past present future

Last night, I saw Richard Hell give a reading at the Astor Place Barnes and Noble's.

This morning, I bought some bananas and bagels from the store for one dollar and thirty two cents, paid for with eleven dimes and one quarter. In my little satchel were a thing of salmon cream cheese, a package of beef ravioli, and two Amy's burritos. I have nineteen dollars to my name. My rent is due way soon, in theory tomorrow, but really whenever I have the money and I need to do some serious sex work all weekend long to make some money - that and hide from my landlord.

Tonight, because why try to make money or worry about not having any, when you can go out to a fun party and drink for free, I will be doing just that - going to the Deitch Brooklyn space for a book release party where supposedly assume vivid astro focus is supposed to perform (?).

Tomorrow, hopefully will involve not sleeping off a hangover so that I can job hunt for both real jobs and sex jobs (read non real).

everyone knows me

Seeing an act play twice in so short a span of time, a performer who is not really a live performer, is probably not the best idea especially when you love their record. But last night I went and saw Annie again, this time at Hiro. Whereas last time she had a backing band, this time she just had a dj who played her tracks and she sang next to him. She seemed fairly wasted and it is hard for me to get into music live when there are no instruments. It was still really fun dancing around, getting all sweaty.

I was wearing this shirt, which I had bought earlier in the day for two dollars, this really awesome shirt that for whatever reasons this hole in the wall vitamin shop was selling. I ended up going back later in the day and buying another one, one to cut up into a sleeveless shirt. It is a faux Members Only pullover jacket with these diagonal stripes on the front. It is by far my best clothing find in a long time. But I soaked it through and got on that subway afterward with my roommates and it felt so good, the subway, its air conditioning drying my sweat, cooling it into something non wet, non sticky. I normally don't desire air conditioning, but this week, I want it so bad. New York is kind of a hippy town in this way. Probably more poor, or more outdated than hippy in the fact that the buildings don't have AC. But these summers are pretty hot and sticky and most people don't have AC. There is something really awesome about that. But not today, not when I cannot even think as I attempt to write this here.

But yes, I am distracted because of the heat. Come back to this site in the fall if you want to read something that makes sense, something good because I am pouring sweat and I met a boy last night. I got off the train, said bye to my roommates and headed to Metropolitan where I met this guy R and he was hitting on me and telling me nice things and then later on in the night, I ended up talking to one of his friends, who asked me what I do and I don't lie and I told him that I sleep with dirty old men. Right at this point, R, who I told this too, but who thought I was kidding, heard this and was shocked and made some comment along the lines of, "You're an escort! Oh my god! I can't date an escort. Everyone knows me!" And granted, he is a minor figure in the NY nightlife scene. I have seen his name attached to lots of parties, but still, the seriousness with which people take themselves is crazy. And then only half-jokingly he told me that I didn't need to do that, that he had money, that I was too beautiful for that.

And here is someone associated with debaucherous nightlife and still worried about being associated with a sex worker. This says it all - about libertine poses struck and where lines are drawn. In some ways, I think New York is more provincial than other places. People are progressive to a point and you find out where this point is when you tell them that you do sex work. It's sort of fun to have this bomb to drop at one of the most commonly asked questions, the what do you do question, and you can make people so uncomfortable. There is such a wide range of reactions to it.

Um, really, it is too hot for this, but I was leaving the bar and he was surprised because I had jokingly agreed to go back to his apartment and do coke with him, and he asked me if I wasn't going to come home with him. And this may surprise most of you who know about my love of free coke, but I told him no, because my desire for greasy food even outweighed by desire to get totally blitzed and I went to La Bonita and stuffed my face with a bacon, egg, and cheese, telling this R who everyone knows that I had to wake up early. But he told me he'd take me out to dinner in a week when he gets back into town, so if that happens that'll be exciting, to go on a date. Oh, also I made out with him at the bar and he has a really long tongue, a la Gene Simmons, and I am not sure if I like this or not, right now I am leaning toward or not.

A bit has happened, not much, but I did want to record nonetheless, the events of the past few days. I have asked myself this many times over the past years of diarying, but today and yesterday and the day before, the questions for some reason seemed more demanding of an answer, but why exactly do I do this? The question, that scary one, of for whose benefit? That's the question that really bugs me because I am not sure if sometimes I am not doing things, recording them as a way of bragging about having done so, if it is a way to analyze the events, a way of looking back at them, a sort of therapy without the therapist, or if these aren't just cave paintings, a way of recording events for someone's eyes, mine most likely, of looking back at them and observing the difference (hopefully) between that past time and the imagined future one where I will be doing this rereading of diary entries.

The questions seemed more important, or less so, like it didn't matter, and I just need to go with what feels right and this does, and I felt this way, was inspired by viewing two documentaries by Ross McElwee. Yesterday, I watched his Bright Leaves, which was an amazingly personal history of tobacco, of film, of his family. It touches on everything, but only in how they relate to McElwee and it is amazingly beautiful still. If you make these intensely personal objects about your obsessions than amazingly, people, others find them so much more meaningful, can relate better. What amazed me most about the movie were his often very lyrical voiceovers. The questions he raised were really intelligent and intersected with questions I have been asking myself lately. There is also this hunting of the meaning of the old film Bright Leaf in the movie, so pomo, but so good - asking if even a Hollywood, studio film that you have a close relationship with for whatever reasons can serve as a sort of home movie, reminding you of family histories, past viewings, etc.

So impressed with that movie, I rented his most famous one today, Sherman's March, which in some ways is even more personal than Bright Leaves and much more focused on the question of documenting your life and he never addresses why it is that he does this, but other people, the people he is filming try probing him about that, one woman even pleading for him to turn the camera off saying that "This isn't art! This is life!" And shortly after this, he meditates on this subject and this quote that I am going to cite here is relevent to my own concerns of diarying, of this need to document my life in this medium and here about filmmaking he says:

It seems like I'm filming my life in order to have a life to film - like some primitive organism that somehow nourishes itself by devouring itself, growing as it diminishes.

I heard that and it hit something somewhere in me and I hit to hit pause, rewind the thing, and write that down. There are so many really poetic instances in both films. I am really impressed and wish that Videology had other films of his besides these two. But it is possible to say things by documenting your life, sometimes way more things, more meaningful things than fiction might ever be capable of.

I am in that mood again where everything is moving me. I know I just called A Dirty Shame the most inspiring (art-wise) movie I've seen in a long time, but that was until I saw these movies. They are so good in indescribable ways. They are certainly not nail biters in any way and at many points in the films, especially during the nearly three hour Sherman's March, there are points where my attention wavers, but the moments when I am rapt, those are such awesome moments.

I started an embarrasing self-help book with Niki yesterday about creating art, and you probably know the book I am talking about. Notice my reluctance to say the title, but it has me thinking, as its goal is, about what is art making and in what ways my life is creative and at first I was hesitant about including diarying in that definition of art making, but for the most part, when I let it, it is this daily ritual where I let loose and let my hands, my busy fingers create something out of stuff I am thinking about. Sometimes you just encounter things at the exact moment that you were supposed to and both of these movies crossed my path at exactly the right moment in time, when the issues raised by them were issues my mind was/is trying to deal with.

