drinking since noon==yay!

i met morrow for sweet-n-tart dim sum lunch. i'd been wanting to go for quite a while, and it did not disappoint. much more menu exploration to be done, but i am in love with the stir-fried turnip cakes. so much so that i think i could conceivably just hop the train down there after work one night, go to the cafe, and eat that for dinner. deelish. had a couple of tsing tao there, then made our way to grand central and fridays for more inside info. got some good stuff from the bartender there (even though he made a truly awful bloody mary). then there was a shift change and a guy named - i am not making this up - bubby came on. bubby seemed to be missing a few marbles, perhaps explaining why he had a moniker marking him as a yiddish grandmother. oy gevalt. (best piece of info: all manhattan fridays are franchised to the same guy, and he doesn't run nearly as tight a ship as at a corporate fridays. not much flair, no perkiness, no.. spirit. weird.) we were going to part at that point, but the pull of a 9th ave pub crawl was too powerful. i tried going to my po box but missed the post office closing by like an hour. i'll try to go monday, because i haven't been in like three weeks and i suspect i have a big check in there. or at least, i'd better have a big check in there, or heads! will! roll! we found a wonderful little dive pub called mccoy's on 9th/51st that not only wasn't smoky and didn't have music (pure unadulterated ncaa fun on the telly), but had the cleanest bathroom i have ever seen. the bathroom also had an add for thong-specific pantiliners, which just seems like a bad idea to me. had a bass and a few woodpeckers (on tap!), then wandered to grand sichuan for a late bite. family-style rabbit good except for ginger; green parrot with red beak (spinach with chili oil) fabulous; dan dan noodles too hot for my blood. i think there was more beer involved but i'm not really sure at this point. came home.

guess who's blasting his stereo?

jeremie says, "somehow, with an email addr like this, i knew it was spam .... GrowPenisGROW@hotmail.com" [#606/e]
bald scott quickly changes his hotmail id [#729/sv]

posted at 9:59 PM

just returned from dropping jill at the subway station down the block. i am a nice friend, willing to sacrifice my own safety for the well-being of others. we watched fight club here after eating boboli at her place. she'd never seen it. thumbs up, thumbs up.
posted at 11:35 PM

listening to a shoutcast stream and this lovely trembling blue stars song, snow showers is on. there's a lyric repeated, "rain later," that i kept confusing for raine maida. wow, i'm a dork.
posted at 3:47 PM

i am not going to last long with this no-humor assclown in the adjacent cubicle. arg. if he sings one more showtune..
posted at 2:58 PM

you know you're living an alternate universe when you have to verify that walkie-talkie is not a brand name.

yesterday was a long-ass day, which i would have detailed except that blogger was down for upgrades. after my alarm clock otherwise known as james, i was at work for 12 ridiculous hours. frustration mitigated only by free dinner and cab ride home, and the knowledge that i earned a buttload of money. feh.
posted at 1:03 PM

[jameswatch2k]: fucking james, fucking 630a.
posted at 9:47 AM

got stuck at work until 730p, waiting for letterman pr guy to call back and give me information. finally he did, and then i met peter at the subway station and we went up to my place. ordered a pizza (it was horrible, soggy, gross), watched a couple of oscar-nom'd animated shorts from 1999 (old man and the sea, which eventually won, was incredible - absolutely gorgeous, especially anything having to do with water). then we popped the criterion edition of insomnia in the dvd player and watched. i liked it, a lot. right up my alley: quiet, with an underbelly of hurt, and unbelievably stunning photography/shot composition. plus i just like stellan skarsgard. mmm stellan skarsgard. i can see the attraction for christopher nolan to remake the film, and i suspect we have much the same taste. if only i could transfer that predilection i have into a screenplay of my own. if only i could capture that much pain and futility and quiet and channel it into something half that good. if only.

daikichi sushi: major thumbs down. a disappointing food day at all points of entry. (no word on points of exit as of yet.)
posted at 10:48 PM

sat at work until 730p waiting for my story to close. that sucked. peter and i wanted to go see tom stoppard's new play, invention of love, but couldn't because of my unsureness regarding when i could get out of work. worked out for the best, i guess, since he ate a couple of bad street pretzels and wasn't feeling up to it anyway. we will try again tomorrow. if we fail, we'll come back to my place and watch insomnia, which i'm psyched for. mmm stellan skarsgard.

