December 9th,
2001.Sunday
I was very excited when I left work on Friday. i hadn't been that excited about a weekend in a long, long time. It seemed like it was a weekend full of promise possibility. This was not quite the case.Around midnight on Friday, I was sitting around my apartment, drinking whiskey, and playing Crazy 8's with my roommates, as well as Matt and Caryn. Around 12:15, I was thinking "I didn't drink all this whiskey to sit around the apartment all night." So after cooking myself some pasta and eating some of the roast dylan had made, Matt, Dylan and myself walked down to Great Lakes. It was fairly crowded by the time we got there around 1. We weren't there for too long before matt and dylan got into another one of the heated debates. This one was over video games. Or video game systems. Or video game philosophies. Something about video games. I tried to be engage in the conversation, since it's an area of interest. But after about 20 minutes it became clear that there would be no peaceful resolution to this debate. there wouldn't even be so much as an agreement to disagree. Around 2 or so I told them I had to leave, and was hoping they'd leave with me. They did not. So I walked back, talking with Jen K on the phone all the while. I'd just spoken to her 4 minutes earlier, but I needed a distraction on the walk home. I've been trying to get her to come hang out in Brooklyn, with little luck. We discussed something along the lines of the need for human contact, and that maybe she'd come over at some point. I think perhaps she was drunk. But i was completely amenable to the idea. I think perhaps I was drunk. I wonder what kind of drunken mistake might've taken place had we been talking in person instead of on the phone. Probably none. that all depends on your definition of "mistake." Or my definition, I guess. Anyway, at the time, the idea seemed ok to me. And we weren't talking any serious snuggle bunnies or anything. Just a very wholesome night's sleep spent not alone. Still, i must admit it was sort of an odd conversation.
Anyway, on Saturday, I put on my last pair of clean underwear, so laundry had to be done. I was awoken around 1 pm by a phone call from the percussionist I met last week, who uses the name Connie when she performs. I don't have her phone number, so I'm never sure when I'll hear from her. It's sort of nice not having her phone number. It takes all he pressure off of me. Anyway, after doing my laundry, which was a painful process of fighting for a dryer, eluding a semi-mentally-retarded man, and walking in the cold cold rain, I met Connie at the 4th Ave. and 9th St. subwway stop. (For the benefit of the non-New Yorkers, and because I thought it'd be nice to have a graphical representation and I happen to have some time on my hands, I've provided a handy little map so that you may track my movement through the evening, beginning from my home in Brooklyn, "1" on the map.) From there we took the F to Broadway-Lafayette and walked headed down through Soho to Canal Street. She had to pick up some contact lenses. The place was on the second level of a furniture store. It was pretty weird. I like when little hole in the wall of gradiose-sounding names like "Tribeca Vision" (see "2" on map). It's so misleading it's hiliarious. When I hear a name like that, drawn from an entire area of New York, i imagine someplace with a huge storefront and several levels or something. So then we went in search of someplace warm to get a warm drink and maybe something warm to eat. We decided on the Ludlow street area, and thought it'd be best to take a cab. We walked all the way to Houston street, about 10 blocks, without finding a cab. Then I thought we could take a bus the four avenues over. No bus. So we ended up walking the whole way, a journey I probably wouldn't have walked on a bright and sunny day. And it was as unpleasant a day as it's been all year. It'd been in the high 60's all week, but I think now winter is finally here. Huddled under my broken 5 dollar umbrella, we strolled into a restaurant on Ludlow that used to be Standard Notions, but is now some Latino-themed restuarant (see "3" on map"). We split some seafood and chatted for a while. She's an interesting girl.
