Month: February 2010

Categories
personal

The Acquisition of Knowledge

Location: in the heart of snow
Mood: still @#$@#$ sick
Music: I be the same when it all goes up I be the same when it all goes down

Was wondering why this song – which rocks – didn’t get much airplay. Then I saw the video. Least it’s a good song.

———-

Always kinda surprised by the people that marry their high school sweethearts.

If I married my high school/college girlfriend, woulda had one totally miserable person here in NYC.

I wouldn’tve been too happy either.

People go through massive changes from 15-21, again at 25-30, and once again at 30. The issue arises when one person changes one way and the other, another.

Elizabeth Gilbert said it best, Marriage is not a game for the young. Janeane Garofalo said someth’n like, imagine being married to the person who’s sole qualification was that they had the locker next to yours.

Been having a series of parallel conversations with three different people. Alla them’re very prouda the fact that they’re the same person as they were in the past.

But suppose y’believe the earth is flat. And despite all evidence to the contrary, your answer’s that you’ve always believed the world’s flat and that’s just how it’s gonna be.

(Insert your favourite George W. Bush joke here)

Said once that being grateful is the key to not being broken. Lemme add the coda that it’s also a willingness to say, OK, tell me why you think I’m wrong.

Put another way, why should the beliefs of a 16-year-old – when my buddy decided on something – rule the mind of a 35 year-old, his age now?

Are you better or worse if y’can say, I value the acquisition of knowledge above all else?

On yet another related point, become a man without a political party. The choice seems to be between a group enamored of their own ignorance and another inhibited by their own incompetence.

Gonna write in my mom as a candidate next year; if nuthin else, she’ll stay until the job gets done and save taxpayer money by bringing her own coffee.

YASYCTAI: Consider the data. (10 mins/1 pt)

Categories
personal

Play the game

Location: heading to see the accountant
Mood: still sick
Music: get knocked down, but I get up again

NYC Fighting gym

Her: What happened to you?!
Me: (holding arm) Fencing.
Her: You’re 36, why don’t you learn to knit?

Falling apart. Sick and, for some reason, my wrist’s in excruciating pain. Don’t recall doing anything to it.

S’a bit sad; my skills’re better than they’ve ever been (which is, admittedly, not saying much). But my body’s betraying me. Injuries take forever to heal, my stamina’s crap, my reflexes’re non-existent. While I was bad before, I’m terrible now.

Thankfully, the reality’s that I’ll never actually ever get into a real fight.

Some’ll find it silly, prepping for something that’ll never come. But there’re things that it teaches you that other things don’t.

Firsta all, movie stuff ‘s movie stuff. Real violence’s nasty, smelly, and…drippy. Y’want no parta it, lemme tell ya. Fight Club? That was written by a dude that’s never been in a fight in his life.

But it also teaches you how t’play the your game. It’s the stupid wrestler that tries to box a boxer; ditto for a boxer trying to grapple witha grappler. If it’s taught me anything it’s: never play someone else’s game. Fastest way to a whooping.

And, without sounding all Hallmark-y, it teaches y’to get up when someone’s trying his darndest – like for serious – to beat y’down. That’s something.

Just as the runner who runs though there’s nuthing to run for or run to, or the mountain-climber that climbs a big-ass rock just cause he can, I do it cause I dunno how to do anything else.

So I put on a ridiculous outfit, pop in the mouth guard, and pray that my insurance’s paid up this month.

Her: What happened now?!
Me: (limping) Wrestling.
Her: What about yoga?


YASYCTAI: Hit the gym. It’s one-thirda your life. (60 mins/2 pts)

Categories
personal

Time¬=Money; Time>Money

Time isn’t money; time is so much more valuable than money

Antique clock

 

To add to the list of things that have the air of truth to them but no real truth at all, lemme give you one I particularly despise: Time Equals Money.

A buddy of mine put up this thing quoting just that and it reminded me that that’s gotta be one of the stupidest beliefs a body could hold.

Time is so much more valuable than money. Money, you can make and spend; time you can only spend.

Put another way, if given X years to live, how much would you pay for one more year?

Any idiot can make a buck. But in 432,329,886,000,000,000 seconds, no one’s figured out how to make an extra second for themselves.

Working at jobs you hate, to buy things you don’t need, to impress those you don’t know. That’s crazy.

So, if given the chance to make an extra $1,000 or go see your grandma, go see your grandma.

