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Vacation

Sunset over Hobboken

Caribbean beach

It’s 20090125. My vacation’s over. Got some rest. Happy Chinese New Year.

Chicken crossing the road in the Caribbean

It’s 20090124. Pulled into port early. Too tired and dead to walk so I hop a cab to my pad with enough rum to supply a navy. It’s 22 degrees. Water Harold. Say Hi to George. They’re silent but I think they missed me. 212 emails. Damn email. Wrestle. Stumble to a party at Gio’s where I meet a 22 year old French girl. No lie, ask Paul. But I’ve the girlie I want most so smile politely and stumble home. Just before I go, see a buddy get her digits. Someone’s always playing the game.

It’s 20090122/23. Spend two days at sea. Which sounds like a chore but there’s this German saying that goes, Gutes Gespraech kuerzt den Weg. Season 1 of Dexter doesn’t hurt either.

Chicken crossing the road in the Caribbean

It’s 20090121. Arrive in Tortola. It’s 84 degrees. Not much to see so after 45 minutes, walk back. Another day, another sandy beach, but learned why the chicken crossed the road, and almost bought this. Didn’t. Got some sun on a deck before we headed home. Over dinner, Heartgirl and I discuss religion. Wanted to tell her that Blaise Pascal once said that Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. Didn’t get the chance. But it’s true and a good quote, so I’m telling you.

Piña colada and Rum Punch in the Caribbean

It’s 20090120. Arrive in St. Martin to go SNUBA-ing. Didn’t cause the diver said visibility sucked; cool dude – most guys woulda taken our dough and taken us for a ride. So we had three rum drinks, a Clara and an argument instead. No little umbrellas, though. Crashed the Hilton beach by the sea where I got crashed into some rocks by the sea.

It’s 20090118. Arrive in Antigua. Not much to see, so after 15 minutes, walk back. If I ever did drugs, this would be my place. But I don’t; I do rum. Note to self: See a rum factory. Another day, another sandy beach. Got a new camera a while ago. Sorry. Meant to introduce her: Clara. Learned to play 500 Rummy and taught Heartgirl how to play ChoDaiDi.

NCL Gem in St. Thomas Caribbean

It’s 20090117. Arrive in St. Thomas. It’s 76 degrees. The waters are a blue that you can only imagine. They’ve mobile service there so I ring up my brother who’s trying to figure out his love life. Someone’s always playing the game. 37 emails. Damn email. Sit by the salty sea and watch the elusive NJ Hoochie Mama perform her mating dance. The target NJ Guido isn’t impressed and takes flight.

It’s 20090115/16. Spend two days at sea. We wake up every morning at 6AM, have breakfast (carbs), work out, and eat a second breakfast (protein). There’s this saying that goes: Good conversation shortens the travel. Sounds better in German. Found out today that, round where we left yesterday, a pilot landed a plane on the water. Good. NYC deserves some win.

Deck of the cruise ship leaving the UWS docks

It’s 20090114. Water Harold. Say Bye to George. They’re silent but I think they’ll miss me. Zero out my emails. Damn email. Too awake and alive to take a cab so I walk to the docks on the UWS with my bags in tow, dreaming of rum drinks with little umbrellas. It’s 17 degrees.

It’s 20090113. My vacation begins tomorrow. Hope I get some rest.

Location: the rents for the holiday
Mood: ready
Music: My city or mountains Stay with me

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personal

Christmas 2008 – Good Things

Location: on a beige couch
Mood: still sick
Music: a cold winter’s night that was so deep

Tell myself that I write in a mix of hardboiled and the Economist but with a lotta slice-a-life descriptions a la A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Yes, it’s a girl’s book but it’s also a book about NYC and the people in it. Some of the clearest pictures of my city are between those lines. One Xmas scene stays in my mind – in it, a tree butcher has a contest to give away the trees he can’t sell: if you can catch a tree without falling, it’s yours. When he prepares to throw his nicest tree, a small, poor girl and her little brother ask for the chance to catch it.

It’s a God-damned, rotten, lousy world, he thinks when he sees them. I submit that this is true. But I also submit that the good things, when we have them, mean that much more.

