February 20th, 2003. Thursday
The weather today is appreciably better than it has been in weeks. Which is good, considering I lost one of my gloves on Saturday, and have been reluctant to buy another set. I'm hoping against hope that it'll either turn up somewhere, or that it'll get warm pretty soon. In the meantime I'm walking around like a one-gloved fool.I did a lot of this walking last night. After work, I met Jen at Cafe Orlin in the east village for dinner. On the way, I managed to step in a large puddle of dirty melted snow. This was the second time I'd done that during the day, and it was just as unpleasant. The water just slowly seeped into my shoe and then spread through my sock, by the magic of capillary action. Another terrible side effect of lots of snow is that now it's ten times more aggravating to walk behind slow people. It was bad enough, trying to maneuver your way through the crowded sidewalks, but now it's so much worse, because the shoveled paths through the snow are so narrow, sometimes only wide enough for one person. And of course you have the requisite baby strollers, dogs, and idiots, lolly-gagging down the street like they've got all day. So I found myself darting in front of people, leaping over mounds of snow, and just generally making a much more concerted effort to get in front of people. The key was to identify an open space, and then committing to getting there before it close. For the last month or so, I've been walking around in a terrible mood, angry at people in general, which makes my walk a very quick, deliberate, and determined gait. The biggest tangible result of this rage, as I discovered yesterday, was incredibly well-defined calf muscles. Once extremely flabby, my calfs have become rather imposing. I must say I was quite impressed. Anger...gooooood...
So it was good to spend a little qt with Jen. I can't remember when the last time was when just the two of us hung out. But I'm sure it was a long time ago. It used to happen with semi-regularity, but since movie out of Park Slope, I've barely seen her at all. Which I don't like. But it's only been in the past few months that i've really noticed, truthfully. When I moved out of that neighborhood, I really needed to get out of there and take a break from everything that was there. I was in a terrible rut, and it was the sort of all-consuming rut that requires drastic changes. So I moved to Greenpoint, settled into the neighborhood with Miss Charming Melodee, and generally became ok. Though lately I've become rather depressed about my job situation and options. But as far as friends go, I knew that by moving farther away I would appreciate them more, and that's totally been the case. I miss hanging out with them regularly, and it saddens me a bit to no longer feel as much a part of that group as I once did. Of course, this was entirely of my own doing, so I really can't complain. I've been hanging out down there a lot lately, and it feels different. It's doubtful I'll stay in my apartment when the lease is up, and I'm considering a move back to central Brooklyn. It certainly is prettier. Of course, MCM won't be moving, and she's kinda pretty herself. Fortunately, I have a good 5 months to decide.
So after dinner, Jen got it in her head to go record shopping. She wanted to buy LP covers to put in these frames she has or is getting. Luckily, we were on St. Marks, where there's tons of records stores. Or at least used to be. Maybe it was the shitty weather, but all the stores that normally have crates and crates of records out were closed or just not putting records out. So we went upstairs to Kim's Video, which I hate because of one bad experience there. But I ended up getting the Best of Leonard Cohen on vinyl for 5 bucks and change, so it was a success. Jen was looking for attractive record covers, but also hoping to find a record she liked, so I suggested the Loose Fur album that recently came out. I base my music decisions almost solely on the reviews in the Onion. I've long believed that they're the most credible, well-written, and thought out reviews you'll read in a mass-market publication. Or any publication, for that matter. And even reading through their back-reviews, it's been pretty consistent as far as movies and music I like that they also liked. And they generally like the Loose Fur album. So she bought it, along with Pavement's Brighten the Corners. Now that I look at it again, the Loose Fur cover looks like something the Gus might've painted, only slightly less-textured. I thought that style seemed familiar.
We stopped for a quick hot-chocolate and a few cookies at Cafe Pick Me Up. Hadn't been there in a while. Hadn't been in the East Village in a while, for that matter. Used to go there all the time. So the whole evening was kind of like visiting the past life. That used to be my routine. Wander the east village, end up at Pick Me Up. I almost miss those days. But not really.
Then we walked up toward Union Square to go to the Virgin Megastore and so I could check out the comic book shop. The walk up there, only 6 blocks north and a few west, was fraught with peril. We'd both already had our run-ins with deceptively deep puddles, but some of them were just ridiculoud. One was like a lagoon. I opted to jump most of them, barely making some of the jumps, if at all, while Jen tried to walk over the piles of snow, which was generally more successful. Except for the one doozy where she sunk in up to about her knee. Gross. It's these damn wheel-chair accesible sidewalk corners that they've installed. If it weren't for those, almost none of the corners would be flooded like that. Is that insensitive of me to say?So I spent the rest of the night looking for the trade paperback of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. There's a movie version coming out, and I'd always been interested in the comic. When part one came out a couple of years ago, I missed it, and couldn't find it, so I decided to wait until the whole first anthology came out. Which it just did. It's a pretty interesting concept. It's written by Alan Moore, who did Watchmen and From Hell, which is what piqued my interest. But the premise is pretty cool. He's collected characters from different 19th century literature, put them all in the same reality, and assembled them into a Victorian-Age Justice League of sorts. There's Captian Nemo, Mina Harker from Dracula (the Winona Ryder character from the early 90's movie version), Allan Quatermain, Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, and the Invisible Man, and from the cast of the movie, there's Dorian Gray. The movie also adds a grown up Tom Sawyer, who is now a detective. And the whole gang is brought together by a guy named Campion Bond, who is an ancestor of James Bond. The art looks great too. It looks a lot like the style of Tim Sale, who did the Batman Long Halloween and Daredevil: Yellow books, among others. So that's what I'm going to be spending my evening doing. Secluded in Greenpoint, ignoring everything else. Almost.
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