So far, a busy weekend. It's quite late on this Saturday night. By the way, I especially enjoy the journal dear world at this time of night. Sometimes. But when it's good, it's really good when you're sort of pensive on some late evening.So in case you're interested in what I did so far this weekend, here's a long summary:
On Thursday night, I finally finished On the Road. I enjoyed it quite a little bit. As predicted, it does make me want to travel. But that desire was there already anyway. I specifially saved then pages of the end so i could read it at home. For some reason, i don't like to start or finish books on the subway. Reading on the train is just something to do to pass the time, but when i finish a book I want to give it my full attention. On friday, I started a new book, Pnin, by Nabokov. We'll see how that one goes. I feel like i should read more cotemporary books, but I don't really have that desire yet.Friday after work, I walked briskly through Central Park and headed over to the Upper West Side home of Jennifer Leigh Murphy. We sat around, ate some salmon and cream cheese on melbatoast, and chatted for a while. Yo murph, you got what I need. She read to me some parts of a David Sedaris book she just got, and then we hung out some more and I ate some smoked gouda cheese. Around 8:30 I guess we headed out in search of fun and excitement, and... god, I can't even remember. Oh yeah, we took the subway to the village. We were sort of on auto-pilot, and the East Side is pretty much the default location. I can't remember the last time we hung out in Manhattan and didn't either go East Village or Lower East Side. Which is fine by me. there are a lot of places to hang out. Not a lot of them are that great though, as we found out. We went to the bar the Sidewalk first, for familiarity's sake. Had a few drinks, watched some baseball, and ate some beef jerky. Don't ask. Anyway, Jen and I were on a weird wave-length thingy all night. On numerous occasions when I was about to say something, she said it right as my mouth was starting to form the words. Then she was talking about the movie When Harry Met Sally, and I told her that for some weird reason, a line from that movie had been going through my head. And without saying anything else, she matter-of-factly said "Mr. Zero knew?" it was sort of scary and bizarre. But, you know, kind of cool too.
I drank more last night than I had in over a year I think. Just slightly under a year. Since the night of September 24, 1999. I remember it well. I had many visitors the day after that, and it was a constant struggle to stay awake and not throw up. While that night was crazy and whacked out, last night was just indulgent fun. And this morning I was fine. I don't really get hangovers. I woke up at 11:30, feeling completely refreshed. But it was a long night. about 8 hours of sort of crazy walking around the east side, going from bar to bar. We actually only sat down in four, had drinks in three, and only had fun in two. In the second bar, somewhere in the east village, this dude who looked like some sort of Americanized bastardization of crocodile dundee was hitting on every girl that walked next to him. Just keeping them there while they orderd their drinks with lame-o lines. "so... what kind of music do you like?" My favorite question. And on and on... At one point right after one of his victims returned to the scene to scope out the jukebox, I asked her "so... what kind of music do you like?" She took about 3 seconds too long to figure out what was going on, and that made the whole rest of the brief conversation awkard. She said she was going to the Modest Mouse show on friday, and added "I saw them last year in Portland, Oregon." To which I replied "Oh yeah? That's pretty hip!" I don't know what's wrong with me. I was just feeling chatty, and felt like making an ass of myself. I chatted briefly with this girl sitting next to me who was sitting by herself. "So what's your story?" i asked. She was a student from Israel, and all her friends had lef that day, and she was just killing time before she left. She said something like "Tell me your wish." Her english wasn't that good. I told her my main wish was that I could fly. I told her how Jed and I will often gauge the quality of a night on whether or not it'd be a good night if you could fly. this seemed to please her greatly. Apparently, she's had several similar conversations about wanting to fly. I then said "Oh yeah? I've got something that'll make you fly, baby!" and then pulled a huge bag of heroin out of my pants. That's a big fat lie. the last quote and the heroin part. The rest of the conversation happened.
It was sort of a weird night. I strangely felt like dancing. In the 47 seconds I was talking that first girl, the crocodile dundee guy, who was obnoxiously wearing sunglasses for some reason, swooped down on Jen. He said he didn't want to talk to her at first because he thought I was her boyfriend. This was sort of funny, because before we left, I made Jen a little sign, and stuck it into one of those plastic name-tags you pin to your shirt. It read "WE'RE JUST FRIENDS." She often complains that she'll never meet anyone when we're out together. And she's probably right. So I thought she needed a little sign. And I thought it'd be a nice way to initiate conversation. If I saw someone wearing such a sign, I'd probably be more inclined to talk to her, just because she's already wearing a conversation piece. In the end, it did initiate a lot of conversation, but not any making-out at all. We ended up at this bar The Library. When I said "Let's go to the library," which we had passed several times and even spoken about an hour earlier, Jen was fucked up enough to say "we're not going to the fucking Libary! It's closed by now!" referring of course to the New York Public Libary, and not the bar we were 300 feet from. I had half of an uninspired beer, and headed home, reaching here at around 3:30 am.
I'm really enjoying hanging out with Jen lately. Not that I didn't before, but I'm seeing a lot more of her than I had recently. And we always seem to be doing something fun and different. It's nice to go somewhere other than Great Lakes in Park Slope. There's really only so much of that I can take. Variety. need it. Sure, it's expensive, but I feel more of a Manhattan vibe lately, and Jen is usually up for going out. And it's been nothing but fun. Even outrageous fun at times. And seven drinks, some snacks, and other stuff only cost me 40 bucks. that's not too horrible. Anyway, it was worth it.
