Categories
personal

Lost

Location: 8:12 – arriving at work
Mood: confused
Music: I never meant the things I did

Me: You’re supposed to look before you cross!

PCD: (pointing at cross sign) I trust in the system!

We watch the Olympic ceremonies on Friday and go for a walk in the park. Saturday, wrestle and get can-opened by a smiling girl. 16 tabs of ibuprofen later, I crash two parties…

Me: There are three types of people in the world. Single, sorta single and not single.
Her: See that’s the problem in NY, everyone is sorta single. Which one’re you?
Me: (thinking) Hard to say these days.

…almost get into two fights, but don’t (not really, anywho)…

WM: It’s you, man. The same reason why that girl talked to you outside the bar is the same reason why those two guys wanted to fight with you.

Me: Howzit me?

Him: I’m telling you, y’give off a vibe.

…hurt some people…

Me: Are you crying?

Her: No.

Me: Are you lying to me?

Her: (pause) Yes.

…and go to church with LisaV, before I hit up a rooftop party with WM and Paul. Later, meet up with someone for a late night chat.

I should trust in the system. But I’m so lost. I need a sign.

Categories
personal

The button, the needle or the thread?

Location: 21:00 yest, getting stabbed in the throat
Mood: contemplative
Music: Walking by myself down avenues that reek of time to kill

No 6 landed this book deal a while ago and I helped her edit it – she gave me a credit on the acknowledgment’s page. When her book came out, I was traveling a lot so I’d stop by the local BN in town and buy up a few copies. Ended up buying ’bout 50 $!#@$ copies.

I’ve not been sleeping so I’ve been reading it. It’s weird cause I never read the finished product. It’s like I hear her voice and some words of mine in the pages. But it’s not bad. I know how the stories all end.

Diogenes the Cynic
was this whackjob that used to walk around in the daytime with a lamp looking for one honest man. Never found one. Honesty’s easy when you got nuthin on the line. Y’find out who’s honest and who’s honeytounged when you do.

Now, even when I don’t wanna hear the truth, I wanna hear it.

Me: Why do I feel you’re not being honest with me?

Her: (pause) Because I’m not. I’ve got to go. (pause) Don’t be angry. I wish everything were easier.

Man, who doesn’t? With the exception of Heartgirl, I never know if I’m making time, killin time or spending time. Can’t be a hypocrite, it cuts both ways. Still, never know if I’m the needle, the thread or the button til it’s all over.

Speaking of Heartgirl, she’s going away for a bit. I’ll miss her. Interestingly, she may actually have said something nice to me recently.

Me: It’s not like you like me for my brains.

Her: It’s why I like you.

Me: For the first time ever, I’m confused as to whether or not you’re being sarcastic.

Man, I wish I knew how my stories end.

Categories
personal

You are a soul

You can’t sell your soul, you are a soul

Me: I’m sorry, come again? How old’re you?
Her: 18.
Me: (turning to WM) Yeah, I’m leaving.

Spent Friday out with Gio and WM around the UES. Not my scene.

Saturday morning, spoke with Heartgirl; that’s a post for some other time. Saturday night, saw PCD. She did NOT heed my advice and was hung over so we spent a very nice quiet night in the UWS.

Unfortunately, while writing this, I just found out that my grandma’s in the hospital. Was supposed to see her when that woman stole all my money.

You know when someone talks about selling your soul, or whatnot? That irritates me. Cause you’re not a body with a soul. You are a soul. You just happen to have a body.

My grandmother is no dainty grandma; she’s tougher than DeNiro and smokes more than he does.

But her body is betraying her and there’s nuthin I can do about it. She gave me my eyes.

I wanna hit something.

Location: in front of three computers
Mood: worried
Music: No need to say goodbye You’ll come back
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Categories
personal

Blessed are the forgetful

Her: I forget a lot of things.
Me: I envy you. Nietzsche once said, “Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.” I never forget anything.  But I’m working on that.
Her: I’d never want to remember everything. That’d be terrible.
Me: (nodding) It’s why I’m an insomniac.

Caligirl’s getting married.

