answer this survey

is it fair to not go out with someone because they tell you that they really like the movies phenomenon and contact?

really, tell me.

reaping, sowing

today i hit the town of loserville. nobody i said i'd be willing to go out after the speed dating wanted to go out with me and even though i thought many of them were stupid, vapid losers (but hey, i try not to judge!) none of those stupid, vapid losers wanted to see me again. and that made me feel crummy. and unattractive in every aspect. and i know all the rational things to remember about this, i do, but still it's all goddamn demoralizing. maybe i will no longer write of it. any of it. i did at lunch see a guy who lives in my neighborhood who i often see on the subway who i have a secret crush on. i think he's probably married. he's kind of short; salt and pepper hair; the most defined crease on one side of his mouth that gives him a perenially arch expression. i confess that i felt i couldn't even look him in the eye lest he see my humiliation and agree the rejections were warranted.

if thems are the jays

maybe i need to think more about them cees or emms or aitches or bees or aays (either one of the latter).

what i mean is i went with my friend s to a speed dating event last night. my first. hers too. and it was sponsored, i guess but didn't really clue in, by a certain online dating enterprise that is for jays. most of the fellas were in the financial sector (nothing wrong with that, i guess) except for a pediatrician who kept his briefcase on his lap like a security blanke, a school teacher who used the word 'incinerate' in conjunction with the gaza strip and a dentist from jersey who had more rage toward his patients than howard beale in network ('they can't expect to miss a regular appointment and then waltz in with an emergency!! i told the front desk: no appointment 'til monday!!!'). by the time the dentist sat across from me i was exhausted and my jaw agape, wowed by him in the way you are transfixed by two people macking on each other in the subway or maybe, more appropriately, by an accident or something lewd. you cannot look away.

there were some seemingly nice guys but how much do you know about someone in a whopping 4 minutes? here's what else i learned:

1) a lot of these men didn't seem to read any books;
2) one of them, a financial advisor from the upper west side, but of course (alternative home bases: upper east, long island, and jersey—that's right, people traveled miles to meet...me! and s!) is writing a book on the causes of anti-semitism (i told him it's a tough niche these days and asked if he had a publisher yet. er...that's got vanity press written all over it);
3) lots of them wore pretty thick gold necklace chains (in my life i know not a single man who wears a necklace; this is not a judgment);
4) one, a lawyer or a broker or something, likes to travel a lot, 'you know, to vegas or south beach. i go out to the hamptons a lot, you know, just to get away.' he lives in the five towns.
5) at least two of them were yankee fans (suckers!)
6) one thought i should see the movie waitress, that i'd really like it.

we had to decompress after. s conveniently 'forgot' her scorecard at the venue, a bleecker street bar, and had to return to collect it. it'd already been thrown away. but we are undeterred! a public radio sponsored singles event in a couple of weeks. if alls there are are mafioso-wannabe-broker-never-crack-a-book-only-write-my-own types, i shall go to the top of a mountain and scream for a long long time.

happy summer.

more than a feeling, part two

so, i think i finished that article hanging over me like an eave. it might be stinko. i might not care. it might be only mediocre. i might say, give me the money, yo, i gots shoes to buy and a mouth to feed. it might require editing. and i might say, to hell with that. i haven't done a single summer-ish thing yet this year and i got to...much like someone on the brink of a sneeze. i must actch-ooo.

yes, tonight it's summer. i cooked dinner, had a scotch to celebrate the end of my assignment, and sweated through my shirt.

and meantime while writing i procrastinated here and there by reading....can you guess? craigslist missed opportunities or close encounters or whatever it's called; i read it but can no longer remember (lately i think i might be losing my mind a little, but don't be alarmed). there was one for someone with my name on thursday night which is when i actually had a date and i thought it might be for me. except i don't work for a hedge fund and i'd never even heard of the bar that was mentioned. so clearly it wasn't. for. me. that is.

would you write me a missed encounters? tell me something lovely that only i will know.

is it wrong?

to have a crush on your great-aunt's doctor? i ask hypothetical-style.

