anyway, if I had run into one of these boys on the street here, I would have thought tourist or tool, and thought not much of them, but there in Williamsburg, it was that Virginia style that dominated and I was the tourist or tool walking past them. I got a couple of weird stares that had I gotten in New York, I might have ascribed to cruising, but there, I knew what it meant, it meant, What are you wearing?. I was dressed fairly foppish in tight jeans, a tight pink dress shirt, and an even tighter blazer that used to belong to Jaymay, if that gives you an idea of how tight it was.

But the thing that fascinated me the most about these regional conceptions of coolness was how placed in this other conception of cool, I was no longer so confident in my own appearance, that I began to doubt myself. But stranger to me was my desire for these boys in their flip-flops and khaki shorts. Most of them were not even that attractive but in this repressive setting, surely because of the repressiveness of the culture, I desired, coveted these embodiments of cool. Will I always desire what is cool and sexy in any culture I am in, regardless of what it is that qualifies them as such? Is it the coolness or the cockiness these subjects have? Does one inspire the other? Do they have that stiffened neck of entitlement, that cocksureness because they are cool; or is it that they are perceived to be cool because of the confidence they possess? I am more and more convinced that it is that later, that confidence is what makes one attractive, desirable, cool. Anna’s advice to Seth Coen that enabled him to become cool: “Confidence, Coen. Confidence. “

I am convinced also, and some of you are probably able to guess this already given my tendency to eroticize humiliation, that a large part of my desire for these boys was a reliving of how desire worked me for in high school, desiring straight boys who I could never have. More reason, I am glad to be back in New York. This town has sexually liberated me from all those harmful rubrics of erotics that I had operated under in other towns, in towns where there was not a gay culture, and where I foolishly tried to operate under the mainstream one, desired those same objects that straight culture deemed attractive.

But God, the sight of those Virginia boys in shorts and flip flops, you don’t know the desire it inspires, a desire that because it could never be expressed is all the more consuming.

And really, I don’t know how or why I have ended up talking so much about such a small part of my weekend, surely it is because it is springtime, the sun is shining brightly outside my window, and I am horny. There was so much other stuff I thought about this weekend, that if I am ever to get outside in this beautiful spring weather at all today, I am not going to be able to talk about in depth. But whenever you go home, all these issues that are not thought about otherwise, or thought about only in the briefest of thoughts are given so much time there. I thought about life a lot, in the sense of what I am, and what I want to be doing with it. This of course, inspired by the insecurity and jealousy of watching my younger sister graduate from a good college and leaving shortly for Indonesia to do a Fullbright program. I thought a lot about family, my family, and why it is everyone is so quiet, why no one talks loudly or brazenly among each other. I thought about my own patterns of affection and how they were shaped by observing the lack of affection between my mom and dad, and now watching my mom a little insecure about expressing affection for Kent in front of Jamie and I, as if you should be secretive about your desires. I thought a lot about geography and want to read about psychogeography. I thought about W.G. Sebald in relation to this because I saw Umberto Eco’s new book and everyone in the world is trying to be hip and incorporate imagery in their novels now and all I can think of is No, Sebald did this – you can’t do it better. Copying Sebald’s technique does not put you on par with Sebald. This applies to you, too, Eggers and Safran Foer.

My batteries died on the bus ride home and I couldn’t listen to music so I read a lot, looked out the windows a lot, and thought about all these various things, these and thoughts of telephone poles, airport tarmacs, road surfaces, and skies, and the distances between places of my life and how easily and cheaply they are traversed. What I mean by cheaply is thirty dollars roundtrip.

I am going to tell you about my trip and other things after I shower and eat and I try not to link to articles often, but this more so to a sentence in an article, so forgive me. But this blows my mind, makes me so angry, not the whole fake story thing (which probably is not that fake), but that Newsweek shows what they are going to run to the Pentagon before they do so, and that this is not discussed beyond Michael Isikoff's blase quote stating so:

The Pentagon saw the item before it ran, and then they didn't move us off it for 11 days afterward.

WTF? Why isn't this the story?

I may be a whore, but I have never felt like one until tonight. Whore is a state of mind and this photographer put me there. Most painful, long two and a half hours of my life. I don't want to talk about it now. I am so tired from today's activities and just need to veg out in front of a movie. I need a job.