But yes, I am going to deal with my obsessions, write about them and it might seem pathetic, seem perhaps like I am seeking negative attention to quote what someone said recently (cough cough Matt). It's just about working over your interests, your obsessions, until you can reveal the allure of those things to others, the hidden beauty that you see. Cibo Matto and food. Hernan Bas and boyhood rituals. Andy and Marilyn and Liz and dollar bills. I don't know. PS - I really don't like most of my friends here in New York.

My landlord is crazy, by the way. An hour ago, she told me someone was going to come look at the windows in our apartment. Before she told this to me, she knocked on my door for about two minutes. I was shaving, hungover, tired, and really did not want to answer the door, thought she would go away and I could come downstairs after I showered to ask what was up, but she kept knocking and told us that an hour someone was going to need to look at the windows. There is never any notice with her about things like this.

I have more contact with my landlord than most people and it's because they are so chatty and different culturally where you go knock on someone's door about anything and expect them to answer the door and ah! Anyway, so they finally came up here and all the windows were fine and did not need to be replaced. They went to see Dara's room to see about the windows there. She opened the door and said, "Oh my God!" because it is like a little kid's room with clothes stacked all over every surface of floor space and she said, "How is anyone supposed to be able to work on the windows with all this stuff?" And gently, even though I was way annoyed, I told her that you can't give someone an hour's notice especially when the roommate with the room in question is not home and expect miracles.

I am updating this during the Pride parade as you may be noticing, and earlier, I had been so excited to go, but yesterday wore me out. I don't want to be in the sun anymore - I got so dark yesterday. I may go to the Metropolitan later today to celebrate pride with free bar-b-q. Last night, I was at that bar also and ran into Dave Park and Gillian and Liz when I had been going to meet Dave Byers and Joe to go to that blue party. I never made it to the blue party. I stayed and talked to Dave and Gillian, and then when they left, I stayed and talked to Zach, who was in a depressed mood and was saying thoughts I know I had thought at some point in the not too distant past but which I couldn't relate to. He was lonely and having bad luck with boys and jobs and telling me how sad he gets when he sees these happy pairings that radiate cuteness. And I didn't even notice all the pairings until they were pointed out by him. I am happy and I know it and sadness isn't hot, however much I may sometimes think I would love Morrissey, and today is awesome. Life is. Sorry, it is too hot to talk in anything but exclamations.

It has been one year, six months, and twenty five days since the last time I've done it, which was New Year's 2004 for those of you trying to figure it out, but I went swimming at Coney Island today - also I think my first time being in the ocean since that same day - too long. I was in the water briefly after watching the Mermaid Parade. I drank beer on the beach, lied in the sand, got way to red on certain areas of my body, and got turned on by the sight of so much skin, some of it even toned, baking out there on this gorgeous day.

I have now showered off the sand and all the yuckiness that I am sure is in that water and am shortly going to go see the New Pornographers with my roommates once they all arrive here and then perhaps Daniel's Blue party in Greenpoint.

I walked by a fence and you know how the glare of it will move in waves as you walk past it, well, I was imaginging that it was the night clouds behind it that were moving in these really quick waves. I got past the fence and was a little sad that things are the way they are and not the way I imagine them to be.

let's go sexin

There is the urge to go into detail and recount the whole evening, each turn in the conversation, each instance of physical contact - and I am going to resist that urge as best I can because I am not sure who I am trying to convince, if I would be doing so, spinning the narrative just so in order to convince you, or if it would really be to convince myself. And either way, until I can figure out the answer to that, until I can tell myself that I am not trying to convince anyone, a lie surely, for what would be the purpose in this, any of this diarying, I think it is in my best interests in becoming the type of person I want to be and to reign it in just a little. Just the facts, ma'am.

But yes, this narrative starts where I left off yesterday, having run into Matt at the bank, telling him I would see him at Metropolitan. I was giddy, insanely giddy for the rest of the day, in those hours in between then and my arrival at Metropolitan just because I was excited that Matt was nice to me, excited that he was nice to me after having read those messages I sent him, and interpreting this to mean, that surely, he wanted to hook up. In between my two encounters with him, I was watching for the second and the third time A Dirty Shame, watching it two more times before having to return it, just as I used to do younger with John Waters movies, watching them over and over again. I think I know every line of Hairspray, having seen it countless times. This new movie of his gets so much right, mostly Tracy Ullman's sex manias. Obviously, I am not as outrageous as she is, but mentally in those moments where I am sex crazed, I have those same urges and it is so awesome to see her running from house to house looking for a sex partner, screaming, "Somebody finish me off!" I giggle so much because I can sympathize so much and perhaps in a more perfect world I would behave a little more like her, everyone would. This movie, as much as it was panned, has moved me more than anything else I have seen recently - and surely this has a lot to do with my John Waters obsession from high school, and when I ran into Matt at the bar, this was one of the first things I talked to him about, this movie.

And here is Matt in the three comments he made in response. This is him in whole and everything I admire and detest about him:

Oh yeah, I saw that in the theater. The stress being on theater, emphasizing that he saw it earlier, because you know being the first to see something is so hip, and sort of dismissing the practice of watching it on video, of being so behind what is culturally relevant.

It's not as good as his earlier stuff. Because it's always the case that the earlier stuff is better, and I tried probing him more about this, asking exactly which earlier stuff, that his stuff was never good in a cinematic sense but amazing nonetheless, and with furrowed brow, he asked if I'd seen Desperate Living, and I had but he didn't really tell me how that was better in a more significant sense than A Dirty Shame. The only reason it is better, or most of the reason, is because it is not that common, most people haven't seen it and as long as it's obscure and doesn't have wide distribution, it is obviously cool. But Waters is one of the few directors I have seen everything by, including his early shorts when they were shown at New Museum, and so I was well prepared to talk about any of this early stuff. And then number three that encapsulates his snottiness and his appeal:

It's just like Juxtapoz Magazine, that kitschiness, they do it better. And when I said I didn't know that magazine, that was the end of our rallying the ball back and forth, he made this sneer like yeah, you wouldn't know that magazine, happy that he had spiked the ball unable for me to return it. And now, of course, I have to find a copy of this magazine and see if he was not just talking out of his ass. But the confidence required to act as if you are artistically hip and aware of everything, which basically just requires being dismissive of everything, really amazes me and sadly, or not (I can't decide) is why I have always been so attracted to him. Because really, it is not often that I can't return the shot. Normally, I behave a little like Matt, acting as if I know more than most people and sort of laughing off their interests as unhip, uncool, poor taste, or a little behind the curve.

There is that LCD Soundsystem song, "Losing My Edge" that can serve as the soundtrack to these paragraphs because really that's what it is. I have read all the "hip" authors that you are just getting around to thinking about reading. I know who has a show up where and whether it's good or not and what the art critics have said about it. I know the discography of that band, whose song you really liked dancing to at that bar. And yes, it's snotty to say this, but really, this is how I feel when I talk to people sometimes and they express enthusiasms for things I was into a long time ago. I don't roll my eyes like Matt or furrow my brow in exhaustion and for that reason, that is why I like talking to him. Because it is boring to play tennis with someone who is not as good as you and can't return the serves. It is so much more fun to play with someone who can kick your ass, make you jog back and forth across the court, inspires you to play better. And really that is a horrible analogy to apply to cultural snobbery, but that is what it is like, I am impressed that he references things I do not know. There he is in a nutshell. Add to the fact that he is my height, slim, has brown hair and really nice hands and that is why I am attracted to him.