For my longtime readers, she was also the girl in this entry. She’s everything I’m looking for in a girlie. Yet I don’t love her. Least, not in the way she wants. Dunno why that is, but that’s as it is.

As a kid, I remember reading about Soma in A Brave New World and wondering why anyone would wanna forget stuff. Not a kid anymore. There’s no Soma in NYC. There’s no River Lethe. That part I knew. But I’m also finding that there’s no SING. No girl on the east side missing a heart.

There are, however, any number of fine (and not so fine) drinking establishments in the big city where they’ll serve me my favorite poison on the rocks with a big slice of orange for $14 a glass.

I know cause I went to two of them Wednesday and Thursday nights with any number of girlies, some very random, some very specific. The weekend forecast looks similar. They’ll have to do.

Suspect I’m not invited to the wedding.

I’m an insomniac cause I lie awake remembering. I’m so talented at it that I even remember things that never happened, people that never existed.

Location: 10:00-14:00 yest, all over Manhattan
Mood: calm
Music: Why so scared of romance?

Categories
personal

A Tale of Two Conversations

Me: You ever read Tale of Two Cities? Charles and Sydney look alike and both love Lucie. But Lucie loves Sydney. Sydney’s arrested and about to be killed when Charles appears and takes Sydney’s place. So Charles asks, why would you do that for me? And Sydney goes, I’m not doing it for you; I’m doing it for her.
Him: If I break up with her, it’ll kill her.
Me: If you marry her cause you feel obligated to – that’d kill her. (pause) If you really do care about her, cut her loose. Then again, what do I know? Sometimes, you do the right thing and you hate yourself. Sometimes, you do the wrong thing and you hate yourself. After a while, you just get used to hating yourself. Hence, rum.


Caligirl: But I realize that there is something we have in common.
Me: And that is?
Her: (softly) Don’t you see it? I’m seeing someone else. PCD’s seeing other people, BEG’s seeing someone, the accountant never wants to get married and Heartgirl’s unavailable. You like the ladies you can’t have. Cause it saves you from the messy things. From having to look someone in the eye and telling them that you’re not the guy. (contemptuously) You’re such a sad and pathetic person, Logan.
Me: (pause) You’re in rare form today.
Her: I try, Logan. (pause) I saw that pretty blond at your birthday party and I knew you’d ____ it up. Just like you always do. You’re terrible at your two rules. What are you looking for?
Me: Something I can’t put into words. What you’re saying, has the ring of truth, but isn’t true at all.
Her: I wonder if you really believe all the crap you say. (pause) I hope you get your heart broken. Into a million little _____ pieces. Put this conversation in your sad little blog.
Me: I’ll take that under advisement.

Funny thing is, sometimes you forget why, exactly, you hate yourself but you get so used it to doing it that you keep doing it.

Location: 22:00 yest, parrying a dagger in the UWS
Mood: pensive
Music: A little less conversation, a little more action please

Categories
personal

Between the lines

Her: My one problem is that I like boys with brown eyes but I want kids with blue eyes.
Me: Not up to date on Mendel but I’m thinking that won’t happen with a guy like me.

 

Thursday, meet up with WM and chat with Stephen, the bartender. His recipes for drinks are on Fine Living here.

Friday, see PCD – it’s nastier than summer’n hell so we stay in and rent In Bruges – not good. So we stop it and see Dr. Horrible online instead – so good! Make cole slaw and almost bogart the whole thing myself.

Her: Well, we’re both busy. I mean we’re seeing 700 other people.
Me: FIVE! I’m seeing five other people.
Her: (rolling eyes) I meant the two of us together are seeing 700 other people…

Saturday afternoon, go to the gym and get rocked. Take 16 tabs of ibuprofen, shower and dash down to see Heartgirl for dinner on the west side.

We get into a tiff because she misunderstands me – don’t wanna complicate things for her; her life’s complicated enough.

Me: People have done that to me. Hung around with me telling me that we’ll be friends when actually they’re just hoping that I’ll change my mind and like them in the way they want. It’s terrible. (pause) I won’t do that to you.
Her: (nodding) Yeah. (later) Don’t you dare put what we talked about in your blog, Logan.
Me: (stopping) What?!
Her: (turns and walks away) I hear things.
Me: (muttering) I’ve gotta change my name.

