Like’s Labors Lived

Like’s Labors Lived

Wow. It’s September! It’s the beginning of four months ending in -ember! Except for October. Okay, it’s the beginning of three-syllable months ending in -ber!

And I haven’t blogged in five days! I think that’s a record for me. So much to fill you in on. Er, so much in on which to fill you. A preposition is a horrible thing to end a sentence with. As they say.

My Labor Day weekend consisted of short pleasant trips to the outer boroughs of the city as well as the New Jersey suburbs.

Friday night I met up with Masculine Showtunes Guy for dinner.

Here’s a tangent. I think I’m going to have to make up a name for him. The problem with descriptive nicknames is that they boil a person down to one or two defining elements, which isn’t always accurate. My friend Nick (not his real name) had this person he used to refer to as “Efficacious Boy” because the guy was pretentious and always used unusual words when he spoke. I love that name. But Showtunes Guy isn’t a random one-dimensional person. And yet I don’t want to use his real name, because I feel like that would violate his privacy, even though he doesn’t even know I have a blog. Speaking of which, I feel kind of guilty writing about him here since he doesn’t even know that people are reading about him.

I’m going to call him Wes.

Wes (not his real name) and I went out to dinner in Tribeca. It was our first meal out together, actually. We had a nice time. Afterwards we took a cab to the East Village and went to Starlight and had a few drinks and made out in public. That’s always fun. After we left, we waited for the subway and then sat on the subway and stealthily touched each other’s hands.

I spent Saturday afternoon in Queens with Nick and an out-of-town friend of his. We went to the Isamu Noguchi Museum and then we walked across the Queensboro Bridge back to Manhattan. While in Queens we walked right past Silvercup Studios, where “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City” are filmed. They’re filmed in Queens. Go figure!

Saturday night I hung out with Wes again. My parents had gone up to Maine with the puppy for the long weekend and they said I was free to stay there. So I invited Wes to spend the night there with me. We drove out to the New Jersey suburbs (drove — he has a car!) and did some grilling on my parents’ deck. It was so nice: crickets, the cool night air, the quiet, the privacy of my parents’ shrub-enclosed backyard. We grilled and kissed and held each other underneath the stars, and we ate outside.

Afterwards — inside — we cuddled up on the couch and watched “American Beauty,” which happened to be on cable. After it ended, we continued to lay there.

“This is really nice,” I said.

“Yeah, it is,” he said.

And then he said:

“You know, this is kinda like what boyfriends do…”

I didn’t say anything.

I don’t know what I want here. You know what? If he’d described himself in a personal ad, I might have passed him up. When I imagine my ideal boyfriend, he’s not what I would imagine. I was picturing someone intellectual, someone who likes to read and explore cultural things and so forth. Wes is bright, but he’s not intellectual. And he’s into cars and apparently he’s really into NASCAR and he watches football in the fall. And yet he loves showtunes and he’s taking singing lessons and he likes to cook.

Dammit, this is so weird, but it comes down to very simple qualities. He’s nice. He’s sweet. He’s cute. I can’t think of any other reasons. Is he my soulmate? I have no idea. It’s just that we have a nice time together. Chemistry. Yeah, chemistry.

I don’t want to make a decision on him yet. And yet I think he does. He’s used the phrase “when you meet my parents.” Not if. When.

Right now I want things to keep going how they’re going.

Anyway.

Sunday morning we went out for bagels, and then he drove back to Jersey City. I spent that day and that night alone at my parents’ house. I went to this wonderful independent bookstore in town — unfinished wooden shelves, a huge collection of new and used books, all discounted. In the evening I went for a long suburban walk, and at night I had leftovers. It was great to have my parents’ house to myself.

I spent yesterday by myself as well. I went to Wave Hill, a 19th-century estate in the Bronx, on the Hudson River, overlooking the Palisades. I always forget how big New York City is — I didn’t even feel like I was in the city. On the other hand, I was practically in Westchester. It was a great trip, and I definitely recommend it to any NYC dwellers. You take the 1/9 train up to 231st Street and then you take a bus to 252nd Street. The bus was filled with old Jewish people — I didn’t know there were any of them left in the city! I felt like I was back in Jackson Heights in the 1980s, visiting my grandparents and all their friends. It was comforting. The bus even stopped at the Hebrew Home for the Aged.

After a couple of hours at Wave Hill I got back to the subway and spontaneously got off on the Upper West Side. I browsed around Barnes and Noble. I was starting to feel lonely. I think I’m going to get a cellphone so people can get hold of me when I’m tooling around Manhattan by myself and wishing someone were with me.

From there I took the subway down to Union Square and saw “All Over the Guy,” a new gay movie. That’s the great thing about New York — we get all the new gay movies. It was a cute film — it didn’t redefine the art form, but it was a nice way to pass a couple of hours.

This weekend felt really long, really varied. It was nice. And now Labor Day has passed, and the fall begins. Or does fall begin when Rosh Hashannah happens? Or on the autumnal equinox? Or when you start seeing schoolbuses in the streets? Or when all the TV shows come back? I don’t know.

Happy September, everyone.
—–

Vacation!

I have a vacation! My job ends this Friday, and my new job doesn’t begin until Monday, September 24. In between, I have two weeks off. I think I’m going to go away somewhere. I might drive down to UVa for a couple of days and visit the one remaining friend I have there. I’m also thinking I might find a cheap airline ticket to someplace in Europe — Prague or Berlin or Rome or Vienna. Unfortunately I have to be back here for the start of Rosh Hashannah on Monday night, September 17, so maybe I’ll go to Europe next week and then take a short car trip to Virginia (or Boston or wherever) after Rosh Hashannah.

If I buy a plane ticket I’ll have to increase my credit card debt. But money isn’t everything, and I’m young. It’s the cost of a little more debt versus the value of getting away and seeing new things.

I’ve rarely been on vacation by myself, though. Being alone is nice for a short time, but it gets lonely. It would be nice to go with someone, maybe. Or perhaps I’d meet some handsome stranger who could show me the sights. Who knows.
—–

San Francisco?

I’m thinking of going to San Francisco next week. I haven’t been there since 1988, back when I was pre-gay. If I were to visit, would anyone be able to host me, show me around, or both? It would even be cool to stay with a few different people. I’m very clean and I don’t take up much space. Let me know.
—–

Travellin’ on the Cheap

Travellin’ on the Cheap

My vacation plans are getting less and less ambitious. First I thought it would be great to go to Europe. But I really can’t afford it. Then I thought it would be cool to go to San Francisco. But I really can’t afford that either. So I think I’m just going to stay local, or at least travel by car. I think I’ll take day trips to the beach, maybe an overnight trip to Virginia, maybe go up to New England, maybe explore more of the outer boroughs of New York City. Maybe I’ll spend a day or two relaxing with a book in the reading room of the New York Public Library. Maybe I’ll see a matinee next Wednesday. I don’t know.

See, travelling is great — the world is full of places and people and things to see. But I’d like to wait until I can do it without having to increase my credit card debt. And anyway, it’s not like I’ll die without having been anywhere. I lived in Japan for three years. I’ve been to Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia. I’ve been to Paris and Amsterdam. I’ve been to Israel. I spent an entire summer travelling around the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland. I’ve been to Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, California, and Hawaii.

It just seems better right now to work on paying off my current debt instead of increasing it.

Wow, this is kind of funny! I’m writing as if I need to defend my decision from people who will disagree with me. Like I don’t even think I’m entitled to have my own views or make my own decisions. That says a lot about my view of myself, doesn’t it. Hi, folks! I’m the guy whose father never took him seriously until very recently! Yay.

My tour through the Great Books continues. I finished the Iliad last week. I skipped the Odyssey because I read it in high school, and anyway, after the Iliad I was tired of reading blank verse. I just finished reading Aeschylus’s trilogy of Greek tragic plays, the Oresteia — Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides — but they really didn’t do much for me. So I think I’m going to skip the rest of the ancient Greek dramatists for now — Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes — and read Herodotus’s Histories. Maybe I’ll like those.

I’m not sure if the point is to like all of this, or just to have new experiences and “fill the well,” as Julia Cameron would say.

Anyway, I guess it’s just like travelling. Only much, much cheaper.
—–

Da Mook

Da Mook

When I start to get stressed out about little things, I think of my friend from college, da Mook. That’s not his real name, of course, but that’s what we all called him. I can’t remember exactly how that nickname evolved, but that’s often the case with nicknames.

The Mook has an engineering degree and is really smart, but he’s had four jobs in five years. Arkansas. Georgia. New Jersey. DC. Also, he apparently has way too much debt. And he has a crappy diet that includes lots of caffeine. But does he seem worried? Not really. I mean, he’s hyper, but he doesn’t seem worried, like the-roof-is-gonna-cave-in-and-I’m-gonna-get-cancer-and-wind-up-living-in-a-Kenmore-refrigerator-box-and-become-an-alcoholic worried.

When I get worried, that tends to be the kind of worry I get. Everything is connected to everything else. It’s a big net hovering just over the ocean, and if a shark yanks part of it underwater, the whole thing gets pulled under. I get all existential.

Once my apartment lease ends on October 1, it becomes a month-to-month lease if I don’t renew. I just got a call from my landlord — who really likes having me as a tenant — asking me if I was planning to renew for another year. I said I wasn’t sure yet and I mentioned the month-to-month thing. But he said he’d prefer not to go month-to-month.

Of course, technically, he wouldn’t really have a choice — it will automatically become a month-to-month lease if I don’t renew. But of course, technically, he could then evict me on one month’s notice in favor of a tenant who’d be willing to sign a lease.

I told him I was probably going to renew but I asked if we could do a six-month lease instead of a full year. He said sure. So he’s putting a six-month lease in the mail for me to sign.

It’s kind of weird how I have a law degree and I’m a member of both the New York and New Jersey bars and yet I can’t negotiate a favorable agreement for myself. Well, six months is better than twelve months, I guess. And anyway, if I decide to move out before then, what’s he going to do? He could easily find someone to replace as long as I give him a month’s notice. Jersey City is hopping. It shouldn’t be a problem.

I have a fear of commitment. To apartments, to jobs, to guys, to really long books.

Well, no, wait. I have a fear of commitment to unsatisfactory apartments, jobs, guys, and really long books. I guess that’s normal.

It could be that I’m just nervous about starting a new job and having two weeks off. Nervous about having two weeks off? Weird, right? Well, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself, that’s all. I need structure. I come to my office and I surf the Web and write blog entries, but at least there’s a structure, even if I’m flouting it. At least I know the structure is there if I need it.

I’m not exactly worried about the two weeks off but rather about the possibility of spending much of those two weeks alone. Here in the office, there are familiar people. Out of the office, there are strangers.

And I’m also worried about my new job. I don’t know if I’ll be able to goof off there as much as I can now. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I’ll still be a government employee, after all. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Fear of the unknown.

Things seem sort of empty and up in the air right now. My life doesn’t feel full.

There are people like the Mook who seem to be able to deal with crappiness in life and take it in stride. They can compartmentalize it — they don’t seem worried about it. These things just are, and you may as well continue laughing and drinking grape soda and beer and playing cards. It makes them seem more alive, not less. They accept it and they have fun anyway. They remain optimists.

I tend to see things as life-or-death situations. The Mook just sees things as life situations.

The last time I saw the Mook was in West Virginia this summer, and it was then that I had this epiphany about his attitude toward things. So now, when I get really overwhelmed by something little, I pretend I’m the Mook. I just imagine what the Mook would do in that situation, and I’ll think, you know, if he can deal with it like that, then I can deal with it like that.
—–

Lwclrk

Lwclrk

This is my last day working as a law clerk. It’s been a year and three weeks. Strangely, one of the most significant things I’ve done in this office is blog. Yep, this is the room where it all started. This room, pathetically, is where I’ve done most of my blogging. At this very computer. Don’t tell!

That reminds me, I’ve got to remove all my personal documents and cookies and Internet bookmarks from this machine.

Anyway, no longer will I have to have the following conversation:

Random person: So what does a law clerk do?

Me: Oh, basically I work for a court system, doing legal research and writing legal memos for judges, usually about 10-15 pages long, giving an opinion on how a particular case should be decided or sometimes just a particular issue within a case.

Random person: Oh, are you thinking of going to law school?

Me: (holding back a grimace and smiling politely)

No longer will people think, after I explain what I do, that I’m working as a law clerk because I’m thinking of going to law school. No longer will people think I’m waiting to take the bar exam. No longer will people give me a blank stare or ask me to repeat myself because “law clerk” has too many consonants and doesn’t sound like English when you say it really fast.

Instead, two weeks from now, when people ask me what I do, I’ll be able to tell them:

“I’m a lawyer.”

Oh, crap.
—–

Heartache

Something crappy happened on Friday night.

Actually, the first part of the evening was great. It was Sparky’s big Brooklyn birthday bash. We all hung out at the back of a spacious bar. It was open to the sky, and the stars were twinkling. There were so many people there! Yes, it can now be said — if you didn’t already know — that Sparky has a TON of friends.

It was a mix of bloggers and non-bloggers. By “mix” I mean that there were maybe six bloggers (not including Sparky) and about twenty non-bloggers. Mike, Julian, Michael, Andy, and myself basically huddled in our own little Homo Blog Nerd corner. We didn’t really talk much about blogs, but we all knew each other much better than we knew anyone else, so we basically kept to ourselves. Yeah, we were total isolated blog dorks, but we had a great time. Happy Birthday, Sparky!

So now on to Part Two of the evening.

I met up with Wes at 10:00 in the East Village. He’s going on a week’s vacation with his family tomorrow, so this was our last chance to hang out for a while. He doesn’t know the East Village bars at all. Last week I took him to Starlight, and tonight I decided to take him to Phoenix. He liked it. We had a couple of beers and relaxed and stood against a rail with our arms around each other and talked and smooched. He thinks I should get rid of the goatee. We engaged in cute banter.

We ran into some people I know. Many months ago I mentioned Arch and Carrot, who are boyfriends. Arch went to UVa undergrad and graduated a couple of years ago, and he’s now living in Manhattan. We saw Arch and Carrot, along with three other guys. One of those guys is another UVa alum named Sean. I’d met him a couple of times, and he’s cute and friendly and a little flamboyant.

I introduced Wes to all of them. Arch and Carrot and Sean are all somewhat effeminate, and Wes is resolutely masculine, so I wasn’t sure what he’d think of them. But these were people I knew, and I wasn’t going to ignore them because of Wes.

So we all stood in a little circle and chatted. I’d been to a party at Arch’s apartment a couple of weeks ago and had told him about Wes, so tonight Arch whispered in my ear, asking if that was him, and I said it was. Meanwhile, Sean struck up a conversation with Wes and they seemed to be getting along well. I had a mere, mere flicker of jealousy — so slight that I was barely aware of it, or at least I was trying to sublimate it. In sublimating it, I warped the feeling into the following internal monologue:

Well, cool. I know from observing other gay couples in the past that you shouldn’t interfere when your guy is chatting with someone, even if the someone is cute. After all, I don’t possess him, and he’s allowed to do what he wants. And anyway, it feels cool to show other people that I’m not worrying about it. If I don’t interfere, if I adopt a policy of laissez-faire, it shows other people that I’m secure enough in how he feels about me that I don’t care whom he talks with.

I told myself I didn’t care, but deep inside, it must have bothered me. Wes went to the bar at one point to get drinks for me, Sean, and himself, and while he was gone, Sean asked me about him. Apparently he didn’t know that we were sort of seeing each other. He was also somewhat drunk. He said, “Have you had sex with him?” I said, well, we’ve slept together, and we’ve sort of been hanging out and seeing each other for the past month. “Ohhh,” he said. Apparently he hadn’t realized. Okay. Fine.

