How does one recover from a terrible day? My normal method of hanging out with close friends and having fun was prevented as most close friends were occupied doing fun things, going to MoMa or going on dates. My method of dealing with terrible days if often a variation of this practice, of doing something fun to put the root causes of that terrible feeling out of mind, to wash away any negative feelings or thoughts with fun, with happiness (of a sort). I wonder if this is the best practice, if not instead I should be wallowing in that negative feeling, wrestling it and coming to terms with it, dealing with the things that make me feel a certain way and changing things about my life to prevent that terrible feeling from (re)occuring.

I did not try this new approach this evening. Instead, getting home from work, from a terrible temp assignment, I masturbated for about half an hour. That was the first exhale. Then I had a beer. Second exhale. It was shallow breathing though. I then put on some Tina and Ike and had myself a dance party and that felt really good, danced to "Nutbush City Limits" a couple of times. Then I bought some cigarettes, ate some yummy greens and cheese, drank some more beer, and watched a movie. I am feeling better. There is still stuff inside that I think I may need to dance out later, may need to put Tina and Ike back on the stereo.

And the really frustrating thing is I am not even sure why today dug under my skin so bad, why I was ready to cry on the train ride home. I was working in the pantry in the executive offices of a really big development company. Basically I was responsible for stocking various fridges with snacks and sodas for rich developers and cleaning up their messes. Their offices were high up at Columbus Circle, overlooking Central Park. I decided I hated it within ten minutes, felt really low doing this, more so than doing sex work, that this was demeaning work, picking up plates from conference rooms. And boring! So fucking boring! Standing around a kitchen with nothing to do most of the day, trying to look occupied when executives came into the kitchen and looked at me like what I was, the help. It was terrible and made me feel terrible with each slowly, ever so slowly, passing minute.

So on my lunch break, I called up my temp agency to tell them that I couldn't do this job tomorrow, that they had to get someone else to do it, that it was making me feel terrible, and was something that I did not want to be doing, that I did not want to work with food. It was a kind of terrible feeling up until this point, the manageable type, where I had my freedom to look forward to the next day. Temp Lady, however, tells me that she does not appreciate this at all, that she is annoyed with me, and that if I cannot do her this favor of working there this week then she may not have me be the nutcracker - this job that pays $25 an hour and which I am (or maybe was) really excited about - that she did me a big favor by giving me first dibs on that job and that she could find plenty of other people that would want to do it. I apologized a lot and offered to do the job one more day if she was unable to find someone, but that I could not finish out the week there, that I hated it and it made me crazy. The conversation ended with her saying that I didn't need to go in tomorrow and left unresolved whether or not I am still going to be the nutcracker.

So at that point, with my future plans for work thrown into question and with still four more hours to go at that terrible job, I really sunk fast into feeling like shit. Those four hours were torture, were mind-boggingly unbearable, and at so many points I was ready to either dash into the bathroom to cry or to just grab my bag and run for the elevators. Today, I hated New York so much and gave serious thought to running away. Neil Young is playing right now (about ten exhales) and that too is making me want to move, move to a place where I could play this more often and where it would seem appropriate to the pace of things, to the mood.

But a reason not to move, and not neccesarily a good thing for the future of Bushwick, but the best moment to my day was going to Associated and seeing not only parmesan cheese finally stocked there, but also feta, - sweet, lovely feta. I took it home with me and, at home, me, the feta, and some greens made some sweet, sweet love as my Coors Light looked on jealously.