pick-up games

because (also, a song playing right now on my computer) i got a bunch of bookcases from my folks who moved apartments, i did rearranging and have a stack of books i don't want no more. but i've been too lazy/inert/tired/distracted to bring them to a used bookstore. and just now, passed by that stack and thought, this might be a good time to bring them around and get maybe 10 bucks tops for 20 books, some not bad, really, just don't want them crowding me.

one in particular, the game, i could unload easy. you know this book, don't you, by a former nytimes reporter who i saw from time to time at parties long before he landed at the times and even longer before he shaved his head, put round his neck (regrettably) a thin leather choker, and grew a corpulent ego (or more likely, that was intact all along, just switched its use from reporting gas to fuel for becoming an aficionado of the pick-up).

loved the book. it was juicy and fun, and only a teeny, tiny bit depressing in terms of how dopey (some) women are and how shallow (some) men are. yes, yes women are shallow too and men are often dopey. plenty of pie.

two men i know asked me a while ago if they could have the book after i'd finished, and i said sure, but never followed up. one of them is now in a longterm relationship; the other is not. but he's so clever on his own, it would make me sad if he relied on the game to get play. on the other hand, so much of interaction is gameplaying, though it may not all be premeditated or strategized. is it worse if it's codified?

oh, now the music is a pop band the lead singer of which i once messed around with. ta da. that was a gazillion yrs ago. before my sister was nominated for a grammy, sort of. if i could mess around with a rock star now, it might have to be thom yorke.

it used to be my theory that having five crushes at all times was optimal so on any given day i'd run into someone who made me giddy. right now, i am completely without. and had a dream about an italian dude who i once loved a lot for about a week and then a little less for months thereafter. he visited me recently and has a shaved head and a goatee and an enviable gig—as a cheese and meat buyer for a supermarket chain which entails going to small towns in italy and switzerland and such and sampling and buying stuff from local farmers.

in the dream he had long, curly, blond hair and no beard and was downright cherubic. we held hands.