I have already gone back on my word, saying I wouldn't go into details, am here taking multiple paragraphs to analyze three sentences of his. But it was so weird and there were times when it seemed as if he was hitting on me and times where the opposite seemed true and I want to make sense of it, but that is useless, a waste of the day, and really I do want to go see Billy Graham tonight, so I need to move along here if this entry is ever to come to completion.

We talked about me being a sex worker, he guilt tripped me about it in major ways, asking what if I ever wanted a job. I told him that I was never going to be an elected official - that there are already videos of me jacking off floating around - and here is where a bomb was dropped. He said: I know, I saw them.

Uh.

I was so thrown my this, didn't believe him and he named the website and then I knew that he had. I asked him how he had found them and he told me, making it twenty times more embarrassing that Kevin had found them and told him about it. I tried asking him how Kevin had found them. Matt claimed to not know, and I didn't ask the question that was provoking my questioning of the source. I did not ask, "Does Kevin read my diary?" because I did not want Matt or Kevin to know I had a diary if he didn't already know. But the only other person I know who has found this random porn site was Josh, who reads my diary and pieced together a couple clues to find them. I was wondering if Kevin had done something similar. So perhaps, Hi Kevin! Maybe?

Where am I going with this? Eventually I asked him about those messages and if casual sex was an option, he said no, that is was not in either of our interests, said that I was crazy. I was ready to go home at this point and was seriously not upset about it, was looking at Matt and studying how easy it would be to see him as unattractive, as boorish and I was doing well making this how I viewed him. I talked to some other friends, finished my beer and began to leave when I saw Matt still at the bar, whom I thought had left. Sitting there on a barstool in these booty shorts alone, I went and talked to him some more, eventually ended up petting his leg. And he rubbed his knee against my crotch and so I began to assume that hooking up was going to happen. I had another beer, talked to him more, and it seemed like I was definitely going home with him, but you know that did not happen already, and so the story plays out even though the ending, the right ending doesn't occur, or perhaps the right ending does. Done with our beers, leaning against him, my hands on his ass, him being really friendly, I told him I was leaving and that the should come home with me. He told me that that was not right, that it was wrong to go home together. And I was admittedly a little shocked by this after his seemingly flirty behavior, but yes he said no and so I gave up a second time and went home, waking up Niki in my living room to complain to her in detail about my evening.

And really, you've just got to let it all out sometimes in detail, give the full narrative, and so since I did that last night, my desire to go into specific details has already been filled even though you may not think so given the length of this entry, but had I not talked to Niki, not gotten the chance to discuss these things, I would have done so with you and it would have been even longer, way longer, and way more pathetic sounding. Luckily, talking to Niki, I realized things I probably would not have realized just talking to you, because you wouldn't have been able to interrupt the narrative, telling me that I shouldn't do these things, making me realize that yes, you are right, that yes, Matt is right, that it would have been weird and wrong, however fun it may have been, and I need to get a sex partner, man oh man, do I. And last night, I kept thinking to A Dirty Shame and my sympathies with all the sex maniacs in that town - how sometimes you just want that pleasure and don't care about the costs, don't give a damn, just want to get off - and last night, self control (the little I sometimes have) was gone because talking to Matt I had a boner and I just wanted to be rolling around naked with this specific boy and in my mind, I am running through those streets sex crazed as well, asking anyone I encounter. Just lost to your passions, and not caring about anything else.

rsvp quickly!!!

Because I want as many people to be there I know as possible and I want to have lots of fun and dance, so rsvp right now:

ANNIE ANNIEMIX TOUR

TUESDAY June 28 Hiro Ballroom (363 W 16th St at the Maritime Hotel)
doors @ 9pm, Annie @ 11pm
with the Misshapes DJs
first 400 to RSVP get in free: www.vice-recordings.com/annie
everyone else $10 at the door

WEDNESDAY June 29 Scenic (25 Avenue B in the old Guernica space)
$10 at the door if available, advance tickets sold out
downstairs: Annie @ midnight, with James Fucking Freidman and Dirty Dietz
upstairs: Mishpucha DJs

I am blessed with a certain glow these past couple days and I don't know how to describe it. I would like to be able to say that it is my own doing, but really, some days, I am not sure that it isn't something planetary, that occasionally you will have those moments where you emit something and people see it and are nice to you. I talked to a couple strangers last night and they were so nice in a way that I don't usually experience when I talk to strangers. I kissed Zach. And today, just now, I was walking to the bank, waiting at the light across the street from Matt's house and thought how cool it would be if he was coming out of his house right then while I was waiting to cross the street. He didn't come out, but a couple blocks away, when I entered the bank, there he was about to leave the bank. He was so friendly. Surely, I must have seen him during the daytime, but today, I realized that it is very likely that I hadn't, because my God, his eyes in that afternoon sunlight coming through the bank's windows - they were so brown and glowing. I was stunned by his eyes. I love it that a person can still wow you after you've looked at them so long, that you still see these gorgeous things, that you don't get tired of it. And he said I should go to the Metropolitan tonight, and not surprisingly, I will probably be there. His friendliness seems like a really good thing after those messages sent to him. I don't know what this means. I don't care. I do a little. But I am too giddy for it distract me from being happy.

Really, I should wait till tomorrow to tell this story better, to tell it sober, to tell it when my roommates are not asleep so close to where I am typing and probably wondering What, what can he possibly need to type at three in the morning, and so I will, I will wait, and I will just say this because I said it to myself on the subway ride home, bragging to myself and so giddy that it finally happened, however brief it may have been, it was awesome, and yes:

I kissed Zach! I kissed Zach! La la la la! I am the happiest boy ever! Fuck the luckiest and fuck the lower east side. Fuck Stephen Merritt, who was at the bar where the kiss occurred because I am luckier and Brooklyn's been cooler for years. I kissed Zach! La la la la! And that chorus will carry me off to sweet dreams, to bed.

I know I am not the only one and that you have probably already read other people raving about their love of Google Maps, but I cannot get enough of its satellite feature, their ability to actually look at a picture of my house, however tiny, but still my fucking house on the internet.

Other houses I have lived in, if you want to see them:

7040 Canterbury Lane, Alexandria

7922 Bayberry Drive, Alexandria

5700 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota

1936 University Avenue, Madison

8424(?) Cypress Circle, Sarasota

Thunder is burping somewhere not too far away and my living room is getting darker because the sky outside it is and I am tired and will probably either watch Orpah, nap, or more likely, nap to Oprah. I just watched A Dirty Shame and enjoyed it way too much. The first half was awesome and I could not believe that it was sustaining itself. The energy, mine, wore off during the second half, but I imagine drunk or stoned, I would love to watch this movie again. Some parts are just too good.

