Today’s soundtrack:
but their empire crumbled ‘til all that was left
were the stones the workmen found.

Today at 8:02pm: At hapkido I had to teach today. I was a little nervous but it ended up being fun and I enjoyed it.


Two or three years ago Spaz got me a Nike watch for my birthday. I love that thing. But the battery died for it last month and I haven’t had the time to get it replaced.

I wore it while it was dead and blank for one week because I have a tough time breaking out of cycles. Finally I stopped wearing it and it sucks. Every place I’ve tried to get a new battery doesn’t have it. I’m gonna have to suck it up and go to Niketown because I’m tired of nervously glancing at my wrist on the subway.

Sit down while I tell you a boring story. (If you’re already sitting down then stand up.)

1994, ancient history, right? Back then DVD was just “David” with no vowels and I was a college senior looking for internships.

Two important things about New York: Connections and being in the right place at the right time. A friend of mine was abandoning his design internship at a corporation where he was making fifteen bucks an hour. For a college kid ten years ago fifteen bucks an hour was a lot of fucking cheddar.

The week he quit, I called the place up to ask if they had any openings. Why yes we do young man, it’s lucky you called here today. Pshaw, luck had nothing to do with it.

I dragged my portfolio up to midtown. I remember it was windy that day, when I got out of the subway my portfolio kept getting blown sideways, like I was levitating this big leather rectangle. I wore a cheap tie and the wind tried to take it off my neck.

The corporate people liked my work and I aced the interview, probably because I was filled with the dorky, cheerful optimism of a naïve college boy who’d never lost a friend, met people with herpes or gotten lost overseas. They hired me on the spot.

Afterwards I left the building and went around the corner to 50th Street where they used to have a bank of payphones. Struggling with my portfolio, I dug a quarter out of my pocket and called my parents like a freshfaced Iowan going “Mom! Dad! I got the part! I’m gonna be a big star!” What a dork.

I’ve been freelancing at that same corporation, on and off, for nine fucking years. And I realize this is the only institution I’ve attended somewhat consistently for that amount of time. College only took me five years. My stint overseas was a year and change.

Do you know what the benefit of going to the same place for nine years is? It’s that you get to see people age before your very eyes. I’ve seen a hot woman turned gaunt and tired. Seen people put thirty to fifty pounds on. Watched people’s hair go gray, watched their skin sag and their eyes sink. I look in the mirror and think I look the same since I’m the youngest one there. Sometime I’ll scan in my old and new ID photos and you can tell me if I’ve changed.

The bank of payphones is long gone off the corner of 50th Street; there’s nothing but a couple small holes in the resurfaced sidewalk. Stepping over the holes are people jabbering away on cell phones.

I look down at my watch, as if I can measure the passage of time, but find myself staring at my wrist again.