Moist Foam (Get Your Heads Out Of The Gutter) Listening: And if you never hear from him, that just means he didn't call or vice-a-versa. That depends on where ever you're at. And if you never hear from me, that just means I would rather not... hit it.
Today was a relatively slow day at work, I think. I had stuff to do all day, but none of it was overly pressing. I made a couple of people feel stupid on accident when I asked them if they tried to go through a warning when they asked me why they couldn't do something. On the computer system that I work on, warning are more of a "Uh, uh, uh... Stop a second and think about this before you do it. If you still think you should do it, go ahead," as opposed to a, "DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! DANGER! DANGER!" Intelligent people see warnings, evaluate the situation and go forward with the right course of action. If you don't know the right course of action, you ask someone in the know. You don't say, "I can't do this." That's just lame. They came to me with an "I can't do this. It won't let me." I asked them a few simple questions, which they waivered on, and I just sort of punched a few things in and accomplished everything they needed accomplished. Foolish mortals.
Back when I was in Chicago, PJ got me hooked on a game called "Rocket Mania." I played a couple of rounds of that today. It's an extremely addictive game. On one side of the board, you have fires, and on the other side, you have rockets. There is a grid of pieces in the middle with parts of fuses on it. You have to rotate the pieces so that there is a fuse that leads from the fire to the rockets, and, basically, you try to fire off as many rockets as you can at a time and fire off the quota before time expires. For as simple of a game as it is, it's hella fun.
After work, I went to the gym again. I had another really good workout. Today was all upper body, mostly lats, pecs and traps. I am still really just getting back into the swing of going to the gym. Today was more fun than most days, because of my music, but I think that if I had a gym friend it would be much more fun. What made today's music fun was this. For my weight lifting workout, I was listening to a Hed Kandi mix called "Beach House," which has a lot of really nice mid-tempo house. It really rides the line between relaxed house music and more upbeat. It's hard to tell. This makes it good for weight lifting, because the music itself is uplifting without being overly neurotic. It's very.... groovy. It really helps me focus on each rep.
For my cardio work out, I popped in the second disc of Global Underground #25: Deep Dish: Toronto. This is a slightly more upbeat, more progressive house disc. It ran around 120 BPM all of the way through and I just grooved on it. No matter what level the eliptical trainer had the resistance on, I continued to jam on at 120 strides per minute. I was really rockin' out to the music too. I must have looked like a complete idiot. I didn't care. I had good music and good energy.
After doing that for a good half an hour, I decided to cool down by trying the oh so scary treadmill. Okay, I know it's completely irrational, but I am, as manly as I am, scared of the treadmill. I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to keep up or I'll catch an edge somewhere and I'll fall ass over tea kettle flat on my face on the surface, get sucked underneath and shot out the front. I know it's physically impossible, but it's something that runs through my head, much like the whole revolving door issue that I have sometimes. Anyways, I tried the treadmill as a ten minute cool down. I was still listening to Deep Dish, so I still felt compelled to walk at 120 steps per minute. It was surprisingly leisurely. There was only once where I felt like I was falling behind in the entire time that I was on there. I had a good time.
Since I was right in front of a mirror, I got to see the way that I walk. I walk funny. Not like funny "haha" or even funny "strange" or funny "what's that smell?" but more like just different. I think I look like I'm stalking or something. You know, how a bad guy walks slowly in a movie as he's chasing the damsel in distress (and catching her even though she looks like she's breaking a land speed record and he's going so slow he's almost standing still). I think I kind of really push into the ground with my body for each step. It's kinda thug-like I think. Weird. I'm big thuggin'.
On my trip home, I listened to some DJ Krush. It was very calming and very chill. I had no energy left to begin with. His disc just told me it was okay. I can be chilled out. It's all good.
Now, you may be asking yourself, "When we last left our hero, he was sans earbuds. How was he listening to music?" Well, the answer to that was that I have a pair of backup headphones that aren't my winter closed cup headphones. They're a crappy pair that came with the discman. They have the headband that goes over the top of the head and little foam earpads. Yeah. They suck something fierce. But today, the did the job. By the end of my work out, they were, shall we say... moist? I don't know how long they will take the beating. Hopefully, by next week, I'll have new earbuds.
Okay, I feel the need to vent over a couple of things. First of all, while I was at the gym, inbetween changing CDs, I heard something wretched. It was Jessica Simpson singing a cover of the classic Berlin tune "Take My Breath Away." Have you heard this? OH MY FUCKING GOD IS THIS A TRAVESTY! Who let her get away with this? Who is to blame for the smearing of a classic childhood track? Does she even know Berlin was? Has she ever heard the song "Metro?" ARGGGG!!! Someone should have stopped her. Now the song is ruined and millions upon millions of teeny boppers think that she was the only person to ever have sun the song. She didn't even do anything to make the song her own! There was no creativity put into the arrangement, the intonation, nothing. It was just an attempt to make some money off of someone else's work. Damn, I hate teeny boppers. Grr.
Okay, I decided I'm not gonna bitch about the second thing, because it just makes me look like an asshole. *shrug* So, I'll leave it alone. I'm tired, exhausted and sleepy, so I should finish up soon. Tomorrow, I've got work, then I'm going to the grandparents' place for dinner with my brother, and then maybe I'll go out dancing. Who knows? Regardless, it's time for me to sleep.
What Happened Today? Listening: And so we're told this is the golden age. And gold is the reason for the wars we wage. Though I want to be with you, be with you night and day.
I can barely recall what happened today. I remember this morning, as I was walking to work, I figured out what was wrong with my headphones. Yeah, there's something wrong with my earbud headphones (my summer/warm weather headphones). At first, I thought it had to do with my jogwire. I thought it was crapping out on me, so I changed jogwires to the old one that went with my Minidisc recorder. That wasn't it. But on my way to work, I figured it out. The left channel in my headphones bounces in and out. I think that maybe the connection in the ear piece got tugged out a bit. The headphones are so cheap that even if you tried to repair them, they would look ghetto and broken and STILL wouldn't work properly. So I spent the greater part of today just cruising the net looking for headphones with the shorter wire so that I don't have twenty feet of extra cable when I plug into my jogwire. None of the stores around downtown crossing carried headphones with the shorter wire, let alone decent sounding headphones with longer cables for a good price. I think I'm gonna have to suck it up and order a pair online for forty dollars. I was talking with Fester about it and he told me about a good set of ear buds that he bought. So I'm thinking about buying the next generation of what he bought (which is still two or three generations from top of the line). I'm still thinking about it though. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I did find the set on Amazon.com for thirty two dollars. *shrug*
Something also that was weird today was that I left my phone at home by accident. This was the first day I left my phone at home in over two and a half years. It was weird not having it with me. I thought about going home to get it during lunch, but I opted out. I figured I could live without it for a day or so.
What else happened today... I IMed with London Calling for a while. We talked music and DJing. I went to the gym and worked my legs until walking downstairs hurt. It was a good workout. I was also on the erg machine for the first time in a long time. It kicked my ass too.
Anyways, I'm sleepy. Time to go to bed. Maybe tomorrow will be more action filled. Perhaps not.
You Only Get What You Give Listening: So polite, you're busy still saying please
So, this weekend was kind of fun. Originally, I was going to stay in or go out to Rise, but instead, I went to get dinner with Glare. Totoro now has Friday night and Saturday morning classes, so she deicded that she wanted to hear about my Chicago trip, discuss the Cape house plan and to just shit shoot. After a long production of tangents and trying to figure out what we wanted for dinner, we ended up at George. It was a good dinner. The two hundred disc changer at the restaurant was skipping something fierce. It wasn't the disc's problem though. I think the eye just needed to be cleaned. And that was the story of my Friday night.
Saturday, I got up early to try to get Prince tickets for TMI and myself. I successfully procured two seats in Loge section 4. She got two tickets in a balcony section. We're prolly gonna try to sell her tickets and keep mine, since mine are better. I can't wait until August eighteenth. We're gonna party like it's 1999.
After that, I spent some time cleaning before hitting Haymarket with Ye-ah. I really didn't see that much that I liked. I came away from there with three lbs of broccoli, five ears of corn, some pears, some bananas, some oranges and some seedless cucumbers. I didn't buy nearly as much as I could have or as much as Ye-ah did, mostly because I wanted to cut down on waste.
Upon returning to my apartment, I did some laundry and cleaned the apartment some more while I waited for Stringbean to come and return my apartment keys. Since I woke up like ten times between six thirty in the morning and nine thirty in the morning when I had to get online to buy tickets, I was kind of tired so I opted to listen to iTunes and nap instead of doing the responsible thing, which was fold laundry. I had a party to go to later on and I kind of wanted to be awake for that.
At five, The Violent One and Fester rolled up to go to the party. We cruised over to the Monitor on First Street to pick up one more party goer and headed off to Photogenic's place. The party was originally supposed to be like six or eight people watching the Jessica Alba movie Honey. It kind of turned into twenty or so people and a dinner party while we heckled Honey. When we rolled up, Photogenic really looked frazzled. I think the party prep was getting to her. The party went off rather well. I had some pretty amusing conversations with the girl that we picked up at the Monitor, met some new people, and just chilled out.
