Last Saturday night I had a fever, but I went out anyways because it was Josh's art opening and he's a good guy.  There were beautiful girls there, with a few solid DJs, and just good people in general.  I was trying to dance my fever out of me, which worked for the most part.  At one point I went with the music and picked up my footwork, when all of a sudden I felt this sharp pain.  This cool guy named Joe had his dog with him at the art opening, which was like, a cool thing to do.  His dog was running around the place and every cool kid at the opening played with her.  Then the dog got real excited and bit me.  It hurt a bit, but everyone else was acting all cool.  I thought, maybe this is what people with dogs go through all the time.  I tried to keep my cool, my skin broke but my pants were fine, so I went about my business.  The cool guy Joe went on to play with his dog, and he was all like "yeah, it's ok, she's friendly and excited" or whatever it was that cool people say to you when their dogs bite others.  It didn't hurt much, but the pain also didn't go away.  Then I went on dancing, and the dog bit me again.  The dog bit a few more people too, but everyone went on goofing and drunk.  It wasn't until much later when my friend Kate said "you know, that wasn't cool how Joe just let his dog bite everyone like that" when I realized oh, even cool hip 20 somethings get bothered when dogs bite them.  Now, as nice and friendly of a hipster as Joe is, I'm gonna cool hipster friendly slap him in the face the next time I see him.  Not to hurt him, 'cause I like him, but you know, just to make matters right again.

my legs, this morning:
right leg

left leg



Last Saturday was a strange day.  Four people thought I was Filipino on four different occasions.  Nobody had ever said that to me before.  A bag lady at the Safeway came up from behind me and said "excuse me, ma'am."  I turned around, and she got terribly embarassed.  I told her it was ok, but she acted like she just talked trash about Jackie Chan or something.  She said "I said ma'am because your hair is very beautiful."
"Thank you."
"Many girls want to have hair like you."
"Thank you."
"I know many Filipino girls have hair like this."
"Thank you."
Pause.  Then she asked me, "Are you Filipino?"
"No."
"Oh."  She just looked super defeated, like she insulted both Jackie Chan and my mom.  I kept on smiling at her, but she was making a big deal out of her words.  I didn't know what to say, so I told her, "Well, my godmother is Filipino."
Her eyes came back alive and she said "Ooooh, so you half!"
I said "No no, godmother."
Pause.
Then she said "A quarter Filipino?"


Two weeks ago Alison and I did our regular walk to pick up kids from the Tenderloin school.  It was her birthday the day before; I offered to buy her ice cream.  The convenience store has nothing of her liking, but I got myself a triple chocolate drum stick.  It was big a delicious, for about 30 yards, until we walked by a free clinic and saw a man with a cane, slowly keeling over and eventually smashing his head on the sidewalk.  We went up to him to lift him up, but he was in too much pain.  He was in his 40's, unintelligible and barely conscious.  While Alison and another bystander went to get help, I stayed with the man.  There wasn't much I could do, he was in tremendous pain all over (it was the pain that led him to fall over).  I wanted to eat my delicious ice cream, but people kept on looking at me like I was this asshole, towering above a sick man with my ice cream.  I carefully re-wrapped it and put it down on the front steps of the clinic.  The guy was still unresponsive for the most part, I was finally able to get him up, but he was in too much pain to walk three feet to sit on the front steps.  I just held him in my arms to prevent him from falling over again.  A small circle began to gather around us.  I kept on looking over to make sure my ice cream was alright.
Alison sent the other bystander to our school, to tell our kids and co-workers that we were running late.  An ambulance claimed to be on its way, but was slow to show up.  An old guy walked by and declared "oh yeah, I know this guy!"  then proceeded to tell us his entire medical history.  Only in Tenderloin you can run into strangers that can recite everyone's medical history.  The fallen man was a stroke victim; his back was in constant pain, but couldn't afford an operation.  As a result he became addicted to methadone.
The helpful old man started slowly and surely hitting on Alison.  He wanted Alison to take him out to dinner, Alison smiled and played deaf.  25 minutes later, the ambulance still had not showed up.  I relayed all I'd seen to the helpful bystanders and had to go meet the kids with Alison.  I picked up my ice cream, which was still intact, and asked Alison if it was still good.  Alison said yeah.  I unwrapped it and took a bite.  Then I saw the corner of the front door of the clinic, out of the corner of my eye, and saw a chocolate stain.  I was sad and threw away may ice cream. 
A week later and it was still there:

