September 3, 2002. TuesdayMy move to Greenpoint was an arduous task, but was actually a bit less of an ordeal than I anticipated. It rained, asi thought it would, but that was about the worst part. Geoff came over to help me in the early afternoon, and we got most of my stuff over in two trips with a Uhaul van. The van cost 2 bucks a mile, and with only a few items left and a 14 mile round trip, I decided to save the money and stayed in Park Slope after the second trip. No one was home in my apartment, and there was almost no furniture, since Josh and I owned most everything in the living room. So I got a meal from KFC and sat in the one chair in the living room and watched TV. I had been feeling sick for the last few days. After gorging myself on greasy fried chicken, I sat in the chair, feeling delerious and bloated, staring at my greasy, smelling fingers. I think I had some sort of existential crises. It was the worst I've felt in a long time, in terms of the full body and soul. Easily the low point of the weekend.
After that, i sat around and played Jed's guitar for a while, and listened to the one cd I left in the apartment. I tried to dust and tidy my room a bit, but that got aggravating. So I went upstairs to borrow a screwdriver from Morning to take apart a shelf. Over the last two years, my tools have slowly disappeared from my possession. So I didn't have any screwdrivers left. This annoyed me. Anyway, Morning and Rachel were hanging out, and they asked me if I could help them out with something. Their roommate Kristin, who just moved out, had found this door in the garbage some time ago, and painted the 15 glass panes. She threw it out during the move, and Morning and Rachel decided they wanted the glass panes. So they asked me if I could help with the excavation and extraction. So I says sure. So I drag the wet door out of the garbage and into the foyer, and we go to town on it with screwdrivers and a hammer. We made slow progress, getting 3 of the panes out after a lot of effort. So I figure it'd be easier to just take the whole door apart. So I sat down on one end and pushed the other end with my feet, then yanked the other end off and basically tore the door apart with my bare hands. I have to say, we were impressed. It was easily one of the manliest things I've ever done. Sure, the wood was a little rotted and had been sitting in the rain a few hours, but it was still a mighty tough order. Anyway, they gave me about half of the door for helping them out. I actually really like it. It's good work.
So after that, the prospect of hanging out in my apartment -either one- by myself didn't appeal to me, so I hung out with Rachel and Morning. Somehow it was decided that we would make pancakes. So I ran downstairs and fetched my newly acquired Perfect Pancake maker. I did indeed make a perfect pancake, though with slightly more hassle than the tv ad would have you believe. And the heart-shaped pancake didn't work out at all. I'm glad I had this dry run to work out the kinks. It would've been terrible had I tried to make someone heart-shaped pancakes and fucked it all up.
Over the past few days, Rachel and I had been talking about what a shame it was that we hadn't hung out more while I lived there, and why we didn't hang out. It was actually a pretty interesting examination of interpersonal dynamics. So it was nice to hang out with her on my last night in the building. I had to return the van at 8 am, so I had planned on staying in Jed's room, since Jed was away for the weekend. But Rachel and Morning offered me their couch, and that seemed more appealing than Jed's flat pillows. I'll never understand his flat-pillow preference. He might as well be sleeping on a folded up towel. Anyway, there was a weird vibe in the air all night, as we had all noticed. Morning said she felt better about having me sleep in the living room, since if anyone broke into their apartment, I'd be attacked first and they could get away. Personally, I think they were all worked up watching me tear apart that door.
So I returned the van on time, then found myself with nothing to do at 8:30 AM. I was supposed to meet James in Greenpoint at 2, and I couldn't pack up the rest of my stuff because I left the boxes in Greenpoint. So I went back up to apt. 2 and slept a few more hours on their couch. I was pretty exhausted, and had had a terrible night's sleep. During the mid-morning slumber, I had some of the weirdest dreams I've ever had. The most vivid segment was one where I was pretending to be the voice of Santa Claus. There was this doll, see, and it had a silky veil over it, with the likeness of Santa on it, and when I put my head under the veil from the side and spoke, my breath made the veil move and it looked like Santa was speaking. Anyway, I was talking to Jed in this dream, and he knew it was me, but was asking Santa questions. One of his questions was "Santa, why is that bear always following me?" and I said "I think because he relates to you!" I was very pleased with my answer. This went on for a while. On the whole, my dreams don't get much weirder than this. It rivaled the afternoon nap I had in college when I dreamt that I had zucchini for fingers.