It was also Digitaldewi's sister's birthday that day as well, so after a while a bunch of us went to Do Re Mi to do some karaoke. I have to say that I butchered Usher's "U Remind Me," but I killed the sketchy white guy voices on The B-52s' "Love Shack" and Aqua's "Barbie Girl." I just have a knack for that sketchy white guy voice. I have fun doing it too.
We bounced out of there at around two in the morning and headed home. In the car, The Violent One and I got started talking about our respective issues with folk of the opposite sex. So, she came up for some tea and some snacks and we just sort of complained to each other for a while. We each have our own specific grievances and objects of our affections, and we're both gettin' no action. I think we both just needed a vent session. That lasted until about half past three or so.
Today I woke up at about one in the afternoon and kept cleaning my apartment. My brother was going to be in town at around five and I figured I should have the place reasonably clean. I did make time to make myself lunch, but it was all cleaning after that. I even ironed all of my shirts and pants. I figured that I should do it while I had the time and I had it all out.
Anyways, now my brother is here and it's a quarter past one. I have to go to sleep now. Gotta work. Grrr... Damn the work. Anyways, I'm sure there'll be more to read tomorrow.
Double Amusement Listening: I can try but when I do I see you and I'm devoured. Oh, yes. Who'd allow, who'd allow a face to be soft as a flower?
So, a couple of amusing things happened in the last twenty four hours or so. First, I was google seaching random people from high school like I usually do when I am ultra wikkid bored. I just happened to look up this girl I had a crush on during my freshman year of high school. So she graduated Harvard, worked for the Sierra Club, and now she's in Israel studying to be a rabbi. How odd is that? Someone that I dug back in the day is going to be come a rabbi. Man.... That's weird. I never, ever expected that. Someone as faithless as myself dug someone so faithful. Now that I say it like that, it makes sense to an extent.
The second amusing bit happened today. I was on the phone with one of my clients and I hadn't talked to her since I got back from Chicago. She asked me how the rest of my vacation was and I, thinking nothing really of it, said, "It was very strange, but very cool. I really enjoyed myself though. It made me miss Chicago more to be there for the first time in eight years. It kind of made me want to move back." So, she said, that I should. The then passed me over to another person that I spoke to at the client. She then asked me, "So when are you moving back to Chicago?" I told her that I wasn't sure but I was definitely thinking about it. She then said, "Well, when you move back, don't bother looking for a job. You've got one here if you want one." "Really?" I said. "Yeah," she replied. "I'm sure we can find a place for you here." I then told her that I'm still thinking about it, but I will throw her my resume regardless. Yeah, it was a big ego boost.
Anyways, that's it for now. I have to get up early tomorrow to try to get tickets to the Prince concert in August. Wish me luck.
Mental Note... Listening: If you set your mind free, baby, maybe you'd understand starfish and coffee, maple syrup and jam.
If you have no groceries at home, get groceries before doing a heavy duty upper body work out in the gym.
Today was a good day. I worked hard and I treated myself tonite. It all started at work. Today, there was a lot of stuff going on. I had calls from the client. SCUBA copped out on some work that was supposed to be taken on by him, but he just passed it back. The client was talking some mad smack about him, and it was very difficult for me not to chime in and start slinging the mud at that point today too, but I successfully bit my tongue and did what I needed to do to keep the client happy. Damn that client loves me.
With the stuff that SCUBA dumped on me and some additional work that doesn't happen all that often, I was a bit swamped, so I began delegating. I'm not a great delegator. I'm much more of an "Aww, fuck it. I'll do it my damn self" kind of a guy. Today, I couldn't do it. I had to start really handing the stuff out. By the time I finished delegating, I only had a little bit to do. It was kind of strange.
Another strange thing about this morning was that I didn't crack my coffee open until around ten thirty. It's usually the third thing I do. First, I start up my computer and open my twelve to twenty windows for both work and other stuff, then I take care of my most pressing business, then I open my coffee and proceed to drink and work. Ten thirty. It was just weird.
At the end of the day, I didn't have much to do. That tends to happen between three and four in the afternoon, so today, I decided to archive some reports that were in a file. I started that file a long ass time ago. I archives reports from October of 2001 through December of 2003. It was a lot of reports. It was good, because the file was starting to be overcrowded to the point where I could no longer open the hanging file folders. I think that if I had filed this week's reports, they wouldn't have all fit. Now, there's an immense amount of space. I'm pretty psyched about that. Psyched about something at work. How pathetic? Not only psyched about something at work, but psyched about something as insignificant as that. Wow. Lame.
After work today, I went to the gym and worked the upper body. I'm still not even a quarter as strong as I used to be, but I still had a really good workout. I thought it was cool. When I left the weight room to go to the "cardio theater," I could really feel the fatigue in my muscles.
This morning, when I grabbed my stuff, I forgot to switch out some discs, so I didn't really have anything appropriate for the cardio workout. I ended up listening to Artful Dodger. Tip: UK garage is not the best music for a workout where you have to keep a constant rhythm. The syncapated beat sort of messed with me every three or five cycles. I felt like I didn't want to step on the breakbeat. The heavy beat was fine, but the little syncapated break beats kind of threw me for a loop.
Originally, I was going to do the erg machine for my cardio workout, but since, I had just done a rather intense upper body workout, I opted for the machine that would work my upper body less. I figure that I'll do erg when I do my lower body workouts and I'll do eliptical on the days when I do my upper body workout. Sounded like a plan to me. I think I'll try it for a couple of weeks or so.
While I was in the gym, when I wasn't checking out this one girl who happened to be on a treadmill in front of my eliptical, I was thinking about dinner. What would be good to eat tonite? Earlier in the day, I decided that I wanted fish for dinner, but I had no clue what kind of fish, how to prepare it and stuff. So, that occupied a lot of my mind. That and mouthing the words to "Rewind." I did spend a lot of time checking out this girl. She was fairly wholesome looking, had curly brown hair tied in a ponytail and a little tiny tat on her ankle. I couldn't make out what it was, but I know it was blue. I saw her when I was waiting for one of the change rooms too. Prolly would have talked to her if she hadn't been on her cell when I walked by. Cutie.
After the gym, I schlepped home, dropped off my gym bag and made a mad dash for the fish monger's place on Cambridge. I asked him what was the freshest and what was the best and it was between the tuna, the salmon and the monkfish. I was seriously considering the monkfish, but when push came to shove, the idea of a pan seared piece of sashimi grade tuna really did make my mouth water. With fish in hand, I walked to Star to buy other stuff. I walked out with bread, salad stuff, some frozen veggies to refill emergency freezer coffers, OJ and a bunch of broccoli.
I came home and showered and then began the cooking process. The meal consisted of salad, two small steaks of pan seared salt and pepper crusted sashimi grade tuna, steamed broccoli (not too cooked, just enough not to be raw) and rice. OJ was the drink of choice. I felt really good cooking myself some real food after being back here for four days and not cooking very well for myself. It's about time.
Anyways, the rest of the night was just relaxing. I was sort of watching TV, but nothing sunk in but the food. It was like nine thirty or ten o'clock by the time I finished dinner. I ground myself some coffee for tomorrow, did the dishes, and here we are now.
I have to figure out what I'm going to do this weekend. I'd really like to go out dancing or something, but I don't really want to drop much coin at all this weekend. Maybe I'll spend ten bones and I'll go to Rise. I'll call up Special K and the chick from the couple that we met at Avalon a couple of weeks ago. I just either want to dance or chill with music. I could totally just go to Rise and just lounge out. If I only had some friends who either stayed up late enough for it or who were down with it. *shrug* Whatcha gonna do? Make new friends? Possibly.
Back To Normalcy Listening: If I could I would give you the world, but all I can do is just offer you my love.
So, my computer is back in business with only a couple of files missing. They were all in my, "Hmmm.... to keep or to chuck" folder. It ended up beging a good gig and a half that I dropped. It was really only a couple of mpeg files and some mp3 files. Nothing important. So, now I'm running on the Panther version of Mac OS X (aka OS 10.3.3). Yay! It's nice having all of my music back at my disposal. I suppose that I should find a way to backup my music. Two people I know just got ipods. I'm green with envy. But I have decks, so I guess that makes it all even, huh?
The majority of tonite was spent taking care of my computer, chatting with people on IM and chatting with people on the phone. For a while everytime I put down my phone on the coffee table, it would start ringing again. So I put it in my pocket and it all went away.
