In A Word... Listening: Looks to me there's lots more broken than anyone can really see. Why the angels turn their backs on some is just a mystery to me.
Heartbroken. I don't think that work has really crossed my lips. It may have flown from my fingertips, but the volume is so much that I can't remember everything that I have typed. I know I have never said that one word before. Heartbroken. You could take away the whole "heart" part of the word and it would still hold just as true. It has never crossed my lips, because I'm afraid that if I admit it, it will really hit me hard. Truth be told, that is me though. I'm heartbroken and I have a broken heart, spirit and mind.
My mind spins in such a way that I'm unable to get myself out of this rut that I'm in. The truth of the matter is that I asked for it. It's my fault and I invited it in. I opened the door and said, "Well, ol' chap, let's have a jolly laugh and then I'll have a jolly cry." I have no one to blame but myself, and no one to help me out of the rut but myself.
My close friends say that I am a patient man. Sometimes I believe them, but then I think better of it. I am certainly not a patient man. I want it all now. I want the successful restaurant now. I want acknowledgement that I am a worthwhile person now. I want to be better at everything that I do now. And I want the girl... now. Like Veruca stomping around the golden egg room, I want it and I want it now. A patient man? No. A spoiled brat? Perhaps. A frustrated twenty-something year old? Certainly.
I think most of all is to look in the mirror and see something better than what's looking back at me. I know some of my friends realize this, and some don't, but I'm a con man. Some of them are my friends despite them knowing that I'm a con man and the others, don't realize it, so it doesn't matter to them. I give to my friends, because that's all I feel that I can do that is immediate. I cook them dinner, not only because I enjoy the act of cooking through it's artistic expression and its ability to get me to stop thinking about whatever horrible aspect of my life is flying through my life at any given time, but because I can make my friends happy convincing them that I'm worth something, if anything but a baked ziti or a roasted chicken.
Over the last twenty-four, I did a lot of sleeping and a lot of thinking. I thought about the last two entries that I wrote and about how useless and futile they were. It's true, it's how I feel, but what does how I feel accomplish? Where does it get me except more frustrated and more sad? Nowhere. It's not like Her Majesty is going to fly back into my arms and say to me that she was sorry that she had to leave. She won't, not only because it's not the truth, but because I've made myself look like a complete loser. These last three months, I have unmasked the con man showing what a complete dolt he his, what a complete loser he is, what a complete nothing he is and what he deserves to get. I wish that I could stop talking about her her and I wish that I could get her out of my mind, but I have yet to be able to.
As I said before, I had an out. I had an out a long time ago. A couple of them, in fact. I fought not to take them. I thought something better might come out of it and that something better might come of me. But in reality, I was a dumb git. It was a gamble. I called all in and lost my stack.
I really do have to stop talking about her. I'm sure it doesn't make me look good to her or to any of my other friends that if I was in a normal state of mind would set me up with a friend. But what is a man to do?
Get over it. Move on. Find someone else. None of those things are easy for me. I don't know how to do it. I wish I was just another guy, just another jerk who could let any girl swing from his wang anytime he liked. I'm not that guy, and it's not for lack of effort. I'm hoping for that Angela Chase moment where I wake up, hear the Violent Femmes' "Blister In The Sun", jump on my bed and wake up refreshed. Or for me to say to a girl, "Chin up. Life's not so bad. Remember what the Monty Python boys always say..." only to have her say, "No one expects a Spanish Inquisition." But ot doesn't happen that way. That only happens on screens or in pages. The only way for me to do it is to give up, and giving up is a hard thing to do. For me it's plucking each one of my fingers from around whatever it's hanging onto; girls, failures, disappointments, myself.
It's, again, three in the morning. On the dot, just there. I have work tomorrow. I get to absorb my share of the guy who left's work. Joy, joy joy. I'm tired, but I'm not tired. I am the waking slumberer. How late do I stay up? A good night's sleep has never really done me much better than a few measley hours, but I figure maybe the good is in the effort. So, I'll switch out the CDs in the case that I bring to work and I'll lay down on my futon mattress. I'll stare at the dropped ceiling, listen to Etta James and try to figure out a way to claw myself out of this rut.
Thanks, But No Thanks Listening: To her he might be the man of her dreams, to find where she's been hiding inside. Broken and battered, it really don't matter. Her heart's like a wave and he's the tide.
Ahh, Thanksgiving.... One of my favorite holidays. Really, it is. It's up there with Halloween. This one smacked me around a bit though. So, Emeril, Fester and I had been planning this dinner for weeks. Those two were without family for the holiday, as were a number of the invitees. Although I had family in town, I met with them for lunch and decided to try to do something fulfilling for once. That's where the dinner came in.
We went all out on this dinner. It was insane. The food looked a little like this: Bruschetta, Mushroom Crostinis, Herb Brined Turkey, Sage Brined Turkey Breasts, Apple Cider Pan Gravy, Cranberry Ginger Chutney, Canned Cranberry Sauce, Mashed Red Potatoes, Stuffing, Roasted Root Vegetables, Spinach Gorgonzola and Cranberry Salad, Parker House Rolls, Pumpkin Pie, Pecan Pie, Apple Pie, Tiramisu, Pomegranate Punch, Mulled Cider, Cinnamon Spiced Nuts with Cayenne... the list goes on. I made my first real gravy and it was absolutely amazing. It was complex and flavorful, and was probably the best thing that I made all night.
It was a hell of an effort that consisted of a three hour meeting a week in advance, dialogues over e-mail and so on and so forth. We were cooking from about ten in the morning until about seven thirty in the evening. I took a break from about two until about four to have lunch with my grandparents, but as soon as I got back, I jumped right back into the fold.
There were thirteen people eating and enough food to feed a small nation. It was a good time. Everyone enjoyed the food and had a good time. I made jokes about my (cinnamon spiced) nuts (with cayenne) and pigged out like a true son of my family. Seriously, the conversation was good, as was the food and the process of making the food. It was great hanging out with Fester and Emeril, two of my friends who along with Glare and Booch comprise my group of true foodie friends (meaning the producers as well as the consumers, not just the consumers. I know tons of them).
The food was visually beautiful. There should be a few digital pics of the spread, but I haven't received them yet. As soon as I do, I'll post them. No doubt, this dinner was something to be proud of, and Emeril, Fester and I were. We only nixed three recipes in the end, and it turned out like we didn't even need them.
During dinner, people asked others what they were thankful for. When the question was put to me, I didn't really have an answer, so I said the food. It was a cop out. I know, but I didn't want to show everyone what an ungrateful fuck I really am, because that's the truth. I am thankful for one thing, and that is my friends. I have a great set of friends who I think would do anything for me, but sometimes that's enough to keep a happy, thankful life. There's more to it than that.
This dinner was yet another attempt to feel fulfilled. It went off with flying colors, but still, nothing really filled my heart. I joked like there was something funny. I smiled like there was something to smile about. I played like it didn't matter. I had my game face on that night.
I've had my game face on for the past week. It was on since before I went to see Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. I think that I have just been having a bad month. I think that the only person to really see it in its raw unmasked form has been The Violent One. She saw it when I came home from Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.
For the past week, Bonnie Raitt has been speaking to me. I have been listening to The Luck Of The Draw almost every day for the past week or so and have been feeling it from my throat to my intestines and everywhere in between, tracks three, seven, eleven and twelve, for those of you who are familiar with the album. I find myself seeking shelter in her raspy voice and pain-filled words. Track three over and over and over again. I love it. I hate it. It's all the same to me these days.
Thanksgiving for me didn't end until two in the morning when I got home or three in the morning when I got to sleep after my shower. I had to work the next day, and I was wrecked all day long, absolutely exhausted. I was supposed to go to my brother's place to have dinner, since he had custody of all of the leftovers. Unfortunately, I was so wrecked that I didn't want to go. Instead, I came home and crashed. I crashed from half past five when I got home until half past nine. Instead of going out, I watched movies all night. Bad Boys II and The Girl Next Door. It was some quality entertainment.
I ended up going to sleep at three in the morning. I was woken up at eleven by Carpenter and promptly went back to sleep after the call. I didn't really get out of bed until three in the afternoon. I was so tired and worn out that I didn't really want to do anything today. I didn't want to go out window shopping like the rest of the world, because I really didn't want to be with the rest of the world. I wanted to just sort of be. It was so hot in the apartment that I decided to go play Hold 'Em with The Violent One and The Boy Wonder at his place. It was fun. They didn't play like I played, but oh well. I went on some nice runs. We never actually completed any games. It was kind of lame. People kept limping in. So regardless of if you had crap hole cards, you could check in the big blind to see a flop. What bothered me was that people were playing out of turn, people folded when they could have checked in case no one else wanted to bet, and that when it came down to the river and all bets were made, all players didn't have to turn their cards up. I though that was hella lame. I mean, you call so that you can see whether they had it or not and how they were or weren't bluffing.
Anyways, end of the day. Time to go to sleep. Maybe I'll find fulfillment tomorrow.
Love = Sadness Listening: But there's still hope if we materialise the myth, never trivialise the kiss. Oh it feels like there's no fire left in your eyes.
Tonite after work, I went to the MFA to go see the double feature screening of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. I'm sure you're asking yourselves why I would possibly go out and see these movies again and again and again, when I have the DVDs at home. The trick with this screening was that Julie Delpy was there to present and talk about the movies. I had to be there.