By the way, I was taking this personality test on emode.com yesterday, and one of the questions was, "If you HAD to give up one of your senses, which one would it be. Then it listed: Sight. Smell. Touch. Hearing. Sight. Sixth." I was sort of stunned to see "Sixth" on there, because I really lingered on that for a while. At first, I was like "duh... i'd give up this so-called sixth-sense before anything else." Then i started thinking, and i started to wonder about the defintion of what sixth sense might be, and I figured it might just mean hunches or something. So i'm like "do i no want to have a hunch about something for the rest of my life?" And if not, what do i give up? In the end, I predictably went with the tangible, and gave up my sixth sense. Just found that noteworthy somehow.
So today I went with PFC Caryn down to Coney Island. I'd never been before, and I really wanted to go before it got too cold. Plus, I had the perfect excuse: I had to go. I'm writing historical signs for Parks and Recreation, and I chose to do three signs down on Coney Island, partly jus to force myself to go down. And I didn't want to go by myself, so I grabbed caryn, who's been there several times. My first stop was "Nautilus Playground," which is just a fancy name for a playground in the Coney Island Houses, a city-run housing project. there was some sort of barbecue going on, which was nice, because I certainly didn't want to be there with the type of people that I suspect hang out there on a regular basis. Luckily, a lot of the residents were out, barbecuing and yelling at their kids to "Quiet the fuck down!" and there was even a cop around. So I took some notes and left. Then we drove around looking for a park that didn't exist. then we said "fuck it, let's go ride the Cyclone." Luckily, I'm also writing the sign for the site the Cyclone roller coaster is on, so I actually was required to go see the coaster. And as long as I was there, why not ride it too. Built in 1927, the Cyclone is the world's second steeped wodden rollercoaster. It reached speeds of 60 mph, and is 3000 feet long. that's sign-speak.
So it was a beautiful day. I had been longing to go see the beaches out on Long Island for many weeks now, and I was planning some sort of excursion out there for the weekend. I really don't like seeing the water from Manahattan. New York is about the only place where I find views of water utterly unispiring. Everywhere else you go, for some reason bodies of water have an uplifting effect. here, i look across the river and see industrail New Jersery. So Coney Island was a nice change of pace. And I had no money, so Caryn paid for everything, including a corndog. I owe her a lot of money. But oh well. We also hit some baseballs at the batting cages. I had mixed success. The slow pitches were much to slow, and I was making solid contact. But the medium was about twice as fast, and I heard the humiliating "thwump" of the ball hitting the backstop as a swung and missed about 9 times out of 14. It had been about 10 years since I swung a bat at a baseball, but in all honesty ten years ago I wasn't that much better.Poor quality, unflattering pictures from said Island (It's really an isthumus):
Here's two of me. Two squtiny pictures, that is. There's only one of me in each. On the Boardwalk. Why two pictures of virtually the same thing, you may ask? Me too. But what the hell, ya know?
Caryn, sitting in front of part of the Cyclone. When she saw this, she felt like I had thrown her in the picture as an afterthought. That's not true. But I had to get the coaster, you know?
This is usually what happens when I try to take a picture of me and someone else. I'm referring to the fact that not only am I the only one in the picture, but I'm dead center. I'm not referring to the fact that I seem to have some sort of weird little mustache. Not sure what that's about. Probably shadow and light. I hope. I don't appear to be as refreshed as I thought I was.
And here's the picture Caryn made me take after seeing the first one. My mom always says "I spent 3000 dollars on you teeth. So SMILE! NOW!"
I think my face looks chubby.
So after Coney Island, Caryn and I came back here, drove back into Manhattan, went to a stereo store she needed to go to that was closed, drove around in vain looking for parking, and finally gave up and came back to Brooklyn. Her friend Nate works at the Comedy Central show "Strangers With Candy," and the show is over now, and they were having their final wrap party at a bar on Avenue A near 5th. So we decided to go with him. To tie this all together, the star of Strangers With Candy is Amy Sedaris, the brother of David, whose book Jen liked so much. Anyway, we met up with Nate and his huge-ass brother and this girl Maya. So we wandered over to the party, at this bar calld opaline I think. We were behind some drag queens in line, who had to haggle to get in I think. There was a guest-list see. Can you imagine the humiliation if you go through all this trouble to out on this elaborate getup amd makeup and etc., then not being able to go to the party? Anyway, Caryn had to pretend to be this girl that Nate lives with, and I had to pretend to be this guy Scott. I don't know why I had to pretend that my last name was Jacobson when we had a perfectly good white guy with us. Anyway, it worked and we got in and felt all cool for a while. And I saw most of the cast of the show there, which was sort of cool. I'm particularly fond of the black guy who plays the principal, Mr. Blackman, which they always pronounce "Mr. Black-man." I'm a mild fan of the show, and what I've seen I found amusing. Plus, it feels kind of cool to get into these little parties where you have to be on the list. Some nice little snacks and an open bar helped too. But I was too tired and hot to enjoy it, and soon the party ended anyway. It ended with an episode of the show and a little video montage. It was funny, but sort of a buzzkill too. We wandered over to the Ace Bar on 5th, but I wasn't feeling like drinking, so I just went home. Which is where I am now. Typing. In my underwear. Hunched on my chair in extremely poor posture. My toes are cold. And ahm goin' ta bed. Shopping with Geoff in the afternoon I think. Need new clothers. Both caryn and I decided, indepedantly, that we're going to try to dress a little more... "mature," I think is how she put it. I was listening to this Silver Jews song that has a little line like "When you're fifteen you wanna look poor" and then later "i don't want to look poor anymore." A nice little verse about growing up. And caryn added "Well, I am 23 years old now." I, of course, am 24. By the way, it's really weird to be an intern and be younger than the Internship Coordinator . On friday, she was going to a party celebrating 100 days since her college graduation. Fuckin A.