Today’s soundtrack: night-time is the right time
Today at 6:07am: cutting pineapple into slices


Washing machines are like people that’ve been in accidents, you’re not supposed to move them. I hadn’t altered the position of my Whirlpool since the Chinese plumbers installed it five years ago, but a couple weeks ago I moved it, because I’m an asshole, and was rewarded with a concomitant leak springing from the hot water inlet.

I treated the leak like most problems in my life, meaning I ignored it for about six days. But water kept pooling up under the machine, so on the seventh day I stopped resting and did something about it. (I have the opposite schedule of how God created the world.)

I know less about plumbing than any of you reading this, though I once managed to fix the hot water knob in my shower. Now I live alone (and I am oh, so lonely) but years ago I had a roommate. We both had girlfriends who occasionally stayed over so really it was like there were four people living here.

One of our girlfriends at the time, I never figured out who, had a tendency to overtighten the shower knob when she turned it off. I have a hard time believing the average female could generate that much torque, but whenever I took a shower after her, I practically needed one of those fucking air-guns they use on race cars to turn the water back on.

Naturally the shower knob became stripped, and alluva sudden it became like taking showers in the Soviet Union circa 1978; you had no control over the hot water.

I ignored that for maybe a week before learning about silicon tape on the internet. You unscrew the shower knob, wrap silicon tape around the bolt and put the knob back on. This took some experimenting; wrap it too thin and you’re wasting everybody’s time (kind of like with this journal entry), wrap it too thick and the knob won’t go on. I’m embarassed to admit it took me nearly a dozen tries and three more miserable showers before I finally got the goddamn knob to seat properly. It worked like a charm. Next the girlfriends broke up with us or got broken up with, thus restoring complete balance and harmony to our shower.

With the washing machine, I spent snippets of two days trying to fix the inlet leak by silicon-taping and remounting the hose. I even broke out the jigsaw and cut holes in the cabinetry to re-route the hoses, figuring the washing machine’s new position was putting a strain on them. After re-connecting the newly placed hoses I discovered I’d accomplished nothing but sawdust, although I did get the satisfaction of wielding a power tool.

I also learned that when you’re working with water, you have to locate these little red knobs and turn the water off before you disconnect anything, otherwise you get a nasty surprise that might even go up your nose and cause you to say bad words out loud. I’m sure turning the water off seems like common sense to you, but you’re talking to a guy who electrocuted himself three times in ten minutes while trying to install a wall-mounted powerstrip.

To make a long story short (oh wait a sec, too late) yesterday I fixed the leak by both taping the partially-stripped inlet coupling and using a new hose. I turned the water back on and it didn’t leak. I left the water on and killed fifteen minutes by Googling various celebrities to see if there were any naked pictures of them online, then checked the hose again; still no leak.

Next I text-messaged my girlfriend to let her know her boyfriend is a man because I fixed something.

I like fixing small things around the house because they make me feel I am successful at life, even if cases can be made to the contrary. I made several (okay, a half-dozen) very bad financial decisions in the past four years and now I’m kind of in a little trouble, so.

I just watched Goodbye, Lenin. It was long and a little slow but I really liked it. I worry my taste in movies is growing stranger, further alienating me from society. Netflix should have a feature where if any two members rate all their viewed movies with exactly the same ratings, they are declared cinematic soulmates and forced to shared a bed.

Today the washing machine began leaking again. This aggravated me to no end, but I eventually discovered it is now the cold water, not the hot, that’s leaking, so that’s a new problem and yesterday’s solution was sound. So now I just have to keep my mind off the new leak for six days. No sweat.

Today was also a momentous day because I began my Obscure Kung-Fu Training, but I’ll save that for another entry.

Today’s soundtrack: the things that I used to do
Today at 12:02pm: at the diner, having my “usual”



Hey, how was your Thanksgiving?

Good, good. I watched Harry Potter and picked up a chicken roll at the deli for dinner. The woman working the counter looked miserable but apparently found my holiday meal choice pathetic, as she gave me a look of pity. I, in turn, counter-pitied her by scoffing inwardly. These social dynamics are all so terribly complicated.

Last night I defied my logic board and had dinner outside the house with actual human beings. Or one human being, anyway. Kirk and I met up at Menkuite, this Japanese joint on the Bowery. The chow is okay but those motherfuckers have no class; they asked us to leave shortly after the meal because “There are people waiting.” We left but there was no one waiting for a table at all, though I know at least one waitress who’s waiting for an ass-whipping.

