November 25th, 2001.Sunday
I haven't been able to write for the last few days because I haven't been able to stop eating. Usually, when I go home I eat and eat, thinking that somehow being in my parents' house magically keeps me from gaining weight or something. Anyway, since returning to New York last night, the eating business hasn't slowed down much.On Tuesday night prior, I met Caryn and Matt for dinner in the East Village, then killed some time getting coffee before going over to the Luna Lounge in the Lower East Side. My upstairs neighbor mentioned that her band was playing, and she mentioned liking many of the same bands I enjoy, so I figured I'd go over and check it out. I don't think Matt and Caryn were too impressed with her little pop-rock outfit. It wasn't the greatest band in the world or anything, but I found them not entirely unpleasant. I talked to another of my upstairs neighbors for a little while after the show. She is also in her own band, albeit one with more raucous and less melodious stylings. She seemed pretty interesting. Thinking about the conversation later on I felt like maybe I was talking way too much. When Matt and I came back to my apartment afterwards, we talked for a good while about my tendency to hijack conversations, and how I can with absolutely no problem turn any conversation into a conversation about me. It's really terrible. And I'm totally honest about it. Matt will ask me a question, and I'll answer, and sometimes even give him a somewhat informed response, but after 15-20 seconds, break off and say "...but what I was really devoting my mentally energy to..." and begin on something else I was thinking about and wanted the both of us to address. This is the kind of condition that is at first sort of amusing, but has turned the corner and become something slightly troubling. I'm really having difficulty paying attention to anybody if there are no immediate implications on my life. Whenever I turn someone's comments about themselves into a little rant about me, I know exactly what I'm doing, and I hate it. But i realize it about two seconds too late, so I have really no choice but to continue my little tale. Mostly because I don't want to interrupt the flow of the conversation. That's another issue.
On a completely unrelated note, I really like sitting in my room at one in the morning, in soft lighting, sipping iced tea, writing, and listening to the new Silver Jews album. I guess this is not a completely unrelated note, since it is about me, and I was just writing about how I can't be interested in anything besides me. By the way, one of my first papers in grad school was a criticism of the Silver Jews album American Water. My professor, a somewhat renowned rock music critic, said I made David Berman seem like "a solipsistic pain in the ass." I didn't really find that accurate at the time, but thinking about it now, I'm starting to think maybe it was my intention to make him seem that way, in an effort to make one of my favorite singers into someone I could relate to better.
Anyhow, the few days at home was generally fun. I mostly stayed at home, eating, watching tv, and playing my brother Galvin's newly-acquired Nintendo Gamecube. I want to buy one, but I really don't want it in my home. I'd never get anything else done. Though it's nice that we could all do something together as a family. Even my dad got into one of the games. My mom, on the other hand, spent more time in what was once my room playing Snood, to which she is now hopelessly addicted. The only times I left the house were to go shopping for clothes, a few trips to Bed Bath and Beyond for new beddings, and to drive my brother Garrick's car, which I stalled a few times on the road whilst trying to learn to drive stick. In regard to the beddings, it's sort of silly how excited I am about my new duvet and new pillow. But considering how much I love sleep, I thought it was a good investment to maximize my bed-time comfort. i also need a really heavy comforter. When I bought my comforter two years ago, i had to go to several stores in an effort to find the heaviest possible one. I think it weighs in at a whopping 54 ounces. Most comforters weigh about 46-48 ounces. With the duvet, I'd say I'm well into the high 60's. We like this. I've got the window open right now, trying to make my room as cold as possible, so that I'll be extra cozy under my four pounds of warmth. But the weather is being unseasonably unaccomodating. It's like 60 degrees out.
