Book Whorem Listening: You have to feel the pain when you lose the love you gave someone. I thought by now the time would take away these lonely tears. I hope you’re doing fine all alone, but where do I go from here?
Yet again, I am at a loss for what to say. Time has passed. Things have happened. Curses placed. Curses broken. Naps taken. Food cooked. Food eaten. Internet surfed. Nothing seems all that important though.
I saw a job posting on Craigslist that I decided to apply for. I revamped my resume to probably the hottest piece of resume ass that it could have possibly been, given my work experience, thanks in a large part to TMI. After two days of thought, I banged out, in retrospect, a pretty piss poor cover letter. I really don't think it's important whether I get this job or not. I think that the important part is that I'm really starting to send my resume out. My goal is to send out one or two a week at least. Even if I don't want the jobs, necessarily. I just want to get into the practice of sending it out there.
In other news, the Corporation went through a round of layoffs. There was one guy in my group who was let go and a woman in my old group who was let go. To be honest, the girl in my old group was perhaps one of the biggest bitches that I have ever met in my life and she was practically useless. Oh yeah, I guess it didn't help my feelings towards her that she and Mumbles were as thick as thieves.
The guy in my group had been at the Corporation for a long time. He was twenty nine years old and was still in an entry level position. Pretty sad. If I'm in an entry level position when I'm twenty nine years old and it's not in a new career, please shoot me. Use a bazooka... and a missile launcher... and maybe one of those "weapons of mass destruction" or "nookyoolur" bombs that Shrub is so fond of talking about. The things was that because of raises over the years, he essentially was making much more than anyone else in his position. The only exception would be me, because I had a higher salary from a technically higher position over in my old group. I maintain the high salary, but essentially I'm doing an entry level job. So I'm going to guess that if they had to lay someone else off, it would have been me. It's all really speculation from the other people in my group as to why it was him when we had a bunch of new kids. To tell you the truth, it does seem to be the most plausable.
It happened yesterday, actually. After we had finished most of our morning work, we were all called into a conference room. As we were waiting for everyone to assemble, someone asked where this guy was. Someone had seen him earlier in the day and he just seemed to have disappeared somewhere in the first hour and a half of the work day. Once everyone was assembled, our boss' boss gave us the news. He actually also had to read a formal statement from the Corporation about the layoffs, saying that there would be no more and so on and so forth. It was all bullshit though.
It's not like I really cared that much though. I picked up a fraction of his work. I wasn't really buddy-buddy with the guy either. I'm not really buddy-buddy with anyone on the floor. I keep my headphones in and my nose at my monitor. I look at the internet. I do my work. I don't talk sports really. I contribute once in a blue moon to random topics, but mostly I keep to myself. These other people don't so much matter to me. I'm not putting out their fires like I used to do back in my old group. I'm not running damage control. I'm not talking to anyone, not even clients.
Today was kind of odd. There were no real big issues on any of my work, so I decided that I was going to leave the office for an hour as if it was my lunch break. Originally, I was on my way to Newbury Comics to catch up on some issues and to check out what the new releases for the week were. However, three steps after I dropped a bill in the mail, I remembered that the Brattle Book Shop was having a restocking sale where everything on their first and second floors was a dollar. I remembered that there were a couple of books that I wanted last time that I was in there, so I took a gander. And walked out $8.40 poorer and eight books heavier. Yeesh. Let me break down the purchases:
Amrita by Banana Yoshimoto - So I went in specifically looking for this book. I saw it when I picked up my copies of Goodbye Tsugumi and Asleep. When I brought the books to the counter, they gave me an bookmark advertising the sale. So that's how I knew there would be at least one book that I was interested in purchasing. I don't know what it is about Banana Yoshimoto, but I love everything she writes. I like the style and the emotion in her work. The stories aren't too short and they're not too long. They hover right around the length of novellas, a truly underappreciated art form.
Shopgirl by Steve Martin - I saw this book haphazardly thrown among the books with the authors at the end of the alphabet (a few shelves above Yoshimoto). I had heard all about the book, and for the most part, it has gotten good reviews. I hope that it has both the humor and the heart that Steve Martin shows through the roles that he picks. It's a short book though. I figure that if it sucks, it'll only suck for a short while.
Patient: The True Story of a Rare Ilness by Ben Watt - For those of you who aren't music junkies or anglophiles like I am, you probably won't recognize the name of the author. Ben Watt is a DJ, a producer, a musician, and half of the duo known as Everything But The Girl. I actually found out about this book when searching around the web for stuff about EBTG. As you can tell from the title, this book is about his battle with a strange illness that struck him on the eve of their American tour in 1992. I can't wait to get to this one.
Memoirs of a Geisha by Artrhur Golden - So, there it was in hard cover. One dollar. There had been a lot of buzz about the book around the time that I graduated college. I figure. It's there. Why not?
Wild Kids by Chang Ta-Chun - The first sentence on the back cover is what got me. It said, "These two scaringly funny and unsettling portraits of teenagers beyond the control and largely beneath the notice of adults in 1980s Taiwan are the first English translations of the work of Taiwan's most famous and best-selling literary cult figure." The buzzwords there are "unsettling," and "literary cult figure." It was enough to goad me out of another dollar and a nickle.
A Night of Serious Drinking by Rene Daumal - Tell me that you wouldn't buy this book for the title alone. Go on. Tell me. It's what caught my eye and drew me in. Apparently it was originally written in French and was translated. You know that if a book is translated into other languages, it has to be worth something. Anyways, after reading the back and a few pages, it sounds fairly trippy and surreal. You know them French surrealists. It, like Shopgirl, is a fairly short book, so, again, if it sucks, it won't suck for long.
Swagbelly by DJ Levien - The subtitle on this book is "a novel for today's gentleman." That is the reason I picked up this book. The cover of this book is all black with a lone banana at the bottom. Apparently this books is about a pornographer whose life is going to shit and his effort to get back on track. The last line of the synopsis on the back cover is "Wry, erotic, and beautifully observed, Swagbelly is the moving tale of a man in search of a decent life." Yeah. I think I can identify with a man in search of a decent life. Maybe he'll have some pointers.
