Month: July 2011

Categories
personal

Not getting shot by the authorities and seeing old friends

View of Madison Avenue sky, NYC

Her: Are you eating Cheetos at 8AM?!
Me: (Cheetos in mouth) No…?

Yesterday, had a pretty busy day; started at 7AM and didn’t finish until 10:30 PM. On Tuesday nights, walk a few blocks south of my pad to go to my fencing class. Been doing it for maybe six years?

So for the past year or so, some person’s been tossing a bag of dog poop in front of my building. Asked onea the next door doormen to keep and eye out for who it was. Stepping out last night, the doorman points to a woman walking down the street with a dog and then another bag of poop in font of my door.

“That’s her,” he says and without thinking, I give chase.

Catching up to her, she turns to me and I realize three things:

  1. She’s old. And tiny.
  2. I’m carrying a large weapon (for my fencing class).
  3. I’m sweaty, breathless, and angry.

This is how people get shot by passing police officers. Also I realized that yelling at her wouldn’t do any good. So instead:

Me: Hello, my name is Logan. Can I go to your apartment to dry off?
Her: What? No. I don’t know you.
Me: Fair enough. But I know you. You see every week for a year, I pick up a bag of dog poop you toss in front of my building. So I figure that that’s earned me at least the right to go up to your apartment, dry off, and maybe get a cuppa tea, don’t you?

She turned bright red and started to apologize – well, more blamed the city for not putting trashcans everywhere and THEN started to apologize. After a few more words, she came back to my apartment, picked up the poop, apologized again, and said I was a nice young man.

Seriously have no idea how some people’re raised. Animals, they are.

Admit that screaming at her woulda made me feel better; but I think getting what you actually want in life’s more important. Hopefully, that’s the last bag of dog poop I’ll have to pick up in a while.

Plus, did not get shot by the authorities, so a net-net win, I’d say.

———

FemaleFriend1: I know you’re not, but if you did  cross over, who would you want?
FemaleFriend2: Kim Kardashian.
Me: (laguhing) As a dude, I totally respect your dudeness!
FemaleFriend1: What about you?
Me: (thinking) Hmm, Brad Pitt?
FemaleFriend3: Really?
Me: (scoffing) Oh, I could totally get a Brad Pitt.

Met up with a buncha co-workers I’ve not seen in a while. Only have two real comments on that:

  1. Seeing old friends is always good cause not just cause you see people you’ve not seen in a while, you get to hang out with a version of yourself you’ve not seen in a while either.
  2. Traveling 30 mins outta the city, the price of a rum and diet coke drops to a third of what you pay in the city.

Note to self, move outta the city (someday).

Location: waiting for a phone call in the UWS
Mood: still productive!
Music: red is the colour of the sun with my eyes closed
YASYCTAI: Look up land around you; maybe build a house? (days/1 pt)
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Categories
personal

Everyone’s got an opinion on something

View of Bryant Park Grill, NYC

The thing about the wired everything’s that everyone’s got an opinion that they feel’s crucially important for people to hear. Won’t lie, I’ve got my own opinions about the world. But the thing is that I know my opinion’s merely my own; for the most part, this here blog’s for me and my own purposes.

I mean, who am I to tell people what to do?

But you have people like this nutcase in Norway who kill 92+ people (mostly unarmed kids) cause he’s a got a goddamned opinion that he thinks is more than just that, an opinion. He wants his opinion to rule over others.

The need to feel important, to matter, is an overwhelming one for someone that feels that they somehow are.

The people that’re certain they’re right, that only they hold the keys to the kingdom, are the ones that make me the most worried.

———-

It’s been hot here in the big city. 100 degrees in the shade hot. It’s hard to stay focused when all I wanna do’s lie down in some air conditioned room.

Been writing a lot. Forced myself to put down my manuscript to work on something else. This fella named Paul Valery once said that A poem is never finished, only abandoned. Think the same is true of any writing.

I was just thinking the other day that

 

Location: a dark room, trying to stay cool
Mood: productive
Music: you went back to what you knew
YASYCTAI: Try to get motivated in this weather. It’s not easy. (24 hours/1 pt)
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Categories
business personal

Quiet summer weekends in New York City

View of Bryant Park Grill, NYC

Friday had lotsa meetings lined up, onea which was with an old work associate. Ended up being a three hour meeting. In a nutshell, he got screwed. I’d fight hard for any client but even more so when it’s a friend.

As an odd twist, on an unrelated point, his old boss was the CEO of a Fortune 100 company – and a kid that I went to elementary and junior high school with. We both knew each other because we were in the nerd group. It’s like being in the cool group except the complete opposite of everything and no one calls you except to get homework assignments.

Me: Tell him you know Fatlogan.
Him: They really called you that?
Me: (laughing) That or Whaleboy. Ask him and see. He’ll remember me only because I was the second fattest kid in the whole school and always wore the same four shirts.

I wonder if he talks like a kid from Queens.

Afterward, my boss and I grabbed some food and rum over at The Bryant Park Grill. Then more rum at the Cellar Bar. And then more rum at Salute. He thinks I’m good at what I do. It’s nice to hear. Even nicer when there’s rum involved.

Two glasses of water at Bryant Park Grill, NYC

Saturday, HG and I rented a whip and made it out to Staten Island for some family stuff. Spoke to HG’s cousin for a bit.

Her: I think that when people have kids, they’ll be a lot like they were.
Me: Then that means my kids’ll be pantsed a lot.

It was a nice drive there and back. Afterward, the wife and stopped by to get some frozen yoghurt at a new joint down from us called 16 Handles. Afterward, we lumbered home.

Me: It was a nice weekend.
Her: It was. But it’s good to be home.

