Today’s soundtrack: ...a stream of absurdities
Today at 9:02pm: having a Spider-Man moment



I saw a car thief tonight. Just now, actually. It was on Houston Street between West Broadway and Wooster, where I was walking after dinner.

I pass a silver Audi and this guy is standing in the street, doing something outside the driver’s door. If I’d bothered to think about it at all I’d have figured he was the car’s owner.

Suddenly the alarm goes off, whooping and looping siren, flashing headlights. Predictably, no one else on the street looked up; the only reason I looked up is because it was right next to me. If they want people to look up they should replace the siren with a shrill, prerecorded human voice screaming “TITS” over and over.

Anyways the guy turns and immediately walks off. But walking all stupid-crazy fast, like when you see footage of people walking in the 1920s. He takes a quick glance at me--I’m staring straight at him--and speedwalks off.

I’m surprised at 1) how obvious a getaway he’s making and 2) how normal he looks. White guy, thirties or forties, cream-colored windbreaker, blue jeans, dark curly hair, glasses, baseball cap. Carrying a soft briefcase with a lot of compartments. I guess that’s where he keeps all his thieving tools.

He makes a right and cuts down Wooster, and I’m kind of going that way anyway so I make a right too.

A third of the way down Wooster there’s a parking lot on the east side of the street. I guess the guy doesn’t know the neighborhood well, because when he sees it he pauses, like he’s going to cross the street and go into the parking lot, which is a dead end.

He thinks better of it and continues down Wooster. Steals a glance over his shoulder to see if I’m still behind him, which I am.

Midway down the block there’s another parking lot, this time on the west side of the street, but this one goes all the way through the block to West Broadway. He makes a right into this parking lot and I lose sight of him.

Walking at my normal pace, I reach the parking lot and look down it just in time to see Cream-Colored-Windbreaker-Wearing Car Thief Guy all the way at the other end of it. He must’ve ran across it after he hit the corner. He bangs a left on West Broadway and that’s the last I see of him.

For a second I’m thinking to myself, “Go after him, catch him. Do some Hapkido on his ass and call the cops. Or run after him and yell ‘Stop that man, he’s a thief’ like in the movies.” After all, my own car has been broken into multiple times, so this would be my chance to make things right as a victim.

But then I’m like, what am I, a fuckin’ superhero? I’m not gonna get stabbed or peppersprayed or maybe just plain ol’ have my ass kicked so some Audi driver can have a lead on who tried to steal his airbags. Besides, I’m tired, and how can you fight crime under those kinds of circumstances.

The ironic part is, the reason I’m tired is because I went to Hapkido earlier in the evening. Practicing the very kick that might’ve helped me break this guy’s ribs, but I drilled it so much my legs feel like jello. Horrible, I know; it’s like masturbating so much you’ve got no energy left over for actual sex.

Lena was running the class tonight, and this woman is like G.I. Jane. She’s the most physically-fit human being I’ve ever met. If I was walking on the street with Lena and then Godzilla suddenly showed up, the first thing I’d do is strap myself to Lena’s belt because she could probably run away while dragging me behind her and still outpace the fleeing mob. She probably wouldn’t even notice she was dragging me unless I got snagged under a bus or something.

Well, sorry, Audi driver. But it doesn’t look like Cream-Colored-Windbreaker-Wearing Car Thief Guy got away with anything anyway.

My legs feel like jello. Did I already say that? I’m gonna be feeling it tomorrow.

Incidentally if you and I are ever walking down the street and Godzilla shows up, don’t tether yourself to my belt. Because if you do I’ll cut the line, drag you in the direction of Godzilla and smear whatever kind of sauce Godzilla likes (I’m guessing it’s honey mustard or Mesquite barbecue) all over you and push you down and run away.

1. Tell me something obvious about you.
I digest my food through a process known as peristalsis.

2. Tell me something about you that many don't know.
I’m the kiiiiiiing, of rock

3. What is your biggest fear?
Don’t have any big fears, I’ve got lots of little fears. Nanofears.

4. Do you normally go the safe route or take the short cut?
I always combine the two, using a special technique I call Safecuts.

5. Name one thing you want that you can't buy with money.
A fucking reasonable health insurance plan.

6. What is your most treasured possession?
I have one of those funky orthopedic pillows (the kind they sell in a chiropractor’s office) that kicks ass. I sleep like a rock with this thing and let me tell you, getting good quality sleep makes all the difference.

7. What is the one thing you hate most about yourself that you do often?
Ironically enough...hating myself. My personal psychology is a moebius strip.

8. Tell me something sexually about you that I don't know.
I once got shot in the cock with a paintball. I’m not kidding. It was in the woods of New Jersey and it wasn’t just in the “crotch area” it was a direct hit. Felt like someone laid it on a block and smashed it with a hammer; thought I would go blind from the pain. Luckily it healed and I was able to love again.

9. Tell me something sexually about you that everyone knows.
I just realized that the way these two questions are written, it sounds like I’m supposed to answer them in a sexual way. So, (said in a seductive tone) I’m straight.

10. What is your favorite lie to tell?
“Relax, I have performed this type of surgery hundreds of times.”

11. Name something you've done once that you can't wait to do again.
Learning patience.

12. Are you the jealous type?
Internally: Yes. Externally: My spouse could tell me “I’m going to fuck your best friend and I’d like you to videotape it,” and I’d set the camera up and film the whole thing without blinking.

13. What is the one person, place or thing you can't say no to?
Angry, armed people. If you happen to rob the bank I’m in, I am your model cooperator. (I make a terrible hostage though, so don’t take me hostage. Women and children, it’s them you want.)

14. What is the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?
An ex-girlfriend once bought me a spanking new dobok and a book about Hapkido I really wanted.

15. If you could do something crazy right now, what would it be?
I’d eat a croissant and put butter on it. That’s crazy! They’re made with butter!

16. When was the last time you cried?
During Ray. (I ran out of popcorn and got really sad.)

17. When was the last time you felt so good that nothing else mattered?
Last night, when I was asleep. Sleep or sex always do the trick.

18. Do you feel comfortable in public with no shirt on?
“No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service.” That shit is real.

19. Name something embarrassing you did while being drunk.
Tell you the truth, there ain’t a single thing; all my humiliating moments take place when I’m sober.

20. If you post this in your journal would you like me to answer it?
I’m going to empower you to make that decision on your own.

Today’s soundtrack: let me down the easy way
Today at 10:02am: going through a revolving door



When it comes to writing I don’t enjoy going to “File” and clicking “New,” not when I’m conscious of it. I don’t like the way the cursor just sits there and blinks at me. It’s much better when I have an idea and just do the mouseclicks automatically on my way to putting letters on the page.

