September 9th, 2001.  Sunday
 

    It's been tough.  I guess I can end that sentence there. I had planned on specifying what "it" was, and what exactly has been tough about it, but as I was writing it, i was genuinely surprised how many things could have ended that sentence.   Meaning, i had no idea.  Well, in truth, everything's been tough.  I know how that sounds, and if I weren't saying it, I'd be laughing at it.  Let me try to explain it in the vaguest possible terms.  When you (and by "you" I of course mean "me") let one thing sort of influence everything else in your life, and that one thing happens to be in the crapper, then by natural extension, everything else kind of goes down the crapper too.  And even when that one thing is elminated, it doesn't get much easier, because now everything else seems less significant due to the absence of that thing.  Anyway, I've been having a pretty rough past few days. Of course, some would say I've been having a tough few months.  Or years.  Then again, others, like say the homeless or the poor, would say "Shut the fuck up. You're sitting in a nice big room in a nice big apartment, in front of a pretty nice computer, with the air conditioner blasting behind you, listening to your fairly expensive stereo system, occasionaly talking on the phone to several friends and family members who care a great deal about you."  This is of course all true.  Then again, all problems are relative.  Then again, my lack of perspective has always been one of my bigger problems.  Though in this case, it's an unpleasant side effect of the aforementioned problem.  Anyway, it all stems from this Rodzilla business that's been going on for about a year now.  I guess we'd decided a few days ago not to have any more contact until we'd cleared up whatever issues we needed to clear up individually.  It's for the best, though at times it's hard to keep that in mind.  I'm trying though. Mainly through social outings and other distractions.  Here are a few.

    Well, on Friday, I started my new part time job, working at a website where I watch a tv show and then write trivia questions about the show.  It's not hard work at all, which is how they justify paying the low hourly rate that they pay. Which is completely understandable. I mean, I am just watching tv afterall.  So after I got out of there at around 11:30, I hopped on the train back to Park Slope, where Matt and Jed were at a bar called Long Tan. It's actually a restaurant I think.  Brazilian.  Anyway, when i got there I found them sitting at a table in the back garden with a few people we knew from college, Mark and Suzannah, and Suzannah's roommate, whose name I still can't remember even though I've met her twice now.  She's kind of cute, in a blonde mid-western kind of way.  So we sat around drinking caipirinhas and talking about bad tv and debating whether or not to kill this giant cockroach that was crawling on the wall behind matt. It was a 50-50 split on the kill or not kill vote.  There was also some debate to whether or not it was actually a cockroach.  Jed said that he didn't think the cephalothorax of this particular bug looked like a cockroach's. When the waitress came over, he voiced this opinion again to her, and added "Coincidentally, that's the third time I've used the word 'cephalothorax' in the last minute."  Oh, that Jed.  Although, upon further research, it seems that cephalothorax refers to a section on arachnids and crustaceans, niether of which would include your friendly cucaracha.  But that's neither here nor there.  Anyway, the waitress seemed to take it all in stride, and relayed her own story of bug horror from a few nights before.  She too was fairly attractive, in a short-haired pixie kind of way.  So after that, we headed to Great Lakes, just a few blocks down the road.  On the way there, we stopped at a convenience store, and while Matt was waiting outside and talking with the blond girl whose name escapes me, he heard a voice that was telling him to suck his own dick.  It actually said "such your own dick."  then it said "such her dick."  We were sort of puzzled by this, and looked around for a camera or microphone or something.  I wasn't all that interested, and I decided instead to inspect this little pile of wood platforms, the kind used when loading things with a forklift.  matt and I had tried punching through planks of wood like this before, and had hurt ourselves quite a bit.  I was about to ask matt if he'd like to try this again, when the pile started moving.  And as it turned out, a voice came out telling me to mind my own fucking business.  Then it became apparent that there was someone trying to sleep under there, the same person who had told matt to suck his own dick.  So we ran.