The Frog King: A Love Story by Adam Davies - As the last book that I picked up, of course it's a love story from a guy's point a of view. The cover of the book caught me as did the synopsis on the back cover. Apparently the protagonist won't allow himself to say the word love. I wonder how far off from that I am these days. It's a normal length book, but it looks like a really quick read.
So now, I have no reason to go fishing for a book for a while. I should have enough to keep me holed up in my room all of the way through the winter. By the way, if any of you all are interested in borrowing one of the books, let me know. I can't possibly read them all at once, and I'm pretty much going to go in the order that I just listed them. I might move Memoirs of a Geisha to the end, but you never know. First I have to finish Goodbye Tsugumi. I'm over halfway there now. I should be done in a couple of days.
Anyways, on tap for the weekend, it's going to be quite busy. Tomorrow (Friday) night, I have a friend's birthday party out in JP. Saturday night, there's SOUL REVIVAL, something which I really need. And Sunday, I think a few of us are going down to Quincy to have dinner at Glare and Totoro's place. Somewhere inbetween, I'm going to start moving my stuff over to my room with The Violent One and Photogenic. I already have most of my turntable stuff disassembled and some stuff packed up. I think it'll take two car loads tops. Hopefully. I'm going to be EXTRA careful with the decks though. I don't know what I would do if I fuct those up in transit.
It's much later than I anticipated being awake, so it's time for me to bid the internet adeiu. Come on out to Soul Revival. It's gonna be rawkin.
All That You Can Try To Leave Behind Listening: I'm sleeping later and waking later. I'm eating less and thinking more. And how am I without you? Am I more myself or less myself?
So, I'm moving in with The Violent One and Photogenic this weekend. I dunno if I'll be sleeping there by the first, but I honestly hope so. I have some reservations about moving in with two girls. I don't know. I guess it can't be much worse than living with any of my college roomies. I just worry about things like being able to listen to my music as I cook and trying, myself, to be a good roomie. I know I'm grumpy when I get home from work. Maybe they'll help me not be. I know that I can get into massive funks where all I want to do is lay around watching television. And I know I'm not a cheery person who deals well with other cheery people when I'm in a funk. So most of all, I'm concerned about how they'll react to me. I know they can take my ribbing and my poking fun of everything. That much seems clear. I don't know. I'm just worried.
One thing that I am looking forward to is minimizing what I take with me. Right now, I'm planning on taking all of my music, my clothes, two end table like units, my turntables, my chef's knife and my wisk. I'll probably get my old television from my grandparents' place too. I think what's more important than what I'm taking is what I'm leaving behind.
When the ex left, she left so much stuff here. I'm just looking around my living room and I see a little box of change, a Mr. Bump miniature stuffy and a jade plant. Sure all of that sounds miniscule, but there are other things around my apartment. A wok, a toaster, a Brita water filter, pillows, a bunch of toiletries, a rather sizable picture of Harvard University, wrapping paper, towels and a blender are all hiding around my apartment. There's even a really good electric toothbrush that I haven't been able to get a new head to and use because it just feels wrong. There's stuff in the refridgerator that was hers. There's stuff in the cupboard. I have stuff that I said that I would shred for her. Pictures, everything, it's all here.
When I move, I'm only bringing one thing of hers and that is the jade plant. The only reason that I'm bringing that is because I don't know what would happen first, my brother killing it or the jade plant committing suicide. When I move in with The Violent One and Photogenic, I really hope to leave those pieces of my heart behind.
Maybe when I leave it all behind, I'll leave her behind too. Maybe I won't be forcing myself to get out there and date for the sake of dating. Maybe I won't be thinking about her six hours a day. Maybe I won't know exactly what the cheapest fare from Boston to Manchester is. Maybe I won't know that it costs 10 Euros to go from Dublin (one of the many possible posts through the Corporation) to Manchester. Maybe I won't have delusions of crossing the Atlantic to put an anonymous card in her mailbox telling her to meet me at a restaurant so that I can give her a sunflower and bring her back.
And maybe I won't be such a fuckin' loser. Maybe I won't be the romantic. Maybe the heart will harden a little. Maybe I'll stop giving a shit. Maybe I'll start eating better and more regularly. Maybe I'll sleep better too.
I Am A Pervert: Part I Listening: Sunday all the lights of London shining. Sky is fading red to blue. I’m kicking through the autumn leaves and wondering where it is you might be going to. Turning back for home, you know I’m feeling so alone.
This morning, I got on the train and sat down in an open seat near the door. I didn't even notice when I sat down, but quickly caught myself up to speed. She was sitting next to me reading a book. When I looked down, that's when I caught a glimpse of it. She was showing me everything. Smooth white skin, perky, well taken care of. That's when she changed position and showed me everything. She ran her thumb around and caressed the perfectly round... click wheel.
Yeah. It was an iPod. Forty gig in a hard plastic case. As many of you know, a girl showing me her music collection is a lot like her showing me her bare tits. They both can either completely get me hard or completely disgust me. When she turned her iPod towards me, I saw exactly what she was listening to. It was David Gray's "Babylon" from the White Ladder album. It's a track that I've meant to download for quite some time, but given that I only have 650MB left on my laptop's hard drive, it hasn't really been an option.
"Babylon." Okay, this girl was good looking and the song is a good song, but it was a questionable choice at ten o'clock in the morning on the way to work. I think of "Babylon" as much more of a night time driving song or a winding down song, not so much a going to work song. Maybe she just had her list on random and it what came up. Maybe it just means that she's got the goods, but the timing is just off. Haha. How's that for metaphorical?
Anyways, I love that. I love looking at other people plugged into their music on the train. I always wonder what they're listening to. What do they choose to plug directly into their brain? It's not like when you listen to music through speakers. When you have your headphones on you're isolating yourself with the music. You're making a conscious decision to listen to the music. It's not just another distraction in the world. It's a large part of your world.
When I listen to my headphones and I'm rockin' out, I do funny things. I dance. I mouth the words. I furrow my brow and bob my head back and forth. Sometimes I think that I'm the only guy who really rocks out on the train. But, I mean, how can you not rock out when you hear Prince singing "Alphabet Street" or Michael Jackson singing "PYT?" I think it's virtually impossible.
