slept way too long, stayed up way too late, but got good work done. i was happy to be inside, away from all things, on this day. this is my day of no media, my day of limited human contact, my day of ignoring the gluttonous outpourings of confused torment.
i was at a bachelor party last night. dinner was fine, at the Christos steakhouse. i think i’ve been there thrice now. the party was for a friend, a friend who first introduced him self to me by standing up in a crowded bar and, pointing at me from across the room, yelled “I THINK YOU’RE SORABJI!” we’ve become good friends since then, but among the things i most appreciate about his social circle is that i am allowed into it. most people I’ve known, it seems, do not introduce me to their other friends or acquaintances. in the last relationship (which ended a couple of weeks ago) i made a somewhat aggressive point of saying that i wnated to meet my girlfriend’s other friends, and the people in her world. i did meet a few such folk, which was cool, even if it made me think i could have been more assertive about this point in earlier times.
a friend from college who moved to New York, and with whom i used to hang out quite a bit, was practically defiant about introducing me to his friends. i guess it resembeld cockblocking, or whatever it’s called when men get between people, preventing them from interacting. other friends have been similarly blithe about this matter, and it used to trouble me, but no longer do i blame it on anything but my lonesome, recalcitrant self.
at the bachelor party i tried to get a joke in about height and time. for instance, i knew a guy who was 6 feet 2 inches tall, but he preferred to say he was 5-foot 14. i say i slept until 1:81 today when i mean, of course, that i slept until 2:21. sometimes it’s interesting to let the wheel keep turning on one hand while the other wheel stays true to its calling.
i could not get the joke in, though, because i simply do not talk loud enough. by my standards i would have to positively scream to have been heard in that context of a noisy steakhouse, whence only the loud are heard.
the steakhouse was followed by a strip club. i took a pass on the tittie bar. those places depress me enough as it is without the threat of seeing friends and colleagues showing their O face and burying their heads in the boobs of strangers. even without that dismal scenario i would expect to take a pass on virtually any invitation to a place like that.
so i walked back the way i came, more or less, this time with more of the route on Steinway Street. i know that area as “Little Egypt”, where Hookah Lounges and Empanada shops are the rule. but i had never seen it at night. the place is alive, man. a joyful calm and collectedness and a cultural window open so wide that i thought i was out of this country. i felt the same way in Chinatown.
and, like a real traveller would feel, i felt lonely, and cold. these days, i can’t explain just why, but i feel lonely. i don’t really know this feeling. it’s not because of the recently ended relationship, or the exile from social networking, or the absence of this cell phone most of the places i go. or is it? is it a confluence of all those things, those tonics which sated the feelings of emptiness, perhaps more successfully and more meaninguflly than i am willing to admit.
…..
i wrote all day, for as much time was left in the day after rising at 1:81. it felt solid, and assured, and i even forgot that it was work.
i read a Kenneth Koch poem that i actually liked. that’s never happened to me. i have no patience for almost any poem that uses the words “poetry” or “poem” or even “poet”. these are almost always poems about poems and poetry about poetry, when i feel that any form of writing sould step outside of itself for material.
i feel the same about journalism, and any creative endeavor. i don’t want to hear about your naval gazing analysis of the process. news channels are stuffed to the hours with reporters talking about repoting, and reporting on reporters reporting on reporting. i guess the world runs out of news some days, but the self scrutiny is needless and wasteful.
…..
i know i said this before but i’ll say it again: i can’t believe how hard it can be to write a fucking sentence. as i do more and more of the physical act i find it comes easier, but still, the laboriousness of it is stark. or starchy.
haha, no sooner do i lament the self-study and analysis of a discipline’s purveyors but i then procede to write about writing.
well, this is a different context. or is it? entirely uncommercial and not presuming to impress anyone.
…..
i got no sunlight this day. there was, evidently, none to be had anyway. clouds and rain, and cool air. i felt like i did during wintertime, when i slept until 3 or 4pm and went right outside, chasing whatever slabs of sunlight i could find in the remaining hour or so of daylight.
if it didn’t make me feel like so much stale meatloaf i think i would like tha tlifestyle, but there is the physical effect as well as the diurnal inconveniences of chasing after the day that most others around me have already experienced.
…..
i might buy a Krugerand. i think it’s a beautiful coin, and a reasonable investment. i am on the hunt for reasonable investments, returning 3 or 4% on $5000 capital, or even $2500 capital. lots of little ways to make a few bucks is my desire. then if one industry falls apart i’ll have backup.
…..
i was thinking today about The Conversation. i used to know these people who had conversations that lasted for hours, days, months. a group of 3 or 4, i used to see them sitting at the bar, talking. their faces serious, the order of the conversation respectfully synchronized so that only one person spoke at a time. one woman had such serious and searching eyes, she stared into the soul of the man who was usually sititng between her and another woman. i envied their comfort with each other. their sharing of soul, as it appeared to me from across the bar.
in time i entered in to their circle. i met the women, and the man, and i became the 4th wheel in their conversations.
they were talking about napkins, and mayonnaise. they talked about getting their cars washed, and being late on their utility bills. they talked about forgetting what day of the week it was, forgetting to close the window before they left the apartment for the day, forgetting to sort their laundry. they talked about how excited they were to find a new brand of cold cuts, and a new brand of high fiber bread. they talked about what time it was, and how much sleep they got the night before.
they talked about nothing. gray passages of words, flowing like unheard breezes in the forest, seeking no exaltations or crowns.
…..
i am at an outdoor cafe, watching the pretty girls walk buy, blasting off into derelict sexual fantasies with every pretty girl that passes.