Walk her to her subway stop and then check my phone. 1AM. Early yet. Walk over to Maru and see old friends. It’s 3AM when I stumble home.

Sunday, am supposed to see Pretty Jenny but I screw up the times. Instead see family for an early dinner around the way. Heading home, run into a waitress I know who grabs my arm and pulls me in. The triathlon just ended and she’s in a good mood so she buys me a Bud.

Chit-chat before dashing off to church. The hazy heat pulls me into a hazy headspace and I daydream of conversations from the weekend before I snap back to reality. I’m ever between the lines.

Strolling home, a pretty lady sits on my stoop. She stands, smiles and waves at me. I laugh and invite her in.

Location: 6:20 – bed, doing situps
Mood: hella hot
Music: Too late, two choices to stay or to leave

Categories
personal

Talk. I’d listen

Everything here, I say to my friends in real life; it’s why Jill thought I was giving her lines when I was just being myself.

One thing I tell people all the time is: drink rum. Seriously, do me a favor this weekend and one night do nuthin but pound rum. Mojitos, Captain n Coke, aged rum on the rocks with a slice of orange, whatever – just don’t drink any other type of alcohol.

Drink one glass of water with a multivitamin fore you sleep and see how you feel the next day. No hangover. Plus, note that you’ll feel “happy” versus “angry.” Those same two chemicals I told you bout last time not only give you that nasty hangover but also make you an angry drunk.

The beauty of rum is when you go on a bender, it only lasts that night. The next day you’re just as productive as you woulda been had you not been on a bender at all.

Rum. It’s nature’s perfect drink.

Another thing I say to people all the time is Proverbs 27:17, which goes Iron sharpens iron, so friends sharpen friends. The people you surround yourself with are your mirrors to the world. It’s also why it’s painful when people leave your Venn Diagram. You dull a little when they do.

Interestingly, that bible quote was in an article on relationships in the NY Times. The article notes that more marriages are killed by silence than by violence. It’s harder than you might think. The talking.

Her: My thing is that I just lose interest in people. You know how when you just want someone gone and you don’t even want them to say anything? Ever? I hate how that feels.
Me: (slowly) More than you know.
Her: Yes. So that’s why I wanna go slowly. I’m getting ahead of myself by trying to stay behind. Does that make sense? (pause) We don’t have to stop talking yet. You could talk. I’d listen.
Me: OK then, let me tell you a story…

Location: 8:19, trying to figure out what to clean first
Mood: excited
Music: so few come and don’t go

Categories
personal

Oh…cm’on!

Location: My office, wishing I were outside
Mood: wistful
Music: Our hands are covered in cake But I swear we didn’t have any

Seriously, someone somewhere really just hates me. Hates me.

Realized as I went through records that I may be the oldest person in my entire condo building.

Still, although it’s served with a big slice of lemon, at least my blue sky’s back.

———-

Heartgirl dropped me a line recently. Isn’t weird how the more you don’t want to think about someone, the more you do?

HEI’s going through some rough times but I told her that rough times are when you find out what you’re made of. Rough times cut away the fat of your life to see the muscle underneath. On a related note, while we’re both attracted to each other, we’re solidly in friends camp for our own reasons. Hopefully we stay in each other’s Venn Diagram.

BEG is off on vacation so I don’t think I’ll be seeing her any time soon.

Finally, PCD and I saw each other recently. In addition to being a cake decorator, she also has an anthropology degree so we’ve some interesting conversations.

Her: Today I made an onion – tomorrow I’m making asparagus.
Me: (laughing) You’re so non sequitur.

Her: I’m totally sequitur!

Me: It’s ok, I like non-sequitur.

Her: So one physical marker of an Asian is the shovel shaped incisors – the insides of your incisors are scooped.

Me: (feeling the inside of my teeth with my tongue) Well, look at that. (pause) Cm’re, lemme check out yours – for purely scientific purposes, I assure you…


Categories
dating personal

Front-runners & Back-burners

So my date on Saturday was really fun. Here’s the kicker though – wasn’t with Heartgirl.