Wes came back with the drinks. There was a bit of flirtatiousness going on between the two of them, and I continued to try not to care. I let them be, and I chatted with Arch and the other guys. Arch pointed out to me that Wes was cute and seemed like a nice guy, although, Arch said, he also seemed kind of flirtatious. Still, I let it go. I even went downstairs to use the bathroom.

When I came back up, I rejoined Arch et al. I looked over at Wes and Sean, and they were both leaning against a pinball machine, physically very close to each other. Sean was leaning against Wes, and Wes had his arm around Sean’s waist and was almost touching his waist with his hand. I tried not to look but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Then they were touching each other’s shoulders flirtatiously. I don’t think either of them was sober. They were facing each other, looking into each other’s eyes, and their faces and their lips were only about an inch apart as they talked. Sean kept leaning in very close to Wes’s ear and whispering into it and Wes would smile. I have no idea what they were saying to each other, but it all looked very sexual and seductive. Their faces were so close together that they looked like they were about to kiss.

This was bothering me more and more and I kept peeking over Arch’s shoulder to look. Finally the emotion overwhelmed me and I couldn’t look anymore. I felt my heart sink. I just stared at the ground as Arch and the others continued to talk around me. I couldn’t look up. I wanted to cry.

Arch must have noticed my expression, because suddenly he decided it was time for he and his friends to go on to Wonderbar, including Sean. He said something to me like, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle Sean.” He practically had to pry Sean away from Wes. But Sean kept lingering. And then I heard Sean ask someone for a pen. My heart sank even further. He wrote his number on a Post-It note and gave it to Wes. Sean cheerily said goodbye to me. In a monotone, I responded, “See ya, Sean,” purposely not looking at him. I couldn’t look at him. I was too angry.

Then the group left.

I can’t remember the last time I was infuriated with someone. Until tonight. I was infuriated with Sean. I wanted to kick his ass. I wanted to punch his lights out and beat him to a bloody pulp. I was so relieved when they all left.

I wasn’t feeling too good about Wes, either.

After they all left, he and I stood there. Wes seemed completely unbothered by what had happened. Oblivious. Meanwhile, tears were welling up in my eyes. I tried to stop it. This is totally not what I need to be doing right now, I thought to myself. You do NOT want to fall apart. He’s going to freak out if he sees you cry over this.

I was fighting it back but I was still staring at the ground, grimacing, my shoulders tense. Wes looked at me, smiling, about to say something, but then he saw my expression. He knew something was up.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

I hesitated, and then I told him what was wrong, and I tried to explain what I was feeling about it. I’m usually good at that. I feel that when you’re angry or upset about something that someone has done, it’s best not to lash out at the other person, and instead to describe what you’re feeling. It’s all about “I” messages. “I feel” this. “I’m feeling” that. This is crucial so that everything is clear and you avoid recriminations and nastiness. At least that’s how I’ve tended to view the world.

So basically, I couched it in terms of the fact that this was all new to me and that I wasn’t prepared for seeing something like that and it was really hurting me.

And it was new to me. Hard as it may be to believe, this was the first time I’d seen a guy whom I was seeing start to flirt very physically with another guy. And it hurt like hell. I really wasn’t prepared for the force of my emotional reaction. I once had an unrequited crush on a guy and watched him flirt with another guy, and that hurt like crazy, too. But this was the first time I’d ever seen it happen with someone that I was ostensibly seeing.

I told him all this, and he reminded me that we’re not boyfriends yet. That confused me, considering that last Saturday night, after watching a movie and cuddling with him on my parents’ couch, he said to me, “This is kinda like what boyfriends do.” I don’t get it.

I told Wes that I was really mad at Sean.

And then his expression changed. He got angry. I’d never seen that expression on his face before. It worried me.

It reminded me of… my dad.

He said something like, “Don’t get mad at Sean. It’s not like I was completely passive in this situation. It takes two people, you know. If you’re going to get mad at anyone, get mad at me, not at him. The last thing I want is for this to turn into some gay-soap-opera-drama thing.”

He was right about that last part. I hate gay drama, gay cattiness, gay grudges. I’ve always felt contempt for people who act like that. But damn… it’s hard not to feel angry at Sean.

And now I was even angrier at Wes. But, conflict-averse as I am, I continued to phrase it in terms of my own personal feelings and insecurities.

He had no idea I was insecure. That surprised me. I realized how much he doesn’t know about me.

We hung out at the Phoenix for a while longer, each of us drinking a beer, our arms around each other. His arm was up underneath the back of my shirt, rubbing my back.

But my self-confidence was shattered. Not only was I crushed at what I’d seen between the two of them, but now Wes probably thought I was overreacting. After seeing me like this, there’s no way he’d want to date me.

I didn’t want to be there anymore. I wanted to go home, and I wanted to be alone. But I didn’t tell him.

But he had to go home and get up early so he could drive to his parents’ house in the morning to start his vacation, so when we finished our beers we left. We walked all the way from First Avenue to Sixth Avenue without saying much. Then we waited for the PATH train, standing next to each other. I was still upset, and my eyes were welling up again. He held my hand and asked me what was wrong. There, waiting for the PATH train, as a couple of women walked by, we held hands. In public. I’d never done that before.

And I told him that this has nothing to do with how I feel about him, and everything to do with how I feel about me. I started to tell him about why I’m such an insecure guy — about my childhood, and my dad, and how kids used to make fun of me in middle school because I was smart and because of my hair. It felt good to tell him about the real me, the me I’d been hiding from him all this time.

But his eyes were closing. He wasn’t sober, and he’d just finished a particularly exhausting week of work. He was fading fast.

So I stopped talking.

The train came and we rode home. My eyes were closed, and he fell asleep against my shoulder on the crowded train.

We got to our stop and he walked me back to my apartment. We were both exhausted. We went inside the lobby of my building, and we leaned against the wall and kissed. And held each other. And stroked each other’s backs. And kissed again. And again. And again. And continued to hold each other.

Finally we drew apart. He had to go home.

“I had a great time with you tonight,” he said.

Hah. Good one.

I smiled. “Have a great vacation,” I said.

“I will,” he said gently. “And I’ll see you when I get back. Hey… don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

Huh?

“Don’t do anything stupid? What do you mean?”

“Like… I don’t know, don’t start a gay porn ring or something. Just don’t do anything stupid.”

Hmm. I think he meant one of two things. Either he’s afraid I’m suicidal, or he’s afraid I’m going to hook up with someone else while he’s gone. I don’t really know. What did he mean?

I don’t know what to feel. Am I right to feel hurt? Or am I being overly sensitive? Or was he wrong to be so seductive with Sean in my presence? Maybe it’s just me, but if I were out on a date with someone, and another guy started to physically come on to me, I would actively resist it, because I wouldn’t want my date to be upset by it. But maybe that’s me projecting my insecurities onto other people.

And yet… I was trying hard not to look at other guys at the bar, and I felt bad that I couldn’t keep myself from being turned on by them.

I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong. I don’t know how Wes feels about me or how I feel about him or what’s going on. I’m totally confused.

But most of all — absolutely most of all — I want to erase that image from my mind. The two of them, their faces leaning into each other, practically about to kiss.
—–

Twilight in Reverse

Twilight in Reverse

I know I’ve already written a lot this weekend, but… whoa.

Last night was… amazing.

Stay with me here, because this is going to take a while. And this probably isn’t going where you think it’s going.

First off, Wes has gone on a week’s vacation with his parents. I think it’s good I have some time away from him. But yesterday evening I got an e-mail from him. Strangely, this was the first e-mail he’d ever sent me. See, we didn’t get around to exchanging e-mail addresses until about two weeks after we’d met, and we’ve never used them. Strange, huh? Actually, in a world in which e-mail is the primary form of communication, it’s pretty refreshing.

It said:

Hey —

Just wanted to drop you a quick note. Had a really fun time with you last night.

Hope you enjoy your time off.

Start thinking of something cool to do when we get back.

Talk to you soon — [Wes]

Okay. Interesting. It looks like one of two things is going on here.

One: we’re not on the same page at all. He’s completely oblivious to what happened the other night.

Or, two: he knows full well that I was upset the other night, and he’s trying to do damage control because he’s concerned I might meet or hook up with someone else while he’s gone. Don’t do anything stupid, he’d said.

But in either case, all he can say is Had a really fun time with you last night. Oh, god. I think he’s one of those people who, instead of confronting problems, prefers to sweep everything under the rug and pretend everything is just peachy. I can’t deal with people like that. People who can’t communicate. People who aren’t emotionally aware.

A little alarm bell is starting to go off.

Anyway, moving on.

I decided to go back to the East Village last night by myself. In the back of my mind I intended to hook up with someone. After all, we’re not boyfriends.

Earlier in the evening, I’d got a much-needed haircut. My hair is now closely-cropped again, the way I like it.

After I changed into appropriate bar attire last night — jeans, a white ringer T, and contact lenses — I looked at myself in the mirror.

Hmm.

On a whim, I decided to shave off the goatee. I’d shaved it off for an interview a couple of weeks ago and had grown it right back. But last night I decided, screw it — I’m tired of it. So I took off my t-shirt, shaved, put my t-shirt back on, and looked at myself in the mirror again.

Wow.

In all honesty, I looked adorable.

I put on a dash of cologne and walked out the door feeling terrific.

I went to the East Village. First I went to Wonderbar, but it was way too crowded. I’m not as fond of that place as I used to be — it’s small, you can never move, and there’s never anyplace to stand or sit. So I left.

I decided to go back to the Phoenix, site of the previous night’s trauma. I figured that instead of associating the Phoenix with trauma for the rest of my days, I should replace bad memories with new ones. The Phoenix will rise. So I walked in — and it, too, was packed. I don’t really like being in bars by myself, so I thought about leaving. But then I spotted a guy from Twentysomething and went up to him and said hi. He was with a friend of his, someone who’d just moved to New York a month ago. The three of us talked for a while.

Eventually, the guy from Twentysomething went home, but his friend and I continued to talk. And talk. And talk.

He moved here four weeks ago from Pittsburgh, where he’d just received an MFA in poetry at the University of Pittsburgh. Before Pittsburgh, he lived in Boston. He’s just begun a job here in New York as an editor for a publishing company. He grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family in West Virginia. I wouldn’t have known — he didn’t seem at all like I’d expect someone from a fundamentalist Christian family in West Virginia to seem like. He had no accent and didn’t seem at all rural. I couldn’t figure out his background.

After much talking, we looked at our watches. It was three in the morning. Holy shit. We’d been talking forever. He decided it was time to go home to Brooklyn, but he seemed worth knowing, so I asked him for his phone number. We exchanged digits, and he left. He’s planning to start going to Twentysomething, so I’ll probably see him there at any rate.

I was still horny. I bought another beer and stood around the Phoenix for a while. By some weird logic I figured it might be easier to meet someone now that it was getting late and people were getting more desperate to pair off. Low self-esteem, party of one?

I drank my beer and stood with my back to the bar and looked around. But nothing happened. Nobody came up to me, and I didn’t see anyone who was both alone and attractive. So I finished my beer and left.

From there I went back to Wonderbar, where I had some water and ran into an acquaintance and a friend of his. We chatted for a while. It was now four in the morning. I decided to leave.

And at that point I decided to fulfill another goal of mine.

See, I’d always wanted to walk around Manhattan all night long until the sun came up. There was something romantic and soothing about the idea. It made me think of Catcher in the Rye. Since I’m on vacation for the next two weeks, I don’t have to worry about screwing up my sleeping schedule, so I decided this was the perfect night to be Holden Caulfield.

I left Wonderbar and walked over to Broadway, up Broadway, past Union Square, and up to Park Avenue South. Park Avenue seemed the safest bet, because the street has row after row of luxury buildings, each with a doorman just inside the lobby, so I figured nothing bad could happen to me.

I strolled up Park Avenue, leisurely. I walked up into the East 20s, into the 30s, into the 40s. I saw random small groups of straight guys wearing their straight clothes after picking up straight women in straight clubs, probably on their way back to their straight cars so they could drive back to New Jersey. Blech.

I continued walking and soon the streets were practically empty. It was indeed romantic and soothing. I walked slowly, thoughtfully, taking the time to look at everything around me. I reached the Met Life Building and walked past Grand Central Station, then continued along Park Avenue.

I really, really had to go to the bathroom, so I stopped into the Waldorf-Astoria at five in the morning to use the men’s room in the lobby. There was a big separate bathroom with its own door. It was so spacious. I sat there in peace. After I was finished, I washed my hands with Caswell-Massey Almond and Aloe Liquid Soap. It was truly one of the most satisfying restroom experiences I’ve ever had.

I walked around the lobby. Did you know the Waldorf-Astoria has a rare bookshop? Did you know that in the window of the bookshop there’s a first edition of Huckleberry Finn? And a first edition of the score to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg? And a first edition of Plato’s Republic in English? And a first edition of Wordsworth’s poetry, opened to a page containing an autograph from Wordsworth himself? And an early edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost?

Way cool.

I left the Waldorf-Astoria and continued walking up Park Avenue. I felt like I was in New York in the 1940s, or maybe the 1950s. After I few minutes I realized that I’d had a song going through my head, for who knows how long, without my realizing it. I realized it was from “Guys and Dolls”:

My time of day is the dark time

A couple of hours before dawn

When the street belongs to the cop

And the janitor with the mop

…and the homeless people sleeping on the steps of St. Bartholemew’s.

It was still dark. I kept walking. I walked past a travel company with a detailed model of a Cunard Line cruise ship in the window. I walked past a banking company with brochures in the window about how to make the transition to retirement. Outside a luxury building, a middle-aged man in a suit with a suitcase and a briefcase was getting into a cab, presumably on his way to the airport. I imagined his holdings — his stocks, his investments, his Park Avenue condominium, his long life of experience, his business meeting in Stockholm. But hey, I’ve got stuff too. Student loans and credit card debt.

I strolled up through the East 50s. Then the 60s. Occasionally I’d stop and stare up at the half-moon in the sky. I’d see a solitary window lit up on the otherwise dark facade of an apartment building.

I zoomed out from a mental map. I saw the entire island of Manhattan from above, and then the entire city, and then the entire East Coast, and then the entire nation. An entire nation filled with people asleep in their homes. In the Mountain Time Zone it was 3:30; in the Central Time Zone, 4:30. Across the nation — except maybe in L.A. — the only other people awake right now were gay people, teenagers speeding along highways, families sitting anxiously by hospital beds, and solitary beings worrying about failing marriages and how to pay the bills.

The sky was turning from black to dark blue. Doormen were outside, spraying sidewalks and watering plants. I walked up through the 70s. In the east, over in Queens, the dark blue started to become light blue. It was twilight in reverse. I walked up through the 80s. And then into the 90s. I knew I’d have to stop soon, because I was getting closer to the edge of Harlem.

Finally, at East 96th Street, the luxury buildings ended, really abruptly.

I’d walked from 6th Street all the way up to 96th Street. Ninety blocks.

I turned back and walked along 95th Street toward Fifth Avenue. I felt like doubling back and sitting on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

As I turned onto Fifth Avenue, a flotilla of bicycles appeared out of nowhere. There were hundreds of them. Rider after rider. They kept coming and coming. Apparently it’s Bicycle Awareness Day. It wouldn’t end. They went on and on, hundreds of cyclists riding silently down Fifth Avenue.