I ate dinner late tonite. I started cooking at nine as I was IMing TMI and then I started eating around ten or so. I haven't been very hungry lately. Either it's my mood or the two rounds of Harold's and one round of Kenny's that's still residing in my system like a tape worm the size of Godzilla. Whichever, I haven't seemed to be that hungry lately. Yesterday, I had a cup of coffee, a donut and a bowl of tortellini with some pesto. Yeah. Maybe some OJ was thrown in there or some cranberry juice, but not much more. My appetite has just been gone. Me. No appetite. What's the deal with that? I can usually do more damage than a sumo wrestler at an all you can eat sushi joint. Hope it all gets back to normal soon. I'm gonna eat a real lunch tomorrow because I want to hit the gym after work. To go to the gym and not have any fuel in the tank would be a mistake, but then again, maybe the tape worm would get a work out....
Anyways, I'm gonna git going. I have to go to sleep soon. I'm just going to let the data transfer between PJ and I finish before I go to sleep. Tomorrow, I'll post some pics for all to see of my last couple of weeks. I know you're dying to see them all. Me surrounded by pretty, unavailable women. Yeah. It breaks my heart too. Too bad my heart has a mind of its own. Try to keep the fucker leashed sometimes, but sometimes it just gnaws on through the restraints. We'll figure out where it goes from here.
Home Sweet Haven Listening: I'm gonna lock up what I'm feeling inside. Ain't no way you can break down the door, 'cause this time I've learned my lesson. You can take this declaration of war. Step right back. Put on your coat and your hat. Gonna avoid all complications.
Well, my computer is still schitzo. After work today, I'm going to buy a firewire so that I can link into The Violent One's computer, use her interface to dump some info off of my computer then I'll archive and install a new version of Mac OS X. I'll start with Mac OS X 10.2, but I'll immediately upgrade to 10.3 (aka Panther). I have some stuff that amounts to maybe another gig that I can dump, without losing my best songs, songs that I have spent HOURS upon HOURS hunting down.
Last night was kind of a down time kind of night. It gave mean opportunity to regroup after my trip to Chicago. I still have some things that are haunting me, but, lucky for me, it's no longer the dirty laundry that had been left in my suitcase for the past 36 hours. Pulled all of that out last night. I do, however, still need to dryclean my suit. It's in serious need of cleaning. Maybe I'll send my favorite new ten dollar Kenneth Cole button down shirt to be laundered as well.
Anyways, I have to go in a sec, but I'm really jonesing to get some Prince tickets after seeing him perform for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. He killed me he was so good. Hopefully I'll be online later on tonite. If not someone call the police because I would have surely murdered my computer. Hopefully another entry later on tonite.
A Quick One Listening: Visiting time is over, so we walk away. We both play dead then cry out loud.
So, I got back from Chicago last night around a half past midnight. Traffic onto Storrow was a biz-atch so it probably cost four or five dollars more than it should have. Damn the big dig! Any other urban planning project would have eliminated these types of problems, not start them. Damn you, Big Dig! You owe me a beer now!
My last day in Chicago consisted of waking up, packing and having lunch with E___, D_____, and PJ. We got Harold's and it was wonderful. E___ hadn't had Harold's since high school and D_____ hadn't had it in a few weeks. Hahah... As we ate, D_____ caught up with E___ and then we all just sort of fell back into the goofy humor that we were so good at in high school. this meeting was like not missing a step. It was kind of reassuring after my awkwardness the day before. But, before we knew it, E___ had to go back to playing with the monkeys and I had to get my arse to the airport.
The flights were overall pretty uneventful. I almost tried to get bumped in Atlanta for $400. Unfortunately, they had enough people to take the bump by the time I got up there. I was a bit disappointed too, because I would have called in late to work, stayed at the 'rents' place that night, and would have caught a flight first thing in the morning. It would have been perfect. In addition, I would have had $400 of Delta Dollars, which most likely would take me to SF, Japan, Amsterdam, London.... The possibilities were endless, but there's really no use crying over spilled milk.
When I got home, immeidately went to work on my computer. I think I may have to archive and reinstall. I did a lot of research at work today on how to fix my problem. Hopefully it'll happen tonite. So, that's my plan tonite. Fix my computer and spin some records. I'm in need of a little consolation over a number of thoughts going on in my head. Heavy stuff. Some is bound to offend a great number of you and some would only offend one or two. I think offend would be the wrong word. I think trouble? may be the right word? I don't know. Just a lot of thinking going on in my head. Damn those synapses.
Anyways, yeah, this is a short one so I won't get into it. I'll just leave it as is. Time to go home to begin surgery on my computer... Okay, maybe not surgery, but psychotherapy at least.
Back From The Dead, But Not Quite Alive Listening: And when she was lonely, I was there to comfort her.
Today, after going to a rather short brunch at the Millineum Kickerbocker (the place where the wedding was held), I met up with E___ M_______. Now this kid dropped off the face of the earth shortly after graduation. I e-mailed him a couple of times and he never really responded. I guess I wasn't the only one this happened to either. He just sort of got absorbed into school. It was because of this that rumors began to surface about what happened to him. These rumors such as that he became very dark and gothic and began dating someone from his Lithuanian dance troop and dropped out of school went unsubstantiated for years. No one knew what happened to the kid. No one could find him. Hell, I even spent hours of a couple of work days searching for information on him.
After hours of searching, and with help from PJ, we found his home phone numer, well, actually, it was his parents' phone number, but it ends up that he is back living at home. So, I called him up and set something up for this afternoon.
Originally, we were supposed to meet at the C-Shop, but when I got there, it was all locked up due to it being spring break. So, instead, we met at the Medici Bakery (next door to the real Medici). When I went to meet E___, PJ was at the gym. He wasn't sure if he was up for the appointment. So, I went it alone.
Back in the day, E___ was the guy in high school that all the girls dug, but had no clue that the girls dug him. He was one of the stars of the swim team, played guitar, was easy going and well liked by all. He was an all around good guy. He was also the guy that I hung out with the most in high school. He liked Metallica and other rock bands. He wore a long black trench coat long before they were bastardized by a couple of kids in Colorado. Good kid though. One summer he and another kid from our class came with me to Disney and we had the run of the place. It was a lot of fun. That trip was the trip where I had the lamb shank that turned me into a foodie.
Anyways, I met up with E___ at the Medici Bakery. It was weird seeing him, kind of like it was weird being at H____'s wedding. E___ was a tall guy. He was also pretty slim. Not skinny, but slim. When I saw him today, he had filled out a little. He has become a bit broader than he used to be and he doesn't taper as much. He wore a New York style leather jacket and a sweater over a button down shirt. He looked significantly less rock and roll compared to how he used to look and he just looked grown up. He still has the goat and walks with the bob he did in high school.
After a round of "what are you up to"s and "do you remember when"s, I was at a loss. I had no clue what to say. After eight years, what can you? What can you say to a good friend from high school where you missed the most recent third of their life where they became who they are at this very second? With H____, I at least had a little bit of backstory. I talked to her a bit and e-mailed her a bit. E___, I didn't. I had no clue what happened to him. I knew that it was good seeing him, as it was for seeing H____. I just didn't know what I was to them. I don't know what my place is with them or in their life or even if I have a place in their lives. I don't know what I'm suppoed to do or what I'm supposed to say. Whenever lulls in conversation happen with someone that you're familar with, you just switch to something in common. In this case, it's all history, and we covered it five minutes ago. If you do it too often, you come to seem like the whole "you remember when...." guy. I don't want to be that guy.
Anyways, after a little while, PJ showed up and re-ignited conversation. It was good. I felt really strange though. I was just very out of place and very out of my element. It was a very new experience for me. It was a good time though. We made plans for lunch tomorrow. Hopefully D_____ will come out too.
Now in case you all are wondering, I have been using the _____s this weekend because I don't know if they'll get journal names. I don't know if we'll keep up. This isn't like PJ and I who are boyz and will chill no matter what (well, mostly because he's really good at keeping in touch). Hopefully all of these people will get names, but you never know. It has been eight years since I've seen them or since I have been in touch with them, so who's to say the ball won't get dropped again?
And now a word from our sponsor:
Okay, ghetto food. How I love thee.... When I got here, I ate Harold's. Tonite I had Kenny's Chicken and Ribs. Tomorrow before I get on the plane, I'm gonna have Harold's again. Why is it that there is not Harold's or Kenny's in Boston? Why is this the only place where I have found such hood rat price culinary delights? Don't people on the east coast know that food tastes better if it's served in a cardboard tray with two pieces of white bread slapped on top and wrapped in white paper? Don't east coast people understand? Is it strictly for lack of exposure? I tell you, if I ever open up a fried chicken joint, I, sure as hell, will have the best damn barbecue sauce on the east coast and will slap two pieces of white bread on every sauce slathered order.
Anyways, that's all there is from me for now. Tomorrow is lunch with PJ, E___, and, hopefully, D_____. Harold's Fried Chicken. The I take off at four and am back in Boston at midnight. I'll be flying through Atlanta, so maybe I'll pick up some Chik-Fil-A. It's a hoodrat culinary world tour, I tell ya. Maybe I'll even have my computer fixed before I go to sleep tomorrow.