Today The Corporation finally called me back, but they only had six hours of work, which I managed to finish in three. It’s stupid to work fast when you get paid by the hour but I don’t like dragging work out.

So to get some cash flow I’m in the process of gathering every single thing I can sell on eBay. Gotta get rid of stuff. I’m the type of guy that enjoys throwing things away (CDs, my past, old books, my future) so I might as well try to make a couple bucks.

After I came home from work I hit the keyboard like Ray Charles. Tried to, anyway. Tickling the plastics, banging out paragraphs instead of chords. The book-fellowship application deadline is this Friday and I’ve got a college gig this Thursday, so there’s plenty of writing to be done.

Eventually, prompted by my inner child’s screams I went out and got myself dinner. Only dropped $1.75 (thank god for Chinatown bakeries). Brought it back to the house and popped in a Netflix black-and-white. Only it wasn’t a black-and-white; North By Northwest, I discovered, is in color. I didn’t see how that was possible since it came out in ’59 and Psycho, which came out in ’62, was black and white.

The funny thing is I come home from The Corporation on Park Ave and stick North By Northwest in, and the first shot in the movie is of Park Avenue, a few blocks from where I just was. Except that that particular camera crew was on that sidewalk around forty-five years ago.

Now it’s almost half a decade later but the streets really haven’t changed that much. I mean visually.

One of the establishing shots then showed the revolving doors at the hotel across the street from The Corporation, the hotel I’d stared at this afternoon and countless others while taking my cigarette breaks.

Topping it off, when Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are on the train to Chicago and he asks her what she does for a living, she says “I’m an industrial designer.”

I’m an industrial designer. That’s what I’ve blown the last decade of my life doing up at The Corporation.

I also took that same train line to Chicago, but I didn’t shag anybody right before it went into a tunnel. Probably because I don’t look like Cary Grant or have the interpersonal skills that qualify as charming. Trust me, I don’t. You might be on this page because you enjoy something about my writing, but I guarantee you if we met in person the conversation would get cold before the coffee would. You’ve had better chats with pets and seven-year-olds.

Anyways. Blondes ain’t my type, but man, that Eva Marie Saint is really something, in black-and-white or color.

During the course of my recent classic movie education I was also disappointed to learn that Audrey and Katharine Hepburn are not, as I believed, sisters. They’re not even related.

Well, this is why I’m not a homicide detective. Even if I do have the vices, shitty sleeping patterns and poor diet of that vocation.

Another thing I’ve learned: Citizen Kane is so dull I couldn’t even finish it. I’d rather have anesthesia-free dental surgery than sit through the first three-quarters of that movie again.

Something about Orson Welles’ face is eminently punchable. And yet there are people calling this The Best Movie Ever Made. So I’m either crazy or I have Orson Welles issues.

I go to “File” and click “Close.”

This guy named Doug Stewart did this funny thing where he took S.W.A.T. hand signals and wrote his own definitions of them. I read his page and laughed out loud.

I hate to be unoriginal, but I thought I’d take a crack at writing some of my own definitions, printed below:

Today’s soundtrack: for all the dreams and schemes people are as they seem
Today at 2:45am: nuking leftovers



Photos like the one above are the whole reason I bought a camera. I see photogenic moments all the time--walking around the city, you can’t help it--but it’s a lucky day I actually happen to capture it. Sometimes I spaz out trying to break the camera out in time, other times I fuck up the auto-metering and receive unpleasant surprises later that night when I plug the camera into the laptop.

It’s funny though, getting a good photograph is almost not worth anything unless I can share it with hundreds of anonymous strangers on the internet. Otherwise it just sits in my iPhoto index, and maybe I come across it one day and get ten seconds of indescribable pleasure. Indescribable because I’m not sure of the exact psychology; I only know a bunch of synapses start firing in the pleasure center part of my brain, and then I feel somehow sated.

It’s a big deal to me, being sated. Sad but true. I’m a hedonistic amoeba, a pleasure-seeking simpleton with little in the way of long-range plans. Sex, coffee, cigarettes, tunes and beats, pleasing visuals, dogs with black lips, reliably funny people.

You know what’s scary? Think about the things that make you happy, and map how many of them are attached to material objects. Be a good student and make your own worksheet, working off the sample:


Sample Worksheet for Life’s Pleasures and the Expenses They Incur


(Pleasure): (requirement)

Music: iPod and computer.
Driving: Automobile, car insurance, gas and parking fees.
Coffee: Coffeemaker and steady supply of grinds and filters.
Smoking: Zippo, lighter fluid and steady supply of Camel Lights.
Dogs with black lips: Free.


Then there are things that supposedly don’t cost anything in terms of finances, but some of them carry other, hidden costs.


Pleasing visuals: Free.
Pleasing visuals for sharing: Camera, computer, internet connection.
Sex: Free (theoretically, and not counting time, emotional expense and excruciating conversations about What Your Relationship Means).
Love: yeah, right
Reliably funny people: Incalculable. I think I know two, maybe three. If I was President I’d have the Secret Service protecting these guys instead of me. If you inconvenienced them in any way it would be a capital offense. Laughter must be protected at all costs.

Looks like a bunch of stuff I’m into is tied to material objects. What would I be, without my objects?

I have no idea, and I’m not inclined to find out. I mean what am I, Socrates? I got enough problems trying to figure out how I’m gonna make the rent next month. I’m not even sure why I wrote this entry.

So, uh...what would you be without your objects?

Today’s soundtrack: like a box of positives it’s a plus, love
Today at 5:45pm: carrying my dinner home in a bag



Thanksgiving coming up.

For a guy like me the holidays are a weird hang, because I don’t yet have a family of my own, and I’m too old to spend it with my parents. Which isn’t an option anyway because they’re out-of-state, doing their own thing.

I actually don’t mind spending the holidays alone; my nightmare is to spend them with someone else’s family, enduring scheduled merriment and being forced to witness the train wreck that is the modern family condition.

Still, I’d like to spend them doing something different than what I do every day. Meaning I don’t wanna just be sitting in the house going through my papers and cranking out dreck by the bucket, and I damn sure don’t want to be at the office. I want to do something fresh.

On Thanksgiving and Christmas the city is dead empty, and sometimes that’s fresh enough to satisfy me. This year I had ideas of getting in the car and driving up to Canada for Thanksgiving, since it’s just a regular Thursday up there, but I may have to work this Saturday.

To compensate I may drive to Montreal in December. It’s freezing up there but it makes it that much nicer when you settle into a warm café. I’m seeing hot coffee, French nattering and the foreign background noise that will throw the foreground into fresh relief.

