The Week in Review

First of all--

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to me and Narc. Today is our 1 year. (Even though it's over...sadness.)

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Well, I had a very busy weekend last week, and it was a pretty good weekend too, if only I weren't thrown so much by that text from Narc at the end of it! (Not to mention Tuesday night's bombardment of phone calls!)

FRIDAY:

On Friday afternoon I was planning a day of hard core job searching, but I got an urgent call from VJ at around 1:00. She was flying out of NY to Miami that afteroon, but had to return her cable box to the cable company and had to drop something off at the registrar's office at her school. She asked if I wouldn't mind doing those things for her in exchange for the $100 deposit she would get back from the cable company. I agreed and set off for her apartment. Once there, she gave me instructions about what to do and threw in two bottles of Cuban rum for good measure. (Yum!) I saw her into a taxi, which was indeed, very sad.

Upon returning to my apartment at around 4:00, I resumed my job search. Not before long I got a text from Dan, one of the bloggers who comments here. I had emailed him a few days before to see if he wanted to meet up, given that we live in the same neighborhood, know a lot about each other's lives and are both floating around the city unemployed these days. He agreed and texted me to see if I wanted to get together that night. I said I was free and we planned to meet for dinner at around 8:00.

An hour or so later, NDN stopped by. He was very distressed and said he needed to decompress with a trip to the Banya. He had a stressful day and got caught in traffic on his way back from CT. Then he was "blamed" for being late by his stuffy older brother who was waiting to use the same car. I gave him a hug and he told me to stop by for a beer later, which I did.

When I arrived at NDN's apartment, Oc was having some email drama. He had receieved an email from his ex-girlfriend even though when they left each other, they had agreed to no contact. The whole thing really threw him off. We hung out for a while and talked about relationships and drank our Baltikas. NDN was getting drunk. (As he likes to say, he's a "cheap date.") After a while, I left the boys with $50 to pick up some marijuana for me and then stopped home to change.

I had plans to meet Dan for dinner at a Japanese place a few blocks away. On my way there, I stopped into Cheers to saya quick hello to IrishBird. I told her I would come in on Wednesday (of last week), but never did so I hadn't really seen her all week. I downed a Jack and diet and did a shot of Stoly. FightingMensch's younger brother was there, along with PumpedUp, IrishBird and BarMan. I said hello and goodbye to everyone and set off for dinner.

When I got to the Japanese place, Dan was standing outside waiting for me. When we went in, he realized that he knew one of the waitresses there. She used to work in a different restaurant that he frequented downtown. I have to say-- meeting a fellow blogger is a very strange thing, indeed. I already had the pleasure of meeting Sunshine back in April, but that was mediated by the fact that we had already talked on the phone quite a few times. There's nothing quite like walking up to an absolute stranger--one who already knows the most intimate details of your life! It's just not a natural construct. But being what it was, we were able to skip over all of the usual converstaional formalities, instead talking about personal stories from our past. The food was good, the conversation was good, and we enjoyed a bottle of sake with the meal.

Oc had mentioned to me that he wanted to go out for drinks at a place down in the village. I told him that I would call him after dinner and that we could go with Dan as well. Oc called me at some point to tell me that he and NDN were home drinknig and that they wanted me to come back so we could all sample the weed. Dan and I had walked over to Manchester and were drinking Maeve's White Russians. (Yum!) We took two seats at the bar and the guy on the other side of Dan said hi to me. At first, I couldn't place him for the life of me, until I realized that I had kissed him before, which left me feeling really awkward. Oh well... I guess there's only a handful of times that I've kissed people at Manchester, so I suppose if I really wanted to, I could go back through this blog and figure out who he is, but it's not worth it. After two drinks or so, we left Manchester and walked towards my place.

When we got to my apartment, I rang NDN's bell as I unlocked my own door. He popped his head out and greeted me and Dan.

"Hi, I'm NDN!" he said.

I thought it was so cute that he used his blog name! I grabbed some Vodka and Red Bull and a bottle of rum from my own apartment and we went over to NDN's. From there, we all smoked up, drank and talked for a few hours. Dan played us a rap song that he and his friend had written and that he had recorded online.

I don't remember the entire sequence of events or everything that we talked about at this point (guess I waited a little too long to post). I brought out the "medicine" and did some, so the night is kind of blurry to me. I mean, think about it...I had beer, sake, whiskey, vodka, rum, marijuana and cocaine all in the span of a few short hours. Needless to say, I started to feel a rather shitty comedown at around 2:00 am.