Listed Listening When I saw the break of day, wish that I could fly away.
These are the absolute definites... If you don't see your name on the list, you're gonna have to work harder. Keep in mind that this is the only time I will use real names on my blog.
Family: Mother, Father, Brother, maternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, Uncle Al & Aunt Debbie, Uncle Philip & Aunt Mary, Aunt Betty and whatzhizname, Uncle Danny and Aunt Amy (reluctantly), Cousin Albert & Cousin Joanne, their kids Sandra and Brittany, Cousin Carol & Cousin Cal, their hellspawn, Cousin Glenn & whatzhername, ET (if he has the balls to show up), Cousin Erica, Uncle Bobby & Aunt Michelle and their two kids. Total: 29
A Third A Life Away Listening: I'll be with you someday.... someday....
It's half past one in the morning and I just got home from H____'s wedding reception. It was such a brilliant party. Her parents were dancing up a storm and it was just beautiful. The ceremony was about ninety percent jewish and they had a chupah and all. The woman presiding over the whole ceremony was a woman with an amazing voice and a flair for the comical. I loved it.
The reception was rocked by a fantastic band that played a wide variety of different songs from jazzy swing to popular eighties, nineties and seventies songs. It was a good time. I tried to teach a drunk girl that I went to high school with how to lindy hop. It didn't quite work. The food was damn good on the whole. The cake actually knocked my socks off.
I had a really great time, but some things really troubled me. First of all as I was watching everyone dance, I realize, as we are about twenty six years old, I have been out of H____'s life for about a third of it. I don't know any of her other friends, but somehow, whether it be by phone or by e-mail, our friendship had endured. But there was just a feeling of, "What happened over these past eight or so years?" I felt so disconnected. PJ pointed out to me that I should think of it this way. I was one of two people from high school who were outright invited. There is a possibility that it was one of three, but one of them could have just been because she also went to med school with the groom. I don't know it was strange.
Another thing that got to me a bit was the fact that I am so far away from any of this. Booch insists that I am ready for a serious relationship and I am closer to marriage than I think, but I just don't see it. I haven't really had a serious girlfriend, though I think about finding one all of the time. I can't see spending my life with anyone right now. I need to get to know the girl before that happens. I can't even pin down a steady date. There have been women in the past, or even the present who have wowed me enough to make me say, "G'damn... They're great. I bet I could spend the rest of my life with them," but, alas, it never works out. I would love to find love. I would love to get married. I would love to throw a crazy party. I would love to see all of my friends in one room. I would like to smile as much as I did tonite and know that I had someone to spoon with at night and say, "Baby, wasn't that the best?" But for now, I'll just have to push on, take chances, and see if anything is ever reciprocated.
Anyways, enough about this. Tomorrow, brunch with the wedding folk and something at night with a pal from high school who dropped off of the face of the earth and possibly another high school friend as well. It should be good.
WHOOOSH, As They Come Flowing Over Me. Listening: I'm... sleeping to dream of you...
A couple of nights ago, I wrote this whole long blog detailing my trips to see my clients and my night out drinking with my friend from college that I hadn't seen in eight years and a girl from law school that was cool beans, but at around page ten, the app quit and I lost everything. It was thoroughly lame. I felt really discouraged, so I opted not to re-blog it.
The last two days have been pretty entertaining. On Thursaday, I went and walked around my old stomping grounds. I walked along the shops on 57th Street. Where Ann Sather's used to be is a "Noodles, Etc" or something like that. There's now a Medici Bakery. The exterior of the Medici restaraunt looks the same, which makes me happy as is the smell that wafts out when the door is open. University Market is the same too. Let me share something that I wrote later on in the day when I arrived at a place on the University Campus called the C-Shop.
Thoughts At The C-Shop
Right now, I'm sitting in the re-vamped C-Shop. Back in the day, it was just the University;s ice cream parlor. Now, there's an Einstein Bagels, and I don't see any glass counter where they hide the ice cream. It is a bit disheartening.
Yesterday was one dollar shake day. I missed it. Actually, right now, I'm not sure that they make them. Sure, I saw the sign outside, and, sure, I see the shake blenders, but how is it possible if you can't see the ten or twenty flavoursfor you to choose from?
To my right, out the window, I see the courtyard where I saw Specula, Veruca Salt, and, your headliner, Urge Overkill. Before they were even famous, I was rockin' out to bands like Veruca Salt and Liz Phair. Chicago in the early to mid nineties had a hell of a scene.
Also out the window, I see the stepsthat I sat on while reading "The End of Something" aloud to K________ S____ and sipping on a one dollar strawberry shake. It was bright, warm and sunny those two days. Today is gray and raining.
A few minutes ago, I took a jaunt upstairs. The Reynolds Club was a pretty wide open space with a couple of small TVs, two pool tables, and a little area where they would sell little snack foods or wrap sandwiches. I would spend hours and hours there after school. That's where I learned how to play 9-ball, how to cut a shot, and how to use english to get a better leave. It was also where I met I__, a U of C frat guy that I used to play against all of the time.He invited me to a frat party once. It was, by far, the worst frat party that I had/have ever been to. There was no one there and the music was wretched.
Now, the place is called Uncle Joe's Coffeehouse. It still has pool tables and TVs, but the counter has full blown service now. There's an industrial sized esspresso machine, a lineup of syrups, a fridge case and a bakery case. There are bar stools up against the counter and tables sprawled around. The place is buzzing.
Back when I was there, the place was almost always dead quiet. You could each and every ball hit the bottom of the pocket with a "cli-click" or being rocked into the pocket with a "Ka-chunk!" Now you were lucky if you could hear the break.
As I checked out the players at the table, one caught my eye. She reminded me of S_____ W_____ crossed with a girl that I once saw in a picture on livejournal. She wore a pair of slim black slacks, maroon v-neck sweater and a pair of black heels. She had perfect form. She bent at the waist with her feet shoulder width apart and one in front of the other. She bridged her cue with her index finger and her thumb creating the eye and her other three fingers and the tip of her thumb holding it up. With one clean motion, she cocked back her right hand holding the back of the cue and struck. It was like it was out of a textbook.
Earlier in the day, I visited Lab, my old stomping grounds. It was spring break, so the halls were empty. I walked along the Kimbark side of the school, the part that housed the middle and lower school classrooms. I had heard so much about the changes to my school. They re-did this. They re-did that, but from the exterior, it looked exactly the same. Actoss the street though, they tore down the old Woodward Court dorm for the University and were building a behemoth of a new building which was to be the new Graduate School of Business.
Since I wasn't sure if the high school doors would be open, I went around front to 59th Street. being that it was spring break, I figured that I should go to the alumni office, just to get the goahead to walk around the school. Luckily, there were people there. After about fifteen minutes of chatting with the staff there and finding out that nine year old girls find Homestar Runner just as entertaining as twenty five to thirty year old men and women, I left the alumni office.
As I walked up and down the halls, I could see the ghosts of the students. I saw their artwork on the walls, their notices on buletin boards and their messes in lounges. Some things looked the same and some things looked different. Classrooms had been modernized, computer labs expanded and offices re-vamped.
The stickers and postings on lockers spoke volumes about how quickly kids grow up these daysI saw gay/lesbian articles posted, political bumper stickers and random other statements about political issues. When I was in school, our lockers were clean. Whe had nothing political to say about elections, gay rights, hard drugs or anything like that. We talked about music, alcohol, weed and sex, just like any other high schooler does. We never thought about Bush versus Clinton. But you bet your ass that they're thinking about Kerry versus Bush. They're thinking about the legality of gay marriage. And they're thinking about a long war in Iraq. The only war that my peers though about was the limited scurmish called "Desert Storm," which really didn't accomplis anything.
So, that's what I wrote the other day in my pad of paper. I guess it's a little disjointed, but it was what I was thinking at the time.
Yesterday, I went shopping downtown with PJ and one of his boyz from Law School and went to H____'s rehearsal dinner. I knew one person there besides the bride and her parents. Everyone else, I just sort of meet. The groom is a cool guy and his little brother is a lot like me. We got along great. Actually our whole table at the Rehearsal Dinner was kind of a rag tag rowdy bunch of kids. Lots of jokes about meatballs and breasts of chicken. The groom's aunt was there too. She could totally hang. She was making better jokes than I was. It was fantastic.
After the diner, we went back to the hotel with the groom's family and drank and ate Oregon products before hitting the bar. It was a great time. I got buzzed but not drunk. The one kid I knew from high school there, who is the bride's cousin, was kind of drunk. I was amused.
Anyways, I have to go. I'm going to the Medici for the first time in a long time. Maybe I can find more details for my story called "An Afternoon At The Medici." I know some of you have read it. It's not hard to find. It just isn't done with revision yet. So gotta go.
I Love My Clients Listening: *The sound of alcohol pumping through my veins*
Okay, real quick...