The first Christmas I ever spent completely alone, I mean totally by myself and with absolutely no one to talk to, not even the guy down at the diner, was December 2001. I wasn’t here, I was in China. Back then, in New York at least, everything was still about 9/11 and every newspaper seemed to have Bin Laden’s face on it. I was glad to get out of the country. I spent nearly three weeks in Asia, riding trains with headphones on, listening to Al Green instead of hearing about Al-Qaeda.

The calendar caught up to me on the 25th in Shanghai, when I was sitting in a Kentucky Fried Chicken trying to save what was left of my money. (Intercultural Lesson: Chinese dollars are called RMB, not to be confused with the genre of music.) At first I didn’t realize it was Christmas; I was sitting there wondering when they would stop looping the awful holiday music when I happened to notice the date on my watch.

I know it’s silly but at first I actually got a little scared. I remember looking at my plate of half-eaten Spicy Chicken and feeling scared, of what I don’t know (though it wasn’t the chicken, you idiot). It lasted for a second then passed quickly, or turned into enjoyment, like the fear-turning-to-thrill one experiences on a rollercoaster. I’m using that analogy for your sake, I can’t stand rollercoasters. But hopefully you know what I mean.

I finished the chicken, killed a biscuit, washed my hands--I remember they had a sink right out in the dining room, like it was an E/R or something--then went out to wander the night streets of Shanghai. I think I bought myself a scarf as a present. Travel is a crapshoot, sometimes you meet people, sometimes you don’t. I didn’t make any friends in Shanghai. I think I wasn’t in the proper frame of mind.

There is a ghost of a girl whose name isn’t Janet I’d like to spend the “big days” with but it’s simply not possible; I may as well be wishing to drive a Ferrari. She’s out of reach.

Well, my days won’t always be like this. They’re pretty okay now, I’ve definitely got nothing to complain about, but I think someday they will be better.

Now I remember, I did buy a scarf. It’s blue and I think I’ve still got it somewhere. After I post this I’m going to go look for it. Then I’m going to put it on and look at German pornography until I flinch.

Today’s soundtrack: to all the people who can quest like a tribe does
Today at 11:22pm: chowing down in a diner



Some friend-of-a-friend came over the other night and peed all over my toilet seat. Twice, it was totally gross. And she wasn’t even drunk.

The ironic thing is this girl seemed so self-absorbed. I wish she was self-absorbed when it came to bodily fluids. I’m never letting a stranger in my apartment again.

Tonight a friend dropped in unexpectedly. She was distraught, looks like she and Mr. She are on the rocks. I tried talking to her and it didn’t help. I tried listening but lost my patience. I tried cheering her up by taking her out to a movie, but I forgot my medicine rarely works on others.

The things that make me feel better and the things that make others feel better, the things that make me feel shitty and the things that make others feel shitty, they’re almost never the same things. Within these miscalculated equations lie the basis for why me and society can’t jive.

Perhaps I should only meet with people to eat. Everyone likes to eat, right?

Wait, I can’t even do that. Most people eat three squares a day, and I prefer four triangles. I’d rather eat more meals and in smaller proportions. I think three squares a day is an unnatural and contrived way to eat, made popular by factory-worker schedules and, indirectly, the Industrial Revolution.

Sleep beckons, and I nod (off).

There’s a ghost in my bed.

Today’s soundtrack: pretty-eyed, pirate smile
Today at 3:20am: making midnight confessions to the walls



An apartment for two expands to hold twelve. Steamed fish is served. Wine is to anecdotes as beer is to off-color jokes.

Friday night in Manhattan and I’m at a dinner party on the LES. Somewhere in the middle Film Guy and I step outside for a smoke. We man a railing in front of the building.

On the sidewalk across the street, a grip of Latino cats having a good time. They’ve got a social club going. It’s a Latino thing, an Italian thing, a Greek thing, an immigrant thing. A rented storefront with an open front door, interrupting the row of steel-shuttered stores that are closed for business.

Through the doorway I can see wood paneling, a crush of bodies standing and laughing, and a large-screen television that doesn’t need to be turned on because when you’ve got twenty of your homeys it’s entertainment enough. You pool some cash together and you can get a space, escape from domestic noise, get away from your kitchen where the bills are stacked up on the table like Jenga, forget about the shit you’ve gotta do to pay the rent.

In front of the store is a white minivan with the doors open, a living room on wheels. Cats sprawled on the benches, jawboning with homeys standing on the curb. Mixed into it all, peculiarly, is one white hipster chick.

“I want a minivan,” says Film Guy.

“Me too,” I say.

Somewhere behind us, inside the building, the dinner party continues. Used to be everyone would be smoking inside at these things. Before, during and after the meal, like it was the ‘70s. As I’ve gotten older most of my friends have either quit smoking or quit the group (marriage and so forth), so now smokers are the anomaly and I have to go outside.

Film Guy just got back from L.A., as he has to on the regular to conduct business. I ask him how it went, he says so-so.

“So you movin’ there, or what?” I ask him. He’s been talking about it for a while.

“Not yet,” he says. “I’d rather struggle in New York.” I echo the sentiment. The weather’s too nice in L.A. to struggle, at least for us being from here. You can’t take a guy from a place with brutish weather and drop him in a place with vacation weather and expect him to perform the same. If I see the sun and it’s warm five days in a row I feel like I’m on vacation. In those conditions deadlines don’t stay dead, they get up and run over to next week.

I always felt there was a reason countries like England or Germany did the colonizing and warmaking, and part of that reason is because the food and weather sucks there. Know what I’m saying? Like, if your culture develops on Barbados or Maui or Costa Rica and you’re eating pineapples all day and chilling out at the beach, the last thing you’re thinking is “Man, I need to go out and conquer some shit.”

You watch a sunset in Hawai’i and it won’t even occur to you that you can invent a rifle and use it to put holes in someone else’s torso.

Film Guy knows the situation in L.A. better than I, since I’ve only been a handful of times, and he asserts it’s better to land there when you’ve already got some shit on. I’m inclined to believe him, especially because I’ve been watching Entourage. Have you seen it? The show is so-so but the characters are great, because they’re from Queens and they’re soooo outerborough. And I mean that as a good thing.

Which is not to say I don’t wish I was in L.A. sometimes. To be surprised by yourself or others. But yeah, it would be nice to have some shit on.

Today’s soundtrack: a glass of wine in her hand
Today at 8:32am: commuting by shoe



If you can’t always get what you want, it means one of several things:


a) You don’t know what you want.
b) You want too much.
c) You know exactly what you want but haven’t the faintest idea how to get it.
d) You’re lazy.
e) You listen to the Rolling Stones too much.


Right now I’m looking at b), d) and e).

Perhaps I will make better progress tomorrow. Which leads me to

f) you procrastinate too much.