So, that's my my story of the girl on the train flashing me... her iPod. It was hot. It was sexual. It was like a glimpse of her panties. It was a piece of her feelings.
I'm A Pervert: Part II Listening: I just wanna lay ya down in my daddy's car. It's you I really wanna drive, but you never go too far. I may not be your kind of man. I may not be your style, but, honey, all I wanna do is just love you for a little while.
As most of you know already, come the first of November, I'll be moving into a small dungeon of a room in The Violent One and Photogenic's basment apartment in Porter Square. The Violent One and Photogenic have both lived in the apartment for about a month and have painted all of the walls. The foyer is orange, the living room is blue and the hallway is green. The bathroom, however, was painted pink and was decorated all in Hello Kitty. YEESH! It's so... nice.
When I say "nice" I mean overly pleasant. For those of you who don't know me all that well, I'm a nice guy. I'm not overly pleasant, but I care about my friends, etc. I am not a nice guy in the sense that I like cutesy stuff or anything that's superficially, artificially, saccarine and splenda filled sweetness. It's just not my bag. I, for the most part, live on the darker side of life. We're not talking Metallica, Biohazard and Puddle of Mudd dark. I'm talking edgy. It'm talking just plain straight up non-mainstream.
With such a concentration of "niceness" in the bathroom, I feel that there needs to be a balance in the apartment. Now, I know that neither The Violent One nor Photogenic will allow me to do this to any other part of the apartment, so I'm forced to do it in the room I will be living in, not that I mind all that much. Now what, you may ask would I possibly do to counteract the niceness? Well, nothing says "not nice" to me like sexual deviance. That's right. The windowless all brick dungeon of a room that I will be living in will be turned into a den of sexual deviance.
See, Carpenter has a hammer drill, which we could use to put eyehooks into the brick wall. From there we'll put up removable chains and cuff which I could use to restrain submissives or I could be restrained myself. Maybe I could get a paddle to hang on the wall or perhaps a cat-o-nine-tails whip. That would be so cool. I mean, imagine this. You're one of The Violent One or Photogenic's friends. You've never been to her apartment before. She shows you the nice colorful hallway, the colorful living room and the Hello Kitty bathroom, then all of a sudden she shows you my room. It's dark, painted red and has cuffs and chains suspended from the wall with a paddle and a cat-o-nine-tails. How great would that juxtaposition be?
Also, Carpenter said that the eyehooks would be strong enough to support a swing or something like that. Rockin'! If you can't figure it out, I am thoroughly amused by this idea. Some people say, "Dood, you'll scare girls away if you have all of that kind of stuff." I say, "You know, if they don't get the joke and the humor in it, then I don't want 'em around my room anyways." Tally ho! Bring on the sexual deviance!
Projects Abound Listening: Each time I see a crowd of people, just like a fool, I stop and stare. It's really not the proper thing to do, but maybe you’ll be there.
As you've been reading, I haven't had much to say as of late. Life has fallen into a bit of a routine and I'm just sort of floating along with it. My mother bounced out of town yesterday and the Sox won, so that takes up the bulk of what's new.
I've started a new project to work on while I'm at home. I've been archiving my old blog posts. I've been copying and pasting them into word documents, correcting spelling and formatting and I plan to burn it all onto CD and possibly print it into hard copy. So far, I have worked through the first two months and it's a lot of content. This was before I was a really consistent writer too. I don't know how many pages it is now, but it already feels to be around fifteen or twenty. We're quickly coming up on the number of pages that I wrote during my first two years of college. Pretty sick, huh?
I don't know if I'll bind it or what, but I think it might be a good idea. Call me narcissistic, I don't care. There's something to be said about saving this kind of content and in that saving oneself. When I'm fifty two and I look back on my twenties, what will I think? Will I think my torment and toil have been worth it all? Will I look back and think of all of this with a fondness? Are these the best years of my life and will I settle into them and get comfortable with them? I find it all so interesting. If hindsight is 20/20, what will I see when I turn around. Of course there will be foolish episodes in my past. I can sit and rattle a bunch of them off to you, but there are some things that I look back on and say to myself, "Wow, that was really intense. That really changed the way that I look at that."
So, that's my project for a bit. It should take me a while to get it all done. See, I have been writing in this blog for about two and a half years. I've only completed the edit of the first two months, which was before I really started to write consistently. I can just see the paper flowing from Kinko's.
Anyways, in other news, I have plans tonite. See, in celebration of the Art Deco exhibit at the MFA, there's going to be a weekly Thursday cocktail hour. I'm gonna go this week, with some of my pals. Fester, Digitaldewi and Emeril are just a few of the people who are gonna be there. It's from five thirty until nine in the evening. I'll porbably be getting there around half past seven, because I'm gonna go home and put on the "Queer Eye" styling. Maybe I'll meet someone cool there. If anyone's interested in coming, they should. The more, the merrier. Ahh, martinis and art deco. How much better can it get? Well, it can, but not by much.
Stuff Going On, But Nothing To Say Listening: It's been seven hours and thirteen days since you took your love away. I go out every night and sleep all day since you took your love away. Since you've been gone I can do whatever I want I can see who ever I choose. I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant, oh yeah, but nothing, nothing can take away these blues.
So, I haven't written much of substance in the last week or so. A lot has happened, but I just don't have anything real to say. The Violent One had a birthday where we drank and did karaoke, it was a good time. Earlier in the week, I went to see FKB and Kevin So. It was a good time. I've had a few good times, but they're never really THAT good.
I struggle through the same things that I have for years with work and with women. I look at everything that has happened and I can't help but feel like a Sox fan. By that, I mean that I always seem to get my hopes up and I never seem to come out on top. Sure it's nobody's fault but my own, but when you lose enough, it's hard to believe that you can win. I believe a newscaster on television today called it "learned hopelessness." It's an interesting concept.
Anyways, all I can really say is that I continue to struggle with the love/hate relationship with the ex and the memory of the ex. At times I wish that I could erase her from my brain, just get rid of her, get angry and let all of that overwhelm every little bit of whatever I used to feel for her. Sometimes, I think that she was the best thing that could have ever happened to me in the span of a couple of months. I can never decide. I swing from one to the other. I swing back and forth in regards to a lot of things that have to do with this girl.