Glass of rum on the rocks with a thick slice of orange at Salute! NYC

Location: sweating at a wooden desk
Mood: dreading the heat
Music: the future could it be the good old days
YASYCTAI: Keep cool – it’s a scorcher today. (24 hours/1 pt)
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Categories
dating personal

Watching the movie you paid for

View east from Penn Station

Yeah. The funny thing is – on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.
– Shawshank Redemption

Wild salmon costs significantly more than farmed salmon but few can taste the difference between the two.

There’s been a number of legal cases lately where lots of fishermen and restaurants are swapping one fish for another – not just with salmon but with all kinds of stuff.

At issue is really one of expectations; if you paid for wild salmon, you should get wild salmon. Whether or not y’can actually tell the difference between the two is irrelevant.

Let’s switch gears to dating.

I dated this girl once that I was certain was cheating on me. Yelled at her all the time for it until one day she actually did. Then when I caught her in the act, she said to me, I was already being punished for it, so I figured that I might as well do it.

In other words, she already got the punishment, why not do the crime itself? Rephrasing it yet again, got what I paid for.

Learned something profound at that moment, which’s that life’s as you see it in your head.

So I met up with my buddy and another friend for drinks Monday night; he’s back with his girl. The reason why I’m guessing it’ll end badly, just as it did for our other friend that kept clinging, is that she paid for a drama not a romantic comedy.

And whether he realizes it or not, he’s going to give her a drama, regardless of the script he has planned.

Him: What makes you so sure?
Me: I could be wrong. In fact, i hope I am. I’d like nuthin more than for you guys to come back and say, “See, I told you it’d fine.” Cause you’re my friend and that’s what I hope for you. And there’s a chance it’ll work out, but only if something’s different this time.

Location: my room, looking for a lightweight suit
Mood: dreading the heat
Music: It’s not so easy to believe in someone else, Till you do
YASYCTAI: Realize that people want what they paid for, irrespective of whether or not they can tell the difference. (1 min/1 pt)
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Categories
personal

Feeling like a wealthy adult

View east from Lincoln Center

The weather’s been relatively cool this summer; my running joke’s that in NYC, we go from Winter straight into Summer without a stop in Spring. This year, however, we’ve had spring and there’ve been several nice accompanying days.

Stopped by my old law school to pick up some things and it’s a bit shocking to me that it’s been 15 years since I first walked through those doors. It still smells the same. Smells are the first things I ever remember.

View east from Lincoln Center

Speakinga remembering and smells, saw my mom and dad along with some uncles and aunts this past weekend. HG and I headed out to Flushing where we met up with them in the same restaurant we went to for our Chinese wedding. Somea my relatives were in Asia at the time and they wanted to meet my wife.

Still feels strange writing the word, “wife.”

We took the train out there insteada the subway. It was my first time ever. Afterward, HG went home first so I could get a haircut. My thoughts and I took the 3:06 train to Penn Station.

S’funny, you can live in a place your entire life and never see it from a particular angle. Been to five-star hotels on private beaches in Nantes, suites in luxury ships off the coast of Denmark, private celebrity parties, and expensive fund-raisers. But being on a $12.50 train ride with HG made me feel wealthy and picking up the tab for lunch made me feel like an adult. Silly, isn’t it?

Finally, it’s supposed to be 95 degrees today.

Well, that’s the end of that.

Location: getting ready to get to the bank
Mood: cool, for now
Music: oh, this has gotta be the good life
YASYCTAI: Buy something nice for yourself that makes you feel wealthy. (1 min/1 pt)
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Categories
dating personal

How to get the person you want most of all

Downtown NYC

Don’t have any comment on the Casey Anthony trial. It shocks me a bit how nothing shocks me anymore. Although, it does provide the useful lesson that, if you’re gonna commit a heinous crime, try to be pretty(ish), young, and white. Or a celebrity. Pick one.

———-

This monk named Thomas Merton once said that, The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little. Think that’s totally true.

Got three friends, all of whom wanted to get good at dating. But they just stopped after a few months because they all just ended up with people that were good enough.

One of them told me that his girl didn’t want a guy that treats dating like an occupation. Which’s yet another onea those things that sounds good on a superficial level but doesn’t make any real sense.

I treated it like an occupation – more a hobby, really, but I’m going for parallelism here – started meeting people in September of 2006 and continued to be single until September of 2008. Two years and some 150+ dates later.

And it sucked. It makes you weary. And you have to be coldly dispassionate. The constant hellos and goodbyes.

But If it’s important, and valuable, it doesn’t come easy. Nuthin worth anything comes easy.

Early on, when I started dating, kept repeating favourite quote: With increased intelligence, comes increased capacity for pain. If you’re smart enough, you learn to push all that doubt to the side of your mouth. You get up, go out, and take your chances. S/he’s not going to just show up knocking. Most of all, you deal with the pain.

Bookmarks Lounge bar on top of the Library Hotel in Midtown NYC

Him: How do you know we’re gonna end badly?
Me: I don’t know. But I figure it will Cause I saw the first movie. In this sequel, all of the characters’re the same. You’re still you, she’s still her. Everything’s the same. Why would it be different this time around unless onea you were radically different? You were both single for just 35 days. How different could either of you be? You went back cause it hurt too much, and I understand that. But you deal with the pain to give her, and you, time to be different. 35 days’s not enough time. You should have waited and met more people.
Him: You met all those people, what’d that really get you?
Me: (shrugging) The girl I wanted most of all.

Location: desk, trying to not be insanely hot
Mood: insanely hot
Music: we brave bee stings and all And we don’t dive, we cannonball
YASYCTAI: Don’t make Casey Anthony a millionaire. Don’t buy her book, listen to her interviews, etc. Don’t reward evil. (20 years/0.5 pts)
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