But that's another story.

Anyway, I discover that the Post printed a letter I wrote a week or so back. I thought they called people before they did that, because their "guidelines" for letters are very forthright about the need to verify identity before they print it and what-not. I could have missed it, but my little angel lead me to the news-stand and made sure I came across it.

In other news, it's Gay Pride Season here in the Big Apple, and tonight I'm going to Roxy--which doesn't sound like too much trouble, but you have to consider the factors in my life such as poverty and physical deterioration--so I might not be back to fully functioning member-of-society adulthood for a while.

P.S. The Mayor has stopped the recycling of plastic and glass to save money, so now not only will the city be trashier than ever, but I will have to go through my recycling by hand to remove all the bottles. :(

This day and age in New York City, you don't just assume it's "oh nothing".

I ran into a co-worker when I was coming back up, who told me that Broadway is blocked off from 110th to who-knows-how-far up.

This is scary, of course.

This morning when I was coming through the campus to work I heard a loud BOOM and had a moment of panic.

More news as it develops.

I am losing it. LOSING IT. I don't know where it came from, but some imaginary freight train slammed into me while I stood facing it, right on the fucking tracks. My hands are all weak and shaky, my shoulders hurt, I have some wierd muscle/bone malfunction in my left calf, and I have a general frail and achey feeling throughout my body. Additionally, my mind is fading in and out of and my vision is blurry. I have diagnosed myself with carpal tunnel, spinal meningitis, and brain cancer.

I called my doctor. Of course, his next open appointment is weeks away, and he hasn't bothered to return my calls regarding my soon-and-certain death.

I just want to go home and fall out. I would take the day off tomorrow, but I made a committment (if it's against your will, is it really a made committment?) to a co-worker to do something important.

I have had to reboot this fucking computer 10 times today.

Wasted
I should have salvaged something.
I should have saved my best.
I should have waited for the One.
But I gave it all to the rest.

Clearly, I am a poetic genius.

Which Rainbow Brite kid are you? By Growing.

A summary of events would include subway delays, getting on the wrong train (yes, it happens to the best of us), thunder, lightening, and rain, a crazy man determined to drive me crazy while I waited for the torrential downpour to pass under the canopy of Rinky Dinky Coffee Shop, a widespread conspiracy among banks and check-cashers preventing me from getting my money, and one too many crowded, smelly bus rides.

I was gone from the office for three hours and no one even missed me.

Upon my return, there was a little going away party for this man, complete with cake, crab cakes, and beverages. I felt I had earned it, even though it wasn't for me.

Then we had a staff meeting regarding the summer schedule. Monday through Thursday I'll be working 45 minutes longer per day...but on Fridays I get my ass out of there at 12:45. I love this place.

As my boss said, "Well, let's not push it."

Speaking of that letter, it hurt to pick up the issue, find the letters page, and to see that it had been edited more than what was discussed via telephone--not very much, but enough to where I felt my exact meaning and emotions were not conveyed. My boss and my homegirl here tell me it's the same meaning conveyed to the reader. I'm coping with it. Sigh.

In other news, I just called the temp agency who pimps me out at night to part time hell to ask them to hold my check there rather than send it to the site. Luckily for me it had not been sent yet. So I'm going on lunch to get paid. And then, I'm never going back to that hellish nightmare of work. Last night was the first night actually being on the phones, and it sucked so bad it made me physically sick and I had to get up and leave.

I feel bad of course, because the agency lady asked, "How's that going by the way?" to which I replied, "It's okay." "Just okay?" she asked...so I told her. No, not just okay, it is torture. "But are you hanging in there?" I said I was. I'm a filthy liar.

More news as it develops. Over and out from the cube--

Somehow though I rallied like Omnimedia stock upon Martha Stewart's denial of wrong-doing. I managed to put my shoes back on, ignore anyone who had laughed at my semi-conscious state, and tell everyone that the official Going To Luxx Movement had began. My homeboy Kevondrala and I were true leaders that evening.

A little red pill and white snorty stuff came into the picture somewhere, but it's blurry in all honesty.