Today, I got up, went to PJ's law school, kicked around there, went to see one client who took me out to lunch and gave me a polo shirt with their company name on it, saw another client who is cool as hell, went back to PJ's law school, met some people, came back to Hyde Park, went back to the North Side to catch dinner, met one of PJ's friends from law school who is a kick ass person who will crack on anyone give the opportunity, went out drinking for St. Patrick's Day, and now I'm back at PJ's place.
Overall, I had a blast today. I'm comfortably buzzed and I'm sleepy as shit. Tomorrow, more hanging out with high school folk. Probably more drinking. My liver LOVES me. And I love it.
And apparently London Calling misses me already. She's so dreamy. Tee hee hee. Okay, I'm done. Sleep time. Mmmm... pillow....
So, I'm here in Chicago, but it has not been without drama. What would my life be without a little undue drama. Let's break it down for y'all the hellish day I had today.
I didn't get to sleep last night until around half past three. Even then, my apartment was still a wreck for some reason. I don't get it. I just is. Bothersome that I'll have to go back to it in that condition. After going to sleep that late, I had to wake up early to make sure that all of my stuff got packed including all toiletries and stuff. I mean, really, who would I be if I left my gel at home. I would just be another fuzzball.
Anyways, I wake up in the moring, and I decided to forego bringing my coffee, because I would just be leaving the themos at the office over the week and I wouldn't have it at home when I got back. So, tired and coffeeless, I go to work. I buzz through all of my morning work like it's nobody's business. I did it all in twenty minutes flat, because there were no glitches today, no pestering today, and I was just on point.
At half past ten, I decided the lack of caffeinated beverage was getting to me. So, I went to get coffee and a bagel. I stopped by the new boss' desk on the way out and he wanted to have a meeting with me when I got back. I come back and eat my bagel and have a chat with him. I told him that I was essentially done for the day, with the minor exception of the eleven thirty and the two ten feeds, so he put me to work. I had a couple of special projects to do, but they were all taking longer than I anticipated. It was all easy shit, just really freakin' tedious.
Now, I made it clear that I was going to leave at three to give myself adequate time to get to the airport for my five thirty flight. Yeah. I didn't leave until a quarter past three. Even then, all of my stuff wasn't done. I had to leave a few things with FOP. Grrr. I hate when all of my work isn't done for the day. I hate having to leave stuff.
Anyways, I'm jammin' on the way to the airport. Completely jammin. I'm hitting the trains and the busses all at the right times. I'm actually there early. Furthermore, I got all of my boarding passes relatively quickly through the kiosks and my frequent flyer card and I jammed through the security line without being wanded. Badass. I'm almost always stopped and wanded or searched or something. Not today though.
When I get to the gate, it was right at the posted boarding time. Twenty two past four. At that time the snow was light. Ten minutes later the snow was heavy, there was still no plane at the gate and I was just exhausted as hell. At that point in the day, I had been so busy that the only things I had eaten all day were a bagel from Dunkin, a coffee, a soda I picked up at the airport and some trail mix. Yeah. I was running on fumes, but they hadn't announced a new boarding time so I was reluctant to leave the gate. We didn't start boarding until the time that we were supposed to leave. This made me nervous, because I had an hour layover in Cincinnati that was rapidly shrinking.
The flight to Cincinnati, once we got on the plane, was very smooth, though I would have never known it. Let's just say that I had poor company on the airplane. Directly behind me was a man holding his toddler son/alien who proceeded to kick the back of my chair over and over. Behind and across the aisle from me were two businessmen with the loudest voices that you can possibly imagine. I mean they gave the engines a sever run for their money. In the two seats next to me were either two high school boys or two undergraduate boys. Either way, they were obnoxious. And to top it all off, in the three seats in front of me were two aging diva gay men who couldn't keep still and a woman in the window seat who needed to go to the bathroom a number of times through the course of the two hour flight. Yeah. Annoyed. Very much so.
Upon arriving in Cincinnati, I had to book it all of the way, thirteen gates to my connecting flight. I got there just in time. Luckily, it was a nearly empty plane and I could stretch out and read. There were no loud people, no one behind me kicking me and no obnoxious kids. It was much nicer than the flight to Cincinnati.
Now, keeping in mind that my food intake at the time that I had gotten to O'Hare had been coffee, bagel with cream cheese, Sprite, trail mix, two little bags of peanuts and two cups (not cans) of Coke, I was kinda hungry. So, PJ and I high tailed it to Harold's. Ohhhhh Harold's. How I missed you so. Six wing dinner, barbecue sauce, liter of A&W. Gaaaaaaaaad damn! It was a nice homecoming.
We drove by 47th Street on the way to Harold's. It has completely changed. COMPLETELY. It's like a totally different world than I knew. The Aamaco station and the mosque were still there, but everything around it has been torn up and strip mall-ized. My old townhouse was still there. They looked pretty dark and dank, but hey, it was ten in the evening.
After dinner, we tried to install some software onto my Mac to make it so I could use one of his USB adapters for wireless networks. Alas, it didn't work and it kind of fuct my Mac. Now my Mac won't start up properly. It gives me this "Prohibited" sign (you know the circle with the slash through it) and won't go any further. I think I just need to restart from a system disc and futz around with the extensions. I think that may have to wait until I get back to Boston. Damn it... Grrr....
Anyways, I'm exhausted. Time for sleep. I have to meet some clients tomorrow. They're buying me Greek food. Rockin'! Nite from one time zone over.
On The Eve Of Revisiting History Listening: We seem to lose our way, somehow got led astray. That's why I'm here to say, gotta get back get back to love.
Well, it's the dawn before my trip back to Chicago for the first time since the day after I graduated high school. It's been almost eight years. Eight years since I saw a great many of my high school friends. Eight years since I walked the streets of Hyde Park and enjoyed the delights of dollar shakes at the C Shop. Eight years of growing since I was that flannel clad kid with a chip on his shoulder and a great capacity for self pity. Eight years since I was jailed in a place I shouldn't have been jailed. Eight years since Harold's Fried Chicken has touched my lips. Eight years since I started to grow up.
I would be lying if I said that I wasn't at all nervous about going back. PJ has been the only guy there who has really seen me in action since I was eighteen. They missed my long haired phase. They missed my DJing heyday. They don't even know that I do/did DJ. I think from the beginning of the idea of me going back I was kind of psyched a bit to show these people that I'm not the same guy that they knew back in high school. And I believe that I have changed a lot. But the question is, have I changed enough?
I have grown up a lot in eight years. I have. But, I by no means feel that I have my shit together as much as I think I should or maybe as much as I see other people around me seem to have their shit together. I see people with love. I see people with rings. I see people with careers. I see people with upper level education. All things that seem important to the adult world that I don't have that I'm not sure are in the cards for me.
What do I have? Well, I have a phatty group of friends. After this past Saturday's party, I know have a ton of them, and not all of them were even there. I have people who are there for me and who I am there for. I have love. I have lots of love. Romance? That's another story. Sometimes I think that I have hit critical mass for friends, but whenever I say that, there's another that comes along and another and another. I have a kickin' music collection. Sure, it's material, but it's also emotional. almost all of my CDs provide a soundtrack to my life and add emotion to any given situation. They are my mood makers and my tear takers. My music is that which makes all I do that much more intense. But I'm afraid that these people that I see may not see that. Maybe they'll see a front. Maybe they'll see me as I was in high school. I don't know.
Anyways, enough of that. I guess I should just go into the day's events.... Today at work seemed quite urgent. I really felt like I needed to clean up some of the things on my desk that were making it quite a mess. I finished some projects for the client in Chicago just so I could talk with them about it when I went to their office on Wednesday. They're gonna be taking me out for Greek food. Good thing, because Boston doesn't have a great Greek food scene. Looking forward to some sakanagi (I think that's what it's called, because I remembered it's like Nagasaki flipped). It's some sort of falming fried cheese doused with lemon juice. Rawkin.
I was thinking about taking tomorrow off, but my new manager scheduled a meeting and my new manager's new manager scheduled a meeting with me as well. *sigh* I don't wanna go. But I have to. I would much rather call in dead and somehow trick London Calling into slacking off with me or maybe make myself a nice leisurely breakfast and shop for a new white button down shirt. My old one has a small stain on it. I'm taking my blue shirt to wear for now and I'm going to bring both the tie for the blue shirt and the tie for a white shirt, so if I see a nice one at a good price, I'll buy it in Macy's during lunch or in Chicago if I see something.
It was weird though, I worked most of today. I really had a full day of work. Anyways, it's two in the morning and my whites still aren't dry. Damn the whites. Down with whitey! I mean the whites! I mean the light colored clothes. *sigh* Sleep... Pack... Need both. Must reload my CD wallet. Too much to do. *sigh* I'll write something tomorrow.
Still Drunk Or Just Realy Hung Over? Listening: Ob la dee, ob la dah, oh la la la la life goes on
This weekend was actually absolutely insane. So, here, I'll run it down for you. However keep this in mind. Whatever I write, whatever I say, I won't be doing it justice in any way, shape or form.