I am going to do some tricky juggling this evening that, should it work out (which it must), I will have enough to pay all my rent, my electric bill, my bus ticket home tomorrow and still have some money left. At 5:30, I am going to go see the regular who called me this morning. I had been sort of hoping I would hear from him all week, having gotten so used to him setting something up just about every three days. But finally he called, and this after I already have plans at seven to go do some jackoff photos for an amateur photographer.

Uh yeah, so I am supposed to be able to get hard and get off twice within a couple hours with two different old men. I postponed the photoshoot until eight thirty to give me time to get there and time to hopefully restore my sex drive. But when the shoot is over, I will have made 325 today, enough to calm my nerves and my landlord's. I am slightly worried about my penis not being in the mood at eight thirty, but it will because my mind knows this is necessary, this money. This will be my first time seeing two people in one day, and basically back to back, so I am slightly nervous, but whatever, pressure is where it's at. Life would be boring without those expectations and the nervousness you get before trying to summit them - it'd be nothing without that nervousness, that rush of adrenalin from being a superhero, and the joy afterward when you don't fall between the buildings you were jumping between. You can't have that joy of safely landing if you never have to take the jump.

I am a little worried about my mom's life today. I have yet to talk to her since I heard this morning about the closing of Fort Monmouth and so don't know how, and if, this will affect her. A little background: Right now, she works at the Pentagon but is marrying someone in September who works at Fort Monmouth, and had just bought a house in New Jersey with him, and was planning on transferring to work there in September. So yeah, I am a little worried that she just bought a house for a place that she is not going to end up working at. So where will they live, I wonder. I will find out this weekend when I am in Virginia, I guess.

I am excited to get on that bus and ride. There is something so nice about the anticipation of being in a moving vehicle passing over bridges and looking at the sky. Of course, half an hour into the trip, I will probably be ready to get the hell off that bus. Every time I have ridden it, there have been some horrible audio disturbances, either loud Asian pop music blaring over the bus speakers or someone next to me who yells in her (always a her, always) cellphone for the whole four hour trip. On my to do list today is to buy a pair of headphones so me and Morrissey can cuddle the whole trip.

Yesterday, I watched A Hard Day's Night during the daytime because I hadn't watched it the night before. Whenever I watch movies during the daytime I never pay as much attention to them as I do at night. I will make coffee while the movie's playing, eat snacks, go to the bathroom and not pause it, check email, scan through the paper, all sorts of things - my body is a little too wound up to sit and concentrate on a movie during the daylight hours. And the fact that there was no plot to the movie really and it was just an excuse to play songs with a series of loosely connected skits between them made it that much easier, since I didn't really feel like I was missing much. George Harrison is so cute in those young days. I love the Beatles at this point in my life. There was a period of time when I didn't love them. There was a period of time when I was obviously stupid.

Yesterday, after watching the movie, I walked by Zack Heru, the insanely smiley guy that sings nothing but Beatles everyday in the pathway between the L and the 1,9. It was one of their songs about love, with the word love featured in the chorus, so basically any one of their songs, and it made me so happy. It is so pure, the sentiment, and I think that is why I used to not like them because I used to be more suspect of such things, but now, lately, I am sentimental in new ways and I fall for everyone and so I am getting a lot more out of this band than I ever have. I wish I had some of their albums besides that stupid "1" one.

I returned the video and got Swingers, hoping that Zach (not the Beatles guy) was still going to watch it with me. At ten, I started to play a game of Scrabble with Jamie and Cameron, pretty much giving up that he was going to call. Around ten-thirty though, my new phone started ringing and displayed Zach's name and I love that more than anything, getting a call from someone you like and how happy you are within the span of microseconds as soon as you see that name, that number on the caller ID. He had just got off work and had to work again early today, so we are going to watch it when I get back from Virginia.

And this trip to Virginia is stressing me out. I cannot wait to be back from it, because my leaving is also the deadline for payment of my rent, which is due by this Friday and which I am 150 short of. I am also supposed to pay my electric bill by this Friday, which is most likely not going to happen, and I owe Dara eighty for that. Plus I need 35 to buy a bus ticket to VA and back. So that leaves me today and tomorrow to make this money before I leave on Saturday morning. So basically I am supposed to come up with 250 in two days which is very possible, but also so stressful because it can't just be possible, it has to happen. I am going to meet with someone soon about doing a solo video for them tomorrow night that would pay about 200. If that happens that would basically erase all my stress, and I could conceivably try to find some work tonight, but I am going out to galleries with Wyatt and Niki and afterward, I will probably be too drunk. But I am trying to set up something now, so I can try to have some self-control and not get terribly blitzed. I can do this. I am Houdini, nothing without the tight bounds imposed on me. Without the tangible chains, I wouldn't be aware of the intangible ones. This is when I shine, when I also manage to throw crushes on boys into the equation, and break free from that locked safe underwater and dash to the surface, gasping for air.

