double a

nothing a few batteries can't fix!

index this motherfucker!

the first thing i wrote at that silent dating party?

vodka gimlet with rocks

and then later i wrote:

come here often? (which seemed pretty funny to me at the time)

but overall the silent dating was odd. felt a little like it should be a key party and turn into an eyes wide shut scenario and we should all start divulging our deepest darkest. but hell, only my therapist knows that shizz! and then one guy 'steve' wrote on his index card (that's what was scattered around the bar, lots and lots of index cards) that it'd be fun; soon it would feel like elementary school. i should relax. not fight it. (advice with an insidious undertone).

was elementary school fun? i cannot remember.

put up or shut up!

tonight's the silent dating thing, where s and i, and all the guests, are only allowed to write notes, not talk. so i was thinking how funny—ha!—t'would be to make that my opening line:

put up or shut up!

it's so...er...ionesco, no? io conesco ionesco. like my pidgin italian mixed with romanian (or is he from somewhere else i'm forgetting? bulgaria?)

speaking of which, a band i once interviewed, balkan beat box, has a new cd out featuring the bulgarian chicks. and it's awesome. i bought it. cause i'm old skool and not up for that downloading stuff.

but back to silent mating. what else could i write? and will i be able to write fast enough and legibly too to get all my bon mots down? plus i loathe what i'm wearing right now so after i do an interview in a little while am going to split and try to buy a new shirty. and skirty.

maybe i'll only write in haikus. brings me back to a time when i wrote dirty haikus. one of you occasional readers might know a little of what i'm talking about.

as my friend c says: smell ya later.

i'm tight like spandex

what do you think about that? on a t-shirt?

to the ladies in the house: would you wear a t-shirt that said that in white decal on black cotton?

i just saw a lady (maybe of the evening prancing in midday) wearing that t-shirt. bold. maybe i should get one. wear it to work. see what happens. wear it to a bar. see what happens. i think i'm getting prudish in my dotage.

freakin' at the freakers' ball

goddamn but i've got to remember not to take certain trains after 9 pm or even 8 on sunday nights if i want some quiet time. that is, the 2 or 3 which i took tonight, boarding around 10 and wowzers, what a constellation of crazies or maybe they were just drunk or stoned. or both.

a pair, a couple across from me, couldn't stop giggling. he was a boi or maybe just a boy without a top row of teeth, the naked gum exposed everytime he laughed, which was in fact was nonstop. they got off at 14th and i was glad; they noticed i was fascinated by them and a little bit feared they'd start talking nonstop to me or making fun nonstop or maybe just getting sick on me.

there was a big woman with her hair pulled back also, yelling down the train to her son, maybe 11 years old, one of them anyway, in spanish, while he was getting beat up by his sister. she hit him hard and he cowered on the floor next to one of those poles you hold onto. then he was forced to sit next to his mother and she slapped him a few times, then put her hand on his scalp and shook his head and yelled at him more but it was in spanish and i don't know what she said, and he wailed and cried and his cheeks looked dusty where the tears had dropped and i felt so horrible to have seen it all. the humiliation in front of all those witnesses. another woman siting next to them, unrelated, laughed at it.

and then a woman sat down next to me, with lots of pockets—those kinds of multi pocketed cargo pants and a vest like photographers wear, lots of pockets and mesh, and she had big silver rings, fat rings—on each finger, thumbs included, and some thick brass bracelets and she was singing but not just to herself, gesturing and mimicking the trumpet movement, snapping in time as if the combo were backing her up, singing out loud. as if in a gig. as if she were cassandra wilson. was that the gig?

what a long long day. i feel like i could sleep for a week.

z'meer

at dinner last night at everyone's fav restaurant, the knickerbocker, i was in a booth with my mommy and my great-auntie ('twas for mom's day) and in the next boof sat a woman, maybe my age, maybe a few years older (possibly younger but looked older), with her own mom and pop. i could tell that because she was a little animated in a not entirely happy direction. (in fact, let's say she was agitated. she had agita. sometimes i have that affliction too.) and my boof-neighbor called him 'dad' and then when she addressed the woman, she said, 'mom.' and that's what gave away her company (i saw a play of the same name this weekend; a pretty corny, pointless entertainment).

anyhoos, one plymouth oyster, some shrimp cocktail, cesar salad, and a t-bone later (that was my dinner. and may i please say: YUM) she was telling them how fed up she was. and that she's not interested in meeting a divorced man who looks at her picture online and then decides after all he's not interested. who is he, this loserville, to reject her? huh?!

huh?????

HUH??!?!?!$%#*$!!