She's moving to Taiwan in a few months, and knows a fair amount of Chinese. Not bad for a white girl.So around the time we were finishing up, I got a call from Jen K, who was wondering where I was. I was supposed to have met her 5 minutes ago on Houston and Ave. A. Normally 5 minutes would have been no big deal, but she was standing in the cold cold rain, in funny leggings, carrying a bread bowl and spinach dip. So I bid Connie adieu and quick-timed it a few blocks over, to find a disgruntled, soggy Jen K and her friend Claudia. After a minor ordeal, we were finally able to hail a cab. On the schedule for the evening was a dinner party being thrown by Jen's friend Steph. She lives in a swanky sublet on the Upper West Side. There was lots of food and quite a few gay men. For a while, I was the only straight guy there. I was beginning to get the feeling that I'm Jen K's token straight male friend. After a while, some other guys showed up as well. Asian fellows. So there were two kinds of guys there, in total: Gay white men and straigh Asian men. The girls were a little more varied. Anyway, the party was sort of fun. But i didn't know anyone there except for Jen and sort of Steph, who i'd met once for about 40 minutes. And I warned Jen K before we got there that we'd be attached at the hip because I don't like small talk with strangers. But I spent a good amount of time there sitting by myself, not talking to anybody, just eating a lot of food and drinking some wine. I was a little peeved at Jen K, and found myself more and more annoyed with her as the evening went on. That was a little disappointing, since she's been so solid in the time that I've known her. It's also possible that I'm entirely too needy. But she knows this, and we spoke about it before I went, and she was very adamant about me going to this thing, and if the roles were reversed I'd've made more of an effort to make her feel comfortable in an awkward social setting. She said I should've been talking to Steph, but she was busy with hostess things, so Jen was the only person I was really comfortable talking to. Anyway, it's not a huge deal, but a bit of a disappointing night. Not to mention someone stole my broken 5 dollar umbrella. What kind of bastard would steal an umbrella when it's raining so cold outside? So Jen and I left with a few of her friends. There was talk of going to a bar or watching a movie or something, but in the I just came back home, stopping briefly by Jen's place at Union Square so she could tell me she was just going to go to sleep.
So today, i had a huge blowup with the roommates, about an ironing board left outside my door while I slept. I had ironed a shirt to wear to the dinner party and had't put it away last night. So around 9 am, when I opened the door, a was treated to an irony board in the noggin. Outraged, I threw it to the floor and kicked it down the long hallway. It stayed there till about 2 pm, when I was going to go to the city, and Jed told me to put the ironing board away before I left. This led to more indignant outrage on my part, and some minor scuffling between me and Jed. If I'd wanted to, I probably could've made him get out of the way. But at least one of us would've ended up getting hurt in the process. And since I wasn't sure it wasn't going to be me, I thought I'd just stand there and we'd yell at eachother for a while. At one point, I said "Fine!" and told him I'd move the ironing board, and picked it up and hurled it all the way down the hall, where it landed right in front of my door. I don't respond well to passive-aggressive power plays. Sure, it was my fault for leaving it out in the first place, but it's not like no one's ever done that before, and it's not like I've never had to deal with it, and it's not like I ever did so in such a childish way. So I was feeling very, very, very angry. So after arguing with Jed and Dylan, who had done the passive aggressive deed, I stormed out, leaving the irony board where it was and the argument unresolved.So i met Caryn and Nate at Cafe Pick Me Up, had some coffee, then went to some music stores in Midtown. From there we went back downtown to the 2nd Ave. Deli. Caryn thought it'd be a good place to get a meal on the first night of Hannukah. I said "Do they serve ANY sort of cheese there?" She said no. I can't stand this kosher business. Anyway, it ended up being a moot point, because the place was simply overflowing with Jews, and it was at least an hour wait. So we decided to go down to Katz's deli instead. It serves lots of Jewish food, but doesn't abide by all the kosher rules, so everyone was happy. I split a huge pastrami sandwich with Nate. Pastrami with cheese. The hot pastrami at Katz's is one of the greatest things in the world. That' should've been capitalized. Really, it's heavenly. Sometimes I wish my whole apartment smelled like Katz's pastrami. And then I came home. When I came back the ironing board was gone from my door, and for a moment I considered getting it out and putting it back in my doorway, reinforce whatever point I was trying to make when I hurled it there. But I thought better of it. And then I spent most of the evening in my room watching tv, playing the guitar, making mix cds, and doing this. I also put away the Nintendo, and I think it'll be better for all concerned.
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