That Scrabble game was so boring last night. Cameron took about ten minutes every turn and I was ready for bed by the end of our two hour game, but since I had rented the tape and it is one of my favorite movies of all time, I sat there alone on my couch watching this movie about a clueless man who wants love and to live well, but suffers the indignities of trying to find work, of his unsympathetic friends, and of the cruel world of people pursuing their own self-interests up until the end of the movie when he triumphs over all of them, finding love and a connection with another human being. I fell asleep before I got to the happy ending. I fell asleep during that scene when he was locking himself in his apartment, crying, not talking to his friends, and looking at old pictures because he realized what a loser he was after having just made multiple failed attempts to call a girl whose number he was so exctied to have gotten.

I can stare at these sides of buildings forever, layered one behind the other, some brick, come concrete, varying heights, and that spring sky hanging over them. The view from my living room window when I am smoking is awesome.

Again, I have been listening to Viva Hate all day long. Same as yesterday, same as the day before. I cannot get enough of this album.

I have a new cellphone, nowhere near as nice as my lost one. No longer can I take bored pictures of myself with my phone late nights waiting for the subway. It is kind of big too and doesn't fit so comfortably in my jeans pocket. But, I have a phone and I am again able to be in constant contact with all of you. I don't have anyone's number anymore, so if I had yours or if I should, you should tell me your phone number again. You can email me at [redacted]@gmail.com

it's the first time i have had a number written on paper in so long - before i had a cellphone.

I am not a big fan of locking entries and try my best not to. The only times I do are when there is information that read by another person, someone I am just meeting, might alter what form our friendship/relationship takes. And that is why that entry about Ryan was locked before I met up with him because I did not want him to find it and know I had a big, silly crush on him. And today, this one is locked is because I am going to talk about that boy Zach that I have been writing about lately, but not telling you exactly how I feel about him so as to keep my diary unlocked. But today, as you can see, it is locked, and so I am going to tell you about him without the worry that him or one of our mutual friends might read this.

Really, I have had a big, silly crush on him since the first time I met him a week or so ago when Wyatt and him were hanging out at Metropolitan and he was stoned and telling some insane story about an acid church. I knew that Wyatt liked him. Wyatt had told me so and so I knew that I could not pursue anything with this boy. But two nights ago when he had just been on a bad date and I was on whatever awkward thing that was with Ryan, both of us commiserated with each other about our evenings and how badly they had turned out or were still turning out. That evening he also told me that he had told Wyatt he wasn't interested in him and that Wyatt now hated him.

Zach makes big facial expressions when he talks and his eyes make some wide, childlike Can-you-believe-that expressions. He's from Virginia and is mildly manic and totally awesome. He came back to my house with me two nights ago to help me look for my phone and then walked me back to Metropolitan so I could look some more there. He is unbelievably nice, but not really, it is only seemingly unbelievable after dealing with the unbelievable ego of Ryan, but really probably just normal and what people should be like.

Last night at that bar again, at karaoke, I ran into Ethan whom I had told to come there a week ago and who, thankfully, was there. We talked to Zach some and I was so happy to talk to him. Just looking across the bar and seeing his goofy face makes me so happy. Talking to him, more so. Then Wyatt showed up, and yes, Wyatt does hate Zach. He talked to me in such derisive terms about Zach and was so bitchy to him when Zach came up to say hi. Wyatt even booed (not loudly) when Zach performed and tried to prevent me from cheering for him. It was really weird being conflicted between the two of them. Later on when Zach was leaving and Wyatt was out of sight, we made plans to watch Swingers tonight. I have his number written on a piece of paper and I am supposed to find a phone to call him from tonight. I am really excited, and if nothing happens, I won't care one bit because I want to be Zach's best friend because he is awesome and funny and I don't know if he's read cool books and likes cool music and I don't care one fucking bit.

