Lame

Well, today sucked.

Long story short, I was supposed to meet my former asshole landlord at 7:30 this morning outside my old building to get my overdue security deposit back from him. He didn’t show up until 8:15, even though I called him twice while I was waiting. So he left me alternately sitting outside shivering in the cold and standing around in the small lobby of the building, for 45 minutes. With a sinus infection no less.

I really don’t want to dwell on it, but he finally showed up, I got the check, and I never have to see him or deal with him again. Good riddance.

Unfortunately I didn’t fall asleep last night until 3:30, and I found myself awake at 6:30 — even though I’d set my alarm at 7:15. So I got three hours of sleep.

I’m not a good weekend napper, so when I get very little sleep like that, I wind up stumbling around my apartment all day, exhausted, yet unable to fall asleep no matter how much I try. I can be lying there on the bed with my eyes closed, wiped out, but if it’s daylight I just can’t fall asleep. So it’s been like that all day.

And despite the decongestant and the antibiotic and the nasal spray for the past three days, my ear feels the same. There’s still this weird little fluid-like mass that closes my right ear passage when I press against that ear. And standing outside shivering in the cold for 45 minutes and getting three hours of sleep seems to have got the left side of my head a little congested now.

And of course I’m Mr. Hypochondriac, so I’m convinced I either have a brain tumor or pneumonia or I need sinus surgery or I have an irreversible ear infection or something.

Anyway, looks like I’ll be going for a sinus X-ray next week or the week after, assuming nothing changes in the next few days.

This is my second Saturday night in a row that I’m staying at home. I feel so lame. I mean, I kind of don’t mind it, but I do feel kind of uncool. It’s VMSS (Vestigial Middle School Syndrome). If I’m not out carousing on a Saturday night, I feel like I’m wasting it. Fifty-two Saturday nights per year… maybe ten more years before I get too old to go to New York bars… that’s 520 Saturdays — okay, never mind. There are plenty of ’em left after all.

And anyway, by the time I get too old for the bars I’ll probably be over them anyway (I’m nearly over them as it is), and I can do real things.

So I’ll stay in and play around online and see who’s around to chat with and make myself a scrambled-egg sandwich and watch Saturday Night Live and read The Power Broker and the article about sleep from The New Yorker a few weeks ago (how appropriate) and maybe start tomorrow’s Sunday New York Times crossword.

I’m getting better and better at the New York Times crossword, actually. I did a huge chunk of yesterday’s and today’s puzzles, the hardest puzzles of the week.

At least I’m getting something out of all this.

You know, weekends seem to be getting shorter and shorter.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….

Sinus and Linus

So I went to the doctor this morning and it turns out I probably have a sinus infection. I told him that when I press the right side of my head, right next to my ear, my ear passage closes up. He looked up my nose with his magic light-wand-thingy and told me that there is definitely blockage. He gave me nasal spray and amoxicillin and a decongestant. So I came home with an armload of drugs. If I’m not better by the weekend, I’m supposed to get my sinuses x-rayed. I’ve always known that I needed to get my head examined. Thank you! I’ll be here all week.

This has been going on for a few months, actually. Every so often I wake up congested in the morning. And I got over a cold two weeks ago, only to wind up with a sore throat for the last two days. Fortunately the sore throat is gone.

But still, the past two evenings, I’ve come home from work, changed into sweatpants, crawled into bed and done lots of reading. I’ve been catching up on the New Yorker, I’ve been doing the Times crossword, I’ve been continuing to read The Power Broker. Good God! What an awesome book. I just passed the halfway point yesterday. Did you know that if Robert Moses had had his way, there would have been a Brooklyn-Battery Bridge intead of a Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and it would have seriously changed the view of lower Manhattan and ruined Battery Park? Did you know that if he’d had his way, there would now be an expressway running right through Greenwich Village? An expressway? There would be no Village today. There’d be a fucking expressway. What a fucker.

Tonight I watched part of the Charlie Brown Christmas special on TV. I’ve always felt a connection to the Peanuts gang. When I was a kid, I felt just like ol’ Chuck. Nothing ever seemed to go right for me. Then in elementary school we did the “book report” scene from “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” I was 11 years old and I got cast as Linus. I got to recite Linus’s speech from memory.

