With the Stella boys using the magic of flight and the money of their father at their disposal, floating to and from Florida and friends, I'm so glad that Natalie is coming up here next week. I'm more homesick than I even know now, I can't think about it all too much or it will all just be too much. I started crying on the phone with my mother last night. She was talking about my sisters and my nephews. I miss my sisters. I doubt my nephews even know who I am.
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But Natalie is coming up in 6 days. Just out of the blue clear sky she's coming up. It's been seven months now, almost twice as long as the longest we've ever gone without seeing each other. I just can't wait to lounge around and smell and touch someone familiar and cozy. If anyone will lie around lazy and watch animal documentaries with me it's Nat. Of course I do have loftier plans than Animal Planet. Maybe the Bronx Zoo, who knows. Maybe MovieOke, but definately The Big Apple. Definately Garden State, which she hasn't seen.
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Night before last I went to play Texas Hold'em with Tweetum and SpecialK. I got so high my whole body was shaking, I don't know how they function so fucked. I was inside my own head and my speeding heart so lost I can't fathom how I played cards. Can't believe I was still able to crack jokes. I felt like I could hear all of my insides, the flushing of blood through my veins, the Darth Vader hiss of my lungs expanding, things digesting in my stomach. I would reach for my glass of water and as soon as my fingertips touched it, the sound of my insides and organs would mute. Like in war movies after an explosion when everything is eery quiet, and then ringing, and then suddenly back to loud life. I was gone. Too gone. It was just four of us, the fourth was Mark, another handsome, charming, funny, and apparently creative -he plays guitar- guy. Without assuming a title for him -boyfriend?- I'll just say he is obviously closer to K than anyone else I've met through her. A setback if I felt I were actively pursuing the girl, but I'm not. I'm merely actively pursuing being able to talk to her without scratching my face or tugging my ear, or doing any other of the nervous things I know I do when I'm nervous. I'm far too patient with things like this. I'll probably mention to her that I had a bit of a crush on her when I bump into her in eleven years somewhere. At any rate, I left the table with the chip lead. Go me.
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Last night I decided the Feng Shui of my room was what had my brain all eggs whenever I sit down to write. On an index card I drew a blueprint. It looked simple enough. I have four major things in my room. Computer, TV, big bookshelf, and bed; all I needed was a simple shuffle. Of course in the process I nearly broke down three times. I screamed at a cat, huffed and puffed trying to pull a rug out from under shit, and broke not only my other bookshelf, which I had to stop to fix, but also a bottle of fake blood I've been moving from house to house for at least six years. It was so motherfucking gooey I thought about killing myself instead of cleaning it up. But then I figured that would mean Rachel would have to clean not only the fake blood, but my real blood and brains and head pieces, so, I just cleaned it up. I won't even get into the outlet fiasco that ensued after everything was in place. I'll just say that I have a lot of 3-pronged electrical equipment, in a room built in the 40s.
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Tonight I snuck my jukebox out onto the stool with me. It was cold so I could stowe it in my jacket pocket, and I just kept my hand on pause for whenever someone pulled in. It was nice, Damien Rice made an hour go by magic fast. Then after the stool I went to Stamford with Amy and Katie -and ultimately a lovely chap called "English John"- to see Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

It was wonderful.

This is going to be bumpy and muddled this post. A forewarning.

. . .

I tell myself, to comfort myself, on days like today from time to time, that I shouldn't worry so much. That no matter if a thirteen-hour shift supersucksass, still surely it will end. This too shall pass. It puts things into perspective. And it helps. Of course it works both ways. You can't sleep swinging in some hammock, breathing the breath of the girl of your dreams forever either. That too shall pass. So do vacations, and professional pinnacles, and sex the length of three Tool albums, and life. It all comes and goes. Memento Mori.

Why do lovers have to leave? Even if for just a while? She's here three or four more days and already I'm slipping in Christian's drippy heart in the hallways. I feel for you friend.

My Atlanta Braves quietly clinched their 13th consecutive divisional title on Saturday. Every year they say it can't be done, and every year they do it. Of course every year I say they will win the World Series and every year they don't. Except this year. :)

It was my dad's birthday on Tuesday. I called him last on Opening Day of baseball this year. That's too fucking long in between. But we talked for almost four hours and it was great. God I miss my dad.

So Friday I met Tweetum and SpecialK at Oneill's, this Irish Pub, for someone's birthday. I swear I physically shook my head- the disbelief shake -three different times she was so sexy. Dancing and smiling in her homemade shirt. Partying with her parents. Trying to recall the night just now, in my head to write about it, I saw her again, and shook my head again. It's like a knee slap joke, nobody wants to slap their knee, but the joke is just that fucking (gorgeous) funny.
I knew going in I wanted to say more than ten words to her. And I knew that that would take some drinks. So I drank hard and fast. A shot of something off the bat, and then three Long Islands before Tweetum finished her one tiny rum drink. I was making liquor disappear like magic.