And because I know you are all curious as to the exact date of the Cock's expiration date, I did a little investigation last night. More like I saw JonJon Battles at the Metroplotian, where I did not sing you will be pleased to know, and I asked him. The last night of the old Cock is July 10. The new Cock opens the very next day, July 11, with JonJon's Homeskool night continuing. So yes, July 11, I will be doing my best to sully a new bar, break it in.

Coffee and Oprah! That's what I'll do.

Um, okay, yeah. Three words and when they are all implored in one sentence you should worry, especially when it's me that's employing all three as one sentence. Because, um, yeah - another three to make you wary - I just had sex with some random boy, perhaps man, at Niki's store party. I equal out of control and I knew this when I was locking the bathroom with this boy who I just had started talking to perhaps two minutes earlier and you now was dry humping against a wall at a party. I don't know how it started, really - but I think he was a married fashion designer. I had had three glasses of gin, maybe that's why.

I still can smell semen and then even though I only had one toke of this stranger's pot, I got so incredibly baked. On the subway ride home, I was laughing at the top of lungs, uncontrollably, because this mom and her son were exchaning one of those uncontrollabe, private laughs and it reminded me of so much and I lost it, laughed so much, got stared at, tried covering my mouth but could not help it. And now, that post-jacking off high and that stoned high, I am going to karaoke at Metropolitan, where all considering, I should obviously not sing, but watch me, if you dare, try, try, and try.

does this sound like the best job ever?

2 Bar Researchers (yes bar) Needed for Short-Term Project
Reply to: job-79998512@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-06-21, 12:03PM EDT


Do you appreciate excellent wit?
Do you have a dry, but good, sense of humor?
Can you appreciate a great dive bar as well as an old school NYC institution?
Can you walk the streets of Manhattan?
Are you a 23+ male interested in making a few hundred bucks over a weekend or two?

Job is not ideal for timid types or anyone that might be reticent to walk into any bar in Manhattan.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/etc/79998512.html

Saturday night was fun. It led to me sleeping most of yesterday away except for the brief trip to get a bj from the regular. I was pretty drunk at the bar and broke free of Misshapes and drank a wine cooler on the street when I ran into Wyatt and did some coke with him on the street. Then I danced a lot, danced really silly with Niki (think Romy and Michelle), and stayed really late. Sometime after four, I found a twenty on the dancefloor. That was perhaps the most awesome part of the night. Sadly, however, it looks like the race is still on to see who can get their grin on the internet first.

I might go out tonight to a place where it will definitely not happen, but perhaps because of that, probably more so because of other factors, the raunch factor mainly, it is my most favorite bar in the whole wide world, and a bar that will be closing soon. The Cock is going to take over the Hole but that is not right by the L Train and there is already Boysroom right be the Hole and similar in dimensions to the Hole. I just do not think that the new space will be anything like the current one, the current one that only has couple more weeks of life in it.

The article is accompanied by a Ryan McGinley photo.

I am hungry even though I have been eating all day. I finished My Loose Thread, and realized I am a lot more receptive to Cooper than I used to be. I used to problematize Cooper's perverse plots, thinking them too willful - back when I had issues with representaion, and was bothered by Cooper's characters' (homo)sexuality being the reason they are all fuck-ups and murderers - but I have gotten some sense, lost those equally willful concerns of mine, and let the text be read without those readings. It is a really sad, gorgeous book. I am going to have to purchase his other books, of course, only if I can find them at the Strand where I still seem to get my discount.

Like, you see, earlier, I would have labeled his style as purposefully incendiary, his plot turns as shock tactics and dismissed them, but I don't think Cooper is there behind his computer anymore thinking, "Let's see, what I can do that will provoke people? I know, I'll write a story about a killer gay teen who sleeps with his younger brother." But rather, this is just the natural stuff that comes out of him, that this is what goes on in the recesses of his brain, but also ours, and it takes reading this stuff to realize that these fantasies are somewhere latent in you.

Now I am reading another book that centers around incest: Nabakov's Ada, or Ardor, one of his later books. His later books are dismissed by some as too much, overwrought in their difficulty. And the prose is a little absurd, but that definitley seems to be part of the point so far. The phrase "mind on fire" is the title of an Emmerson biography, but that phrase pops into my head whenever I think about Nabakov. There are writers I like better but I wouldn't dare name of them a better man with words. He's a genius for language in a way that I really only think non native speakers can be. Like when you hear a non native speaker use a really odd phrase and you think how beautiful it is because it makes the words new, it uses them with an awareness of the definiton of each word, that is Nabakov except to the nth degree. And since he was able to write in just about every major Western language, his verbal skills and plays on words are out of this world. I am enjoying it, am only thirty pages into it, and have already said wow a couple of times at ideas proprosed or elegant sentences. I might say wow once during a whole book or not at all, but a couple times in the first thirty pages, man! This has me real excited about the other six hundred.

I finished John Gregory Dunne's Nothing Lost this afternoon and moved right on to Dennis Cooper's My Loose Thread, which is different in major ways obviously, but also similar in some respects. I am really liking Cooper's sparse prose after coming off so many typical fiction novels, where the writing is of that certain style.

Anyway, I was looking at the listing for it on Amazon when I realized Amazon has these functions that I have never noticed. It identifies the phrase "naked pictures" as a "statistically improbably phrase" with five instances of it in Cooper's book - surprisingly only one other book having more instances of that phrase. But it also has a concordance that lists the 100 most used words in the text and gives you the stats of the book, word count, etc. This is going to be another way that I waste time now, by looking at these features on all the books I love.

__________________________

Addition: I just tried looking at other books to find that most do not have these fun features enabled.

___________________________

Also, I would really like to read his latest, The Sluts, which is about online sex workers, but fuck paying fifty dollars for the limited edition hardcover. The paperback, however, does not come out until October!

Ha! I was rereading those messages I wrote to Matt and I noticed that I didn't even type my phone number right. So really, there was just the slightest expectation, however unrealistic it may have been, that Matt might take me up on the offer and call me - but now, I guess I can banish that delusion since I am not even capable of writing my phone number when I am drunk.

In other news, nothing is new. I am probably going to go out, get drunk, and dance at Misshapes with my roommates. Jillian and I, the other night drunk, talked about our love of looking at the Misshapes and Lastnightsparty pictures, our (not so secret) desire to be on there, and decided that this is our goal, to see who can get on there first. And yes, throw the paint at me, call me a hypocrite in light of what I wrote not even a week ago decrying that mentality - do that, and then come dance with me.

I woke up this afternoon, hitting my hand against my head, regretting some of the things I said last night, especially the message I wrote to Matt. I have said this once, twice, too many times, but rum is the devil. I need to stay away from it. The previous time I was drunk on rum, I had oral sex with multiple people at a bar, and while last night was really nothing compared to that in terms of out of controlness or risk, my actions still leave me terribly embarrassed on this day after.

