Author: Logan Lo

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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

Categories
personal

What she has to put up with

Location: my desk
Mood: frick’n tired
Music: make me work so we can work it out

Homemade sauerkraut in NYC

Two months ago.

Her: Hey…have you noticed a funny smell here?
Me: Hmmm, I’m not sure. I did start making sauerkraut last week though.
Her: Where?
Me: Here. (pointing) In my bedroom.
Her: Oh – that’s got to go.
Me: Where’m I gonna put it?!
Her: Don’t know, but it’s not staying on the floor in your room.
Me: (grumble)

This week.

Me: Hey, I think my sauerkraut’s ready, want some?
Her: No.
Me: More for me then.

———-

Me: So what do you wanna to do?
Her: Let’s go on a date – all we ever do these days is sit around and frick’n yell at each other.
Drink in NYC

Categories
personal

Make it alright

We only realize too late

The unlucky are nothing more than a frame of reference for the lucky, Mr. Fisher. You are unlucky so I may know that I am not. Unfortunately, the lucky never realize they are lucky until it’s too late. Take yourself for instance. Yesterday you were better off than you are today, but it took today for you to realize it. But… today has arrived, and it’s too late, you see?

—Lucky Number Slevin

So, another kid – a girl – killed herself because of cyberbullying.

Do you know about Lori Drew, the 47-woman that convinced this 13 year old girl to hang herself? She got off cause the laws never thought that a bored housewife’d torment a kid to death just for kicks over wire.

Always wondered what kinda douchebag you gotta be to torment someone just cause you wanna and then hide behind a computer screen or cell phone.

It’s a bitter thing to read cause I’ve lived almost three times longer than her and still feel like I’m a kid.

Wish you waited. Cause you grow up and wonder why people you barely remember ever affected you so much. Then they find you on some social-networking site and you think, “Man, they look terrible!” and start to believe in karma but then change your mind.

Maybe that’s just me.

Honestly wonder what people like Lori Drew tell themselves to make it alright for them to sleep at night.

I’d like to know, because, man, I could use the rest.

———-

On a positive tech note, pretty jazzed that as many people gave as much as they did to Haiti via text – something like $30 million in just a few weeks.

Didja know that Americans gave $1.8 billion to the Asian tsuanmi? I say the measure of a society’s humanity’s how they take carea those not as lucky.

Yet another reason I love this joint.

Location: a light green couch
Mood: wired
Music: Same birds that followed me to school When I was young (Spotify)

Categories
personal

Making, Moving or Thinking

Location: in fronta three glowing things again
Mood: busy
Music: don’t wanna be damned, oh, hell

clocks in NYC

Me: Can’t speak for you but I spend 80-90% of my waking hours in fronta something that glows.
Her: What?
Me: The times I’m not in fronta something that glows – a phone, ipod, television, computer screen, camera screen – is vastly outnumbered by the times that I am.

In the last entry, told you that I had dinner with a buddy. During that dinner, mentioned this change in the law and how it affects ISPs. He’s a reporter and he actually wrote an article about it this week and he just told me that it’s their top tech/legal story.

Unfortunately, I’m not permitted to discuss the matter. But it’s strange reading your own words as an anonymous contributor to a decent-sized story.

Speakinga dinners, had dinner with someone else this week and I mentioned this quote by David Allen. Said that 50 years ago, 80% of us made our living by making or moving something. Y’knew when the job was done when there was nuthin left to make or move.

Now, something like 90% of us think for work. Or try to look like we’re thinking.

Point being that, it’s harder to know how to do the job and when the job’s done without having a final work product. Like if I write a legal memo, the thinking never ends.

Guess that’s why I like fencing or wrestling – cause, y’know right away if y’got the job done or not. There’s a definitiveness that I don’t get anywhere else.

So despite bein old’n creaky, get up every few days for some kid to beat the snot outta me.

In related news, I’m outta ibuprofen.

YASYCTAI: See if there’s a kali school near you. Y’might like it. (45 mins/1 pt)

Categories
personal

Fatty of my own

Maybe someday

Townhouse in the Upper West Side, NY

 

Walked down to Times Square from the UWS to catch the da Vinci exhibit.

That’s a whole entry there but just lemme say that: (a) there was a time when religion, science, and art went together and (b) it strikes me as really strange that the same country that gave us da Vinci gave us the people on the Jersey Shore.

Speaking of giving us people, Bryson came by with his fatty today and she was the cutest thing. Make’s me think about having a kid myself. Then again, can barely take care of George and Harold. Still, think all guys start thinking about cranking out a few rug rats roundabout this time.

As I told you before, Bryson’s no joke – took the bronze at the Pan-Americans. But something about a kid mellows a fella out.

Cooked him up some wings and we kicked back a beer as she drooled happily all over him.

Then had dinner with a buddy that owns this jaw-dropping 4,400 SF pad and four kids a few blocks from me.

It’s cool, seeing your friends become men.

Like I said, maybe I’ll get a fatty of my own some day.

Location: three blocks away
Mood: stuffed
Music: Sleep tonight And may your dreams Be realized

Categories
personal

Haiti/Pat, you viper

Location: in front of a busted HD
Mood: still annoyed
Music: baby stay with me, I love it

Snow on the 72nd Street Pier in NYC

If y’read the bible, you’ll see that Jesus only got pissed – seriously pissed – with one group, the Pharisees. They were the religious elite, the ones who looked down on those that weren’t doing the willa God. They said who was good and evil.

And he said to them, You’re nuthin but snakes and the childrena snakes. And you’re going to hell.

This isn’t a religious entry, just an observation of many of the world’s holy – irrespective of religion.

Which brings me to Pat Robertson saying that Haiti’s paying fora “pact to the devil.”

Pat, you self-righteous SOB:

  1. you snake, who the #$@! do you think you are?
  2. you’re going to hell.

Either help in some way or get outta the way.

———-

On the topic of help, how’s this for easy-peasy: text HAITI to 90999 and you send $10 for aid to Haiti.

Do it for yourself, if for nuthin else. $10 in exchange for feeling like you’ve helped in some way is a bargain, man. It’s a steal.

———-

Returning to our regularly scheduled nuthin, feel like I let y’down Jaerik, writing two ranty blog entires in a row.

Sorry dude. I’ll stop now. To make it up to you, I’m gonna pimp your new game – which is honestly, quite awesome.

If you’re on FB, do a search for “islandlife” and prepare to be impressed.

Speakinga pimping; had this hidden entry where I asked people to send in a pic of themselves singing for Caffeineguy, who also let me know of the Snopes link above.

Here’s what he did with it, the talented bastard:

The chick at 0:12 is my fave part of the vid.

YASYCTAI: $10 bucks! The costa two burgers and fries at McD. Do it. (1 min/2 pt)