self-titled: ^_^

if my calculations are correct, today was monday.

This means i got up and went to counterpoint, and then i went to fiction. At fiction we got to talk about my story. It didn't get as torn apart as i expected, apparently for most people who voiced their opinions it wasn't too trite, cliche, or heavy-handed. We'll see what teach has to say on wednesday. peep it here, with the understanding that i'm not totally happy with it and that it is out and out fiction and that i wrote it in one night in new york city.

then i went to the office and wrote while i rocked out to built to spill. Then dinner at the always lovely mcelroy, and then stage to studio. At that class, kate scientifically determined my future by some radical procedure called MASH i think. Turns out i'm going to be living in an apartment in alabama with brenda, our dog, and our 37 children. I will drive an accord and at my wedding i will wear a white tuxedo. After class it was back home for some good old recruiting and then farscape. Hooray for farscape.

so i think i'm in the middle of some sort of crisis. I'm being attacked by the past. I couldn't sleep last night. My mind was just racing. I got into bed at 1, fell asleep at 3. It was just one memory after another. A lot of time was spent thinking about sophomore year. I couldn't stop and i couldn't sleep. I also had mucho fun dreams that completely fucked me up in the morning because hey, guess what, didn't know if they were real or not. God damn.

ok, i have to actually show up for my tuesday am work shift once in a while, so i'm gonna get some good bed loving i think.

Stuff I wrote in the recording studio this weekend
_____________

2-22-02

Look at me, so goddam industriuos. I'm sitting in our recording studio in southie writing this because i have a goddam keyboard for my palm pilot. I rule.

Yesterday wwas friday i guess. Katie is looking over my shoulder. My class was cancelled so i went home and drank some beers with my roommates and dave lincoln's high school sister. So i went to work pretty drunk, it was fun. at work i uhh, i think i actually worked, fancy that. Then i came home from work around 5, put in my laundry and then ahowered and got dressed for the bostonians show. We were singing some benefit show for circle K, it wasn't bad, we did alright. Afterwards i went to late night because all i had eaten for the day was ramen. As I was leaving late night i ran into mancini, who was on his way to play poker, so i went back to edmonds with him and then to tony's for some poker fun. it was a much more chill poker night than poker nights passed, ended early, not many shenanigans, and the room total for consumed beers was at a lot. However, i still managed to win $15. Go me. we finished around 1:30-2 and then god knows what i did but i was up until about 3am.

I had a remarkably good night's sleep considering i was only asleep for 4 and a half hours. I got up, showered, and went outside to wait for the T. Got into southie and entered our lovely dark recording studio. We laid down the base for Buddy Holly and then i went outside for a cigarette, and the transition from the studio's lighting to the absolute brightness outside literally made me stumble. it was seriuosly the most extreme contrast in lighting i've ever experienced. And of course it was gorgeous outside, which is always nice to know when i have to be cramped in the studio for 12 hours. Then we did lullabye, and then my stomach nearly imploded and katie got me burger king. God that was amazing.

we're listening to superman in the studio now. God i love this shit. Mike sounds amazing, the song sounds great. This makes it worth it. Like last week, after 12 hours hearing beautiful day loud and finished. It's just an amazing feeling. I can't wait for this damn CD to come out.

Anyway, we'll be out of here pretty quick, then i'm gonna shower and get my party on. I don't have to sing jack shit tomorrow (unless i'm forced to do the buddy holly solo) but i have to be here at 10am again so i can sit around all day. Woohoo.

2-23-02

Dave Richard: I have a moral objection with putting those drums on this record. There will be no a cappella drums on this record. 'Ka' is not a snare

That quote courtesy of our friendly recording engineer. That is where i am right now, sitting as dimitrios and sean do much percussion. I got here at noon, Dimo was here at ten. It is now 3pm. I am tired and, i hesitate to say hungover, but i do feel as if i drank a lot last night. and guess what? I did.

it started innocently enough, i'm sitting in the mixing room, someone was recording something, and dave turns to me, makes the universal sign for drinking something (fashion your hand around an imaginary can/bottle/glass and tip it towards your mouth) and raised his eyebrows in a devilish dave way and said "thirsty?"

Fifteen minutes later and a case of Bud was delivered to the studio door. So i got to drink beers as dave did up some rough mixes for a few songs. Then at like 9 or so he drove us to kenmore and we took the T home.

I showered, and headed to 1653. The night was unfortunately predictable. Hmm, I'm not sure how exactly sure how I'm using that word "unfortunately."

Well, not entirely predicable. There were the freshman track guys running around like assholes in diapers (of course devolving into wearing nothing) and a rare winning streak of beirut with Brenda. And then, there was the walk home.

Nothing could have prepared me for what i ran into. I don't believe it happened, but i know i didn't dream it because i referenced it in my away message last night. But still, it is too unreal, a hallucination maybe, i dunno. The whole thing was very Lynchian. I was walking home along Comm Ave before the res walk and I saw Max Glick and Kate Bailey. Ha. No, that's not what i was talking about. After i saw those two, i walked home the res way and right before the corner i saw a figure.

