September 17th, 2001.  Monday

    This day was a fairly uneventful day.  Though it was odd to see Jed home this morning.  He lost his job on Friday.  It's a blessing.  It was a terrible place.  Anyway, he was all "Hey, let's hang out!"  now that he has his days off.  But I'd alreayd decided to go to the gym, so I went and did that.  That went as scheduled, then home, then to the hardware store to finally buy supplies to start painting my room. I've been contemplating this for a few weeks now, but haven't been able to decide on a color.  I'n trying the old change of environment=change of general demeanor tactic, and since the drastic room arrangement I've hit a roadblock on the color front.  I went with a pale grey.  "Sprouts" is what the color card said.  It's sort of dark, and I'd been advised against it, but I wanted something drastic.  the main arguments against it was that it'll make my room look small and dark.  My room's big enough that the size perception won't be a problem, and I never get sunlight so it always looks like a cloudy November afternoon in here anyway, so i figured what the hell.  Coincidentally, i did come across a color called "November Sky," but it was a bit too depressing.
    Then, in the evening, into the city to meet Caryn for coffee yet again.  Been doing a lot of that lately. And too much coffee.  So I opted for red wine instead.  I think I've seen Caryn the last 4 days in a row, which hasn't happened in a long while.  Anyway, I sat in the East Village coffee shop, trying to read this Fitzgerald book Rodzilla'd loaned me about a month ago.  At the time, I was reading a lot of Scotty, and was pretty interested to read this book.  But for some reason I just can't get into it.  Instead I've been reading this issue of Harper's that Dylan gave me.  The publication in general is a little too liberal for my taste, but there were several really interesting, or at least entertaining, articles.  The last one I read was about insurance claim adjusters, and how they figure out how much a person's life is worth in wrongful death lawsuits.  Anyway, there's this girl I've seen in the coffee shop a lot lately that I find fairly intriguing.  And by "intriguing," I of course mean "attractive."  But only fairly so.  She's hanging on by a thread, and I've pretty much convinced myself that if I were ever to actually speak to her, or even with her, she'd plummett in my estimation.  She's already got several strikes against her, the main one being of course that she sits around in coffee shops all day.  And she sits there writing in a notebook, for hours and hours, while listening to her cd player.  I must admit, I'm curious as to what she's writing and what she's listening to.  And I've always had a surprisingly high tolerance for the earnestly pretentious.  As opposed to the shallowly pretentious.  Anyway, I'm sure nothing will come of this.  I'd rather not risk the disappointment.  The other day I was on the train, and I was sitting next to this girl who out of the corner of my eye looked like she might've been cute.  So naturally I pretended to mind my own business and just look down.  She was wearing sandals, and I got a good look at her feet.  And, jeez, they were just awful.  Good feet are very important.  The first and most important rule is that the second toe cannot be larger than the big toe. That's why it's the big toe.  And the toes should all point forward.  None of this crooked shit.  I mean, sure, I'm in no position to be picky and choosy about girls, but this is as close to a dealbreaker as it gets.  And her feet were all wrong and calloused and pointy.  And terrible looking toenails. It's like she wasn't even trying.  Except I think she was wearing toe nail polish.  So it's clear that she had indeed seen her feet recently. And that's how she leaves them?  I didn't let myself get a look at the rest of her.  I couldn't bear it if she were a knockout with awful, awful feet.  That'd be such a shame.
    Of the people I know, Nora and Jen have great feet.  The ugliest pair probably belongs to Matt.  Rodzilla's are also nice. And if memory serves, James, being Greek, has those sculpted-looking feet.  Jed has your standard-issue feet.  And mine, I've been told, are fairly fetching.
    Anyway, so now I'm in the middle of making a mix cd.  I recently bought a cd burner, and I've been planning the next cd for quite some time.  I must say, I make a pretty damn good mix.  Some have been better received than others, but in general, I'd say they're pretty solid.  If there's one thing I've noticed while gathering songs for this mix, is that my musical taste is completely stale and stagnant.  A lot of the same shit, or at least recently discovered old shit- old Guided by Voices, Superchunk, That Dog, some Leonard Cohen, etc.  I've slipped into a mode where I'm trying to deny that any music has been made since 1998.  Ah, the mid-90's were grand, weren't they?  I don't know what's wrong with these kids today.
    Another topic on my mind lately is names of friends, acquaintences, and girlfriends.  The lack of variety is amazing.  To many J and K sounding names.  I don't think I can handle any more Jens.  And no more Elizabeths, or any names derived thereof- Liz, Libby, Eb, Beth.  It's not that I don't like these people.  I just don't have any more room, and it makes writing about them a pain in the ass because then I have to write long descriptions after their names.  And god forbid if I'm hanging out with more than one Jen at the same time.  The Elizabeth's seem to have rotated out of the roster, but the Jen's just keep coming.  As do the Kateys and Kates and Kathys and Kellys.  Plus, it makes my cell phone a mess when trying to come up with ways to differentiate all these people.  Of course, this won't stop me from befriending anyone by these names.  I need all the friends I can get.  It just seemed noteworthy.  In January and February, ever single person I met was either a Jen or Elizabeth derivation.  No, really.

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