[jameswatch2k]: so i'm sitting watching tv and james appears outside my door to talk to the guy who lives across the hall. gist of conversation: he sent his receiver to be repaired and the guy is dicking him around. james wants to buy a new one, and also lusts after some fabulous speakers with their own powered subwoofers in each one. how fabulous for him. please kill me.

"so what's next on your list? bungee jumping?"
"you're next on my list, andy."
posted at 11:03 PM

work work work. bills bills bills.

[jameswatch2k]: it's so irrelevant that when he starts at 8a, i have to get up 50 minutes later to start my day. so very, very irrelevant.
posted at 9:51 AM

the trip back to nyc pretty much sucked. i got to the airport at 8p for my 920p flight after a classic dinner at hoa kow, where dad and i brought down the average age of patrons by about 30 years. got my seat assignment, changed it to the closest row to the front possible even though it was a middle seat, and lugged my gymbag and case of red bull (i bought a flat of 24 cans at our favorite liquor store on woodward; joshva made a nifty, secure carrying handle out of a dowel and a lot of duct tape) to the bar closest to my gate - c22, just about the furthest gate possible at metro, to the point where i actually took the jankmobile shuttle bus to save my dogs walking a mile - and plopped down to watch the oscars. unfortunately the sound wasn't lout enough to really make anything out and appreciate/abhor what steve martin was up to, and then the bartender kicked me out because i wasn't actually buying anything. so i went to the gate seating area and watched for the next two hours as the flight was delayed for "maintenance". now whether or not maintenance was really taking place, or taking that long, is anyone's guess, although the pilot told us during the flight that they'd had to replace the navigation computer. whatever. at least they got us off the ground and into the gate at lga with relative swiftness.

weekend was excellent. raucous dinner at buca di beppo with josh, jess, et al on saturday night. noble fish saturday afternoon (note: do not get their mackerel again, ever). national coney (didn't feel like hitting laffy) inbound from the airport, then some beer at the berkley front. brunch at grandma's on sunday, bagels and lox. and my dog.

spent an hour at the nursing home with my great aunt. she looks a little better than the last time i saw her, and she thinks a little worse. we returned several times to the same themes ("i used to weigh close to 300 pounds, but now i weigh 137!" "with all of you kids i feel like a millionaire!" "what they serve us here is not food, these goyim don't know how to cook!"), but i also found out she lived in new york for a few years when she was young. apparently she eloped with some guy and ran off to nyc and then came back a few years later and everyone pretended it didn't happen. she eventually married her husband, who was 20 years her senior and had already married and raised a family.

so now i'm back. i wish i could figure out a way to be happy where i am. wherever and whenever i am.
posted at 12:51 AM

my star turn in millionaire was exactly as i expected: two shots, a split second each as the camera ran by, profile, half-obscured by the answers on the bottom of the screen. matt got better face time, deservedly so. episode was just as boring the second time around.

crud, i need to pack. as a reward, i will watch sports night.

"it starts stopping when it stops stopping"
posted at 10:28 PM

evil ed is being stalked. and this time it isn't by me.
posted at 10:48 AM

espn nba's greatest games, game 6, 1988 finals. third quarter, isiah sprains his ankle and keeps playing. host dan patrick and isiah lord thomas iii in the studio, watching it on the tv. cut back to studio: isiah, watching, crying, stumbling through his words, overcome, overcome.

dan: why does it bother you?

isiah: cause you just, i like never watch, i just... you wouldn't understand.
it's, i mean, that type of emotion, that type of feeling, when you're playing like that and, you know, you're really going, you're going for it, you're putting, like, your heart, your soul... you're putting everything into it, and... it's like to look back on that and to know that all we went through as a team and the people and the friendships and everything... you just wouldn't understand.
to see dennis like dennis was, to see vinnie, to see joe, to see bill, to see chuck, and to know what we all went through and what we were fighting for. we weren't the lakers. we weren't the celtics. we were just... we were nobody. we were the detroit pistons, trying to make our way through the league, trying to fight and earn some turf and make people realize that we were a good team. we just weren't the thing that they had made us.

dan: you weren't showtime, you weren't the celts, you were the team that nobody gave credit to.