Now details are unbelievable sketchy. I was pretty fucking blitzed. but anyway, to the best of my recollection, i saw a larger woman (?) with a black bra and possibly nothing else. She spoke with a husky voice and said her name was Lisa. It was dark, it could have been a man maybe, either pre or post-op. Anyway, i remember nothing, aside from she/he was walking towards me, said something, asked me to go into the woods (small group of trees) to which i obliged, fascinated by the strangeness of what was occurring and really drunk. After about 30 seconds i got increasingly bored and/or drunk, wished her/he a good night and finished my walk.

There isn't a single thing about that story that is right or believable. But i will swear it happened. I was on no drugs that have hallucinatory tendencies and i positively did not dream it (proven by the away message i saw when i woke up). So I'm fairly sure the very hazy recap i've given is accurate. So what then? No matter how you look at it the whole thing is very sad or very scary. So I'd rather not spend too much time trying to figure out what brought this figure so close to home in such a getup. However, the absolute fucked-up whacked-out lynchian surreal bizaritude i can contemplate for weeks to come. I wish i hadnt been walking home alone, or i hope that the people behind me saw it as well, or else i may slip into deep paranoia about the possibility of schizophrenia. At a time that i've been giving so much thought to the implications of memory and the imprecise nature of reality, the last thing i need is to have such a strange event in question after only 12 hours.

I'm in the studio for a bit more, In fact, probably till ten or so. This just in, only sean dimo and i will be in the studio today. percussion takes a long time.

Tomorrow in fiction class i get to have my shitty short story i wrote in New York torn apart. If anything good gets said about it and people overlook its painful triteness, then perhaps i will post it up here so you can peep it.

Ok, time for crossword puzzles. more later perhaps.

took a tour of southie earlier when i went to buy sandwiches only to realize i had no idea where the damn place was. So i walked around, and then some kids playing basketball in a park pointed me the right way. Dimo had the same sandwich he got earlier (i say "earlier" but it matters not as this place is a time sink, i've been here 6 hours today and everything feels like it was either yesterday or ten minutes ago) and i got a grilled cheese, thus going along with my "only order from the kid's menu" policy (i got peanut butter and jelly earlier). The grilled cheese really hit the spot.

So i'm sitting here in the studio, thinking about dave's comment about "ka" and then i thought of neil's percussion on "when Doves cry" (doom KA doom, doom KA doom) and remembering that dave produced that album as well. Dave put up with that shit then, but now he doesn't. Obviously, we've grown as a group, (alumni show anyone?) but really. We're not really all that young, the group was 8 years going when they recording gotta get up now. But know we're just completely different. Arrangements are a lot different, we're very aggressive in the studio... we have up to 4 percussion tracks on some songs. The songs on the new cd are just hip...

and then i look at me, in my cons and hooded sweatshirt, hanging out drinking beers and smoking cigarettes with our engineer. sometimes it gets hard to remember that a cappella is fucking lame. Because we rule.

____

and now i'm back home. Got here finally around 11pm. Got a lot of shit done. All percussion is recorded and i did my solo for Buddy Holly, and for the first time ever, i don't want to vomit when i hear my voice on tape. Big big day for recording. And my throat is fucking torn apart from screaming "and i know you're mine" over and over and over. But it was fun.

I came home, played my football game, and bed is looking better by the second.

last night's events keep coming up and fucking with me, because i no longer believed it actually happened but i know deep down it did. see, i hate this whole transient reality thing.

i got middlemarch tickets. huzzah.

ok, sleep, totally.

worked, went to chorale, went to bostonians and then went to see storytelling with Dimo. It wasn't bad. My first exposure to Solondz. The film was in two parts, the first was really brief, but stayed a lot closer to the idea of storytelling, mainly writing; why we do it and how and when it works and doesn't. The second, about a documentary filmmaker making a documentary in the middle of a solondzized suburbia, had some things to say on the subject, but i think they mainly served as an autobiographical defense of solondz himself, the main run of that part was to show a slice of fucked up middle america.

I've been hot all day, and i picked up a coffee from dunkin donuts after the show and now i'm all coffee jittery.

I have an addition to make about my whole "do we create our memories?" thing from last night. A key thing to include in that is the effect dreams have on our reality, or as it were, on our memory. From my own experience, especially this year, i've had a number of super realistic dreams that i wake up from and my view of reality is seriously skewed. Today for instance, i woke up not knowing if someone said something to me. It was something small and innocuous, but still, i have no idea whatsoever if it happened in reality or in my dream. And alcohol wasn't even a factor. How much does this happen without us knowing it? I know many times i've dreamt something and believed it only to have it denied. It's weird. I don't get it.

Also on the memory tip: nostalgia.

What is it? Because today, nostalgia got its entire army together and staged a full frontal attack on poor defenseless me. It started outside, walking to work. It was kinda warm, but the way the sun felt, it made me feel exactly as i did most mornings this summer walking to work. And then all day, more of the same. Thinking of the first home game walking through the mods, A particular fall evening when i walked through lower. Listening to a CD at work. And on and on until i was in coolidge corner tonight and it felt just like the night late this summer that i saw Kristin Hersh there.