I got to the museum and walked up to the top of the steps. I sat down at the exact center of the very top step. Do you know how surreal it is to sit on the steps of the Metroplitan Museum of Art, completely alone? The steps of the Met are usually jam-packed.

A few dog-walkers walked by. The sky grew lighter and lighter. One by one, the automatic street lamps shut off.

I stood up again. Oh my god. My feet were killing me. I’d probably worn out my Kenneth Coles completely.

I descended the museum steps and walked along 82nd Street, past Madison Avenue, and turned onto Lexington. I wanted either to go to the subway or to find a diner. I wasn’t sure.

I walked down Lexington and got to 77th Street. The sky was light now, but it was a weak morning light; the sun wasn’t up yet. A woman was walking into a deli. A man was unwrapping newspapers.

I thought about going down into the 77th Street subway station, but across the street I saw a diner and a small bagel shop. I decided to cross over. It was 6:30 in the morning.

As I crossed the street I saw a guy crossing from the other direction. He was wearing a ringer T as well. He was pretty cute.

As he approached, I looked at him. I realized he was looking at me, too. A faint smile appeared on his face. He walked on.

Wait. Whoa!

I turned around to look back at him. He was looking back at me, too. He stopped walking, turned around, and walked back toward me. He followed me to the corner.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“What are you up to?” he said.

“Oh, just walking,” I said.

“Cool… where have you been tonight?” he said.

“Well, I was at the Phoenix, and then Wonderbar for a bit, and I just felt like walking around the city and I wound up here,” I said. Um, yeah. Seventy blocks north of Wonderbar.

“Where do you live?”

“Jersey City, actually, across the river,” I said, a hint of apology in my voice, like, I know, how pathetic.

“Okay. Let’s go back to my place,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. Oh my god. I can’t believe this is happening.

We walked down Lexington. I was hard. I asked him where he lived. He said 70th and First. So, not like right around the corner.

“What’s your name?” he said.

“I’m Jeff.”

“I’m Kevin.”

He sounded like he had a slight accent, almost East European. “So, where are you from originally?” I asked.

“Connecticut.”

Oh.

“Have you done anything tonight?” he asked me. I assumed he meant had I fooled around with anyone. But I was wrong. “Drugs,” he said.

“Oh. Uh, no,” I said, because I hadn’t, I never have, and I never will. “Have you?”

“Ecstasy.”

Oh, great. Should I still do this? What does ecstasy do to a person? Is ecstasy a capsule or a tablet? Will there still be some on his tongue if I kiss him?

He said he needed some water, so I felt better. If he had some water, that would probably wash anything away.

At 72nd Street he said, “Jeff, I don’t think this is such a good idea after all. I’m kind of fucked up right now.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey, not a problem.”

So we went our separate ways.

At 77th Street I’d been picked up and at 72nd Street I’d been dumped. It was a five-block romance. Ah, New York.

When I finally got back to Jersey City the sun was up. It was eight in the morning. I crawled into bed and fell asleep.

Wow. What a magical night.

I finally got to be Holden Caulfield.

Except Holden Caulfield never got picked up by a cute guy on the corner of 77th and Lexington.
—–

The Best City in the World

I apologize for not blogging until now. I’ll get to that.

The World Trade Center has loomed large in my life for the past year. See, I live right here. That red star in the center of the map is where my apartment is. And the site of the World Trade Center is just southwest of that big black dot. (Yeah — where the blank space is. Eerily and presciently, Yahoo! Maps has always represented it with a blank space.)

Whenever I walk out of my apartment building and look to the right, I can see it looming across the river. Monolithic twins. From where I live, they’re enormous. Whenever I walk to the PATH station — in other words, whenever I go anywhere — they’re right there. During the day they gleam silver; at night, they light up the sky. They’re my connection to New York; they’re the only buildings in Manhattan’s financial district tall enough to be seen over the buildings in Jersey City. Whenever I hate the fact that I live in Jersey City, I can walk outside and look at the Twin Towers, and they reassure me that Manhattan is just a stone’s throw away. The World Trade Center is reassuring; it anchors me to New York, psychologically.

Even when you’re in Manhattan it anchors you. If you get off the subway and don’t know what direction you’re facing, you just look for the World Trade Center and you know you’re facing south.

The World Trade Center doesn’t just anchor me to the city psychologically. In order to get into Manhattan from home, I take the PATH train. It’s a four-minute walk from my apartment to the Grove Street station, and from there, there are two PATH lines into Manhattan. If you look at this map, you can see that one goes to Christopher Street, 9th Street, 14th Street, 23rd Street, and 33rd Street, and that the other goes to the World Trade Center. I travel both lines with equal frequency. It’s great to take the World Trade Center train, because it’s only a seven-minute ride, and when I get off there, I can hop onto the 1, 2, 3, 9, A, C, E, N, or R train, which take me almost anywhere.

At the end of every workday, I take the World Trade Center-bound train home, even though I get off before the last stop.

When I’m coming home from Manhattan on a Friday or Saturday night, I often prefer to take the subway down to the World Trade Center and take the train home from there, because it’s usually quiet and practically empty, while the other line is always filled with drunk loud people on the way back to Hoboken and takes forever.

There are tons of shops on the lower level of the World Trade Center, too. Because it’s so close, I’m there all the time. It contains my closest big bookstore — a Borders. I’ve been there a lot. There’s also a Gap and a J. Crew and a Sbarro’s and a Warner Brothers Store and a little cell phone kiosk. There’s a Duane Reade drugstore that’s open 24 hours; it’s a great place to pick up some random toiletry or candy bar while I’m waiting for the next train home.

In fact, I was just at the World Trade Center on Monday. Since I have two weeks off, I’d decided to take a walking tour of Brooklyn Heights. I took the train to the World Trade Center, bought a banana at a food shop right there in the mall, and then I hopped on the 2/3 to go to Borough Hall in Brooklyn. Such a convenient trip.

In the evening, on the way home, I stopped at the Gap at the World Trade Center because I really needed a new t-shirt. I rifled through a pile of them. I went into the fitting room and tried on several. And I finally wound up buying one. That receipt at the top of this entry is my souvenir. This is kind of weird, but I sort of feel like I saved the t-shirt from a horrible experience. I know, that sounds really bizarre.

All this writing and I haven’t even described my day.

After coming home from my tour of Brooklyn Heights on Monday, I planned to go back into Manhattan that night and hang out at a bar or club. So I logged into the New York City chatrooms and asked what there is to do on Monday nights. I wound up chatting with this guy for a little bit, and he was kinda cute, and eventually we decided to meet up. M just moved to New York a week ago from San Francisco and hasn’t started his new job yet, so, like me, he had nothing to do the next day. Therefore, we could stay up as late as we wanted. I changed, showered, took the PATH up to 9th Street and met him there.

The odd thing is that M lives off Sixth Avenue and 10th Street in lower Manhattan, on the very same block as my therapist’s office. That’s kind of bizarre, huh? I always have therapy on Tuesday nights, so this would be great — I could hook up with the guy on Monday night, and then on Tuesday night I could go back to the same block and my therapist could help me work through the guilt.

We went to his apartment. We talked for a while. M was a nice guy and seemed intelligent. And eventually stuff happened. Oh BOY did stuff happen. It was… amazing. It was the best sex I’d had in ages. We made out for three whole hours. It was amazing, amazing, amazing.

At around 2:30 in the morning we fell asleep.

At around 10:00 the next morning, we woke up and had a little bit more fun. His air conditioner was on, but over it we heard some sirens and beeping coming from Sixth Avenue. It’s rare that I spend the night in Manhattan — let alone wake up there in the morning — so I figured it was just part of Manhattan life. We also heard what sounded like cheers. Since today was supposed to be New York’s mayoral primary, I figured there was a political rally or something. Then we heard what sounded like a woman’s scream. Yup, just another excited person in New York.

I decided to leave. I didn’t want to waste my vacation lying in bed. I planned to take the PATH home, take out my contacts (which I’d slept in), shower, change, come back into Manhattan to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or something, and visit my therapist in the evening. I put on my clothes and said goodbye to M. He seemed a bit disappointed when I said I was going to be on my way.

It was around 10:50 in the morning when I walked out of the building and walked toward Sixth Avenue. There were crowds of people walking by. I’m not usually in Manhattan at that time of day, but I didn’t think there were usually this many people walking along Sixth Avenue down here.

On a whim I decided to cross Sixth Avenue and then I turned south. I saw a huge mass of dark smoke at the south end of Sixth. Wow, a building is on fire, I thought. That must be why all these people are standing around staring south. Two women were staring at it and talking, and I went up to them and asked what building was on fire.

“The World Trade Center just collapsed,” one of them said to me. “It was a terrorist attack. Planes crashed into both towers and then they went down. Another plane crashed into the Pentagon.”

Holy fuck.

Now that I thought about it, it had seemed like something was missing.

I stared at the rising smoke, not realizing that if I’d been outside 20 minutes earlier, I probably would have seen the second tower collapse.

I went over to a van where people were gathered around and I listened to the radio with them for a while. They said that all transportation in and out of Manhattan was closed. Even the subways were shut down. Oh, so I’m stuck in Manhattan. Great.

I decided to go back to M’s building. I had his cellphone number, but the payphones weren’t working and I don’t have a cell. And when I got back to his building I couldn’t buzz his apartment, because there was no logical correspondence between the numeric keypad and any building residents.

So I did the next best thing. I walked over to my therapist’s building and buzzed her. I told her who it was and she let me up instantly. She was waiting for me when I got up the stairs. She must have thought I was in danger or something. But I just wanted to use her phone.

We went into her office. “Wow, this is highly unorthodox, isn’t it,” I said. There was a TV on, so we watched it for a little while, both in shock. Then I used her phone and called M — somehow managing to get through — and asked my therapist if our appointment that evening was still on. It was. Okay. I’ll just spend the day with M, I figured.

So I went back to M’s apartment. He’d already heard what had happened.

Shall I mention again that M just moved to New York a week ago?

We watched TV. He doesn’t have cable, and the local NBC and ABC affiliates had both been knocked out, so we watched CBS. CBS must have totally scored today.

With his cellphone I finally managed to get through to my mom in northern New Jersey, because knowing my mom, she’d be worried sick. My dad’s on business in San Francisco right now, so she’s alone. She said she’d left me two messages and had e-mailed me and had indeed been worried sick.

I told her I was in Manhattan.

“You’re in Manhattan?” she said weakly. “What the hell are you doing in Manhattan?”

Yeah, mom, like I knew the fucking World Trade Center was going to blow up today.

I lied and told her that I’d gone out with a few friends the night before and had crashed at a friend’s place in the city.

She wanted a contact number, so I gave her M’s cell number. (Um, that didn’t feel bizarre at all…) And she told me — well, basically ordered me — to call her later on.

I checked my e-mail on his laptop. Messages from various bloggers and other friends, asking if I was okay. I responded to every e-mail. I thought about blogging really quick, but I didn’t want the URL showing up in M’s Internet Explorer history.

I knew that one of my friends from college, Doug, worked in the World Trade Center. I have this very close group of friends from college — we’re like a family. He’s one of them. Most of us met up in June — but Doug couldn’t make it. And even though he lives and works in Manhattan, I haven’t seen him in over a year.

I hoped Doug was okay.

M and I decided to go out into the world and see what was going on.

We walked south along Sixth Avenue. The smoke was amazing — an enormous, thick, black, churning, rising mass. It looked like a volcano. We just kept staring as we walked along. Ambulances and police cars and random vehicles with lights on top kept rushing north along Sixth. Every few minutes there were a few more. The sirens kept coming. People were walking along, talking into their cellphones, walking their dogs. Some people were walking north — from the direction of the explosion — with facemasks hanging around their necks. A vehicle sped up Sixth Avenue covered in white debris, leaving some of it in a trail on the ground. A restaurant was passing out cups of water. We listened to another radio.

We continued walking south, getting closer. Finally we got to Canal Street, where police barriers kept the crowds from going any further. So we walked east along Canal, stopping at every intersection to gape at the dark smoke again. Unbelievable — where there used to be these enormous twin towers there was now smoke. Tons of people were walking around in shock, many talking into their cellphones. It was like a war zone, it was like Armageddon, I felt like I was in a movie.

A few more debris-covered vehicles zoomed by, leaving trails of smoke.

We got to the Manhattan Bridge, where there was a mass pedestrian exodus to Brooklyn. It looked like the New York Marathon in slow motion. We decided to walk across the bridge to get a better view. And the view was stunning. Thick black smoke rose in a plume from Manhattan’s financial district, into the sky, blowing all the way to Brooklyn, where it was whiter. The sun was covered in darkness. I looked up and it was an orange ball poking through the dark smoke.

We were about halfway across the bridge and decided to turn back. But the cops stopped us. One way only. Oh, shit. First I was stuck in Manhattan, and now I’m stuck in Brooklyn?

My mom’s gonna kill me.

When we got to Brooklyn the crowd was still walking. Cops everywhere. People giving out free water.

Fortunately the subway was finally running into Manhattan, so we found a station, hopped on, and got off at Union Square. Phew.

Everything was closed. Even the huge Virgin Megastore. We were starving, so we walked along 14th Street back to Sixth Avenue. Everything was closed, everything. Restaurants, stores — all closed — on a weekday afternoon in Manhattan.

Miraculously, French Roast was open and it was bustling. It’s a coffee shop/restaurant on Sixth and 11th. We ordered food. I ate a hamburger and fries. I thought, here are all these people hanging out eating lunch, and the World Trade Center blew up today.

Then it hit me that I had my college friend Doug’s home number in my wallet. In my wallet there’s this little scrap of paper on which I have random phone numbers scribbled down. His is one of them.

I borrowed M’s cellphone and called Doug’s apartment. His roommate, who’s also his friend, answered.

“Is… Doug there?” I said awkwardly.

It turned out he wasn’t there, and his roommate didn’t know his whereabouts.

According to the roommate, Doug had gone to work that morning.

I asked if he knew what floor Doug worked on.

It turns out he worked on the 100th floor of the first tower to be hit. The tower was about 110 stories tall.

Doug worked above where the plane hit.

The roommate had talked to Doug’s mother. Apparently, after the plane hit, Doug called his mother to tell her that he was in the building and couldn’t get out. He also called his girlfriend, apparently.

It was 4:30 in the afternoon and the roommate hadn’t heard from Doug at all.

That’s all I know.

I left my number in case he learned anything more.

M and I finished eating. We talked about our bizarre day. He said he was glad I’d come back, because he’d hoped to see me again.

“I guess this is what they call a bonding experience, huh?” I said.

Afterward we went back to his apartment. I answered more e-mails. I desperately, desperately, desperately wanted to blog, but I just couldn’t risk doing it on M’s computer.

At 6:30 I walked down the block and went to therapy. There were no cars on the streets. Just some people walking around. It was like a ghost town. Almost all the stores were closed.

Anyway, I already had plenty I hoped to talk about this week in therapy, and now, on top of that, Manhattan was a war zone. Let’s just say that there were no lulls in the conversation.

After therapy I went back to M’s place. We watched more TV. It turned out the PATH trains were running again. Hallelujah! I could get home!

First we watched the president on TV.

I know we’re all supposed to rally around the president at times like this, but the guy looked like a scared little kid and exuded no confidence. I wonder how scared shitless he was.

I have never missed Bill Clinton more than when I watched Bush speak tonight.

After he spoke, M walked me all the way back to the PATH train. I’d thought the Christopher Street station was open but I was mistaken. We had to walk all the way up to 33rd Street. We walked past St. Vincent’s Hospital, where there were tons of ambulances and medical personnel and blindingly bright lights.