    Before Great Lakes, Matt warned suzannah and her roommate that there were a few things we could hope to see at Great Lakes this evening that might prove amusing. the first was the weird, crepy asian guy who I'd run into several times before.  He's the guy who first asked me if I was gay, then when I said I wasn't, said "I'm not either," then sat there hitting on me for an uncomfortably long period of time.  And sure enough, when we got in, there he was.  But ever since Dylan told him that he made us very uncomfortable, he's kind of left me alone.  Anyway, it was pretty packed, so we stood for the rest of the night.  Jed and Mark left after a drink, and Matt and I took turns telling amusing stories about Matt.  I had a surprisingly fun evening, and not even because of the caipirnhas and whiskeys.  I never really talked to Suzannah when we went to school together.  We were in the same acting class, but outside that I probably never said more than ten words to her.  She's actually a pretty funny girl. I'd never really known what to make of her.  And her roommate was also enjoyable to talk to.  So all in all, the evening was a pleasant surprise, filled with moments of genuine gaiety.

    Continuing the distractions on Saturday, pfc Katey was having a house warming party at her big space out in Williamsburg.  So after the requisite vodka shots, Jed, Matt, Dylan and I headed into the city to meet up with Jen and boyfriend Bobby.  It was Jen's birthday, and Matt's was earlier in the week, so we'd planned a little joint birthday celebration.  The party was a weird little affair.  We met up with Caryn when we got there, and she and her friend Nate were the only people we saw in the place.  Though when we entered the building, we did see that Melissa girl from the Real World New Orleans.  She didn't look too happy.  But it's always interesting to see minor celebrities.  The building was your standard Williamsburg converted warehouse apartment building.  So there was another party going on down the hall, and most of the partygoers from both parties were hanging out on the roof.  It was a nice evening to be outside anyway, and there was a good view of Manhattan across the river.  After a while James and his peruvian girlfriend Rosario and her two friends showed up as well. So just about everyone I knew in NY was there.  The whole thing had a very collegiate feel to it.  A bunch of people hanging out in the dark, wandering from area to area, not being able to see anybody's faces.  Jen and Matt didn't really want to be there, so after a while they, along with Jed and Bobby, headed up to a bar on the next block. I stayed with James and his Peruvian posse, and for a while James decided to try to convince people that he was Jeremy Sisto, who you may remember as Elton from Clueless, and more recently as Billy from the HBO series Six Feet Under.  I must say, since James's shave dthe beard, the resemblance is pretty uncanny.  So he walked around, standing at the periphery of random groups of people, and just off-handed like kept saying ",,,so when I was on Six Feet Under..." Unfortunately, the main problem with this little ruse depended on the people present having HBO.  Shockingly few of them did.  He only managed to fool one girl, and only briefly.  Though she did concede that he looked just like him.  And this did lead to some fairly amusing conversations with strangers.  Which is always nice.

    So after that, we met up with Jed, matt, et al at Galapagos, a bar on 6th street. It's a little too hip, but I enjoy it.  Rosario kind of hates the place herself.  So i don't think she was having that great a time.  her friend Fiorella seemed more amused though.  She herself is a fairly amusing girl.  A bit odd I think, but that may just be due to the fact that she's foreign.  While we were there, we spotted the guy who played Samir in the movie Office Space.  He was the indian dude, and was fairly hilarious, especially in a scene where he busts out this break dancing move.  At one point he did sort of bust out some hip dance moves. he was wearing funny baggy pants.  oh, how amused I am at people who are different from me.  So anyway, it was another late night.  Jed and Matt had taken off fairly quickly, and Dylan and I were making odds on whether or not Jed would be asleep on the couch when we got home.  The night before, when Dylan strolled in at 4am, Jed was asleep on the couch, where he probably sleeps 80% of weekend nights.  He just lies down and falls asleep. He probably wears his contacts more than any man should. Anyway, Dylan thought it'd be funny if he grabbed a card from the deck that's on the coffee table and stuck it in Jed's mouth. So for a while Jed was sleeping with the Jack of hearts in his mouth I think.  Anyhow, I slept until about 1:30 again today, for the second day in a row, and couldn't think of any real reason to get up when I woke up.  Except that i could tell I was wasting a positively gorgeous day out.  So I took a long bike ride in the afternoon through Prospect Park, which cleared the head a bit.  A bit.  And the distractions continue tomorrow.

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