I heard about it last week when The Violent One IMed me from the MFA where she was seeing a screening of A Very Long Engagement where they also plugged this event. The instant that I knew about it, I knew that I had to go. It was only eight dollars for both movies, and I would get the chance to meet Julie Delpy. I was on IM talking with Photogenic about it after The Violent One told me. She said that I was like a teenage girl and Julie Delpy was my Orlando Bloom. To an extent, it's kind of true. From when I was seventeen in 1995, these two characters, Jesse and Celine touched me.
So, first, they screened Before Sunrise. The last time that I saw Before Sunrise on the big screen, I was with my best friend from high school. Though it opened in first run on Valentine's Day of 1995, we saw it in second run at Doc Films at the University of Chicago. I remember seeing the architecture of Vienna, the chemistry that the characters had with each other and I melted in my seat. I didn't have love at that time. I barely knew what it was. I thought I knew. I thought I knew everything about that kind of stuff.
As I watched the film at the MFA, this new audience was different. People found things funny in the film that I never found funny. Actually, there were people laughing at my absolute favorite scene. There's a point in the movie where Jesse and Celine are in a listening booth at a record store. The two characters take turns looking at each other as the other is trying not to look at the other. In my eyes, it's a scene where they sort of express how much they want each other without saying a word. So, I was kind of disturbed by them finding what I believe to be one of the most touching parts of the movie funny.
After Before Sunrise, Julie Delpy came out and talked a bit about the movies. I was pleased to see that I could tell that a lot of the character of Celine came from her. There was a definite reflection. After seeing her talk, joke and respond to people, I could see so many similarities. She was down-to-earth, funny, and very real. Although it took her a little bit to warm up to the audience and the moderator, she was candid and very intelligent. I got to ask her a question as well. I said something to the effect of "In Sunrise, I wasn't convinced that Jesse and Celine had sex. It wasn't explicitly said, although she was missing a shirt at the end of the movie, but in Sunset, it was made explicit. Was there any reason for that? Was it decided in the making of Sunrise that they had had sex?" Apparently, the three (Julie, Ethan & Richard) thought that that it was obvious that they had had sex just from the fact that she was no longer wearing the shirt under the dress and because they were much more touchy feely after that point in the movie. She made a joke about how Celine might have otherwise lost her shirt, like perhaps they only got to second base. Then there was a discussion on what exact base that was. Although I brought both of my DVDs and several Sharpie markers, there was never an opportunity for me to have them signed. I was a bit disappointed.
After the Q&A session, they screened Before Sunset. For some reason, a good deal of the audience left. I really think that there's something to be said for seeing the movies back to back. I think that when you do, there are so many angles of love that are explored. I think that while watching this movie, I was more in synch with the audience. Maybe it's because all of the flakes left. I don't know.
After Before Sunset, I had this unbelievable feeling that I can only really describe as sadness. These movies make me extremely sad. I don't necessarily know why. Well, I know some of the reasons, but I don't know all of them. Of course some have to do with personal events and so on and so forth, but it's more than that.
I think it's really about connection, that instant connection between two people. It's intangible. It's something that I don't have. It's different than being friends. I have lots of friends. I have tons and tons of friends. I have more friends than you can shake a stick at. The connection is very different. To this date, I really think that I have only had a connection with one person on that level. I don't have that connection now, and I guess I just sort of feel empty without it. It makes me sad. Sad, sad, sad.
On the T ride home, I came up with a theory, and that theory is that love equals sadness. I can only say that I was in love once. I can say that I was infatuated or had the illusion that I was in love a number of times. I thought I knew what love was, but I didn't realize what it really was until recently. But, in the love I knew and in the facimilies of love that I knew, all were coupled with sadness. All of these girls made me sad. Little, Lullaby, OC Girl, Her Majesty, all of these girls made me sad.
Now, if you think I'm just talking about women, you're wrong. I'm talking about everything that I love seems to make me sad. I feel it in my heart and in the pit of my stomach. Movies that I like, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Lost In Translation, Garden State, After Life, and Sliding Doors all make me sad. Some of my favorite musical artists/bands like Faithless, Badly Drawn Boy, Counting Crows, Everything But The Girl, Sade, Jill Scott, The Violent Femmes, Beth Orton, The Cure, and Frou Frou all make me sad. Sometimes food even makes me sad and I love food so much. I guess you may not get how it makes me sad, but it's a little like this. To appreciate good food is a curse, because whenever you're eating something that's not necessarily good, it's nothing to you. It barely nourishes the body. But to be able to eat good food all of the time take money. I don't know about most of you, but I don't really have the money to be eating that well all of the time. I don't stock fois gras in my fridge or caviar in my pantry. Another thing is that food is so ephemeral. You may eat something that tastes like absolute heaven, but once it passes your mouth, that taste will never be had again. Even if you go back to the same restaurant and order the same thing, it won't be that same. Though you'll have the memory of the taste, you'll never have that taste again. It's kind of sad.
Anyways, it's late and I need to go to sleep. Hopefully this melancholy wil lull me off to sleep soon. Lately I haven't been sleeping well. I have been laying in bed staring at the ceiling or spooning my pillowI haven't fallen asleep before three in the morning in well over two weeks. I guess I'm gonna have to break that streak sooner or later. Hopefully sooner. Hopefully tonight.
Busted By The Cops, Hangover, & Hand Up A Bird's Ass: A Normal Weekend Listening: We're in pursuit of happiness, order of the day and we're on a mission to make it true.
Sorry for the delay in updating. Apparently I had some bandwidth problems. My server said that I had gone over my 600MB of allotted bandwidth. I don't really understand how that's at all possible, since I don't really have many pictures up on here. Most of my site is text. Maybe someone's just trying to screw me. That's it. It's a conspiracy.
So over the last four or five days, a lot has happened. Let's start on Thursday night. I was about to go to sleep. In fact, I was reading in bed, when I heard a bilp from my computer. At two in the morning, I thought it had to be Digitaldewi, so I thought I'd jump over to my computer to tell her that I was off to bed and that I'd talk to her later. Instead, it was a friend of mine from high school who I haven't talked to in years. So we chatted for a bit online and then he called my cell, as he was on his way to work. It was strange. He seems to be very much the same and very different from how he was in high school. It was all very interesting though. It was interesting enough to stay up until three something in the morning talking to him.
After work on Friday, I met up with Japanaphile to go to Jillian's. There was a function for JET alumni there, and he didn't know how to get there, so he asked me for directions and if I wanted to go, so I figured, why not? We went, had some drinks and chilled for a while. By the time we were out of there, it was about nine or so, so we kicked it back to Porter to get some grubbin' on. While grubbin', we saw the Detriot Pistons vs the Indiana Pacers vs the NBA fans brawl as it broke out. It was insanity. I couldn't believe what was happening before my very eyes. I have never seen such a lack of restraint on everyone's part. It was sick as hell.
Saturday, I woke up early-ish for the Go-go Going Away Lunch in Chinatown. I think I was woken up by a phone call, but I don't really remember. We had lunch at East Ocean City. There were about eleven or twelve of us. It was a fun time though. I sat between The Boy Wonder (also now known as the Chicken Fucker) and Ebonically Linguistic (E.L.). I had fun cracking jokes with E.L. telling me that I need a filter on me. There was a lot of food, and some stuff that I've never had before. There was this killer dish that was like really soft pork fat strips on top of a preserved vegetable. Rocked my world with a fierceness. The Boy Wonder (chicken fucker) and Whisper tried to tell me what it was in Cantonese, but that really does me no good. It's not like I'm going to remember it or anything. After that, we grabbed some bubble tea and walked around Boston a bit.
Later on that night, after I got home, I was thinking to myself about the parties. I really didn't know how to get to any of the parties that I was invited to. I knew where VWMod's place was, but I had no way of getting there. I'm not really sure where Cutesy Girl Number One's place was. I haven't talked to the kid from high school whose birthday it was in about a year in a half, let alone visited his new place in the Back Bay. All I knew about Special K's place was that it was just outside of Union Square. So I decided to bag all of the parties except for Special K's because I actually told him that I would be there (whereas the others I had stayed definitively non-committal).
At a quarter past nine I started on my trek to his place. It was raining. It was raining a helluva lot harder than I anticipated. I was happy that I brought my umbrella. It took me about a half hour to walk to his place. When I got there, the bottom eight inches of my jeans were soaked. It was fine though. My socks were dry and that's really what matters.
I was the second person there. It was cool though. The first guy there was a cool kid. The party didn't really start rocking until about half past ten or eleven. That's when Special K hit the decks for the first time that evening. I was psyched when the girl that Special K and I met at Avalon with her boyfriend showed up. I hadn't seen her in months. It had been way too long. She's cool shit.
About a half hour after Special K's girl showed up, she was blitzed and belligerent. She kept shouting that she didn't want to hear anymore house and that she wanted to hear hip hop. She kept touching knobs on the mixer turning the volume up and just being a general nuisance. It wasn't that big of a problem, though, at least not until the cops showed up.
At about half past one, we hear murmurs saying that the cops were there. Sure enough, I look over at the door, and there Special K is talking to the cops. Sunuvabitch. They start being assholes, telling everyone to get out and that the party is over. I'm pissed off, because I was having a good time, but I collect my records and my stuff anyways. As I'm about to leave, I walk by Special K and the officers. Special K stops me and says, "Hey, would you mind sticking around. You're still sober." So, I'm not a guy to leave his friends in the lurch, cops or not, so I say sure. I was six deep, but I had complete control of my faculties.