I worked part-time in restaurants for about eight years and I’m real touchy about bad service. So middle-aged Japanese woman who waited on us, you can go to hell. (Save me a seat.)

Kirk’s got this thing we call the Kirkabase; it’s basically his own Zagat’s guide, compiled by him and the people he’s come into contact with. Everybody in New York has their favorite spots, “the best bagel,” “the best thin-crust pizza,” etc., so Kirk’s idea was to compile them all into a small database that he carries everywhere with him, like mace.

The problem with that is the more people whose opinion you get, the more mainstream the tastes tend to become, so it wouldn’t work for me. But this ain’t about me, it’s about Kirk. He picked a Louisianian (<--that looks like an Armenian last name) café out of the Kirkabase and we went there for coffee.

The Louisianian place smelled like mildew but their beignets were made from scratch. Beignets are to desserts what the Shining Path is to Marxists: the most extreme version of the ideology. Beignets are purely bad for you with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, I mean it’s fried dough smothered in piles of sugar for fuck’s sake, and every time I see one I can’t stop myself from grabbing it and shoving it in my mouth, even if it’s in someone else’s hands. Luckily no one in the restaurant had ordered them before I had.

Anyways Kirk and I guzzle joe, discuss broads and go over details of bank heists we’d like to pull off, then as we’re getting up to leave I see this guy at the next table getting up. “Rain,” he says. He’s a guy so I don’t flinch; but a woman standing up in a restaurant and calling your name is bad news because chances are high it’s an ex-girlfriend.

“Oh shit, [Filmmaker Activist Guy],” I say. It’s a guy I met when I was helping my friend Wendy out with her little film shorts. “How’s it going?”

“Good, man, good,” he says, and we shoot the shit for a little.

Why am I bringing this up? Because later that night I get home and I’m in bed reading Wired. (A few paragraphs ago I said this wasn’t about me, that it was about Kirk, and I totally lied.) In this one article I come across a vaguely familiar name, then I realize they’re writing about the guy I just ran into at the café. Small world, right?

Then I turn the page and see the next blurb was written by this girl I used to know who lived on Union Square, and I do a double-take. It’s surreal to see people whose names you know in print. I wonder what it’s like to have really famous friends, I bet it’s weird.

Next I had to put the magazine down because I felt suddenly unwell.

Life Lesson #472: Three beignets is one beignet too many.

If I was a Marxist Guerilla I'd be sick like a motherfucker.

Hoooo! "Pjammer" posted a copy of "Rendezvous," which I've been looking for forever. It's a famous short where the director mounted a camera on the front of a Ferrari and had a sick race car driver friend of his blow through Paris at top speed. Totally illegal and Moneygrip doesn't slow down at all, he's like, speeding up through red lights. I can't believe no one died. Click the link for a better explanation and to see the flick.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/pjammer/153928.html

Today’s soundtrack: to take your place
Today at 3:02am: a few hours late on the midnight snack


I love the internet.

Caffeineguy often says “I guarantee that the most disgusting, revolting, repulsive thing you’ve ever seen in your life has been on the internet.” That may be so (and I’m not telling you what it was that I saw) but it also holds true for interesting or fascinating things.

To me, Livejournal’s “Friends-of-Friends” feature alone is worth the couple bucks it costs for a paid membership. It’s like your “Friend’s List” on steroids. I hit this button and snippets from all these different peoples’ blogs come up, completely random and totally global. People I would never encounter in real life and occasionally I find something I can’t take my eyes off of (even non-porn).

Today’s find was this guy museting. A weird, funny entry caught my eye, and subsequent clicking led me to his long-term photo project, which I simply could not stop clicking through. I love shit like this because it’s such a simple idea but there is something profound in it. I got stuck on picture #35 and kept reading the guy’s “lesson” over and over again. My girlfriend would say I am cheesy. In my own defense it’s not that I share mottos with the guy in the picture, it’s more that I’m a little envious of him, you know? He looks so happy and content and I bet he laughs a lot. I think it must be great to be able to have that as a motto and believe it and live it. That is the most sincere and authentic “thumbs-up” I have ever seen.

My girlfriend, ex-girlfriend and now girlfriend again called me to reactivate my contract, so to speak. The fact that I renewed is, as my real-world friends would tell you, something of a milestone for me; I'm not typically a relationship recidivist, and yet I opted to re-sign with the carrier.