It's strange. With girls in the past, it has been relatively easy for me to either write them off or for me to be friends with them. It's one way or the other. But, with this one, something is different. Okay, now that I'm thinking about it, there was one other girl that I had a hard time letting go of, but we weren't even really dating. This time it's more than a broken ego. I can sit here and talk about it with friends, but it's not really like they get it. So, I write about it here and in my mind.
One of the hardest things is writing this blog and knowing that she reads it from time to time. She checks in on me. It bothers me. What do you want, woman? What do you want from me? You don't want my love and you don't want my friendship. You don't want nothing. What do you want? It's just so difficult and it's what I think about at least six hours out of each day.
So, when I say that a lot has happened, but I have nothing to say, this is what I mean. This is what has been going on and this is what flows through my little noggin. Lately, people have been asking me, "What's new?" or "What's going on?" and I say nothin', because that's what's new and that's what's going on.
I have a couple of things lined up for this week. We'll see how they go. I don't expect anything great from them. I just expect, like the Red Sox, to go out onto the field and take a few swings.
Ode To The T Girl Listening: Tell me one more time how you’re sorry about the way this all went down. You needed to find your space. You needed to still be friends, needed me to call you if I ever couldn’t keep it all together. You’d comfort me, tell me but forever and the promises I never should have believed in.
You look different every time. Sometimes you're short and sometimes you're tall. Sometimes you're punk and sometimes you're classic. Every time, I fall in love though. Sometimes I see you on the platform, sometimes I see you when I get on the train, but you're always there.
This particular time, I saw you on the platform at Kendall Station. We were both walking down into the station from opposite sides. That was when she caught my eye. At first, I was like, "Whoah," but brushed it off as if she was just another pretty face that I passed by on the street. She had on black boots, jeans, a white ribbed turtleneck shirt and a three quarter length black jacket. She was asian and was carrying a pink Garment District bag. Her long black hair fell straight, just past her shoulders. She was perfectly manicured.
I got to the turnstiles before she did. I swiped my pass while she paid for a token. Since I was traveling outbound to Porter Square, I walked just past the chimes and the first bench. I couldn't help it. I looked back. There she was, coming through the turnstiles. She placed herself right next to the chimes. I couldn't help. I kept looking back.
Across the way, there was a man with his boy. He was trying to work the chimes, but was cranking the lever too quickly. Violently, he jerked the lever back and forth and back and forth while the hammers just wiggled. She smiled. She had a beautiful smile. It was broad and easy. Everyone watching couldn't help but smile. This guy clearly wasn't getting it. So, she called out to him, "You have do go slower. You have to synchronize yourself with the hammers."
It was at that point that I could have gone up to her and talked to her, but I didn't. Me. I was wearing a pair of my biege and orange Caffeine pants and my black Squidwear hoody. I looked a bit like a kid and a scrub, but I knew that I wasn't. Sometimes I'm out in the pimp gear and sometimes I'm out in the rave gear. When it comes down to it, I don't feel comfortable talking to a classic girl wearing my non-conventional clothing. I'm not saying that the raver isn't a part of me or the more stylish guy isn't a part of me. I'm just saying that sometimes what I wear fit better than other times. To be honest, I have a lot more crazy comfortable raver clothing than I have clean, sharp, stylin' clothes. This is mostly in part to the fact that I can never find clothes that fit me quite right and even if I do find something that fits me well, it's usually very expensive. Anyways, I think that if I was looking better, I might have talked to her.
It was when we got on the train that she really got me. We ended up getting on the train at the same door. She stood by the pole, and since the train was pretty full, I resigned myself to not having a handhold and to standing right between the doors. I made a conscious effort to stand somewhat facing her. I stood no further than two feet away from her, and that's when I saw it. On the outside edge of her left eyebrow, she had a tiny barbell piercing.
If there's something that I like it's a small tasteful piercing. I love the tiny barbell eyebrow piercings as well as the loops. I like small nose piercings, lip piercings and such. I don't like the larger gauge piercings, and I don't like anything that's a little too princess.
This girl, though.... This girl had a perfect balance of classic and edge. She looked like she could rock the cocktail dress and the Ramones t-shirt within five minutes of each other. She could go from business suit to track suit, from slacks to jeans in two point two seconds. Versatility. That's what I like. Image versatility. What the tasteful little piercing tells me is that although she's dressed in a very clean, classically beautiful manner, she's got a commitment to the other side. She has a committment to the less converntional side of life, to the rock and roll and the counter-culture. I like that. I think that's hot.
As we ride the train, I glance over at her a number of times and then focus my attention to the window on the train door. I can see her reflection and the soft curves of her face. I can see her perfect lips and her sharp eyes. I know she noticed me looking at her. I crack a smile at the window of the train and bop to my music.
In my head, I say to her something funny about the man at Kendall Station who couldn't work the chimes. In my head, I pop out my earbuds and just say, "hi." In my head, I'm a little bit taller, better dressed, sharper and more vocally articulate. In reality, I bop to my music and crack little smiles as I run through scenarios of making her laugh and engaging her in conversations about music, food and design.
Minutes later, she gets off the train at Harvard Square and I turn to watch her go. It's what happens. I turn to watch them go. Every single time, I watch girls go. They come and go in and out of trains and train stations, in and out of my life, two minutes, two stops, two dates, two months. They come and go. And unfortunately, they go more than they come.
To T Girl, I hope I see you again. Maybe next time I'll make you laugh or will engage you in conversation about music or food or design. Maybe I'll tell you how much I dig your jacket or about how I like your piercing. Maybe I'll be different next time. Maybe you will.
Transition To A Reset Listening: I'm taking my freedom, pulling it off the shelf, putting it on my chain, wear it around my neck. I'm taking my freedom, putting it in my car wherever I choose to go, it will take me far. I'm livin' my life like it's golden.