isiah: ...yeah. and, seeing that and feeling that and going through all that emotion... as a player, that's what you play for. that's the feeling you want to have. when 12 men come together like that, you know, it's... you wouldn't understand.

i understand.
posted at 12:46 AM

fedex just showed up. the fedex chick was nice. i have drugs! all is mostly forgiven.
posted at 9:34 PM

heart attack at work this afternoon. i was walking towards the back to deal with some research and out of the corner of my eye i saw.. angela. or, i thought i did. it was like a dream. and then i looked in earnest, and there she was, a full-color poster of her sitting, leaning against the locker in the hall, just like i'd been searching for years. i knew there was something i liked about tvguide. the tv part.
posted at 6:39 PM

attached to the computer in my cubicle is a piece of CHiPs '99 swag, a rearview mirror emblazoned with the show and tnt's logo. i didn't think much of it when i arrived on monday, but now i don't think i can ever work anywhere again without a rearview mirror on my monitor. it is the most useful piece of graft ever distributed - no more paranoia about who's staring over my shoulder, watching me blog when i should be working, no more wondering if my hair day is really all that bad (of course it is, and now i have reflective verification). i have 360 degrees of coverage. i am in heaven.

guess who i ran into in the subway station on my way to work? sublet dan! i miss him, the lovable smoker that he is. we got along so well. he was looking all lawyerly, and then he started spurting ps2 joy juice and i knew he was the same sublet dan. he wants to get a tivo. i will help him.

fedex might deliver tonight. yeah right. my only options, it seems (other than trekking to their distro in buttfuck, brooklyn), are: attempt to reroute the package to my office, where i don't really exist yet so who knows if i'd ever get it; or, sign the doorknocker they left on saturday to release the package, which they will then leave.. on my porch. i'm almost sure it'll still be there when i get home from work. not.

got suckered into going to the ironminds reading last night even though i had resolved not to attend any more due to social ineptness. after waiting for the fedex fuckers, i ended up missing the whole reading and only had to suffer at the bar (not drinking, even; i decided to have a sober day) for about half an hour before morrow collected those who he was collecting and we ended up at mitali, a restaurant in little india. actually, it's probably not called little india, but i'm calling it that, dammit. 6th street, between 1st and 2nd. it was edible, but i think there are other indian restaurants on the strip that are better. dinner, unlike the bar, was fine and good. i'm much better in a situation like that.

i have nothing to say to this except: hahahaha. different flavor of hahahaha: best. headline. ever.

"the softest bullet ever shot"
posted at 10:39 AM

richard marx on leno singing country music, omfg.

i really need to become tired.

<oppsie> seth had to come back to detroit for more back surgery
<oppsie> i want to respond to his email with 'god wants you to stop sucking cock, seth'
<jdb_> i think if you were to go that route, perhaps a joke about sucking his own cock. though, that's probably more cruel.
<oppsie> good point. i'll do that.

posted at 1:52 AM

where the fuck is fedex?
posted at 7:56 PM

[jameswatch2k]: even if you can't stop the bum rush, you can still pound a red bull. sigh.
posted at 11:31 AM

well, that seemingly nice-but-clearly an asshole mike from att yesterday didn't call back as he promised he would. tomorrow he is getting a nasty call from me - i switched myself tonight *back* to att local (i supposedly switched at the beginning of february, but i guess it didn't take, fuckers), scored another $80 bill credit (I AM OWED) but i want my long distance taken care of as well. their systems showed that i'm an att ld customer, and yet verizon charged me - arg! i hate phone companies, they are all evil, and the only reason i parley with any of them is to scam them as much as possible. now, what to do with the att online billing amazon gc..

work today: not so bad.
posted at 11:01 PM

illy referring to himself in the third person? oooookay.

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Tigers owner Mike Ilitch said Sunday he sees "no
problem" with the current Bobby Higginson contract negotiations.

"We're going to get Bobby Higginson and Todd Jones signed," Ilitch said.

"Todd has done a great job for us," Ilitch said. "And if it wasn't for Mike
Ilitch, Bobby Higginson wouldn't even be here."