(she was nice looking though the anger might have been a turn-off.)

well, as ever, i paraphrase. and i couldn't hear so so clear. but that's the crux. and she should meet someone lovely. and so should i. and they should think i'm lovely too. stat.

it reminds me of the time many years ago when great-auntie and i went to brunch (must have been roughly 1988) at a place now gone on 6th avenue in the village. it was sort of a soda counter but with booths along the joint's perimeter, and i recall the decor screamed peppermint stick. and amid the clatter of plates and cutlery and loud ordering of waffles mit schlag, there was a young man, must have been around 27, with his moms and daddio. and as great-auntie talked to me i eavesdropped as the young man came out to his parents. and they were not so very happy with the news and tried to coax him that if he gives it a shot he could meet a nice girl, have a child, 'just look at your brother' was how they tried to persuade him. not that his brother was gay, but the marriage and kid part of it was the parallel. but he seemed altogether unmoved and a little annoyed too by how little they got his point. or maybe they were trying not to get it.

much later, on fire island, some gradual school pals and i went into deserted beach houses (deserted on account of a huge storm that had rendered them basically uninhabitable) and we nosed around here and there. a warped piano that look like it was about to fall off a cliff. a half-drunk bottle of tangueray. a closet full of plaid flannel shirts and by the bedside a book whose title was something like 'how to come out to your parents.'

we took the gin.

big ups

to my friend b who got a fancy new job. well done! now get yerself some spare ribs and get to celebratin'!

bad old days

remember when my little house hallway smelled like a mouthwash infuser was pumping air with wint-o-green disinfectant and a smidge of maryjane?

lordy i thought that was unfortunate.

wells, tonight i come home and it stinks. but this time our cocktail is tomato juice. my place smells of it just a wee but the hallway—good god it is strong. almost giving me a sour stomach as if i chugged it like chugging was going out of style.

silent scream

guess what some pals and i have decided to do? speed date. but before we do that in june (the events apparently sell out far in advance) we're going to some event that is called 'the silent party' or some such, where it's a mixer pick-up scene but you're not allowed to talk. you're only allowed to write each other sweet nothings.

i hope i don't run out of ink.

the whole thing should pretty well eliminate bozos who can't write well worth their salt. or who put hearts over their i's. or have illegible handwriting (that is i, my handwriting is turrible!). and you might be saying to yerself, 'hey slush, some people might like a heart over their i. don't judge judy!'

myself, i'm going to play around with different prose styles, see what kind of hook-ups i can muster on the period, semi-colon continuum.

but still, i think that's going to be such a kick. simply cannot wait.

toe rings

a scourge on humanity.

half-sour

for reasons having to do with inertia, a rapid decline in adrenaline, two tumblers (half-full, i swear it) of famous grouse, and boredom on a fine spring evening on which i failed to make post-therapy plans i went to craigslist to see the action entitled missed connections.

partly too it's because 'round midday i was on a subway in the boro of manhattan in the county of—wait, i cain't even recall what the county is!—but on that times sq platform was a real q-t pie, shaved head, i think a small beard, damned white ipod headphones stuck in his ears, and we smiled at each other. first time in ages i even wanted to make eye contact with someone. he reminded me of two italian friends of mine, similar look. samo pavlovian desires that someone with a name like stefano does in fact elicit in the likes of slush.

so i thought, hey, lemme check that missed connections bit on the old list; it's kind of a gas, and i'm bored, and i don't have television reception so there's nothing to watch here, and i've done enough reading in the past 24 hrs, so much my eyes are tired, and i'm looking at craigey's list (we know each other, me and craig, and believe you me: all his friends use the diminutive) and there is a note.

but. but.

it's not for me.

'tis rather for someone i know a little. someone i had email contact with this very day. and the email says "do you know john doe? i'm trying, oh how i'm trying, to reach him by email" except it doesn't really say john doe, and it makes its request in other phraseology, which is in fact the science of phrases. and, john doe and i aren't friends enough that i could say: hey johnny d, i was bored and looking on craig's list, you know, my pal with the brown eyes, red hair and that remarkable diy 'tude, and i saw an ad there looking for your email address.

j.d. might think i was some kind of loserville to be spending time looking up there for love or a sparkle or a hint of flirtation. so, i'm not going to tell him about my visit thence.

his ignorance is blissful, non? plus he might think i'm stalking him; trying to get all up in his grill and shit. and i'm sooo not about getting up in his grill. and. shit.

plus, i don't think he even knows what a grill is.

consider: how often do you actually find something addressed to someone you know, even if only vaguely, on le list de craig? i think the last time something similar happened in my orbit was in 1990, goddamn, nearly two motherloving (we don't curse on this family-friendly channel yo!) decades ago, when my friend j took out an ad on the voice personals back page which use to be akin to bible class, to his girlfriend, k, also a dear f-o-s.

and, we all thought it was the height of romance. the pinnacle of amour. the absolute living end.