Friday night, I finished cleaning my apartment before Special K picked me up to go check out Carl Cox at Avalon. On the way walking to Avalon, a guy asked us for a light, so Special K hooked him up. It turned out he was from out of town and was visiting his girl who was a grad student at Tufts. She was with him. So they had been to Avalon once before, but weren't really down with what was going on. They asked if we knew if they would be able to get tickets to Carl Cox. Since I had my contact put me on the list for a bunch of people and it only turned out to be Special K and I, I told them to tag along with us. When we got to the door, we found out that Carl wouldn't be spinning that night and rescheduled for the fifth of June. Since I was on the list, we went in anyways.
Once inside, I saw all of the people that I knew there. The coatcheck girl, the gogo dancer/singer that I knew from Ozone, the girl who puts me on the list. I saw them all. The couple that we had just met thought that I was thoroughly connected. I guess I am connected to an extent, but it just won't get me anything beyond getting on the list, getting my coat checked and back quicker than anyone else, and looking like a badass since I know a hot chick in skimpy clothing shaking her ass on a stage. I mean all of these thing are good things. Actually when it comes to going out, it's a very useful thing to have at your disposal.
Anyways, this couple decides that since we're nice enough to let them get in on the list with myself and Special K, they're going to buy us a few rounds of drinks. They're genuinely cool people. She's originally from DC and is a smokin' hot five foot blonde with long hair and this killer perfume. Yeah. I think she's hot as hell. He's originally from Oklahoma, kind of a goofball, but he seems to have a good heart. So, he's down in Philly at grad school, she's here at Tufts. We hang out all night.
After we went to Avalon, we went to Rise. They came with us and we got them membership. We only stayed until half past three because Special K had a booty call, the girl was thoroughly trashed, I had a party the following night and the guy, well, he was up for anything, but followed us out anyways. I did, however, see my dancing doppleganger. When we saw each other, we started playing right away. It was fun. I don't do so much playing anymore, but it's fun when I do get to. Anyways, on our way out, I went to go find her and told her that I really wasn't that lame, but I had to go. This is the part where I was a complete dork and I didn't say something. I probably should have asked if she wanted to come to the party I was having the following night. I invited the couple, but I neglected to invite her.
Anyways, I get home at around four in the morning, a little bit tipsy, so I decided to IM some people and then call up my friend in DC who always calls me when she's walking home drunk. Her calls have been as late as half past three in the morning, so I figured turnabout was fair play. Too bad she didn't answer her phone. I talked to her the next day and she said that she had passed out and didn't even hear the phone call that she got ten minutes after she got home.
The next day, I woke up at around noon and finised doing some dishes that I didn't do the night before and fixed up my apartment even more. Got my hair cut at half past three, came home an hour later, took a nap... At around a quarter to five, Fester IMs me and asks me if I have gotten any cloth to cover the plywood that my decks are sitting on. I said no and that I was low maintainance and I didn't need it. So, he said that it bothered the hell out of him so he decided to go to the fabric store and buy some fabric to cover the plywood. At half past five, he was at my door with black felt and some faux red snakeskin. So we stapled it on and it looks hot as hell now. We have snakeskin topped shelves and tabletop and black velvet wrapping around to hide the sawhorses. This, as we say, is the impact of shows like Trading Spaces and The Queer Eye For The Straight Guy on pop culture consuming individuals. That and an example of how Fester really takes an idea and runs with it.
The party that I had was bangin as hell. I don't think that there was enough pancake batter, but there was a lot of alcohol and a lot of fruit. There were people all over the place. I don't even know what the top head count was. My place was absolutely packed. I started off in the kitchen with Glare. Then I was spinning. Then I was socializing, and then spinning again. Yet again, there was a high number of couples there, but god damn there were some hot women up in my apartment. Yeah.... hot women. Damn. Most of them were dating someone also at the party though. The couple I met at Avalon was there, as well as the usual suspects. Shaft even came up from NYC for this for the party. There was an immense amout of drinking though.
The party wrapped up at around half past three. The last people standing were Special K, the couple from Avalon, Digitaldewi's sister and her friend, and Shaft and the girl that was with him. But, of course, Shaft and the girl were crashing at my place.
When I got up this morning, Shaft and the girl were already awake. I was still red, so I'm pretty sure that the alcohol was still pulsing through my veins. Also when I woke up, a lot of the stuff had been cleaned up. It turns out that Shaft and the girl did some cleaning. It was pretty damn clean though. There was only a sinkful of dishes.
After cleaning up, we went to have lunch at Aram's No. 2 on Cambridge Street and then they took off for NYC. After their departure, I was on the couch with pillow and blanket, asleep until around five. Cleaned some dishes, ate some leftovers, cleaned some more, watched some TV, and just recovered. Now it's twenty to two and I should be going to sleep. I have one day of work to do before I go to Chicago. Yeah, baby! I can't wait.
Anyways, I'm sure I'll have some pics to post soon. Perhaps I'll do it from work tomorrow. But for now, some more sleep.
Hit The Decks Listening: It's phat like your Christmas list.
Okay, I really planned on shooting up a blog yesterday, but I got caught up "playing" and talking to some people online. It was only half past midnight, but I was exhausted.
Yesterday went a little something like this (hit it!). I go to work and I keep my head down. It works pretty well. I do some talking with the new boss, get my work done and just sort of relax and stuff. I mean it was my birthday. Haha.
Anyways, after work, I come home and I clean the apartment a bit. I do some dishes and grind some coffee for the next morning's brew. Before I know it, it's six and Glare is at the door. She needed someplace to go before the executive dinner, so she just came over. She was stressed from work and I was just sort of tired from chillin' so late the night before, so we broke out the tea and relaxed. Before we knew it, it was seven and Harley was on her way up my elevator. She had no clue where Cuchi Cuchi was so I told her that we'd walk together.
So when Harley comes upstairs, we all chat a bit and then she gives me my birthday gift. It's a book called Booty Food. How apropos? Well, upon looking at the cover, it's, of course, right up my alley. But when you look inside, it's more geared for a woman cooking for a man. Too bad the woman in the illustrations is pretty cute. I'd cook for her!
Anyways, the three of us make it down to Cuchi Cuchi and we're the first ones in there. Supposedly Booch and THE Hustler were in their car a half block away "parking." Tee hee hee. Naw they're not really tasteless enough to be bumpin' uglies in the vinyl back seat of a Volvo in thirty degree weather. But they said they were chillin there for a bit and saw us walk into the restaurant.
Anyways, it was a killer dinner with lots of good people. Instead of just ordering whatever we wanted, we decided to have the waitress bring out courses instead. It was a good plan. We got a good sampling of the menu. I think what was best was that I was directly across from Emeril and Glare, the two biggest foodies at the table. It also didn't hurt that Harley was right next to me and was kinda tipsy after a half a strawberry basil martini. Yeah. She's lighter than a light weight. Anyways, I think my favorite dish of the night was this zucchini wrapped in proscuitto, breaded and fried. It was just very, very yummy.
So, they did the whole she-bang at the restaraunt from drinks to dessert, birthday candle and all. Since it was only one candle, I decided to snuff it out with my fingers instead of blowing it out. To tell you the truth, I've never actually snuffed a candle like that. It was kind of cool.
There was this one desert that I really dug. It was a pizzale (sp?) that was filled with this awesome berry compote of some sort. I think it had champaigne in it. But it was soooooooo gooooooooood. Complete food-gazm. You foodies know what I mean. Very very good food.
I was hanging out with Carpenter today after work and we were talking about the dinner. He brought something to my attention that I hadn't thought of. There were so many couples or people representing couples there and not too many singles. I believe the singles were myself, The Violent One, Fester and Emeril. Of everyone else, it was Carpenter and his girl, Ye-ah and his boy, VWMod and his "Cashew," OMG and Bombadier, Booch and THE Hustler, Glare (sans Tororo), and Harley (sans Hulk). So yeah, we were running low on single folk. It was kind of interesting though to think about it.
After dinner, we all stood freezing outside in the cold. Why did we stand freezing outside in the cold? Well, it was because Fester wanted to give his birthday gift to me after dinner. Consequentially, it was in The Violent One's car. Why? I didn't know at the time. So, as The Violent One ran to go get her car, Fester attempted to stall the freezing folk who were on their way out. He wanted them to see, and with good reason.
In the week leading up to this, Fester asked me if I had any plans on Thursday (tonite), because he wanted to make sure that I had time to play with the gift that he was getting me. I was like, "Yeah... My Thursday is free..." I thought he was gonna get me some strange obscure cooking implement that only people like myself, Fester, Glare and Emeril would geek out over, like a really nice mortar and pestle, a cool mandolin, or, *gasp* dare I mention it?, a highly specialized knife of some sort.