Finally we got to the station, and we hugged and said we’d hang out again. He told me to call him. And I think I will.

I went down to the PATH train. Eventually it started moving. We zoomed past the closed stations — 23rd Street, 14th Street, 9th Street, Christopher Street — all eerily empty.

When the train got to New Jersey I felt myself exhaling. I’d never been so relieved to get back to New Jersey.

When the train got to my station, I walked up the stairs, got outside, and stared at the spot across the river where the enormous World Trade Center used to be.

There was darkness.

All these things have happened today and I can’t process it. Even if I break it down into smaller events I can’t process it. If one U.S. commercial flight had been hijacked, that would have been horrific enough. But four commercial flights were hijacked today. And two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. And the World Trade Center was destroyed. And a plane crashed into the Pentagon. And a plane crashed outside Pittsburgh. And every single commercial flight in the entire nation has been grounded for the first time in history. And Major League Baseball has been shut down. And the Emmys have been cancelled. And Broadway was dark tonight.

And Borders Bookstore, and all those books that I’ve browsed through, and all those t-shirts that I rifled through at the Gap yesterday — they’re all gone.

And one of my favorite ways of getting into Manhattan — with all its connecting subway lines — doesn’t exist anymore.

And my friend Doug is probably dead.

It’s been a crazy, crazy day. I can’t fully process any of this. I’m sure none of you can, either.

But in a perverse, voyeuristic way, I feel really lucky to have been in Manhattan today. The whole world was watching, and I was less than a mile from the scene. I’m going to remember this day for the rest of my life. Like that even needs to be said.

This was one of those rare days when Manhattan felt like a small town. A crazy, eccentric, shell-shocked town, but a small one nonetheless. Everyone on their cellphones. Everyone walking across the bridge. Everyone gathered around radios. Everyone staring at the smoke.

I’m a New Yorker by birth. I was born in Manhattan and spent the first three years of my life in Queens. And you know what?

New York is the best fucking city in the world.

I love this place. And if those assholes think they’re going to scare us — they’re not. We’re tough as nails and we’re not going to take it. We’re going to keep on loving our city and living in our city like crazy — partying our asses off and dancing the night away and going to museums and going to lectures and hailing cabs and checking people out on the street and bragging about how we wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world.

They think they can scare us? Hah. They think they can demoralize us?

Then they don’t understand New Yorkers —

or Americans —

or human beings —

at all.

Unreality

Unreality

I didn’t sleep last night. I was up until after five in the morning — writing the previous blog entry, catching up on others’ accounts, answering e-mail, reading the New York Times on the Web.

Finally, at around 5:30, I got offline and checked my phone messages. Around midnight there had been a message from — of all people — Wes. (If you’re new here, that link will catch you up.) He had called me from vacation in North Carolina to see if I was okay.

In the midst of all this chaos I was relieved to feel ordinary human emotions for once. I was touched, and I felt a pang of guilt about my night with M. I had pretty much decided that things with Wes were over, but I listened to his message and now I didn’t know anymore.

It was absurd that I could be thinking about such things at a time like this. It all seemed so trivial. But it was nice to be reminded that such trivial things continue to exist.

After I listened to the message I crawled into bed.

I’d been up since — well — I had only slept sporadically on Monday night, because I don’t sleep well when I’m in bed with someone. So I wasn’t going on a full night’s sleep anyway.

And yet when I crawled into bed at 5:30, I tossed and turned.

I started getting these hallucinatory fears. I thought I heard a noise and I was convinced that Osama bin Laden and his henchmen were going to break down the door of my apartment in the darkness and get me. I actually had to open my bedroom door and make sure my apartment was empty. I guess I was just emotionally and physically drained.

At around 6:30, it was getting light out, so I put on some clothes and walked down to the harbor on the Hudson River at Exchange Place, which is directly across from lower Manhattan. It’s about a 20-minute walk east from my apartment. Jersey City has its own bustling financial district there — much smaller and newer than Manhattan’s, of course — and there’s a pier.

When I walked out of my apartment, it was the first time I’d seen the empty skyline in daylight. The Twin Towers were nowhere to be seen. There was nothing but sky. It was like someone had taken an eraser and just erased them away.

When I got to the water, there were police cars and emergency vehicles and officers. There was a yellow police line blocking off the pier and a cop was standing by, but a few people ducked under the line without a problem, so I did as well.

The sun was rising over the skyline and a cool breeze was blowing. Several amateur photographers had set up tripods and were snapping away. I leaned on a railing and stared. The smoke was still churning, and now it seemed to be floating west into Staten Island and New Jersey. As the sun rose, sunbeams pierced the smoke, turning it a sickly brown and a jaundiced yellow.

A few boats were in the harbor. A lone helicopter was flying back and forth, patrolling the sky. I could see it and hear it. It was unnerving.

To the south, in the distance, I could see the Statue of Liberty.

I looked back at the skyline across from me. No World Trade Center. Just a big gap, and all that smoke and ash still rising. I thought about the enormous amount of smoke and ash that has to have been created by two 110-story buildings, full of furniture and people, burning and collapsing.

I kept looking, and I realized I could see twisted metal sticking out from the side of one building. With my naked eyes.

Two men wearing hardhats that said Sprint came up to me, asking me if I could identify any of the buildings still standing. I couldn’t. Apparently they needed to know because they were they were trying to restore emergency phone service. I wasn’t sure exactly what they were doing, but it wasn’t my place to ask.

At around 8:00 a police officer came over and announced that anyone who wasn’t emergency personnel had to leave, so I left. On the way home I bought copies of USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the New Jersey Star-Ledger. As I walked back to my apartment I scanned the front page of the Journal. I saw a mention of Cantor Fitzgerald and I caught my breath, because that’s where my friend Doug worked. Apparently the people in the Los Angeles office had the people in the New York office on speakerphone, and the New York people were panicking about the plane that had crashed below them and all the rising smoke. I wondered what Doug had been doing at that time. Cantor Fitzgerald takes up — I mean took up — floors 101 to 108 of the building.

I almost cried right there on the sidewalk. And my eyes are welling up again as I write this. I just can’t believe it.

You graduate from college and so many of your friends go to work for consulting firms and investment banks and brokerages with these prestigious names. You send out resumés and go on interviews and get hired. You expect to make a great salary and get valuable work experience and start to build a terrific life. You’re young and you’re living in New York City. You go to work and you compile spreadsheets and have meetings and write on whiteboards and talk on the phone and meet with clients and send money to your college alumni associations. When you get a chance, you go out to bars in Tribeca with your coworkers and you hit on people and you talk about where you went to school.

You’re not supposed to be trapped inside a 110-story building that’s rapidly filling up with smoke and jet fuel from a hijacked airplane.

It makes no sense.

I went to law school. And I’m thinking to myself, what if I happened to work for a law firm at the World Trade Center? It’s totally possible. I keep imagining myself trapped inside the World Trade Center and calling my parents and being scared to death.

I got home and looked through the New York Times. There was a picture on page A7 or A9 that I’ll never forget. It’s a man, upside down, falling from the World Trade Center. One of his legs is bent and the other is straight up and he’s wearing a white shirt and dark pants. You can’t make out any features on his face, but his body looks limp, devoid of life. He almost looks like a scarecrow.

That picture terrified me. It’s going to give me nightmares.

I wonder what possessed him to jump out of a building. To jump out of a fucking skyscraper! I wonder what was going through his mind.

And yet apparently some other guy jumped off the 80th floor and held onto some debris and landed and survived.

You’re trapped high up in a burning skyscraper and the air inside is filling up with smoke and heat. Outside there’s fresh air. What would you do?

How the hell would you decide what to do?

Okay, I can’t write about this anymore.

At around 9:00 a.m. I had a bowl of Corn Flakes and went to bed. I was exhausted, but I didn’t sleep well.

I woke up at around noon and decided I was going to go to my parents’ house in the northern New Jersey suburbs. You know what? I’d planned to spend most of my two weeks off visiting various interesting places in New York. Now what was I supposed to do? Plus I wanted to see my mom and my brother and just get out of the area for a while.

First I spent a couple of hours on the phone with people. I talked with my mom. I talked with my dad, who’s stuck in San Francisco. My landlord called to see if I was okay. I called my “office mom” at my old job to tell her I was okay.

I talked with CanadaGirl, who works in midtown. She’s in that same close circle of friends with me and Doug. We talked about Doug and we were both near tears. We’d never had a conversation like this before. We’re in our twenties. We’re supposed to have lighthearted conversations. Hey, what movie should we see? What bar should we go to? What time should we meet up? I can’t wait for Tim’s wedding in November.

We’re not supposed to be talking about how our friend has probably died in a terrorist attack!

Then I talked with my friend Nick. Nick also works in midtown. He was supposed to have an interview at the World Trade Center at 6:00 yesterday evening with a Peace Corps recruiter.

Obviously that didn’t happen.

After I got off the phone I packed up four days worth of clothes and left my apartment. On the way out I checked my mailbox and found the latest issue of the New Yorker waiting for me. I took it with me. It seemed pathetically, woefully out of date.

I walked to the PATH station. There were signs on the turnstiles saying that the ride was free. I walked on through. Two transit officers were there to answer questions. I walked down to the platform.

Usually, when you’re waiting on the platform at my station and you hear a train coming, you have to look and see whether it’s the 33rd Street line or the World Trade Center line. But there’s no longer a World Trade Center line.

On the long, convoluted ride to my parents’ house in the suburbs — PATH train, Newark City Subway, New Jersey Transit bus — I nearly lost it several times. Many people were reading newspapers. Everyone looked tired. I’d close my eyes and think of everything that had happened. I couldn’t take it. My eyes kept getting wet.

When I got off the bus and walked down the block to my parents’ house, I noticed that my mom had put out an American flag. I smiled and I wanted to cry again. I went inside, put down my bag, went upstairs. Before she looked at me she said she was going to use the bathroom. I think she would have burst into tears otherwise. A few minutes later we hugged, and the puppy jumped all over me.

We walked the dog and then my brother came home, along with his girlfriend. We watched so much TV. Way too much. We ate dinner (thank god for mom’s food). I talked to my dad on the phone again. I talked to my best friend. I talked to my grandmother. She says that my 92-year-old grandfather has no idea any of this is happening. That’s a good thing. Nobody born in 1908 needs to see this.

Back to television.

Television during a crisis is painfully addictive. It’s like the Entertainment in Infinite Jest. You absorb more and more information and see more and more visual images and you can’t take it anymore, you want to stop thinking about it, but you can’t stop. You just keep staring, absorbing, a mindless zombie.

While we were watching, we learned that the Empire State Building had been evacuated because someone had called in a bomb threat on the 44th floor. They closed off traffic and they sent in a cop and a dog. It turned out to be a false alarm. Thank the Lord. What kind of a sicko would do such a thing?

I’ve been trying to avoid information overload. I’ve purposely avoided going to MetaFilter because I know I won’t be able to stop reading and it’s going to make my head explode. As far as blogs, I’ve been trying to stick to my regular reads, for the same reason. And among my regular reads, Choire’s photos and his story are fascinating. Ghostly empty streets? Military officers? ID checks? This is Manhattan!

You know, I feel so relieved to be in the leafy suburbs at my parents’ house after being so close to everything yesterday. But at the same time, I envy my friends who are still in the city. I envy Choire for being able to experience this and go around and take pictures. Things aren’t as exciting out here.

It’s just my usual Manhattan envy coming back in a twisted form. An echo of the world as it used to exist, with ordinary human desires and dreams and hopes.

Jesus! My blog is supposed to be about my personal life, and my anxieties about jobs and romance, and wanting to live in Manhattan.

My blog is not supposed to be about life in a war zone.

Look at Choire. A few days ago he was writing about Fire Island and today he’s documenting armageddon.

It’s sort of like during World War Two, when you’d see all the Warner Brothers cartoon characters selling war bonds and fighting Hitler, totally out of context.

What the fuck is going on here? Life seems to be on hold. Wonderbar and the Phoenix and bar-hopping seem to belong to a long-lost world.

Everybody says that our generation has never known fear and death. The GI’s fought in a world war and the Baby Boomers had Vietnam, but we Gen-Xers were living our lives in blissful, innocent ignorance, with our dot-coms and our lattes and our cool music and our booming economy, safe at home.

That’s not true anymore.

The world has become real. Or is it unreal?

I’m not sure I know the difference right now.

Nouns and Verbs

Nouns and Verbs

To “george,” who left a comment to this entry tonight at 8:28 pm: I really don’t know how to respond to you. I can only assume that, like all of us, this tragedy has hurt you and made you angry, and that this is just your way of processing that anger. As for me, my way of processing these events is to write my way through them, to describe them as I’ve experienced them. If you don’t get that, then you totally misunderstand the purpose of a blog or online diary. There are plenty of newspapers you can read if you want. I actually agree with some of what you said about Bill Clinton, but that’s about it. Anyway, this is all the energy I can expend on you. Be well, george.

I think I might go back to Jersey City/Manhattan tomorrow. I miss my New York friends. It’s frustrating not to be able to see things firsthand. I’m still on vacation for another week and a half, and therefore I have nothing that can take my mind off what’s happened. Even if I were working now I don’t think I’d be able to take my mind off everything. On the other hand, the idea of being in Manhattan kind of scares me.

This entry by Mike is very poignant: “It just hit me: in 2000 the foundations of American democracy were deeply shaken, and in 2001 the security of America as a republic has been more seriously questioned than ever before. These are the two worst years in American history to date.” Mike, the only upside I can think of is that at least we have knowledge now. At least we know. There’s no more fantasy. Actually — in this case, I think I might have preferred the fantasy.

An e-mail from a Manhattan friend today:

we live across the street. our apt is probably totalled. i was there. we left the building 10 seconds before the first tower fell. dust, smoke everywhere. couldn’t breathe. boats rescued us and took us to NJ. never thought i’d be so happy to be in jersey.

in westchester now. all is well.

There are an endless number of stories out there. Most of them will never be heard.

I heard on the news that there were 90 false bomb threats in New York City today. The word “evacuation” seems to be routine.

I think I’m going off the deep end. Last night was another night of insomnia. I’m at my parents’ house and I didn’t feel safe last night. I was sleeping in my childhood bedroom — which my parents have turned into a guest room — and I thought, wow, I remember when I used to sleep in this room as a kid and the world seemed so innocent.

It was three in the morning and then four in the morning and I tossed and turned on the pullout bed. I kept hearing noises outside and I was afraid there were burglars outside our house. When I was a little kid I had this book of Jewish folktales, and one of the stories involved robbers. I remember walking into the bathroom while my dad was shaving and asking him if there were such things as robbers. I just couldn’t believe there could be such bad things in the world. He told me there were indeed such things as robbers. That frightened me.

So anyway, I was freaked out last night, despite the fact that the alarm system was on. I turned on WQXR, New York’s classical music station, and tried to soothe myself, but they were playing a disturbing piece. Eventually they played a recording of Mahler’s Fifth, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, an idol of mine. If Lenny were still alive, I wonder what he’d have to say about this attack on the city he loved so much. He was always such an idealist.

I slept for a couple of hours and then woke up around eight. My mom was downstairs and the TV was on. I brought in the New York Times. Part of this morning’s front page headline: “THOUSANDS ARE PRESUMED DEAD.”

Thousands are presumed dead.

That doesn’t happen here. That happens in earthquakes in Turkey. Not here. Three hundred people is awful but I can fathom it. Thousands of people are dead in Manhattan. I can’t fathom that. I burst into tears again.