I wasn’t even going to write about the girlfriend thing, but something odd occurred some weeks ago; a longtime reader of this blog, not someone I know in real life, told me she felt “betrayed” when she learned I had a girlfriend and hadn’t mentioned it. Not because she liked me, it was something else. I guess I understand. So while I love the internet, it’s admittedly a weird place.

When I was I college I don’t think I used the internet even once, because it was the early ‘90s and there were only like, two websites on the entire thing, Amazon and Yahoo. And the only thing you could search for on Yahoo was Amazon. It was like “Your query returned 0000000001 result.”

Today’s soundtrack: to get some reciprocity
Today at 7:02pm: teaching my last Hapkido class at the current location


You know when you see people in the street or on the subway and you can’t understand why they would act like that? Or sometimes your friend does something you find fucked-up but which they think is completely reasonable, or vice-versa?

Lately I’ve become fascinated by perception, and especially how it can fool you into thinking things. It’s also interesting (to me) when two people look at the same situation but describe it so, so differently.

When I was in London I bought this book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, and I just started reading it. It’s friggin’ awesome so far. It’s written in first-person, from the perspective of a fifteen-year-old kid who tries to solve a dog murder, but the kid is autistic and extremely observant so he notices the strangest shit.

Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome fascinate me--how can those motherfuckers be so smart? Adding ridiculous figures up in like a nano-second? I guess these conditions fascinate me because I myself am not very good at maths. (See we say “math” here in the ‘States but the Brits say “maths,” and the author’s a Brit so I’m copping it for this paragraph.)

Anyways I normally get confused by even the answers to those math problems where like, you have to walk over each bridge only once, or the ones where a train leaves Los Angeles traveling east at 50 miles an hour. But the kid in the book mentions this one fascinating one and I actually understood it.

This particular problem apparently fooled even professional mathematicians (that must be one hell of a career) but a genius woman named Marilyn vos Savant got it right. I’ll paraphrase the explanation of it here:

Let’s say you’re on a game show where the host shows you three doors. One door has a brand-new car behind it, the other two have goats behind ‘em. You’re trying to win the car, obviously.

So you pick one of the doors, but they don’t open it yet. Instead the host opens up one of the other doors and shows you there’s a goat behind it. Meaning the door you picked is either the other goat or the car.

Then the host gives you the option of sticking with the door you picked, or switching to the final, unopened door. What should you do?

The correct answer is, you should switch your choice. If you switch there’s a two-in-three chance you’ll get the car.

Why?

Most people think their chances are fifty-fifty--one of the unopened doors has a goat, the other has a car--so sticking or switching will make no difference. But those odds are wrong.

Here’s why. First of all, forget for a sec that the host opens one of the doors to show you a goat--that’s a red herring, meant to distract you. The first step of the problem is, you pick one of three doors. Two of them have goats, one has a car. That means there’s a two-in-three chance you’ve picked a goat, and only a one-in-three chance you’ve picked the car on the first try. So chances are you’ve picked a goat to begin with, which means switching to the other available door will get you the car.

Fascinating, no? It all has to do with perception.

Anyways I highly recommend the book. I rarely read fiction but this is one of the best I’ve cracked open so far.

I hope I’m not just recommending this book because it subconsciously made me feel smart. That’s like when you tell your friends “Yeah, that chick so-and-so is pretty cool,” but you only thought that because she talked to you at that one party and in fact you know nothing about her at all.

Today’s soundtrack:
can't find food fi eat,
earth a run red
Today at 9:02pm: tuning my pathetic rabbit-ear antennas to catch Lost


Because I do a good job of keeping my head down, it only occurs to me that I’m living in a society when I go to the grocery and buy the last of something. You know what I mean? Like today I bought the last half-gallon of Lactaid and thought “Man, the next person looking for this will be screwed.”

On the way to the grocery I must’ve passed two dozen people on the streets of Manhattan, and there was a half-dozen more in the actual store at 12:30am, but none of them are real to me. They’re like woman-and-child decoy targets popping up at a police shooting range: of no real relevance and only there to mount false attempts on securing your attention. I have no cause to think about these people, in fact I actively avoid interacting with them because it’s usually so disheartening; but the faint twinge of guilt that comes with consuming the last of something in a consumer society reminds me there are others with refrigerators lacking this very product.

Another ailment of the consumer society is not keeping up with subscriptions. Tony had described “Economist guilt” to me, referring to a stack of unread magazines making a glum and unfulfilled journey from his mailbox to an ever-growing pile on his kitchen table. Thus far I haven’t developed this disease, in fact I usually get antsy when I’ve gone through an issue and the next has yet to arrive, but I think that is because I am obsessed with The Economist. Which is because I was raised on trashy Newsweek. When you grow up driving a Plymouth and later wind up in possession of an Audi, your brand loyalty is cemented.