Also, I sang "Bullet with Butterfly Wings." It was the only Smashing Pumpkins song they had.

rejection is one thing, but rejection from a fool is cruel

It is just further proof that people who have both the time and the desire to sculpt their hair are not cool people, despite how cool those boys with Morrissey hairdos may look. People that look nice more often than not tend to be total or, at the very least, partial assholes. After getting a blowjob from that senior citizen yesterday, I gave Ryan, that boy I liked, a call and left a message telling him that he should come to the Metropolitan for dollar PBR's. A few hours later, he gave me a call back, saying he would be there. After I got off the phone with him, I let out a little shriek of excitement because I was that giddy to be talking to a crush, that I was going to meet a crush for drinks. I threw on a sweatshirt and speedwalked to Metropolitan so giddy, head totally in the clouds. And I'll foreshadow a bit here and tell you that this walk to the bar will serve in stark contrast to the walk home from the bar a few hours and countless beers later.

I got there and talked to him awkardly for maybe five minutes before his best girlfriend/roomate showed up and then the conversation became even more awkward, me trying to talk to two hip people who I didn't know at all and who have known each other forever. After about five minutes of really lackluster conversation, Zack came over and said hi to me. I talked to him for a long time and basically ditched those other two for the most part, much preferring the easy conversation I was able to have with Zack where we were talking over each other rather than thinking of what to say to each other. I occasionally went back and talked to the two of them even though it was very appearant that Ryan was not interested in me, that we were to be friends, if even. A couple of times he asked me if I knew certain cute boys that walked by, in the hopes that I could introduce him. I inwardly rolled my eyes because I wasn't upset just annoyed by this boy. Why even meet with me for drinks? I found myself going outside to smoke, to escape just about every five minutes. But it was okay because Zack was outside and he is awesome and made me laugh so much and people that have the ability to make you laugh are gold. Nothing better than easy conversation in this world. And there is almost nothing worse than labored conversation.

Okay, I was a little upset that Ryan was not into me but not in a maudlin way, just in a what the fuck way. He was so into himself, it was absurd. He told me that he wasn't going to call me, but that I should call him, but he wasn't going to pick up, he never does, but I should leave a message. Uh, yeah. At one point, he told me to email him about galleries on Thursday. I rolled my eyes and said, "Why wouldn't I just call you?" But the best part of the night was a half hour after he had told me he was leaving, I was on my way out the door and he was at the front of the bar talking to some people. I said bye to him. The Pixie's "Here Comes Your Man" came on. He introduced me to his two new friends as Christopher. I told them my name was Charlie. The two boys were confused. I didn't answer their questions. I danced to the song to the back of the bar to bitch to Zack some more.

But no, really, I think I just lied about what the best part of the night was, meaning of course, what the worst part of the night was. That would have to be when walking home, I realized I had lost my phone at some point during the evening. I went back there today and it is not there, so I am now without a phone until I get enough money to buy a new one, or until someone gives me their old T-Mobile phone. Oh yeah, I had an interview at Triple Five Soul today that did not go as horribly as I had imagined.

I've been listening to Morrissey all day, so happy even though last night wasn't so hot, but I don't even look it as awful, as funny how self-absorbed some people are. Thank god Zack was there. Having a Morrissey hairdo does not give you any of his coolness, not at all.

PS - I lost my fucking phone!!!! So e-mail me to hang out, or come out to karaoke tonight at Metropolitan and get trashed with me.

Sixty-three. The man was 63 years old and I didn't mind one bit. He looked really old and walked slow, but it was better head than I have gotten from most people.

mediocrity rules!

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part two

So really, the motivation is a little lost after this few hour break. The events have been recalled again with Niki's pessimism, making my optimism with which I was earlier going to tell the story seem like just that, optimism. Niki even called me delusional earlier. Keep that in mind as a counterweight while I tell you about Ryan. While in the exhibit at Deitch Projects, I was staring at the cute boys and their cute outfits and there was this one, in particular, dressed in a mod brown suit and Niki agreed that he was way cute.

Later outside, Paul knew his friend and so I ended up talking to the cute brown suit boy, Ryan. We clicked really well and kept talking outside even as our friends went back inside. He told me to sit next to him. I did and we talked and it was awesome and there was none of my typical displays of behavior when I am around a crush. There was no screaming, no fidgeting, jumping up and down and telling inappropriate information. As they say, I played it cool. And as people tell me all the time advice wise, this is how you get people to like you. It worked and I later talked to him more at Lit where there was an open bar, told stories, danced a bit, and then sadly, I had to leave. The fucking video, Six Feet Under, due back by eleven. I was thinking fuck the video, pay the three dollar late fine, but as you may or may not know, I am not at liberty to drop an unneccesary three dollars here and there. So I left, but not before exchanging phone numbers and him taking photos of me. All good signs, right?