After that, the four of us (two cops, Special K and I) go to Special K's room and talk things over with the cops. Special K is being extremely cooperative and very courteous. I'm just standing there listening. The cops tell him that they could either give him a warning or a three hundred dollar ticket for a noise disturbance. That's when Special K's girlfriend comes in and really begins being belligerent. She starts going off on how it's wrong for them to be there and that we were just having a good time and so on and so forth. Special K repeatedly has to tell her to be quite, to go to the other room, and to leave it all alone. Finally, she goes away and one of the cops tells him, "Yeah, if I heard any more of that, I was hoping that your girlfriend liked jewelery." He then flashed Special K and I his cuffs. That was a dick move.
It was clear that the two cops were playing good cop/bad cop. But when all was said and done, Special K only got the warning and everyone had to leave his apartment. Right after the cops left, though, about three quarters of the people came back. Those who didn't come back weren't really missed. Aside from the cops, it was a helluva good party. I had a great time chatting with people and I spun a killer set as well. I was very happy with myself.
Today, I woke up around one, because Emeril called to see if I wanted to help pick out a turkey later on that afternoon. I told him I would be down for it at around three, so we made plans. The two hours in between waking up and meeting Emeril were filled with me eating, showering, tooling around, and figuring out that I had a minor hangover. It wasn't an "oh my god, my head is throbbing and I want to die" hangover. It was more of a "*sigh* I don't feel at the top of my game today. I'm a little sluggish and I'd rather be dorment today" kind of hang over.
With Thanksgiving around the corner, I had to really get cracking on the prep work. I needed to do a little gravy research, so I decided to make a whole chicken for dinner tonite and use that to experiment with gravy. Now, I've never made a whole bird by myself before. I've never had enough people eating to eat a whole bird. Now that I'm living with three and a half roommates, I can afford to cook bigger more elaborate meals, because we're splitting the cost. So, tonite, it was myself, Photogenic, Japanaphile, The Violent One and The Boy Wonder (chicken fucker... good thing he didn't get to the bird before I cooked it).
When I opened up the packaging, I felt like I really had to clean the bird. It didn't look like it was as pretty on the outside as I would have hoped. So, so I used coarse kosher salt to scrub the bird inside an outside. There was a bit of yellow on the skin that I took off and I just felt like I should really clean out the cavity. So there I am, at the sink, vigorously shoving my hand up the ass of the chicken in an effort to clean it out. I think that in the wrong context, it could have looked pretty sick and disturbing.
I didn't work off of a specific recipe for the chicken. I actually looked at a bunch of them and also pulled from the knowlege that I absorbed from the Food Network to make my own recipe. I made some rosemary herb butter and rubbed it under and over the skin and stuffed the cavity with onion and rosemary. After placing the chicken on a low rack in my Pyrex baking dish, I surrounded it with potatoes, carrots and onions. In it went at three fifty for a little more than two hours.
The gravy I made was an apple cider gravy. I used the neck and some additional wings, an onion, some celery, a granny smith apple, apple cider, and some chicken stock. It turned out really well. It was a bit on the thin side, so if I'm going to make it for Thanksgiving, I'm going to make a roux first and then I'll use it as needed to thicken the gravy. It was mighty yummy though.
I was really proud of myself though. The chicken came out perfect as far as I could see. The meat was moist and tender. The skin was crispy and flavorful. I thought it was damn near perfect. The Violent One thought that the gravy needed more salt, so I banned her from my food for one month. Haha. But seriously, I think that this was an achievement for me. I know I may sound like I'm tooting my own horn, but I think I deserve it.
Anyways, it's late now. I'm going to sleep. I have a busy week ahead of me.
Party! Party! Party! Listening: I, the aristocrat, ghetto diplomat, and I'm blessed with the gift for rap. It's like that. Rocks da house.
Earlier this week, I realized something. There are four parties this Saturday that I was invited to. I officially only committed to one, and that was Special K's party. VWMod is having somewhat of a housewarming in a lof that I would undoubtedly be jealous of. It's Scoops' birthday, as well as the birthday of a kid I went to high school with but am not all that close with. I'd like to hit at least two of these parties. I think, truth be told, that due to transportation and the fact that I really don't give that much of a shit about the last party, because I talk to the kid once a year or so, it'll prolly be Special K's party and Scoops' party.
I haven't see Scoops in about a year, in all reality. I mean Rebound Girl and I stopped in to see him at his place of business when she was in town, but the encounter was brief at best. No doubt, there will be massive amounts of swing dancers there, people I haven't seen in ages as well as people I've never met before. If I go, I'm really going to see my old friends there. I have no real desire to get sucked back into the scene. I think I fit in there even less than I used to.
Special K and I haven't hung out all that much lately either though. We make efforts to get together, but they don't seem to work out. First, he was jet set peddling his wares on the international cellular market. Then, I got into a relationship. Then he got into a relationship and that's where we stand now. So, I'm going to pack my record bag full of goodies and I'm gonna take my ass out to his place in Union Square. I hope the walk isn't too bad. I haven't seen his new place and he's been living there for a while, maybe four months or so. I should also find something to get him for his birthday as well. I keep talking about getting the kid a flask. Maybe it's time.
I would really like to go to VWMod's place too though. If it's where I think it is, it's in the same building where The Violent One, Her Majesty and I dropped off some boxes to be shipped with a co-worker of hers to the UK. For all I know, it could be the same unit. Regardless, I don't quite think it's as walkable or T accessable as Special K's or Scoops'. Besides, it's his father's birthday, and, I dunno. I just feel weird about that. Maybe when he has a full fledged party at his place, I'll get Carpenter to help me cart over my equip and I'll throw down some tracks for him or something. I bet he'd dig that. And I guess that's why my DJ setup is somewhat mobile.
So, that's what I have to look forward to this weekend. That and I think there may be a goodbye lunch for Gogo Yubari (I don't think that I've ever mentioned her). If you're interested in coming out to the parties with me, let me know. I'd dig having company. It could be fun...
Today, Whisper made dinner. I was busy watching a movie and then watching Smallville. It was cool though. I'm really digging this group cooking thing. I guess it's one of the perks of living with people you actually give a shit about.
While I was watching Smallville, an interesting thing happened. Faithless' song "I Want More: Part 2" from their No Roots album was featured. It played at least three times within the course of the show. I was psyched and horrified all in one gasp. See, a year or so, Smallville used the song "God Is A DJ" from the Sunday 8PM album. However, there was no mention of Faithless in the credits. I was livid. Ask Rebound Girl. She watched the show with me. She recognized the song as well. We waited to see the credits, and there was nothing. There was no message at the end saying, "This episode featured music from...." This time was different. They identified Faithless and even put up a picture of the album cover. I was so psyched. Yay, Faithless! Maybe this is an effort to make a bigger push in the States. To be honest, I hope it's not. It's not that I don't think that they're the best band in the world and that everyone should hear them. But the thing is, if Faithless were to be considered "pop" in the States, I would have a major crisis of conscience. I think that Faithless would prevail though.
Another thing about Faithless... I bought the No Roots album the day that it came out in the stores in the US. That's how much I like this band. I have all of their albums, and sometimes doubles, and one time a triple. I have all of their special editions, with the exception of a singles box set that they only released in the UK (which I scour the net for). I even have a bunch of their stuff on vinyl. Before No Roots came out, there was a clear pecking order in the studio albums. The best was Sunday 8PM/Saturday 3AM followed by Reverence/Irreverence (the classic debut album), and Outrospective/Reperspective brought up the rear. When I heard No Roots, I immediately thought it was the worst album that they have made. I put it at the bottom of the pecking order. However, over the last couple of months, I have been listening to it more and more, and it has now surpassed Reverence/Irreverence and is gaining quickly on Sunday 8PM/Saturday 3AM. I don't think it'll surpass it though. Sunday 8PM/Saturday 3AM is like a first love. You never forget it and it will always stay in your heart whether you like it or not. So, No Roots is now up there and some of the tracks now give me chills when I hear them. Lyrics like, "Blue smoke curling out your nose, wearing one of my shirts and what some call panty hose, 'cause you look wicked in scanty clothes. Long legs like an antelope. You're my antidote to city life, my pretty wife. Hooked up the year before. Together thirteen outta twenty four and you would never guess I wanna miss you less and see you more." and "Should you hear somebody cry, 'The end is nigh.' Don't you buy that line. Tomorrow's always yesterday. Love's yet to have it's day and you've got all the time." give me chills every time I hear it. They make me want to dance and they make me want to cry. They make me want to pump my fist and shout. It's so good. I think it's the most emotional satisfaction that I've seen in a while.
Finally, for today, I have really gotten into a reading groove. I'm on my third book since I've moved into the apartment and I can't put this fucker down. It's so good. I've realized that there's a bit of pattern in the books that I have been reading lately. And if life imitates art that imitiates life, this is what you would get from me and my literature:
1) All men are buffoons screwing up their own lives only to be pulled out of it by being woken up by a woman.
2) All women are weird a quiry. They're odd, annoying and somehow endearing at the same time.
3) The world sucks for everyone.
4) You could be in Japan, Los Angeles or New York and you would still have issues.
5) Change is more than geography, circumstances, or the people around you. It's about will. Even if you're a buffoon fawning over an insane girl.
Irksome, Seriously. Listening: You walk around the town like you a big man, but you never know now that there's always a bigger man.