In examining a work such as Peter Rabbit, it is important that the superficial characteristics of its deceptively simple plot should not be allowed to blind the reader to the more substantial fabric of its deeper motivations. In this report I plan to discuss the sociological implications of valiant (?) pressures so great as to drive an otherwise moral rabbit to perform acts of thievery which he consciously knew were against the law. I also hope to explore the personality of Mr. McGregor in his conflicting roles as farmer and humanitarian.

Yep, 11 years old. It’s on videotape.

In the middle of the special there was this Disney commercial in honor of Uncle Walt’s 100th birthday that made me teary.

Anyway, because I haven’t been feeling well, and because it would have cost me 45 bucks, I skipped tonight’s annual UVA alumni holiday party at the Yale Club. Oh well. There’ll be one next year. Oh, these holiday parties. I’m going to one this Saturday night (assuming I feel well) and I’m going to one next Saturday night. And then there’ll be a lame 20something holiday party at the next 20something meeting.

I went to the 20something party last year and had a pretty bad time. But my friend UrbanPlanner met his boyfriend there that night. Their relationship is now going on a year. A year! I’ve never dated someone for more than two months. Okay, there was sort of one for four months, but that was long distance and it wasn’t really official. That was with UrbanPlanner, come to think of it.

I went to the regular 20something meeting on Tuesday night and it sucked. The topic was “the holidays.” My discussion group’s facilitator was this irritating, affected, overly queeny guy with a high-pitched giggle whom I can’t stand, and the questions were totally boring and unenlightening. “Would you bring your boyfriend home for the holidays? What would be the sleeping arrangements? Do you usually visit your family or does your family visit you?”

Hello. I’ve never been in a serious relationships and I don’t celebrate Christmas.

Thank you! I’ll be here all week.

I’m Gonna Be a Contender

I’m sick. I have a fever of about 100.0 and a sore throat and an achy body. I’ve also had some sort of sinus clogging behind my right ear for several weeks now, so tomorrow morning I’m going to the doctor to get myself all taken care of.

And I’m going to write a book.

Well, not tomorrow.

But last night in therapy, I realized that that’s what I should be doing. I love New York, and I love American history, and I love to write. But fiction has never really seemed my style. I enjoy facts, and I enjoy learning, and I enjoy seeking out truth (Exhibit A: this website), and I find some satisfaction (even if not always enjoyment) in research.

So I’m going to write a history book of some sort. I’m going to do something along the lines of David McCullough’s work. Yeah, apparently he white-washed John Adams’s personality in his new biography of him (that’s what they say — I haven’t read it), but it’s still supposed to be a fine piece of writing, and his book about the Brooklyn Bridge is supposed to be terrific.

So, never having written a history book before, I’m going to try to write one. Hey, why not? I have nothing to lose and everything to gain — and, more importantly, to learn. I have no idea where to begin and I’m not even sure yet what I’m going to write about. But it will probably have something to do with New York City.

After the first book, the second and third should be easier. Hahaha.

I want to write histories and biographies and be one of those people who’s interviewed on PBS and shows up to provide some historical perspective for the TV networks on election night — people like Doris Kearns Goodwin, Mr. McCullough himself, Stephen “World War Two Is Still Going On” Ambrose.

That’s only one of the things I want to do in my life. I want to do other things, too.

I admire people who manage to succeed in several different fields. Well-rounded people are so cool. Thomas Jefferson — politician, botanist, architect, university founder — was one of those. Leonard Bernstein — conductor, composer, writer, teacher, pianist, TV personality, and one my idols — was another one.

I want to be one of those people.

I’m trying to learn, though, that I should do these things just for the sake of doing them, not for what they can bring me. My friend who’s going to Antarctica next month — he doesn’t worry about the significance of what he does, he doesn’t worry about why he’s doing things. He just does things for the fun of it, and he’s managed to do lots of things. Me, I always worry about the significance, the consequences, will it be good enough, will it be big enough. I get weighed down by caution, responsibility. I’m learning not to be like that anymore. I’m learning to do things just for the sheer enjoyment of doing them. To take risks — like writing a book when I’ve never done anything like it before.

I’m kinda psyched about the whole thing.

And I’m gonna do it, too.