Tag: dialogue

Categories
personal

No Sex and the City

Location: 22:43 yest, my desk with a glass of rum
Mood: confused
Music: maybe You’re gonna be the one who saves me

Her: I read your blog. It’s weird because it almost sounds like you’re giving me lines because you tell me the exact same things you say in your blog.
Me: It’s not like I take someone else’s words and pretend they’re my own – what I write is what I actually say to my friends in real life.

A buddy swings by on Friday for a visit but I don’t have much time to hang out. Spend the night watching the last James Bond flick (which rocks) with HEI and some takeout.

Saturday’s a strange day. Get caught in the rain before I head to a dinner party with the girl in the top pic from this entry when Syd’s lens cap falls into the subway tracks. Have to wait an hour for someone to fish it out. At the party, the toilet gets clogged and I’m the only one that tells the host about it. Course, people think I did it, but whaddya gonna do? Meet a blue-eyed girl whom I walk back and tell I’ll meet up for caramels. She says she’s game.

Because of the movie, lately a lotta people tell me that my life is like the male Sex and the City. Dunno – never seen an episode. Don’t understand why, though, it’s not like I sit around drinking pink drinks, gossiping all the time and jumping from bed to bed. It’s tough enough falling asleep in my own bed.

Besides, life is in the living – you should be living your real life and not watching someone else’s made up one, yeah?

Unless, of course, it’s James Bond.

———-

Yes, it looks like something interesting. It’s not, just friends.

Been wondering if the SING really exists. It’s the hopeless romantic in me; after thinking HeartGirl was her, now I keep wondering if I’ll ever run into her again. How ridiculous.

Categories
personal

You heart me

Her: I think you (draws a heart in the air) me. (laughs) Why does our meeting have to mean something? Can’t it just be we met and I just had too much to drink?
Me: Because I want so bad for it to mean something. That’s why you can’t be the girl.

Friday, meet up with WM and Paolo for a party at Duvet. Not my scene. We bounce and meet up with Elle and company for some rum and beer at Reservoir. Meet a girlie who thinks I look too young. I tell her I’m not.

On the subway going up, I bump into three lovely young German women, smile and say, Hallo, habe ich ein Witz fuer euch – ein Typ…usw, usw, usw…

Saturday, see the girl that I thought was the Ship in the Night Girl who says the above. We chat from midnight to four again before I put her in a cab and take the long walk home, just for old times sake. Walking home I think of something: this girl has green eyes. The SING had green eyes. I think. You see I’ve forgotten if they’re green or they’re blue.

Sunday, meet up with Rain downtown to do a month’s worth of laundry. He makes me stand on a plank of wood he’s cutting with a powersaw as my whites hit the rinse cycle. Later that night, attend Cappy’s wedding an upscale midtown Greek restaurant. I see friends I’ve not seen in 15 years. They ask me how I am and I lie and say I’m fine.

Outside, take a picture of the attractive hostess who looks up at the sky and tell her that I won’t take her number but I’ll give her mine. She smiles and says that very gentlemanly. It’s my turn to laugh as I hand her my card. Of course, she’s 21, but not, however, a pescatarian.

Her: I think you want the drama. You like the drama.
Me: I really, really, do not.
Her: What if it did mean something? But not what you were hoping. What if we did connect, but as friends?
Me: (laugh, lean into her ear) I think you heart me.
Her: (leans into my ear) That’s my line. You can’t take my line.
Me: I just did.

Location: 1993 in my head
Mood: melancholy
Music: It’s a little bit funny

Categories
personal

Armed and Dangerous

There are three types of people in the world – maybe four

Me: There are three types of people in the world. Single, sorta single and not single.
Her: Not true, there’s a fourth.
Me: (puzzled) Really, what’s that?
Her: (laughing and flashing a ring on her left hand) An MBA – Married But Available.

We all carry our homemade weapons with us. The everyday items that, when against the wall, we flick out and stab others with.

My intellect instantly becomes arrogance; wit, sarcasm; focus, aggression. Faster than the blink of a teary eye. It’s parta why I don’t curse – that’s just gas on a fire.

At some point in every relationship, you got that split-second choice on whether or not to draw those weapons. Once those daggers come out, man, there’s no going back. There’s no putting toothpaste back inna tube.