And these feelings don't make me feel happy or comfortable. They make me feel sad and wistful. "remember whens" when you'd rather be living them than remembering them. Is nostalgia ever a good thing? Last night i saw the little benchish thing outside of Robsham and it made me think of a night this fall with Brenda. And that was wistful and sad, but shit, i'm thinking about things like walking to work in the summer and it makes me sad. Maybe because this summer was just a much different way of life, a lot easier. And with the home game in the mods, maybe because my senior year was new and everything was exciting. But this is the way nostalgia always works for me. Why do we remember things? When we're sitting in a group and we say "this is just like..." or "remember when..." we're bringing them up and thinking fondly about times past and remembering how those times were better than this particular moment. Especially when you're in a group. You'll rarely sit around and wistfully think of some time bad. You'll think of some rocking party or great event, and wish that it was happening right then. And i used to think that that's cool, but now i'm not so sure. I think we remember only to long for times gone by or maybe if we're thinking of some bad time, to feel better about the present. Either way, it's not healthy, and yet it's unavoidable.

Now as i'm sitting here on this soap box, don't get the wrong idea. I'm not being this defeatist asshole. But it really kind of sucks. We're comforted by memories, but why are they comforting? It can get dangerous. But the fact is, we don't want to let go of our past, we always want to have it to retreat to. It's natural. And that's why i see some validity in the whole "memory created as a defense to the irreversibility of time" thing. It makes sense.

And maybe i'm more affected. Maybe that's why i keep a journal like this. So as not to lose the past. Because when i write, i'm writing those experiences that are still fresh, those that haven't yet begun to decay. So then i know that it's the truth, that it really happened. And obviously, this year, i haven't been so thorough. And i've lost things. And other things i believe in, but wonder about their full extent.

I don't know, i'm sounding like this is a way bigger deal than it really is. fuck nostalgia, because almost always, those good feelings from the past are better than the uncertainty of the future or even the present. But nostalgia is hardcoded into us, and anything we experience is a possible catalyst, especially those things we least expect.

ok cool. time to do something else. Note, all the above is just something i thought about, whether or not i believe it i'm not quite sure. Also, an avalanches song just came on and again, back to summer. Now the loneliest duet comes on. If i could marry a song, it'd be this one. I heart the secrets.

Like seriously, the song is still playing, and i know i just said this recently, but it takes me to a whole other place and time. I feel differently listening to it. How is that? The human being is a weird weird construction.

i mis-set my alarm AGAIN on wednesday night. Err, monday night. thus causing me to miss my first shift of work. Oh well, it's not like they care. But one of these days, it's going to happen and i'm going to miss something important. Like sunday morning, when i would've slept through recording had mike not come into my room to get his glasses.

So anyway, work shift 2 was productive, i read stuff on the internet for a while. Very exciting. Then i went to business law which was equally as exciting but not nearly as much fun. And then rehearsal, which was even still less fun and exciting.

And then late night and i came home, "beer me?" i asked hopefully, and then there was a beer in my hand. Hurray. I lost a close game to miami, those bastards, and then we gathered around the table for a good old-fashioned drinking game. It involved dice, and a lot of spitefully making other people drunk. Good fun. I believe we played a round of kings or two, and then that stopped. I read in the common room a little bit, some woody allen (which i've never acknowledged that i got from jude. thanks jude) and then some shorts from this anthology of short stories about amnesia.

One of them was interesting, it wasn't really a short story, just a condensing of some academic research. Apparantly there's this guy who's written 3 volumes on forgetting. His deal is that memory is just the natural response, defense rather, to the irreversible passing of time and experience. So basically, his deal is that memories are created as a means to cope with forgetting. He has diagrams and shit. Obviously bullshit, but still kind of fun to think about. I mean seriously, what if. Really though, memories are created sometimes, which is why people write journals, so that they KNOW what happened. But honestly, i look back say in september, i have some pretty vivid memories, some of them (not many) reinforced by writings, but what about the gaps? If you have to ask "did that really happen" well, maybe it didn't.

this morning, i barely got out of bed at 1. Katie and i discussed this later: we suck. Why do we need to sleep so much. We obviously don't, i spent the summer on 6 hours of sleep, previous summers on 5. But here, i'm in bed for like 10+ hours. We're pathetic.

umm, so i went to class, came home, ate nachos, watched the room lottery (girls across the hall=townhouse, darren john todd and sean=edmonds) and then got my new toy. It's a keyboard for my palm pilot. it's a sexy little bitch, i'm excited. I had to leave somewhere, oh yes. I met katie at lower and we ate and then bought tickets for the show, A Summer Evening in Des Moines, or something. Got our tickets, went to her place, watched tv and went to the show. It was very contemporary. And by contemporary, i mean fucking weird. It had some really awesome things going on, and the acting was excellent, but it really had me going with some deep but relevant stuff, and then in the last 30 minutes decided to go way over the top suggesting things that were just too much for my tiny little brain.