I’ve been falling into tears several times a day. The last time I felt this much grief was when my uncle died of bone marrow cancer four and a half years ago at age 60. But this grief is different. It’s too diffuse. It’s too much. There’s too much information.

This morning’s most disturbing newspaper photograph: page A7. A huge color photo of the upper part of one of the towers with a huge smoking gap where the plane hit. At the bottom of the photo you can make out a tiny figure — a man is standing there with no wall in front of him, he’s peering out into the world, his arm is shielding his face. He seems to be wearing khaki pants and a black short-sleeve shirt. The freaky thing is that from far away he almost looks like my dad, because he appears to have the same body type.

I can’t deal with this.

Meanwhile, my dad is still stuck in San Francisco.

I just heard what I thought was an airplane. I felt a slight panic because I know that the three major airports in this area are still closed. But then I realized it was thunder. It’s going to rain soon. I wonder what the rain’s going to do to everything. It’s been at least three whole days without rain. This is going to be the first rainfall of the new world.

No wait, I really do hear an airplane. I’m not used to hearing airplanes anymore. The sound is scary. I’m afraid of what kind of plane it is.

My god. What the hell has happened to us if we’re afraid of hearing airplanes?

This afternoon my mom told me I needed to get dressed and go for a walk or something. I needed to get out of the house. She was right. So I showered and changed and went for a walk around my town. The main shopping street is lined with American flags. There are signs on all the storefronts publicizing blood donations and trauma therapy groups. I walked around the park three times and it felt good to be out in the fresh air.

American flags everywhere. A reader named Tim points out to me that even in Alabama there are flags and three-hour waits for blood donations. I haven’t realized until now that this really has affected the whole country, not just us.

I had two moments of sweet normalcy today. In the afternoon, my mom and I went grocery shopping. Except they were selling the special edition of Time, so we each bought one. Filled with disturbing pictures. So much for normalcy.

But in the evening, my mom and I took the puppy to obedience school. We were in a room with ten of the cutest, most adorable puppies I’d ever seen. They were so cute and cuddly and adorable that I wanted to cry. I thought to myself, This must be what Israel is like. You cope with the constant threat of terror by living normal lives. You take your puppies to obedience school because you have to. For yourself.

I hear another airplane. I wish it would stop.

At night I called my friend Tim in D.C. Tim’s part of the same circle of college friends as me and CanadaGirl and Doug. We’re all supposed to go down to D.C. in November for Tim’s wedding. He’s sort of the anchor of our group, and I needed to hear his voice. We talked about Doug, and then Tim told me about being sent home from his company’s office after the Pentagon was hit, and after a while we just had to talk about normal things. So we talked about my new job and we talked about his wedding preparations. He also gave me the phone number of Doug’s girlfriend. Apparently she’s started to go through Doug’s Rolodex and call people.

So far, Doug’s name is not on this list of accounted-for Cantor Fitzgerald employees.

Via Sparky: first, these beautiful and sad photos from someone’s bedroom window. Second, from Sparky himself — photos that make me want to bawl.

I don’t have a digital camera, so the only tools I have to cope with are my words. But language isn’t functioning well right now. We’ve run out of adjectives; all we have left are the nouns and verbs. That’s the only way to cope at this point. Nouns and verbs.

I can’t tell if what I hear is thunder or an airplane. But it’s just started to rain.

What the Fire Did

What the Fire Did

At some point you just kind of wonder what else there is to say. But I’ll try, because I have to.

It’s starting to seem that the hellish fire that burned the World Trade Center to the ground also did something to us as a people, as a nation, as a world. It was a cleansing fire. It’s cleansed away so much of the bloated aimlessness and purposelessness of our country and of our lives. It’s burned away all the fat. Our nation feels lean right now. We feel lean. Lean and focused.

There’s no more crap on TV anymore. No more stupid reality shows, no more banal sitcoms. Everything on television is suddenly very real, relevant, vital, heartwrenching, scary.

Remember the days, long, long ago, when the entire resources of the news were focused on some guy named Gary Condit? Remember when life was happy enough that we could afford to think about such things?

Remember the 1990s? Remember the decade when the most pressing issue was whether the President of the United States had lied about having an affair with an intern?

Remember all the hoopla about the sports superstar who was on trial for murder?

Remember when we were so lighthearted and silly that these seemed like pressing issues?

Boy, were we innocent then.

Remember less than a year ago when Florida was counting and recounting its ballots, and although we knew that it was important, we also knew on some level that the nation would survive, that in a sense everything was going to be okay, that our nation was stable and at peace, that we were fortunate enough to live during times in which could afford to have such a crisis?

I think future historians are going to see the 1990s as similar to the 1920s. Such a stupid, peaceful decade.

Remember how Bill Clinton was always so concerned about burnishing his legacy? Well, I suspect that he’s going to go down in history with the same reputation as Herbert Hoover. He’s going to be seen as the guy who did for terrorism what Hoover did for the Great Depression. People are going to look at him and see that there’s so much he could have done that he didn’t do. They’re going to say that his overriding fear of American military casualties and his general military timidity caused all of this to happen. That he was too soft

But it wasn’t just him. It was us. We were all too soft. It was the times we were living in. We were living our decadent, fat, prosperous lives, and there was no way we would accept military casualties. We won’t stand for it! Life is so good. The economy is booming. We can communicate with people around the world with this Internet thing. We’re the only superpower on earth. We’re at peace and we always will be. We’re happy. We’re living in magical times! Nobody can hurt us. I mean, not really. So don’t waste your breath.

In just a matter of days, it’s all changed. A majority of Americans are ready to go to war. Instead of day-trading, people are lining up and donating blood. The reserves have been called up. We have this mission, this zeal, this purpose and resolve. All the World War II nostalgia of the past few years has come to fruition. We want to be like them.

I happened to read an instant message chat between my parents this morning, because my mom had forgot to close the chat window after she’d finished using the computer. My dad was still stuck in San Francisco. My mom said she was hearing all this talk of war, and she wrote to him, “I’m afraid for our sons.” My dad responded that this had crossed his mind as well.

So this evening I said to my mom: “You know, if for some god-awful reason there turns out to be a draft, at least I know I won’t be going.” She looked at me quizzically. “I’m not allowed in the military,” I explained.

She hadn’t realized that uncloseted gays aren’t allowed in the military. She thought “don’t ask, don’t tell” had changed all that. I explained the policy to her.

It’s funny, though. I’m not allowed to donate blood, either.

Not that I’d feel good about joining the military, but I want to do something. I’m so frustrated because I feel like I’m not doing anything. Charlie is donating clothes and making sandwiches. What am I doing? What good am I doing? I’m not even walking around Manhattan connecting with people.

I want to go back to the city. I feel so alone out here in the suburbs now. I want to see the posters and flyers. I want to be in a crowd. I want to commiserate with people. I miss my blogging friends. I miss Choire and Sparky and everyone else. I want to see you guys. I wish I’d known earlier about this NYC blogger gathering, because I would have gone. I hope there’s another one. I need to connect to people.

This is big.

This is the biggest thing to happen in our lifetimes.

It has decimated me.

I can’t sleep at night. All my childhood fears are coming back. When I was a kid living in my parents’ house, I was scared to go up to the third floor or down to the first floor of the house by myself at night. I’ve been staying at my parents’ house the last couple of nights, and I feel those same fears again. I was hungry in the middle of the night last night, but I was scared to go downstairs to the kitchen. And I dread going back to my apartment in Jersey City because I don’t want to sleep there alone.

Whenever I see that first hijacker photo, the one of Mohammed Atta — I can’t describe my reaction. I feel sheer terror. It’s the scariest face I’ve ever seen in my life. I imagine him steering the plane into the World Trade Center, and I imagine someone standing on that floor of the building as the plane comes crashing through the window, and I imagine them making eye contact.

I keep imagining what it was all like. I keep putting myself in the place of one of the airplane passengers or in the place of my friend Doug, an ordinary guy sitting at his desk as a hijacked airplane comes crashing through the building a few floors below.

This morning I was woken up at 7:30 by a truck that had pulled up in front of our house with the engine running. There was a truck in front of the house next door as well. I was half asleep and I assumed they were filled with debris from the World Trade Center. I’m going nuts.

My stomach has been upset for the last three days. Nothing in my stomach seems to keep any solidity.

I want to say, “This feels like when…” but there’s nothing to compare it to. The way I’ve been feeling is something I have not felt before at all, ever.

Two of the hijackers lived in New Jersey. One was in Fort Lee and the other was in Wayne. Wayne is right near here.

Who knows where else these people are?

I have been added to a mass-email list for updates on my friend Doug. Not that there’s anything to be updated on. But apparently there will be an article about him tomorrow in the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch. There might even be a picture. The mass e-mail contained a contact e-mail address for Doug’s family, so I sent them an e-mail earlier.

I also heard from a friend, a lawyer who lives with his boyfriend on John Street, several blocks from “ground zero”:

We’re safe and uninjured but we’re homeless. I came into work today and got slapped with an assignment — amazing.

It’s so weird. That area is now called Ground Zero. A week ago it was known as the World Trade Center. A week ago, if you had referred to that area as Ground Zero, people would have looked at you funny. There was no such thing as Ground Zero.

Three hundred and seventy-seven years ago it was one of the first parts of Manhattan to be occupied by the Dutch. There’s so much history down there.

My dad and some business colleagues managed to charter a private Lear jet, and they’re flying back home on that. At least if it’s a private jet there won’t be hijackers on it.

I never, ever want to fly in an airplane again.

You know what? I just realized it’s Friday night. And that means nothing to me right now.

We’re on fire.

I don’t know

I don’t know

An article about my friend Doug has appeared in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Douglas D. Ketcham’s last known phone call was to his parents in Florida.

He was in his Cantor Fitzgerald office on the 104th floor of One World Trade Center when the first plane hit several floors below him.

“He called his mother just after and said there had been a terrible explosion, and to tell them that he loved them,” said his friend, John Riley. “He called from underneath his desk.”

After Ketcham said those words, the connection went dead. No one has heard from him since, and he is missing.

Ketcham, 27, grew up in Midlothian. His parents, Dennis and Bobbie Ketcham, moved to Florida this year.

He graduated from Midlothian High School and the University of Virginia. He went to work as a bond trader for Cantor Fitzgerald after college.

“He loved New York,” Riley said. “He was very sharp, very bright. He loved to be around people.”

His circle of friends was huge. He visited his buddies in the Richmond area a couple of times a year, and they went to see him regularly in New York.

“When I put together an e-mail list of friends I think I counted 50 names,” Riley said. Each of them probably forwarded the bad news about Doug to many, many other friends.

“Doug was a friend to everybody and had a quick sense of humor,” Riley said yesterday. “He was a Christian and just stood for everything that was good. He was a gentleman.”

The article contains stories on many other people as well.

I’m not feeling as personally decimated as I was yesterday. I finally talked with my mom about what I was feeling, and she helped restore a small bit of rationality. After all, it’s not like I was in one of the buildings. It’s not like I was ever in any physical danger personally. Not that my feelings aren’t valid, but — well, my fear was starting to become amorphous and overwhelming. Talking with my mom helped it become more manageable. She told me I’m getting way too immersed in the coverage. She told me I need to see my friends again. I already knew that, but she’s right.

And so I’m going home today. Tonight I’m going to hang out with CanadaGirl, presumably in Manhattan. I need to be normal again.

And then on Monday I’m coming back here to my parents’ house for two days because it’s going to be Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year. I don’t know quite what to expect from the holiday this year. But it will be nice for our congregation to come together and listen to the rabbi’s words. It’s something we’re going to need.

My dad finally got home at almost 2:00 this morning. His company chartered his colleagues a small Lear jet. They flew from San Francisco to Allentown, PA, and then took a van home from there. My dad and I had one of the biggest, longest, strongest hugs we’d ever had. He was glad to be home, obviously, and I feel better knowing that he’s back here.

From a superb article by Frank Rich in today’s New York Times:

This week’s nightmare, it’s now clear, has awakened us from a frivolous if not decadent decadelong dream, even as it dumps us into an uncertain future we had never bargained for.

The dream was simple — that we could have it all without having to pay any price, and that national suffering of almost any kind could be domesticated into an experience of virtual terror akin to a theme park ride…

The great shark scare of 2001 — already speeding to the dustbin of history, along with such other summer ephemera as Gary Condit, Robert Blake and Lizzie Grubman — was typical of an age in which we inflated troublesome but passing crises into catastrophes that provided the illusion of a national test of character, or some kind of moral equivalent of war, but in fact were for most of us merely invitations to indulge in cost-free hyperventilation…

Our desire for vicarious battle, the one commodity a stock market bubble couldn’t buy, also explains the fetishization of World War II.

War.

Despite the liberal cast of my demographics (my sexual orientation, my religion, my geographic location), I’ve never considered myself to be a far-left kind of guy. I’ve always thought of myself as merely a left-of-center moderate. I’m not particularly anti-war. I think we need to retaliate somehow. I don’t think war is bad if it will prevent future terror.

But I do think we need to be careful. Who knows if we’ll succeed in preventing future terror. We probably won’t, in fact. We won World War II only to have to fight the Cold War. The Law of Unintended Consequences. Humanity is both a remarkably wonderful species and a remarkably horrible species. Yin and yang. We’ll never be able to eliminate evil completely.

We have to be careful in whatever we decide to do. We have to separate war-as-catharsis from war-as-instrument. Despite the fact that a majority of the country wants it right now, I’m wondering if things will begin to change if the bodybags start coming home. On the other hand, after Tuesday’s destruction there are already at least 5,000 bodybags waiting to be filled with the innocent dead. Maybe things really have changed. Maybe we really are ready. I don’t know.

I just don’t know.

Before we go to war, we have to realize what we might be in for. I’m not against going to war in principle. It’s just that I just hope our “fetishization of World War II,” as Frank Rich put it, through movies and television and Tom Brokaw’s books, hasn’t inured us to what war really means.

We can’t just sit on our hands and spout touchy-feely I-love-humanity platitudes anymore. I’m sorry, but that’s not going to help. “War is not the answer,” you say? That’s a bit too trite and simple. This is the way the world works.

But before more lives are lost — the lives of even more friends and family members and possibly our own — we have to make sure we know the costs, and the consequences. And we have to make sure we know what the hell we’re doing, and what our goal is. We can’t do it just for catharsis.

Remember the Law of Unintended Consequences. It’s going to come back to haunt us, whatever we decide. Such is the universe.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

None of us know.

Back in Manhattan

Back in Manhattan

Last night, for the first time since Tuesday, I went back home — and back to Manhattan — in an attempt to be normal.

My dad, who got back from San Francisco around 2:00 yesterday morning, insisted on driving me back to Jersey City yesterday afternoon instead of letting me take the bus and the PATH train. “Like I’m going to let you take public transportation,” he said.

This seems to have brought me and my dad a little closer together. On the drive back to Jersey City, he told me that when he heard about the disaster, he got worried about me, because he knew that I had the week off and was probably planning to be in the city, and for all he knew I might have been passing through the World Trade Center PATH station or even visiting a friend in one of the towers. It’s interesting how parents’ imaginations run wild with possibility when their children’s lives are potentially at stake.

To get to Manhattan from my parents’ northern New Jersey suburb, you drive east along Route 3 for about fifteen miles. You get a beautiful view of the skyline directly ahead of you, growing larger the closer you get. The first thing you see, over a ridge, is the Empire State Building. Eventually you see more buildings, and eventually, as you look to your right, you see the cluster of skyscrapers in lower Manhattan.