Anyways, the car pulls up and Fester and The Violent One tell the gang to make sure my eyes are closed. So, my eyes are closed. The lead me to what was the back of her car and open the hatch. My eyes are still closed. They uncover my eyes, and what do I see? Crates of records are the first thing to catch my eye. I'm thinking, What am I going to do with all of those records? Then I notice a Vestax turntable, followed by a Technics 1200 followed by a coffin case. Then I'm like, Bullshit... This can't be real... What the fuck? What the hell is going on? So Fester explained to me that since he saw me spin at Digitaldewi's place, he got obsessed with turntables and got the idea to buy some ka-busted ones and fix 'em up new. Anyways, the short of the story (if ya want the long of the story, check his LJ), is that he bought two individual decks, a Vestax and a Technics 1200, and a mixer that he fixed up, then bought a complete set of two Technics 1200s, a mixer, a coffin case, and a hundred random records. Of couse he had to clean and fix those decks too, but he got them for cheap. His thought was to give me my choice of two turntables (I picked 2 Tech 12s), a mixer, the records, and the coffin case. Then, he would sell the remaining two refurbed turntables on e-bay and make back the money that he spent. How crazy is that?!?
And now a set of props:
HOLY SHIT, Fester is one craaaaaaaaaaazy mutha fucka. God damn, that kid is crazy. I don't know anyone else in the world that would have ever done what he did, let alone have the technical know how to do it all himself. He freakin' slaved over nasty rundown decks with an entire box full of Q-Tips. Man. Talk about a balls out friend. That is something this kid surely is.
End set of props.
It was even surreal getting them into my apartment. It hadn't even really sunk in until about an hour or two ago.
Anyways, it's late, so I'm gonna give y'all the reader's digest version of today.
Today, I went into work and worked my ass off all day long. There was so much to do and I just was running around from place to place to place. What really sucked was that things weren't going like they were supposed to. The two ten feed came at a quarter past four and the eleven thirty feed came in at five o'clock. I was at work until half past five. It was no fun. I was supposed to meet Carpenter at half past four, but I called to postpone until later in the day. It was hell at work. I really earned my money today.
After work I did get together with Carpenter. He drove me around to Costco, Target and Home Depot. At Costco, I got cups and plates and stuff for the Midnight Pancake Party on Saturday. Hopefully people will be bringing yummy and drinky stuff. At Target I picked up a pad and a cover for my ironing board, and Fester asked me to pick up an AC to DC adapter (I'll explain later), and at Home Depot, Carpenter and I picked up a plank of plywood, a couple of sawhorses, and another wooden plank that wasn't as wide in order to make a table to put my decks and stuff on.
After shopping, I bought Carpenter a burger at R.F. O'Sullivan's for driving me around and stuff. We then picked up Fester, who decided that he wanted to let me borrow his Polk surround sound speakers to hook up to my decks, so now I have some quality monitors.
So that was tonite. It's time for me to go. I have to shoot out an e-mail to my friend who can get me listed at Avalon for tomorrow. Carl Cox, baby! He's always here for my birthday weekend. Carl Cox rules! Hopefully I'll have more to say tomorrow.
Some People Like To Say A Man Is Made Out Of Mud... Listening: Then you stumble on tomorrow, and trip over today. Would you be happier if you were someone together? Would the sun shine brighter if you played a bigger part? Would you be wonderful if it wasn't for the weather?
Okay, the pre birthday blues have gone away for the most part. It doesn't mean that I'm not still frustrated and confused, it just means that I'm not thinking as intensely about it. I can get to be a pretty intense thinker given the right opportunity. But I do need to find a way to stop spinning my wheels.
Anyways, after my brooding mood and my crappy job, I went to the gym. I did forty five minutes on the eliptical machine. The great thing about this eliptical workout was the fact that I was listening to my hard trance Sensation: White CD. What made it really great was that (according to the revolutions per minute reading from the eliptical machine) the CD was, on average, 140 BPM. I went 140 RPM on the eliptical for the entirety of my session. I just sort of kept with the disc. It was awesome. I jammed and jammed and jammed on that mutha until I couldn't jam no more. Yeah. The legs were burning after that.
After my rockin' eliptical workout, I did some lifting. It was mostly back, chest and arms. I really needed the more intense focus that comes with lifting. I just wished I knew more about lifting, you know techniques to get what I want out of the workout, which exercises isolate what, etc. I think I just need a really good lifting partner, or just any lifting partner. You know, someone who will push me to be better than I am. I really want to drop the weight and really tone up. I know we all can't be Bruce Lee, but I at least want to be Bruce Leroy.
As I was walking home from the gym, I thought, Hmm, what the hell am I gonna do for dinner? Upon walking a few paces, I decided that I didn't really feel like dining alone, so I decided that I wanted to call London Calling. We've been e-mailing/IMing so much that I figured we should get together sometime before I go to Chicago. I would have called her on the walk home, but I, as of yet, have not programmed her number into my phone. I figured that out when I tried to call. So when I got home, I dropped her an IM. Unfortunately, she had to go to a meeting, but set up plans to hang out later on that night.
After showering and thinking about what I wanted to have for dinner, I decided that I wanted to kind of treat myself. Normally when I cook by myself, I tend to make easier, less complex, less prepwork kind of food. I bring out the big gunz for my pals. But last night I decided I wanted something adequately yummy. So I made my turkey lettuce wrap. I went to the grocery store and bought everything I needed and decided to go from there. I bought everything fresh (aside from the water chestnuts), because I really wanted to work on my knife skills as I cooked. By the time I had gotten to the grocery store and back, it was a quarter to eight.
I have to say i really did enjoy working on the knife skills. Before mincing the ginger, I made a very fine julienne. I haven't really been able to get it that fine or clean, but this time it was extrordinarily clean and fine. I attribute it to my chef's knife. I have never had a quality knife like this before. Growing up, though I didn't know it at the time, my parents had crappy knives. I'm glad they invested in a new set of better knives. Normally I don't buy fresh onions, because, well, when cooking on the fly, I don't feel like crying my eyes out. Back in the day, before I started watching the Food Network, I didn't know some of the tricks to quickly chopping an onion. It was always a production peeling and chopping it. Using the tricks I learned, it was very quick and caused very few tears.
Anyways, by the time I sat down to eat, it was about half past nine. People kept IMing me. I ignored them, because I was eating and the wraps are kind of messy at times. It was a nice full healthy meal that yielded enough leftovers for two days of lunch. By the time ten fifteen ran around, I was well into cleaning up.
Just after I finished cleaning up, London Calling called from the box downstairs. Yay! Anyways, she came over and chatted for a long while. It's really strange how we jumped into this instant conversational rhythm. It's true that we have lots in common, but I think there's something more to it than that. I think it has to do with wavelength and such. Definitely peas in a pod. She understood why I initially e-mailed the girl who "passionate about not being passionate about anything." She understands most of my music collection. And she nerds out about music like I do. She also has a chill 'tude to boot. Yah she hung out til late which was cool, because I really kind a felt like chilling with a kindred spirit.
Today, work has been pretty chill. I have been busy for most of the day between actual work, e-mailing people, setting stuff up and figuring stuff out for the weekend. I guess I haven't told you all much lately about what's going on at work as far as the interesting things go. Anyways, SCUBA has stepped down as my boss and there's a new guy who was a manager for another team coming in. We haven't figured out whether this is good or bad. That was the royal We by the way. What's really interesting is that with all of the problems that my clients have been having and with the management shift, they have really latched onto me. During the conference call between the managers and the clients, apparently the client asked, "Will Jason still be handling our business?" Of course the answer was yes. "Oh," she said. "Good, because he really knows what he's doing and he always helps us when we need it. It's just about the only person over there that we really trust." Yeah. My client told me that that is what she said on the phone later on in the day. This was also passed down to me from my manager and my manager's manager. I've been working extra hard lately on resolving some problems for this client as of late too. When I started doing this at the beginning of this week, she shot an e-mail to my manager and his manager as well saying how much they appreciate me bending backwards to help them. Even after that, I got a personal e-mail sent over to me from my manager's manager's boss, the unit head, specifically thanking me for the service that I provide to the client and to the company. You know for a job that I absolutely abhor, I sure do get a lot of props. And as it is said in Jerry Maguire, "SHOW ME THE MONEY!" And they did. I didn't ask for it either. Niiiiiice. I got a miniscule raise and a bonus for this last year. Unfortunately I won't see any of that money because it will all go into my retirement fund, but hey.
Anyways, that's where I am right now. Tonite I have the executive dinner. I'm sorry to all of you who didn't get invited. Some of y'all are new friends, or out of touch friends. Don't take it personally. I have the Midnight Pancake Party for y'all. The executive dinner is for all of those who I feel hold me up when I'm about to fall down. Love 'em. It's like a family dinner without all of the bickering, backstabbing and pettiness. You know how families are.
Pre-Birthday Blues Listening: I swear to god, I never felt so light. I don't know what's going on. Can you tell me?
I did it again. I started thinking. I couldn't help it. I was collating reports and signing off on things that didn't take any brain power to do, so I was thinking. There are other reasons why these topics keep popping into my head. So anyways, this is what I was thinking....