Then back to edmonds for the showing of Raging Bull. Mike left when he found out the length, adam left about 45 minutes in. Katie sean and darren stayed and luke came in halfway. Sean has a problem with Scorcese pictures and it went over well with everyone else.

And now i'm here.

oh yeah, adam, in his infinite genius, was looking for a chair, and went to our beirut table, which had two chairs as its legs, and removed a chair from one side, apparently thinking that the chair would just float in air. He was wrong.

i was supposed to wake up at 11 today, and i did, but then i kept snoozing it and lying in bed till 12. Doesn't really matter though, as i got my work done. wrote two short things for fiction, and it was cool, because i just started writing and these stories happened. Well, not really stories, one could be a decent story, the other will never see more than the page i wrote. anyway, i was dreading writing them, but then i sat down to do it and stuff just came out.

then i went to class, then to the office where i read for my next class, dinner, and then the last class.

came home, beat rutgers, and uhh, that's about it.

maybe tomorrow will be more fruitful for the old journal writing.

A look at the stats that shaped my weekend from when i woke up friday until now, 6am monday morning.

Time Spent (in approximate minutes):
in class: 45
in the bookstore: 20
walking around campus: 30
playing or watching NCAA 2002: 150
taking showers: 30
sleeping (not in bed): 330
sleeping (in bed): 120
on public transportation: 180
in the studio: 1320
smoking: 180
at lori's: 240
hanging out here with brenda: 150
talking across the hall: 60
talking in the hallway: 20
talking in the common room: 180
drinking wine at katie's: 20
at the mardi gras party: 75
at late night: 10
at the post mardi gras party: 120?
playing beirut: 80
watching beirut: 40
smoking the world's most awkward cigarette: 10
looking at im away messages: 5
talking on im: 5
reading: 60
writing: 20
on phone: 75

Things Eaten (complete):
1 cookie
1 piece of gum
3 cinammon altoids
4 jalapeno poppers
1.5 chicken ceasar wraps
2 pieces of pizza
1 cheesesteak
1 bagel
1 meal at burger king
1 handful of sweettarts
1 elio's pizza

Things drunk (close):
1 minutemaid cran-apple raspberry
1 coke (can)
1 coke (burger king)
2 bottles water
1 power-ade
1 smirnoff ice
1 shot of vodka
1 apple juice
beers (my room, in shower): 1
beers (my room, common room): 1
beers (across the hall): 1
beers (beirut table): many
beers (lftrw's): 4
beers (studio): 4
beers (mardi gras): many
beers (post mardi gras): many more

Miscellaneous:
hours wearing these clothes: 46
things puched/elbowed: 2
holes made: 2
cigarettes smoked: a lot
cigarettes bummed from others: ~10
cigarettes bummed to others: ~20
beads received: 0
beads given away: 0
breasts seen: 2
girls kissed: 1
lighters found: 1
lighters lost: 1
lighters bought: 1
number of times laughing at dimitrios' fart machine: countless
tears shed: 8
games of beirut won: 2
games of beirut lost: 6
games of NCAA 2002 won: 0
games of NCAA 2002 lost: 1
poems read aloud: 1
people i'm disappointed with: 2
people i'm angry at: 0

sigh, the secrets want me to wear black and bring the cute boy upstairs to their show tomorrow. Too bad they go on at 9. stupid bostonians.

i'm very achey today. like, my shins and pretty much all of my legs (all over my legs, not like all two of them) hurt like hell. and i tell you what, i've done a lot of walking around campus these past 2 days and as a result i've listened to this 5 song, 13 minute yeah yeah yeah ep like 10+ times. Maybe it's time to move on.

After class i came home and played tony hawk and ate chinese food, and then i went to world cinema. I'll be honest, i didn't pay attention to either of the films. They looked boring, so i played with my palm pilot. Steve and the internet will fill me in come game time.

One thing that i did pay attention to in world cinema was a bit odd. There was this blonde chick in front of me. Turned around and looked kinda smiling at me a couple times during the movies. The outside when i was lighting my cigarette and then at late night. Made me wonder what the fuck i had on my face. Turns out it was nothing. But seriously, what's that all about?

Got me thinking. she was cute, this is the type of thing in the tv and the movies where an introduction would occur and than some "date" or something. But i don't believe that happens in real life, i really don't. And maybe BC just is a bad place to be trying to see this, what tv and movies would have me believe, very common thing. I mean honestly, what am i supposed to do? After class: "so that was something" "yeah, pretty boring" "so my name's brian" "my name doesn't matter" "wanna go get coffee?" I mean really. Could there be anything more foreign to me?

ho hum hum ho. just did up waiting for guffman for movie night. it's a kinda funny movie, i laughed a bit.

and now, now it's midnight. my roommates are gone for darren's birthday. Well, i think tim is still here actually, but he's not around. i'm bored and don't know what to do with myself. I've been seriously neglecting my cleaning up responsibilities here in my bedroom.