Today’s soundtrack: she get her back twisted in the unlisted
Today at 6:02pm: crossing the intersection diagonally



Fucking a, man. This week is Ex-Girlfriend Week. I got them stopping by the house, calling me up at all hours, and they all want the same thing: For me to make them feel better.

Which I do, of course, because you kind of have to, right? I mean how could you not when you’re their Go-To Guy? And I am The Go-To Guy. Shit fucking sucks sometimes.

But I’m not complaining. I can’t stand it when people complain so I am not complaining.

One of them called me up over the weekend, something about closure and blah blah. Another stopped by this afternoon. A third called to wake me up this morning, she’s Ex number...oh, who the fuck’s counting anymore. Said she couldn’t sleep all night. Was up thinking. Not about me, about her new guy, whom she just found out not only has another girlfriend, but is also married to a third, different woman, with whom he has a kid.

Lovely. And as I’m rolling over groggy and listening to this, my first thought was man--from a time-management perspective, the fuck does Joe the Juggler pull this shit off?

I held the phone to my ear and lay with my head face-down in the pillow. She talked until I said the right things--it’s easy to say the right things to an ex-girlfriend--and then at some point she got what she needed and hung up.

I rolled over and put the phone back, then lay there and blinked about a thousand times. Made that face you make when you know you’re not gonna be able to get back to sleep.

Got out of bed, cussed some, put the coffee on. Leaned against the kitchen counter and waited for it while the heat from my bed slowly evaporated, or whatever the fuck it is heat does when it goes away.

Today’s soundtrack: we are nearly civilized
Today at 2:02pm: sitting on a bench, watching the Sunday city go by



Whatever exists in real life, exists on the internet. Multiplied by a hundred and with a fraction of the depth, and yet so very, very essential.

We refer to internet things with names that allude to real-life things so people can understand it better. Take e-mail, the operative word being mail. “It’s like writing someone a letter, only faster!” Except it’s not a real letter and when you’re getting thirty or two-hundred a day, well, they lose a little something, and so do you.

Then you’ve got viruses. In the real world they make people sick, in the internet world they make your computer sick. In the real world people cure them, in the internet world people invent them.

And of course you’ve got relationships, internet relationships. Internet crushes and internet girlfriends. People you trade e-mails or comments or IMs with, who knows how it starts, then one day you get home and turn the computer on hoping you’re going to see their name on the IM window and when you don’t you feel sad, like some girl turned you down in a bar. You pine for her bytes, you long to be intertwined in her IMs, you want to put your 1 in her 0.

Sometimes you end up meeting the people in real life, but more often than not you never see their face. Maybe a grainy facsimile, Photoshopped and JPEG’d, that you can be damn sure bears little resemblance to the face attached to the neck attached to the shoulders attached to the arms attached to the hands that are actually typing to you.

But I’ll tell you a little secret: It doesn’t matter what they look like, no. It don’t matter what they smell like or how fucked-up their hair is. Shitty fashion sense? Not a problem. Lisp? You’ll never hear it. Clammy hands? You’ll never touch ‘em. What matters, the only thing that matters, is if you can still get The Connection.

In real life the connection is hard to come by and occasionally a real pain in the ass to maintain. For chicks the connection is a guy who’ll listen to them, who understands them, who capital-R Respects them. (At least, I think; believe you me, I’m no expert.) For guys it’s a girl that will sleep with them. On the internet it’s something else.

I don’t know what that something else is, even as I seek it out.

There was a girl in Vancouver I’d trade music with. We’d line up a particular track and hit the ‘play’ button at the same time, so even though we were three time zones apart and in different countries with the moon in different positions above our dreaming heads, we’d be listening to the same parts of the song at the same time. It crescendoed in New York when it crescendoed in British Columbia. We didn’t have sex, we had synchronicity. And unlike sex, I could smoke during it.

Months ago I met a girl at a bar in the Village and we ended up fooling around. Neither of us looking for spouses but both of us tired of sleeping alone. Later in the week she went to the airport and I never saw her again. We kept up over voice-IM though, at least for a little while. Our iChat/AV interface was broken so while she could hear my voice, I couldn’t hear hers and she would have to type her responses. I’d get home from work and talk to my computer and her words would pop up in response. Our IMs tapered off, and then she got engaged.

There’s another girl who writes pages on the internet. She pines away for some guy she’s dated, writes these things about him, it’s all very eloquent. She and I have never met, but this guy she’s writing about, I’ve been pretending it’s me. It’s sick, I know, but it makes me feel better. Lying to myself five minutes at a time. I get a nice if dishonest relief when I go to brush my teeth at night and remember a sentence she wrote and think she misses me and that’s really sweet of her and wow, what a nice thing to say.

Then afterwards I get into bed and read a magazine, and when that gets old I turn the light out and try to occupy as much space on the bed as one person can. Sometimes I stare at the ceiling for a while, but most of the time I’m so wiped out I fall right asleep.

I exist in real life, and I exist on the internet. As it stands the latter version is the better of the two.

The shot as I took it:

The shot as interpolated by the Adobe Auto-Levels Gnomes:

Must try not to touch the Auto-Levels.

Reminds me of the movie Time Bandits where the kid says “Mum, Dad! Don’t touch it--it’s evil!” they they look back at their kid, before turning around and touching it.

Today’s soundtrack: I thought my luck had changed
Today at 1:02pm: zipping beneath the Hudson River in a nearly empty PATH train



I have a pathological inability to finish things.

When I used to live in Fort Greene, after work I’d take the train home from midtown, and after the long F to the A to the G commute (I don’t mean my commute was “FAG,” I mean I had to take the F-train to the A-train to the G-train) I’d walk the final two blocks to my apartment, and by the time I was within fifty yards my steps would start slowing, without fail, every time.

Now why should such a thing happen? I should be happy to get home.

When I lived in Dumbo I’d come back from clubbing shortly before dawn. My ears still ringing from the bass, I’d park my jalopy front of my building and shut the car off and just sit there for a minute. Not doing anything, not thinking anything, just sitting there.

The book, the book, the book. I’ve been “working on a book” in one form or another for longer than I care to remember. But now I have to finish it, and the damn thing has to sell. I’ve gotten myself into an ugly financial bind, a hole so deep my ordinary fiscal repair measures are not enough to get me out.

It all comes down to interest. Interest from debt is burying me but interest in the book will save me.

I'm applying for a literary fellowship and the deadline (for an outline and sample sections of the book) is December 3rd.

You wanna know what’s humiliating? I applied for this fellowship before but didn’t get it. Wait, that’s not the humiliating part. At the time I had a literary agent, a rising star in the business who’d apparently put together some kind of million-dollar deal for another writer.

Well my agent, it turns out he was one hell of a writer. He applied for the fellowship too. I didn’t get it; he did. After that he quit being my agent--he quit being anybody’s agent--and started being an author.