Wish I were a better writer to say what I wanna say sometimes. It’s like the difference between seeing the Grand Canyon and seeing a postcard of the Grand Canyon. But lemme try anyway:

The good things pull you through the dark times. Heartgirl and a Friseur Frau sent me Xmas cards and my brother sent me another postcard of the California sun. They’re all on my refrigerator door.

Guess sometimes, a postcard of the Grand Canyon’s enough to get you through. It’s the little things that pull y’through, yeah?

So, regardless of your religion, faith, or background, lemme give you a little wish in my really simple, ineloquent, Queens, NY manner; it’s a post card of what I’d say if I were a better writer and not the Oprah-ish writer a friend thinks I am:

I wish you good things.

PS – for those of you that asked, here’s a pic of me with a beard, courtesy of Nadya R. Happy Christmas.

———-

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” his soul agonized, “why don’t I just give ’em the tree, say Merry Christmas and let ’em go? What’s the tree to me? I can’t sell it no more this year and it won’t keep till next year.” The kids watched him solemnly as he stood there in his moment of thought. “But then,” he rationalized, “if I did that, all the others would expect to get ’em handed to ’em. And next year, nobody a-tall would buy a tree off of me. They’d all wait to get ’em handed to ’em on a silver plate. I ain’t a big enough man to give this tree away for nothin’. No, I ain’t big enough. I ain’t big enough to do a thing like that. I gotta think of myself and my own kids.” He finally came to his conclusion. “Oh, what the hell! Them two kids is gotta live in this world. They got to get used to it. They got to learn to give and to take punishment. And by Jesus, it ain’t give but take, take, take all the time in this God-damned world.” As he threw the tree with all his strength, his heart wailed out, “It’s a God-damned, rotten, lousy world!”

When some of the older boys pulled the tree away, they found Francie and her brother standing upright, hand in hand. Blood was coming from scratches on Neeley’s face. He looked more like a baby than ever with his bewildered blue eyes and the fairness of his skin made more noticeable because of the clear red blood. But they were smiling. Had they not won the biggest tree in the neighborhood? Some of the boys hollered “Hooray!” A few adults clapped. The tree man eulogized them by screaming,

“And now get the hell out of here with your tree, you lousy bastards.”

Francie had heard swearing since she had heard words. Obscenity and profanity had no meaning as such among those people. They were emotional expressions of inarticulate people with small vocabularies; they made a kind of dialect. The phrases could mean many things according to the expression and tone used in saying them. So now, when Francie heard themselves called lousy bastards, she smiled tremulously at the kind man. She knew that he was really saying, “Goodbye–God bless you.”

YASYCTAI: Do something nice today for someone just cause… (10 mins/1 pt)

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Thanksgiving 2008/Your dumb luck

Colin: American girls would seriously dig me with my cute British accent.
Tony: You don’t have a cute British accent.
Colin: Yes I do! I’m going to America!
Tony: Colin, you’re a lonely, ugly, _____. You must accept it.

— Love Actually

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’ve got running water. You might even have a water softener. And, despite the countless articles that note that tap water’s probably cleaner and better for the environment than bottled water, you’ve probably got somea that too. Little more than half the world has tap water.

While we’re on the topic of the world, the axiom’s that 1% of the world has a college education. Dunno if that’s true (in the US, it’s about 27%). And you probably got a mobile phone, a fridge, and a tv. Hold that thought.

On a distantly related note, I got ill, viscerally ill, hearing about the 13-year old girl in Somlia that was recently raped by five-men. And cause she reported the incident, she was buried alive up to her head in a stadium of 1,000 men per Islamic law. She screamed for her life as she was slowly stoned to death. They dug her up when they thought she was dead. But she lived. So they finished her with more rocks.

As if that wasn’t ______up enough, an eight year-old boy that tried to save her was shot to death. The kicker’s that the men that raped her were not arrested.

Lemme get to the point: the world is horribly, ridiculously unfair. You’d agree with me, yeah?

But – and hear me out – I submit that the world is ridiculously unfair in our favor. Can’t speak for you so lemme talk about me:

That’s all just in the last two years.

