Sit tight...
I was almost relieved that the long weekend ended when it did. I don't think I could have taken much more recreation. Wednesday night, I went with Jed and his friend to Great Lakes, where we met some of his friend's friends. It was actually her old roommate and his girlfriend. He's apparently not too thrilled with this girl. I thought she was sort of cute. When she spoke, she had a sort of a crooked mouth going, which I thought was kind of attractive, but could see as sort of annoying after a while. After a few hours of sitting around, I figured out that I had met her once before at the bar. I don't remember when exactly. But once I told her I'd spoken to her she also remembered. I felt sort of weird talking about it, because I didn't want her boyfriend to think I'd tried to pick her up once before. Which I hadn't. At the time, Matt and I had both thought her and her friend were kind of terrible. We were just waiting to snag the same table, and the sat with us. But I found her company pretty enjoyable for the most part.
At my writing class on Wednesday night, my story was read aloud. It was about the mugging. For some reason, quite a few members of my class thought my last two papers were written by women. Which i find sort of odd.
Thursday was insanely, and I mean insanely, hot. It was unsane. So Jed and I sought refuge in each other's arms. Um, I mean, we sought refuge at the Pavillion movie theater in Park Slope. We decided to go catch Men In Black II, or MIIB as it's billed. It was an amusing enough distraction. It was only about 80 minutes long though, which was easily explained by its paper-thin plot. It could have easily been a script for an MIB tv show episode. But some funny gags and jokes, and most importantly, the theater was nice and cool.
Sitting next to us was a pair of cargo-short wearing lesbians. Prior to the movie's beginning, they were having an impassioned conversation about softball. They were very angry about this woman who said she was a pitcher but apparently couldn't pitch. They also lambasted another womyn who "couldn't judge a flyball to save her life." Jed and I were greatly amused by this, as it was the most Park Slope type moment we've witnessed in a while. Also amusing to us- one of the previews was for the Vin Diesel spy movie "xXx." After the trailer, one of the womyn commented to the other, "I can't believe the crap they're make out in Hollywood!" My first thought was, what a terrible cliche these women are. These were by far the most generic lesbians I've encountered in quite some time. My second thought was "Now wait just a minute. That's a fine opinion and all, but you do realize you're watching this preview while waiting to see Men In Black II? A sequel to a summer blockbuster, fast-food tie-in, action bonanza?" For a second, I was afraid we were in the wrong movie. Then, of course, when their view of the Hollywood crap was obscured by two small children standing up in front of them to sort out their candy, one of them got up and angrily barked "could you sit down please." Sometimes it seems to me that being lesbian gives some people a misplaced sense of entitlement.After the movie, Jed and I sat around the apartment, wondering why no one had invited us to a Fourth of July barbecue. A few of our friends, like James and Matt, were out of town, and they were the most likely to sponsor such an event, so that was one reason. A bigger reason, at least for Jed, was his "failure to cultivate casual friendships," the kind that get you invited to barbecues thrown by people you don't know all that well. So we sat around for a while pondering how it was that we had no friends. Then we decided to just throw our own bbq. The two main problems were: lack of bbq grill and supplies, and lack of adequate bbq site. We decided the back alley between our apartment building and the surrounding buildings would be good enough. Jed said he had seen kids back there a few days ago skateboarding. Later he figured out it was just a dream though. He knew this because he had opened his window to yell at the kids. But in reality, he couldn't really open his window because of his air conditioner. Hence, he realized it had to be a dream. He was very proud of this. Our bbq resolve was undeterred, however.
After some amazingly effective comparison shopping down on 5th avenue, we were able to get everything we needed for a two-man bbq- including grill, charcoal, food, and beer- for around thirty bucks. So we set up shop outside my window, passing many items through the window and walking the rest around the corner, and I hooked up my computer and cd player and played music out my room. I'm not a huge fan, but the Allman Brothers Band definitely has its place at times. And one of those times is while cooking food outdoors. So we cooked burgers and dogs and drank Coronas and sat in the shade. For some reason, when Jed opened our beers, the bottle caps flew about three stories high. Besides that, it was relatively uneventful. A genuinely fun time, as two-man barbecues go. No complaints.
In the evening, Jen came over, and we took a car down to Great Lakes. The crowd was pretty awful, and the for the last part of the evening while we sat at the bar, I had to endure this guy who was just talking so much shit to these two girls I couldn't concentrate on anything else. The entire conversation centered around music, and most of it was in the vein of: "Yeah, I can't get into Black Rebel Motorcycle Club because they don't reinvent anything." "Yeah, I remember seeing Jane's Addiction for like 6 bucks in high school." "Yeah, I got their EP like a year and a half ago and no one had even heard of them." "I have their cd on import, because no one in the States knew about them yet." "Yeah, I just love really opinionated people." Oh, really? Cause I had an opinion or two for him. I fucking hate people like this. If there's one thing I hate more than a pretentious asshole, it's a pretentious asshole talking about music. I would actually prefer if someone were to say "Listen, I'm really fucking cool. Seriously. You're going to be amazed just how fucking cool I am. No, really. I am so cool you won't even believe it." I can imagine an instance or two where that might be considered charming, not counting the instance where you're saying that next to that guy talking about music. At least it's sincere. This joker's conversation was akin to carrying on a conversation about one thing or another, but while talking, handing someone a piece of folded up paper that says "Do you see how cool I am?" It's not exactly subtle. I hate this shit.