I attended a reading he did; it was fucking stellar; this cat could write. I remember taking the elevator back downstairs afterwards. It was ten stories and my body almost caught up with my stomach.

I like that the deadline is December 3rd. You know why? Because last August 2nd I turned 33. And by December 3rd of this year I’ll be 33 and 1/3, like an LP. I’ve been waiting for that day for so long.

I have a pathological inability to finish things. With the exception of sex. That orgasm thing, wow, what a motivator.

Anyways. Just let me end this entry by saying

skyfort

Today’s soundtrack:
It’s gonna be rougher, it’s gonna be tougher
And I won’t be the one who’s gonna suffer

Today at 1:22pm: chewing slowly



I’m minding my own business in the low end of fifth gear when a minivan blows past me in the left lane. He’s doing at least ninety, ZOOOOOMM. He disappears around a bend and becomes like one of those pretty girls you see on the six-train: Never to be seen again.

Two minutes later I’ve got a State Trooper on my ass, filling the rearview mirror with his angrily flashing blue-and-reds. I keep waiting for him to swerve around me and tag the minivan, but after a moment it becomes clear I’m the one in the crosshairs.

I sigh, and smoke comes out, because I’m smoking, and pull the car towards the shoulder. God bless New Jersey State Troopers.

Then I make my mistake.

I go to ditch the cigarette--probably not a good idea to blow smoke in the cop’s face, I figure--but I don’t want to chuck it out the window like I normally do, so I try to drop it in the can of iced tea in the cup holder. Nervous, I make something of a spaz of myself trying to get it into the hole.

The cop parks behind me diagonally. Weird. Positions the car in such a way that when he opens his door, the car is shielding him...from me. Then he gets out, hand on his gun, and creeps around to the right side of my car, doing some crazy Pink Panther moves while checking my shit out.

He slides up on the right super-cautiously, moving as if he’s shuffling along a ledge, and I can’t see his gun arm. This is making me fucking nervous. Petrified I’m gonna sneeze and get a hail of 9mm slugs instead of a “Ga’bless you.” I keep my hands at nine and three, suddenly understanding my frantic fumbling with the cigarette might have made it look like I was “doing something.”

While one of the cop's fingers is on the trigger, another finger’s got a ring on it, and he raps it against the passenger side window. I power the window down. “Good afternoon, officer.”

“License and registration,” he barks. All business, huh, Buford.

Still can’t see his gun arm. I take my seatbelt off slowly and demonstratively, then carefully pull my wallet out of my back pocket. After handing it over I open the glove compartment verrrrrrry slowwwwwwly and pull my registration out, glad I’m not storing large ziplocs filled with powdered sugar in there.

“Sit tight,” he says, and heads back to his car with my papers. God I wish I had a set of tits. I shut the car off and make the face one makes after spilling coffee down the front of one’s shirt.

The cop sits in his car for what feels like forever. I swear he’s playing chess or reading Tolstoy back there.

A checkmate or a Chekov later he returns, holding that awful rectangular piece of paper that means you’re getting a ticket. “I got you doing 87 in a 65,” he says, handing me the papers.

“Bullshit, you got nuttin’,” I say. (Well those weren’t the exact words I used, it might have been more like “Yes, sir.”)

“And I’m gonna cut you a break: I’m only gonna write you up for the speeding,” he says.

Now I’m confused. “Uh...did I do something else wrong, officer?”

Now he looks confused. “No,” he says, and returns to his cruiser.

What the hell was that! I think he thought I was smoking up.

I wasn’t doing 87 in a 65, but I know once a cop writes you a ticket, that’s that. There’s a time and place to argue these things, but it ain’t by the side of the road on Interstate 80.

That was three months ago, on my way to Toronto. Last week was the resolution.

A week after being ticketed I wrote a letter to the Municipal Court in [Bumscrew], New Jersey, requesting a trial. I got two letters in return: One was an official-looking declaration of my court date; the second was from a law firm in the [Bumscrew] area. Said they caught wind I’d been ticketed, wanted to represent me. I don’t like lawyers, and I like talking to them even less, but I dialed the number on the letterhead.

“I can get it down to nine miles over the limit,” said McLawyer. “Without a doubt.”

“That’ll still put points on my license, which means my insurance will go up,” I said.

“There’s a chance I can get it dismissed, but I can’t promise anything.”

“How much do you charge?”

“Well, it’s normally $600, but I’ll give you the reduced rate of $450.”

Fucking lawyers--four-fifty! What am I, a crack dealer? “Uh...I think I’m gonna try to defend myself.” Maybe I can adapt Hapkido towards some legal applications.

“Suit yourself,” said McLawyer, and I could picture him shrugging. “Give us a call if you change your mind.” He hung up and crawled back into his cave.

So on Google I type “How to fight a speeding ticket” and a bunch of pages come up. It’s amazing how Google has all the answers. This role used to be supplied by religion. If you had a question about the proper way to conduct your life, you’d look it up in the good book. Now you type random questions into browsers and answers come back faster than Hail Mary’s.

On the day of the trial I gave myself two hours to get there, even though Mapquest pegged it at one. On Route 80 I was careful not to speed. It was raining out and the roads were slick. I saw several speedtraps along the way and hoped my officer was busy setting one of them; my fellow web citizens say that if the cop doesn’t show up in court, your ticket gets dismissed.

I got to [Bumscrew] at 1pm, a full hour early, and scoped out the town. It looked a lot like the town Rambo gets dropped off at in the beginning of First Blood. Far as I can tell the entire ‘burg has only got one chowhouse, a deli of some sort. I park in front, behind a pickup truck that probably has a pistol in the glovebox.

Inside the chowhouse there’s a small counter with five stools, diner-style, two of which are taken by your average blue-collar American guys. One older, one younger. Type of cats who wear trucker hats because they actually drive trucks.

Behind the counter is, I shit you not, a gum-snapping blond waitress. Like a younger version of Flo from Mel’s Diner.

I take a seat and Li’l Flo ignores me for a good three minutes, jawboning with truckers 1 and 2. This treatment is like diarrhea: I don’t like it, but it’s happened to me enough times that I know what I’m in for.

Eventually she looks my way and I order a sandwich.

“Well, I guess they don’t care what kinda people they let in here,” I hear the older guy say, and I turn my head slowly to the left.

He’s not talking to me but is instead jokingly greeting a friend of his who’d just walked in, a hapless-looking guy in a flannel shirt and a dazed expression.

“Hey, whaddaya say, Joe,” says the new guy.

“Whaddaya need, Lou?” says the waitress, instantly.

“Ham sandwich,” he says, and something tells me it’ll be ready before mine.