mom, dad, sister




mom dad


mom dad grandfathers


my grandfather's birthday celebration; he turned 90 and was by himself because my grandmother just fell into a coma


some family friends sat with him


he founded a school there





grandma

whoa I can't believe it's already 2011.  Remember three years ago when America thought Bush was wrong, and then Bush came back and was like "I was right all along!" and dunked a basketball?  That was a wonderful Easter.

Anyways, here is a little list of my 10 favorite memories of 2007, I feel like I've talked about most of my favorite experiences of this year already, so I'll focus on the specific moments.

10. Elementary school re-union in Taipei.  I went back to Taiwan for little less than a week and caught up with some of my oldest friends.  One night they made a few calls and got our little gang back together.  It was five boys would became sworn brothers one fateful afternoon and had been hanging out with each other in some capacity once a week, and still addressed to each other as real brothers.  We called up this girl that everyone had a crush on, she came out.  Between good cold Taiwanese beer and cheap and fresh seafood, we each confessed our crush.  She was super funny about it.  Then we called her childhood crush, who was now a dentist, and made him come meet up with us.  He blushed superhard.

9. Lalea kind of invited herself along for the ride to Portland for Thanksgiving.  We were in a car with two much older ladies, one of which was named Cameron who hated us for our youth.  She was like a bitter and slightly large pre-school teacher who didn't seem to love life.  When it was Cameron's turn to play music, she played Scissor Sisters.  Lalea and I just laughed at her in the backseat for 10 hours.  She also shared super-sweet stories about her childhood and her family.

8. My friend Kendall invited me to crash a yum kappur celebration.  We ended up dancing at a Rabbi's girlfriend's house.  I saw a little boy who was all alone so I told him stories about the astrology and astronomy.  Kendall and I left the party, and it was really nice, to just talk about life on the long train ride.  When we got to the city, we decided to jump off the train to catch a dance party in a Chinatown lounge.  Chinatown was entirely silent because everyone was prepping for the autumn-moon weekend.  We danced in a gloriously sweaty basement, with kids who were still new friends at that point.  In between the jams we'd go up to the bar and I got to play my favorite Chinese pop songs on the jukebox.  (actually, my original item on the list for number 8 was the throwing of the cherry tomatoes at the loud citizens outside my house, but that story's been told already.)

7. I went home to Boston for a short weekend.  I kept on missing my boy Vaughn because he was moving that weekend.  Finally I caught him at around midnight before my last day in the city.  Our conversation was interrupted by these naugty pictures a female admirer kept on sending.  Then we bumped into Wayne and his co-worker Sarah, two real honest and upstanding citizens, and Vaughn showed them the naughty pictures too, 'cause, why not?  We had an extended goodbye on the train-ride back.  He had to get off a few stops before me.  I was trying to wrap up the night by showing him something from my backpack, I forgot what.  But somehow the stuff in my backpack just kept on falling out.  Every time I tried to pick something up, more fell out.  A nice, well-off-looking, WASP lady became very helpful and would tell me if more things fell out.  People on the train were laughing.  Her husband, however, just sat there cross-armed, looking like a mix between Chevy Chase and John Goodman, and kept on giving us the dirty eyes through his sunglasses.  He didn't think we could see his eyes but we could.  Vaughn didn't know why a stranger would just sit there and judge us in his polo shirt, but I told him to chill.   Then we started imitating the guy, 'cause he looked like he was in a silent movie or something, looking so over-the-top angry at us for reasons unknown.
Finally Vaughn got off.  I said goodbye to him.  A second later my phone started ringing, I answered and it was Vaughn.  He stood on the platform, right behind where Anger Goodman was sitting.  He was just pointing at the angry guy and laughing.  The whole train was laughing too.  As the train was about to leave, he knocked on the window.  The angry guy jumped up in his seat, and kept on screaming "what was that?!  what was that?!"  His wife, embarassed, whispered something in his ears.  Then he looked at everyone with lightning in his eyes, declaring "okay, okay, I get it!"

