Yesterday I watched both a raccoon and a largemouth bass, eat an alligator apiece. This was on Lords of the Everglades, a National Geographic show. The alligators here, of course, were babies; but it was both sad and strangely comforting to see an apex predator ravaged and swallowed up by its own easy prey. It reminded me of the Dingo and the Baby. It reminded me of sharks and bears and bees and snakes. And of how natural and balancing it is when a human is eaten by a grizzly bear or a jaguar, or a shark.

Natural and balancing of course until the hunting party with the rifles and shark hooks is assembled and deployed.

On the stool I finished Dave Eggers' fantastic book You Shall Know Our Velocity. It took me two hours to read the last 40 pages for all the fingermarking to look up and smile at assholes in cars; and when it was over I was sad. Sad the trip was over, sad I had to leave the characters. Simultaneously though, I was inspired and alive, and alas, stuck on the stool. As if the reality of my stasis weren't made apparent enough by the story, or by Norwalk, Connecticut; here I had to finish on my wooden ball&chain. They went to Africa, to Senegal and Morocco, they went to Estonia. They went to randomely dole out thirty-two thousand dollars, to change lives and be humbled and meet people. And I was on the stool.

So when Cancer Mike banged into the stool a little while later it seemed pre-destined. Maybe I couldn't tape packets of money to goats on African farms, but here was a man dying on the curb right next to me. Not a half a world away but an arm's length, telling me he didn't want any money. He was just so hungry and was there any way I could get him any food. I thought about breadsticks from the Brewhouse kitchen but I eventually just walked him across to Subway so he could sit and have a sandwich and something to drink.

It's become a bill I plan for now. My weekly Mike charity. After that book, it feels like the least I can do.

Jesus, the last time I saw Juan Ortiz I still had puke on my breath, just up off my knees in a dirty Grand Central toilet where I was forcing up the milestone night before. Puking up my first New York City drinks. That was November. Yesterday he came to Norwalk, See-Tee.

So I took him to Stew Leonard's, ya know; which is this grocery store/Chuck E. Cheese hybrid with no pizza or games, heavy on the animatronics. I hadn't seen him in like ten months ya know, so I wanted to do something really cool. Give him a real taste of what it is to live in Norwalk, Connecticut. So I drove him to the outskirts of it in every direction. First to Westport where Martha Stewart lives, then to South Norwalk, where she ate at Pasta Nostra. Then to New Canaan for lunch, also Elm Street Books, another Martha hotspot. From there to Wilton and the Borders books & music. We wandered Zeytinia Gourmet Market for a while. He bought a Vanilla soda there. Then we cruised through a cemetery. Ya know just wild stuff man. Then all the way to the other end of town, to the Trader Joe's in Darien. Then home, where we sat around and finally made plans to do something after it was too late.

Okay so we're lame. But where wasn't the point. Just good friends good talks good times.

One of the greatest things about hanging out with film friends? If there is ever a lull in the conversation, all anyone has to do is say "Hey, did you see...?" And off it sparks in some crazy new direction.

And so like the premise of some mediocre Brittany Murphy movie, well not some, but, Little Black Book in particular; someone who I've mentioned in a less than glowing light has read my blog and confronted me about it. And like a scene from said mediocre film, I had to defend myself and my words in the Rattlesnake bar tonight.

It's funny, I remember how the seal was broken. How the possibility that someone from the Brewhouse might read this thing became plausible. It was when Jimi got the shit smacked out of him. The girls wanted to see a picture, and boy did I want them to see the bloody Jimi. So, I brainlessly leaked the address to this here internet journal, and now it has come back to haunt me. To rattle chains in my attic and try to scare me into changing this address. I wanted only to be able to write straightforward and honest in this thing, because what's the point otherwise? And here now I've got to be conscious that what I feel or think one drunk night, what I assume or hypothesize in something as faulty and liable to change as a high school girl's diary, might segregate me from my coworkers. Girls I relish for refusing to let me feel like an outsider, for even a minute. Girls who have fought to make me social and amicable. Girls who have problems no more confusing than my own.

So here I am, apologizing in a medium that should be devoid of fault or blame or shame. Nevertheless, the apology is sincere. If I offended anyone at the Brewhouse, I am sorry.

You've got to know that I hate restaurants so much I'd be working in a bookstore right now were it not for all of you.

All the guilt aside though, tonight was really nice.

'Cept for maybe the crazy guy who spit chewed crayon all over the wall in the Brewhouse and was pushed forcibly out the door. And who later- apparently -stuffed someone's shirt down his pants and denied it till he was forced out of the Rattlesnake.

Aside from all that, tonight was really great. It made me forget about the shit shift I worked right before it.

ps. how odd I frequent a place called The Rattlesnake?