Someone wrote me once, how do you not be broken? After two months, I think the answer comes in two-steps:

  1. Be grateful. The kinda grateful you are if someone paid your tab just cause they could. Cause, that, in essence, is what you got. You got to live in a place where you got enough time to read the random musing of a nobody like me. And water’s a twist of a faucet away. Where life, most likely, has value.
  2. Pay it back. You owe the aether something for your largess. Something. What that is, I dunno. As for how? Dunno that either. Sorry. I’m not that bright and get by mostly on fading looks and charm. But I suspect God’s given you some gift. Start there, I guess.

Now you might think this is some sorta pinko commie, holiday post. It’s not. The first step above is so you’re not onea those miserable people that bitch about everything all of time. So annoying. The second step above is so you’re not onea those miserable people that are happy for nothing all of time. Almost as annoying.

This isn’t so you can save the world, though that’d be nice. Rather – and I know this sounds strange coming from a barely sober nobody holding a tumbler fulla rum as I write this – it’s to save yourself.

Cause I read/know some of you. And I hear how angry and sad some (not all) of you are and, just cause you read me, figured I’d pay some of it back this way.

The saying goes that Wisdom is seeing things as they are. I disagree. Wisdom is the seeing things for what they can be.

Don’t accept when people tell you that everything sucks. They’re lying to you. Things suck, yeah, but you don’t gotta accept it.

Andy Warhol once said that They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. That sounds about right.

And I’m not saying don’t stuff yourself silly over the holiday, and enjoy it. I know I will. Quite the opposite; enjoy it more knowing that you’re among the lucky. The blessed. Your dumb luck. Said it before, God gave me everything. The thing is that I know it. And that’s why I’m not broken.

After you’ve had your holiday, try and make it a little less unfair. Ideally, yeah, do it cause the world’s broken and you got a moral obligation to pay somea the extra you were given back. But if not for nothing else, if for no one else, do it for yourself – to make yourself a little less broken.

Cause, maybe if you do that, you can see things for what they can be.

Colin: Never. I am Colin. God of sex. I’m just on the wrong continent, that’s all.

Location: in my black chair, staring at this screen
Mood: hopeful
Music: I’ll give you anything you need
YASYCTAI: Somehow return of that luck you have to the aether. (Lifetime / 4 pts – 5 if you let us know what you did)

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Glory Days

I know something you don’t know

Inigo Montoya: I admit it, you are better than I am.
Man in Black: Then why are you smiling?
Inigo Montoya: Because I know something you don’t know.

When you get beat up as often as I did as a kid, you either get all decked out in black and go Columbine, or you just learn how to fight. And for those of you that know me, I never do anything half-assed.

Bryson’s one of my best friends and was a striker like me. He outweighed me by 20-40 pounds but I was fast and flexible. We were always toe-to-toe. Until he started grappling. So I started too.

Then, a little after 9/11, I got injured. A kimura gone horribly wrong. Doc said I could either get surgery and lose 10% of my range of motion or rehab it and lose as little as 2%. Chose the latter. He said it’d take up to four years. It took seven. Stopped watching NHB stuff cause it made me sad. Didn’t wanna be one of those guys that spent his time talking about his glory days.

During those seven years, Bryson worked to the point that he’s a Pan-American Bronze Medalist. And he knew something his opponents didn’t – that as good as he was on the ground, he was even better on his feet. I knew that. My jaw knew that. Me? I stopped. Got fat. Settled down with a girlie.

The only place I’m still better than Bryson’s with a sword. But even then, he’s almost my match. We both know he’s better than me, he’s just too polite to ever say it. Some days, forget that I’m 35. Then my body reminds me. The last time I felt good about my right lead was in the mid-90s.

We spoke recently and he told me that he just got a similar injury. He finds out next week if he can roll again. I understood. Told him that he got seven years on me and he agreed. Small comfort, I know.

After we got off the phone, sat back and remembered when we weren’t old men. Instead, we’re in the muddy backyard of my college house. He’d swing on by, we’d laugh. Then we’d knuckle up and roll.

Man in Black: And what is that?
Inigo Montoya: I…am not left-handed.