On Friday, my roommates had to work, so I called Jen after waking and we made brunch plans. We brunched at Sotto Voce. My fusilli in a four-cheese cream sauce with walnuts made me sicker than anything I've eaten in a long time. I've had that particular meal there before, to great satisfaction, but this time it was bathing in a cheesy, oily mess. I actually sucked on the lemon peels from Jen's iced tea, so badly did I need to get the taste of that grease out of my mouth. One amusing thing was the crazy old man sitting at the table behind Jen. He switched seats about four times, and tucked his napkin into his shirt. This was a shame, because he was wearing at shirt with a green dotted line on it, and underneath the line, in red letters, it said "Fill to this line with margaritas." We found this hilarious.
Despite the upset stomach, it was a lovely day to be outside, and the outdoor meal was very pleasant. It was so nice to have a Friday off. So I suggested we go up to the Park. We walked quite a bit, and after a while Jen was complaining, since she wasn't wearing sensible walking footwear. But I really wanted to go to the Boathouse, where the Audubon society is, so we could look at the birds. Jen was less than thrilled. She had poo-pooed my excitement at seeing a Great Egret in the pond a few weeks ago, when I said it was a relatively rare bird to see. So I wanted to take her there in hopes that we would not see it, so she would be impressed with our not seeing the bird, in order to make my sighting more impressive. We didn't see it. But she still wasn't impressed. I don't think she was too impressed with our outing in the Park in general. Though we did have a pleasant beverage outside.
A periscope in the shape of a hawk
Jen, by the pond outisde the boathouse. We really like that bridge.
Me, pretending to point something out so the picture doesn't look so posed.
Jen, in front of the boathouse. That's the boat underneat. I think its the Independence. It was curiously filled with Hasidic Jews on that particular journey.
In the evening, I went to the movies with my upstairs neighbor Andrea. The movie was Lilo and Stitch, which I had actually wanted to see. It looked amusing. And it was. I hope for Disney's sake that the movie does extremely well, because judging by the trailers before the movie, the well has gone dry. The cupboards are bare. They seem to really be banking on the movie called "The Country Bears." This movie looks like someone forgot to release it in 1985. It's about a bear who's adopted by a human family. Mercy.
Anyway, after the film, we got an Italian ice, then went to the Lakes for a drink. My third night in a row there. Another weird crowd. We sat at the bar, and were entertained by a number of peculiar characters. I still don't know all that much about that girl, but I find her rather interesting. At least, I manage to pay attention when she speaks. And that's fairly rare for me these days. Anyway, the evening didn't go as I'd hoped, but went pretty much exactly as I'd expected.
Saturday was spent in the park, and then another bbq was had, this time with more than twice the number of people attending. In addtion to Jed and myself, Jed's friend Laura was there, as were Jen, Josh and my brother Geoff. Have I mentioned that I have too many friends whose names start with J and K sounds? In my mugging story, my instructor told me I should change the names, since Katey, Kathy, and Caryn were too confusing. Anyway, bbq was good. Food good. Company good. There was a strange haze in the air all day, and we were afraid it was going to rain. But once the sun went down it was clear that the haze wasn't fog or clouds. It was a fire. We didn't notice the burning smell obviously, because we were cooking over open flames. Apparently, a huge forest fire was going on all the way up in Ontario, and the smoke had drifted as far south as Philadelphia.
Now that's a good looking grill.
I was just told by James that the jeans I am currently wearing, which I wore to the bbq, smell like salmon. He wasn't even there and didn't know what was cooked.
Jed and Geoff at the back alley bbq.
A mere portion of my and Geoff's meal. Jen often remarks, incredulously "It's really remarkable that you're not morbidly obese."
Then, yet another trip to Great Lakes, my fourth night in a row. And another terrible crowd. Though I did run into a couple of people from my night job there. One of the guys saw me and told me to come over and say hi, because no one else believed I was there. At first I sent Geoff pretending to be me. I thought that was funny. No one believed it was me though.
For some reason, even though I hate the show, I was up until 3:30 watching Sex In The City. I hate that show. I wasn't watching hours and hours though. I'd watched the end of this movie about the war in Sarajevo, about a Croat and Serb who were friends, then wound up enemy snipers. Then made the odd transition to Sarah Jessica Parker in a grey, pinstripe pantsuit.Spent sunday pretty much the same way I'd spent the rest of the weekend. Rode my bike, ate some, played a lot of guitar, rode bike some more. Stopped by Jen's place with some ice cream bars, then helped her make some guacamole. In the evening, met Rodzilla in Union Square for a movie. The movie was The Minority Report. About what I expected. A few plot twists that I didn't really see coming, though the biggest twist I had sort of suspected. Toward the end of the movie, some guy with a plastic bag came up and sat right next to us, then three minutes later abruptly got up and left. This made me very paranoid, and I asked Rodzilla if he'd left anything under his seat. I was distracted for the rest of the movie. Anyway, we both agreed the movie was "alright." Then we sat in Union Square for a while drank coffee and tea, respectively. She showed me the picture of this bartender she met on Saturday with her parents that is in the early stages of stalking her. He's a comedian and he gave her his postcard-sized headshot. He's bald with a goatee, and kind of old. It's funny now, but it could be zeroing in on scary an minute.
A view from the eastern end of the Long Meadow in Prospect Park.
(l-r) My left knee, my right knee, and two buildings on Prospect Park West.