NDN went to bed at some point and Oc and Dan came over to hang out at my place. We smoked cigarettes and talked for a while more, mostly about psychology and relationships and life in general. Towards the tail end of the night I started to feel sad about the whole Narc thing again. Oc left at around 3:30 am, and I knew I should head to bed as well because I had to wake up early the next day to go to CT. I asked Dan to walk me across the street to the deli to get some water. I didn't want to be caught with cottonmouth and dizziness and nothing to drink! He kindly did so and then walked me back to my door. We said goodbye and he was off.

After that, I came back upstairs and tried to fall asleep, but I couldn't. I felt anxious and uncomfortable being alone with my comedown. I decided to go check out what was happening over at Cheers. I think it was already after 4:00 so I suspected they would be closed or closing. I was in my pajamas and toting a water bottle, but didn't care. After all, they can't judge--Cheers is my "home away from home."

When I opened the door, PumpedUp greeted me with gusto.

"What's the story, Hyde?" he exclaimed.

The bouncer berated me for never being around anymore. (He only works on weekends).

"I'm around," I said. "Just haven't been here as much on the weekends!"

"Well get yourself back here on Saturdays!"

I took at seat at the bar and BarMan told me that he and ThursdayGirl had been at Manchester late Thursday night. He told me that he had met Sean Duffy.

"Yeah, that guy thinks I'm nuts," I said. "I always show up there already wasted."

BarMan laughed.

"Well, I told him that you come to us first."

"So, you guys talked about me?"

"Well, just a little..."

I felt weird about that.

"Where were you Thursday though, Hyde?" he asked

"I told you guys--I was hanging out with B!"

"Which one is B?" PumpedUp chimed in, "The huge black guy?"

"What? No! That's the Stallion," I said.

PumpedUp knows who B is... Why was he being annoying like that?

"I don't know Hyde," he laughed, "I can't keep track of your men."

Part of me thought that was funny, but the greater part of me was irritated. It's not like I have so many men to keep track of.

I asked for a drink, but IrishBird told me that they had already done last call.

"Here, share this with me," PumpedUp said, offering me half of his Vodka and Cranberry.

"Ok."

I sat there for a really long time, feeling shaky and coming down from all of the crap in my system. FightingMensch's brother was still there and he kept staring at me. Did I look that fucked up? Maybe he wasn't staring. Maybe I was just paranoid, but I still felt uncomfortable. I finally went home at around 5:30 am, fell asleep around 7:00 am and woke up again at 8:30 am.

THE WEEKEND:

The next morning I woke up still feeling like hell. I drank all of my water (about three bottles worth) and got dressed, still feeling physically strained. Eventually I got myself packed up for the weekend out of town and met NDN and Oc by the elevators. NDN's mom and his Nana came to pick us up. The boys and I squished into the backseat. Oc dozed off for most of the ride, while I listened to NDN provoke his mother and grandmother by telling stories and making comments that he knew would set them off. He thought it was pretty hysterical. When we finally got there, all three of us collapsed into afternoon naps.

NDN woke me up at some point to tell me that we were going grocery shopping at "Stew Leonards." He said that it was an experience unlike any other and that I would love it. It's hard to describe to you guys what it was like, but here's a descrpition from the Stew Leonards website (http://www.stewleonards.com/):

"Stew Leonard's was dubbed the 'Disneyland of Dairy Stores' by the New York Times, because of its own milk processing plant, costumed characters, scheduled entertainment, petting zoo and animatronics throughout the stores."

You get the picture...

We walked around the store taking in all of the sights and sounds and picking up food for that evening's barbeque. We posed for some pictures with Daisy the duck and Clover the cow, and a woman asked Oc "where he was from that he never shucked corn." We laughed, ate some free food samples and at the end of it all, NDN bought us freshly made ice cream.

Back at NDN's house, we sat around the pool for a while before dinner. His Nana was quite entertaining, with opinions on anything and everything. For example, she told him that she seriously disapproved of shorts in the workplace. Dinner was absolutely delicious, and after dinner we had some "wig festivities." I know it sounds odd, but NDN and I are both odd in that way. I can be very theatrical and have a huge supply of costumes, wigs, theater makeup, etc. Apparently, he has his own set of similar items. We brought up some of that junk along with my guitar for the weekend. From our fooling around with the costume stuff, a brilliant character emerged--Wig Guy (WG). WG is a rocker, speaks with a quasi-British accent, writes love songs, lives hard, and is just the most awesome guy ever. In fact, I have to say it--YOU'RE AWESOME WG!

After dinner we all went to sit around the pool and smoke some weed. We had a blast. NDN imagined some fucked up aliens living on the stars with eyes like flower stems. Oc and I pointed out that nothing lived on stars since they were burning balls of gas.

"Unless the stars are hell," I said. "And the whole joke is that we think they're beautiful while people are burning up there!"

(Can you tell we were high?) It was great time. Oc was making scary faces with the flashlight and freaking me out. Our lighter kept fizzling and we were all afraid it was going to explode.

