April 17th, 2002. Wednesday
 

    I feel a little better today than I did yesterday. I don't really know why, and i don't really want to invest any time in finding out.

    So... last night, after work, I went for another run through Prospect Park. It's a real chore, especially when it's over 80 degrees out. Today is supposed to be in the 90's. That's nutty. I don't like how we've just skipped spring. Last week it was in the 40's. Anyway, after the run, Jed and I were on the porch, looking at the crescent moon. It was one of those moons that I like to call "A crescent moon that's not fooling anybody." Meaning you can clearly see the rest of the moon, even if it's supposed to be obscured. Down on the corner of 8th Ave. and 9th st., as well as the corner of 7th ave and 9th st., where both subway entrances are located, there were people set up with fancy telescopes, the kind that matches the rotation of the earth. They were apparently watching the moon, or the star right beneath it. This is the only time of the year when I know the night sky, since this is the time of year I took astronomy in college. During the warm months, you can always count on these telescope people to set up shop on these corners. It's kind of cool, really. It's a good time of year to see Mars and Saturn. Saturn looks especially impressive, what with the rings and whatnot. It almost looks fake, actually. It looks a lot like the logo for the Sci-Fi channel. I think Jupiter may also be visible. I remember having to go to a 4am lab for astronomy, but I don't remember what we were looking at. Anyway, that was the one class I really enjoyed, and I wish I could remember more about the night sky. I mentioned to Jed if there was a way to just upload information into your head, complete knowledge of the night sky at all times of year would be one of my top choices. He disagreed. So we ran through our top five. The process wouldn't be like the Matrix, where skills can instantly be acquired. It's just pure knowledge. In this scenario, say, you couldn't all of a sudden become a professional baseball player or excellent guitar player. You could, however, become a very knowledgeable car mechanic. Jed's list included the aforemention car mechanic, as well as a foreign language. He said he'd want to know a language no one would expect him to know, like Korean. His top pick was to be able to identify and have knowledge about every kind of plant growth in the world. I suppose that would be more useful than the night sky. Unless you find yourself lost in the middle of the ocean, without a global positioning device. Anyway, Jed and I seem to devote an appallingly large amount of time to these sorts of conversations. Also discussed was the fact that Jed's lost so much weight, he can't wear any of the pants he bought in the last three years, and how his old pants have belt buckles that are terribly out of style.

    Then I volunteered to help our upstairs neighbor Morning collect her laundry. She offered to buy me a slice of pizza in exchange. She said she'd offered someone 50 dollars the other day to take her laundry down for her and pick it up, but he declined. I coulda used that money. Anyway, she ended up no wanting pizza, so I got a large taco from Uncle Moe's instead. Tasty. Then I went out to meet Jed and Matt for a drink. It was a fine evening to sit outside and drink, so Jed thought that's what we should do. So we made plans to meet at the Gate, the bar on 5th ave and 3rd st, with a large outdoor patio. I got there first, to discover that the most of our fellow Park Slope residents had the same idea. The place was packed, with no chance of getting a seat. As I was waiting, I ran into Betsy and Paula, the Great Lakes regulars i met a few weeks ago. They also had the grand idea of drinking beer outside. It was weird, actually, because as I was walking down to the bar, for some reason I thought "I wonder if I'll see Betsy and Paula there." I was sure they'd be at Great Lakes. How odd. So we tried to think of other places to go that had outdoor seating. They had just come from Bar Ries, which was my only other idea. Betsy said that Excelsior, the gay bar down the street, had a patio. But I said it was probably jammed pack there, so we nixed that. So matt and jed finally show up, after walking up to 7th ave. instead of down to 5th. We ended up walking down to O'Connors, way down 5th ave on Bergen St. Had an ice cold beer, and called it a night.

    After getting home, I talked on the phone with Kathy for a long while. She's still plugging away out in SF. It was a pleasant conversation, and I felt a lot better afterwards. I don't know that it was necessarily anything we talked about that made me feel better. It was probably just the process of having a pleasant conversation with a good friend. I've been considering a San Francisco trip for months now, and I think I may actually go in May. We shall see. '

    So I just got lunch from the deli on 6th ave., where I get a sandwich at least once a week. On my way out, some guy in a purple smock was asking if he could pay with a subway token. The cashier says no. Then I hear all this screaming. The Asian owner comes out and says "I told you to never come in here again! Get the fuck out!" And the guy yells at him for cursing. Then more screaming as he's leaving. Then the guy in the purple smock says, "You need to get out of this neighborhood, and out of our country!" A passerby on the sidewalk said "Damn!" The irony in this little race war was that the hate-monger's purple smock said "Housing: A Constitutional right." It then listed the appropriate Amendment. I wish I would have read it his shirt, because I don't recall an amendment that guarantees housing. Regardless, as a scholar of the Constitution, he apparently skipped right over the Amendments about life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, race, equal protection under the law, etc. Of course, it's his right to voice his opinion. But that doesn't mean he's not a dickhead and imbecile. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got, and by the time I got back to the office I was fuming. Part of me wishes I'd still been in the store when it happened. I'm sure I woulda done something or another. Which I don't normally feel. But I've been in a bad mood lately. I'm feeling very self-righteous right now. Which is how I usually am, truth be told, but not as outwardly as I am right now.

    This is the second day in a row that I'm not happy with what I wrote, and feel the need to acknowledge it, because it's easier than going back and writing something new.