Well, let me play the role of Niki and stomp on my lovely Sunday afternoon fantasies about making out with a cute, smart boy. A few times early in the night, he thought my name was Chris. Not too terrible in my book since I have trouble with names, especially when drinking, but Niki brought this up again and again when I just tried to exclaim how dreamy this boy was. "Charlie," she would exclaim in that finger wagging tone, "he didn't even know your name!" But by the end of the night, he called me Charlie. And then, oh yeah, there was mention of a boyfriend in Montreal, but there also was flirtatious touching on his part. So yeah, basically I don't know. I will see what happens when, and if, we talk. But I am hoping good things because I have been stalking him this morning via the internet and found him on various sites. There is this Friendster thing, this MySpace thing, and his website. And I probably should not have tracked him down because knowing that he likes many of these things I love is sort of going to make it hard "to play it cool" as they say, that my crush grows by leaps and bounds when I know that someone likes awesome things.

But in other awesome news, that Niki also tried to stomp on, I received a paycheck from The Princeton Review for $250 even though I have collected all my paychecks and I have not worked there in nearly two months. I don't understand it at all, but it could not have come at a more perfect time and now I only need another two hundred by this Friday. Also, I am going to Virginia this weekend to my sister's graduation. Oh yeah, also she is a Fulbright Scholar and is going to Indonesia for a year and puts me to shame in any sibling comparison and I don't care because I got money for nothing and there is a cute boy who I think likes me. Life is awesome, sha, la, la. Sing it with me.

part one

The weather was gorgeous yesterday, and I just read in the NY Times Book Review that one of Elmore Leonard's writing maxims is to never open with the weather, but I am not a crime novelist and the weather was gorgeous yesterday, all the more so because I had been told it was supposed to rain all day and that rain never materialized, never even threatened to do so.

I drank too much coffee in the first part of the day, watched Six Feet Under, sat for some photos for Paul, and then this is what the day will really be remembered for when I recall in future ones - Barry McGee. I went to his opening at Deitch Projects because I knew it was going to be a spectacle, but the spectacle I was anticipating was a large crowd of fashionistas. That was there, sure, but what outspectacled even the usual outsized crowd attending Deitch openings was the art itself. If you are Mr. Deitch and just drip money, this is what you should be spending it on, amusement park like installations that you most likely cannot sell, but which let the people seeing it for its brief erection, see something singularly spectacular.

You enter the gallery space through the cab of an overturned delivery truck. And then there are smoke machines fogging up what is a mutliple car pileup that reaches to the ceiling of the large Deitch space. Underneath this, cavelike, is a perfect recreation of a public bathroom, of what looks like the bathrooms in high school. Stalls painted a hideous color. Graffiti stained mirror and a motorized mannican spraypainting back and forth. Across the room from this, there is little booth that you enter to find a ladder which you climb down through a narrow passageway to get a small room with a bunch of his small drawings hung around painted VCRs. When I climbed out of there, I took in the whole room again and thought that this is what the apocalyse must look like.

I am so glad I attended this during the opening because it gave the entire scene this added Lost Boys quality, all those young people, lots of skateboards in tow, drinking and partying around this fogged up demolition site. It was, far and away, the best show I have seen in recent memory. Perhaps the best concieved gallery exhibiton I have ever seen. I was only familiar with McGee's sad, disemobied heads that he paints. Those were almost lost in this exhibition. You don't even really notice them or how good they are with a car wreck steaming behind you.

Outside, I met this really nice boy, Ryan, and talked to him for a bit. After the opening and after one at Artist's Space, I went with Niki to Lit where there was an open bar till ten. I got way drunk and had to leave to return a video by eleven. On the way home, we stopped at Taco Bell and almost creamed our pants because it was so fucking good. No, so fucking good. I have to go now because Niki just got here. But there will be a Part 2 for Friends eyes only to tell about some other things.

****************
Thanks to jinxremoving for this link to pictures of the opening. Look!

Oh my god! I have a crush, biggest crush in so long. Niki is asleep on my couch. She is not the crush I am talking about. His name is Ryan. I was staring at him at the Barry McGee opening, which I will talk about later because it was FUCKING amazing - but yes, staring at him, eventually talking to him, him telling me to sit next to him, him flirting with me, my crush flirting with me -- then later, I ended up at Lit because that's where the open bar was and where he was, talked more, flirted more, and I am beyond smitten. He live in my neighborhood. He is hot as hell. He likes art, books, and dancing and he complimented me nonstop. I am so smitten. We exchanged numbers because I had to leave to return a video due my eleven.