Happy valentine's day to those of you who deserve it. I can think of a few. For the rest of us, there'll be some bitter guys playing poker here in 830 tomorrow night drinking beers and losing money. Come on by.

so this weekend happened.

guess i can start with friday. Bostonians went to this show in worcester, didn't sing all that great and the woman running it was a total bitch, but we made like $700 in cd sales so that's fun. Our car had the world's worst wendy's experience on the way home and then there was supposed to be fun fun bostonians drinking at karleen's but no one showed up. Didn't keep me from staying awake till 4am talking God and all that fun stuff.

So i ramble home, crack a beer and play my game against navy. Then i accidentally simulated tim's next game, whoops. I wrote some e-mail, took a shower, and was in bed around 6.

In an hour and a half I woke up. Hastily packed, and then went outside to meet with destiny. Adam TIM and Katie rolled up, i popped in, we hit lyons and then picked up Mr. Collier. And we drove under the sheraton and our trip was underway.

Car ride was kind of tough, i couldn't sleep, despite the 1 and a half hour thing. We got into new york around noon or something, played "new york new york" like assholes while driving down 2nd or 3rd. Katie and i were dropped off, we hit some little diner where i had some desperately needed eggs and toast to help with the hangover. Then i went to the church for chorale rehearsal, damn nice building. The the five of us went to our own hotel. Some little shit hole. We were making jokes about the dead maid in the closet and the whore under the bed. but whatever, it was a clean room and it took care of us fine.

I grabbed mcdonalds with sean and adam and then showered and tuxed up and went to the concert. Sean invented a fun game after we were making fun of bourbon susie for a bit, the game is make up names for brenda. Sean started with "old wooden shoes brenda" and "old three left feet brenda" i threw in "old cake in the ears brenda" and shit like that. It quickly deteriorated to finding anything we saw and sandwiching it between old and brenda. Such as "old don't mix colors with whites brenda" when adam saw a sign for laundry. Much fun was had by all and the game would continue for the weekend.

The concert was tough. Not bad, but pretty hard on our stamina. After the show we went out to dinner with mrs. umhoefer and her friend, mad hat bonnie (sean says it was mad aunt bonnie, but i prefer hat). We went to some place called hunters. It was mad good, i had salmon.

We kicked the subway back to the hotel, met sean's friend sarah, tried to work out a plan to hang with sarah kate and greg, no ids=no hanging out. but katie talked to obie and he said there was this bar not carding, so we went. The bar was o'lunneys, an irish pub on 46th, run my legitimate irish folks. Fun time. Obie had a tab going that reached like $150 by the night's end. In the mix was a couple free drinks here and there from our friendly bartender. Adam and katie left and we got a new bartender, Denver, who kept making jokes about tim sean and I triple-teaming sarah, then tim left and then sean and sarah, and then obie and i got some free shots. Then obie left. All the while, i'm trying to get a hold of greg, because their party was supposed to come to the pub. I ended up drinking and talking with these 2 30 year old chicks, on business, trading life stories and what not. Kind of surreal. Lights went on at 4:45 and we were shuffled out, i said goodbye to my friends and my bartender and heading to the marriot because somebody, brenda maybe, called me and told me to come. So i did, the hotel was a fair amount nicer than our own. I went up to kate and sarah's and fell asleep watching little mermaid tv show.

I woke up at 9 or 10 or sometime to a buzzing in my pants. Good thing i left my pants on and had my phone in my pocket or i may have had trouble with what came later that day. I woke up, mumbled something incoherent to adam, and looked outside. Holy shit. I saw a huge window and a nice shot of NYC and thought "where the fuck am i?" i quickly remembered. I took a last lingering look to my left and right and then peaced out of there. Definitely still drunk, didn't think i'd make it down the many many flights in the jolting glass walled elevator.

I eventually made it to the lion king where the five of us waited around and got standing room tickets for the lion king. Then to the hotel where some showering was done and they went to ground zero and i went to the movie theater to see Mulholland Drive. The movie, the second time around floored me. First time it was confusing and hell and it scared me and i was intrigued. This time, i just got it. It's amazing, it's genius. Chills and tears came to me so many times, not because anything was sad or truly scary, it was just so powerful. I want to see the scene in silencio where she sings "crying" in spanish. I want to see it over and over and over again. Best film of the year, without doubt. After the movie, i tried to calm myself and write my fiction story, it didn't work and i spent my time in starbucks gushing into adam's laptop about the film. Then i got a call from katie and headed to ESPN Sportszone for dinner. We got there and left, the $30 cover because of the all-star game wasn't our speed. So katie adam and i left for planet hollywood i guess and sean and TIM stayed to watch the end of the BC game. On our way to PH we got assaulted by some kid trying to get us to go to a comedy show. He was a hard sell. Guaranteed us better and cheaper food than PH. Nobody wanted to go, but me and the guy convinced them. So we went to hamburger harry's, talking the cover charge down from one of the comics and got in and buckled down for an hour of awkward entertainment. The burgers were amazing, the comedy was mostly bad, sometimes incredibly uncomfortable, and a couple of guys were legitimately funny. A hell of a time regardless.