Back inside, we gorged ourselves on whatever we could find in the kitchen--cupcakes, a carton of milk, crackers and hummus, cereal and lollypops. For a while we layed around talking and tried to watch some TV, but eventually we all began to drift off to sleep.

The next morning NDN prepared us a delicious breakfast of eggs and bacon (as if we hadn't already eaten enough!) and Oc made us mimosas with bluberries. After breakfast we again relocated to the pool. The boys had gone to a concert last Thursday to hear a band called "My Favorite." They bought the CD and it became the soundtrack of our weekend. We listened to music and they had some "ancient olympic games" in the pool. One of their games--"Feats of Strength." NDN put two boulders in the pool, and they had to race across the pool with the boulders. I, of course, was the judge. It was great fun. WG made a brief reappearance that afternoon and NDN made me a steak sandwich.

All three of us are going through relationship struggles. Oc had received that upsetting email from his ex on Friday, NDN had things get bitter with his ex over the furniture issue, and you all know about my travails with Narc. So basically, we all had things to obsess about and obsess we did! Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy the great outdoors as much that day because my eyes were freaking out from allergies.

We hung out in CT for the entire afternoon on Sunday, finally catching a train back to the city at around 8:30 pm. We had grand plans for the evening. There was some discussion of a movie, the purchase of a bottle of wine, and the preparation of some Stew Leonard's clam chowder, but the whole thing somehow degenerated into marijuana yet again. At around 11:00, feeling good about my weekend with friends, I sent Narc that "closure" email. We ate dinner at NDN's and then came back to my place to watch 24 Hour Party People. Both Oc and NDN fell asleep in the middle of the movie and I was stoned off my ass, so at around 2:30 am I woke up the boys and sent them home.

MONDAY:

On Monday I woke up bright and early in preparation to go out to my parents house on Long Island. Both NDN and Oc had planned to accompany me, but Oc had a lot on his mind and an interview to prepare for on Tuesday, so NDN and I set off just the two of us. He was excited to meet my mom, as they seem to share some personality traits. (Both of them like to be the "ham" of the family). BigSis picked us up at the train station, and NDN got to meet the whole crew--BigSis, LilSis, JBC, my parents, my grandpa, and then my sister's in-laws and her niece and nephew. We're pretty close with their family. Only Bro-in-Law wasn't there because he had to work. It was a great barbeque. Everyone swam and we sat around talking all afternoon. I think that NDN got along great with my family. My mom bought some strange cake shaped like a hamburger. If NDN gets around to posting his pictures online, I'll show you guys a picture of that here, because trust me--it was a sight to see!

The barbeque went until about 8:00 pm, but I was desperate to see some fireworks. My mom's partner in her law practice has a house right on the beach in Bayville (on the Long Island Sound) and there are always crazy Fourth of July fireworks there, so my mom, NDN and I took a drive over. It was definitely as good as promised. There were enormous bonfires blazing all along the beach for as far as the eye could see, and every 20 feet or so, tremendous fireworks sprayed out of the sand into the sky before crashing into the sea. Some of the fireworks were large and beautiful, others were smaller and made huge crackling sounds. The whole scene was entirely surreal and beautiful and I was completley enamored with it. I'm a HUGE fan of fireworks. Most people I know get bored after a little while, but I could stare at them for hours. The whole world becomes transformed into a dream (or a night club, but either way you look at it, it's awesome!).

While NDN and I were on the train home (in fact, at precisely 12:18 am), I received that dastardly text from Narc. It completley threw me for a loop. As such, Monday night was rough for me, but I charged my cell phone in the kitchen instead of in my bedroom like I usually do, so I wouldn't be tempted to keep looking at the message a million times in the middle of the night.

TUESDAY:

On Tuesday I layed around for a lot of the day and actually napped. I think I wanted to be in denial and not cope with the whole Narc thing, and I think that all of the drugs and alcohol from last week mixed with the emotional stress just knocked me out. I called my friend IronChef who used to be my boss when I worked at that music management company in 2000. She thinks I'm brilliant and if she has extra work, sometimes she throws it my way. She was glad that I called and said that she was actually about to call me. She needed someone to do some editing for her. (She's Taiwanese and when she needs something really polished has to run it by someone else.) She also said that she may need some help planning a festival at the Wintergarden this fall. It's not a steady job and it's pay-per-project and the pay is not all that great, but at least it's some kind of work. I agreed to do some preliminary editing and told her that I would meet her at her office at 4:30 the next day. At around 5:00 I went for a pedicure and popped a few Vivarin because I just felt so out of it. At 7:00 I went to go meet my friend Nipkins for dinner. I knew her in college through friends of friends, but we weren't really close. Then, three years ago, when I spent that summer in London she was coincidentally doing the same program. We met for dinner at a vegan restaurant in the East Village. After dinner we went out for bubble tea (or as they say in Tagalog "sago"). It was great to catch up with her because we hadn't hung out one on one in a while. We walked around the neighborhood for a bit and stopped in Urban Outfitters. I was annoyed because everything I wanted to buy was overpriced so I didn't get anything.