Today, today, today... Hmm, today was a bit of a media frenzy for me. Or rather, two of the three things that made an impact on me today were of the media. The first one dealt with politics. I don't know when I started caring so much, but I have. Today, four more of Bush's cabinet members stepped down. How many does that make? Five? Six? This tells me one of two things. Either Bush is losing the confidence of his closest advisors because his plans are changing so much that his staff can't stand behind him any longer, or they're all waking up to what a frikkin' dolt he is. It has to be one of the two. Regardless, they're no longer seeing eye to eye with him. Most of the cabinet members stepping down doesn't bother me. Hell, I knew a long time ago that Ashcroft had to go. But Powell? I thought he was the one sane guy at the Mad Hatter's tea party. I guess another possible motive for the step down would be a mobilization for the 2008 election. See which one of the cabinet members would be the best one groomed for presidency. So it bothers me. The guy can't keep his friends together, let alone his country.
The second thing that kind of irked me was an article on Salon.com called "Short And Sweet" (Get the day pass and read it. All you have to do is sit through a flash commercial). Basically, the article talks about how short guys are an "underserved market." Sure, this article pushes the bonuses of short guys and how there are people out there who look for shorter guys. And sure, I'm appreciative of the sentiment, but I really don't want to hear about it. It irks me that height is a prerequisite for about seventy-five percent of the female population. It irks me that articles like this have to be written and that some of my own friends hold these biases. Maybe I wouldn't be as angry if I was five foot ten, but I'm not. Maybe it's the way that some guys have a prerequisite breast size. I don't though. And I don't understand why more guys don't. I guess that's why I don't get why more women don't lax on the whole height thing. Why does a five foot girl need to be with a guy who's six-two? Okay. I'm going to stop before I get any more heated. I know. It was unfocused, but it's something that gets at me and continues to nag at me for hour and hours at a time.
The final thing that irked me today was that the guy in the cube next to me, who has been at the company less time than I have been in this group, has gotten a new job. He'll be leaving in two weeks. I'm happy for the kid and all, but I guess it just makes me feel like shit. You know, the stuck feeling that I have had for a while now. It bothers me. He was one of the more tolerable people on the floor as well. Irksome.
Anyways, enough of the negativity. It's late and I'm going to go to sleep soon. I guess I'll leave you all on a happier note...
A Pleasant Valley Sunday Listening: There is a paradise that can be found, a better life to bring us round and all we really need to do is see the world like lovers do.
Man, today was a good Sunday. It was relaxing and fun. It started out this morning. Paddleback invited me to a brunch last minute over e-mail yesterday, so I had The Violent One make sure that I was up when she left to go to the horse show. Well, it didn't work all that well and I ended up sleeping until the time that I planned to leave the house, half past ten. I didn't get out the door until after eleven. Originally, I planned on cruising to the liquor store to pick up some champaigne and some orange juice to contribute to the cause, but the liquor stores didn't open until noon. DOH! So, I ended up picking up some munchkins. Ghetto, but oh well.
I got to the brunch at about a quarter to noon and just sort of hung out. I was the third person there who wasn't a roommate. I have to say that I met some really great people. I knew Paddleback, of course, and one of her roommates, but the third one was kind of new to me as was every other person at the place. There was lively conversation and mounds of good food. Crepes, french toast, bagels, cream cheese, lox, caviar, cheese, croissants, and, of course, munchkins were all represented. It was the first time that I had ever had real caviar. I have had salmon roe and smelt roe, but never the black caviar that you see in movies and so on and so forth. Truth be told, it was okay. I could take it or I could leave it. Maybe I didn't have fantastic caviar. It was fun though.
I think that I have been hanging out with the same people so much that I have forgotten that I have other friends as well and that I can hang with them and their friends too. I found it really refreshing. I talked food with at least three or four of the people there and I think I kind of clicked with one of Paddleback's friends. I didn't make a move for a phone number, but I'm pretty sure I'll see her around again.
Unfortunately, I had to leave the party a bit early, at about a quarter past one. I had plans at half past to meet up with Fester and Emeril to plan our big Thanksgiving extravaganza. I know, you must be thinking that I'll be ditching my grandparents and my brother for Thanksgiving, but that's not the case. I'll be chilling with them for a bit during the afternoon, for lunch. But for dinner, I plan on being one of the three musketeers with Fester and Emeril to create a Thanksgiving dinner to shock and awe. So far, my responsibilities are the garlic smashed red bliss potatoes, mushroom crostinis (a recipe I intend to procure from my mother), bruschetta, cinnamon spiced nuts with cayenne, cranberry chutney, a pomegranate champaigne punch, the turkey gravy and a pecan pie if I decide that I have the time and the strength. It's going to be a good dinner. And if you think that my list is long, multiply that by three and then you've got what we're gonna have going on.
Emeril, Fester and I sat in my living room from about two until for hashing out as many details as we could figure out. It was a good time. We didn't just talk about food. We did some good ol' fashion male bonding over a glass of beer as well. It's going to be a good Thanksgiving dinner.
After the discussion, we headed over to the hardware store to check out roasting pans and racks. I think that Emeril is going to buy one. It's one of the few things that he doesn't have in his arsenal of cookware, so he's checking around. He was looking at an All-Clad one that cost a pretty penny, but was very pretty itself. The next couple of weeks will determine how that will all pan (pun) out.
From there we went to Star Market to do our own individual grocery shopping and to part ways. I picked up food for tonight's dinner as well as Tuesday's dinner and some random supplies for lunch over the next couple of days. Tonite, I made a big baked ziti with ricotta cheese and Italian fennel sausage. It came out really nicely. I have two portions leftover, so I'll have plenty to eat for lunch and dinner tomorrow. I think that one of the major reasons that I cook large dinner is so that I can reap the rewards of the leftovers. They make much better lunches that peanut butter and jelly or even cold cuts.
Speaking of cold cuts, I have been getting Sara Lee Cracked Pepper Turkey Breast. I snicker every single time I look at the sticker that they put on the cold cut bag though. See, it's supposed to read "Sara Lee Cracked Pepper Turkey Breast-Made With Real Cracked Pepper." But instead, it reads, "Sara Lee Cracked Pepper Tur Breast-Made With Real Crack." My turkey is made with real crack. Regular turkey is made with tryptophan. Mine is made with crack. Maybe that's why it's so addictive. You should go out and try it. Go to Star Market or Shaw's and get the Sara Lee Cracked Pepper Turkey from the deli department. Guaranteed, you'll be hooked like it was crack too.
Life, Death, Love And Everything Inbetween Listening: The tree-lined avenue begins to fade from view, drowning past regrets in tea and cigarettes. But I can’t seem to forget when you came along, ingenue.
Lots of stuff has happened since the last post. I know that I said that I wouldn't delve into work much anymore, but this warrants saying. The last couple of work days have been absolutely horrible. We had "calendar" problems so that Veterans Day, which is a holiday for everyone else but people in my company, was counted as a holiday when it shouldn't have. It was kind of a minor version of what might have happened at Y2K. Numbers rolled for two days instead of one. Things weren't matching up. On Thursday, we spent from ten in the morning when I got in until about a quarter past noon with our thumbs up our collective asses.
Now, normally, I would have been okay with all of this. I would have been happy reading my book or joking with the guy across the aisle from me, but Thursday was different. I had scheduled a lunch date, a first date, with a girl that I had talked to a couple of times. I was supposed to meet her at twenty to one. That didn't happen. Fifteen minutes before I was supposed to meet her, I gave her a call to tell her that I would be late. I didn't end up meeting her until about ten past one. I flew through all of my work once the system was back up online.
When I got back from lunch, it was a haze of what to do, how to fix and who should do what. The really sad thing was that the following day, it rolled all of the way through the weekend. I can understand a holiday messing up the calendar, but a normal day has no business messing things up. What really burns my buns is that the Coporation has been doing all sorts of contingency planning since the blizzards a couple of years ago and since 9/11. In addition to that, the Corporation has been in business, providing the services that they have been providing and using the systems that they have been using for years upon years upon years. You would have figured that they would have licked a calendar problem. It's a simple problem that has complex repercussions. It makes me wish that I was in IT or in the contingency planning trying to examine all of the angles to make sure that things moved smoothly for the day to day as well as for holidays and emergency events.
Anyways, enough about work. So I had this date. She seemed pretty cool, but again, I didn't feel sparks. I realize that I'm the kind of guy who has to warm up to someone, and that I don't make great first impressions. I realize that of the last five girls I have been interested in (let alone dated), there hasn't been one that has made me say, "Oh my god, who is she? I want to fuck her like the world was ending!" It's usually a pretty gradual thing. An example would be OC Girl. When I first met her, I was like, "Oh, she seems cool." That went to, "Yeesh, she's WAAAAAAAAAAAY too nice for me." When I finally got to know her, I finally settled into a feeling that said, "Wow. This girl is amazing. This girl rocks my world." But, with this date, I didn't really get that feeling. She was a great person to talk to and had some interesting stuff to say, but I'm not entirely sure that we clicked. So the manner in which I end up clicking with girls begs the question: Second date or no? I don't have the answer. I'm not compelled to call her right away and set something up. I'll talk to her if she's online, but I'm not enthralled.