And then it was time to book it for the lion king. oh my god. i had no idea what to expect. I had heard about the giraffes, and thought that was cool, but i was not prepared for the lenghts this show went. it was just amazing. Every aspect of the production was huge. The beginning circle of life and then the part where we see mufasa's head are about the coolest things i've seen on stage. THe most breathtaking stuff i've seen. Was talking to dan tonight about the mufasa's head scene, and apparently he's seen the show 14 times or something, and he says that entire scene never fails to completely amaze him. Breathtaking.

And then lion king ended, it was raining, and it was time to head home. Walked past Aida and was asked by some woman if we wanted tickets for a taping of letterman on monday. We had to go home. We had shit to do, no money, and i really really needed to be home to write and turn in stuff. We deliberated a great deal, i eventually gave in. Tim was a harder sell. It almost came to a coin toss. But tim came around, we got a room at the portland square hotel and got ready for another night.

Sean went uptown to see a friend, i wrote my story, katie and adam bought beer. We drank beer and i wrote. We watched insomniac, which was hilarious. drank some beers and headed to o'lunney's for some drinking. Rand into my 30 year old friends, got hugged and called "their sweetheart" as they left. Sean came, we had a round of morgan's. i had a beer and a guinness, we talked to each other and to denver a bit. katie and adam left. and tim and i decided it was time to hit a strip club.

We went to one nearby, but were carded and were not 21. The dude referred us to another place. As we walked, we were approached by a car with two young, bc looking whores. "want some company?" "huh?" "want a massage? $100 for a massage" "sounds a little steep" "how about a blowjob." Priceless. We passed the offer, got another beer and headed for stiletto's. it was all nude and 18 plus. A perfectly singular experience. I don't want to talk about it too much because it makes me feel dirty. But it truly is someting everyone should experience. And the guy at the door is right, you can only stare at titties for so long.

I got home nice and drunk around 4. Woke up at 9:30 to write write write. I did this, the kids went to ground zero but i had to write. I did, and then checked out and headed to the ed sullivan theatre to wait for our tickets. I went to kinko's and emailed what i had to e-mail. Then got a bagel and then back to the theater to wait outside in the coldest day ever. Got our tickets, and sean went to starbucks and the rest of us to MTV land to stand outside for TRL. That was fun, we were cold, acted like idiots when the camera showed us, and saw carson inside the window along with some girl whose ass was falling out and some idiot guy dancing that we all wanted to punch. Then it was time for Dave.

We went to roseland where they corralled all the guests. Finally, jimmy the douchebag gave us some awful speech that was not unlike what i imagine a communist leader would give. Came down to this: laughing and clapping good. Anything else bad. Then finally we headed to the sullivan theater, got seated (third row left) and prepared. Dave came out and it was cool as hell. We all started laughing, i mean, dave was right there. The show was really fun, especially the incredibly awkward interview with janet jackson, who was wearing some ridiculous outfit, caught dave looking at her breasts, and proceeded to never let go, and dave played an apt foil. Including bringing up michael and her personal life, two things you know she doesn't like talking about. Seriously janet, were an outfit that pushes your boobs up and creates mountains of cleavage, and well, people will look. Especially if there is a giant silver zipper right where the boobs meet. The show ended and it was sad. We thought our trip was over, and we were right.

Drove out of NYC, i tried with a little success to get some sleep. Ate at mcdonal'ds andthen kept driving. I got home, watched letterman to find out that they cut out the audience shot we were in, that sucked. And then i uhh, smoked and wrote this.

I need sleep, a lot of it. Unfortunately, i work at 10 tomorrow. Ah well.

so forgive me if this is weighty and lame, but i'm writing it anyway.

After my labored ascent from my bed this morning, i sat down and for no apparent reason, the state of my life hit me like a ton of bricks. Maybe because i was thinking of something one of the guys at poker last night said "I went through a few days worried that i was an alcoholic, but then i realized i just have some serious emotional issues." Not that the state of my life is that heavily revolving around alcoholism or emotional issues, but it got me thinking nonetheless. Yeah sure, i drink a lot. I had this conversation with Jude, BC is a crazy crazy drinking school. I do it to have fun and not as a crutch, i'm 100% certain on that. Sure, there've been a couple nights where i play the "ok, something went wrong, i need to drink to get over it" game, where in the end result "getting over it" turns into some of the worst nights in my life. But that's normal. The only other bad things that happen are inhibitions are lowered and i'll say exactly what i shouldn't say, that's not a big deal though, the real problem is that i forget some of the amazingly entertaining things I do. Like an e-mail i wrote on tuesday that i just discovered, have ZERO recollection of writing, but i'm very proud of it because it was cool. And emotional problems? well, who doesn't.

Those weren't the things i was thinking of earlier and still now, though. I was thinking about the fact that my life sucks. My life sucks because i'm in a rut. I know everything i should and could be doing but somehow can't bring myself to doing them. I'm always looking backwards saying "what could i have done differently?" instead of looking forwards saying "how can i do differently?" Yeah, sometimes i become very wrapped up in regret, but I don't live in the past. I really don't spend my days kicking myself for mistakes i've made, but i certainly have my moments. No, i don't live in the past - i just live in a present that isn't moving.