As we looked down there, we could still see a huge cloud of smoke where the towers used to be. I inhaled sharply and my dad seemed startled. It was his first in-person view of the scene.

When I got back to my apartment I unpacked my clothes. Then I went out and bought a flag. I had to stop into a few shops on Newark Avenue, a shopping street with tons of 99-cent stores and the like. I managed to find a guy selling small flags, maybe 1 foot by 2 feet, for two bucks each. He didn’t have many left. I bought one, came home, and taped it inside one of my windows facing the street.

I called CanadaGirl and we decided to meet up for dinner and movie in Manhattan.

At the PATH station there were little flyers describing the new routes: Newark to 33rd Street, Hoboken to 33rd Street, Journal Square to Hoboken. It’s weird how the little things have been changed by all of this.

I got off at the 9th Street station — 9th Street and Sixth Avenue — because I wanted to walk around and look at the flyers containg pictures of victims. I didn’t have to look very far; as soon as I stepped off the PATH train and onto the platform, I saw them in front of me. Several were taped to a big map of the PATH routes. The immediacy of it hit me. I stared at the flyers and the tears came again, for the zillionth time in five days.

Outside — on the corner of 9th and Sixth — there were a bunch more of them taped to a wall right next to Balducci’s, a gourmet food store. Several people stood there looking at them.

They’re all over the city, taped to street lamps, mailboxes, payphones, bus stop shelters. “Missing.” “Have you seen…?” There’s usually a photo, along with the date of birth, their height, their weight, the company they worked for, the floor they worked on, any distinguishing marks. “A cast covering his right leg from knee to toe.” “Wearing a Rutgers University class ring.” There was one photo of two young guys together at a bar. They’re both missing.

It’s heartbreaking.

It’s even more heartbreaking to know that these people really aren’t “missing” anymore. We know exactly where they are. They’re buried beneath the rubble of two mighty towers, all 5,000 of these people, or they are lying in makeshift morgues. There’s not much need to donate blood, because there’s nobody to give the blood to.

Some things serve a different purpose than originally intended. These flyers were put up for a practical, immediate purpose — to locate the missing. But nobody who’s staring at these flyers is doing so in order to identify bodies. We’re staring at them in order to identify souls. We’re in mourning. It’s easier to grieve a single person, to think about the details of that person’s life, to think of that person’s spouse or parents or children or friends — to think about that 25-year-old guy’s favorite bar, or that 35-year-old woman’s family, or to think about what the completely ordinary thoughts that person was thinking when they showered and dressed and had their coffee that morning — the same thoughts we all have when we get ready for work in the morning. It’s easier to grieve such things than it is to grieve the loss of 5,000 people. We function better with concrete details than with abstractions.

I made my way down to Washington Square Park, fully aware of the gap in the sky. Usually as you walk down Fifth Avenue, the Washington Square Arch frames the Twin Towers. You can see them in my brother’s NYU graduation photos from last June. No longer.

There was a chain-link fence surrounding the arch — I don’t know if it had already been there or not. One side of the fence contained huge pieces of butcher paper filled with messages, as well as a few cups of markers. The other sides were covered with more photos of people, and poems, and messages, and postcards containing the World Trade Center, and bouquets of flowers stuck into the links of the fence. And on the ground — on the ground were hundreds of lit memorial candles of all colors and sizes, two or three feet deep. Also lots of American flags, and more poems of peace and photos and messages and postcards and mementos. It reminded me of the pictures I’d seen of Oklahoma City, or of London after Diana died.

I was late for meeting CanadaGirl, so I left and walked back up Fifth Avenue. American flags all over the place, flying from stores and apartment buildings, taped to windows. Also, because New York is such a walkers’ city, there were lots of people with little flags poking out of their backpacks — portable patriotism — and a few flags tied around people’s heads like headbands. It made me think of the 1960s.

As I walked along, things began to seem normal. Families walking around, couples, single people, all doing their Saturday evening New York thing. It was nice to see so much normalcy. It was even nice to walk through Chelsea. I usually dislike Chelsea, but it was reassuring to see the familiar Chelsea Clones out and about and to walk past the Big Cup, as I’ve done so many times before. Many of the guys on the street were beautiful as usual. It was nice to be reminded that there’s still beauty in the world.

Not everything was normal, though. As I got to the designated meeting spot, at 23rd and Eighth, I saw cops standing at all four corners of the intersection. Nothing was going on — they were just there for safety.

I met up with CanadaGirl, and we stood there hugging outside the movie theater for about ten seconds. She was limping, because a week earlier she’d been on the Montreal-to-Portland AIDS Bike Ride and had strained a muscle, and then she’d played softball a couple of days later. We bought our movie tickets and then went across the street to Boston Market for a simple dinner. As she limped across the street, I wondered if people would think she’d escaped from one of the buildings.

We sat there and talked about everything, including Doug. You know, I feel bad, because among our small circle of friends, I wasn’t as close to Doug as others were. We just never had much in common. We lived in the same city and I hadn’t even seen him since August 2000. I wished that I’d been closer to him.

After Boston Market we had donuts at Krispy Kreme. Then we saw our movie: Together, a Swedish film about a commune in the 1970s. The theater was crowded — I guess lots of people have been looking for something to take their mind off everything. Even so, while watching the movie, my mind was never fully away from everything. There’s one character who is a communist and is advocating revolution. It was kind of comical, but eerie as well. There was another scene where two boys are playing with war toys. That was too unsettling.

When we came out of the movie we saw a police escort with sirens moving along 23rd Street. There were two police motorcycles, and then a police car, and then some sort of truck, and then more motorcyles, and then a humvee, and then another police car. Just another night in disaster-struck Manhattan.

I said goodbye to CanadaGirl, and then I went down to the East Village to meet up with Nick and a few friends of his at the Phoenix. The Phoenix! I hadn’t been there since the previous Saturday night. It was now 11:30 at night and the place was packed. It was heartwarming to see so many people doing the normal Saturday night bar routine.

We stood around talking about things. One idiot friend of a friend of Nick’s was generalizing about Arabs and Muslims. I cringed and then I corrected him, told him that Islam is not a warlike religion (never having read the Koran, I’m not positive on that, but I’m sure it’s a peaceful faith) and that this is really about extremists of all kinds. The guy made me so angry.

There were lots of attractive guys at the Phoenix, but I wasn’t really up for cruising. Still — it was great to be able to go out to a bar on a Saturday night as usual. At the same time there was something slightly absurd about the whole thing.

We left the bar at 1:30 and Nick, his friend Frank, and I all got pizza. We sat there for a while, and then we walked all the way over to Union Square.

On the way, we passed a firehouse. Outside were lots of candles and flowers. We grew silent and slowed down as we walked past. A couple of firehouse workers were standing around. Another pedestrian walked past, and as he did, he turned to them and said, “Thank you guys.”

We walked on and finally got to Union Square.

Wow.

This was the first time I’d seen the impromptu memorial there. It was like what I’d seen at Washington Square Park but on a much larger scale. There must have been at least two or three thousand candles grouped in a big mass, as well as the flags and the photos and the flowers and the mementos and messages of peace. It looked like a miniature city, a miniature skyline of candles.

Even though it was 2:30 in the morning, there were lots of people there, although probably not as many as there’d been earlier in the evening. Still — it was astounding. People standing, staring into the flames. Sitting on the ground in front of everything. Looking at the photos and cards and posters and scribblings on the fences. The statue of George Washington was covered in chalk, including a chalk-scrawled peace sign. There was a “table of prayer” that was playing recorded music. There were a couple of people playing folk songs on guitars. There were small groups of people having debates about military action or just sharing stories. It felt like an eighteenth-century Boston tavern or coffeehouse.

People would see that a candle had gone out, and they’d take their lighters and relight them. One guy picked up a candle and lit his cigarette with it.

I imagined each flickering candle as a human being. I let my eyes go blurry and I could see all the candles flickering at once — it looked like a crowd of people, sobbing in pain.

It’s so strange. Nobody planned this. There was no central committee that designated Union Square as a memorial spot. No, it just kind of happened, spontaneously, organically. An impromptu church, a gathering place for mourning and solace. Human beings need these things.

Nick left, and Frank and I stayed there for another hour. It was 3:30 in the morning and still pretty crowded. Eventually Frank left and so did I. I stopped off to buy a Sunday New York Times and then I walked to the 14th Street PATH station. A guy was playing Crosby, Stills and Nash on a boom box. Not your usual boom box fare, but these are not usual times.

It’s weird to see this combination of metaphors going on. It’s a cross between World War II and Vietnam, a hybrid of Pearl Harbor and the 1960s counterculture. So much of the country seems to be unified as it hasn’t been in years, and yet at the same time the legacy of the 1960s is present as it hasn’t been in a long time. There’s a huge amount of introspection going on. At least, there is at these impromptu memorials.

We’re living in absurdity now. We try to continue on with our normal lives. People try to walk around with their stoic New York faces again, and in some sense they’re succeeding, and you think, wow, things are getting back to normal. But then you see a police officer, or your eyes glance at the huge cloud of smoke downtown, or you see a guy with an American flag wrapped around his head, or you see a picture of a missing person taped to a lamppost. You’re constantly reminded that things aren’t normal right now. They’re not normal anymore.

You know, I’m not really sure what year it is. 2001 wasn’t supposed to be like this. Kubrick had it all wrong.

L’Shanah Tovah

L’Shanah Tovah

Happy New Year. Rosh Hashannah began tonight — the Jewish New Year. I’m back at my parents’ house. We went to synagogue tonight, and we’ll go again tomorrow and the next day.

Rosh Hashannah is supposed to be a joyous holiday, but nobody was feeling particularly joyous. And for me, it felt kind of strange to be reciting prayers to God tonight. I’ve never been particularly religious. And if God exists, then I’m really pissed at Him right now. If He doesn’t exist, then it seems kind of futile and absurd and comical to be praying to Him. I don’t know. I just wasn’t into it.

This week’s New Yorker was in my mailbox this afternoon. I’d been curious to see what the cover would look like, and I was taken aback when I finally saw it. It wasn’t what I’d expected at all. It was rather astonishing in its simplicity. You’ll just have to see it for yourself.

The bulk of the issue was devoted to last week’s events.

There’s a pattern to the way the media processes things: first, it happens on TV. We get the immediate reactions.

The next day, we get the first newpaper stories and front pages. We get the first written record of the events as well as some analysis and some moving language.

Several days later, after we have begun collectively to process the events, we get the magazine stories. That’s where we’re at right now. Reading the New Yorker’s take on any particular recent event is always soothing, therapeutic, in a way. The quality of the writing in that magazine is just so damn good. This week is no exception.

The first piece in the “Talk of the Town” section, by Hendrik Hertzberg, is dead on. I quote:

With growing ferocity, officials from the President on down have described the bloody deeds as acts of war. But, unless a foreign government turns out to have directed the operation (or, at least, to have known and approved its scope in detail and in advance), that is a category mistake. The metaphor of war — and it is more metaphor than description — ascribes to the perpetrators a dignity they do not merit, a status they cannot claim, and a strength they do not possess….

The scale of the damage notwithstanding, a more useful metaphor than war is crime.

Oh, by the way, if you haven’t read this yet, you should. (via kottke)

I think the Bush Administration — no, I think our national government as a whole — is rather blind. Bush keeps on saying that America is the best country in the world and we’re number one and these evil-doers have awakened a mighty giant and so forth. All this is doing is creating more antagonism with the rest of the world. And even many European countries are getting a bit more skittish about going to war than they were at first. Who are we going to war against? How can you conquer an enemy when all it takes is ten guys with knives to kill 5,500 people? I think there’s a true lack of insight, a lack of fresh thinking, and an excess of America-centrism going on here. The reason this happened in the first place is because we throw our weight around — because even though this horrible thing happened in New York and Washington, some equivalent of this is happening somewhere every day. A huge percentage of Africa is dying of AIDS. Much of the world is poor. And us, we’re the largest consumer of energy on the planet. On top of that, we try to dictate the terms of almost everything going on in the world.

That’s not to say that any of last week’s carnage is justified. It was revolting and horrifying. It’s just that I don’t think our leaders really know what’s going on in the world.

I think that before you get elected to any national office in this country, you should be required to live overseas for a few years so you can see the United States from the point of view of an outsider. Our leaders are so narrow-minded!

America isn’t representative of the rest of the world.

America is an ivory tower.

Well, as we say in Judaism: have a Sweet New Year.

We’ll Even Laugh

We’ll Even Laugh

Today (Tuesday) was the first full day of Rosh Hashannah, and in his sermon, the rabbi addressed the question I’d asked myself the night before: how can we give thanks to, or seek comfort in, a God right now without feeling absurd? His response: despite what some may believe about God’s power, we really have no guarantee of physical security in our lives. After all, everyone dies eventually. What we do have, he said, is a guarantee of spiritual security. That is a source of comfort and a reason for thanks.

I couldn’t really argue with what he had to say. But you know, religion seems to be a lot like law. When you’re given facts that contradict what you thought was true (God will protect us, but then 5,500 people die senselessly), instead of losing your faith you merely change your interpretation of that faith. It bends — even if it has to twist into a pretzel — but it does not break. I admire that.

Several times in the past week (has it already been a week? has it only been a week?), I’ve been envious of people who have recently died or who are near death — people who died a month ago, before any of this happened; people who are 90 years old and won’t have to live in this world much longer. I read an obituary of an old person, and I think, wow, that person had a long, full life. Who knows what we’ll have?

In the summer of 1987 I was thirteen years old. I was at summer camp up in New Hampshire. One night we went for a hike and camped by a lake. The sky was filled with a universe of stars. As we sat outside, someone (maybe me) brought up the fear of nuclear war. How can we go on with our lives in such a world, I asked? My counselor said: we just do. If you think about those things all the time, you’ll go nuts. There’s no use worrying about what you can’t change. Most of the stuff we worry about never comes to pass.

That’s still true. We got through 45 years of thinking that the planet had a good chance of being annihilated. We got through it. And we even laughed sometimes. We did that — we’ll do it again.

We still have to keep up hope.

Hope, by the way, is faith — even for people who claim they don’t do religion.

Did anyone catch Letterman last night (Monday night)? It was his first show back since the attacks. He’s usually ironic and irreverent, but he spoke for a long time, with raw emotion, in all seriousness, and from the heart. He openly questioned whether he should even have come back on the air yet.

It was the same thing with Conan O’Brien tonight, his first show back. I didn’t catch the first half of Jay Leno tonight, so I can’t write about him, but as for Dave and Conan — who both produce their shows in Manhattan — I have so much admiration and respect for those guys. It’s fascinating to watch funny people respond to tragedy. Humor is often a defense mechanism, a response to tragedy, so the funniest people often turn out to be those with the most pain. Therefore, their responses weren’t really surprising. But still moving.

I can’t imagine what Saturday Night Live is going to do when it begins its new season soon.

It’s interesting to watch our entertainment venues struggle with what to do right now. They’re not any different from us — after all, these shows are produced by people. But usually we turn to them for some sort of slick certainty, and yet they’re as much in the dark as we are right now. We’re all equal.

They will take steps, gingerly, feeling their way around this new world. Conan said tonight that he didn’t see how they could do shows anymore — but, he said, they’ll try to do tonight’s show, and then tomorrow they’ll try to do another one, and so on, and so on.

It’s kinda like all of us. We’ll live another day. And then another one. And then another one. And so on.

And you know what? Like them, we’ll even find things to smile about. And laugh about.