I guess it doesn’t make sense that I live in a dense metropolis and spend much of my time avoiding crowds, but I’m not here for the people. Well, not most of them, anyway. For instance if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s hipsters. I want to open a nightclub called Sartre, and when hipsters try to get in I’ll tell them they can’t because “Hell is other people.”

How do you choose your friends? Yes, you.

I’m pretty selective, as I imagine you are. I’ve got several different levels including Immediate Family, Buddies & Pals, Associates, Acquaintances and Midnight Friends. Then you’ve got your Fair-Weather Friends, Potential Security Breach Friends, Black Hole of Despair Friends and Why Is This Person Still In My Speed-Dial Friends. I’ve become pretty good about detecting and not hanging out with the latter categories. And if my categories sound sick to you, I would posit that you might actually have the same delineations but perhaps haven’t gotten around to slapping the post-its on their foreheads yet.

Anyways the worst thing that could happen to me on the way to the grocery is that I’d be caught in a sudden earthquake, swallowed up by the buckling pavement and subsequently trapped in an airspace for hours with two hipsters and a woman for whom Sex-and-the-City occupies a role similar to the role church plays in other people’s lives. I’d ask them not to talk, stressing the limited oxygen supply.

“But we have an unlimited supply of oxygen,” one of them might say, pointing out a thin airshaft leading to the world above. And then I’d have to seal it with something.

Today’s soundtrack:
can't find food fi eat,
earth a run red
Today at 9:02pm: tuning my pathetic rabbit-ear antennas to catch Lost


Because I do a good job of keeping my head down, it only occurs to me that I’m living in a society when I go to the grocery and buy the last of something. You know what I mean? Like today I bought the last half-gallon of Lactaid and thought “Man, the next person looking for this will be screwed.”

On the way to the grocery I must’ve passed two dozen people on the streets of Manhattan, and there was a half-dozen more in the actual store at 12:30am, but none of them are real to me. They’re like woman-and-child decoy targets popping up at a police shooting range: of no real relevance and only there to mount false attempts on securing your attention. I have no cause to think about these people, in fact I actively avoid interacting with them because it’s usually so disheartening; but the faint twinge of guilt that comes with consuming the last of something in a consumer society reminds me there are others with refrigerators lacking this very product.

Another ailment of the consumer society is not keeping up with subscriptions. Tony had described “Economist guilt” to me, referring to a stack of unread magazines making a glum and unfulfilled journey from his mailbox to an ever-growing pile on his kitchen table. Thus far I haven’t developed this disease, in fact I usually get antsy when I’ve gone through an issue and the next has yet to arrive, but I think that is because I am obsessed with The Economist. Which is because I was raised on trashy Newsweek. When you grow up driving a Plymouth and later wind up in possession of an Audi, your brand loyalty is cemented.

I guess it doesn’t make sense that I live in a dense metropolis and spend much of my time avoiding crowds, but I’m not here for the people. Well, not most of them, anyway. For instance if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s hipsters. I want to open a nightclub called Sartre, and when hipsters try to get in I’ll tell them they can’t because “Hell is other people.”

How do you choose your friends? Yes, you.

I’m pretty selective, as I imagine you are. I’ve got several different levels including Immediate Family, Buddies & Pals, Associates, Acquaintances and Midnight Friends. Then you’ve got your Fair-Weather Friends, Potential Security Breach Friends, Black Hole of Despair Friends and Why Is This Person Still In My Speed-Dial Friends. I’ve become pretty good about detecting and not hanging out with the latter categories. And if my categories sound sick to you, I would posit that you might actually have the same delineations but perhaps haven’t gotten around to slapping the post-its on their foreheads yet.

Anyways the worst thing that could happen to me on the way to the grocery is that I’d be caught in a sudden earthquake, swallowed up by the buckling pavement and subsequently trapped in an airspace for hours with two hipsters and a woman for whom Sex-and-the-City occupies a role similar to the role church plays in other people’s lives. I’d ask them not to talk, stressing the limited oxygen supply.

“But we have an unlimited supply of oxygen,” one of them might say, pointing out a thin airshaft leading to the world above. And then I’d have to seal it with something.