I get to the courthouse ten minutes early. It’s a small one-story building, as white as the people milling around in the lobby. An elderly court official points me towards a sign-up sheet sitting on a counter.

“Have a seat in the courtroom,” he says, after I’d signed. “I’ll explain the process in a minute.” He directs me to a set of double doors.

Inside the courtroom, I get two visual shocks: One, there are a good forty other defendants waiting in here. Two, about three-fourths of them are black or Latino. From this you could conclude that either

a) blacks and Latinos speed more than anyone else,
b) blacks and Latinos make up the majority of traffic that passes through this small, heavily-white town and are hence represented here in proportional numbers, or
c) something else.

I take a seat in the back row. The interior of the courtroom is painted institutional white. The blinds are closed and there’s no clocks, like in a casino. You have no sense of the outside world.

“Okay everyone, let me explain how it works,” says the elderly court official, addressing the room. “Each of you will have a chance to discuss your case with the prosecutor. In most cases the prosecutor will offer you a plea bargain so we can save everyone the trouble of having an actual trial. Payment will be by cash or check only. If you need directions to an ATM, ask the cashier at the window in the lobby.

“When the judge calls your name, all you have to do is approach the bench and say ‘Yes, Your Honor’ and he tells you the fine, then that’s it. Pretty simple.

“The order is first-come first-served, unless there are any attorneys present. The cases with attorneys will go first, in case the attorneys have other matters they have to attend to.

“If everything goes smoothly, all of you will get to go home before 4:30pm. I’ll call the first five names to see the prosecutor.” He reads five names off the sign-up sheet. Mine isn’t one of them.

As the five walk out through the double doors, I catch a glimpse of a familiar-looking guy with a bushy mustache entering the lobby. The court official greets him respectfully and I’m pretty sure it’s my State Trooper. Shit, my goose is cooked.

Five minutes later. “All rise,” says the court official. Everyone stands as a door in back of the courtroom opens and the judge flows in. He’s wearing black robes and has...a bushy mustache. Turns out the guy I’d thought was my State Trooper is in fact the judge. I reach into my bag for my glasses.

The first case is a Latino guy who’s hired a lawyer and is accompanied by a friend.

“My client doesn’t speak any English,” the lawyer tells the judge. “He’s brought a friend who speaks a little.”

The judge sighs. His face, behind the bushy mustache, is stern but not unkind. He’s fiftyish, with hair that dun-colored shade that happens when red goes grey.

“Zbcvb sdknjg akfjna,” says the judge, uttering complete gibberish. Everyone in the room is blinking. The defendant and his buddy look at each other, and you can almost see the question marks above their heads.

“Zbcvb sdknjg akfjna,” says the judge, louder, and I realize he’s speaking in horribly-inflected Spanish.

“Sen-your Jimenez, tee-yennis trays bill-etos. Comprenday?” says the judge. The defendant nods. The judge then handles the entire proceedings in Spanish, which I actually thought was pretty cool of him, even if he was mangling it. At least he was reaching out.

As the cases wear on, I begin to see how it works. It seems everybody gets their ticket reduced to Unsafe Driving, which is a zero-points violation. And the judge reads everyone the same fine: “Sixty-three dollars for the violation, $33 court fee, $250 dollar surcharge. Next.”

This courtroom is making money hand over fist. Each person is paying an average of $350 dollars and I saw at least ten people go up there. $3,500 for the first hour, not too shabby.

After two hours the courtroom is getting emptier and emptier, and they finally call my name to see the prosecutor. I go outside the double doors and am directed to the back of a line. There’s fifteen people in front of me waiting to see the prosecutor! Why don’t they just let us wait in the courtroom, where we can at least sit?

After an hour on the prosecutor’s line, I understand why they make us wait out here. I think they want to wear us down, so by the time we get to the prosecutor we’ll be dying to take the plea and we’ll pay our $350 without blinking.

But not me. I am the monkeywrench.

There’s at least one other New Yorker in the hall, an Italian-American lady who’s as voluble as she is dissatisfied. The line for the prosecutor’s office is right by the cashier’s window, and I can hear the woman grumbling as she pays.

“Here,” she says, forking over her cash. “Here, take it. I hate this. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I hate that I’m giving you guys my money. You like this?” she asks the cashier.

The cashier says nothing.

“‘Cause I hate it,” says the woman.

“Have a nice day,” says the cashier.

“A nice day? Yeah, I’m gonna have a great day,” she snaps. “You people.”

Finally it’s my turn. The prosecutor ushers me into what looks like an interrogation room. There’s a plain table, chairs on either side, and two hard-ass lookin’ State Troopers with crew cuts sitting at the table. Both of them look at me like they want to kick my ass.

The prosecutor himself looks much like what you’d expect a prosecutor to look like: A kind of angry, overworked James Lipton. Beady eyes and a mean expression. “Mr. Noe,” he says, looking at my papers. “How fast do you think you were going?”

“I wasn’t speeding,” I say. “The Trooper tagged the wrong car. There was a minivan--”

“That’s not the question I asked,” says the prosecutor, and the only way he could’ve delivered this in a more nasty way would be if he preceded it by slapping me across the forehead with his penis.

“Seventy-five,” I say, rubbing my forehead.

“Just because your speedometer said seventy-five doesn’t mean you were going seventy-five.”

“Well, I understand there’s also a margin of error with radar--”

The prosecutor holds his hand up in a talk-to-the-hand kind of way. He’s looking over my papers and seems confused.

The air in the room changes. I smell something like an advantage as the prosecutor slides my file over to the Troopers.

“Connolly?” says one of the Troopers, reading my file. “Never heard of him.”

“I know a Connolly, but he’s all the way down by the shore,” says the other Trooper. “Can’t be him.”

“Where’d you get this ticket?” says the prosecutor, clearly disgusted with me.

“[Bumscrew,]” I say.

“Let’s run the badge number through the computer,” says one of the Troopers.

“Mr. Noe, we have to check something. Wait outside,” says the prosecutor, dismissively. I do as told.

Out on the line, people are continuing to bitch.

“I can’t believe this,” says one.

“Three-hundred and fifty dollars,” says another.

“It doesn’t matter how fast you were going, everyone gets a ‘reduced,’” says another. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” says a fourth. “It’s all about money.”

Fifteen minutes later the prosecutor calls me back in. The State Troopers are gone.

“Alright, listen,” he says. “Here’s what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to offer you a lower penalty.”

“Is the State Trooper who wrote me the ticket here?” I ask.

“Look, I’m trying to help you,” he says, and his nose grows about three inches. “I’m trying to save you the trouble of having to come all the way back out here.” Six inches. “We can work this out.” Nine inches. You could hang a stack of dry cleaning off of his nose.