Not all the time. But sometimes.

And whenever we do, this whole “life” thing will seem worthwhile again.

Escaping to Absurdity, and From It

Escaping to Absurdity, and From It

This weekend I’m going to Richmond, Virginia, to attend a memorial service for my friend Doug. Until now, it’s always seemed kind of imaginary. How can he be dead if no body has been found? How can he be dead when he’s 27 years old and lives in Manhattan? How can he be dead when I’m still not sure the past nine days have actually happened?

But now there will be a memorial service for Doug on Sunday.

And on top of that, a scholarship will be established at his old high school in his name.

When I found out that last part, I suddenly realized this is actually happening — this is permanent. Doug is actually dead. My friend Doug, who was an awesome card player; my friend Doug, who once broke his leg right before a spring break trip to Ireland; my friend Doug, a terrific schmoozer who had no problem striking up a conversation with the prettiest woman in the room or on the subway, to our constant amusement; my friend Doug — has died in a terrorist attack. He died not because he committed any crime against humanity; he died not because he was a threat to world stability. He died merely because he happened to be doing his job one morning as a bond trader for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center.

And that’s all. There’s no sense to it. What the hell did he ever do to these people? Nothing.

And now he’s gone forever.

The rumor is that Governor Jim Gilmore of Virginia might be at the service on Sunday, because the governor has been actively involved in other memorial services of victims from last Tuesday’s attacks. We’ll see.

So on Saturday, my friend CanadaGirl and I will rent a car and drive down to Richmond. And on Sunday afternoon we’ll take a deep breath and, with our other friends, we’ll do the unthinkable.

And then that evening, we’ll drive back home. And the next day — absurdly, absolutely absurdly — I will start my new job as a public utilities lawyer for the State of New Jersey.

This two-week vacation has not exactly gone as I’d expected. So much for a relaxing break.

In the midst of all this, tomorrow night I’m going to see “The Producers.”

Last Monday night — the night before the world turned crazy — my mom called me up to tell me that she’d managed to get me a ticket to see the show. My parents had seen it last spring, and ever since, my mom had felt guilty that they hadn’t bought a ticket for me as well. So on a whim she went to the Telecharge website last week and, bizarrely, had managed to find an orchestra ticket. Now, it turns out that one of the two major stars, Nathan Lane, is on vacation, which is probably why the ticket was available. It would be great if he were going to be in it tomorrow night, of course, but really, come on, there are more important things in the world to worry about right now. And anyway — I’m getting a chance to see the hottest ticket on Broadway, for free, at a time when I really could use a laugh, and that cutie Matthew Broderick will still be there. Also, after reading what Charlie wrote here a while back about standby performers, I have a newfound respect and admiration for them now. It’s going to be a great, hilarious evening — something I desperately need.

Thanks, mom — you’re the best.

You know, tonight — after the second day of Rosh Hashannah had ended, after my aunt and my cousin and her daughter had gone home, after the dishes had been washed and put away — my parents and I watched a repeat of last season’s finale of “The West Wing.” It was the first time I’d seen the show since May, and as the stirring, patriotic theme music played, my eyes welled up unexpectedly. It seemed so beautiful and reassuring.

And yet — I wrote about the season finale the first time around, but this time around, it seemed so stupidly innocent and blissfully irrelevant. Wow, the president had multiple sclerosis and he knew it and he didn’t tell anyone and he might not be able to run for a second term?

Oh, to live once again in a world where such a minor presidential scandal is our biggest problem. How very 1990s.

I wonder what’s going to happen to “The West Wing” now. I wonder if it’s going to become increasingly irrelevant or if the writers and producers will find some way to stay relevant. Can such a show even work anymore? Who knows. Probably. We all need some escape.

And yet, watching NBC’s commercials tonight for the return of “Must See TV” and the upcoming one-hour season premiere of “Frasier,” you would have thought these were the most dramatically important things in the world. It just seemed so inappropriate and naive.

On the other hand, it’s nice to know that I’ll be able to escape, even for a little while, from this world — a world in which I have to attend a memorial service for a friend who died in a terrorist attack, a friend whose body can’t even be found.

God, this is madness.
—–

Escaping to Absurdity, and From It

Escaping to Absurdity, and From It

This weekend I’m going to Richmond, Virginia, to attend a memorial service for my friend Doug. Until now, it’s always seemed kind of imaginary. How can he be dead if no body has been found? How can he be dead when he’s 27 years old and lives in Manhattan? How can he be dead when I’m still not sure the past nine days have actually happened?

But now there will be a memorial service for Doug on Sunday.

And on top of that, a scholarship will be established at his old high school in his name.

When I found out that last part, I suddenly realized this is actually happening — this is permanent. Doug is actually dead. My friend Doug, who was an awesome card player; my friend Doug, who once broke his leg right before a spring break trip to Ireland; my friend Doug, a terrific schmoozer who had no problem striking up a conversation with the prettiest woman in the room or on the subway, to our constant amusement; my friend Doug — has died in a terrorist attack. He died not because he committed any crime against humanity; he died not because he was a threat to world stability. He died merely because he happened to be doing his job one morning as a bond trader for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center.

And that’s all. There’s no sense to it. What the hell did he ever do to these people? Nothing.

And now he’s gone forever.

The rumor is that Governor Jim Gilmore of Virginia might be at the service on Sunday, because the governor has been actively involved in other memorial services of victims from last Tuesday’s attacks. We’ll see.

So on Saturday, my friend CanadaGirl and I will rent a car and drive down to Richmond. And on Sunday afternoon we’ll take a deep breath and, with our other friends, we’ll do the unthinkable.

And then that evening, we’ll drive back home. And the next day — absurdly, absolutely absurdly — I will start my new job as a public utilities lawyer for the State of New Jersey.

This two-week vacation has not exactly gone as I’d expected. So much for a relaxing break.

In the midst of all this, tomorrow night I’m going to see “The Producers.”

Last Monday night — the night before the world turned crazy — my mom called me up to tell me that she’d managed to get me a ticket to see the show. My parents had seen it last spring, and ever since, my mom had felt guilty that they hadn’t bought a ticket for me as well. So on a whim she went to the Telecharge website last week and, bizarrely, had managed to find an orchestra ticket. Now, it turns out that one of the two major stars, Nathan Lane, is on vacation, which is probably why the ticket was available. It would be great if he were going to be in it tomorrow night, of course, but really, come on, there are more important things in the world to worry about right now. And anyway — I’m getting a chance to see the hottest ticket on Broadway, for free, at a time when I really could use a laugh, and that cutie Matthew Broderick will still be there. Also, after reading what Charlie wrote here a while back about standby performers, I have a newfound respect and admiration for them now. It’s going to be a great, hilarious evening — something I desperately need.

Thanks, mom — you’re the best.

You know, tonight — after the second day of Rosh Hashannah has ended, after my aunt and my cousin and her daughter had gone home, after the dishes had been washed and put away — my parents and I watched a repeat of last season’s finale of “The West Wing.” It was the first time I’d seen the show since May, and as the stirring, patriotic theme music played, my eyes welled up unexpectedly. It seemed so beautiful and reassuring.

And yet — I wrote about the season finale the first time around, but this time around, it seemed so stupidly innocent and blissfully irrelevant. Wow, the president had multiple sclerosis and he knew it and he didn’t tell anyone and he might not be able to run for a second term?

Oh, to live once again in a world where such a minor presidential scandal is our biggest problem. How very 1990s.

I wonder what’s going to happen to “The West Wing” now. I wonder if it’s going to become increasingly irrelevant or if the writers and producers will find some way to stay relevant. Can such a show even work anymore? Who knows. Probably. We all need some escape.

And yet, watching NBC’s commercials tonight for the return of “Must See TV” and the upcoming one-hour season premiere of “Frasier,” you would have thought these were the most dramatically important things in the world. It just seemed so inappropriate and naive.

On the other hand, it’s nice to know that I’ll be able to escape, even for a little while, from this world — a world in which I have to attend a memorial service for a friend who died in a terrorist attack, a friend whose body can’t even be found.

God, this is madness.
—–

The Producers

The Producers

I saw “The Producers” tonight, and it was an elixir. It’s been a while since I’ve had a smile on my face constantly for two and a half hours.

Nathan Lane’s replacement, Brad Oscar, was terrific. Unlike Nathan Lane, he’s balding, but when he was wearing a hat, he bore a striking resemblance to the guy. And his voice and mannerisms were so similar to his as well. It was as if he were portraying Nathan Lane portraying Max Bialystock. It was as if he were channeling Nathan Lane despite the latter’s absence. It was nice.

Anyway, although Nathan Lane is a major part of the musical, he’s not the sole reason for its success. It’s a wonderful show without him — there’s Matthew Broderick, and Cady Huffman, and a screamingly funny gay couple, and nonstop gags, and shameless humor, and terrific dance and musical numbers choreographed by Susan Stroman.

On an interesting side note, when I left my parents’ house this afternoon, I took the train back to the city area instead of taking the bus. While getting on the train I ran into this friend of my parents. He and his wife were at my aunt’s house for lunch on the first day of Rosh Hashannah, and my parents and my aunt have known them forever. They have two grown daughters and a dog. The guy is a huge theater nut — he sees two or three shows every weekend, and sometimes more.

He also majorly sets off my gaydar.

Anyway, when I saw him at the train station, he was with a male friend of his, and they were on their way into Manhattan together to see “Dance of Death,” a Broadway show starring Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen. The friend set off my gaydar even more. He was kinda cute, too.

Interesting, interesting, interesting.

So, let’s see. I’m not really looking forward to starting my new job on Monday. And I’ll be out of town Saturday and Sunday, so I may need to use tomorrow (Friday) to do laundry and get a messenger bag repaired and whatnot.

As for now, I’m tired, and this is probably the least interesting entry I’ve written in two weeks, but, hey: I’ve written intensely about Current Events for nine days straight with no letup, and I needed to write about something different. I admit I felt nervous getting on the subway at Penn Station tonight and riding to Times Square. But it’s starting to dawn on me again that I actually have a life to live.

And it’s a life that doesn’t feel very fulfilling right now.

Choire writes, “most of my discussions are with people now realizing there are things they won’t put up with in their life anymore.” Amen to that. I’m realizing once again that I’m not particularly fond of my apartment or of my neighborhood. And I haven’t started my new job yet, but we’ll see what that’s like. You know, given the current state of things, part of me just wants to move to New Zealand and become a sheep farmer.

Where was I? I don’t mean now, but where was I a couple of weeks ago? Oh yeah. I was reading the Great Books. I was trying to decide what to do about Wes. I’d taken an all-night walk up Park Avenue and had been cruised on the street at 6:30 in the morning. When was that? A century ago? But Wes has come back from his vacation, and Herodotus’s “Histories” is on my nightstand (which I no longer really feel like reading), and I start my new job on Monday. Some semblance of routine will return. Life’s obligations will close in on me again.

Everything seems pathetically less important than it did two weeks ago. And yet, we have to focus on such things. Our lives don’t run themselves. Also, those little things help restore some sanity and regularity to our lives. In fact, they help remind us that we’re alive.

Bomb Them with Butter

Bomb Them with Butter

In case you haven’t seen this already — I love this idea!

Bomb them with butter, bribe them with hope

A military response, particularly an attack on Afghanistan, is exactly what the terrorists want. It will strengthen and swell their small but fanatical ranks. Instead, bomb Afghanistan with butter, with rice, bread, clothing and medicine. It will cost less than conventional arms, poses no threat of US casualties and just might get the populace thinking that maybe the Tailban don’t have the answers. After three years of drought and with starvation looming, let’s offer the Afghani people the vision of a new future. One that includes full stomachs. Bomb them with information. Video players and cassettes of world leaders, particularly Islamic leaders, condemning terrorism. Carpet the country with magazines and newspapers showing the horror of terrorism committed by their “guest.” Blitz them with laptop computers and DVD players filled with a perspective that is denied them by their government. Saturation bombing with hope will mean that some of it gets through. Send so much that the Taliban can’t collect and hide it all. The Taliban are telling their people to prepare for Jihad. Instead, let’s give the Afghani people their first good meal in years. Seeing your family fully fed and the prospect of stability in terms of food and a future is a powerful deterrent to martyrdom. All we ask in return is that they, as a people, agree to enter the civilized world. That includes handing over terrorists in their midst. In responding to terrorism we need to do something different.

Something unexpected…something that addresses the root of the problem. We need to take away the well of despair, ignorance and brutality from which the Osama bin Ladens of the world water their gardens of terror.

Please pass this along. It is important that we learn to think in NEW ways. If we continue attacking in the old ways we will get the same old results. Look at what has been happening the middle east for thousands of years to see what we can expect if we attack with bombs and military force. Do we want to live a life of fear as people in the middle east do?

In a Daze

In a Daze

Ugh. I had quite an emotional weekend, I barely slept last night, and then I started my new job today. After I finish this, I think I’m going to bed.

CanadaGirl and I drove down to Richmond in a rental car on Saturday and met up with the gang that afternoon, and on Sunday we all went to Doug’s memorial service. As I’ve said before, these people are like family to me and I love them all. Whenever we get together — and there’s usually between six and eight of us at these gatherings — it’s as if we all live in the same dorm once again. It’s like we’ve never been apart. The one-liners fly across the room, the decks of cards are shuffled and played, the conversations are eloquently had.

This time, despite the circumstances under which we’d come together, it was the same. In fact, there was even a surprise appearance from one of the few female members of our brood whom none of us had seen in six years — I’ll call her M. It turns out that she’s engaged. Yeah, she’s engaged — to a woman! CanadaGirl wasn’t at all surprised by this news; in fact, about a year ago, she mentioned to me that she thought M was probably gay.

The bizarre thing is that out of about 10 or 11 people, three of us have turned out to be gay. That’s a pretty high percentage.

Anyway… it was great to see the gang again, although I wish the circumstances could have been different.

The memorial service on Sunday afternoon wasn’t very fulfilling, to be honest. I couldn’t relate to the heavy Baptist tint to everything; Doug had been part of a Christian students’ group in high school and college, and all three eulogists were from those groups; all of them prominently mentioned Jesus Christ many, many times, in a tone that suggested he was a good friend. The first eulogist mentioned that Doug had called his mother from underneath his desk in the World Trade Center. The eulogist continued, “And you know what? That reminds me of another man. A man named Jesus Christ.” He went on to talk about how Christ had tried to comfort his own mother.

It’s not my place to have an opinion in this situation, but the comparison seemed a little artificial. The speaker was putting the cart before the horse, I thought. There was too much Christ and not enough Doug.

The more important reason why the service wasn’t fulfilling was because this is so fucking unfair. Doug shouldn’t be dead. It makes no sense. He wasn’t supposed to die like this, so young, and under such ridiculous circumstances. We were sitting in the church, and the music began and the family walked in, first his parents (his mother was sobbing, and I lost it at that point), and then his sister, and his grandparents, and then his girlfriend — escorted by his roommate — and for a second I imagined that it was a wedding and Doug was marrying his girlfriend. And then I thought, Doug’s never going to have a wedding now.

We’d all met the girlfriend for the first time on Saturday night. They’d been dating a year, and apparently they’d been pretty serious. She’s really sweet, and obviously this has been really hard for her.

She wanted to know all our stories about Doug, and she wanted to tell us hers. The great thing was that there were similar threads that ran through our stories. Doug liked to have fun. And he could charm the pants off of anyone. And he could fall asleep in almost any situation — on a couch, in a bar, with his hand in a bag of chips.

Actually, I found hanging out on Saturday night much more fulfilling than the service on Sunday.

