My ceiling is falling apart behind me.  The leak is getting out of control, and it's really starting to annoy me.

    So, the coming of the New Year was spent with friends down at Great Lakes.  This was the first New Year's I spent in NYC, and also the first where I wasn't anywhere near a TV.  There was an impromptu, and probably inaccurate, countdown at the bar, and the bartenders served small portions of champagne. Still it was a very festive atmosphere.  It's by far my favorite bar in the world.  On Saturday, the night before, after hanging out with Caryn in Manhattan, I met Jed  over in what i think would be Carrol Gardens in Brooklyn, at the the Boat, the sister bar of Great Lakes.  Jed likens it to Shelbyville, the rival city of Springfield on The Simpsons.  It's a different place, but with many eerie similarities.  Many of the same bartenders work at both, and the juke box is the same type of cool music.  Some of the same cds, and a lot of different ones by the same people at Great Lakes.  The Neutral Milk Hotel cd I've been missing was moved to the Boat, so that was nice to hear. It's my official Great Lakes cd.  It's always on. Anyway, Jed and I talked a bit to the bartender, this girl named Loraida or something.  She was one of my least favorite bartenders at Great Lakes, but the last few times I've seen her I've found her more amusing. I just didn't like her I guess because I thought she made shitty drinks. But  very friendly sort.  And it was nice to get some insights into bartending.  I've always been curious as to how much they make.  She makes about 300 bucks on a saturday night, and she said she makes more on weekdays, even if it's slow.  Something about talking to people and them leaving bigger tips.  Anywho, Jed and I didn't get home until maybe 5 am, and I didn't go to sleep till about 6:30.  To backtrack even more, on friday night Jed and I and Matt were down at Great Lakes till about 2, got in a huge fucking argument upon our return home, and Matt didn't leave here till about 5:30, in the middle of a huge blizzard.  So a few very late nights.  Enjoyable though.  Wake up at three, get something to eat, have a shower, and go out till 5 in the morning. Not how I'd want to live my life, but sort of nice over a long weekend. Variety is key.

    So anyway , New Year's ended up being pretty fun, though in retrospect somewhat of a letdown.  It was fun while I was there though.  And really, I couldn't wait for this year to be over.  And as it happened, right after midnight was when it started to get really fun.  Originally it was just me and matt there, then Jed showed up, and our roommate Dylan and his girlfriend arrived around the same time.  Of course everyone in the bar was being festive and friendly, and there was lot of pleasant conversations with strangers.  I had conversations about the Tennesse Valley Authority, the state flag of Tennessee and what it represents, and various other topics in American geography, history, and entertainment. I talked to some goth-looking girl about Pepperidge Farm Goldfish and the weird smiles on them, which really freaked the hell out of me.  I had no idea there was a little smile emblazoned on each and ever gold fish.  So that was shocking.  I've always kind of like that look though.  The goth thing, not the goldfish.  Anyway, I didn't leave Great Lakes till well after five, when they had already closed, though I had wanted to leave long before.  I jumped in a cab, and about half way home, which is about two blocks, I realized I didn't have enough money to pay for the cab. So I had to run inside to find Jed and Matt and ask them for money.  I found them in my room, listening to Paul Simon, and Matt freaking out, babbling something about Paul Simon being a sick and perverted pedophile.  To prove it, he played me several snippets of songs on the cd Negotiations and Lovesongs.  And I have to admit, while I didn't believe what matt was saying at all, I could see his point.  So I paid the cabbie, made some pierogies, fried an egg, and went to bed around 6:30.  Fucked up as I was, I was still conscious of the fact that there was really something wrong with eating butter-drenched pierogies at 6:15 in the morning.  As I lay in bed that early morning, the leak in my ceiling got worse and worse, and normally it would have pissed me off and kept me up for hours.  but not that night.

    So the next morning, there was a general feeling of wrongness.  The next afternoon, I mean. Anyway, Matt kept saying "something feels wrong," but he couldn't figure out what.  That's because he was too drunk to remember me sneaking up behind him while he slept,  pulling his pants down, and "ringing in the New Year."  Oh... i do amuse me so.  Actually, he felt like there was something wrong with time and space. I too felt something weird. I think maybe what I felt was that I should be remembering more of the night before.  I wasn't really suffering memory loss or blackout, but it was like, when I'm drawing on the stores of information to find topics of conversation, I felt like there should have been more to draw from.  Slowly, it all came back to me, for the most part.  And what was "wrong" was generally the feeling that I made a complete ass of myself.  I'm not sure if that's true, but drinking has been doing weird things to me lately I think.  On Friday night, I can't believe the bad shit that was going on. Actually, it was a bad day in general.  Matt and I drank basically an entire bottle of rum before we went to the bar. And we pretty much did the same thing on New Year's Eve.  But I have to say that the New Year's Eve just passed was the most fun I've ever had on Dec. 31st.  Still, I said a lot of weird shit to a lot of people.  To illustrate that point, here's a quote from a girl from Tennessee. "You're a really weird guy."  She said that a lot.  I don't think she meant it in a good way.  but we still talked for a while.  She was pretty weird herself.  But it wasn't just me.  this girl Jed was talking to happened to be wearing some very festive sparkly pants.  Jed insisted on calling her "Miss Sparkly-pants" all night.  And when I spoke with her briefly at the jukebox about said pants, Jed just stood there, repeatedly and mindlessly mumbling, ala Rain Man, "V-v-very twinkly...v-very s-sparkly..." over and over and over.  Still, she asked for his phone number and wanted to know if he'd go see a movie with her the next day.  So that was encouraging.  Though she never called.
    So yeah, a lot of weirdness.  I repeated much of my conversations to Matt, and he seemed to genuinely think them weird, and was unsurprised that I attract weird people.  "It's a self-fulfilling prophecy," he said.  "If some girl keeps saying 'you're weird,' but stays, you know she's gotta be really fucking weird."  I'm not sure on the exact definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I usually have a problem with matt's use of it. It doesn't seem quite right. Anyhow, that's irrelevant right now.  His point is well taken.  It's really my dead-pan responses to things I think, and they way I sort of talk to people but not really. Like I'll be sitting at the bar and just looking forward and maybe turn their way for a brief moment and say "That goldfish on the package is wearing sunglasses..." as if it was some sort of breaking news, then either stare blankly at the unfortunate person I've just addressed until they respond, or turn back forward and mindlessly sip my drink.  Why can't I just say something like "so... do you like... stuff?"  or "dude, I am so wasted!"  or "Hey! How's it going?" and smile broadly.  I see that work all the time.  Well, I guess that's not me.  But i think me is starting to scare me.  I guess I don't think I'm really that weird, but lately I feel like I'm really boring, I guess.  Ok, that's not true.  I was endlessly amusing all weekend.  But in a really superificial way.  Why the fuck am I analyzing this so much? It was New Year's eve, and I was getting drunk at my favorite bar with some of my favorite people in the world. End of story. Jack-ass or not, it was a lot of goddam fun.
    ... but i have to say, honestly, since then... hell, I don't know. I still have that feeling that something is wrong.
 

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