There was a party at Triple Five Soul where they were serving Bacardi and I drank a few drinks there, a beer at home, a couple more beers at Alligator Lounge, and then more beers at the scene of the crime, the Metropolitan. I ran into Wyatt and Adrian there and hung out with them, gossiped, talked about dirty things and at some point in the night started talking to this older man with a raunchy mouth and was very close to going home with him. I was so horny last night, it was insane. I need to stick to beer or gin, but definitely not rum - it really does make me a sexual maniac and I am not sure why. Everytime I have done something extremely naughty, I was usually drunk off of rum, and each time I drink rum, I invariably do something at least mildly naughty. But yeah, this unattractive man, I let talk to me so dirty about what he wanted to do with me, and then thank god, Matt came into the bar, came up to me to bum a cigarette and I talked to him, brushing off the dirty man.

And I told Matt about the dirty old man and this led into a conversation about our sex lives in general, him telling me that he has a couple "sex boyfriends", one who he was meeting there. And I told him I wanted to be one of these sex boyfriends, and it didn't sound so embarrassing then because that's the tone our conversation had, but now I cringe when I recall these details. And yes, eventually his boy came and I left and went home and wrote that email you read. This morning, I saw that he had still not logged on to Friendster recently so he still hasn't read the message and I tried to see if there was a way to unsend it and there's not and I wished that I could hack into his account and delete it, but instead I wrote another one to try to seem less scary, but probably making myself seem more so:

Matt:

I wish you could unsend messages. It is so embarrasing waking up the next morning cringing with the memory that you wrote something really silly and then it being there, the record of what you wrote drunk. Drunk statements should never have that permanence where you can examine them in the light of sobriety

And I know this and yet it seems that I am always doing these things drunk, as you may already know. So yeah, rather than go on and leave more permanent etchings that I may regret, I just want to state that the purpose of this email is temper the o.o.c.ness that is that earlier message sitting in your inbox and to apologize for my habit of so often, too often, lacking any sort of self control.

Have an awesome day!
Charlie

Oh yeah, in other boy news, Zach canceled our plans for last night (yes, again) because he got fired, and I ran into Ryan (Morrissey boy) at that T5S party and he was pretty friendly. Um, yeah, I need to work on self control/avoiding talking to Matt.

someone please prevent from drunk communications

I am drunk and I will tell you more about my night tomorrow when I am sober, but really, I think this email just sent may say enough, if not all that needs to be said:

Matt

i think you may have thought i was drunk, which i
most definitely was, but i was very serious about
what i proposed to you about wanting to be one of
your sex boyfriends. i don't see why the option
of casual sex should be totally rejected just
because we dated for a brief time. i find you
absurdly attractive and this is why i jump up and
down every time i see you, basically because i
want to make out with you. so yes, i want to be
considered for the position of one of your sex
bfs. anytime you feel like it, call me
917.202.XXXX. seriously.

charlie

Last night, toward the end of the night when I was in a bar with maybe ten people, some of those people being members of Bloc Party, I couldn't help but feel really cool, thinking to myself that my choice of entertainment for a Wednesday evening was the same as a really hip rock band.

The night started out with dinner at Niki's house. Mussels and sangria. It was a really nice meal. Then we went out to an open bar at No. 1 Chinese that when we first arrived seemed really odd, some people still sitting at tables finishing their dinner and a couple other confused seeming people ordering from the bar. And this is ten o'clock, things will change at this place in so short a time and then change again in a perhaps even quicker span of time and this is what amazes me about nightlife and bars - how it is like a tornado of people, it picks up force and becomes a wild party and then just as quickly, it all gives way to entropy, the place becoming totally empty. Towards eleven, the dj (The Captain), who was awesome, played The Whispers' "Rock Steady." Now I don't know if you know this song or know how much I love it and get obsessed with it from time to time. When I worked at the Strand, I told my co-worker who was also a dj that he had to buy this record and play it, that people would love it. He took my advice but claimed people didn't love it. Now I wasn't there, so I didn't get to hear it played at a bar, and I have never ever once heard it played in a bar/dance setting, and so when the dj started playing it, it is fair to say that I lost my shit. I lose my shit easily for songs I love but for a song I have always wanted to see djs adopt and play at parties, I started dancing and singing along so happy even though no one was really dancing at this point.

Shortly after other people started dancing, everyone was, and not bobbing their heads, but dancing on tables, shaking limbs like wild. It was so good to be at a really fun, high energy dance party where people weren't dancing there just to be be able to point themselves out the next day on Lastnightsparty or the Misshapes site - where they dance to be perceived to be dancing, where it is the possible gaze that motivates them. This was so much more pure, so much less restrained. It was wild and perhaps by telling you that, I am doing the same thing. Perhaps I was dancing and having so much fun last night knowing that the gaze of my Livejournal was observing. It is a document of the night still, something to say look how cool I am, there at that bar with Bloc Party and cute homos (see Missed Connections). But regardless, it was amazing, the music, the dancing and the energy. It reminded me so much of a New College wall because it was one great song after the next, not just playing a specific genre of music, but throwing anything up at the wall and knowing it would stick because it was a great song: Daft Punk, David Bowie, ODB, MIA, Hall and Oates, Michael Jackson - it was so awesome.

And for whatever reasons, because when you are drunk, you, or at least I, like to wander around, to try out other bars, Joe and I decided to go to Phoenix. We stayed there for one drink and decided that No. 1 Chinese was way more fun, so we went back, not even an hour after we had left it in full swing, and we had to wait outside to get in because the place is a restaurant and is weird and the doors were locked from the outside at night, so we had to wait for someone to come up from the basement and leave to let us in. And who should be wandering around upstairs but Kele Okerere, the easily recognizable lead singer of Bloc Party. We knocked and he let us back in and we went back downstairs to find the formerly packed dancefloor completely empty, the dj booth empty, and only about ten people hanging out in the bar area. I am so amazed by stuff like this. There is a passage in A Heartbreaking Work that I only vaguely remember but in it Eggers muses about the potential of human hands and how together we could tear apart cities and rebuild them in the dark of nights, and it is a similar awe that I am under when I think about this mass of people all coming together, shining for a brief moment and then moving off to go shine in other moments, other places. But hanging out in the deserted bar I was wondering where those other places were, thinking of Burr's "Blackout Bar" piece and thinking about empty bars and how they are capable of signifying so much about humans, their movements through time, and their deaths, the bars at 4 in the morning, trash on the floor, people long gone. We had another drink. I gawked at Bloc Party while Joe and I both talked to this boy, Jared, who we both had a crush on prior to talking to him, and then we went home, making the bar emptier still.

In good news, I found a really awesome list of free summer shows. But the bad news is that looking at this list, I realized (and did not realize this earlier because I am a space cadet) that the free Grizzly Bear show and the free New Pornographers show are happening on the same today. I could probably go to both, but it would be tricky, it would leave me in the back of Prospect Park far away from the stage, and I probably also wouldn't enjoy N.P. after being out in the sun all day long already. This is what is known as a dilemma.

The Redwalls were okay, nothing special, the bland rock that you will see in used CD bins in great number pretty soon. Sloan were better seeming, but I had also had two beers in between the two sets, the lighting was better and so really they had everything in their favor and when Jamie said that it was the dark lighting that made them sound better than the brightly lit Redwalls, I tried to resist the notion that I could be so easily manipulated. But I closed my eyes to try to not see the lighting situation the band was in and it was true, they weren't nearly as rocking sounding with my eyes closed. I didn't even stay for their whole set before I went back home on the J train. I did not look out the windows as we went over the bridge.