A crush, a hot crush likes me back!!!!!! I am so giddy. I was so suave. Niki was impressed. I did not freak out and jump up and down and scare him away, but played it cool and things went so well. This is how I am proceeding from now on. Uh uh uh! Excuse me, while I daydream and think about how awesome tonight was. And I didn't even mention Taco Bell!

Last night, I successfully had fun with new friends, new gay friends. There has been this void in my life for the past few months since Peter moved to California where I have not had homo friends to call on a whim to do things with me, but I am resolving that, making friends and it feels so good to make friends. I want the whole world to be my friend, especially the whole gay world. Sometimes I am shy and convinced I will spend all my nights lonely and bored until I die. And then there are days where I don't get off on pity, where I am in a deliriously happy mood and want to talk to and befriend everyone. Yesterday was definitely one of the later type of days.

I met up with Wyatt in the afternoon and went with him to Chelsea where we met up with Paul and Carl to go to galleries. Wine was downed first, then some mojito like drink, then beer, then rum and more rum. By eight I was trashed and in addition to galleries, after Paul and Carl left, we crashed some small reception at Eyebeam, pocketed cheese wheels there and then crashed a sonogram benefit at the Chelsea Art Museum, also serving nice little finger foods. I don't know if I can tell you happy I was because it was one of those states beyond the realm of the verbal, but still one of those states where your verbal skills are superb and so you talking so much trying to delineate this state, your feelings in language. My head was in the clouds, so happy to be out in this city, to be surrounded by the company of intelligent, cute homos. Surely, the coffee, multiple types of liquor, cigarettes, and Zantac had something to do with the state, but there was something else mainly responsible for propelling me forward and forward, some sense of love for everything that surrounded me, a love I wanted to glow and glow, and knock down any obstacle this world might have tried to throw in my path.

After the free booze train ended, we rode the subway down to Canal Room and saw Fischerspooner play. Guestlists rock! Fischerspooner, however, don't. It was fun to see them, although I can't take them seriously and know that Casey is just a pop star, that he would be nothing without his producers, or without the people who wrote the songs. For one hot half a minute, I had so much respect for them. Their last song before their encore, predictably, was "Emerge," and thirty seconds into the song with the crowd wild and dancing, everyone there in some small or large part having come to hear them play this song, their purchases now being rewarded - thirty seconds in though, Casey cut off the music, told the crowd that that song was dead, that they didn't want to hear it, and the band walked off the stage. I would have thought that was so awesome if they teased the band with their hit and then didn't play it. But of course, they came back on stage and played it to an even wilder crowd.

After the show, Wyatt and I went to the Metropolitan, where his friend Zack was and I talked to them for the rest of the night, drinking beers and hoping the Morrissey songs I put on the jukebox would come up soon. I smoked too many cigarettes, danced to a few songs, kissed some birthday boy, and stayed till three something. But the most exciting part of the night was perhaps seeing Wyatt breakdance. I had no idea he had these insane dancing skills, but seeing him do flips on the floor of the Metropolitan, I had to stop dancing and stare in awed respect. This, his awesome dancing skills, make me like Wyatt even more. I walked home, thinking how awesome each of those homos I hung out with throughout the night were and are, how I am going to hang out with all of them and new ones as much as I can, that life is only fun when you are living it, and I am going to.

slo jams

Sadly, I cannot go see them tonight, but if you are free, you should. Even though I could find nothing about them on google, Slow Jams is playing a show tonight in Greenpoint, says Todd P.


TONITE there's an awesome spazzy / sloppy / Providence-ey noise show, curated by Colin from USAISAMONSTER, happening at the Kingsland Tavern - a beautiful old Polish working-class bar with a huge half-moon art deco bartop, terrazzo floors, faded depression era murals, gorgeous picture windows looking out onto Nassau Ave, and a cozy event room in the back. Cheap Zywiec!