Ilitch was referring to last spring, when he opposed some club sentiment
to trade Higginson.

posted at 11:00 AM

rounded up steve and peter for dim sum this afternoon, a wise decision. had craving, craving satisfied. we hit jin fong, which was quite good - better than hsf and triple eight palace, i thought. but as always, more exploration needed.

after that peter and i headed to the BAM! to see a screening of brooklyn babylon, which was the subject of a flap at slamdance this year. director marc levin did q&a afterwards. the movie was decent although quite idealistic, as one person in the audience called it (and levin agreed). not sure it has much of an audience, although i do like the roots. ran into nicholas and his bf on the way out, they'd been to see memento. peter and i caught the end of it before our movie since we got there mad early. still good. hell, still great.
posted at 8:16 PM

[jameswatch2k]: all good things must come to an end. hadn't heard a peep out of him for nearly two weeks. then i ran into him downstairs when i came home last night. guess who's been thumping this morning?
posted at 11:30 AM

att is going to die a bloody, horrible death, swiftly followed down to hell by verizon. fuckers.
posted at 10:22 PM

this is the town i'm living in
this the street i'm walking down
these are the friends i'm visiting
these are the clothes i'm wearing now
this is the house i'm living near
this is the girl i'm marrying
this is the chord i'm strumming now
this is the faith i'm leaning on
this is the child i'm bearing now
this is the love that i've always had
this is the face i make when i'm sad
this is the town i'm living in

this is the hard drive
this is the ocean
have you ever felt yourself in motion?
have you ever felt yourself in motion?

these are the feet i'm standing on
these are the hands that built a world
this is the bed i'm sleeping in
this is the shirt i'm buttoning
this is the pace i'm moving at
this is the tune i'm humming now
this is the road i'm walking down
these are the lips that form my words
this is the stone that i want to turn
these are the people that i love
these are the eyes that look up above
this is the town i'm living in

this is the hard drive
this is the ocean
have you ever felt yourself in motion?
have you ever felt yourself in motion?
posted at 5:34 PM

fucking iona is fucking FIRED. i've been watching the tournament for two straight days (ah, unemployment - a girl could get used to this). hawaii-syracuse is on now and it's a snooze. i'd almost rather watch notre dame beat on xavier.

cooked again for the second night in a row. pasta pasta pasta! the artichoke tomato sauce for the gnocchi turned out so-so; the supermarket only had marinated artichoke hearts, and i was too lazy to get canned, and they tasted icky with the marinade soaked through. the rest was good, though. and i've got a lot of sauce left from last night in a jar in the fridge, mushrooms and garlic (more next time) and meat and tomato sauce. it was highly good. i will use it again soon, and next time i will make it completely from scratch.

gotta get motivated. gotta get red bull. (so close and yet so far; i'd have to go out and grab the bus to get it, or get somebody to deliver, and i'm not going to do that, so instead maybe i'll go to sleep and have a bunch tomorrow (tamales! green beer!).) i haven't had anything alcoholic to drink today. i think that's some kind of record. this entire week has been pretty ass-kicking on the drunken front. but at least it puts me to sleep, although last night i had a lot of weird dreams after jill and i split a bottle of wine. one of them involved going down a private log plume ride adjacent to my grandparents' fictional marble estate, except it was way longer and steeper than any normal log plume. my heart was in my sinuses. i woke up.

np in my head: tim mcgraw/don't take the girl
posted at 12:12 AM

emailed salon editor about the classic tv millionaire piece. i wish he'd hurry up and reject it so i can throw it on ironminds. meanwhile, back at work on kitkat, saying nothing particularly interesting, avoiding screenplay like the plague. i found five pages of something new i'd written about a year ago, which reminded me how i've felt this way for like ever. i should figure out how to pull jacob out of his funk. it might help me out of mine.

and when you get to the end, it's like a cloudburst of song. and there's this peace. and everything is alright. he can breathe. he can walk. he can smile. he can live.

