11.19.00
Sunday

 
    So a lot happened this weekend.  Would you like the good news or the bad news first?  Without any psychological insights intended, let's go over the bad news first.  I'm not so sure I want to discuss the good news stuff, for fear of jinxing them.  Anyway, I'm sort of sick. The sort of swollen-gland-from-coldness kind of sick. Just a dry sore throat and a stuffed-up nose.  Very annoying. And I may be a bit feverish.  So that's the present concern.  There are a bunch of other nagging things, but they're taking a back seat.  Hey, speaking of back seat, here's the really bad news:  my fucking car, my beloved Grey Ghost, was STOLEN this weekend.  I can't fucking believe it.  It's really gone.  Usually, when I can't find the car, I'm looking in the wrong place or somebody borrowed it or some brother is playing a trick on me or, at the very worst, it's been towed. No no. Not this time. this time, there's broken glass where my car was parked.  And really, it's not so much the car as it is "the car."  The sentimental things, the memories. That's what stings the most. Just the other day I was thinking about how one day I'd have to part ways with the Grey Ghost.  I thought I'd have to take all sorts of pictures of the interior and whatnot.  I never thought it'd end this way.  I've been talking aboutmy car a lot lately too for some reason.  At my Parks job,  I was assigned a lot of places in the Bronx because I have a car and it's easier to get there.  How ironic that I was talking to someone at the office on Friday who said "Wow, you have a car in New York?"  And I was all "yeah..."  thinking how sweet it really was,  when in reality, the car was probably gone already.   Fuck man. My FUCKING CAR.  Nothing really valuable was inside, except a lot of things with sentimental value.  Like the sunglasses I'd had for 5 years, and my college radio-show tapes, or and my Underpants Cowboy tapes.  Not to mention my 10-disc CD changer and stereo, which I spent so many hours installing myself.  There were two cds in the player. The Silver Jews "American Water," and the first Weezer album. Funny thing about that is I've already bought that goddam Weezer cd twice.  Now I have to get it a fucking third time.  I can't believe this happened to me. And in Giuliani's New York, no less.  What's the good of fascist law-enforcement if shit like this still happens?  And I live in one of the nicest and yuppiest sections of Brooklyn.  For the rent I'm paying, shouldn't I be excused from this sort of thing?  God.  I feel so violated.  Someone spent the wee hours of the weekend night driving around in my car, wearing my sunglasses, listening to my cds. That is, after they punched out the passenger side window.  So at least the fuckers were cold.

    The Grey Ghost had so much significance for me and everyone I know.  I remember someone, maybe it was James, said when we were graduating college or somewhere near there "You can't ever sell that car."  Every lame-brained trip and  exciting excursion was taken in that car.  So may trips to Atlantic City, DC, Virginia, Hilton Head, upstate New York, Boston.  All over the goddam east coast, just me and usually my friends, riding around, listening to music.  And just the leisure activity of driving around back country Virginia rodes through the mountains and valleys, with the summer 4 o'clock sun in the sky and the windows down-  definitely one of my favorite things in the world.  Fuck.  My fucking car, man.  Gone.  And now I gotta take the goddam bus home for Thanksgiving.  I hate that thing.

    Anyway, that trauma aside- and I've actually been surprisingly ok besides an outburst every now and then-  the weekend was sort of fun, but absolutely exhausting.  On thursday, the last day I saw my car, by the way, I got a lot of free clothes from the magazine I work for.  It was from a Matrix-inspired photo shoot, and the fashion department was throwing a lot of stuff away. So they said I could grab whatever I wanted.  So I grabbed some fake leather pants that I didn't intend on wearing, since they were too small, a coupla pairs of neato ski-goggles, some col leather gloves that are sort of swashbuckly, this leather aviator's cap, ala Snoopy in his sopwith camel, and a few shirts. the one shirt is a black polyester shirt with a skull on it. A lot of people thought it was a Misfits t-shirt, but it's not. The other shirt is the black, long-sleave mesh shirt, with sort of vinyl straps with buckles on the shoulders and elbows. It's kind of cool, in a hip, homosexual way.  So at Jen's after work on thursday, I put on the tight pleather pants, the mesh shirt, the googles, and a metal spiked bracelet that I also got.  I gotta say, I looked pretty coodl, in a hip, homosexual way.  That pants were a few sizes too small, and awfully tight in the crotch.  The mesh was sort of figure-hugging, but in a surprisingly good way.  Oh yeah, i also got this pair of boots that had black rubber spikes sticking out from the souls.  So I wore that getup out on friday night, minus the mesh.  The skull t-shirt was a lot less gay.  But man, were those pants tight. First stop was the birthday party for my boss Parks boss Kate. She turned 24 on friday. Brother Garrick, by the way, also celebrated a birthday on Friday.  His.  He's 28 now.  Anyway, Kate's bash was at this bar called Siberia. It's actually inside the subway stop at 50th st. on the 1-9 line.  It's sort of a dive, but I was digging it for that.  I went with Jen and her stepsister missy.  I think this may have been the first of jen's siblings that I've ever met. Anyway, missy seemed a right-on kinda girl.  She's also 28.  A lot of other people from Parks were at Siberia as well, some of whom I couldn't stand. But I like the other interns, so I talked mostly with them.  I'd felt a sort of weirdness with Kate over the past few weeks, and at least part of me wanted to go to the party to see if the weirdness was inspired by the work environment.  And for the most part, things were pretty cool.  We only stayed about an hour though, and took off to catch Matt and James and Jed on the lower east side, at Tonic, as usual.