This leads me to my next conclusion. I think that I do better meeting girls through friends. I met Her Majesty through The Violent One. I met OC Girl through dragon boating. I met Lullaby through swing dancing. And I met Little through college friends. I've never gone out on more than one date with a girl that I have met through the personals, at a club or any of that. they just don't hold my attention. Either they don't wow me enough, or I don't get the opporunity to be wowed.
It would be all fine and dandy if my friends had a lot of single girl friends to hook a brotha up with, but there are two facts in the matter. First of all, most of my friends are hooked up and thus spend less time out and about meeting new people and so on and so forth. Second of all, they all agree that I'm a hard order to fill. I'm not a typical guy looking for a typical girl. I'm an atypical guy looking for an atypical girl. Furthermore, I'm not willing to eat what will make me hungrier.
Now, you might be wondering where that last statement came from. Well, I had dinner with Fester, Carpenter and Emeril, four of us single guys, and that's something that Emeril said. He said that unlike Carpenter who was willing to go out with girls who may not be right for him, but will go out with them for the sake of going out and getting a little, he's not going to eat something that would make him hungrier. He'd rather starve. I think that I'm kind of the same way. I think that if I went out there and wanted to get a piece of ass, I could lay down the lines. I could slime my way into her panties, but that's not what I get off on. It's not what I like. Carpenter's arguement was that he eats in an attempt to train himself not to be hungrier. The question bounced around quite a lot, and no method really won out. Bur for me, I'd rather wait and find someone great, some one who would love me better than any of the girls in my past, that I could love better than any of the girls in my past. But then again, there are times when I don't believe that it's possible.
Also, over the past few days, I have watched Before Sunrise and Before Sunset on sequential days. There are times when I feel like Jessie for most of Before Sunset. I feel like I've been through the wringer and that I just don't believe in it all anymore. My cynical self has taken over and I'm just sort of going through the motions because it's what I'm supposed to do. All of the love has been beaten out of me over the past thirteen years that I have no more left and I have just sort of put it to bed. I think that, like Jessie, I'll wake up running a small daycare with a woman that I used to date. It's really not how I want things to end up, but sometimes I feel that it's how it will.
I know that it sounds like it was just the last one that left me in shambles, but that's not really the case. It's a buildup of events and feeling that have accrued over years since, well, if I'm thinking about it, it may have all started with that girl in Edwardsville, Illinois when I was twelve.
I've always had a hard time letting go of things. It's difficult to tell from the outside because I mock everything, but it's true. I don't let go of anything. It's hard for me to figure out exactly what to let go of an what to keep when it comes to matters of he heart. Sometimes I think I should just chuck it all in the ocean and become a monk to the rest of my non-girl-related dreams.
So, I was talking about having dinner with Fester, Carpenter and Emeril. We had dinner at Bambara, a rather posh restaurant attached the the Hotel Marlowe. The reason that we went is because Blondie's husband is a line cook there and will only be working there until just before Thanksgiving, so Carpenter and Emeril wanted to organize a foodies night. Originally there was supposed to be a couple more people, but it was kind of cool that they all bailed, because it became an impromptu guy's night.
Blondie's husband is a great guy. He's wikkid nice and funny too. She scored in that department. Though we all ordered entrees, fook kept being sent over to our table. It started shortly after we sat. The first thing that was brought to us was a scallop ceviche with red peppers and grilled habaneros in a hand-rolled, fried tortilla. It looked like a sushi hand roll. Fantastic. Really. It beat the hell out of the scallop ceviche that Fester and I made a few months back. It was very different too though. The ceviche that Fester and I made seemed much more raw. It was good though.
The second course that was sent out was ravioli in a vegetable consomme broth. It was very, very good. It was extremely light, and really counteracted the hint of spiciness from the roasted habaneros. The raviolis themself were a thing of beauty. I don't remember exactly what they were stuffed with, but they were fantastic from noodle to filling.
During the soup course, the fois gras that Emeril had ordered was brought to him. It was a seared piece of fois gras on top of spiced apples and quince which were on a spiced crouton. I had a piece of it and it too was amazing. I am a whore for fois gras and at my birthday dinner two years ago, I made Emeril a convert. He is now a fois gras whore as well. He claims that he had his fois gras cherry popped at my birthday dinner. Always good to deflower someone into the nation of good eats.
For dinner, I chose a braised lamb shank. It was very nice. It fell right off of the bone and melted in my mouth. The gravy and potato puree were also excellent. Emeril got the monkfish and Fester and Carpenter were being unadventurous by ordering the Steak Frites and the Grilled Ribeye respectively. I'm not saying that what they got was bad, actually, quite the contrary. What they got was extremely good, but also extremely simple. I figure if I'm going to a restaurant, I'm gonna get something I'm not gonna make at home.
After dinner, a plate of cheeses were brought to us. They included a five-year aged gouda, an amazing gorgonzola, some sheep's milk cheese, and an incredible soft cheese from Italy. Oh my god was that cheese good. It was like butter. It was the best brie that I have ever had to the twentieth power. It seriously kicked my ass.
For dessert, only Carpenter and Emeril ordered. I was trying to keep my expenses down and I already knew that this meal had the potential to hurt. Emeril had a poached apple and Carpenter had a walnut tort. They were both pretty good. I expected at least the poached apple to be warm, but it wasn't.
So, it was a good meal altogether. Blondie's husband visited the table a couple of times to check in with us to make sure we liked everything. Frikkin' nice guy. He also reminded us to tip well, because we would "be surprised by the check." When we opened the check, we were shocked. It was only $106 for the four of us. The only things that were on the check were my glass of wine, our entrees, the fois gras, the two desserts, and my coffee. So we divvied the check evenly and dropped an extra sweet tip. Oh-my-god was that dinner good.
From a good note to a more depressing note... I found out this week that Iris Chang committed suicide on the side of the highway in L.A.. She was the author of The Rape Of Nanking, and I had met her during my time at Colby. She came to speak about her book and to sign some copies. I got my copy signed and talked with her for a little while about how she got to where she was and so on and so forth. It was weird seeing the obit of someone that I knew personally on CNN.com. I'm still processing it. From the person she seemed to be when I met her to the person who put a gun to her head on the side of the Interstate in L.A., the line between them doesn't make sense. She seemed much more badass. I don't know. I'm still working.
Finally, last night, I went to see a friend's compositions get played in a concert. It was pretty cool. He wrote one piano piece and one piece for viola, flute and harp. Both were quite good, but I really appreciated the viola/flute/harp piece much more. There was an amazing jazz trio that played a couple of pieces. I thought they were off the hook. If I ever have a movie made about me, I would really like for the composer of the trio to do some of the soundtrack. Their first piece reminded me of walking in the autumn. Amazing.
Anyways, that's all I have to say for now. I'm sure it's plenty for you all. I have to get my day started. I'm planning on seeing FKB plat at MIT later on tonite, but I'm going to keep working on my novella for the remainder of the day. I think a shower is going to come first though.
Novella Listening: Put your hands in my hand. We’ll find another end. And come with me and my head and my head on anyone’s shoulder, 'cause I can’t be with you.
In the week that I have started living with The Violent One and Photogenic, I have been watching significantly less television than before. When I lived by myself, I would come home from work and I would immediately turn on my computer and then the television so that I could watch Teen Titans and then Good Eats. Lately, I have been coming home, turning on my computer and going straight for the iTunes. I listen to music and I read when I come home from work. Tonight, I actually completely forgot that Gilmore Girls was on because I was cooking and listening to my upbeat party mix. It's kind of cool. I set a goal of watching less televison when I moved in and I have achieved it so far.
In addition to reading at home, I have been doing more reading on the T. The three extra stops lets me get in another page or two. Back when I lived at Kendall, it was literally three stops from work. Now, being at Porter, my T commute has doubled. It's grear and it sucks all in the same breath.
Speaking of reading, I just finished Steve Martin's Shopgirl. I have to say that I really enjoyed it. I liked the characters and the story, although parts of it (and major ones at that) were clearly telegraphed from early chapters. If you're looking for surprises in a story, this isn't a book for you. The style, though, was something that really got me. Despite the fact that I didn't really like Martin's use of the future tense to set up the reader for what was coming, I did appreciate his language. I don't feel that there are enough writers out there who are willing to use words like "fuck" and "cunt." I think that most writers feel that they are as George Carlin says, "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television." And it is because of this that they are afraid to use them in their literature. Not all uses of these words have to be in a pornographic context. I felt like these words were just words to Martin and he uses them in a very honest and straightforward fashion.
After reading Shopgirl, I have gotten the hankering to write fiction again. I write a great deal on here and I plan to continue doing that, but I would really like to start writing a novella. With short stories, you're dealing with a limited attention span. With novels, you're dealing with pages and pages of volume that I'm not ready to deal with yet. I think I would like to write a novella. I would write it with a basic structure and storyline in mind and I would let my hands go. If I can write eleven pages of blog in a night, I think that I can write five pages of fiction and five pages of blog in a night. I have a plot in mind, but as of this moment, it's personal. I don't know if I'll really let anyone read this, but I'm betting that I will. It'll probably go out to Glare first. She is my closest writer friend. She has the skills to be a good constructive editor. She'll tell me if it sucks or if it blows. But, I'm really hoping that I can finish this piece. I haven't started yet, but I have determined that I am going to write at least three pages worth tomorrow after work or before I go to sleep. I want to start structuring my artistic time so that the muse knows when and where to find me.