I simply place one end of the straw into the glass, the other into my mouth and VOILA!, the tea from Long Island is gone!

So, the irony of the night was that I did say more than ten words to her, and I hardly remember any of them. I know she commented on my tie, I know time I was bouncing around to some shitty cover-band rock song because my Inhibition Shield had been breached that she asked me to dance. And in my drunken hesitation she floated away somewhere. I know she put a confetti dick on my face and I know that she fascinates me.

I also know that I've said too much on this thing before, that it has gotten me into trouble before. And I'm sure even though this account is more vague than my already vague memories of it were, I have written no uncrackable mystery here.

All I know is that if I said goonight to her I don't remember doing so. And that makes me sad.

So when I woke up queasy and dead the next day I called in sick from the stool. Then later I drove to Stamford to see The Brown Bunny.

The Brown Bunny is being marketed something like this. And I'm paraphrasing. Vincent Gallo plays a motorcycle racer who is driving across country. At the end Chloe Sevigny gives him an honest-to-god, UNsimulated, choked and slobbery blowjob. This isn't some sleazy porn actress, this is Academy Award nominated (Boys Don't Cry) Chloe Sevigny. So I'm not ruining the film by telling you about the climax, if you were going to see the movie in the first place it was probably because you too had heard about the scene.

I've got to give it up to crazy Vincent Gallo. Tell everyone about the end, nothing about the beginning or middle, and then make them sit through an hour and a half of quiet driving scenes. He wrote, directed, produced, edited and starred in the film; and of course I knew it was about a man driving across the country all alone. I knew that he had CUT a half hour of quiet driving scenes already. Now let me say, of course I was curious about the blowjob, but I like weird movies where not a lot happens. I was intrigued by the road trip aspect of it, the loneliness and quiet of it. But the upper class, middle-aged people all around me would guffaw and pout everytime it cut to more moving roads. It was like when I watched Magnoila with Melon and just as the tears welled in my eyes, he groaned was the thing ever going to end. Only these were adults, all of them; who either a) knew about the hummer and just couldn't believe what they were having to sit through just to see it, or b) bought tickets just because of the vague title and the ambiguous poster. Let's go see an art film so we can talk about it at brunch tomorrow.

I don't know what I think about Vincent Gallo. He looks like the perfect blend of Billy Crudup and Daniel Dafoe. Sexy but Weird. He makes his mouth a line and squeezes out this tiny voice. I know this though, about Gallo, he has made, in The Brown Bunny, one of the most haunting little movies I've seen in a while. And it isn't the BJ, its the build-up. At least myself, knowing what was coming, I felt the whole time that Bud Clay was driving towards a graphic blowjob. And I was worried about it, worried that it would be a big gimmick. That it wouldn't fit. Entertainment Weekly loved the film, hated the scene. However as soon as that scene ended, his character opened up and broke down and let the audience in on what he was going through, finally. And the whole long trip before suddenly made sense, had a purpose. By letting the whole movie roll quietly along, he almost dares the viewer to forget why they're there, why they have watched him pump gas in real time and drive through Ohio, and drive through Missouri, and race off onto the salt flats until he's just a warbled mirage so far away. We know why in the end, we've stuck around, not because of a good dick sucking, but because Mr. Gallo has nailed emptiness and loss and sorrow, and how those feelings are amplified on a long quiet drive all alone.

There was a feeling throughout the film like everything was coming to a head. The blowjob wasn't the problem, in fact I thought the scene was actually quite powerful. The only problem really, was knowing about the scene in advance. It put sex on the brain and took away from a beautiful little movie.

Now. Chris Frommeyer. Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Dragonbreath, Happy Birthday to you.

I was watching Joey last Thursday -who always reminded me of you most- and while cleaning up a party, a guy offered to hold the trashbag so Joey could bounce cups and crumpled napkins off his backboard body. He lit up and I thought of you. Thought how I could never explain to anyone all the goddam games we have created and played at all hours of the night. I tried, I tried to explain to Anthony about Holy Ball, about the empty house on Mapleleaf and how we were just going to stay until they cut the power. I tried to tell him about our team names, and the rules, and the fact that we played on our knees and created players, and batted right or left depending on "who" was up. I told him about how I called every game, while I was playing, as two separate announcers. I really wanted to convey the drama of the Holy Ball World Series, and the rivalry that had sprung up between the Idaho P-Pickers, and the Vermont Champs.

But I guess you just had to be you to really get it. I wish I was playing some stupid game with you tonight friend. Be it CroKill, or Wiffle Ball, or just trying to be the first one to get a Frisbee to land on a little chair.

Happy Birthday LOF. I miss you.

PS- Sorry about your Lions. You knew it couldn't last forever. All Things Pass.