Thursday May 5th @ the KINGSLAND TAVERN

:: Slow Jams ----------------------------------> from Brooklyn
:::: OVO ---------------------------------------> from Italy
:::::: White Mice -----------------------------> from Providence, Load Recs
:::::::: Joshua Hydeman --------------------> from Boston
:::::::::: 2 Dead Slúts, One Good Fúck ----> " "

Yesterday, I downed lots of Tiger Beer at Hiro with Niki, feeling vaguely out of place in such a bougie bar but enjoying that feeling. Then Queer Metal night. Then sleep. Now galleries and thanks to Jamie, I am going to go see the Fischerspooner show for free. If anyone hears any future dates for Slow Jams, let me know.

Yesterday felt good. I did one thing and then another and then after a glass of wine in the afternoon, I had the opportunity to pass up the chance to do something, to sit on my couch and I didn't, I threw on shoes, scrubbed the wine stains off my teeth and went out did a thing and then another thing and then yet another. After watching What the Bleep Do We Know? a couple days ago, I have gotten a second wind and am just doing things, not thinking about doing them and the time involved, but just putting on shoes and leaving the house. The movie was cheesy and earnest but there were little nuggets of wisdom that are good to be reminded of every now and again. That we are creators, have the ability to determine what we will do and what we won't, and that positive thinking is the best kind.

I had a job interview yesterday at a yoga health food store in the West Village to be a cashier, and most likely I will get it and start this Friday. Then I walked around town, went home, had the wine, and then dashed off to the Queer Fist meeting, which no one else showed up for except the host, Peter, whom there is a very cute picture of in this week's Voice on the Tear Sheet page. So then I went to Niki's store, had some sangria with her and Adam and then went with them to the "Tedious Limbs" show at Deitch Projects last night. It was cute, ironic video pieces. Ironic and hip, of course, the only type of art Mr. Deitch likes to show. It doesn't mean that they are not good, they were. They were hilirious. The free beer helped the humor go further than it might have with a sober crowd. Paper Rad had one of their Gumby videos, but the standout was Slowjams Band. They jumped around on a trampoline, the three of them in front of the video screen. It was juvenile pot jokes, but it was so awesome and I cannot find out much about them because there name is hard to search for without bringing up crap. But lots of people seemed to know them and their routine, chanting Slow Jams Slow Jams before they took to the trampoline.

Walking around SoHo to pee with Niki, we walked past Michael Stipe who was sitting on a stoop with a nineteen year old looking gay fanboy.

Then I watched some music videos at Niki's before walking to the train, waiting forever for it to come since it only seems to run on one track every single week now at night. Walking home, I ran into Chris and told him to come up to my apartment to drink beer and talk to me. I talked to him about boys and it was awesome. Today holds just as much potential for interactions. I am a little late in getting started, but that is okay.

My roommates are asleep so I don't want to be in here, the living room, typing for too long, but tonight I went with Niki and Paul to Jaymay's show at the Living Room and it was really good. It was really weird to catch snatches of conversation before and after the set, of people talking about how good she was, about how he looked at her site, and yeah she always plays small venues like this, about how it's crazy that she is not signed yet. I was very excited for Jaymay hearing all these hip looking strangers talking about her.

Then I walked with Paul over the Williamsburg Bridge and saw the skyline and realized again that I do love this city, that I could not imagine any other place more wonderful. I was sad that some of my friends couldn't or can't see that. I thought about my neighborhood and the sad news declared today that it is going to change drastically, trying to imagine what it would look with all those high rises by the water.

I drank a beer with Paul and I wanted to drink another round and Paul said he wanted to go and I encouraged him to, and I was giddy about being at a bar by myself, so proud of myself that I was sitting in a bar by myself since I have never really intentionally done so, not without waiting for someone else to show up. I felt so liberated. This feeling lasted for about two sips before Wyatt showed up and said hi and then I talked to him and this boy he was either friends with or flirting with, and I couldn't decide which, but was hoping the former because I thought the boy, Zack, was so cute. Brown hair, brown eyes. I imagined myself in bed kissing with him. It seemed so natural. I really wanted to flirt with him, but knew it was not allowed, that Wyatt was into him, or possibly so, and I hung out with the two of them, listening to silly stories. Zack, talking about some acid church. Wyatt, talking about how he liked the Damien Hirst show. I gagged dramatically.

I walked home, thinking how such simple purchases, phone bill, DVD, beer could use all the money I made today with the old man, the money that would have been half my rent. I thought about this only until I saw a puddle and thought about how much I love the streets after it has rained when there are those after rain scents, the puddles reflecting the lights we produce to fend off the night.