My brother's girlfriend came home with us for the Thanksgiving holiday. She brought her relatively new cat along with her. I had to sit in the back seat of our rental car with the cat. At first I was a bit annoyed, but I had a good time tormenting the cat. Every few minutes I'd open the top of her carrying box and say things like "I hope you like it in there, because you're never leaving!" and slam the box shut. Or "You'll be steamed pork dumplings before morning!" For most of the weekend, that's what I called the cat- Steamed Pork Dumplings. Or "Dumplings" for short. "C'mere dumplings" I'd say. Or "Where's my steamed dumplins'? Who's a good dumplings? Who wants to be dipped in soy sauce and ginger root!?" I got a big kick out of that. I've never been much of a cat person, ever since I was in 5th grade and a cat came and ate my pet chicken that I'd gotten as a school project. We were supposed to raise the chick for two weeks, then take it to a farm or something. But i couldn't bear to do that, so we kept it. then one day I came home from school and my dad told me the chicken was gone, and I cried and cried. So I hated cats from that point on. I'd tell people I hated cats, but for reasons like they're boring and whatnot, but deep down I knew that i really hated them because a cat ate my pet chicken. I know it was just one cat, and it was sort of an illogical reason to hate all cats, especially since I knew precisely which cat had done the deed. It's sort of like Matt's irrational hatred of all Hondurans, which is based on one bad encounter with one bad Honduran. Two years later, Geoff got to bring home two chickens. We had those guys for years. We used to feed them leftovers from dinner, which sometimes included chicken. We got a really sick chuckle out of that. We used to take them out of the yard and put them in neighbor's trees, or our own trees in the front lawn, and hide and watch people double take as they walked down the sidewalk and notice two chickens sitting in the bare trees in the dead of winter. We got a big kick out of that. The neighbors, however, i'm fairly sure hated us because the chickens would do their chicken thing as the sun rose every morning. i must admit, that was a little embarrassing. And now our dog wakes the neighbors with his crying, and he does this all all hours of the day, not just early mornings. The vet calls him "the singing dog." We should take him on the road. Anyway, the point of this paragraph was really just to say that I've somewhat softened my anti-cat stance. I can't help it. that little Steamed Pork Dumplings just loves me so much.So once we were back in NY, Geoff and I and ladyfriend and ladyfriend's roommate came back to Brooklyn and had an enjoyable meal at Dizzy's, the overpriced gourmet diner down the street. Geoff subsidized my meal, so it was actually worth what I paid for it. Then we went down to Great Lakes where Matt joined us for a bit, before going to some bookstore/jazz thing in Midtown. It sounded expensive, and I woulda been playing 5th wheel, so i passed and came back here and played guitar for a good little bit and went to bed. Then today I drove into the city, dropped some stuff off with Caryn, and we returned the rental car. God I miss having a car. Especially when we were standing in a urine-drenched section of the Delancey St. subway stop. Caryn's computer had a meltdown recently, and I spent all afternoon trying to link or computers over our little apartment network, so we could copy her stuff to my computer and erase her disc. it was very aggravating. Garrick has been my own personal help desk for all such matters. It's a nice little hotline to have. I can give out his number if anyone's having Mac problems. Anyway, Caryn split a box of Kraft Deluxe macaroni and cheese with me, so that pretty much evened out with the terrible computer chore, a chore that isn't even finished yet. Her computer's still here, and she's asked me vehemently several times to not go through her stuff. I must say, normally I'd be knee deep in secrets right now, but for some reason I can't breech a friend's trust. It's probably because I know there's nothing about me in there. I like when I can bring an entry full circle by bringing up a topic from the first part in the last part. That being my self-centeredness. Anyway even if there was anything about me somewhere in all her emails and files, there's probably nothing bad. Or nothing bad that I didn't already know she thought. And if there were, I think I'd be absolutely crushed and terribly disillusioned and have a lot less faith in the world and I'd wished I never knew. So we'll just ignore this potential pandora's box of personal woe, and just leave things with tempting names like "journal" alone.
However, I seem to be finished with this, and am now terribly bored. Thought it is late. And I do have work in the morning. But it's all sitting right there, two mouse clicks away.
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