<bossh0g> i cant believe puffy walked!!!
<bossh0g> just goes to show you.. money + public knowledge that you've fucked JLO == freedom

posted at 8:28 PM

i didn't call dad yesterday because i didn't go out except to the supermarket. he called a bunch of times this morning while i was asleep because he was worried i was dead. i might as well give up now, move home and live with him so we don't have to go through this song and dance. it would be so easy. free rent, a car, no distraction. so easy. so easy.

dsl went down again around 1230a, was down for an hour, came back up after i called tech support (and they hung up on me). i'd better get a credit for the day. that means saving $1.33!

gonzaga gonzaga gonzaga COME ON BABY.
posted at 1:32 PM

i hate dialup, lalala. dsl dumped around 215p, has been dead since. at least earthlink knows about the problem, but they have no eta for fixing it. gah.
posted at 4:34 PM

still waking up at 930a, which is pretty good considering late bedtime. and i feel okay. maybe because scott convinced me to kill off the beer in my fridge around midnight. (also devoured remaining cold cuts. mmm.) i need to do something today, but i don't know what as of yet. maybe sd.

tomorrow's moral court, unless the promo i just saw is wrong, is a rerun. wtf?

oh, so, phila. it was so beyond excellent, precisely what i needed at that precise moment. shopped til dropped, scary scary. i got a killer spring raincoat that is basically the most beautiful thing ever sewn, reversible, black on one side, irridescent lavender on the other. yum.
posted at 11:26 AM

dad finally changed my cell phone to a nyc number. 917 in the house, woo woo. had a second interview muze, hastily thrown together when the guy i was meeting with realized he had a previous engagement at the appointed time. ran down, then chatted for fifteen minutes, got out. went fine. he told me that i was the only person who had ever taken their video data editor test that knew what RSDL was. i beamed, naturally. ah, being a geek.

capricola+brie+semolina bread==bliss.
posted at 5:53 PM

dinner with family was good. then they launched into the 'you should move to a better neighborhood' spiel on the way home. sigh.
posted at 1:13 AM

had a fulfilling, non-work afternoon. went to po box and picked up goodies (including a truly excellent thank you note from matt, signed chuck nevitt - genius), got a redbull, went to ew and shot the shit for a while, including sort of shocking annabel with my quick exit from bedford - i feel kind of bad about that, but we'll both live. then to the new italian market by columbia to satisfy craving brought on by watching sopranos this morning: capricola! mmm capricola. also picked up some brie, an apple, bread, and some good-looking gnocchi. i'm set to hide in the house for a few days writing writing writing. which i will start tonight. i'd start it now, but uncle morris just called and invited me to v&t for dinner - how can i say no to that? i wonder if they know yet about the job thing. probably. word travels fast in the fam.

i think my life revolves around food.
posted at 6:19 PM

email weirdness from the sexiest man alive. three long-range bombs in the span of a minute, very bizarre, culminating in what may or may not be a highly flirtatious statement of fact. hmm. hmm.
posted at 12:43 PM

just got back from the rangers/penguins game. steve invited me mid-afternoon, had an extra ticket from his friend tom, who had to go out of town on short notice. we met at new green bo (it had been so long, i felt like a deserter) after i ditched out of work at 5p forever and ever. shanghai kau fu, soup dumplings, and tong po pork. yum. then to msg for beer and bashing. two fights in the first period! overtime! a pretty good game, even though it ended in a tie and did not involve the red wings. you can't win em all.
posted at 10:55 PM

i did it! i quit my job, at 10a. i'm still at work finishing up the crap i was in the midst of. i feel much better now. tvguide on monday, w00t.
posted at 1:23 PM

i have returned from the phila breach. i have some sort of stomach flu or i ate something bad, i don't know which although i'm leaning towards the latter. for once it's not nerves, though.

i..
was...
RUNNING-uh.

(further news tomorrow.)
posted at 11:25 PM

haha. jill just called. apparently five minutes after i left the bar jimmy fallon walked in and they picked him up. i'm so amused. still doesn't explain his hair, though.
posted at 1:02 AM

proof was FUCKING AWESOME. it just does not get any better than that. oh, to write something that good. oh, to be mary-louise parker. i'd put it on my top ten movies of 2000, but it's not a movie. bah.

met jill and her out-of-towner katie at a spanish restaurant near my office. had a bowl of lobster bisque (eh) and split a pitcher of sangria. then we went to the play. then jill didn't believe me that there is a bar in the 50th street 1/9 station, so i brought us there after the play and we had more drinks. and now i am home, wishing i didn't have to work tomorrow. but tomorrow night is phila, and that will r00l.

two words: bob lanier.
posted at 11:47 PM

decadent lunch: brie+redbull. mmm. going to see proof tonight with jill and her friend katie. i've been wanting to see it but haven't because i'm lazy/don't feel like seeing a play alone. only two more hours and i'm free, and then it's tomorrow, and then i go to philly.
posted at 3:45 PM

i have to find one good thing a day, or i'm not going to make it. today's good thing: spending the evening at jill's putting together ikea warez, not thinking about the awful situation i have gotten myself into; going to citibank to deposit paycheck and signing up to be a volunteer police officer with the nypd with the officers recruiting inside the bank.

this is very, very bad.