6. I had an awful December.  I was sick for a few weeks and my grandmother died.  I acted out a bit and really indulged in childish moods.  Towards the end of the month, Alejandra sent me a book for Christmas.  It was titled "The God of Small Things."  In it she said some of the nicest things a human being could say to another.  Amongst which is the following:
"I don't know what I'd do without you, so thank you for existing.  much love, Ale."
Opening up that card was a good moment, and a good beginning.

5. On one particularly cold and moody Friday afternoon at work, Alison, Kate, Arthur, and I made a decision to go to Tahoe for a spontaneous weekend trip.  45 minutes after we got off, Arthur packed all of us into his car and we were en route to Tahoe.  The following Sunday we swung by Nevada to drop off Arthur's gracious buddy whom let us crash at his place.  We had breakfast in Carson City, and Kate began talking about her father, who'd passed, and her memories of skiing with him a child, and how this weekend picked up some of those memories.  At the end of it she just smiled and said "I really miss him."  It was one of the most understated and beautiful (not to mention spontaneous) elegies I'd ever witnessed.

4. One Sunday in March I ventured into City of Refuge, a powerful powerful church by downtown.  Unbeknownst to us, it was Youth Sunday, and the service focused on the kids.  My friend Forest and I went over and got down.  After about an hour, a lady pastor got on the pulpit.  She said she couldn't go on without the following testimony, then a father and his little girl went up.  The father was a young and handsome black man, his girl was about 4 or 5 years old, maybe younger.  He first talked, in real vague terms, about how the girl came into his life--he assumed the congregation was familiar with his story, and I supposed they were.  From what I could gather the girl was adopted a while ago, under difficult circumstances, what the circumstances were I was not sure.  Either way, the girl had been going into his bedroom everynight for the past month, because she had been getting nightmares.  Finally, about a week ago, he told her she should maybe pray about her nightmare.  She said how, he said, you know how we'd been praying every night?  You could add your own prayer to it.  Then for the past week she hadn't come to his room.  Last night he asked her what she did, and she prayed this prayer.
3. I finished cutting my movie, Hakuma Hallelujah.  My last week of editing it consisted of less than 4 hours of sleep every night.  I finished it after three days of human-free interaction.  I took a breath, walked out into a lazy dusk, I ordered some food by myself at the Chinese joint down the street from me.  Then I just slumped there, looking directly into the sun for a good 10 minutes.  Now doctors say I'm legally retarded!

2. I convinced my co-worker Alison that I might have a concussion sometime around April.  I kinda scripted the progression - when to play the gags and how to top each gag.  I'd been doing things like staring into my hand with utter fascination, stopping myself mid-sentence, repeating the same information or question, falling, dropping things, laughing uncontrollably, and having all my friends in on the gags.
One sunny afternoon we were walking to the Tenderloin elementary school to pick up our students.  I hadn't play any gag on her that day because she came to my naturalization ceremony in the morning after finding out quite last minute.  I was really moved.  We were walking down hill to the Tenderloin that morning, I was still trying to act perplexed but she was cheering me up by singing "God Bless the USA" off the top of her lung.
Finally that afternoon I felt like enough time had passed for me to rid myself of any conscience.  We were en route to picking up our kids and I was just struggling to come up with a gag.  Suddenly, half a block from the school I saw an old lady wearing a bright red sweater.  I then "missed" the turn and just kept on following the old lady.  Alison kept on calling my name.  Finally I turned around.  She said "are you okay, Pete?"  I just said "so red!"

