June 7th, 2002. Friday

 
    I've been terribly busy and terribly sick for the last few days. I woke up on Tuesday feeling like crap, and woke up on Wednesday feeling like day-old crap. I called off both jobs on Wednesday, but still went to my writing class, which I started on Monday. I hate everyone there. They all make inane little comments that don't really say anything or go anywhere. One guy actually said "...and I think there's some famous quote about how it's harder to write something short than something long." I was like, fuckhead- The professor gave us that goddam quote the first day of class, 48 hours ago! And now you're trying to make like it's from your vast wealth of knowledge, and you can't even remember the goddam quote or even who it was. And these people make comments just for the sake of making comments. They don't add anything to the subject. I think they're still working in that regular collegiate mode where you have to speak because you think class participation is important to your grade. And of course that's not really the point at all. In many ways, this class is worse than the class I took last summer. But at least this one isn't full of retirees. This one is full of frustrated professionals- a lot of advertising people, a doctor, some publishers, etc. It's sort of like my shitty NYU classes, except without Caryn, Kathy, and Katey, who were just about the only redeeming qualities of that particular experience.  The one word that kept coming to my mind was "pedantic." And I wasn't even 100% sure of the definition. But for some reason, everytime someone spoke, I saw the word tatooed on their stupid foreheads. And now that I've actually looked it up, it certainly fits.

    One interesting note about the class though: When I sat down on Monday, I immediately noticed this girl sitting on the other side of the room. It turned out I'd gone to high school with her. I hadn't seen her in 8 years. I'd wondered about her from time to time, because I knew she went to NYU for undergrad. I kind of wondered if I'd ever run into her. And here she was. I also remembered that I loaned her a videotape late in our senior year, and I had never gotten the tape back. So after class I went up to her, and she was all "What are you doing here?" and I was all "What are you doing here?" After asking, "So, what have you been up to for the past eight years?" I said "Don't think I've forgotten that you never returned my videotape." Nice to know I can hold a grudge that long. She said she wasn't sure it was me until she saw my name on the class list. It was actually my handwriting that gave it away. And the same with me. For some reason, her signature looked really familiar. If she'd gotten married and changed her last name, I still would've know it was her. In short, there is no hiding from me. So don't even bother trying. You are mine.

    Yesterday was a pretty trying day. I felt just as bad as I did on Wednesday, but went to work anyway. I saw one of the girls from upstairs on the train, and had some sort of nonsensical conversation I think. I was pretty out of it, and couldn't really hear all that well from the congestion and the train noise, and probably should've just not spoken at all. But I tried to have some sort of dialogue. Anyway, I spent a lot of the day in a haze, doing more transcribing work for Caryn. It was with Brett Michaels, the lead singer of Poison. I was actually pretty interested in what he had to say, so I didn't want to give the tapes back to Caryn to have one of her interns do it. Plus, the hundreds of dollars is also quite an incentive. Mr. Michaels seems somewhat delusional about his band's place in rock and roll history, but he seems like a nice guy overall. Some interesting stories, including how Slash was almost the guitarist for Poison, instead of raspy-voiced, cocaine addled C.C. Deville. That would've been interesting.

    One of the girls who works in my group had jury duty yesterday, so I had some extra tasks to attend to. Though I put these off until an hour before I left. I took about a two-hour lunch, meeting Rodzilla in the West Village. Whenever we make plans, there's always some sort of hitch. Either one of us doesn't show up, or is late, or she inevitably gets lost. It's quite befuddling to me, the frequency with which she gets lost. The sickness had put me in a crappy mood to begin with, and the lateness and lostness certainly didn't help. But once I found her on Cornelia street, I felt ok. So we sat for a minute on a bench outside Murray's Cheese shop on the corner of Bleeker. I can't believe I've never been in that place. Anyway, I really didn't want to move, and would've been content sitting there for an hour. But that Rodzilla sure likes to eat, so we walked down to the Cornelia Street Cafe. We both had brunch, and sat around leisurely, laughing to at each other and to ourselves. Rodzilla does a lot of internal laughing. It's kind of weird. You watch her, and you can tell she's just amusing the hell out of herself. At first it made me feel excluded. Now it's just something to watch. It hasn't really hit me yet that she's moving to Boston in two months.

    So I also had to work the night job last night. I'd called in sick the day before, and I guess they either didn't believe I was really sick or were just exacting some sort of petty revenge, because they made me watch "Boston 24/7," a new reality series that focuses on the city of Boston. This is apparently the trend this summer. During the show, there were commercials for the upcoming series "Houston Medical" and "State V." The job just got worse. Anyway, I did get more transcribing done, and now have enough money to buy this digital four-track that Caryn had to get reviewd for Spin. I was pretty pissed off when I left, though, stepping out shortly after 12:30, into pouring rain. It was really depressing to get home at 1:30, go to sleep, and wake up six hours later to go to work.

    I heard my boss getting bawled out today. Not pretty. I felt really guilty, like i'd let him down so he was getting reamed. I'm also running a bit of a fever, I think, have inexplicable itchiness, am all stuffed up, and may be mildly depressed.  Though the latter is most likely a sympton of the formers.  Most likely.  I did just sit with Caryn for a few minutes in the park across the street, which was a nice little diversion. I can't really take a lunch on Fridays, but Caryn has "summer Fridays," so the last two weeks she's come down to visit for a bit. Later in the evening we're going to see Mary Timony play at the Village Underground. I absolutely love Mary T., and was a huge fan of Helium, so I'm sort of excited to see the show. I must say though, lately I do a lot of things that sound good in theory and when the time they're supposed to happen is far away, but when the day of the even arrives I don't really want to go. And if I didn't already have tickets to this gig, I'd probably go home and go to sleep. That's why I don't like planning things in advance.

    Jen has completed her move to Brooklyn, which we are very excited about.  We hung out a bit on Tuesday night.  We ventured down to Uncle Louie G's on 7th ave. for a couple of milkshakes.  We thought maybe we should just gorge ourselves on icecream and pizza, then go throw up.  It sounded oddly appealing to me, and I told Jen I'd hold her hair if she held mine.  We wouldn't make a habit of it or anything, but you know, just every once in a while, it feels good to pull the ol' trigger.  So I am told.

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