<rebrane> <rebrane> met irc girl / i was stupid, told #goonies / now i get no sex
<rebrane> epilogue: i live with her now

posted at 1:12 AM

well, i'm here. feeling intense need to vomit. repeatedly.
posted at 11:21 AM

she's not naked, she's my wife! in other news: lamester, and uri gellar predicts your future.

a roach just got away from me. i spent half an hour searching for it. it's probably in my fucking couch. i'm never going to be able to sleep now. fucking hell. and i'm never going to be able to sit on my couch again without being extremely nervous and twitchy. fucking hell. and i have to be up at 9a and now i'm hopped on nerves. fucking hell. god, i need some sedatives, some chill the fuck out bitch pills. every time my hair - my hair! - tickles it's like a roach is crawling in there. fucking hell.

hysterical and useless.
posted at 3:19 AM

my obsession with radiohead/let down continues. my ponderance of the nicholl fellowship begins. another distraction. my problem is that i'm really good at starting and really horrible at finishing. beginnings just have so much promise, they beguile with their potential. and the end - well, that's just it, isn't it?

i want out.
posted at 12:28 AM

it's funny how you can swallow it all back and pretend it isn't there, that it didn't happen to you and that what you're watching has no bearing on or resemblance to your actual reality. how you can just sit there and say, okay. it's okay. i'm okay. and keep it like a secret. it's not really a.. it's not really a lie, per se. it's just putting things away for a while, so you can get through what you have to get through, see what you have to see, and take it for what it is and not what it specifically means to you, specifically, personally. is it worth the effort? or have you been doing it so long that it's not an effort, it's not even close, it's second nature. it's like breathing, like blinking, like clotting after you've been cut. like waking up after a bad dream. like remembering. like realizing.

and then you understand that you can't actually swallow it all back. you're just cold, cold to the core. you're reptilian.
posted at 5:23 PM

now it's like somebody's throwing big, fat rice in slow motion. and i really need to go to sleep, even though i'm totally awake. so i'm going to try that.
posted at 3:39 AM

i want to stay up all night and watch the snow. it finally started in earnest just as night was falling. now it's dumping down sideways. now, that is, now - every time i look out the window, it's changed again. angles, straight down, urgent, wafting, cotton, hail. too wonderful for words. so much variety filed under one blanket term, blanketing the world.

miss cleo has new commercials. miss cleo has the answers. you can't fool miss cleo. call miss cleo for free! 1-800-681-8184!
posted at 2:39 AM

knocked off sopranos from last night. whatever musical genius scored the first ep needs to dj at my wedding, for sure. had a couple of interruptions, though. doorbell rang (wtf?); it was fedex, bringing me the stereo cables that joel sent me in his infinite generosity so now i can pipe mp3s into my receiver/speakers. now i just need a subwoofer, or to figure out how to make my cpu subwoofer work with my receiver. that could be tricky. either way, paul simon now in surround effect, y0. i wonder if my tube socks frightened the fedex man. i should really get dressed.

then the phone rang and it was nba inside stuff offering me a job. sigh. if it was full-time, i'd be there in a heartbeat. but it's part, and variable 20-30 hours, with no benefits, and i just can't do that. so, i can hopefully freelance.

unlike MOTHERFUCKING TIMEINC RAT BASTARDS who will not let me freelance for them anymore because i'm "out of hours" because they changed the rules and no longer pay per word. i was counting on that to make up for the shittiness of my salary. i have to go throw up now.