Of course, it is tonight that they are showing Rize, the David LaChapelle directed doc about break dancing for free outside. It is coming to theaters sometime this summer and I can just wait to see it then and will probably enjoy it more without kids, bugs, and the heat. I say of course, because I just confirmed plans to go to Bowery Ballroom to go see Sloan and the Redwalls with Jamie.

Summer of free concerts is continuing tonight. I really like saying Summer of... Two summers ago I kept on calling it Summer of Pop Music because all I wanted to hear was "Crazy in Love" over and over again, and just about every summer I will at some point drunkenly declare the summer, Summer of Sluttiness. Why is it so fun to call things Summer of? I've never done this for Fall, Winter, or Spring - the summer is the only one privleged enough. Summer is that blip in what is otherwise your year, when the weather changes, when your plans do, you're off from school or remember that this was the time when you were and everything is up in the air, anything is possible and it just starts with a declaration to yourself and your carmates at the beginning of the roadtrip: All right guys, are you all ready for the Summer of _____?

I slept with the sixty three year old today and felt pretty disgusted by the end of it. On the subway ride home, I could not wait to get in my shower and put soap on my body, make it smell like new. The reasons are so many why I need a job.

The sun and the heat are intense today. It reminds me of stepping out of air conditioned cars on roadtrips, being hit by that hot air, reaching for your shoes to stretch because the ground is too hot not to wear them.

________________________________

As I said earlier, Grizzly Bear is awesome. They have tons of songs for the listening up there and also some on their MySpace account. They are playing this Thursday at Bowery, but I am not paying fifteen to go see them because 1.) This is the Summer of Free Concerts, and 2.) Perhaps more truthfully, because I am broke. But they are playing a free show on the 25th at the East River Park.

I am now twenty four years old and in past years, I would say "God, now I am twenty one years old," or "God, now I am twenty-three years old," thinking of it as another notch in the belt and moving closer and closer toward the end of the belt, beginning to run out of room. And I would do some self-evaluation, thinking like I did last year, that I could not turn twenty four and still be working at the Strand, or even working in a retail job - starting to try to fit my life into notions of age appropriateness, thinking that some of the things I do are just not appropriate anymore, that they become more and more pathetic, some of your behavior patterns with each bump up in your age.

This year, however, I have done of that type of thinking and I don't know if that is a sign of maturity or perhaps its opposite. My birthday barely registered as an event with me. I didn't tell that many people about it and twenty four does sound older, that perhaps I have passed that demarcation where I can't still behave like a college kid. Nearing that quarter of a century mark and it does look adult to see the numbers played out across my mind in numeric form: 24, 24, 24.

I celebrated my birthday, or more accurately, participated in, did on my birthday - I wasn't too celebratory - I went to Union Pool during the daytime for the bands that were playing there, mainly though to see Grizzly Bear, who for whatever reason, even though they are probably the biggest of the bands that played - were slated to play first. The room they played im was not air conditioned. It was in the nineties yesterday, I do believe. The room was packed with people and so of course, it was obscenely hot in the space. I felt the beads of sweat slowly trickle down my chest and down my back during their set and it felt so good, those little beads of moisture tickling my back, cooling me off even if it was in the smallest spots. Grizzly Bear played one of the most amazing shows I have ever seen. It is one I will remember for a long time and surely the heat, the fact that I was drunk off of Red Stripe and the hot heat made me receptive to the pleasures to be had from sprawling discordant rock. I am in love with the drummer, Christopher Bear, who it turns out is the only straight member of the band.

There were so many homo scenesters at Union Pool yesterday. It was pretty awesome. Paul and Niki were there with me. I ran into Morrissey lookalike, Ryan there, who approached me to talk and was fairly friendly, even though I am sure he doesn't know my name. Wyatt showed up there and because he is really good at pushing me to do things that fit his agenda, I left Union Pool after catching some of Levy's set, who were also really good, and went to the Metropolitan and shared a couple pitchers with him. We went on the patio upstairs which is never open, but was yesterday because Metropolitan was packed with people, more than I've ever seen there - and from up there, I saw the sun start to set and the sky was so gorgeous and so big from that patio. There was a gorgeous guy sitting across from me who I kept making eyes at. More beer was consumed and Wyatt and I left to go get cigarettes. Heading back toward the bar, I saw this gorgeous guy leaving. He waved hi and I told him he was coming back to the bar. A cigarette later, we were making out in the back against the wall so out of control. It was awesome.

I love that feeling when you are talking to someone and there are silences that aren't hurried, pushed along into speech, into more conversation, where the two of you stare at each other for a long time until finally someone says something, there's some more talk, even more silence, and then instead of saying something else, he just kissed me and it was so awesome. Forget the fact that everyone saw me being slutty, it was so fun, and it was my birthday. I didn't go home with him because that was when I still thought I was going to go out dancing in Manhattan, but I got comfortable and drunk at Metropolitan and did not want to venture anywhere. I ate some pizza at Alligator with Joe to soak up some of the eight hours worth of beer drinking, ran into Matt on my way there, and met up with Ethan there. Headed back to Metropolitan and don't even think I drank a quarter of my cup of beer before midnight struck and I started to yawn, so tired, and decided that I could go to bed, that my birthday was over and I hugged Joe and Ethan goodnight and stumbled home to my bed.

I did not think about what it means to age on the way home and did not think about it at all today. I will have four dollars to my name after I give Dara my rent money tonight, and because I am getting really lucky and my two regulars always seem to contact me when I need cash - I have a date tomorrow afternoon with the sixty three year old. I am too tired to try to do sex work now, this evening, hate cruising Craigslist and so will probably not, even though I really want money tonight so I can go to the Architecture in Helsinki show.

I bought myself a yellow girl's tanktop yesterday as a birthday present. I am wearing it now and I love it so much.

All right, obviously I didn't go out if I am updating, but BCAT, one of the local public access stations just showed either a real or fake snuff video and this guy literally sliced off a woman's hand and then her arm and it looked too real to be fake. It was so awful and made me want to vomit but I couldn't turn away and now they are showing gory scenes from "Night of the Living Dead," - this show seems to be called "Hellrazor" and it is awful and I cannot believe that they are allowed to show this stuff.

You see Target had to get the celebrations started. It was really nice of them to spend however many millions of dollars for that fireworks show to celebrate my birthday but they were a couple hours early doing so and so it interupted my viewing of The Hills Have Eyes, already sort of scary, but even scarier when you think Manhattan is being bombed. I then went up on my roof to witness the long, long bombing of the sky. It made me happy.