Sleep? What's that? These past two days have been the last two days of free HBO. Ahh, as much as I loved watching all of those movies (and sometimes more than once), I'm really looking forward to getting my sleep schedule back on track. Today is the first day that I have been without HBO and it seems to be a bit of a transition day.
Last night I was up until four in the morning. I wasn't because of HBO though. There were other things keeping me up. First of all, I was doing laundry. Now, if you don't know how I rock the laundry, it happens every two weeks or so. I do all of my laundry and start clean. With a single washer and a single dryer, it takes about four loads at about an hour apiece. It's a long process. To tell you the truth, it's the next day and I haven't even folded everything.
The second reason that I was awake at four in the morning was Snood. Yep. I said it. Snood. I haven't played the game since sophomore or junior year of college, but I downloaded it again this weekend. I'm an addict again. I haven't lost my touch either. I'll sit there and play puzzle Snood for hours at a time. I don't know what it is. It's mesmerizing. The new version that they have up is wikkid good and I got all of the extras due to a registration code that I found on a hacks and cracks database. Gotta love that.
The final reason that I was up until four in the morning was because I was chatting with a girl. I guess I should back up a bit. So sometimes while I'm at work, I'll cruise around the boston.com personals. I like looking at people's profiles and seeing what kind of hang-ups they have. I like looking at the pictures, seeing how people are presenting themselves. Anyways, last week, I get a "wink" to my profile. So, I check this person out and decide to drop her a line.
It took me a few seconds to decide whether to respond or not. But I thought about it. I thought about the ex and decided to say, "Fuck it." "Fuck moping. Fuck hoping. Fuck pineing. Fuck my mind fuck. Fuck that girl. Fuck letting her fuck my life." Granted, I don't always feel like that. I think that it's how I want to get back in the driver's seat. I think it's time for me to become more of an aggressor. If the ex can't be bothered, I can't be bothered. Game fuckin' on.
So I shot this girl an e-mail. We chatted it up for a bit and decided to get together on Sunday. She's a Wellesley girl, twenty one years old and a generally interesting person. Although the pic up on her profile left me with a different impression of what she looked like from what she actually looked like (though I could see where it came from), she was a cool girl. She had a mind and a mouth on her, like I like. I'm not entirely sure that there's sparks or anything, but she's a cool girl to hang out with, definitely worth a second date.
Anyways, last night she was up late working on a paper while I was working on laundry and Snood, so we chatted and I siphoned off some music to her. Unfortunately, by the time I decided to say I'm done with the laundry, it was four in the morning. Yeesh.
I'm hoping on meeting some more chicas though. I e-mailed this one other girl from boston.com personals, and I hope she writes back. She's kind of a hottie. And I'm going to the FKB concert tomorrow. Maybe I'll meet someone there as well. Time to light this rocket.
I paid for staying up that late today when I got home from work. I napped and I faded in and out of consciousness as I tried to watch Gilmore Girls. I really only woke up in time to see the last few innings of the Sox game where they got my hopes up and then got squashed. I hate that. I'm sure I'll hear all about it at the office. I just wish that at some point they would shut up about it. I guess I'll just plug in and ignore them.
So, I have to finish folding my laundry. I hate when it sits too long. After that it's dishes and back off to bed.
Funeral For A Friend Listening: It may sound absurd, but don’t be naive. Even heroes have the right to bleed. I may be disturbed, but won’t you concede? Even heroes have the right to dream. It’s not easy to be me.
In 1993, that was the title on the cover of Adventures of Superman Issue #499. The world gasped as Superman was pummeled to death while doing the same to the Doomsday monster that terrorized Metropolis. No one could stop the monster except for Superman, and that was at the cost of his own life. Superheroes from all over the DC Comics universe gathered for the somber memorial of one of their brothers in arms, one of the heads of the Justice League. All paid tribute to the Man of Steel.
This morning, when my clock radio alarm turned on, it was the first thing that I heard. Christopher Reeves died this morning of heart failure at the age of fifty-two. Over the perpetual beeping of my alarm, I listened to the whole story before popping out of bed to turn it off.
Unlike the comic books, next month, Christopher Reeves won't be coming back as four new Superman characters. He won't be resurrected in time to fight new bad guys or right the wrongs of the world. He'll just live on in DVD and reruns on TV.
To be honest, I thought that the Superman movies were quite cheesy and such, but I really do believe that Christopher Reeves became the human personification of the hero. There really is no man who could play Superman with the strength that Christopher Reeves did. Say what you may. That role is his and his alone. Many people can play the young Clark Kent, but there is only one Superman.
Dead at fifty-two, Christopher Reeves: The star, the legend, the advocate, the Superman.
I Can't Get No Sleep Listening: She says it’s all gonna end and it might as well be my fault. And she only sleeps when it’s raining. And she screams and her voice is straining.
It's an interesting feeling when you've been in bed for an hour, trying to get to sleep with the two hour sleep mix playing, the clock reads three AM and the song comes on the sleep mix. It's actually pretty surreal. I don't know, maybe things are just on my mind or the lyrics just have more meaning to me at three in the morning. But I felt the need to get my ass out of bed and throw something down on the blog.
Though my sleeplessness is probably attributed to the fact that I slept until three in the afternoon today (sport sleeping as I would like to call it), it's nothing new to me. I'll lay in bed for hours at a time thinking about all sorts of things. I've tried reading. I've tried counting numerous barnyard animals, but falling asleep never really happens easily for me unless I'm in a moving vehicle.
Music helps me when I'm trying to fall asleep though. It makes it easier for my mind to rest on the whole. If I were to go to sleep without music or without someone beside me to focus my thoughts on, my mind would just go and focus on troubling elements of my life from my job to my recently ended relationship to my childhood to the life that I had wasted up until now. But when I have music, I'll think about the lyrics. I'll think about what they mean to me. I'll think about how they've related to my experiences. I love it. Sometimes it's painful. Actually, a lot of time it's painful because of the type of music that I listen to, but I love it anyways. Songs like Hi-Five's "I Like The Way (The Kissing Game)," Maroon 5's "She Will Be Loved", Dido's "Closer", and Zero 7's "Destiny" all are great songs that carry a certain melancholy in my heart. As John Mellencamp would say, "It hurts so good."