So, I've had a number of things that I want present themselves to me, only for me to realize that either I can't have them or I'm not prepared to have them. I realize that I'm speaking in mass generality, but this really does apply to many different aspects of my life from work to women to possessions to anything. I think I'm leading a life of want that probably isn't very good, but yet I don't feel as if I have any control of it. I feel like it kind of controls me to an extent.
Part of me thinks I should try to denounce this life of want and find a way to live minimalistically, that I should sell all I don't need and just live simply. Out of sight, out of mind. Another part of me tells me to keep striving for what I want. Work hard for that loft in the Leather District. Go out there and meet more women. Suck it up and quit your job and go back to school for something/anything. And the third part of me says that stars do cross. They shoot from the sky, but the times just haven't been right and I just need to wait patiently and watch the sky for things to come to me. One day karma will take hold of my life and in one fell swoop it will all be made clear what I'm supposed to do, who I'm supposed to be with, where I'm supposed to live.
All of these things seem to me to be a "not now" kind of thing. I'm impatient. I feel like I've waited long enough. Twenty six years and I should have at least one piece of the puzzle to life. I should at least be able to distinguish one piece of the puzzle from another. I'm not sure I can. Right now, I'm in a very secure, lonely hell. Everything is sure. I will have this job tomorrow. I will have my apartment tomorrow. I will be single tomorrow. I will not have an iPod tomorrow. Stasis. I contemplate switching it up. Going to Culinary School. Just up and quitting my job. But all of this could have other ramifications. I could be in debt for the rest of my life. I could just be jumping from one very secure, lonely circle of hell to another. Who's to say which one is better? Who's to say if the risk outweighs the possible payout or not? I can't say that I can make the call yet. So here I am in stasis, spinning my wheels.
People everywhere are in motion. They're moving from one place to another. My friends are going places. They're finishing up things and are making plans for the near future. I am constant. Like a fixture. Jason will always have good food to eat at his place. Jason will always be looking for the next great band. Jason will always be home alone on his couch watching bad television. Jason will always aspire for something great, but will never know the steps to take to get there, so he'll always be right there when I need him.
Sounds grim, huh? There's not a day that goes by that I don't want to just say, "Fuck it. Fuck it all. Fuck you and you and you. Oh yeah. Save a fuck for your dog too." I realize that this sound really wikkid whiney or pessimistic, but don't mistake it for what it really is; frustrated confusion. That's all I really am. Frustrated and confused. Maybe a bit lost. Maybe if I sit staring at the sky long enough....
Badu Ass Listening: Now that you're wiser, surely you've learned to regain.
Saturday was a generally lazy day. I spent most of the time waiting for a phone call that never came or was cleaning my apartment for TMI's farewell party. I got a great deal of writing and editing done on the story that I'm working on for writing group. I actually started it a while back and posted it up here. Perhaps it was in November. I re-typed all of it and added some. I think it's a pretty good beginning to a story. I really want this to be about the two misfit friends who have never gotten anything right for their entire lives and then have one perfect day. I think that's where I'm going with it.
At half past six, TMI showed up with tickets in hand and off we went to see Ms. Badu. Neither of us had been to the Orpheum theater, but I knew where it was. I work right by there. It's a small nondescript theater that's int a recessed alleyway. It's by no means a dark dank alleyway, but it's off of the main drag for sure. The theater itself is as old as sin. It is an old, old theater that is in desperate need of repair. There's paint peeling and seats that are lumpy and holey. The aisle at the front of the balcony was slanted in such a way that if you lost you footing, you might accidentally tumble into the mezzanine. Aside from that it was a perfectly wonderful theater. I felt it was just the right size to see a good artist. It reminded me a great deal of Mandel Hall on the University of Chicago campus where I saw bands like The Violent Femmes, The Lemonheads, Belly and a number of others.
Opening up for Erykah was Floetry. They're a female London hip hop duo consisting of a floacist and a songstress. To be honest, their first two numbers were less than impressive. Most of this was due to the overwhelming presence of a drummer. The balance was off and he was pretty much all that we were hearing. I couldn't understand the MC and I could barely hear the vocalist. It was obvious even from the first two songs that the drummer was pretty damn good, but I wanted to hear the flow and the melody which I wasn't getting much of. After the first two numbers, they stalled while the did some sound work. You know, conversing with the crowd and such. It was very artful. After the reworking of the sound, which they never explicitly told the crowd that they were doing, the sound was much better and I could hear everything. The vocalist was amazing. She pushed out notes for hours at a time and at frequencies of a soulful diva. The MC was a little more difficult to evaluate. You could tell that she had a flow and that she was runnin' it, but her annunciation wasn't on enough for me. It could have been the mic. It could have been the production, but to me, the clarity just wasn't there for me to give her a completely fair shake. I couldn't evaluate content or alliteration. I have to give them props to how they closed their set. They started off with one of their own songs and then kicked into some Fresh Prince, MC Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock, and then back into some Fresh Prince. But after they kicked the theme to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the songstress, walked over to the keyboardist, took overs, paused and they kicked into a cover of Mary J. Blige's "Real Love." You know, there are very few songs that I think that everyone should love and I honestly believe that "Real Love" is one of them. Closed it out strong for me.
Between Floetry, there was a long ass intermission. I actually think it was way too long. Floetry played a relatively short set, toping out at about six numbers or so. They went on at around eight and came off at about twenty to nine or so. Erykah Badu didn't hit the stage until about a quarter past ten or so.
The actual structure of Erykah Badu's show was quite original. She opted to break her show up into three or four song sets that corrsponded to the eight chakras. All of the songs made sense in how they were grouped together and where they were placed in her set. Unlike Floetry, Erykah's production staff were on point. Everything was balanced correctly and sounded lush and wonderful. The band consisted of two percussionists, two keyboardists, a trumpet player, a "funky" flute, two backup singers, and a female turntablist.
Now, I was excited as hell, because, as most of you know, I LOVE lady DJs. I just think that they're the hottest on earth. However, I thought that this one kind of left me high and dry. I don't believe that she was utilized very much, nor were her skills on point. All of her scratching was done electronically on a digital CD scratching unit. Okay this was the one part of the show that bothered the hell out of me. All of the scratching done was done on these digital CD scratching units. How lame. If you're gonna have scratching in your program, know how to do it for real. Don't pretend with this crap. Erykah used one in the show too once. She pretended like she was scratching frontwards, behind her back, with her elbow and her chin, and though I loved that she was throwing the scratch sound into the mix, I thought it was kind of a sham.
Now a few words about Ms. Erykah Badu.... GOD DAMN SHE'S HOT. *ahem... mi mi mi...* all better. She's hot. She's pregnant too. But she's hot. I think a lot of pregnant women are hot though. Something just hot about a woman with twice the soul in her. Haha. Yeah. We'll leave it at that. Pregnant women are beautiful. Non-pregnant women with pot bellies... not so beautiful.
Erykah Badu's performance was filled with soul, intelligence and with fun. When she did "Bag Lady" and "On & On," I was in my seat dancing. When she did "Tyrone," I was out of my seat rocking out. TMI was going nutz with each song that Erykah sang. One after another. She would say, "I love this song." Then, "Oh! I love this song too!" Then, "Oh, this is my favorite song of hers!" and, "Oh, this was the song that got me starting to like Erykah Badu!" It was altogether pretty damn amusing.
By the time the concert was over, it was half past midnight. Neither of us had eaten anything for dinner. Originally, we thought that we'd stroll to McCormick & Schmidt's for their late night dining menu, but by the time we got out of the concert hall, I wasn't sure that they would be open. Instead I opted to go towards Chinatown, a place I knew for sure would be open into the wee hours of the morning. We ended up eating noodles at East Ocean City at one thirty in the morning. Yeah, it was something I didn't think that I would be doing. By the time I had gotten home it was around two thirty or so and three before I hopped into bed.
Strangely enough, I woke up this morning at ten thirty. It was weird. I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't. Instead, I made myself a nice breakfast, showered and finished cleaning my apartment. I was done with all of this by noon. So, with all of the time that I had, I did more work on my story and listened to a bunch of music. Carpenter said that he was gonna call me around noon or one to return some bottles that had been stacking up in my apartment since I moved in in October. He never called.
On the other hand, Rebound Girl called. It turns out that her life down in South Carolina is really coming together. It really makes me happy to hear that it's all working out for her. I had some reservations about her going to live with her boyfriend in Georgia and then moving to South Carolina, but I think it's all panning out. I mean, I'm sure it's not without troubles, etc., but I think it's all cool now. It had been a while since I had talked to her. It was good to hear her voice. I think she's a person I'm just completely comfortable with. *sigh* I miss having her around.
Following the conversation, I let iTunes go and I took a nap on my couch. Carpenter showed up at half past three. The funny thing was that TMI and her boy were supposed to show up at around three and they were late too. So Carpenter and I had to wait for TMI to show up before we went and returned the bott