And it also made all the Puerto Ricans in my neighborhood happy too. Today, I was walking home from the video store when a little mini Puerto Rican parade happened, cars taking over the traffic, people marching down Union Avenue, screaming, shirtless, and waving giant flags. There is something so on the verge of anarchy this weekend. You can hear it when the news people interview the co-op owners on Fifth Avenue who defend their decisions to put up plywood around their buildings to protect their flowerbeds from all those people. And the amount of Puerto Ricans and how they take to the streets astounds me - it could so easily turn into a revoultion it seems. And tonight, firewords are being set off dangerously close to my house, terrifying me that someone's rooftop is going to be set ablaze. I hear large crowds of people yelling in the street. There are block parties all around my house in anticipation of the parade tomorrow. It has me a little on edge and now I want to get out of my house and dance in someplace, anyplace, because it is 95 percent humidity outside I heard, and I want to be inside - even if I get hot, dancing, because now I am sticky and don't like it and the firecrackers are making me nervous. And I am out of gin.

lcd soundsystem setlist

We had about two hours until they were to take the stage, so we went to Roll Roaster right across the street from Webster Hall, enticed by their advertisement proclaiming pitchers of beer for $3.95. We split a small pizza and consumed two pitchers of beer and then crossed the street, smoked a cigarette and went into the show.

They started off the show with a lovely version of "Beat Connection," - it was so nice to hear these synth songs performed for the most part live, there was one person with a synth machine, but two guitarists, a drummer, and James Murphy's awesome voice, and him occasionally taking a break to beat the hell out of a drumset or a cowbell. The bass guitarist was dressed in a white shirt and jeans. He was young, short, and cute. He was sex back there behind James Murphy, his arms sweating, this look in his eyes, and pumping at his guitar like a fucking maniac. It's so common reading guitarists as sex gods, seeing them with their hands by their groin showing their agility and making a stroking gesture over and over intensely - and then they're sweating too - yeah, it's so typical for people to love guitarists for this reason, and whatever, I am so typical, but I wanted to fuck that guitarist so bad last night.

Surprisingly, "Daft Punk is Playing at my House," was their fourth song. I was sure that they would have saved that for their last song or their encore - but it was a good choice because that loosened the crowd up and a bunch more people danced for the rest of their set. And surprisingly, that was not my favorite song of their set. They played a long, awesome version of "Losing My Edge," lit just by the disco ball per James Murphy's request. For some reason, I did not have that song - but I downloaded it as soon as I got home and if you don't have it on your computer or on some listening device do so - it is sad and funny and brilliant.

I love how James Murphy looks like this beer loving frat guy and then he gets up to the mike and makes these crazed sounds. His voice is awesome, seeing him beat the hell out of a cowbell is also awesome. I left that show so sweaty, so dehydrated. That is a good show, when you spend ten, fifteen minutes afterward cooling off on the sidewalk outside, catching your breath, letting all that sweat dry. So fucking good!.

Last night, I went to a party for Genre magazine at the Highline bar in the Meatpacking district. Doesn't that sentence terrify you? Genre magazine and a bar in the Meatpacking district - it would have been way awful had there not been an open bar, a raffle, and two cute boys that I stared at all night long, or at least for the two hours of the open bar. Sadly, I didn't win the raffle and I didn't even talk to either of the boys, although David did push me into one of my crushes, so I made physical contact with one in a really juvenile way.

It is hot and sticky in my apartment and the roomies are gone for the weekend, and so I am lounging around in my underwear all weekend long. I am reading John Gregory Dunne's Nothing Lost, which is really good in that gritty crime fiction way. I hear echoes of things that Joan Didion would write about and want to read his nonfiction, specifically Monster, which is about the two of them working for Hollywood writing a script. I remember reading one of the essays in Quintana and Friends when I was working at the Strand and hiding in the aisles reading whatever I could. I am really excited about the news I read on Maud Newton that Didion has written a book about grieving Dunne, The Year of Magical Thinking. I want to obtain a proof of this so bad. Anyone know anyone at Random House that will help me out?

Speaking of people with jobs, I need to be one of those people. The rent is due. I have to pick up my paycheck from the Princeton Review today and also have to do some sex work today or tomorrow so I can pay my rent. It is too hot to be in the house during the day now. I need a nice cool place to go to in the daytime, someplace that will pay me money to sit in their air conditioning. The past few days I have been waking up around eight exactly because that is when the sunlight starts to hit my window at a certain angle and heat up my room to the point where I can not comfortably sleep. I like that. I like the heat because I never want to sleep in it. It makes me more alert, less lazy.

summer shows

All right, I am still on a summer kick. The heat does something to my music tastes, mushes them to what can very validly be called crap. I love pop music, the radio kind, when it is really hot outside. Yesterday, at least I was listening to pop hip hop on Hot 97 and that is a little more high on the music ladder than what I am listening to today: KTU 103.5. It is a Florida station is what it is. It is bad remixes of pop songs, the occasional old school song thrown in, Boys II Men, Michael Jackson, Depeche Mode - it is just what I want to hear on this hot day. My roommates are leaving town tomorrow for the weekend, and it is going to be a nonstop KTU dance party here at Palindrome Grand Street. I am pretty excited about this weekend. I think it is going to start tonight with hearing Stephen Merritt spin at Nowhere.

This afternoon, I am going to go see this guy I see often and will make some money and then will just have to see one other person sometime tomorrow or Friday and I will be set for rent and for playing on this my birthday weekend. But yes, tomorrow there is stuff going on in the evening, open bars and such. Friday is motherfucking LCD Soundsystem for free courtesy of Jamie. Sunday, my birthday, I don't know what I am doing yet, but I want it to involve dancing and getting wasted but I can't think of any awesome places that I love to dance at being fun on Sunday. The best I can think of is Park which sort of always annoys me. There is always the option of Metropolitan. And there is also the Puerto Rican Day parade to dance at during the day. There is a Grizzly Bear show in the afternoon at Union Pool. And there is an Architechture in Helsinki show at the Knitting Factory, but I think I am going to put them off until Monday when they play at Northsix. I am really excited about this summer and all the free shows and the news that Bonnie told me yesterday that she is going to be here for the weekend of the Siren Festival. This summer is going to be so great. The free shows that I have found so far that I am really excited about.

6/10 - LCD Soundsytem (free for me)
6/13 - A.I.H. - not free, but cheap and according to Bonnie, awesome.
6/24 - Cassandra Wilson - Central Park
6/25 - New Pornographers - Prospect Park
6/26 - Tegan and Sara - Central Park
6/28 - Annie - Hiro (free again!!)
7/14 - Ozomatli - Prospect Park
7/16 - Siren Music Fest at Coney Island w/ Mates of State, Spoon, and a million more
7/17 - Brazilian Girls - Central Park
8/4 - Patti Smith - Central Park
8/7 - MIA - Central Park
8/24 - Chuck Brown - Jackie Robinson Park

Dara's room is really large. She is leaving in August to move back to Florida. Her room is really large, at least twice as big as the next biggest room, Jillian's, which is average New York bedroom size and which anyone should be happy to move into considering how cheap the rent is. But sometimes people are stupid and just have issues knowing that there is this gigantic bedroom and that they don't have it, even though when they pass on the apartment, they are going to end up paying a lot more to live in a room that may even be smaller than the one they would have gotten. This happened with Dara and me and the first girl that was going to live with us. She just could not live in the other room. She had to have the big room.

And now the same thing is happening with Niki. I think it is a form of girl competiviness, putting your foot down, saying you have to get the big room, and hoping that you will win. But Jillian is moving into Dara's room when she leaves and I was planning to stay in my shoebox room because I really wanted to live with Niki. I also tried to convince Peter to move back to New York. He was my first choice. But I am pretty annoyed with Niki right now for refusing to move in, claiming she needs a bigger space because every other place she has lived in in New York has been the size of Jillian's current room.