Back at my place I just planned to have a chill night and to stop by Cheers for an hour or two before going to bed. As I was refreshing my makeup and listening to Rigoletto, Oc stopped by and asked if I wanted to go for a smoke on the roof. I agreed to join him, and we hung out up there and talked for a while. He told me in more detail about the recent drama between him and his ex, and we talked about being attracted to the wrong "types." (For example, I'm always attracted to needy guys for a few reasons--first of all, it triggers my nurturing side, second of all, it mitigates all of my fears of abandonment--the needier they are, the less likely they are to leave, and third of all--neediness is usually masked by false bravado and a macho domineering nature which I seem to find appealing despite all of my best efforts).

Anyway, I asked if he wanted to come with me to Cheers and he agreed, but when we got there, they were closing up. It wasn't even 1:00 am! I was pissed, but IrishBird said that it had been dead all night. Oh well... Off to Manchester!

When we got there, Sean Duffy was working and was surprisingly friendly. I think he was happy that I walked in sober. Yay! Oc and I hung out for a while talking about anything and everything. I especially enjoyed our discussion of religion. He is a practicing Catholic and I've always struggled with reconciling my religious beliefs and my "felt-sense" of spirituality with my life's experiences. His resolution particularly interested me. Anyway, from there we moved on to politics and the crisis in the Middle East. It was then that Dan stopped in and joined us.

The three of us caroused there for a few hours. We met a girl named Tia who was wearing a tremendous straw cowboy hat. All four of us did shots for a while. She asked me to distract an annoying drunk guy who was bothering her. She and Oc went outside for a while to smoke. All through this, I kept getting those drunk messages from Narc. I was so glad that I was with friends when it happened and not at home laying in bed trying to ignore the phone, but even so, it definitely fucked with my head. I just miss him so much, but I know that there's nothing to go back to there. It's like what I want doesn't exist, so every time I'm tempted to call him back, I keep telling myself that what I want is NOT THERE. I mean, several of my friends have pointed out to me--he never once apologized to me in any of those messages.

I guess that night I was getting pretty angry because as we were leaving the bar, I smashed my umbrella to pieces on the street. I NEVER get angry, and I really don't know what came over me. We tried to convince Tia to come back with us, and she said that she would, but then her drunk friend insisted that she go home with her. Anyway, back at my place, I brought out some coke and more alcohol and we all sat around and talked for a few more hours. It was good to be with friends at a time like that. Oc and Dan left and I got to bed at around 6:30 am. I was freaking out a bit because I had to call me therapist at 9:30.

WEDNESDAY:

I don't know how I managed that phone call on only two hours of sleep, but I did it. After therapy I tried to get myself up and focused because I still had to edit those articles and be at IronChef's office at 4:30, but I just couldn't do it. My head felt like it was going to split in two and I still clearly had the drugs and alcohol in me. I crawled back into bed and set the alarm for 12:30 pm. I finally dragged myself out of the house by 1:30 pm feeling moderately stabilized. I brought my laptop to the diner, got lunch and tried to edit the articles. At 4:30 I showed up at her office. It was cool because she wanted to talk more about the content of the articles than anything else, so it wasn't like I was underprepared. We talked "business" for about an hour or so and then just sat around and gossiped. I haven't seen her in so long! I saw her at a dinner party back in February (the week Narc stood me up for the opera) and then I saw her again for dinner at some point in March or April... I don't remember when. Anyway, it was good to see her again to, and also to be in a "normal" work environment. I feel like my view of the world is getting warped by all of this debauchery and the fact that so many people I know aren't working right now...

From there I set off to meet B on the Upper West Side. I got caught in a tremendous thunderstorm which didn't bother me at all, because I was rather awestruck. B and I met at Tower Records and then headed to our favorite Chinese place from when we used to live in that neighborhood. After dinner we saw March of the Penguins at Lincoln Plaza. We both loved the movie, but I have to say, I found it rather depressing. Those poor penguins!

After the movie we came home and I stopped at Duane Reade to buy toilet paper when I bumped into NDN and Oc. Oc was on his way out--he moved to Greenpoint last night. B went to Dunkin' Donuts and bought me a donut. It was gooooood. Then we just chilled at home and went to bed at around 12:30.

And that bring me to today! I've learned my lesson. I won't let so long go between blogs. This thing was a bitch to write!!!