It's now twenty past three. I'm not really tired. It's at times like this that I wish that I had someone to talk to. Who keeps hours like this? Maybe I should have a friend in Japan that I can call at whatever ungodly hour of the morning that I happen to be up at. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it would probably be a good time to call my friend who has been sent off to battle in Afghanistan... again. But then again, I don't think military people can just shit shoot any time they want.
Regardless, I just wish I had someone to talk to or someone else to focus on other than myself. I love watching people next to me sleep. I like watching their chests expand and contract as they breathe in and breathe out. I think it's even better if they have their arms draped across their chests and you can see their breath lifting their arm up. I like the peaceful looks on their faces, eyes closed, mouth open or closed. I like how they might have the covers pulled up to their chins and the position of their bodies. I don't know why though. Maybe it's because they've found a peace that I don't really find all that often. But some of the best and some of the worst sleep that I have ever gotten is when someone else is in the bed with me.
When I say that, it doesn't necessarily mean in a sexual way. Sure, I've slept well after getting down, but I'm just talking about someone sleeping next to you. The Violent One and Her Majesty once told me that they couldn't fathom just sleeping next to someone of the opposite sex in a completely innocent way. Me, I believe that sleeping with someone can be completely sexual and it can be completely platonic. I've spooned with friends before, more than one at a time as a matter of fact, but it was completely platonic. There's just something nice and comforting about having someone else there.
I'm not blaming my sleeplessness on being alone. I think I'm actually going to blame it on the free HBO that I have been getting for the past week. I haven't gone to bed before three in the morning for the past six days. As much as I love watching the movies on HBO, I curse it at the same time. Damn you, HBO, for putting on movies that I want to see at all hours of the night. Damn you, HBO, Hollywood blockbusters, indy flicks, sotfcore porn, and all. I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave.
Getting Pushed One Inch Closer To Edge Listening: Another day I call and never speak. And you would say nothing’s changed at all. And I can’t feel much hope for anything, if I won’t be there to catch you when you fall.
I know. I said that I wouldn't talk about work anymore, but something of a milestone happened today. To be honest, work was going along swimmingly. I set up the work and I knocked it all down. Seriously, I was rocking my way through it to the point where around half past eleven or so I had a large chunk of time to just screw off at my computer.
When I got into work today, I did what I always do. Upon putting in my password to get onto the LAN network, I start up IE with my blog page up, and I start up Real Player and hit up the Ministry of Sound internet radio station. I have to say that the beginning of today's set was quite good. The DJ spun a remix of Faithless' "Miss U Less, See U More." I'm gonna have to get my hands on that piece of vinyl...
Anyways, I had some time to screw off and all was going well. I had to drop something on someone's desk, so I popped off my headphones and walked away from the computer. When I come back, I don't put my headphones back on right away. I pour some coffee, read some CNN.com, cruise through some blogs.... Finally, it dawns on me that I'm not rocking out, so I slip on my headphones. What do I hear in them? Hmm, a little bit of static and that's it. I looked at my Real Player window and, sure enough, the Ministry of Sound radio station was still going. It was counting off the seconds and minutes that it was playing. I tried adjusting all of the volumes on my computer and nothing. At one point, I heard a computer beep underneath the static, but then it quickly went away.
I restarted my computer. No startup tone. I fiddled with the volumes again. Nothing. Sonnuvabitch.
I fiddle around for a half hour more and give up. I call IT.
The first guy that I talked to worked on my computer for a half hour. He jumped onto my computer remotely and just worked over and over and over again. He tried like fifty different things. He decided that he couldn't figure it out, so he put in another work order. I stayed at my computer all through lunch so that I wouldn't miss the call from the IT guy.
The second IT guy called at half past one. He worked on my computer until half past two. He kept trying things and re-trying things. He went and got the most up to date drivers and such. Nothing. Sonnuvabitch.
So, the bottom line is the sound card on my computer is fuct. I can't hear anything off of Real Player or off of any of my other more complex sound/music/multimedia programs. I can play a CD off the drive, but it plays really loud out of my computer speakers, and I can't even muffle it when I jack in my headphones. It sucks. This means one of two things. I can either tote around my discman all day long from desk to desk, from here to there, or I can live in silence.
ARGGGGGGGHHHHH! The Corporation won't pay for a new sound card because it isn't essential to getting the job done, that and it's not under warranty anymore. Don't they know that the music is the only thing that keeps me sane on a day to day basis? Don't they know that I can't get anything done without my Smoove, my Radical PR, my Delirium or Movin' House? What the hell am I gonna do? Just yesterday, I listened for about five hundred minutes. Today? Just over ninety. Grrr...
So I'm gonna have to figure out how to bring more discs in and how to keep a good charge on my battery too. See, I only charge my discman once a month at most. I can really see me having to bring my charger to work with me. Bah! I'm just frustrated. Work gets worse and worse.
I did talk to one of my old bosses today. He's going to Ireland to go rip people who have been screwing up over there a new one. These are people that I used to work with. Back in the day, the relationship between the people in Ireland and I was great. I had this one guy who was my go to guy and I was his go to guy. We had our shit on point. But after he left for a job closer to his home, it all fell apart. Too many cooks were in the kitchen and shit done got fucked up. Anyways, my old boss is going over there to wreck some shop and to serve this one guy his head on a platter. Yeah. I'm PSYCHED. This guy gave us the runaround left and right. I asked him today if he would take me with him to go raid the Dublin office. He said that he couldn't do that. Then I asked him to see if he could find something for me over there as far as work goes. He said that he will DEFINITLEY (yes, he stressed that word) look for a position for me over there. Rawkin'.
In completely unrelated news, while I was screwing around on the net, I found a whole bunch of killer cool sites. I was really looking for funky raver clothing. You know, futuristic bags, pants, shirts, jackets, and vests. Check some of these sites, if you dare! Cy-X and David Spain
The Sacrificial Pinky Listening: Don't think that I don't wanna get involved with you. It's all I wanna do won't you try and understand.