It's half past one right now and it's hot as balls in my apartment. It's strange how hot this place gets. I think we're going to have to have a tropical housewarming party. We'll make blender drinks and people will wear coconut bras. Myabe I'll find some dancehall and ragga to play. Nah. Forget that last bit. I hate most dancehall and ragga. I'll at least play Blondie's Tide Is High. That'll be a good track to play. But, yeah.... It's hot up in this piece. There are times that I wish I had a big block of ice to lay on. That would kill two birds with one stone.
Anyways, it's off to bed with me. I'm tired and hot and I want to begin the Ben Watt book before I drift off. Maybe I'll just read the intruction. My eyes already hurt. I'm really optiminstic about beginning this novella.
That Feeling Listening: Listen, I've already been thinking about you on my mind far too often for you to be here at this time.
So, I've calmed down a little bit since the last entry. I've sat down for a second and I have focused my thoughts on the state of the world as it pertains to ZEN!!! today. I realize that Dubya can't really ruin the world for all of us. Well, he could, but the likeliness of it is small. There's going to be shit deals that a lot of people are getting and freedoms infringed upon, but I don't think that it's anything that the next president won't be able to dig us out of. I am a little bit unthrilled about the headache that he'll be causing me. When I go anywhere else in the world, when I tell the locals or other travelers that I'm an American, they'll call me an asshole and will try to shit all over me. I'll hear my friends talk about evil policy changes. It'll just be a mess, but unless the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" come out to play, I don't think I'll have much to worry about in the long run. I could be wrong though.
I do still want to leave the country. I feel that the country's culture and the general populous here are vapid. I meet some intelligent folk who have interesting things to say and well-informed opinions, but I think that the general public who buy Britney Spears records, eats McDonalds more than once a month, thinks the Olive Garden is quality Italian food, buys racist Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts because they're trendy, not because they're funny, drink Budweiser and believe that the government has our and the world's best interests in mind are all completely vapid, void of any independant or analyitical thought. I feel the need to leave and experience a place with a different history and a different tradition. I feel the need to leave and experience a place that values more creativity and less conformity. I feel the need to go.
Maybe this is an east coast thing. Maybe I need to just go west. Maybe it is a continental thing or a hemispherical thing. I don't know, but I'd like to find out.
This weekend was a pretty good weekend. It started on Friday with a trip to the MFA. See, every first Friday of the month, the MFA has this even where singles go to mingle, drink drinks, eat food and listen to jazz music. It lasts from five in the evening until half past nine at night. The main part of my group was Fester, Carpenter, Emeril and Digitaldewi. There were three more girls who were Digitaldewi's friend and two of her friends. I spent most of my time talking to one of the friends of Digitaldewi's friend. She was pretty damn cool. We talked a lot about beer and about relationships and so on and so forth. She was entertaining and had that streak of attitude that I like. The really funny thing was that she knew my first roommate from college. Scary.
Saturday, I was woken up by my cell phone ringing at half past seven in the morning. It was Digitaldewi. She was at the door and wanted me to let her in. She had called Photogenic a number of times, but she didn't pick up her phone. I don't think my phone is more than seven feet away from me at all times. So, I let her in. She crashed out on our livingroom floor and I went back to sleep. Digitaldewi came over, because The Violent One, Photogenic, Digitaldewi and I had plans to go to IKEA down in CT early Saturday morning. Since Digitaldewi works third shift, it made no sense for her to go home before coming back out, so she crashed for a while in our livingroom.
I was actually the first one ready to leave the apartment. The Violent One stayed elsewhere the night before, so she was just coming to pick us up. Photogenic slept later than expected. And given that Digitaldewi hadn't slept in forty-eight, she was conked out. We didn't end up leaving the apartment until a little after nine, or perhaps it was half past nine. I don't remember. Regardless, we got there about two hours later. It was right around lunch time, so we went and had some lunch at their food court. Well, it was more like a cafeteria. Very interesting. I had Swedish meatballs and a lingonberry drink. It was okay. No real great shakes though.
The IKEA store itself was pretty cool. They had so much shit in their showroom floor. The thing was that you couldn't physically pick anything up and take it with you. If you wanted any of the furniture, you'd have to write down the number and bring it down to the first floor to get it. This didn't just apply to the furniture. Even of the smaller items that they sold, there was very little on the showroom floor to pick up and take with you. I realize the sense it makes to have everything that you want to purchase neatly packed up and ready to go on the floor below, but I think that there's something to be said about carrying something around. It can help you decide whether or not to buy something.
On the actual pickup floor, the smaller items are in bins and you can pick them up, but it's not as easy as it could be picking something up and comparing it to something else. You go through this long path through the showroom, and by the time you're finished, you really forget what you were looking at. Troublesome.
Well, The Violent One came back with a desk and a chair. Photogenic came back with hangers, a wine rack, a light dimmer and a couple of other things. Digitaldewi bought a lamp that looked like a white orb. And I came back with a bright orange fleece blanket and some lighting for my room.
Later on that night, Japanaphile and I got together and we went to see Garden State at the Somerville theater. It was his first time seeing the movie, but I had seen it before and liked it so much that I wanted to see it again. It's going to be on my "DVDs to purchase" list. After the movie, we grabbed a couple of beers and some grub at The Joshua Tree. There was a lot of heavy discussion and it all probably needed to happen, so it's all for the better.
This morning, I had to wake up early again. It was Photogenic's boyfriend's birthday (I swear I'll find him a good name), so we went out for dim sum. It was a rather large group of us, about twelve. The Violent One, Photogenic, Photogenic's boyfriend and I were the first to arrive, so I immediately went to try to get a table. Now, I usually can work the magic pretty well. I can go get my number and have it called within the first five minutes or so. However, today, my "gift" worked better than usual. So, I go up to the host and tell him twelve. He asks if we're all here. I tell him, "No, we're still waiting for a couple of people." "A couple of people?" he says. "Okay." He hands me the check and tells me to go upstairs.
I have never been seated THAT fast at a dim sum place. But, we accepted it anyways and headed up to our table. It was a good time. There were mass quantities of food and yet we could only acquire one order of baked char siu baos. It was actually quite sad. In addition, it took me forever to get my hom sui gok as well. It was very discouraging. The Violent One and I chatted and scoped girls. She had her "Girls for ZEN!!!" radar on. It was funny. The girl on my left was also scoping for me and was chatting about girls.
After dim sum, a number of us went to meet Carpenter and Emeril at the Lowes on the Boston Common to go and see The Incredibles. I have to say that it was a reasonably good movie. I think that on the Pixar scale, it definitely doesn't beat my top, which is A Bug's Life. I think that they tried to flash a couple of things up which didn't work. There were a bunch of scenes where the characters were wet or were bobbing their heads above the waves of the ocean. I think it looked pretty dumb. I think most of the water scenes were just a cheap way to try to flex their computer graphics muscle. Lame. But, other than that, the movie was quite good. Jason Lee did a good job as a villain, and Samuel L. Jackson and Elizabeth Pena did really good voice work.
When the movie was over and everyone parted ways, I headed back to Chinatown to pick up some groceries. That's when something great happened. I was crossing the street, when I heard a car honk at me. I saw a gold Honda. I couldn't see who was in it until I crossed the street. It was Dulcimer. I haven't seen or thought about her for about a year. She was with her mother. After I reaized that it was her, she rolled down the window and said, "Hi." We exchanged brief pleasantries. She asked me if I had the same phone number and said that she would call me. I was psyched. It was so good seeing her. I haven't felt that good seeing one of my old friends in a long, long time. After I left her, I couldn't keep myself from smiling.
I really do hope we get together sometime soon. Maybe I'll just call her first. I wonder if she's still with that guy. I wonder what she's been up to, if she's finished with her Master's. Yeah. I'm gonna make plans to see her.
So, that was my weekend. Pretty cool, but I didn't sleep as much as I wanted to. Maybe I'll make up for it next weekend.
A Short One Listening: Everybody needs to know it's the year of the rat. Every day we've got to hold on, 'cause if we hold on, we could find some new energy.
So, this is going to be a brief one. I think I've earned it. The last two posts were written a couple of nights ago between the hours of nine in the evening and two in the morning. I say there plinking away for five hours straight, getting up only to make some Moroccan mint tea. I guess I had a lot to say that day. When all was said and done, and it was published, I copied and pasted it into a Word document and found out that I had just typed eleven pages on my weekend and on my own personal code of ethics when it comes to online journaling. I have to say that I was quite proud of myself when I figured out that I had written that much.
But anyways, on to current events....
So it seems as if the world is collapsing, yet again. Like everyone else, I had my eye on the presidential election last night. Now, I consider myself pretty non-political. I don't care about politics, because I feel that all politicians are lying sacks of shit. Big ass holey sacks of shit that cover everyone they encounter with shit. I don't know how it happened, but I cared about this election. I actually cared. I really felt like Kerry was the lesser of two evils. When he conceded defeat, my stomach dropped to my ankles.
I don't understand. How is it that Shrub got all of these people to vote for him? I don't understand him. I don't understand why he thinks the way he does. Is it because he's a simpleton?