A monster, No. 6 once said of me. We’d such a bloody end; I said things no one should ever say. Then again, so did she. Just spoke to her not that long ago. My fine handiwork’s still in her voice.

Cause I’m the skillest with my sharp objects. The killest with my blunt instruments.

Every fencer knows to take care when drawing. Cause you’re always just as likely to cut yourself as your adversary. I don’t recall a time I ever drew first and didn’t cut myself more. Not once. And I’m never unarmed.

The skillest and killest. It’s a horrid gift.

Me: I think I should go now.

———-

A different girlie:

Her: Hey Logan. (pause) I’d like to be friends. I think we could be friends.
Me: I’d really like that.

Location: my childhood bed
Mood: wicked once again
Music: another evil force tellin’ me to do what I gotta do

Categories
personal

Ships in the night

Met the Ship in the Night Girl Again

Me: Ships in the night?
Her: I’m sorry what?
Me: (laughing) My mistake…thought you were someone else.

Friday, go to a party thrown by Jenny and friends – they hired a bartender and had an open bar. Sweeeeeet. Saturday, spend the day roaming the hood with with HEI. We end up having a wind-tunnel-like lunch at the Boat Basin. She’s all sorts of lovely.

Saturday night, go to a friend’s b-day party. Meet someone I swear is the Ship In the Night Girlie.

Her: It sounds like it could be me, but I don’t remember.
Me: (disappointed) Then it wasn’t you.
Her: How do you know it wasn’t me?
Me: Cause you’d remember a fella like me.
Her: That’s awfully egotistical of you.
Me: (sighing) Don’t mean it to be. But it’s true.

She and I hang out with Paul and WM til six in the morning. We finish up the night at a French bistro downtown as the run rises. Lose my phone – ugh. That’s a whole entry in itself.

Don’t get into bed until 7AM. Wake up a little while later and run in the rain to meet up for a memorial lunch for Mike. His sister gives me an envelope fulla singles; said she wanted me to hand them out to anyone that asked for help cause Mike woulda liked that. Said I would.

Hop off to church where I meet a girl from Holland and end up walking this girl Beth home – she’s involved but fun company. Give her the nickel tour before we run into Jenny and some other people ’round the way.

Finally get a few moments to think. Wonder if I’ll ever see Ship in the Night Girl again. Stupid isn’t it? You see a girl for a moment and she’s in your head weeks later?

Her: (to WM) Your friend’s so peculiar. (to me) You’re so peculiar. Maybe I am the Ship in the Night Girl.
Me: You’re not, but thanks. (taking her hand) We’ll be friends, yeah?
Her: Yes.

There’re numbers I’ll never get again in that phone I lost. Seems like more ships pass me in the night than I thought.

———-

Ran into my friend Christianne tonight too. Here’s a story about her or you can just listen to her sing to you now…

 

Location: 7AM yest, stumbling home
Mood: hoping
Music: Hey Snowflake! What ‘cha doin on Arlington Place?

Categories
personal

No troubles

Met a girlie last week.

Her: I think I have you beat.
Me: I doubt that.
Her: (deep breath) Well, when I was in high school, my prom date raped me, got me pregnant, and, causa my dad, I got married causa it. Then I had a miscarriage so I was a divorcee before I went to college. He divorced me – can you believe that? Moved here, became a model. Now I throw up at least once a day so I can pay my rent and I hate, hate, hate men of every type. Can you beat that?
Me: (shaking head, pause, lean in and give her a kiss on the cheek)
Her: Why did you do that?
Me: I dunno…thought you deserved it. (she laughed, then frowned and nodded)

Didn’t give her my number or ask for her’s, and paid for her drink, which I never do.

There’s this comedian that says that children are a man’s receipt; children are the canceled check that proves that we were here.

The stuff you hear about happening in China is horrifying, isn’t it? 22,000 to 50,000 dead with 169,000 injured. But it’s actually even worse than that. With the PRC’s One Child Policy, bloodlines and family lose everything. For those that lose their one child and they’re too old to have kids again, they’ve no safety net to take care of them in their old age. Their history ends with them; they’ve no connection to the future. They’ve no child to love. Can’t imagine how that must feel.