Schoolwork, real work, brenda. I know what i need to do with all of those: do it, find it, get over it. And i tell myself i want to, but i'm all talk. I say i want to write, but i don't do it. i'm a piece of shit. I just don't know what to do about it. You can't wake up one morning and go about life in a completely new way... can you?

Is it that i like to pretend these things are out of my control so that i can feel bad for myself? I mean shit, it's 100 days until graduation. I laughed when i heard previous seniors freaking out. But HEY, LOOK AT ME!!! I"M FREAKING OUT!!! but that's all i'm doing. there's something really sick about that. Like, look for a damn job. Is that really so hard? And for shit's sake, don't go looking for sympathy. Do you're work, write, take a fucking night off from football, actually turn down drinking for once. These are not hard things. These are unbelievably easy things. Stop being a fuckup and take control of your life. No one else is going to do it for you. you suck. you're a piece of shit. you deserve no compassion, no sympathy. but how do you mend a broken heart? You just do. You forget about it, you move on, you grow the fuck up. Think long and hard - you know you want to. You KNOW you want to. Do it. But it's like that magnetic fields song, "I don't want to get over you" : "I could listen to all my friends / and go out again and pretend it's enough /or I could make a career of being blue / I could dress in black and read Camus / smoke clove cigarettes and drink vermouth /like I was 17 /that would be a scream / but I don't want to get over you" it's a hilarious song, but it has some real applications. I don't want to get over love, i don't want to get over being in college, i don't want to get over not having to pay for hot water. But you have to, that other stuff isn't like love, sure, you can waste your life thinking about some girl, and that's retarded, but you can't spend your life in a dorm room, you don't move on and you're in the street. Well, i could spend my life in a dorm room, hall directors and what not, i could be the next laura schrader. Ok, go apply. Fuck you. I can't help but notice that i've created an internal dialogue here, and completely unintentionally at that. You have, you've let me out: the voice of reason. So I have - and i like it much better without you. Then fucking put me away again. I shouldn't, but i'm afraid i will.

Ok, enough of that exercise. Seriously, it wasn't until i acknowledged the conversation that i was aware of it. that was kind fun.

This is a real problem though. I don't want to be this person. It shouldn't be hard not to be this person. But the only thing i'm willing to do is say that. I need to start looking at myself and understand how i am ultimately in control for everything i do. i'm responsible for everything that goes right and goes wrong. Maybe that's too big of a burden for me, maybe that's why i do and don't do the things i do (or don't do). Maybe i'm afraid of knowing the power i have to change my life, so i don't wield it.

this isn't a cry for help, but if anyone has an easy solution, an operation or some homemade concoction to fix me, that'd be cool.

Also, i've realized that for the first time ever i'm sexually frustrated. This is very apparent in a number of dreams i've been having. No sex dreams, to the best of my recollection, i've never had one. But still.

Also, on the subject of dreams, this morning was a wild ride. I was in bed, and i had woken up and was kind of drifting. And i kept having these little vignettes, i can count about 6 at least of different people coming into my room and interacting with me. Some of them very plausible, some not. Bottom line is, i'm still having difficulties figuring out which ones happened.

yesterday i wrote over 3 pages of single spaced dialogue. then i played poker. the game lasted upwards of 6 hours, tony won like $80 i won like $3. everyone else lost big. It's a fun game.

ok ok ok ok

i need to shower, dress, eat, and play my game all within an hour and a half. wish me luck.

happy birthday katie.

Yesterday was a longish day. I went to work at my prescribed 10am and did that thing, then the class thing, then back to work and then back to class and then to rehearsal and then home.

Well, first late night, then home. Faces for Radio made it's semester 2 debut, and i forced tim to drink with me to celebrate. So for the first time of this semester, i saw our beirut table up with beer in it (as opposed to water from the night brenda and i trained for the beirut tournament - only to lose to sober guy). I convinced katie to come over to drink with us. She did, i tried to give her a shot of whiskey. nothing doing. That's two birthday people who have turned down my offering. SHe took some malibu instead. I continued playing beirut, and she suggested a power hour and i agreed. Sarah came over, tim played his game (and lost) and we power houred. And i tell you what, those power hour things? they fuck you up. i officially got out of bed at 12:30 today, wrote a paragraph of my film paper and then to class. then a haircut. then found out i would not be going to the 102 days party because i could not get a ticket in time. Then i went home and powerwrote my paper so that i could play west virginia and i tell you what: boston college is back.

Darren advised me against a shower and i went to world cinema. we watched Peking Opera Blues which was a hong kong martial arts movie with some kickass fight scenes set against a very involved and ridiculous story. It was a good time.

Back at home i showed Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels to a small but appreciative crowd, and then watched football. I made the football game look better by using s-video. I'm excited.