Today’s soundtrack: I said woman, speak what’s on your mind
Today at 2:42pm: combining a stroll down memory lane with the urge to sell



Hipstomp Fire Sale


I now have a little free time to devote to my big project--getting rid of everything I own. Over the years I’ve accumulated far too many things, and when my parents moved out-of-state I picked up boxes and boxes of stuff dating back to high school and earlier.

So, everything I don’t use on a daily basis is going up on eBay. I will update the list gradually. Today I put up some folding headphones and a crapload of CDs. In the future will be books, more CDs, DVDs and random crap. Maybe I’m using the word “crap” too much, which may not be a good way to sell.

Anyways, if you bid on something and are an LJ person who lives/works in NYC, you don’t have to pay the postage if you’re willing to come downtown and pick it up. Unless you’re buying my soul; that you’d have to pay postage on.

Hipstomp Fire Sale

Today’s soundtrack: Led Zeppelin’s “Swan Song” (my new favorite)
Today at 12:02pm: accepting Google defeat



Well, I can’t track that guy anywhere, Google has let me down. The Jeff A. I was looking for is buried within “There are 11,700 answers to your query.” Friggin’ guy shares his name with an actor, a doctor, a lawyer, a consulting firm, a medical center, a space station, two moons of Jupiter a brand of taco chips.

It’s scary to see the limitations of Google, because I normally view it with such a reverent awe; it’s awkward to see it fail, like watching your god eat a gyro while sauce squirts out and dribbles down the front of his white robe.

God Eating a Messy Gyro
a play in one line


GOD: (squirting sauce) Medammit!




Getting too many responses for a person’s name in Google is one thing; getting none at all is downright scary. J’ever type in the name of a random old friend, and nothing comes up at all? Not a single college mention or shout-out, nothing? And you’re just like, Well, I guess So-and-So died. Google has no record of him at all, he must be dead.

Then you see a mutual friend in the street and you say Hey, did you hear So-and-So died?

And they’re like Really?

And you’re like Yeah man, he’s totally dead! It’s so sad!

And when they ask you what he died of you say The most terrible disease of all--Googleanonymity.

Then they say I’ve never heard of Googleanonymity.

And you say Well that’s too bad, ‘cause it means you’re dead too! And then you go and tell a friend.

Today’s soundtrack: I want a slice of L.A. sun
Today at 1:32pm: on the subway, transporting a large sheaf of paper


Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes. I dropped the manuscript off at the Workshop today and they gave me the number for an agent I’m supposed to call. I’m going to spend tonight Googling him so when I ring him up tomorrow I will be a little informed.

I know at some point during this process of trying to get published it will become unwise for me to write specifics here--don’t want to get in trouble or inadvertently kill something by opening my big yap--but I will try to keep you all posted as to the progress, even if only through vague hints. (“The eagle has landed. Big Bird says the bun is in the oven but the package can’t be wrapped until the snakes get back in the bag.”)

And of course, when this thing finally becomes available for sale in whatever capacity, I’ll tell you and anyone who’ll listen. I’ll tell another and another and your sister and your brother, tried to rob a man who was a DT undercover.

I’m still elated that I finished the first draft, but tonight I’m a little bummed because I’m certain they’re going to kill the Korean guy on Lost in a couple hours. They said they’re going to kill somebody on tonight’s episode and he’s the only one who’s expendable. Plus lately they’ve been ratcheting up his good-guy-edness and his wife’s longing to see him, so it seems clear they’re going to re-unite them for a hot minute, then kill him for maximum drama and Nielsens. How much you wanna bet he dies saving somebody else.

His death will also pave the way for Michael to hook up with the Korean chick, and anybody who saw even the first few episodes coulda told you that was in the cards. I hope they have the decency to wait until Jin’s body is cold.

These past few weeks I’ve noticed I can only write or edit for so long at a stretch, and I had to periodically break my sessions up with get-out-of-the-house errands or walks around the block. I also hit the PS2 when I needed an hour or two of mindlessness. Mindlessness, by the way is the opposite of what the Buddhists try to achieve, mindfulness. I guarantee you the Dalai Lama wouldn’t know what to make of a PS2.

Anyway, the only game I own is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and there was this one mission I’ve been playing over and over again (“Supply Lines”) and couldn’t crack, it was just impossible. But last night after I finished the manuscript and had my little scotch celebration, I turned the machine on and knew I was going to crack it.

Sure enough, I nailed it on the first try.

It’s probably stupid to look for signs and signifiers in things like videogame consoles; I guess this is what happens when you don’t have religion.