1. The best moment of 2007 was probably the dance party that I'd already detailed before.  Here's the excerpt from the blog, about my long weekend roadtrip down to LA:
Ben invited us to a party up there in LA.  But we broke his heart and said no.  No hip people, no pretty girls, no semi-celebrities.  Tonight we're business.  We crashed a houseparty; it was full of OC dudes and girls, and aspiring film people.  The DJ of the party had a fake british accent, played techno music with a giant british flag draped down from his table booth.  We danced it up.  I haven't crashed a house party like that in a while, just crashing a place with my good friends and seizing the dance floor.  I actually got a little jealous when this random family in a sushi house in tahoe told my friends and I about their ballerina son doing the same thing in Atlanta.  The music was terrible and not very danceable, so we'd form a circle, dance, then break up, every few songs.  Each time we formed the circle, it got a little bigger, and each time we'd up the ante just a little bit.  

Then it kept on getting wilder.  At one point I pretended I was breakdancing, then I started pratfalling all over the place.  Finally I steadied myself, got up, wiped off my sweat, and acted like I was slightly embarrassed.  Jimi came in with some silly Jane Fonda moves, then started breakdancing for real.  He wasn't a real good breaker, but he was strong and it was way funnier to see a goofy kid pulling off some maneuvers.  The crowd was really loving it.  Then Dan came out.  Dan was the most normally dressed of us--he had on clubbing clothes, and the entire night he was doing small talks with girls and drinking, amongst other normal things for normal parties, and I really thought he was just a little bit more self-conscious than the rest of us, maybe it was my own prejudice, anyhow.  He came into the circle and began jig dancing, we were all cheering, then T-Bird came out in solidarity and jig danced face to face with Dan.  T-Bird stretched out his left hand, then his right hand, then put his hands together to make a little step.  A few girls were like "what's he doing?"  and I said to myself, no way, the celing's WAY too low!  But there it was, Dan ran right up to him, into T-Bird's hands, and did a beautiful, low backflip, almost kicked out the ceiling fan, landed right back on his feet, and kept on jigging.  The whole circle threw their hands up and screamed.  It was perfect, it was fun.

Now share with me some of your memories.

It was my godmother's birthday.  My godmother was an eternally youthful lady and I had no idea how old she was.  I knew she was much much younger than my lucky godfather, but no idea how young.  I decided to call my godfather and to guestimate, I called him and I said "hey, did your wife turn 40 today?"  He screamed "She's not 40!", followed by "Pete Lee YOU SUCK" and hung up the phone.

An hour later I was on the train on my way to work.  There were two lawyers who were loudly discussing their cases.  There was an attractive older lady sitting next to them, playing with her blackberry, and looking as irked as everyone else on the train.  It was two young lawyers, one of them a bit younger and had this bravado in his voice as he casually mentioned "ooh yeah, there was $300,000 at stake" amongst other things that didn't matter but he tried to make them sound like they did.
There was this old gag that my friends and I used to do: we would each take out different objects: a shoe, a tie, a granola bar...etc., and we would talk into them like they were phones and start up "important conversations".
I pulled out my wallet and said "Hello?  Doctor?  Oh no, no worries, it's not a bad time.  Can you please tell me your verdict?  Oh, so it's definitely contagious?  Extremely contagious you say?  Air----airborne contagious?  No, no I'm at home.  Yeah, that's just my TiVO."  The two lawyers' conversation came to a halt, and the older blackberry lady was laughing.  I kept on coughing violently into the lawyers' direction, as I discussed payment plans with my doctor.