Next, were on the dance floor, watching the show. Morplay was really good. The guy that went on before them--don't remember his name--was good too, but the wierd vocal effect combined with high volume speakers that were right by my head made me loose hearing in my right ear, which still affects me today. At least I don't feel like it's bleeding any more...

After Luxx I was in a cab in one of those the-next-thing-I-know moments of my life, heading to some girl's apartment in Park Slope. I objected vehemently to this, of course, after I was in the cab. I also pitched a rare fit at the suggestion that we split the cab between the 6 of us. Cause I had no desire to go walk her sister's slobbering dogs and then go to her place.

So me and J-Boogie made it back--somehow--to Willy's Burg and the next morning she drove me home.

I did absolutely nothing on Sunday, except realize that I have committed myself to attending all these gay pride events that I will have no interest in come this weekend, when Manhattan becomes a land of wigs and rainbows.

God save me from what circuit parties and pier dances, and aggressive homosexuality in general...

I know--I love it. That's the real problem.

So I used that time to go participate in debauchery. I always ask myself "why am I doing this" too long after the fact.

Anyway, I have decided, in the last three hours or so, to become celibate. Yeah, right. We'll see how long this lasts.

Uptown, and the living is easy, here at the Day Job. The Bill Payer. The Full Time, the Nine to Five, the Cubicle Adventure That Never Ends. In this area there is a lot of filming for TV and movies, and a lot of photo-shoots, because it really is a fucking gorgeous area with diverse architecture and what not.

Along with the filming casts and crews comes catering. When I come of the bus in the morning, for the past week and a half, there has been a huge breakfast spread that looks so tasty. Of course I'm always hungry in the mornings, and each day that passes it is getting harder and harder for me to resist running up, swiping a plate, and running off. Or, better yet, casually strolling up and acting like I'm on the production team and somebody better get some fucking strawberry cream cheese and a toaster out here PRONTO! I have been wearing a tie lately. I could fit right in...

Speaking of wearing ties, I learned a lesson a few months ago that I am just now putting into use. People treat a man in a tie differently than a man in, say, "business casual". Try it. Once co-workers and supervisors alike get over there suspicions about why you're suddenly all dressed up (which happens quickly) they look at you, and talk to you, and interact with you on a whole new level of The Interpersonal. It's kind of a magical sociological law, or something.

And for the record, it's not only those above you, alonside you, and under you at work, but it's also strangers on the street. For example, no one's rushing to get you in-and-out with your iced coffee and your change at 7:30 AM if you're just some schmoe. But if your some schmoe in a tie, apparantly that implies that you are in an important rush, and YOU NEED YOUR FRIGGIN' COFFEE POST HASTE BIATCH!

Sociology. Society. Conventions thereof. ...Sad but true facts of the world we live in.

I've just returned from Willy's Burg where I had a night of rambunction.

It's a beautiful day and it's winding down now.

It all started after work and we hopped up to 150th Street on a search for some seedy street-corner drug slinger, whose not being there was a hidden blessing because I changed my mind about what I wanted and how much. While we were up there, we looked at these apartments which were really rooms with shared baths and kitchens in a seedy building (actually it was a nice building) and I realized that while my apartment is run by a slumlord and is caving in on itself it is so much better than what I could be living in. Not that I'm above such living conditions--I've experienced worse in my days--but for those insane prices, why not live somewhere NICE?

Anyway this guy is staying with my homegirls in Willy's Burg. Somehow he wound up without an apartment and K-Boogie overextended herself by offering him a place to stay for the time being. Now they think he's just trying to worm his way in there for the long term. They are really kind of annoyed by him, as it was revealed to me on the teleprompter of experience that he is needy for attention/company etc. Not like the girls, who like to be alone from time to time.

So we hauled it back out to Astoria City. and drank some beers and smoked some blunts. And I started to realize how catty this guy is. How boring someone like me must be to someone like him, as I am a "simple" person (I think that word was even used) in that I don't require a lot of things to be happy in life. In other words, I don't have a lot of entertainment in the crib to offer.

To make a long story longer, we finally went out to Krickety's here in Astoria. (It took me a while to establish the outfit I would wear.) By this point I was tingling from all the toxins I had put into my body. My homeboy met us out there. It was fun...