    Tonic was sort of messed up. And by "Tonic" I of course mean "me."  It gets sort of fuzzy from there.  It was really cold outside, and I wasn't feeling too hot by that point.  One of missy's friend's was there.  Seemed nice enough.  Jed friends Holly and rachel were also present, with Holly celebrating yet another birthday as well Friday night.  The time spent at tonic is sort of a blur. I'm not sure what all was going on.  But I kept trying to talk to people, somewhat unsuccessfully. Everyone else seemed wrapped up in their own issues.  So I just kind of sat there in my tight pants for a good amount of time. James had mentioned that there was supposed to be a meteor shower around 2:30 am, which I kinda wanted to see.  I tried to get a hold of Rodzilla, because she has a nice little roof that would have provided a nice view. But she was out.  So Missy's friend Mike said he knew of this party a friend of his was having.  So we said "OK," and hopped in two cabs over to Soho.  By now it was absolutely freezing.  So we finally got there, but couldn't find the party. The streets were deserted though. Finally, we realized we were on the wrong side of the street, got in the right building, and up the elevator.  I think most of us were expecting a little ho-down in someone's apartment, with people sitting around and drinking beer.  What it turned out to be was more like a dance club in a giant apartment space with 20-foot ceilings.  Complete with the trippy projections of colors and scientific diagrams on the wall.  So that was a shock.  Matt had his digital video camera going, and I think you can hear Jen scream "No!" in shock when the door opened. Speaking of the camera, at one point Jed was filming, and this raver kid comes up to him and is all "where's that film going!?"  all accusatory and whatnot. So Jed sheepishly shut it down.
    I did happen to see someone at the party who works at the magazine.  That was sort of a shock. So we chatted for a while.  A pleasant girl, she's the editor in chief's executive assistant.  She gave me some encouragine news, which I hope turns out to be true.  Anyway, the whole party sort of got old after a short while, and we left. Out on the street, there was all sorts of confusions, as far as who was going where and how and why. Basically, I think I screwed it all up. I sort of just wanted to go home, and i thought that Jen and Missy were going back to the upper west side, and it being 3:30am, I figured Jed and Matt and I would be going back to Brooklyn. So in a New York minute, Jen and missy were off in a cab and Matt and Jed and I were off in another. As we pulled out, matt was like "What just happened!?"  I think Jen was saying the same thing. Anyway, there was all sorts of confusion that doesn't need any more mentioning.  Boy, this is a long entry, isn't it.
    So yesterday I had to trek into Manhattan to get my phone and keys which I left with Jen.  Not a lot of room for stuff in the pleather pants.  Anyhow, it was a cold, miserable day. And I was feeling sort of sick.  But I hung around the city and hung out with Caryn (new link!) for a while.  Then we went shopping in the Village and in Midtown.  I was supposed to go to a party being held at the home of Amy from Dear World, but I just couldn't do it.  I made it as far as Jen's Upper West Side pad, which is only actually five blocks from Amy's place, but my sickness was making me feel sort of anti-social.  I wasn't really feeling up for a lot of conversation with strangers.
    So instead, I headed back downtown.  Rodzilla had called earlier, and I wanted to see her anyway, so I met her at the Sidewalk for a drink around 11:30.  Nice to see her.  She was all gussied up for a party she went to with a friend from Washington and Lee earlier in the evening.  She was particularly impressed with her new coat, which I must say looked pretty damn good.  So we sat at the bar in the Sidewalk and chatted.  While we were there, some dude on the other side of her started chatting it up with her.  He saw this ring on her right hand that her dad had given her and said "I like your ring. Is it wedding or engagement?"  Ok, first of all, the ring had a white stone on it, not exactly a popular choice for either.  Secondly, it was on the wrong hand. Anyway, Rodzilla answered "Engagement.  This is my fiance," and gestured toward me.  The guy stretched out his hand in congratualtions, and said "congratulations."  Then he said to me "You know, I married an Asian woman myself."  And Rodzilla I and exchanged a bewildered and amused look.  In case you didn't know, rodzilla's a whitey, and I'm the Asian.  So the guy's comment was sort of a sideways, werid remark.  Anyway, so he spent the next 10 minutes acting like a jackass and talking to me about Chinese history and whatnot, and saying things like "Yeah, you guys are doing really well for yourselves."  It was all sort of amusing, and i was really wishing he'd go away. Which he eventually did.  But he stood behind us for a while, so we couldn't really talk about him.
    So Rodzilla is now coaching her school's basketball team.  That was amusing to visualize at first. But she seems to love it, which I'm glad to hear.  When Jed and I and James coached kids soccer in college, I would sometimes find Jed outside the library, making up plays and lineups.  Of course, I'd find him as I was leaving the economics class that we had together.  He'd skip class to work on soccer plays.  What a coach.  Maybe that's what he should do for a living.  So anyway, it was a very pleasant evening, despite my sniffling.
    And that bring us to today.  I took a substantial nap after showering, till about 2 in the afternoon. I tried to stay up and get stuff done, but the prospect of sleep was just to alluring. I was awoken by a call from one of the other Parks interns who wanted to know if I wanted to go up to the Bronx, since i had a car. So I had to go through that whole shpeal again.  So I got a little bit done, and it's 1 am, and I have a  bit more to do.  I don't really want to go to class though. Although one of the girls in class used to date a car thief, or he was friends with car thieves. All I know is, one time she had her car stereo stolen, and he got it back for her.

I've been told that some people actually like these long entries. I assume it's in a something-to-read-while-sitting-on-the-toilet kind of way.
 

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