They should make a Buddhist videogame where you try to find enlightenment by forcing an on-screen character to sit in a dark, empty cave in the lotus position for three years. If he opens his eyes or moves you have to restart the game. I’ll write a letter to Rockstar.

Handsome Dan done moved to Hong Kong, here’s his blog. I love reading about foreign cities through the eyes of a New Yorker/Jerseyite. Good stuff.

It’s around three in the morning--of course, of course it would be late at night when I finally finished it--and I can’t tell you how psyched I am. I’m a guy who hasn’t finished anything, but I finally, after years and years, just finished my first draft of my first book.

The deadline is later today, when the sun comes back up. I bring the manuscript up to the Writer’s Workshop to give to my Fellowship advisor, and then...actually, I’m not sure what happens at all. As part of the Fellowship I’m supposed to be connected with an agent, an editor and a publisher but I don’t know the procedure.

The manuscript was warm when it came out of the printer. I’m not used to printing this many pages at once. I wanted to make some analogy about it being warm like a baby but it sounded gay even in my head.

I’ve been cooped up in here writing, editing and re-writing for some days so I’m not quite thinking straight. I’m pretty delirious in fact. But there’s a nice bottle of scotch waiting for me in the kitchen so I’ll fix that in a minute.

Such a strange feeling, finishing. Afterward I hit the print button I just paced back and forth across my work area, I don’t know what to do with myself. If I still had my car here I would probably hop into it and go for a drive around the darkened streets of Manhattan, but I couldn’t afford to keep it in the city anymore so it’s in Queens. I guess I felt kind of alone after I finished the book but that’s okay. What’s important is I am finally taking a long overdue first step.

I don’t know what the process is. I’m still pretty worried the publishing people I’m supposed to be connected with will dislike it or find it mediocre. All the scotch in the world wouldn’t solve that little problem. Hang on a sec I’m getting a little freaked out so I’m gonna go and get the scotch, back in a minute.

Aah now that is better, that is so much better. Burns a little though. Holy shit it was like living in a really cold house where you’re totally shivering and it’s freezing and then you jump in a hot shower. That first blast of warmth and how it soothes you. I smoked my last cigarette while it was printing though so I’m gonna have to run out and get more. The guy at the deli is gonna smell the scotch on my breath. Well, who cares. Because I, fucking, finished.

Can you tell I’m behind on sleep.

Jesus I sound like a drunk and I haven’t even started hardly drinking yet. Well, that’s the sleep dep. What was I trying to say, oh yeah it might turn out that the book sucks but that’s okay because if they don’t want to publish it, I’ll self-publish and then if that sucks, I’m going to write another one. And another, and another because now I know what it’s like to finish a first draft, a complete work and even though I’m sure there’s a shitload of re-writes and edits in my future, you know what? It wasn’t that bad. I mean it was a lot of work and all that, but it definitely wasn’t worse than all those other shitty, shitty fucking projects I’ve had to do over the years to pay my rent. It wasn’t worse than spending bleary-eyed all-nighters at The Corporation or working back-to-back weekend double-shifts at the restaurant when I was a waiter or some other embarassing things I failed at that are in the book, and it wasn’t worse than lots of things I’ve done, so I’m going to do it again and again. Finish books, that is. I can live with it if a portion of them suck, because I am pretty confident that sooner or later one of them is going to be very good, and that’s the day I’ll work towards, that day when I can hit the print button and wait for it to come out of the machine, knowing that this was the best I could do, and that that ain’t bad.

Jesus christ lookit what I just fucking typed. In my defense I haven’t slept much and this is what I get like. Tomorrow I’ll probably regret typing this. Well, fuck it, that’s tomorrow. I’m gonna post this then I’m gonna go get some cigarettes.

Been trying to track an old friend and I can’t find the guy anywhere. I’ve tried Google, Friendster, 411, mutual acquaintances I haven’t talked to in ten years, high school alumni groups and a gypsy psychic.

Jeff A. who worked as an EMT, if you’re reading this, drop me a damn line! You oughta remember me, I looked like this:

Haven’t been able to write here lately, I’m still buried under deadlines for my book (pushed back to this Wednesday) and editing for Theme Magazine. Issue #3 is pictured above (with my glasses sitting atop the cover). If you haven’t seen it yet pick it up, it’s pretty kick-ass, and I think issue #4 will be even better.

I’m kind of nervous about the book, but too tired for fear of failure to really slow me down. I will emerge from underneath this pile of paper on Thursday.