on doorknobs and other knobs

Three years after moving into this apartment and three months after living in this bedroom, my bedroom finally has a doorhandle on the door. I am and I am not sure why that took so long to finally do. There are other things that I would like to get for my room: curtains, bed frame, nice art. Tomorrow, if it is not raining, I will see if these things can be found on the cheap in my neighborhood.

Today, I painted my door, nailed in wood to close the gap between my door and the door frame, and installed that door handle. That was way more tiring than it should have been. And the reason it was so tiring was probably partly because I am out of shape and easily winded by even riding my bike, but is even more so due (so I am hoping) to my excessive alcohol consumption last night. I went to Savalas where there was an open bar, went to Royal Oak, went to a bodega on Bedford for beer, went to a closed Fun, went to a packed Metropolitan where some nice old couple bought us all drinks. I did not make it out to Park Slope even though I had promised two friends to attend their parties, one a going away party even. I felt mildly guilty about this - as guilty (which is very little) as you (or, at least I) can feel when drunk. (What is up with all the parentheticals (aside from, of course, my love of them)?)

But, yes, the proof of how drunk you were is always the bruises found the day after. There are physical ones and metaphorical bruises, asking yourself, "Did I really do that?" - sleeping with this or that person, puking, making an ass out of yourself - the variety is so finite here, but yet, never ceases to amaze or to be embarrassing in the recounting. And I do have a pretty nasty bruise on my left thigh, gotten I know not how. And I don't have any totally embarrassing metaphorical bruises, but when I did wake up this morning, I did ask myself, "WTF? Did I really?" And I asked this because last night, late in the morning, drunk, I found myself on Manhunt, wrote a local boy, went over to his house, and exchanged blowjobs before finally (I was getting way tired) jacking ourselves off. That was my first time hooking up with someone on that site, and it was fun, and the boy had a massive cock, but it was done in a fog of drunken horniness, and this morning, with that fog cleared, I had a hard time imagining that I really went over to some stranger's house at four in the am, some dirty basement apartment.

David Wojnarowicz's Close to the Knives was sitting on his coffee table by his door. I noticed it as I was leaving his apartment. It is one of my favorite books and its appearance, in this scene, seemed very appropriate.