“I think I’d like to go to trial.”

“Well, there’s a problem. What happened was, one of the girls in the back made a mistake. She wrote the wrong badge number down on your file, so the officer who wrote this ticket was not informed that today was your court date.”

“Doesn’t that mean my ticket just gets dismissed?”

The prosecutor looks at me like he can’t believe what I’d just said. “Did you hear what I just said?” he says, menacingly. “There was a clerical error. It’s not the Trooper’s fault--”

“Well it’s not my fault either,” I interrupt.

“JESUS,” the prosecutor says, and throws his pen at the file. He pushes back from the table, like he’s going to get up and punch me.

I feel like screaming “Fuck you” but figure I should be deferential, in hopes of swaying the prosecutor. “Look, I don’t mean to make you angry,” I say, putting on my best scared-kid face.

The prosecutor softens up at my lack of resistance, and wipes his eyes. “No, look, it’s just that I’ve been here all day, and...” He hardens up again, and stops short of an apology. “Never mind. You’ve got a right to a fair trial, I’ve got no problem with that. What do you want to do?”

“What are my options?”

“Well, you can take the plea, which I’d recommend. Or you can come all the way back here on another day and we can go to trial. It says here you live in New York. Takes a couple hours to get here, doesn’t it?”

“Wait, I can’t get a trial today?”

“If you push for a trial today, I will strongly recommend to the judge that we adjourn so we can get the right Trooper in here, and you’ll have to come back. And I will prosecute you to the fullest.”

I take deference, crumple it into a small ball and throw it out the window. “I’ll take my chances with the judge,” I say, secretly thrilled. I’ve always wanted to say that.

“Fine,” he says, clearly angry.

I got this motherfucker.

As I return to the courtroom, the judge is in the midst of castigating a young white man. I couldn’t see his face but he had a broad back, a couple earrings and a barber who wasn’t afraid to take risks.

“...you could have killed them. And you know what would happen if you had killed those kids?”

“No,” says the con (or pre-con).

“I’ll tell you what would happen. You’d get therapy and eventually you’d forget about it. But those kids, their parents would spend the rest of their lives tearing their hearts out.”

The pre-con says nothing.

“When you drink, you’re a weapon,” continues the judge. “If you’re gonna get behind the wheel like that then I might as well give you a loaded gun, because the results will be the same.

“I don’t want to put you away. But I have a duty to protect people like those kids. If you had kids, wouldn’t you want me to protect them?”

“Guess so,” says the pre-con.

“Listen to me,” says the judge. “I want you to be all right. I want you to get help. And I know, a lot of what I say is just air. A lot of it is just to make me feel better. But it’s my duty to say these things, and beyond that, I want you to be all right. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” says the pre-con. A bunch of complicated legal jargon I couldn’t understand then followed. I think the pre-con got ninety days in the clink.

I was the absolute last person to go before the judge. The end of the day. The courtroom is empty except for me and a court official sitting behind me.

“Mr. Noe,” the judge intones, somehow pronouncing my name correctly on the first try.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I say, approaching the bench.

The judge flips through some papers and looks puzzled. “‘Adjournment’...Susan, can you get Mr. [Prosecutor] in here?”

The prosecutor enters, stage left.

“Mr. [Prosecutor], it says you’re requesting adjournment. Why?” says the judge, looking at him expectantly.

“Judge, there was a clerical error. One of the girls in the back wrote the wrong badge number on the file, so Trooper [Buford] wasn’t informed that he was supposed to--”

“Well, that’s not Mr. Noe’s fault,” says the judge, clearly impatient. Oh, this is sooo good.

“Yes judge, but I strongly feel we should--”

“Mr. [Prosecutor], Mr. Noe has done everything he was supposed to. He took the day off work to come down here today, and he lives all the way in New York.”

“Yes judge, but--”

“He’s suffered enough. He’s been here all afternoon.” The judge turns to face me. “Mr. Noe, I’m dismissing your ticket.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I say.

“Fine, if that’s what you want to do, judge,” says the prosecutor snidely, turning on his heel and walking out of the courtroom. Unbelievable! The judge doesn’t bat an eye, though.

“You get home safe, Mr. Noe,” says the judge, arranging his papers.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I say.

I can’t believe it. I won.

I walk out of the courtroom elated, with a lasting legal-victory high. A new sensation for me. Encourtphins.

In times of great distress, a true leader needs to come back to lead the people.

Or at least to eat really expensive caviar while everyone else starves.

10. I didn’t vote for this cat.

9. It’s an exciting time to live in; I’ll be able to tell my children I lived during The Beginning Of The End.

8. Well, New York isn’t really like the rest of America anyway. So I can pretend I’m living in my own little country. I’ll make little passports out of takeout menus.

7. The things I believe in that Bush will not allow us to do will still go on, just in countries with more enlightened administrations. Good things don’t last forever, and the decline of American leadership was bound to happen. This is natural and there are ways around everything.

6. If it becomes really intolerable, I do have options. There are a lot of great things about this country but I am not chained to it. Ignorant people joke about Canada but I’ve been there and it’s fantastic. So if it really gets bad I can do the right thing and run like a chicken.

5. When things really, really suck, it tends to make you stronger in some way (unless you run like a chicken, which is its own sort of reward).

4. The next four years will make me learn to withstand emotional torment and my tolerance of being hated for things I didn’t do.

3. The next four years will teach me to be strong in the face of the fact that the rich get richer and the poor get fucked.

2. If I get hit by a bus sometime in the next four years, well, the world will be a little easier to leave behind.

1. The regions of the world I will have to avoid to prevent having my head cut off are still fairly small.

Today’s soundtrack: should have seen his face when they were slapping on the cuffs!
Today at 12:02pm: participating in society



There are donkeys, elephants, and...penguins.

My polling station is at an art gallery called The Puffin Room. A “puffin” is a type of penguin, apparently. There are pictures of penguins on the sign. Our democracy is so sophisticated.

The space is crowded, and as per most places in downtown Manhattan, looks like a human Noah’s Ark, with at least two of every ethnicity. If you’re from out-of-town the last place you’ve seen that looked like this was the Star Wars Cantina. Greedo could walk into this place and no one would bat an eye.

“Are you the end of the line?” I ask a blonde SoHo-style woman. The Puffin Room is midway between SoHo and Chinatown, but this woman’s address is clearly more Greene than Mott.

“There are all different lines,” she says.

I look around the room, hoping they’re doing it in height order for the sake of ease--“To use this voting booth, you must be taller than this red line,” etc.--but I’ve no such luck. It’s line chaos in here; people are going every which way, like in an M.C. Escher drawing. Some people are upside down and queued up across the ceiling.