My father once said that he loved us all before we were born. That didn’t make sense back then.

I’m getting sued (again). I’m working 12 hour days for negative returns. There’s stuff I don’t tell you about. But really, I got no problems. I got my life, my family, my rum, and the occasional girlie for company.

It’s raining here, but in my head, there’re blue skies. Told you before, yeah? God gave me everything.

Hope you have an amazing weekend.

Location: in my office, looking at the rain and thinking
Mood: grateful
Music: Won’t you miss me?

Categories
dating personal

Mother’s Day 2008

Location: 20 mins ago, making a smoothie in my kitchen
Mood: anxious
Music: I still believe there’s something left for you and me

Another weekend – pretty much like every other. Crashed a few parties, met a few girlies, the usual spring twirl. Spilled a drink on this guy that was too blotto to realize it. Clumsy me.

Told you that I’m terribly clumsy, yeah? Fell down some stairs a few years ago and the left side of my face was crushed in. After some work, the doctors sewed me up. Met up with each of my family individually and they each said, I can’t see it. But a second after my mom walked upstairs, she immediately, and wordlessly, burst into tears . The first thing she said was, I’ll pay for plastic surgery. I laughed.

Mothers know their kids, I think.

When my drama first came down, she called me to tell me to come home. Told her I was too busy. But she demanded that I come. So I rummaged around for the best smile I could find and wore it home. You look great, my dad said.

But my mom took one look at me and burst into tears. Like I said, mothers know their kids.

She told me I could always move back home and that made me laugh. Great, I said, I’ll be a 35 year old man living with his parents. (on the positive side, that’d certainly solve my dating dilemmas right quick).

I’d cook, she said.

That made me laugh even more. So I gave her a kiss and told her that if it came down to it, I’d do that. That seemed to make her happy. She says that she knows I’ll be fine. Mothers know their kids so I hope she’s right.

Did I ever tell you my mom’s a writer? She gets published a lot more than me. It’s from her side of the family; my grandfather’s a writer too. All this comes from her.

Off to see her now.

Categories
personal

Elsewho

Dreaming of my possible pasts

© Roy A. Hammond/WLIW New York

Rain: Can I borrow your phone?
Me: (absentmindedly) Sure.
Rain: Here you go.
Me: Thanks. Hey – what’d you do?
Rain: Nuthin! So paranoid…

My mind’s elsewhere, and elsewho, again. At least it’s the weekend.

I’m in a 300 year old building in Passau that’s been converted to apartments. The ceilings are high with wooden floors and painted on the entire far wall is a pop art portrait of a blond girl crying. Honey and Katherine are there. We’d just gotten back from Vienna. A woman I love is there too. She whispers her nonsense word into my ear and I whisper mine back. We’re having an early dinner of pasta when Marvin Gaye comes on.

Honey shrieks, and jumps onto the table to dance when my girl pulls me up and says, “You too” as I laugh and follow. She smiles, turns back to me and says – (phone alarm rings, it’s 5:15AM in NYC)

Me: (sit up and look groggily at phone) Dammit Rain…dammit…

Fall back into bed and plot revenge against Rain. Sigh. Toss off covers. Flip on Ghosts of Goodbye and start doing situps as ghosts fade away.

Eins, zwei, drei…

Location: 19:00 yest, Malachy’s with Heidi and Buckley
Mood: sotted
Music: I used to go out to parties and stand around

Categories
business personal

Why do you hate me so?

Location: a new leather couch; not mine
Mood: hard to say
Music: baby I know we had a bad day and you are so mad at me

Spent part of the morning last week patching the roof on my building. Good thing I went to an ivy league. Got covered in tar; took me an hour to get it off before I had to run to a meeting. Musta smelled like a mechanic, which is not good considering I’m trying to land this client.

Speaking of clients, in About a Boy, Will had just enough scratch to pretty much stop working and just idly fill up his days. That was me for seven years. Not so much any more.

Me: OK, the account is locked. Don’t put anything else into the account, otherwise, it’ll trigger an audit by the bank, alright?

Client: Got it.

One week later

Me: (exasperated) The bank called and said you deposited $10,000. Do you remember our conversation?
Client: (puzzled) It’s just $10,000.
Me: “Just $10,000?” How’m I gonna explain this? Stop putting money into the account!
Client: Got it.