My pet cause in the political world is the separation of church and state. I believe in it. I am an athiest. I make no efforts to hide that fact. Shrub, on the other hand, is trying to blur that line with giving to faith-based charities. If there's anything that burns my butt, it's my tax dollars going towards a church or something that I don't believe in. It's different than, let's say, a war. I may not agree with the war, but I believe that our soldiers should be safe if they're out in the field. Therefore, I'm okay giving my tax dollars to the military. However, I just can't get behind a church. I think it's doing absolutely nothing for me. Those soldiers keep me safe and they deserve a good paycheck and all of the best equipment. Churches do not. Not out of my pocket. Let the paritioners pay for that shit, not me. Maybe I would be okay with it if I actually had a church that was receiving funding. Maybe I should start a church of Technoshamanism. We would spend all of our money on running parties for the sake of spirituality. The dance floor is a church. The dance is a prayer. The beats are a sermon. And God is a DJ.
I'm also not keen on Dubyah appointing judges to the Supreme Court in an effort to overturn Roe v. Wade. I know this is a hard one for me to argue. I'm a man, and I have no business telling a woman what to do with her body, but that's the point. I have no business doing that. Dubyah doesn't either. As a matter of fact, no one has the right to tell someone else what they can and cannot do to their own body. It's a woman's right to choose. I don't understand pro-lifers. I can understand someone's stance to personally not want to have an abortion. But to tell someone else that they cannot. You do that and you're a self-righteous, holier than thou prick.
See, this is the problem with the world today. There are too many people telling other people what to do. There are too many people imposing their morals and values on other people. That's why the militant Muslims are forced to be terrorists. I don't condone their actions. I think it's a shit thing to do, sending their children around town strapped with explosives. But I also think that it's shit for my country and my "leaders" to impose our values on their culture. Live and let live. You don't have to like their values. You don't have to follow their values, but you MUST respect them as human beings. It's about respect. Just because someone has different values, looks different, has different traditions, and so on and so forth, doesn't mean that they're bad people.
Ms. Shapiro in nineth grade urged us to try to see through the eyes of the fish. There simply isn't enough of that going around.
Okay, enough about politics.
In other news, I found out that the ex-pat program at the Corporation has gone into a hiring freeze. Bastards. I was almost ready to post out. Sons of bitches. I don't know what this does to my plans, but I know that it's going to be harder for me to get to work in Europe. I'm going to try though. I know I don't want to be in the States when the shit hits the fan. I got four years to kill.
Also I have moved in with The Violent One and Photogenic. The final carload of stuff came today. Everything is set up. I hope this all works out. It seemed fine tonite. I'm the last one awake and I'm planning on sleeping really soon. So strange having roomies. I should also be getting my new cell tomorrow. Yay! Finally! No more cell phone randomly turning off! Woo woo!
Opposing Views Listening:Two hearts, both forgiving. Two ways to see the same thing.
Over the course of the last couple of weeks, there have been questions from all over about the essence of a blog. Maybe it's not exactly how it was phrased, but that's the underlying question.
One of the ways that it was brought up to me was that a friend of mine had her journal plagiarized word for word. She raised the question of whether to keep all of her entries blocked or to continue writing as it is. Granted she still locks some of her entries, but the question is whether or not to lock all of them.
I can understand how all of this could frustrate a writer. I'll be the first person to speak up against plagiarism. Seriously. I think it's a rotten thing to do on the whole. My question to that is, why? Why would you want to steal someone else's experience and pass them off as your own? Everyone has their own problems. Just because someone says something peachy on their journal, it does not mean that their life on the whole is peachy. And by attempting to steal that peachy moment, you're shitting all over their existance and you're cheapening yourself. You become a two bit hack who has nothing original to say.
Life is hard enough to live on your own, but when someone's trying to be you, it makes it that much harder. This is why I put up the CreativeCommons copyright on my page. That allows people to use my content not for profit as long as they credit me in their use. They are legally obligated to say that I said whatever they're going to use of mine.
Another time that I was perplexed by the nature of my blog was when I was asked if I would rather someone not read my blog. For weeks before that I had said, "Damn, I wish there was a filter so that (insert name here) couldn't look at what I was writing." But when asked by them, point blank, I stopped and thought about it. It would have been so easy to say yes, but when I thought about it, it would have been the wrong answer.
When I started writing the "Life Update Page," it was just a sort of page that I wrote on in lieu of mass e-mailing/spamming all of my friends across the country. I wanted to tell them all about my life and I had so much to say that it would have been like reading a hundred page novella to about sixty individual people. By publishing it online, I gave people the option of whether to click into it or not.
I still have friends who have never seen my journal and I keep up with them more individually. However, the online publication made it so much easier to keep people up to date with absolutely everything. When PJ introduced me to Blogger and I began publishing via Blogger, things began to change. It stopped being just about my friends. It started to grow.
People began to e-mail me and leave comments for me about things that I was experiencing. People identified with what I was going through. I could sit here online and explain how I felt in my own words to someone who might get me. My good friends get me, but not all of the time. They listen to me, but I don't always feel like they understand. Sometimes I feel like the red-headed bastard stepchild of my friends. The blog allows people to access an experience.
I had the option of, and always do have the option of switching to Livejournal where I could filter my posts, but I don't really dig that. I kind of see that like talking behind someone's back. If you know me, I don't really dig talking behind people's backs, because nine out of ten times, I'll say whatever smack I'm talking straight to your face. It's a policy that I keep. So, when asked if I would rather that person not read my journal, I said, "Read it if you want, or don't read it if you don't want. I'm not going to tell you not to read it. It's my responsibility. Live by the sword. Die by the sword." It's important to me that I keep myself honest, because I don't necessarily feel that there are that many honest people out there in the world. I want to be one of those few, come hell or high water.
The last thing that made me think of the nature of my journal is when I'm questioned about my father reading my journal. Actually, both my father and my brother read my journal at least on a semi-regular basis. This idea kind of baffles some of my friends. How can I write the way that I do knowing that my father and brother read? Well, they've only been really reading for just over a year tops. I've been writing consistently online since just after I graduated college and I had all of that unemployed time to sit in the MIT humanities library plinking out simple HTML. In that time, I've developed a style. A style isn't something that is easily left behind.
So, I said fuck it. As always, if someone's going to judge me, I would rather they judge me having more facts than less facts. What good is an illusion that all is fine and dandy if it's not true? What good would it do to only let people in on the happy times of your life? What is light without darkness? Show as much as you can and be judged on that. It gives people less room to be jumping to conclusions. I think that now that my father and my brother read my journal, they have a better understanding of how I think, how I process things. I think they have a better idea of my daily struggle to be a more useful human being.
A lot of what I say in the journal is fluff. The events of the day, a girl I see, a bit of food that I consume... But I also put down some very strong realities for me. I say a lot of stuff in here that I don't have the belly to shout at the top of my lungs. There's a lot in here that I wished that I could say, but can't muster up the courage to. This is the inner dialogue that goes on in my brain.
You hear a lot about fear, hurt and anger in this journal in addition to the dick and fart jokes, the smiles and the achievements. I don't talk about the fear, hurt or anger nearly as indepth with friends as I do in here. I sometimes feel like they listen because they're friends even though it may be the twentieth or the fiftieth time that I've tried to articulate how I feel. Here, I can just write, and people can say, "Aww, yeah" if they want to, or they can remain silent. They don't have to read and respond to make me feel better. They can just read and say, "Aww, yeah" to themself.
From an old conversation with PJ and a Bill Simmons article on ESPN.com, I feel that having an online journal is like a conversation, which is like being a player on a sports team. What do you bring to the table? What do you add to the community. There are three types of people. There are the givers, the takers, and the people who do both. I would like to think that I do both. I would like to think that I publish quality content on a regular basis. I could be wrong and it could all just be meaningless bitching to you. In an ideal world, everyone would do both.
I tend to get frustrated when there's a lack of good content to read. Everyday there's new stuff out there on my friends list. Everyday someone publishes something, but the quality may or may not be there. I find myself trying to fill that void of quality reading as much as I can. I wish that others would do that too, but I guess others may not have as much to say about nothing as I do.
I find that there are so many people out there taking. They're taking the information without giving of themself. I guess you could counter the arguement with the question of "Well, if no one else is, why are you?" To that, I answer, "Because I guess I'm not like everyone else." Why should they? Well, I guess there is no reason. Maybe to open up doors of understanding between people. Maybe if people like Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, Jacques Chirac, Tony Blair, Kim Jong Il, and John Kerry had real, live, honest blogs, there would be more understanding and tolerance among them. Maybe one would leave the other alone. Maybe we could be justified in a "preemptive strike."
So, here I am bare for you all to see. So, don't dishonor me with plagiarism. Don't lie to me. Don't publish fluff and call it gold. Don't take this as the absolute end all and be all of me. Keep and open mind and try to understand everyone. Be tolerant. Share. You shared toys as a kid, hopefully. Log in. Come play with my Transformers.
Mmm... Furry Boots Listening: And in the master's chambers, they gathered for the feast, stabbing with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast.
Two days removed from my favorite holiday, and still I haven't gotten in the mood. This year, Halloween passed me by and I never caught the spirit. I didn't shop for any freaky stuff to get decked out in. I didn't buy any candy (even today on half-priced candy day). I didn't find any mischief. I didn't go to any big costume parties. What I did this weekend was this:
Friday night, I went to a very small, quiet birthday party for Shutterbug. I don't get to see that much of her since we're now sort of defunct from the club. She got tired of the drama. I got tired of the lack of comittment. So, we both sort of went our own ways. She found a girl. I found the couch.