Friday night, meet up with Hazel, Paul, and WM in the UWS. Elle’s there with her two friends, one of whom wants to step up to this striking blue-eyed blond bombshell. He leaves without so much as a hello to her so I turn to her: Hi there – lemme tell you story, morning glory…

She’s super nice but she’s the same name as my mother plus Elle’s there; not that I think she cares but still. I tell her we’ll run into each other again and politely eject. Besides, I tell WM, as we exit and turn onto 79th Street, there’s always something ’round the corner.

Sometimes, quite literally. Cause I immediately lock eyes with a grey-eyed girlie outside a bar who grins at me and says, Hi there! WM rolls his eyes as I wink at her and say, Howdy.

Me: The best thing about NYC’s the random meetings, yeah?
Her: (smiles) Yeah. What’s your name?

We had a great conversation but, you guessed it: 22. Fail. Speaking of fail, Saturday, Heartgirl cancels. Again. I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t disappointed. Cause I don’t know her all that well, but what I do know, I like very much. Luckily, I’m not one to cry into my porridge:

Me: Dinner and a movie?
Pretty Cake Decorator: I’m not sure. I mean – I don’t really know you.
Me: (deep breath) This may not be the smartest idea I’ve ever had, but…my last name’s Lo. Google me.

She swings by and we end up watching two films and ordering in. We somehow find ourselves doing Stupid Human Tricks: I do a split and she touches the back of her head with her toes. We both end up laughing on the floor.

PCD: I’m glad I came over. (pause) But I can see this has potential for a lot of disappointment.
Me: (quietly) Well that’s…sad.

There’s that word again: disappointment. Isn’t that the worst, worst part of dating?

Heartgirl just told me why she couldn’t make it. It was a very good reason, actually. But there’s always a very good reason to bail, yeah? To quote HEI, everyone has their front-runners and back-burners. To add to that, sometimes you’re the front-runner, sometimes you’re the back-burner. Just how it shakes out.

While I think Heartgirl and I’ll always be friends, there’s never a really a good point to stick around, romantically, if you’re someone’s back-burner. Mrs. Lo didn’t raise any stupid sons.

Hopeless romantic ueber-nerds, yes. Stupid, no.

Cause I believe someone’ll see what you’re worth; you’ll be someone’s front-runner someday and she’ll be yours. Until then we all do just fine on our own.

Location: my pad
Mood: complacent
Music: I’m just gonna drive

Categories
personal

Profitable but clumsy

We’ve got to speed things up in this hotel. Chef, if a guest orders a three-minute egg, give it to him in two minutes. If he orders a two-minute egg, give it to him in one minute. If he orders a one-minute egg, give him a chicken and let him work it out for himself.

Groucho – A Night in Casablanca

I’m profitable for June. Only by a couplea hundred bucks. Still…tiny win is better than no win at all.

———-

Me: Sit on this side.
Her: (shaking head) No, that’s what they do in Portugal and I don’t like that.
Me: (rolling eyes) It’ll just mean that I’ve gotta lean across the table to kiss you. And I’m terribly clumsy. I mean, I’ll still do it and you’ll like it. I’m just saying, we’re taking a risk.
Her: (laughs) You’re a weirdo.

Had dinner at the Maritime Hotel on Wednesday with Heartgirl and drinks round the meatpacking district. We’re supposed to go to Kanvas but it shut down. Of course.

Also seeing her Saturday, which is a big deal cause: (a) Fridays and Saturdays are for your friends and significant others and (b) she’s still not over her ex. And yet…Saturday night. I’m stupid like that.

It’s hard coordinating schedules – I’m always busy when they’re free or vice versa. Haven’t seen CakeDecorator, Blue-Eyed Girl or anyone else in a week.

Scored a Classic Room at the Borgata tomorrow but no girlie I’m seeing has made it to that, Hey, let’s spend a night at a five star hotel together, level so I just gave the room away. Even though no throwing down would be involved, I highly doubt that any of the women I’m seeing’d believe me if I told them that.

Not sure I believe me, come to think of it.

Location: bed
Mood: satisfied
Music: Honestly what will become of me