I find a polling official, who looks at my voter registration card and directs me to desk #38. Sitting at the desk are three more polling officials: A large black woman, a dimunitive Asian woman and a medium-sized white woman. You wonder if they plan these things.

Ahead of me on line, on the voter side of the table is a medium-sized Chinese woman, with bad teeth and perfect English. “So I fill this one out,” she says, holding a form.

“Yes, because you only get one vote per household,” says the dimunitive Chinese woman behind the desk, in thickly accented English.

“Umm...yyyyyeah, that’s not how it works,” says the medium-sized Chinese woman, patiently. In my belly, horror and laughter battle for control.

“You register in your husband’s name?” asks the smaller woman.

“Nnnno, I’m registered in my name,” says the medium-sized woman. “So I can vote.”

The smaller woman seems unimpressed.

The black woman takes my registration card and checks it against a list. She fills out a small ticket for me. “Take this over to your booth,” she says, pointing.

In the middle of the room are a series of booths with dark curtains. Some of them are attended by long queues of people. I see a tall black man striding towards the back of the room, and the familiar jacket and beret reveal him to be my Sabumnim (Hapkido master).

For some reason my booth has no line in front of it at all. It’s labeled BOOTH #38 but it should be labeled RAIN’S BOOTH...BYATCH.

A disaffected high school girl sits next to it; you can almost feel her dying to IM somebody. I hand her my ticket. She does something to the side of the booth, then motions that I should enter.

I step into the booth and draw the curtains shut, quelling a sudden urge to try a pair of jeans on. In front of me is a printed grid of names with little black switches next to them. At the bottom is a large, red-handled lever, oriented like a metronome needle, currently cranked to the left. Above the names are instructions in big black letters.

STEP 1: MOVE THE RED LEVER TO THE RIGHT. I grab the handle and crank it to the right, holding onto it tightly and suspiciously, half-expecting a trap door to pop open beneath me.

STEP 2: [MOVE THE BLACK SWITCHES TO SELECT YOUR CANDIDATES.] I do as told.

STEP 3: [MOVE THE RED LEVER TO THE LEFT.] I move it back with a wary eye on the floor.

That’s it. I’ve just helped select the next President and it took all of twenty seconds. I’ve spent more time on the phone ordering #34 from Excellent Dumpling House.

(“We don’t have Szechuan Chicken.”

“I said Sesame Chicken.”)

I step out of the booth, wishing I could hand the high school girl three sweaters I have no intentions of buying. These don’t fit right, and the blue one is itchy.

This is my first time voting, and I feel I need documentation. “Is there some kind of receipt, or ticket I can take?” I ask.

“Um...no,” says the high school girl, who sounds less convincing than Bush during the debates. Oh well. She probably thinks you only get one vote per household, two if you live in a duplex.

So I walk out of the penguin joint satisfied I have helped select the next leader of the (mostly) free world. My vote counts, like Helen Keller in chapter three.

Today’s soundtrack: how long has this been going on
Today at 5:02pm: watching a Bette Davis black-and-white



Today I got hit in the knee with a stick. At Hapkido. It was made out of bamboo; this thing grew out of the ground somewhere, under the sun, and its destiny was to be shaped into a shinai that a blonde chick would slam into my kneecap on the 31st of October, 2004. I’m limping but I guess, like most types of pain, it will go away in a week.

I remember standing on the sidewalk on Park Avenue and making a decision, in the spring of 1998. To my right was the tall black building housing the Japanese Consulate and the ticket to a year of my future. Across the street and down the block was The Corporation, where four years of my life had been spent sliding a mouse back and forth across a desk.

I had an acceptance letter in my hand. After two minutes of “What the fuck do I do” I snapped out of it and walked into the Japanese Consulate to tell them yes.

So I’d applied to the JET program and, once accepted, decided I was moving to Japan. My assigned post was in Saitama-ken, which I saw as the New Jersey of Japan: it was an hour outside the City (Tokyo), across the river.

The JET program is a Japanese-government run initiative whereby they ship English-speakers to Japan for a year, to teach English to schoolchildren. At the initial orientation I sat in a massive hotel ballroom with 2,000 twentysomethings from America, Australia, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand.

At the time I met a half-Japanese guy named Seiji from Philadelphia. He now works for the NBA and lives a couple blocks away from me, in Little Italy, with his German wife. I also met Lawyer Girl, who is currently inside my apartment, taking a shower. She moves out tomorrow, I think, to take residency in her new uptown digs.

Sitting somewhere in that same ballroom was a guy named Kirk from California, whom I never met once the entire time I was in Japan. But three years later he’d move back to the ‘States, and two years after that he’d hang his hat in Manhattan’s East Village.

California Kirk’s a socially resourceful guy. Upon landing in New York last year he didn’t have any friends, so when he heard about a JET alumni reunion in the city, he went to socialize.

I didn’t attend; I was too busy chasing skirts probably, or working, or wallowing in my unfinished book, half-assed pages scattered around my desk like the feathers of a dead bird following a shotgun blast. But at this thing Kirk met a JET chick named Ann, whom I’d also never met. Ann befriended my buddy Outdoor Tony somewhere in Manhattan and eventually went on a date with Lam.

Which explains why the four of them showed up at my apartment last night wearing costumes. Tony and Kirk set up a Halloween party, and while I'm not the Halloween type, I hosted a small pre-party dinner for them and crew. Maybe 10 of us and some Thai take-out, nothing big. My apartment’s pretty centrally-located so I am able to maintain social relevance by virtue of geography. The rent’s a bitch but the outlay of social effort is minimal.

After everyone left to go to the party, Ed and Betty stayed behind so we could catch up. Ed and Betty are married. Betty’s stomach is about the size of a basketball and there’s a baby inside. Come December they’ll be a family of three. It’s good to talk with them because all of us go back years.

When I was whooping it up in Tokyo, Ed and Betty were in the third year of their relationship, investing in each other, eventually leading up to the rings they’ve got on. Then there’s me: the lovely painter I met and dated in Tokyo--she was such a sweetheart, even adjusting for the flaw-correcting lenses of retrospect--is also now married, to someone else. Last time I went to Japan she wouldn’t return my calls and it’s probably for the better.

Not my better, her better.

After Ed and Betty left I cleaned the place up, wiped the table down, did the dishes. Then I gathered up the leftovers and sat at the table and ate them. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror doing this, eating party remnants in my empty apartment, and tried not to make eye contact with my reflection.

This morning I woke up with an extra hour of Daylight Savings Time on my side. My couch was empty; Lawyer Girl spent the night at a friend’s place.

I had my morning coffee, wrote for a couple hours, fiddled with the volume knob on my stereo. Ironed my dobok carefully and went to Hapkido to get some exercise. Class went well, but then I got hit in the knee with a stick.