It was good to see her and Saucy, though. I think that Shutterbug is one of those friends that I can immediately fall back into a groove with her. I think that a large part of the reason that I like hanging out with Shutterbug is because she has this incredibly laidback tone in her voice almost all of the time. She'll be there talking and it's just very, very soothing. And the things is, all in all, she is a generally laidback person. She's a monster, like me, in the boat. She loses her voice, because she shouts like a maniac from the tail, while I shout like a maniac from the head. The thing about it is that, off the boat, she has a much more even keel than I do. I find it appealing. I would strive to be as even keeled as her or to not let things show as much I do. Bottom line, she's great.
So, this party was pretty quiet. There were a few dragon boaters such as, Fester, Paddleback, Protege, and one of my old strokes. I actually anticipated a couple more people, because that group of dragon boaters hang out quite a bit, but unfortunately some couldn't make it. I was really happy that Paddleback was there. I hadn't seen her since we both wandered into the Somerville Theater to see Before Sunset (out on DVD November 9th). I was seeing it for the second time as I was in a sentimental mood. She was seeing it because she had heard that it was a good movie and she needed to get her mind off of some stuff that was going on in her life. After the movie, we sat down at the Diesel and talked about things. She needed a view on her drama and I needed a view on my drama. To be honest, neither of us had anything productive to say to each other that night, but it was just good to have someone so removed from the situation to listen and to be there. It was really nice. So, the party was a good time for us to catch up on what had happened.
I got a ride home from the party with Protege. She's a nice girl. Yes, I actually mean that she is a nice girl. No euphamism, no sarcasm, no lie. She is a nice girl. If you were to look up nice Chinese-American girl in the dictionary, you'd see her tiny eyed, broad smile as the picture. Unfortunately with that paragon of Chinese-American girl comes the stereotype of being a bad driver. Now, Protege isn't a bad driver, she just didn't know where she was going. It took use ten or fifteen minutes more than it took Fester to bike home from this party in JP. It was entertaining though.
That night, I got home and I could not go to sleep. I surfed the web, cleaned up my apartment, and packed a bunch of my stuff. After that I even read. I layed in bed and read for a good couple of hours. I don't think I went to sleep until around three thirty or four o'clock.
So, that explains why I didn't wake up until three in the afternoon on Saturday. Saturday, the day was a bad day for me. I spent the bulk of my time at home cleaning and trying to organize my stuff. I ran across more reminders, a sheet of lyrics among them, and it just kind of shot my day. It took the breath right out of me. But I moved on. I cleaned. I organized.
I ate dinner at eight at night. The leftovers were reheated in just enough time for me to sit and watch The Crow: City Of Angels. Anyone who has known me for any stretch of time knows that I love James O'Barr's The Crow. I loved the three part comic book series, as well as the feature film starring Brandon Lee. Even after seeing the film, I continued buying the comic series The Crow: Dead Time and The Crow: Flesh & Blood. I even saw the third, straight to DVD film called The Crow: The Salvation. I never saw the second film, The Crow: City Of Angels, though. When it came out, I heard that it sucked. What I heard was right. There was very little redeeming in that movie. The plot was atrocious. The acting was even worse. I think that there were only three entertaining parts of the movie. First, of course, was that the leading lady, who was played by Mia Kirschner, was hot. Dark hair and light eyes. Very spooky. Very goth. Very hot. The other two pieces had to do with the casting of the henchmen. One was Iggy Pop and the other was Thuy Trang, aka Trini the Yellow Power Ranger. Both were thoroughly amusing. Yes. Trini, the Yellow Power Ranger, was a bad guy. I like Iggy Pop on the principle of his attitude. He fit with the feel, and he's just an amusing guy, but Trini? I think not.
So, after I ate and watched the movie, I got ready to go out for Soul Revival. Originally, I was supposed to go with a rather large group of people, but, one by one, they dropped out or didn't call to see what was up. When push came to shove, it was just me. As I said earlier, I had been having a rather bad day. Upon first thought, I felt like I shouldn't go. It's all of the way in the South End, blocks away from the T, I'd have to walk or cab home.... The excuses for me to bail out were many, but the one reason for me to go was stronger. To forget.
The Eagles say, "Some dance to remember, some dance to forget." I dance to forget. I dance to lose myself in the beats. Saturday night was one night I needed to lose myself for a bit. So, I waxed up my hair into a faux hawk, used some silver dye hard to keep it solid, slapped on my red UFOs and my "Spank" t-shirt and I was out the door.
I thought that if I got to Soul Revival after eleven, it would be hoppin'. It wasn't. It was still pretty empty when I walked in. There weren't too many people dressed up either. I spent the first half hour or so watching from my perch up near the bar on the second floor. There was one girl who was really groovin', and two of the capoiera kids busting it out. Of course, there were other dancers, but none that were really all that impressive. After a while, I got a little stir crazy with all of the open space and with all of the deep house beats being thrown down that I had to get out there and dance. The floor was still pretty sparse when I went down there, but I just felt like I had to move.
So, I got down there. I got there and busted it out. Me, my closed eyes, my red UFOs and my faux hawked hair. When I finally opened my eyes, someone new walked into the room. She was blonde. She had a white sleeveless shirt that had a sheer section that was kind of like a scooped neckline. She wore a pale blue miniskirt, and best of all, fuzzy boots. Well, they weren't really fuzzy boots. They were these things that were fuzzy and had elastic so that it could hang on her calves, creating the illusion of fuzzy boots. I haven't seen anyone wearing fuzzy boots since I was in Amsterdam for Dance Valley.
And then she started dancing. OH MY FUCKING GOD! She, most definitely, was a raver or an ex-raver like myself. Girl could dance like Whitney Houston could get busted for drug posession. I was enthralled. I think there were a couple of other guys who were too. But as I danced, and she danced, we ended up dancing in the same vicinity. Over and over again. She would dance for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, would go over to the wall and sit down and sip water, and then would get back up and dance again.
I checked her out for a good long while before I thought about it. Wow... She's a really good dancer, and she's cute, and she seems to be a raver. No one knows you here. No one knows anything about you. She doesn't know you. She doesn't know what's been up with you. You should give it a shot.
"Hey, I haven't seen boots like that since I went to Europe," I said.
"What? Oh, they're not boots. They're elastic, see?" she pointed out.
"Oh, cool."
We continued to dance as I searched frantically for something to say.
"My name is D____."
"What? Oh, I'm Jason."
After the brief exchange, we danced a little bit and then she went to go rest for a bit again. I jokingly taunted her with a look of "What? You got no endurance?" She shrugged her shoulders.
We went on dancing individually for the greater part of the night, but always within eyeshot of each other. Maybe it was just me though. Maybe the dirty little boy in me that just wanted to watch her move, that wanted to watch her kick up her furry little feet and watch the light sparkle off of the glitter on her face.
In the entire place, there was only one kid who had glowsticks. She pretty much just kept them in her pocket until some spaz asked to borrow them. She flailed and flailed, making large circular motions with her arm, looking as if she were about to fly away. I couldn't help but laugh. She looked at me as if to say, "Oh-my-god, I can't believe she's doing that." Since it was Devil's Night, I decided to stick my little LEDs in my pocket in case there was any occasion to use them. So, I pulled them out, tapped D____ on the shoulder and flashed the LEDs at her. She laughed.
"Don't even show her. It's so not worth it."
As the night went on, we got to talking more and more. We talked about how we expected more people to be dressed up and about how she just moved to Boston from San Francisco. We had some nice conversation. So, at the end of the night, I decided to go for it.
"Hey, I had a really great time meeting you and talking with you. I don't suppose that you'd be up for grabbing coffee or something sometime?" I asked.
"Oh, you know, school has really been keeping me busy. It just about consumes my life, but I will see you out dancing again soon, right?"
*chik-chik... Booooom. Down falls ZEN!!!*
"Yeah, for real. I'm always here. I'll see you at the next one!" I said.
I walked away shortly after that as she put on her furry white beanie with the ear flaps. It was cute. Getting shot down was not. Oh well. At least I'm putting myself out there.
The walk home was okay. It was long. I walked all of the way from Tremont and West Newton in the South End to my place in Cambridge. It took me just shy of an hour and, thanks to daylight savings time, I got home at the stroke of two. It was a warm night. There were times that I wanted to just stop on the Mass Ave. bridge and just peer out over the city, but I opted not to given the late hour.
All in all, it was a good night at Soul Revival. I can only remember one time where the beats were off, but I can't even consistently match beats, so I have nothing to say really. It was good to be out by myself again, anonymous. I used to do that all of the time. I used to go out to clubs and just groove by myself. Back in the day, I used to glowstick like a pro and grab the attention of many a club kid. I think I was even on the E! Network show Wild On: Bean Town for a brief second. I never met anyone then, and now that I drag some of my friends out, I still don't meet anyone. So it's all good. I think the difference is that I really don't have to worry about whether my pals are having a good time. I can just rock out by myself.
Sunday morning, I was up at ten thirty getting my stuff together for the day. Shaft was in town for a friend's engagement party and we were supposed to have lunch together at half past noon. Originally, I was pushing for a brunch at half past ten, but that got nixed. The reason that I wanted to get it done earlier was because I wanted to move my stuff during the afternoon, and make cornbread for dinner with Glare and Totoro at half past five. Well, it didn't quite work out that well. Lunch, which was supposed to be at half past noon, crept to two in the afternoon, because we just couldn't get everyone together. I thought it was just going to be Shaft, his new squeeze, The Violent One (who crashes at his place when she goes to audition down in NYC), and myself. Nope. It was us and like six more of his friends from college. It took so much to coordinate.