Location: my parent’s living room
Mood: nostalgic
Music: hope when I get old I don’t sit around thinking about it

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personal

Three barns with white horses & sliding doors

Barn’s burnt down. Now, I can see the moon


Barn’s burnt down — now I can see the moon. – Mizuta Masahide 

Worked this past weekend. Did manage to see Heartgirl for a bit – she said that I could mention her in this blog so long as it wasn’t anything terribly personal. So she’s back. On a related note, s’funny but about ten people unsubscribed since I stopped being single.

Heartgirl and I did have an interesting discussion about how Life works out. Year ago today I was queuing in Great Britain wondering what to do about losing all my scratch. She was doing some heavy thinking in Times Square.

She mentioned she loved Sliding Doors and In-a-Silver-Bag told me a story about a white horse. While I don’t think that everything happens for a reason, I do think that whatever happens in our lives sculpt us to be who we’re meant to be.

Having said that, had a terrible, terrible day. Said it before, out little lives are all just three things – health, wealth and relationships. It’s like our three barns. And onea my barns are always burning.

It’s hard thinking that there’s some good that’s gonna come outta this latest fire. Then again, realized this past weekend that, if my last major relationship didn’t supernova, never woulda started this blog, had the cool parts of the past 24 months, or met any of the people that matter so much to me now.

Also, never would have met Heartgirl. She alone’s worth the price of admission.

Well, her and the rum. Mostly her.

So…hoping that this latest fire is just my way to see Selene again and an excuse to drink some red, red rum.

Location: 19:45 yest, leaving office
Mood: terrible
Music: we got to do something about where we`re going

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Forests and Trees

Location: 18:03 yest, dinner with the fam
Mood: confused
Music: every cop is a criminal And all the sinners saints


Me: I can’t. (pause) Why do you defend them, anyway? And not even get paid for it? They’re criminals.
Him: (shaking head) They’ve paid their dues. They deserve someone that believes they can be better. God puts them in front of me. How can I not help them? We’ve all made terrible mistakes, haven’t we? They just got caught. They shouldn’t spend their lives paying for their mistakes, should they?
Me: (thinking) We all deserve someone that thinks we can be better. Look, I’m not a litigator. But tell me how I can help.

S’funny.

Is it You can’t see the forest for the trees? or You can’t see the forest through the trees?

Either way, all I see’re these damn trees.

YASYCTAI: Use the word kismet at least three times today. (30 secs/1 pt)
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This time

Just off Times Square

 

Saw Gio tonight off Times Square. It was a networking thingy and they had some good rum. Probably not a good idea since I went fencing afterward.
The weird thing is that it was across the street from my old pad. Hadn’t been there in a while. Ayn Rand wrote of NYC in The Fountainhead:

I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline….When I see the city from my window – no, I don’t feel how small I am – but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.

You know when you love someone, you’d end anyone that’d do them harm? It’s like that.

Wish I could put it in my pocket and pull it out to show you Nino’s where I had the best Penne with Vodka Sauce, or the Algonquin Hotel where I’d wish I had dough or the chops to sit at the Vicious Circle, or my corner on 46th and 6th Avenue, where I’d sneak a cigarette at 3AM when I couldn’t sleep and wait for the sun to come up. Or my office at 1500 Broadway where I’d look out and see TRL being recorded with those freakin kids screaming.

OK, that I got a picture of.

Feel so damn nostalgic. Wanted to talk to Heartgirl about it but she was busy. S’ok, I’m hoping we have plenty of time to talk about these kinda things.

Speaking of Heartgirl, she doesn’t wanna show up here. So I won’t write of her anymore. Maybe she’ll change her mind but don’t think so. Cause she thinks that this is a blog about me being a womanizer – but that’s just the marketing message.

Me: It’s not. (pause) The truth is, it’s the story of a boy like me looking for a girlie like you. (thinking) And hoping, I mean really, really hoping, that this time, it’ll be different.

Location: wide-awake in my pad
Mood: nostalgic
Music: I wish I knew the time that I’ve taken I pray is not wasted

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personal

Can you hold this for me?

Location: my black chair in my pad
Mood: awake
Music: I know I’ve got to let it go and just enjoy the show

It appears that the weekend life of a reforming womanizer’s pretty boring and may involve: leaving parties at 12:30, picking up women for friends, cleaning the house and eating one’s weight in blueberries. Alla which are far more entertaining with a Dark ‘n Stormy.