So this week, when I switched out the discs in my travel case, I rediscovered an album of mine. When you have the sheer volume of music that I have, this happens now and then. Sometimes, there are discs or albums that are flashes in the pan, that you think are great for about five minutes and then they don't interest you anymore. I think that some of the albums on that list are ones like Sandra Collins - Tranceport Vol. 2, Fatboy Slim - You've Come A Long Way, Baby, and Brian McKnight - Superhero. Some of the ones that are constant mainstays that never hide long enough to be forgotten are The Corrs - Unplugged, Faithless - Sunday 8PM, Everything But The Girl - Walking Wounded, and Toad The Wet Sprocket - Fear.
But there is a whole class of discs and albums that you just sort of pass by ninety percent of the time, and when you finally pick the piece up again after so long, you realize how completely awesome the disc or album really is. Some of these albums on this list are Bonnie Raitt - Luck Of The Draw, The Cure - Wish (if only because it has "A Letter To Elise" on it), Morcheeba - Who Can You Trust?, and Barenaked Ladies - Born On A Pirate Ship. All of these albums are great, but this week, I rediscovered something that I desperately needed. This Monday, I whipped out the Ministry Of Sound UK Garage The Album: The Sound Of 2000. I've always known that I would like this two disc set forever, but I forgot why I liked it so much. I'm not always in the mood to listen to garage, but when I am, I REALLY am. This album, no matter what mood I'm in, no matter if someone died, no matter if someone broke my heart, no matter if I just ate a really bad piece of fish and have the shits, no matter if I'm in a suit or in my boxers, will always make me dance.
It really is a good thing that I rarely see anyone on the same path with me to work. I think that the people who have seen me for the beginning of this week probably think I'm insane. I can't help it. I HAVE to dance if this album is on. It's something about the particular beats and tracks on this set. They're absolutely incredible. To top it all off, all of the tracks are mixed incredibly well. So, it's Monday morning. I'm going to a job that I absolutely detest and I'm dancing my ass off on the way to the T, bobbing and doing funny little motions with my arms, hands, wrists and elbows. I stand at the edge of the T platform with my neck bobbing from side to side. You know I must really look like a complete freak, but this album makes me really happy. I get into this groove and it just moves me. I walk at the pace of the music and it's just like riding a wave. I suggest anyone who wants to dance, who wants to groove, who wants to just feel like a giant ray of sunshine, even as you're walking to your crappy job in the morning, pick it up. It's well worth it.
Top Five Reasons To Love Ministry Of Sound's UK Garage The Album:The Sound Of 2000 5. Sisqo - Thong Song (Artful Dodger Remix) (c'mon, we all know the original was whack, but with this beat behind it, it makes you want to see that thong-tha-thong-thong-thong) 4. Artful Dodger & Robbie Craig feat. Craig David - Woman Trouble (Full Length Version) 3. Tru Faith & Dub Conspiracy - Freak Like Me (Original Mix) 2. The B15 Project feat. Crissy D & Lady G - Girls Like Us (Original Mix) AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON: Kristine Blond - Love Shy (Club Asylum Edit)
Granted, all of these reasons are off of the first disc, the second disc isn't half bad either. The first disc leans more towards the R&B side of garage and the second disc leans more towards the dancehall side of garage. Oh, man, but it is so good. I haven't felt this good in quite a while. I realize that it's "just music," but sometimes it just has this power over me that I can't really explain. I think that if someone died and I had this music on, I would still be dancing.
Anyways, my week... Well, I've been laying pretty low and I've been staying in. I guess it doesn't hurt that all this week I have HBO for free. Woo woo! I've watched a number of movies. I watched X2: X-Men United, The Ring, Laurel Canyon, and a few more. I've caught bits and pieces of American Wedding and Matchstick Men. Basically, I'm catching up on the movies that I didn't want to pay for in the theater.
Last night, Fester came over and we cooked up a storm. It had been a while since I had cooked anything remotely serious. Lately, I've been cooking a lot of easy stand-bys that other people seem to be impressed with. *shrug* Call it a talent. Anyways, Fester came over and we cooked up some Tyler's Ultimate meatballs al forno with some polenta and I boiled up some fantastically fresh, in season green beans. The meatballs came out pretty decently. I think there are some things that we could have done to make it a bit better, but I figure I'll try that out next time.
During the process of cooking the meat balls, I inadvertently dipped my right pinky finger into a bit of the hot oil. That's what you get for trying to politely slide large meatballs into a hot pan of olive oil. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. I was really trying to be cautious. I didn't want to just drop the meat balls in and have the oil splatter everywhere. I was really just trying to ease them in. The really funny thing about it is that the pinky that got doused in hot oil is the same pinky that I got a wikkid paper cut on earlier in the day. Needless to say, my pinky wasn't happy. It did, however, get me to make use of the rubber gloves that Her Majesty left me when she went back to the UK. I tried washing dishes without them and my pinky was hurting from the grime that was getting in the cut and was extremely sensitive to the hot water. The rubber gloves saved my pinky and allowed me to clean up the mess that Fester and I made in the kitchen.
Other than that, my week has been pretty damn low key. As for the rest of the week and the weekend, I don't know what's going on. I think I may have some interesting plans this weekend, though. You never know. I'm hoping they come through. I think that it would be a really nice change of pace. So, cross your fingers for the weekend. Until then, I'll be dancing to UK garage.
Nick And Marjorie: A Study Listening: I’ll never leave you behind or treat you unkind. I know you understand. And with a tear in my eye, give me the sweetest goodbye that I ever did receive. Pushing forward and arching back, bring me closer to heart attack. Say goodbye and just fly away. When you comeback, I have some things to say.
"It isn't fun anymore."
That's what Nick tells Marjorie in Hemingway's "The End Of Something." "It isn't fun anymore. Not any of it."
"Isn't love any fun?" Marjorie asked.
"No," Nick said. Marjorie stood up. Nick sat there, his head in his hands.
Is that really it? Is it that love isn't fun anymore or is it really more than that? I'm not entirely convinced that it's just because "it's not fun anymore."
Earlier on in the story (all five pages of it), Nick blows up at Marjorie and says, "You do. You know everything. That's the trouble. You know you do."