This morning

Me: (almost screaming into phone) You took the $10,000 outta the @#$@# account?!?!
Client: You said it didn’t look good if I put money in so I pulled it out.
Me: (slamming head repeatedly onto desk) Now we gotta explain how $10,000 magically came in and now left the account IN THREE DAYS! Where did it come from, where did it go?
Client: (angrily) You said don’t put anything else in – I didn’t! I took it out!
Me: (quietly sinking into chair) I see. Why do you…why do you hate me so?

———-

If you look closely at the pic, you’ll see a faint contrail right above the first building. I remember taking it and wondering if they were coming or going.

Then again, I hardly know if I’m coming or going.

Categories
personal

Life gets in the way

Location: 19:00, walking up Broadway
Mood: pensive
Music: your empty eyes Seem to pass me by Leave me

Friday, crash a party with some amazing food by this gorgeous 5’9″ woman. Also meet this 6’1″ Italian woman who’s looking for some people to hang out with so we exchange info. Man, wish I were taller, wish I were a baller. Oh well.

Saturday, hit up a party and play with a killer camera and take all these pics. Round 11, meet up with this girl Yvey as well as her friend Pyro. Then at 2AM, meet up with my buddy WM who’s hung up on a girlie. Tell him that the girlie’ll either call or not but either way, it resolves itself. He asks how I’m sure.

Me: After a while, you start seeing patterns. OK, you see that blond? I’m going to say hello and she’ll dance with me. Then she’s going to ask me to buy her a drink and I won’t. Then she’ll find some other guy to buy her a drink, dance with him and try and make me jealous. When we leave, we’re going to talk one more time.

(one hour later)

Me: Like I said. Patterns.

Him: Get her number?

Me: Why? I already know how the story ends.

Sunday had a date with French girl that started and ended there. Also saw a friend and just wept – but it was cause we got ourselves into a laughing fit and couldn’t stop. I think we laughed for five minutes straight.

Speaking of weeping, made yet another woman cry, but for different reasons:

Her: You’re a nice young man to call. (sniffles) It means a lot to me that you called.

Me: (laughing) I’m not that nice nor young. (quiet) I’m sorry it took so long for me to call. Life gets in the way, y’know? Mike…he’s very missed. Very.
Her: I… (cries)

I like to mix it up. Do something good every once in a while.

It helps me forget people ‘n things.

Categories
personal

NYC Boy

Rain and Scottie invite me to to a party uptown. Since he never heads uptown, had to say yes. Going there, meet a blue-eyed girl named Gwen who said she can’t tell who’s mad and who’s wearing a bluetooth headset. Contemplate giving her my number but we didn’t hit the pivot point so I don’t.

At the party, make my way across to my friends and run into pair of long legs before I find Rain.

Me: I just picked up the prettiest girl for you (turn to long legs and wave; she smiles and waves back)
Rain: (laughs)

We bounce into the bar in the pic where Scottie and Rain tell me that there’s something wrong with me cause I don’t sleep with the women I date.

Me: Guys call it “getting lucky,” right? I hate that. It’s a pathetic statement from pathetic men. Women don’t “get lucky” but men do. That’s ridiculous. Boys like me sleep with a girl cause we choose to, not cause we “get lucky.”
Her: I don’t approve.
Me: (shrugging and turning to Scottie) OK, I’ll sleep with you then.
Her: (pause) Take a number.
Me: Sheeyah…
Bartender: (interrupting and pointing at me) Your friend’s right. The guys that try to get lucky never do.

Soon, we pile into Scottie’s whip. When we hit Central Park, Rain jets. Earlier, mentioned I liked Rain’s leather jacket so as he exits, he takes it off and hands it to me. It’s yours, he says. Before I can protest, he’s already in a yellow going downtown.

He’s a good fella, that one. I’m wearing it below.

Once home, I get a message that Pretty Jenny and some others’re around the way but then onea my stories I thought ended drops me a line.

You should stop by here for a spell. It’ll break your heart, NYC in the Spring.

But it’s totally worth it. If only for the people and the violets in Central Park.

 

Location: 22:00, 1409 York Avenue
Mood: touched
Music: Take me on a trip, I’d like to go some day – take me to New York