Told you before that I’ve done some awful things in my life. Most I can’t talk about. But one thing I’m deeply ashamed of is the number of times someone gave me their heart and essentially said, Here, can you hold this for me? And take carea it, willya?

And I nod and immediately turn around, stomp the crap outta it and hand it back a wreck. It’s a jerk thing to do. And I did it way too often in my 20s.

Course, someone did it to me two years ago and nuthin realigns your thinking faster than eating the stuff you make someone else eat, yeah?

That’s why I keep thinking of Caligirl and if she’s right. What if I really do screw everything up so I don’t have to go through it again? Sir Edmond Hilary once said that, It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

It’s not easy, trying to be a better than you once were.

YASYCTAI: Get your shoes shined. They’ll last longer and you’ll look better. Hurry, before it’s winter. (10 mins/1 pt)

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Killing time on a rainy night

Who’s our lucky contestant tonight?

Her: It bothers me when you tell me that I’m just killing time with you. I consider you a pretty close friend so I definitely don’t think of it as killing time in any sort of way.
Me: Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 1-2, I believe…
Her: What’s the line?
Me: What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

In the above quote, Juliet tells Romeo that Capulet is just a name, just a word. She loves a man named Montague but the name is irrelevant to her. He could just as well be named Smith or McCarthy for all she cares. Doesn’t change who he is.

Courtesy is all about the polite lie. You don’t really think God will bless someone just because they sneeze, do you? Or that if you say Good Morning to someone, they’ll actually have a good morning?

The girl in the above conversation’s too polite to tell me that I’m her placeholder; her stopgap measure. I’m the guy she kills time with until she meets Mr. Right. Not ideal but I’m not one to cry into my porridge.

Besides, anything’s better than the lukewarm.

So I smile, nod and say, Sure – look there’re worse people to spend a rainy night with than each other.

And she nods and says, OK.

So you take a breath breath. Stuff all of that doubt into that little pocket you keep for just such a night. Get dressed cause you never turn down an invitation.

And try to keep that doubt at bay. Don’t think of green eyes or blues eyes. Cause you’re a brick wall. Y’gotta be. And everything, for better or for worse, makes sense again. Shut the door behind you. Breathe in that fall night air and think:

Hello weekend – who’s our lucky contestant tonight?

Location: about to step out
Mood: determined
Music: I just don’t belong here

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personal

Any fool

Location: in my thoughts
Mood: so very sad
Music: A long, long time ago. I can still remember

Got a call from Rain earlier to get together today. Made me think. What I wrote last year still rings true.

Y’know, there was a TKTS booth in the World Trade Center. Was 17 when I first went there to pick up tix for me and my girlie. Les Mis.

There was an escalator going up to the booths and the lines would sometimes snake around the floor as people waited for their tickets. Had a red Aiwa cassette tape player to keep me company while I waited. Two tapes and a cassette player – way before Ipods, kiddies.

The people in those buildings were ordinary people like you and me. It’s why when Chrissie Hynde said, We (expletive) deserve to get bombed. Bring it on, I hope the Muslims win, I got sick.

Cause, it could easily have been me. Or even her. Or some 17 year-old kid buying a ticket for his girlie. Someone could have called me, or my brother, or my kid sister, and said, Hey, let’s get together downtown. That’s exactly what happened to my buddy Bryson. Luckily, he always runs late. My high school classmate wasn’t so lucky. Those sons of motherless bitches murdered him a few weeks before his wedding. Disintegrated rather. Nuthin’s left of him. Nuthin. Poof.

I hope they lose. Cause otherwise, fools like Chrissie can’t speak her mind. Even fools like her deserve the right to speak our minds, no matter how stupid. No matter how obscene.

Cause obscenities are fought with words not 747s filled with people – even if they’re just simple words from a clown. Or a heartbroken 30-something C+ class womanizer.

Goddamn. They punched a hole in my pretty city.

They punched a hole in my home that’s still there.

YASYCTAI: Watch the video above (9 mins/1 pt)