apocalypto

some kind of crazy thunder lighting the way you diss me is frightening weather today and i get a call some hours ago on the old cell-ee from my brother and sister who are 8thousand feet high in the sky in yosemite and my brother is a little lightheaded and my sister sounds like she's got a secret, like the cat's pajamas or the cat that swallowed the canary, i guess there are a couple of cats out there ya know, and i think the secret is she's trying to be discreet up there in nature, way up in the sky where the reception is impeccable but it's not what she should be doing there making crosscountry calls. she should be breathing in the vist-aahhhh. taking in the aura. delighting in nature. like julian sands yelling 'BEAUTY,' like old man walden. and old man merchantivory.

but then she says, 'yeah, there are a lot of people up here on this mountain peak and everyone's on their phones.' if i was steven spielberg i'd make some hamfisted hammer-toed melodrama all about it. but i ain't. finish the thought, yo!

today i heard a fog horn over and over and i'm not near a harbor where there are fog horns. how do you explain it. at least i haven't levitated yet. i have, though, just a tiny bit hyperventilated.

and i have so000 procrastinated on some work that i am about to give myself an ulcer. and i have time to kill before dinner in chinatown and i thought i'd shop but i've put myself on a no buying stuff diet except for food and bill paying no buying stuff diet. and it's raining not men but cats, oh yes! cats and i left the umbrella at home. it does no good there. no good at tall.

tweet (with slush)

i'm a bit superstitious so i don't really want to write what i'm thinking but if i pull my ear three times and spit over my shoulder and speak out loud—say it with me now!—ki-neh-hor-a, i should be okay. am remembering back to last summer and a kind of family event and i am remembering a feeling of agitation and something quite short of happiness and i am thinking that right now i am feeling a lot better in general and optimistic and not wholly agitated. it's a marvel and i lurve it.

gather all the news i need on the weather report

when the paper tells me it's going to be 'sultry' it puts me in a mind for julips (juleps?) and halters and the new orleansian silk drawers (don't ask) and whatever fun follows from that.

sadly, though, i've had this freelance story hanging over me like a noose for weeks and looks like much of my weekend will be 'prim' unless somehow i'm superefficient and then...where's my federal agent at? hey! tommy, where yat?

which reminds me that i heard an interview this morning with sir rufus wainwright and i plum (a sultry fruit if there ever was one) don't get why folks adore him. the music's aight, no knockout, and his ego is trop, too self important, too embracing and cultivating of iconic status. it's a bore. to me. and so is bono; who i also heard on the radio this morning. kind of rapped the knuckles of the interviewer (which was haute condescending and very media insider-y) but here's the reason he wears tinted glasses: 'i have sensitive eyes,' brother, puleeze. i have sensitive eyes too; i even had goddamn surgery on one a few years ago cause they're so friggin sensitive (like my heart! really!) and i'm not doing that light blue tint bullsheet.

in israel there used to be a fashion, a particular kind of sunglass, rayban i think, whose nickname was 'mishkafei dist-aance"—distance glasses—worn intentionally to create an i-thou barrier. they were favored by army gents.

almost blue

almost doing things we used to do. there's a girl here and she's almost me...uh oh, the melanchoies have arrived tonight. i thought they'd be delayed a couple of months but instead of mail, they found there way here. two days running no mail, not even a doggone catalog.

and suddenly this cool weather and a drink and my own fatigue make me a wee bit blue. so i'm hitting the sack to get up and run and chase these blues away. who has time for them? not me. not any more.

slushy's sense of smell

if i hadn't started riding the crimson tide today i might think i was with child. or with fetus. cause my olfactory talents are at genius levels right now and it's killing me. everywhere i go some kind of stank. at the gym, the smell of cleansing powder mixed with bathroom humidity and old air freshener seemed to waft (really not the right word as that connotes something pleasant to me, not something that makes you want fresh air more than anything else on earth) and made me leave posthaste at the end of my turn on the machine and not dilly dally with on site stretching. in the office there's a slightly sweet soapy smell but not sweet good—tis no less than sweet bad and kinda yucks me out. someone microwaved that faux butter popcorn and i gagged. in the hall i passed the building mgr who's a smoker and the stale old smoke smell radiated off of him in way that made me pick up my pace (and i'm already somewhat of a fast walker). all i need is to get into a gypsy cab with an overambitious pine decoration swinging from the rear view. and that will make me repeat a post-mary poppins-viewing day i once had (car ride, back seat, nauseated on a breakdown-lane-less highway in hartford, childproof windows that roll only half way down...we all know how it ends...with me watching benson in bed as everyone else ate dinner)

so it is today.