"love
love
love"
posted at 3:11 PM

i keep running into people i know. two in two days. friday night, curtis from the daily at barnes and noble. i was sitting there with jeremie, reading the third harry potter so i didn't have to buy it, deeply into it when somebody says, "erin?" it was curtis, who apparently made several passes by my chair in an effort to determine, yes, it was me. we talked for a few minutes and i took from it a bit of an ego boost. curtis is living with his parents in nj and working as an assistant/secretary in the publisher's office of random house. yick. then saturday at yama i was waiting for jeremie and sheri to arrive and the girl sitting on the waiting bench with me looked very vaguely familiar (but i could be confusing her with somebody else) and i to her, so she asked if she knew me. it turns out we both went to michigan and must have had a class together or something, plus she's from west bloomfield originally. i'm not sure what the meaning of it all is.

this storm is l-a-m-e. and not the gold kind.

[jameswatch2k]: 8a, of course. still on, of course. then a minute ago james comes up to ask if the music is too loud, like he's trying to demonstrate to me that it's not loud at all. i tell him no, it's not loud right now, but if it were 8a and i'm sleeping, it's too loud. i don't think he grasped the distinction. he invited me downstairs to hear it in his apt where he also claimed it was not loud, yet i had to shout to hear myself. i hope my tube socks scared him.
posted at 11:10 AM

bought some clothes, saw some movies, committed some crimes. full day. but where's the snow?
posted at 1:49 AM

just said goodbye to jeremie and sheri. tomorrow they attempt to get home, but there's a storm a-brewin' so they might not get out of town in time. naturally, i'm like a kid waiting for christmas with this so-called impending doom - worst nor'easter in 50 years? i'm there, d00d. anyway, having them here was good, better than good. went to yama tonight, where we all ate entirely too much but not enough to preclude walking across the village to veniero's for pastry. then back across town for a quick hi to steve at starbucks, then up to my apt. they spent an hour on the phone with northwest trying to get on an earlier flight, succeeded minorly, and then abandoned me to the harlem wolves.

so here i sit, listening to radiohead/ok computer, wondering why i don't have a creative bone in my body that hasn't been cleaned of meat by somebody else first, thinking and hitting brick walls. it's march. it's march and i've done nothing. march of fucking time. am i ever going to stop making excuses?

"let down and hanging around"
posted at 1:02 AM

everyone is finally gone, at least out of my apartment. gabe and jason left after family phone drama with dad ("you're not allowed to drive at night!" "too bad, we're driving at night!") and were immediately replaced by matt. aaron apparently kicked matt out, leaving me to rescue him - he called tuesday afternoon and was like "uh.. can i stay there?" stanley, get your butt up here. matt, supreme sweetheart, arrived with flowers! unfortunately, i have no vase. fortunately, i have a blender i never use. there was an extremely tight moment when it looked like all three boys were going to be staying in my tiny little closet, but luckily gabe and jason left late wednesday afternoon and all was well. had dinner at new green bo for second night and a row. first time having the yellowfish in seaweed - amazing.

thursday matt and i went to a taping of who wants to be a millionaire. holy shit, it was boring as all get out. it's one thing when you're watching real people play for dollars, when it matters, when you can conduct an internal struggle of jealousy vs hatred vs deserving. then there's some excitement involved, either on the game floor or in your stomach. it's quite another when it's a ridiculous gimmick called "nostalgia week," where the producers have coerced former tv stars like adam west, marion ross and kim fields ("i don't take my skates off") to compete for charity. worse, the players not in the hot seat get to help the contestant (first one during our taping: danny bonaduce (BONADUCE, BONADUCE)) with the early answers. at least on celebrity jeopardy! they take the game and the rules seriously.

that said, i'm glad i went; it was a cool experience if for no other reason than to see how low the show can go, and it was rad of matt's aunt to get us tickets (and for matt to take me). next time, i see it with real people. hung out with cousino the rest of the afternoon, walked with aaron and matt down to msg where they were seeing knicks vs celts, then headed back to times square to meet up with jeremie and sheri. had dinner at rinconcito, which was good but not great. i need to find some more restaurants to frequent.

yesterday: matt left (bummer), nailed my interview by dropping scott hastings #35 and pitching a killer story on the evolution of nba hair. we'll see if they call soon. i start work at laptop on wednesday. i need new clothes, desperately. jeremie and i had dinner at awash, an ethiopian restaurant. i really liked it. then i went to jill's and was struck by cruel jealousy over the deal she and dara got on their apartment. then we went to the pub around the corner. not bad, not bad at all.

what time is it? it's tamale time!
posted at 11:55 AM