In this particular instance, this could be taken as Nick being frustrated with the fact that Marjorie actually does know everything about what they're doing. They're out setting night lines to catch rainbow trout and Marjorie is doing the majority of the talking. She asks Nick one questions on what he thinks she drop the line, but she isn't asking questions that implies that she does not know how to perform the tasks. The truth of the matter is, though, that Marjorie pretty much knows what she's doing. She knows how to row the boat so that it would not disturb the line and she knows how to run the lines out.
One time, Nick tells Marjorie not to take out the ventral fin when prepping the bait. It's almost as if he's trying to be a teacher or the veteran of the two. He tries to hold that little bit of edge over Marjorie, as if he can't take it that Marjorie is good at the job and is good for him as well. He needs to be the one in control of the relationship. He needs Marjorie to need him. Even after they break up and Marjorie goes to leave, Nick says, "I'll push the boat off for you." and in response, Marjorie shows her independence by saying, "You don't need to."
Another explanation for the breakup is that there is someone else in Nick's life who is more important to him than Marjorie. At the very end of the story, Bill joins Nick on the beach. Hemingways says that, He felt Bill coming up to the fire. Bill didn't touch him, either. Why would Bill have touched Nick? There must have been some sort of connection between Nick and Bill that isn't explicitly said.
Bill knew that it was all going to go down. He knew that Nick was going to end it with Marjorie. He says to Nick, "Did she go all right?" "Have a scene?" and "How do you feel?" as if he knows that Nick ending his relationship with Marjorie would be painful for Nick as well.
The thing is that he doesn't seem all that sympathetic to the situation. He knows that Nick is going to end his relationship with Marjorie. He knows that Nick is going to be broken up about it, and yet he really isn't a shoulder to cry on. With the nonchalant attitude that Bill takes toward the situation, it was almost as if he wanted Nick to break up with Marjorie. His concern for Nick is only manifested in his one question of "How do you feel?" which isn't really a sympathetic question at all, when he could have asked questions like, "Are you okay?" or "Are you going to be alright?"
All in all, there's no clear reason for Nick to break up with Marjorie. He just knows that he has to. He seems as if he can't see any other way. Hemingway undoubtedly constructed his story around this uncertainty. As Rebound Girl brought up to me today, perhaps we're not supposed to know why, but only that it's something that's supposed to happen, that needs to happen. Perhaps it does, perhaps it doesn't. We may never know why any of this happened for Nick or for Marjorie, but I'd like to think that there is a reason, a real reason, for Nick ending it with Marjorie other than that he couldn't handle having an equal in the relationship, or the fact that he had some external forces putting pressure on his relationship.
Mini-Weekend, No Mini-Dip Listening: And if you find one day, find some freedom and relief, with this freedom maybe, maybe you will find some peace. And with this peace, baby, I hope it brings you back to me. Bring you home. Take me home.
Yesterday, we got the band back together if only for a couple of hours. Things didn't go down the way that we all had planned, but we had fun nonetheless.
It all started at a quarter to eight in the morning. I was fast alseep in my bed when my phone rings. It's Rebound Girl. It turned out that the first leg of her flight got cancelled, so she would have to go through Charlotte instead of Reagan National. It meant that she would be about an hour later, but at least she would be getting here.
After the phone call, I went back to sleep, as usual. By the time I had woken up again, it was already a quarter past eleven. The first thing that I did was check the flight info. Holy shit, the flight that she was on was coming in a half hour ahead of schedule! I had about an hour to get cleaned up and get to the airport. Needless to say, I was late. It's cool, because I still got there before her flight was supposed to get there.
By the time that I picked her up and we cruised back to my place to drop off her gear, it was a little bit past one in the afternoon. Neither one of us had really eaten much all day, so we kicked it across the river and hit up some lunch at The Otherside Cosmic Cafe. It was such a beautiful day out that it was totally a walking day. We walked all of the way from my place to Newbury Street, then from The Otherside to The Prudential Mall where we stopped in and said, "Hi" to Scoops.
While we were in The Prudential Mall, we ended up poking around William Sonoma. As we drooled over kitchen suppies, which included a puddle of saliva around a brand new silver Kitchenaid mixer, we got talking to a girl there. Now this girl was TALKATIVE. When I say talkative, I mean talkative. We talked about everything from food to TV shows to kitchen equipment. Before she mentioned the boyfriend, I could have sworn that she was hitting on me. Rebound Girl didn't think so though. She did suggest that I hook myself up with an application. She seemed pretty insistant too. I was kind of psyched though. She mentioned something about being a manager and I could totally go for working at William Sonoma. I think I'll try to hit them up for the holidays.
Following that, we headed home and chilled for a bit before Rebound Girl's cousin came over to chill for a bit. It was around six when she came over and she was followed shortly by Carpenter's arrival. At seven, Rebound Girl's cousin bounced and No Legs and Giggle Boy finally arrived. After a bit of chatting and changing, we headed out for dinner at Penang in Harvard Square. It was just like old times. The lot of us hanging out. It was a lot of fun. Jokes flying, stories being told.... It really is too bad that we all can't be chillin' together more often.
Originally, we were gonna go dancing after dinner, but it didn't happen. Carpenter was tired and none of us really knew how to get to the venue, so we ended up grabbing some ice cream and chillin' out at my place.
The really interesting thing about the night is that it ended early. No Legs, Giggle Boy and Carpenter were all out of my house by midnight and both Rebound Girl and I were absolutely exhausted. It was understandable for her, because she had a long day of traveling, waking up at five in the morning and so on and so forth. But I had no real excuse. I was just tired for the sake of being tired. So we were both asleep by about half past midnight.
I miss hanging out with those kids. We're all getting old and we're all spreading out. I guess that's a theme with growing up, huh? Well, at least we get once a year, huh? Sometimes it's that one day of hanging out with someone that makes the time apart worth it though. Sure, we don't know EVERYTHING that's happening to each other all of the time, even if we are in the same city, but when you sit down, you joke the same way and you share the new stories. Sometimes it's the distance that changes and not the relationship. Sometimes it is the relationship. But with my gang of Rebound Girl, No Legs and Carpenter, we'll always be boyz... err... girlz... err... peeps (not to be confused with SHEEEEEPZ!).