Argh, now I have to think of other possible new roommates and I want it to be someone I choose rather than someone of Jillian's choice because then I will feel totally alien to the apartment space since her boyfriend is always here too. I would sort of really like to live with a male, even a gay male, because I am tired of living with all girls. I want a new dynamic to occur. Who though? I don't want to make an open call because there are lots of people whom I like but probably would hate to live with.

Also, now that none of my first choices are not going to live here, I might move into Jillian's current room because my current room fits about a twin bed and that it is it. It would be nice to have some space, and also, my room has a doorway that connects it to Dara's room, and I can hear Dara cough in bed, which is totally fine. But hearing Josh and Jillian giggle in bed each night might make me slash my wrists. So also this person is going to have to not mind living in a shoebox, but a really cheap shoebox (400!).

It's still two months away and so I shouldn't stress about it, but I really was hoping for an awesome living situation and hopefully, I can still make that happen. Anyone know of anyone really awesome that I would like to live with, not just like, but like to live with?

I don't know why I have read references to this Domsey's thrift store because as far as thrift stores go, it is pretty unspectacular. It is cheap for New York but there is nothing really there. I found a couple of cool t-shirts, but I can find cool t-shirts anywhere. I have a pretty wide definition of a cool t-shirt. It doesn't take much.

And it was hot, and I had a beer at three in the afternoon and just bought a little bottle of vodka that I am going to try to wait till it is dark out to drink, but a nice cool glass of vodka would be so nice on this sweltering day. I think most other people want a slushee or coke when the sun is beating down on them, but my body does not work that way, my body is Homer Simpson's and starts salivating over the words slowly drown out, beer, as if it is water and you are in the desert. Cold beer on a hot day is the best. Summer is the best even if I am sans new exciting summer outfit because Domsey's was a total bust. Tomorrow is supposed to be ninety again. Maybe Coney Island?

Fuck yeah!

That is how good I feel right now. I don't have a job, I don't have any prospects, I don't have any good news, and I am fairly broke, but, but - and this is a gigantic but that negates anything else, anyfuckingthing - I am alive! And not sick anymore!

"That show is gansta!"

The DJ on Hot 97 just said this about Hell's Kitchen which I watched last night and enjoyed so much. The DJ related how out of control the chef was, one particular incident when customers came to complain about the slow service, and he told them to go back to Plastic Surgery Land. The show is so awesome!

I've got distracted and I am going to be distracted all day because it is a good day and I am not feeling crappy for the first time in a week. Three things that have made my morning: the throwback at noon on Hot 97 with awesome old school songs that I danced around my living room to, iced coffee, a giant glass of it, and a Newport cigarette. Those three things have made me so happy. Today, after I finish this giant glass, I am going to go to find this legendary Domsey's thrift store and hopefully find some rocking summer outfit (come on, booty shorts!), and then because I am fairly broke and shouldn't be making these unnecessary purchases that I will surely make at Domsey's, I am going to cruise Craigslist and try to do some sex work.

Sum-sum-summer time!!!!!!!

I have already taken two showers today and there very well may be a third one lined up for later today. It is summer. It is ninety outside and even hotter inside and I am sweating nonstop. Normally this is what I love, but just coming out of sickness, it is not so pleasant. The air is hazy outside and I could not find a fitted twin sheet that wasn't a poly/cotton blend at any of the little crap stores on Grand Street. Who the fuck would sleep on polyester sheets, especially in this heat? Get the fuck real.

I did, however, find a two dollar pair of sunglasses that is either totally awesome or totally hideous depending on whether you are cool or not. Um, I had never heard this Ying Yang Twins song "Wait" until today. I downloaded it after reading a reference to it. Wow, yeah it is dirty and a little troubling, but it is pretty perfect with the whispering - the effect is hot. It's summer time, it's too hot to say things other than it's hot and get the fuck real, too hot to really talk to you or myself about much, however much I would want. My hands are sweaty from contanstly wiping off the sweat that never seems to stop from pouring down my forehead and really it just makes typing a little nasty. But I cleared my camera today and really there was absolutely nothing on it besides pictures of myself and pictures of my room. I really need to start taking pictures of my friends and my life, that that is what cameras are for right, to visually record these moments. But here are some pictures of dusk and near dusk and some pictures of me with no hair because I chopped it all off because it is fucking too hot for that shit, too hot not to talk in obscenities, and also notice my fucking hot two dollar sunglasses.





I love this so much, when it is dusk and it literally settles on your windowsill, that blue sneaks into your room. I love that!


This is the view from my living room window. This building is so gorgeous in the setting sun. That red is unreal. I love that too! I love everything!


I especially love these sunglasses.


And I even more so love how wearing sunglasses sort of induces you to ham it up a bit. You can do all the silly things you want and it's okay because you are wearing sunglasses! When I was walking home with these on, I felt a lot more goofy and confident. Sunglasses totally give you that I am star and fuck you because this is my world attitude. I love that too.

All right, I just realized that I am not crazy, that is not all the Dayquil's fault, but it is really probably ninety degrees in my living room. I thought it was the Dayquil's fault that I was sweating like crazy today while on the couch. After walking to Walgreen's, I realized that no, it is fucking hot in this living room. I am already dripping sweat and I just got back in here. This is the third shirt I have worn today. I have already sweated through two.

Anyways, yes, the sickness. It's ending tomorrow I decided. This is now four days I have spent inside and I am pissed. I have missed a lovely weekend, many awesome events. I missed the Daniel Reich opening I had been so excited about. I missed Ethan's birthday at Metropolitan. I missed the barbeque there also today. I am right now missing Stache where JD is spinning. And tomorrow, I am going to quit missing these things. I bought some milk at Walgreen's last night and you know what that is for?

That is because tomorrow I am indulging in the vices that make my life enjoyable, damnit! Or, at least some of them. Maybe I won't be smoking or drinking tomorrow, but it has been nearly a week now since I have had a cup of coffee and tomorrow, I have having one - that it is what that milk was purchased for. Tomorrow, this shit better be out of my system, because I am going to live like it is. Man, I wanted to dance to JD so bad. I am way pissed about the timing of my illness. But, I guess there is something exciting happening every weekend that you would miss if you were sick.

There was no warning. Thursday, I woke up and coulnd't even swallow spit down my throat without it hurting, my throat was so sore. By mid-afternoon, I was crashed in bed, literally delirious and having the shivers. Painful, painful headaches whenever I left my bed and stood, shooting pains at the top of your spine, pains that made me wince these horrible open mouthed faces whenver I walked to the bathroom. A runny nose that had to blown constantly even though that made my head ache like hell.

Yesterday, less severe, but all I ate was soup, still slept basically all day, sweated profusely and generally was of the opinion that dying must certainly be less painful. Today, not nearly as bed. Still have terrible headaches and a constricted throat, but no shivers, no delirium. Thursday, I really thought I was going to die and it really scared me that I did not have health insurance. Being delirious from a fever, having waking dreams, is no good, however cool it may sound.

I better feel fucking better tomorrow.