I didn’t and I gotta live with that for all of the seconds I got left.

———-

Sick again. You know the drill, please send soup.

Location: in bed
Mood: sick
Music: with you I’m having a good time I don’t mind
YASYCTAI: At least give her a call. (10 mins/1 pt)

Categories
personal

Perfect Week

Location: surrounded by computer bits
Mood: anxious
Music: every time I snap my fingers, I switch back into the light

How to make it in America picture - (c) someone else

Slipped outta an office this past Friday for drinks with the fellas. On the train, a girlie reads the page I’m on over my shoulder. When I’m done, without a word, hand it over to her and her dude.

Her boy makes a comment about the station so I ask them if they’re from around the way.

Him: (laughs) Yeah. Just kinda hard to see the station names.
Me: The next stop’s Astor.
Him: Thanks. (pause) Hey, did y’get to the TV reviews yet?
Me: Coming up. (turn pages)
Her: That’s you! (excitedly pointing)
Him (grinning sheepishly) Yeah, that’s me. I got a new show out called, How to make it in America.
Me: No kidd’n! My girl and I were just talking about it. That’s you? (peer at the picture).
Her: Yes, he’s Ian Edelman.
Him: (laughs)
Me: Niiice. I’ll watch it.
Him: Willya? That’d be great. I’d really appreciate it.
Me: You got it, man. Sunday, right?
Him: Sunday. Yeah, I hope you watch it.

He’s a native New Yorker. Gotta tell you, the jerks I meet’re usually not natives. They’re usually someone from Nowheresville trying to prove something. Natives, we got nuthin to prove. Sure, that’s a blanket prejudice but it’s what I’ve seen.

Anyhow, super nice fella. Didn’t seem the least bit fake and sounded hopeful that I’d we’d watch his show. So, for being a humble, nice native, he gets a plug here with me and all of yous.

———-

Met up with Paul and WM afterward. WM almost had the perfect week; Paul, the opposite.

Given enough time, y’get to see your friends hit their highs and lows. Ecclesiastics 9:11 goes, time and chance happeneth to them all. Yep.

Stumbled home and saw the girl on St. Vals, when we ordered in and watched Public Enemies.

Saw the rents for Chinese New Year and got my fill of some home cooking.

Maybe not the perfect week per WM but my kinda week: family, friends, girl, and a good story to tell.

YASYCTAI: Organize your picture files (hours/2 pts)

Categories
personal

A semi-clean map

Your Map of the World

The UWS in early winter

As I once said, all emotional pain comes when your expectation of reality doesn’t match reality. A guy who knows his wife’s cheating on him regularly isn’t all that twisted when he catches them in the act, cause he was prepared for it.

So, my buddy in the last entry’s having a hard time dealing with his breakup. Makes sense – breakups are hard. This whole blog came about from my last major breakup.

But to make it easier – the pain that is – I changed my map of the world.

Imagine you had the job of erasing the word “Broadway” from every map you got. That’s a tough task. And when you’re done, the faint lines of the word’s are still there. But it’s gone for the most part.

Dunno if you know this, but I paid for law school fixing computers and networks.

A computer doesn’t actually read a whole harddrive to find the data it wants, it has a map, a table of contents, that lists every file it has. When you want a file, it looks it up on the map, goes to where it is, and pulls it out.

When it deletes a file, all it does is erase that one line on its map. The file’s still there, it just doesn’t know it.

When you wanna get a file back, you can sometimes cause it can figure out what on the map’s changed.

My buddy won’t erase his map. I don’t blame him. It’s heartbreaking and hard.

But Broadway’s gone. He’s gotta scrub his map. If she comes back, that’s great, the faint lines will be there and he’s got a semi-clean map ready for her.

If she doesn’t, well, he’s still got a semi-clean map to work with.

Either way, a semi-clean map’s a good thing.

Only the stalker and the starkers say that Broadway’s there when it’s not.