I need to find a place to write. I just can't do it here - way too many distractions. I need some place comfortable and work-productive. I have a feeling i will not find one. I came up with more ideas for the story for monday and launch pads for other stories. it's cool. now if i could only write them while not in class just hurridly taking notes for them i'd be all set.

Don't count on an update tomorrow, but i may surprise you all. Katie is making her birthday official tomorrow, and if i can get an ID i'll go out with her. Otherwise, it's quite likely that poker night 2 will go down. Be excited.

It's 2am and i just went into the common room to watch darren play football. I mean, really. i have other things i could be doing.

also, the loneliest duet just game on. wish i knew why that song does it for me so goddam completely. Like jesus, it just makes everything feel right. it's one of those songs that just takes you elsewhere. I don't know where exactly, but it's like how death cab's "the employment pages" brings me right back to this summer. mmmm. shit, maybe i'll go see them on v-day.

hoo boy. almost 11pm and i'm planning on getting to bed real soon-like. I could use the rest. I sort of got it this morning, but that was messed up because i woke up at 10am planning to get out of bed, but didn't get out of bed till 12:30, but never slept for more than 5 minutes or so. Anyway, forced myself up, definitely returned for a 5 minute bout here or there, as i worked on finished the fiction thingy i started last night. Actually a very fun process. Then i booked it to class, had a fine time there, then i went to the library to pretend to work and then dinner with kate and then class with kate and then i came home and lost to pitt. I hate Pitt. I hate Pitt and I hate Stanford.

i'm just beat. i've got nothing interesting to say and i've got nothing that i want to do more than go into my bed. Although i'm not sure i can do it. It is really really early after all.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a hopefully very refreshed me.

so hell of a weekend

i don't remember the last time i updated. i'm gonna guess it was a while ago... thursday or wednesday maybe. i'm gonna guess wednesday

oh, i remember now. wednesday i wrote before wednesday night happened. i'd rather not remember what wednesday night brought me. so, moving on.

thursday, class work rehearsal and then we decided to have a bostonians night here at 830. so we did a powerhour, and then bostonians and bostonians related folks left and then i played kings asshole and gin with tim and maybe darren and some of the roommettes, and then i had a monster conversation with brenda. my best estimates put it at 3 or more hours. it was pretty tight.

friday.

woke up, went to class hungover, went to work, did laundry and then did the recruiting for season 2 of ncaa 2002. and then tim and i were about to play asshole with the girls et al, but we ran into mancini and went instead to play poker with ecuador tony. that was a fucking hell of a time, i left the night up at least $20. hell of a night. kate and brenda and adam came by. brenda left her phone there, and a lot of toilet paper was stolen by kate. brenda can get her own damn phone.

saturday.

i eventually went out. i was planning on doing the cambridge thing, buying cds, whatever. brenda was planning on the downtown thing. i convinced her to go to cambridge, she did. i bought cds: bonny prince billy: i see a darkness; mates of state - our constant concern; and you will know us by the trail of the dead - madonna; built to spill - keep it like a secret; built to spill - ancient melodies from the future; herbert - bodily functions; cat power - moon pix; all tomorrows parties v. 1.1, the yeah yeah yeahs - self titled; the silver jews - hot as hell; fridge - happiness.

bren and i had a great time. lots of laughs, it was fun. my crowning achievement: we saw a children's book called "the day it rained hearts" and brenda said "that would hurt, with the point and all" or something like that. and i replied "maybe they're made out of love."

then i came home, got gayed up for the glitter and glam party. well, first, i had a huge falling out with the tim/adam/katie collective, because i started worrying about a.) my own going to the party and b.) bringing 3 other people. whatever, i was dumb, it worked out in the end. the party was fucking great. i talked to katie today and she asked if it really happened, because honestly, it's the most bizarre thing i've ever experienced on or around BC. Had an absolute blast.

then after the party, TIM and i went to a sutherland party that my roommates were supposed to be at. they were. some beers, some ice luges, and some weed later, we all left around 4am. i, at long last, hit my breaking point with a girl across the hall and had long long conversations with my roommates and TIM. darren proved my greatest foil. it was really quite cool. all my roommates and TIM letting me vent off and talking to me and offering honest analysis/advice. i went to bed at 7am.

then today i was a piece of shit for a while, played my game agaisnt stanford (PS: i HATE stanford) and watched the heartbreaking ND v. Purdue game. Then i worked on school stuff (still very much outstanding) and went to sland3 for the superbowl. I went there rooting for the pats, but after the first 5 minutes, when all the pats fans were obnoxiously cheering for every 3 yard gain, i just had to start rooting for the rams. it was a heartbreaker. after the game we witnessed the semi-spectacle that was cleavland circle (bottom line: a lot of cars honking horns) and then played a bit of beirut

and then now here i am, writing this, about to embark on the joys of fiction writing, which i have no fucking idea what i'm gonna write.

peace out. i apologize for the delay but hey, weekends are tough. also, i just sat for a good ten minutes thinking about stuff. i need to do that more and figure a lot of shit out. it's really not that exciting a prospect for me but whatev. i had a fun semester - time to move on.