A couple of hours after the service, CanadaGirl and I packed up the rental car again and drove back up north. It’s always hard to say goodbye to these people. I’d love it if we could all get a house and live together — come home from work at the end of the day and cook meals together and sit around and talk and joke around and play spades.

We love to play spades. I suck, though. In eight years of knowing these people, I’ve barely learned a thing about the game. Finally, this weekend I realized that I could help my performance by bidding a lot more conservatively and not being so worried about taking bags.

It’s weird how our little group has evolved. For the first two years that we knew each other, we lived together in a dorm — seeing each other every day, hanging out in this one particular room, going to and from classes, griping about classes, going to various activities, going out to drink, sitting around and drinking.

Over the years, we’ve remained close, but things have changed. Two of us have married. One of us is about to be married. Three of us have turned out to be gay. Several of us have graduate degrees. One of us has died. It’s weird. Someone this weekend pointed out that this was kind of like “The Big Chill.”

After the service ended, most of us went back to the couple’s house where we were staying, standing there in our grown-up clothes, and several of us took some Tylenol. We were wiped out.

Oh, things have changed.

Anyway — I miss them again.

So, I got home around midnight last night. I tried to sleep but I tossed and turned for a while, and then eventually I drifted off. I had weird dreams. I woke up at 6:30 this morning, after about four and a half hours of sleep. I won’t normally have to get up that early, but today I had to go down to Trenton and fill out some paperwork for my job. Security was so tight — I had to put my bag through an x-ray machine and I got scanned up and down with a hand-held detector. Yay.

Later on I went to my new office in Newark. It turns out I don’t actually have my own office yet — I’ll be using other people’s offices for the first two weeks. And the computer in the office I’ll be using this week has a virus, so don’t expect any daytime blogging for a while.

I’m reserving judgment on the job for now. The people are really nice and the place seems really laid back. I don’t know if I’ll find the work interesting — so far I know absolutely nothing about public utilities — but I get to leave at 5:00, which is a big plus for me. We’ll see.

I’m reserving judgment on lots of things right now — what I think of the new job, whether I want to stay in the New York area, and so forth. I was in Richmond this weekend, only an hour away from Charlottesville, where I spent eight enjoyable years of my life. It was nice to be back in Virginia. The newly-emerged lesbian still lives in the C’ville area. It made me nostalgic. Sigh… the cost of living there is so low, and you’ve got the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

On the other hand, after living there for eight years I was aching to come back to the New York area. There’s not as much to do down there. But terrorism has me antsy now. I don’t know.

Anyway, I got so little sleep last night, and I’m exhausted. Good night.
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Pardon this Entry

Pardon this Entry

I’m not feeling happy or hopeful right now. Maybe I’m just tired.

My job isn’t thrilling me yet. I don’t know — I’ll see how things go.

I’m bored right now, and I’m tired. I have a few hours before I go to bed and I don’t know what to do.

My refrigerator is empty, except for condiments. For some reason I don’t feel like going grocery shopping. I have this weird thing about groceries. I don’t want to fill my fridge because I don’t really like to cook, especially for one. Actually, I don’t really know how to cook. And I don’t feel like cooking here. I feel like having a different apartment. From my kitchen I can hear all the noisy neighbors outside.

Plus, the two closest places aren’t really supermarkets — they’re just dinky little grocery stores. And I’d have to walk there, so I’d only be able to buy what I could carry. And there’s really nothing I feel like making right now.

I talked with my therapist tonight about feeling very self-centered lately. All this trauma everywhere, and my friend has died, and I’m feeling self-centered. I don’t really want to go into it, but all this self-centeredness and all this self-worrying prevents me from being generous to myself and to others. I feel like I want to give more to other people. This doesn’t have to do with the recent disaster — I’ve always been deficient in that department.

Anyway, on Saturday night we were sitting around playing cards. Actually, I wasn’t playing anymore — I was just watching. There were six of us, and only four people can play spades, and someone else was keeping score. That gave me a chance to read a letter that one of our friends — stuck in France — had sent to Doug’s parents about his deep friendship with Doug.

I then started feeling down, because I realized that I’ve never been one of the central members of our group. We’re all close, but some have been closer than others. That includes Doug and two or three of the other guys.

So I was feeling annoyed at myself and all low self-esteemy, and I didn’t want to tell anyone about it, because, this weekend was supposed to be about Doug. So I went outside and took a walk under the stars.

I started to feel like a totally insensitive guy, because here I was supposed to be grieving Doug and yet what was I doing? Thinking about myself, again.

If I didn’t worry so much about myself, I could devote more energy to others.

Anyway, speaking of my social attractiveness, I seem to have fallen out of the gay NYC blogger clique as well. This is evidenced by the fact that nobody ever calls me and lets me know that Jonno’s in town or asks if I’d like to get together or whatever. Instead they get together without me. I guess I just don’t click with them. That’s unfortunate. I guess I’m kind of boring and/or unsophisticated, but I didn’t think I was that boring and/or unsophisticated. But I suppose it’s true — I’m not East Villagey enough.

I still don’t really know what I did to warrant this invisibility, but, hey, I guess life goes on.

Sorry for the bitterness. I’m tired and my job isn’t very thrilling, and I don’t feel up to writing my usual self-analysis right now. The thoughts are in my head, but I just don’t feel like putting it into words right now. Good night.
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Sins

Sins

It’s Yom Kippur. I seem to be spending so much time at my parents’ house lately, and here I am again.

The holiday began tonight (Wednedsay night) and it ends 24 hours later at sundown. A few days ago, our rabbi’s father died. I can’t imagine what it’s like to go through such a tragedy on top of everything else that’s been going on, and especially at this time of year, given that he’s a rabbi and has to lead services. Ugh. But he performed admirably tonight.

I’m really not into it this year, though. Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar; through prayer, we’re supposed to atone for all our sins of the past year so we can be inscribed in the Book of Life, and we’re supposed to fast. But I really don’t feel like focusing on my personal transgressions at a time when an enormous sin has been committed upon us by others. My psyche feels a little more fragile than usual these days, and beating up on myself seems rather unhealthy right now. I don’t even know if I’ll fast the whole time. Under Jewish law, if you’re ill, you’re exempt from fasting. And I think we’re all a little ill these days.

Last night I had a horrible nightmare.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve occasionally told people, half-jokingly, that I’m going to move to New Zealand and become a sheep farmer. Well, in last night’s dream, I was sitting in some library in Hawaii, and I heard that there was the threat of a chemical attack in New Zealand. I wanted to investigate, so I crawled through a doorway to New Zealand. I found myself on a grassy expanse outside the library, except I was in New Zealand. There were police officers walking back and forth on the grass, inspecting it. Suddenly, an automatic sprinkler system turned on, and water started spraying up from the grass, but the nozzles were also expelling these stringy white particles. I started running away in terror, as fast as I could, trying to hold my breath as I ran, but I knew I had no chance and I was going to die.

Then I woke up.

It was about 5:30 in the morning and it was still dark out. At first I felt a jolt of relief at realizing it was just a dream. But the relief turned to fear. I felt like I’d woken up into a waking nightmare. This doesn’t feel like one of those things that will “never happen.” Like everything else that used to seem impossible, this now seems possible. As with many people, there are certain types of modern scientific warfare that scare the hell out of me right now. You know what? I honestly have doubts that I’m going to make it to old age. I now fear that a huge chunk of the human population is going to be annihilated within the next few years. The only perverse comfort I have is that if I die in such an event, I won’t suffer alone. And I hope I die with little pain.

Buddhism is seeming incredibly attractive to me lately. I’ve always found it appealing, but lately it seems even more necessary to believe in it. Death is comforting. Being alive isn’t all that significant. It’s just one small part of the grand scheme of things.

Later in the morning, I opened the New York Times and read this editorial, which sort of made me feel better and sort of didn’t.

What did make me feel somewhat better was this op-ed piece by Stephen Jay Gould.

…in this moment of crisis, we may reaffirm an essential truth too easily forgotten, and regain some crucial comfort too readily forgone. Good and kind people outnumber all others by thousands to one… in what I like to call the Great Asymmetry, every spectacular incident of evil will be balanced by 10,000 acts of kindness, too often unnoted and invisible as the “ordinary” efforts of a vast majority.

The human race is good at heart. I honestly feel that inside each person who wants to commit horribly evil acts, there is a salvageable section of the brain that respects human life. I believe that each of these people, in theory, can be convinced that human life is worth respecting. I will never stop believing in the power of rational discourse to solve problems. I know that sounds idealistic, but idealistic does not mean impossible. I will never give up hope that everyone has some good in them. People are not evil; they have psychological motivations for their acts. Overwhelm someone with kindness, and there is the possibility — not the certainty, but the possibility — that the person can change. It’s implicit in being human.

To those of you that wrote me regarding yesterday’s entry, thank you. I haven’t had a chance to write anyone back yet — sorry about that — but I appreciate your messages, all of them.

In other news, the Blog Twinning Project is pretty interesting. (Howdy, pardner.)

Life Sucks

Life Sucks

First off, I realize my blogging has been sporadic lately. I think it’s because my routine has been disrupted. I have a new job, and I don’t feel comfortable blogging at work yet. Work was where I used to most of my blogging — gee, ain’t I a good worker?

I’m not feeling like a happy camper lately. I’m having one of these existential/downish moments. Yesterday at work it hit me that I’m actually going to be litigating. I don’t want to be a litigator! I don’t want to be in court. I can’t think well on my feet. I’m not very adversarial. Why did I decide to take this job? Because, in an attempt to please my conscience or my inner parent, I wanted to be able to say that I gave lawyering a try.

Dumb idea.

On the other hand, the hours aren’t bad — 9 to 5 mostly. And my boss and the environment are very laid back, which is great. But I hear there may — occasionally — be an evening or weekend required. And the pay, while higher than my clerkship, could still be higher.

This isn’t for me.

So I’ve been thinking lately that I might go back to school next fall. So many times in my life I’ve thought about becoming a psychotherapist, and I think that’s what I finally want to try. I’m interested in psychology, and I like working with people, encountering people’s stories, setting my own hours, wearing what I want, and creating my own relaxed office space. Seems more up my alley. So this year I might apply for M.S.W. (Master of Social Work) programs. I wonder if it would be better to get a Ph.D. in psychology. I don’t know which is better. I’m going to talk to my therapist about it.

In the meantime, whatever happens, I’ve got this job for at least a year, and I need more money. I’d like to get a cell phone and cable TV and not worry about how much they cost. The area in life where I can cut expenses most easily is in my rent. I need a new apartment.

I just don’t know where I want to live. Sometimes I want to move to Manhattan. Sometimes I want to look for a different place in Jersey City. Sometimes I want to move to the New Jersey suburbs, such as my parents’ town. Sometimes I want to move back to Charlottesville, Virginia.

I don’t know if I want to live alone or if I want a roommate. I just don’t know.

You know what’s funny? Nobody who reads my blog likes to hang out with me in person. The people who do like to hang out with me in person are all people who don’t read my blog or even know that I have one. They’re people who don’t know all these details about my inner life. Once people realize what goes on in my head, they don’t want to hang out with me. Perhaps it’s not good to know too much about a person.

I’m just feeling depressed right now. It’s dark and cloudy out, and the weather has turned cold, and, given the state of the world, who knows if we’ll live to old age?

Even without terrorist attacks, life pisses me off. Every choice you make in life has a drawback. Any place I decide to live will have a drawback.

I don’t do well with drawbacks. I usually interpret a drawback to mean that I’ve made the wrong decision. I can’t commit to anything — a job, an apartment, an entrée, a cell phone — because once I arrive at a drawback, I want to change my mind.

Great literature has been written about the human condition. The message: life is hard.

What keeps us all from killing ourselves?

I remember learning the reason in high school — it’s the myth of Sisyphus. He just kept pushing that rock up the hill, knowing that it was going to come rolling back down anyway. He just kept on doing it. Is it hope that keeps us alive? Or is it the sense of a mission? I don’t know.

I’m going to the Gap. It’s chilly out, and I need new shirts.

A Weekend of Small Enjoyments

A Weekend of Small Enjoyments

Thanks as usual for the words of support, to those of you who wrote me with words of support.

Well, this weekend I’ve fulfilled my patriotic duties and have sunk some money into the American economy. Yesterday I bought three long-sleeve shirts at the Gap. Today I bought — at long last — a cell phone!, as well as a novel (Hornito) and two CDs — the cast albums to “The Producers” and “tick, tick… BOOM!” I’m listening to the latter as I write this. When Mike and I saw it in July, the lead was replaced by an understudy, and now that I’m listening to the album, I think I prefer the understudy’s singing voice. The lead’s voice on the album is too nasal and has too much trilly vibrato. (Without the vibrato, he sounds a lot like Anthony Rapp, actually.) But I’m being pleasantly reminded of how catchy and tuneful the music is. (That’s gotta be one of the most generic musical compliments in the world, but… well, it’s true.)

While walking down Broadway I ran into Andy, but he and his walking companion seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere, so we didn’t get a chance to chat.

Last night I got to meet many of the members of CanadaGirl’s gay softball team. Of the cute guys, one of them had a boyfriend, one of them was there with his boyfriend, and one of them was straight. The teams were having an end-of-season awards gathering at G, and I met up with them there afterwards and we all went to Republic for dinner. Republic is a huge, cavernous restaurant on Union Square that sells Asian-ish food — noodles, soups, and so forth. I had a huge bowl of delicious pad thai.

The boyfriend of one of the cute guys was very complimentary of my looks and my body type. He actually put his hands on both sides of my waist so he could see my waist size for himself. That was kinda fun, and it made me feel good, too.

Afterwards, CanadaGirl, myself, and one of the other softball players went to Dick’s Bar on Second Avenue, where the friend played three or four games of pool and CanadaGirl and I hung out with another of CanadaGirl’s lesbian friends who showed up. ‘Twas fun.

I’m not sure if this recent desultory mood of mine is related to the terrorist attacks, or the new job, or the disenchantment with my apartment. Probably a combination of all three. Also, I look forward to Rosh Hashannah every year, because we have a big meal, two days in a row, and the family gets to be together. But the High Holidays are over for another year, and, well, here we are.

When I was a kid, the winter used to be my favorite time of year, and I hated the summer. In the past few years, things seem to have changed. I’m kind of sad that the summer’s over, and the chilly weather is leaving me depressed instead of invigorated. I don’t know what’s going on.

One of you (or maybe a few of you) suggested I focus on making the little things enjoyable, so that’s what I’ve done this weekend. New shirts, the new convenience of a cell phone (I no longer have to feel disconnected when I’m walking around Manhattan), a couple of new CDs, a new book to read. Oh — and did I mention I’ve finally subscribed to the New York Times? On actual paper? This way, I won’t have to squander my working hours reading it on the Web, and I can just cozy up in my bed on weekend mornings and read the Sunday paper.

By the way, I’ve realized I don’t require Internet access in order to waste time at work. Sometimes I just find myself sitting at my desk, inadvertently staring off into space for five or ten minutes at a time.

I’ve always been very good at that.

Oh, on Friday night I got a blowjob at the Phoenix.

I’m not quite sure how it happened. I mean, I didn’t go down to the restroom with the intention of getting a blowjob. It just sorta happened. Before I got to the door of the men’s room, this guy wearing an open leather jacket and no shirt put his hand on my crotch, and — well — we wound up in a stall in the women’s room.

Afterwards, I felt pretty icky. But I’m going to file this under the category of experiencing new things.

Well, time for dinner!
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