Location: 20 mins ago, outside shoveling
Mood: hot
Music: It’s hard to free the ones you love (Spotify)

Categories
personal

The Debt and the Deuce

Bar in the Lower East Side, NYC

 

Me: Man, I’m lit. Think we each had a pitcher of beer and three glasses of rum.
Him: (nodding) Did I do the right thing?
Me: Y’know, whether or not you believe in the Bible, the concept’s relevant here. Say you owe me a thousand bucks. And I tell you the debt’s forgiven. But you show up one day showing off your iPhone. Even if I don’t wanna, I’m thinking, This #@#$@ owes me one grand. How does he have money to buy an iPhone? And if I invite y’out to eat, you’re thinking, Ah, I don’t wanna, he’s just trying to rub it in my face that I don’t got no dough. Even if I’m not.
Him: (nodding) So I did the right thing.
Me: (sighing) She broke the trust pact. Let’s say she worked late one night – even if she was being honest, you’d think, Is she really working late, or is something else going on? You did the right thing – for botha you. It’s why I left my girl. Not just for me but for her too.
Him: Still hard though.
Me: Not saying it isn’t. Just saying that someone’s gotta pay the debt, man. Sucks it’s you, but there you go. (laughing) Look, when I broke up with my ex, my buddy Rick swapped out her number with his own just in case I caved and called her. Want me to do the same?
Him: (grinning) Maybe.

Most times, it’s best to throw the deuce, say Peace out, and cut it deep, cut it quick, and cut it clean.

Cause it’s better to be the star of your own movie, than have a cameo in someone else’s.

Location: yest, Malachy’s on 72nd
Mood: completely lit
Music: now we ain’t wastin’ time no more cause time rolls by

Categories
personal

Where life takes you

 

Building off Cooper Square in NYC

A buddy I’ve not seen in a bit came by the other day. We went out for a walk and randomly a friend of his invited him over to eat. So he invited me.

Next thing you know we’re on a cab heading west and sitting in some girl’s kitchen having some hommade jook and I’m moving a cello and he’s hanging a tapestry.

Funny where the day takes you sometimes.

———-

Katsmw: Logan, I’ve told you this several times before!
Me: Sorry – most of the 90s and the first half of the 2000s were a blur to me.
Her: Why is that?
Me: My insomnia. Once I started sleeping well a few days in a row, it was like putting on glasses and seeing clearly.

Had some other friends over last night; an old college buddy and his wife. Made a roasted rack of lamb, potatoes, salad with blue cheese and cranberries rounded off with some gluhwein.

Afterward, played some Scattergories (lost one round and tied one round) and introduced him to the wonderful worlda rum.

At some point, y’sit around and chat about stories in college. Like how my buddy would come back from a hard run and then have a cigarette. He’s since quit. 17 years I’ve known the fella. It’s nice seeing how things change with old friends.

And how much things stay the same.

Me: (dropping carving knife onto floor) YIKES!
Everyone: Whoa!
Her: That could have cut off your toe!
Him: It fell into his lap first (laughing) so a toe woulda been the least of his problems.


Location: on way to Yonkers
Mood: busy
Music: with lovers and friends I still can recall

Categories
personal

Showing up

Parking lot in NYC
Him: You sound like a nice guy. I’d hate to have to bring you to court.
Me: I am a nice a guy. I’d hate to have to meet you in court.
Him: My lawyer’s a professor of law at Columbia. She’ll tear you apart.
Me: She’s just another lawyer. I’m something she’s not.
Him: What’s that?
Me: I’m right. See you in court. (hang up phone)

Since I wanna keep some of my private life private, didn’t tell you that I was in another lawsuit.

If the past three years have taught me anything, it’s that most people’re a lotta talk. But Woody Allen once said that Eighty percent of success is showing up. So I showed up.

It just finished. Won’t get into details but it ended up a lot more my way than his.

———-

Had my date with my lady. Ended up playing boardgames at my fave local dive bar – they got candy at every table, lots of boardgames and few meatheads. My kinda joint.

Been running about, ever in pursuit of scratch. Meetings, meetings, meetings. Nice though, not having to run the show. Not saying I’d never run my own company again, but am saying that it’ll be a while before I do it again.

Just signed up for onea those rent-a-car-by-the-hour programs cause I had to sell my whip.

The inexorable march of time. Suppose 36’s as good an age as any to grow up. Kinda.

Her: Why won’t this work?!
Me: Lemme see. (condescendingly) Honey, you put in the battery in the wrong way.
Her: Oh yeah? Well, at least I didn’t put on my pants backwards.
Me: (looking down)
Her: Shyeah…put that in your blog. (laughs)
Me: (muttering) Dammit…

Location: my desk
Mood: hungry
Music: life’s too short for me to stop Oh baby