Then the guy from work spent the night on the futon. This morning I kind of ushered him out subtley, as I was en route to the 2-for-1 sale at Genovese (it's the small things in life that make me happy).

I don't know what I'm really trying to say about this guy, other than that people in this world, and in this "lifestyle", have fucked up ideas about other people and themselves. It is very assuming--like, "I'm catty and self-centered and self-obsessed and a jealous hearted personification of vanity, so you must be too, even though you come off like that." And when you finally find some way to express what you really are, people are so confused by the concept of someone who is honest-to-God good hearted.

Let me stop before I make even less sense.

In other news, there are two portraits in New York City that I am obsessed with and want to steal. The first is in a bar called Rising in Park Slop of Eva Peron. The second, and perhaps the most important of these two, is the picture of Jackie-O in this diner in L.I.C.

In other news I think I got a new night-job from the staffing agency to which I have infamously reciprocated their abuse. I have to call Monday and finalize this agreement to provide services on their behalf.

Hasta la luna...

Last night I dreamed that there was a huge street party in Astoria. Not just a street party, but a block party, a mulitiple block party even. And I was out in the middle of this party, of course, getting my drink on and mingling with the Astorians on the sidewalks, hanging out on their balconies, wandering through the streets celebrating something...I'm not quite sure what.

Then it dawned on me--I had a hit single. Like many great Queensians before me, I had burst onto the music scene! I could hear my song from all around me, as clear as if I were actually awake. It was a very intricate series of beats over which my vocals were layed. The catch line to my song was fitting: "Pills are 50 bucks a pop." Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Not only was I a famous performer now, but also in this new, dreamy Astoria, I had a lover who found me in the middle of my personal celebration. I was so happy to see him! He was everything I could ever hope for (I mean, it was my dream), and from his amazingly decorated white Navy uniform, I guess he had just gotten off the boat, on some kind of shore-leave or something.

We embraced, and that's when I realized that the front of his uniform was covered in mud. He said he already knew, and that he wasn't sure how that had happened. I got very, very sad. I couldn't make sense of it.

Next, his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket--it was one of those old school big ass cell phones--and flipped it open, and he looked confused. "No one's there," he said.

He handed it to me. I put it up to my ear and an mechanical voice says to me, "We're going to blow you up, you piece of shit."

Paralyzing fear overcame me. Then there was nothing left of the party that had once surrounded me but the trash people had left behind. Even my lover was gone. So I started running home.

The phone rang again, I answered, and the sound of the voice this time was to the beat of a big, black SUV's sound system parked off to the side. The doors open and four men emerged, all in black with their faces covered. I kept running. I ran through a dark alley and did a matrix-style jog along the wall itself. I was running, looking behind me, and they were still coming... When I turned back to look ahead of me, they were right there at the end of the alley.

The one in front popped a cap in my head, and I fell down off the wall, and faded into something black and dark which turned out to be my bedroom. I woke up.

I get shot in dreams a lot.

I had a bunch more dreams last night and the night before that I can't really remember. I do remember the image of a cabin I stayed in on a traumatic trip to Leakey (pronounced "Lakey") Texas, wherein the floors were flooded and a little turtle was carrying a big peice of strait-up SHIT on its back. Pretty wierd.

I have been going to bed around 6:30 pm and getting up twelve hours later, so I figure these dreams are the creations of a mind bored with all this sleep.

Nothing else has really happened lately because I've been fucking ASLEEP for mad hours.

Today I'm making an appointment with an old friend of mine we'll just call "Co Co". And we're gonna take the weekend by storm.

Well I am still trying to figure out the best way to do this diary on Geocities. I will just add the entries, I suppose, here on index.html, but as time goes on and I want to archive by month, etc etc, I'll have to hone my HTML skills and start doing some fancy shit. In the meantime it will just be the entries in reverse order and the "There Is A Light Above My Head" up there. Well, actually the light is coming through her face. But the line from the song says, "above my head". Ok, getting off track here.

Additionally, maybe someday when I am $8.95 per month richer I will get my own domain name. I used to have one, but I cancelled it because all my big plans to build a dot com empire...well, I just didn't follow through on them. So now I'm taking a baby step towards my dot com empire. As Master P would say, "DANJA! WATCH YASELF!"

Hasta luego...