At Glide where I work, we sometimes receive free groceries that are nearing their expiration date.  Wednesday night as I was about to leave I was told to pack in as many baby cherry tomatoes as I can fit, 'cause apparently nobody else wanted to eat them.  As a decent cook I still had no idea what to do with them.
My buddy Ethan came over later that night to work on sound for my film Hakuma Hallelujah, which apparently is a masterpiece that nobody else understands.  Anyways, while we were chilling, there was a group of hipsters outside my house, chatting loudly.  My house faced the rough and tumble streets of the West Coast, perhaps the roughest street on the entire Coast, peppered with one gun store, one liquor store, and countless authentic restaurants and hipster bars.  Nas would flee.  However, this particular group of upstanding taxpayers really irked me for some reason, as they stood in front of my door and screamed their conversations for the 'hood to decipher.  It wasn't even late, but it was very irritating, as they were there for about 45 minutes, loud non-stop.  Ethan left my house, and as I walked him out, we acted like we were mid-conversation and I said something like "so yeah, you should try pooping on her face next time as well", the young folks just looked at us and continued their pointless privleged noise.
I came back to my room, ready to watch a Christopher Doyle film which I hadn't seen, when I saw my bag of baby cherry tomatoes.  I instantly reminisced all the times when Ben Fee, N'jeri, Nick and I would sneak onto the rooftop of the VFW next to their house and hurl bananas at drunken loudness.
I had three windows in my room, for some God-decided reason, the screen in my middle window fell off, leaving just a window pane between myself and the rough and tumble streets of the West Coast.  I turned off my lights, pulled up the window and the venetian blinds, and began hurling.  This was a much harder task because the targets were at an angle and there was a giant Gun Store sign between the targets and me.  I tried a few methods and failed to deter their interesting lively discussions about how pointless their lives must be.
I then suddenly recalled the other portions of my flashback, when Nick and Ben always proved to be better hurlers of objects than me, and I was always more of an enabler/ cheerleader than a cohort.  I was saddened by their absences and tried getting my roommate in on this, he was not home.  I sat in front of my computer, as I am right now, a tiny bit deflated but mostly irritated.
Then the girl from the gang shrieked again.  I then remembered (these flashbacks are absolutely true by the way and they are in the orders which I am writing right now) the one time that I'd successfully landed my target: I was on the back porch of their apartment and I threw half a banana that hit a girl coming out of the bar and she screamed "I don't even like bananas!" into the vast dark void that was the streets of Boston.  I got your message girl, loud and clear.
That scream outside my door had to go, I have to sleep, my children have to learn, and my cherry tomatoes were about to expire.  I recalled the basic mechanics of a shotgun (from that movie "No Country for Old Men" that I'd just seen) and packed in fistuls of cherry tomatoes at a time.  I'd lean back for leverage, and adjusted my projectiles each time.  Their loud and private conversation had been going on for an hour now, there were hardworking immigrants in my hood who had to serve coffee to these ironic soundbite jukeboxes in the morning, I told myself.  I threw a few more and then I heard a very familiar and satisfying "what the f--!?" outside my window. 
I stood still for a second, but they could kinda see my silhoutte though no really.  I tried to smoothly close the window and the blinds next to me, but it became as obvious as Rudolf's nose (or that movie Crash's biased moral) as the blinds got stuck and wouldn't come down in one pull. 
The four of them just stared at my dark room for a second, and then the girl said to one of the boys "don't be nervouce, just go up and lay your hands on him."  The guy never "laid his hand" on me. They said bye to each other and peaced outta my street. 

• I looked for a book It's been kinda a long time since I posted a blog. My summer had been so crazy. Though it was quite eventful, there just wasn't enough conflict for me to write up. Though I'd been spending a lot more time with friends, I felt a bit more anti-social and had been shying away from gatherings or big parties. Summer seemed like a big blur to me, lemme bullet point a few things that popped to my head:

• Found a pink button-down shirt that I really loved at a thrift store, but it came with a security tag. I couldn't be bothered with trying to figure out how to remove the tag so I drew a Japanese businessman on there. Now it's a lucky charm.

• Vertigo kicked in for about five weeks in July and August. I bought a cane from a lady over Craigslist for 10 bucks. I felt like something happened with me and the cane but I forgot what. It was fun though.

• I got in a dance battle with a kid one night at a club. He took my hat off and threw it on the ground. I picked up my hat, rubbed it against my booty, and then shoved it in his face.

• Talia, a little girl that I teach, thinks I live in the forest.

• All the friendly Latino dudes on my street turned hostile towards me one night when I was walking around with a pretty Latina girl. It was fun though, we found an abandoned office chair and roamed around the street with it.

• I have a protege now. She's a 15-year old girl who will grow up to be just like me.

• At work they did a staff appreciation thing and took us out to pool and movies. There were only five movies playing in the afternoon and Superbad was not one of them. I didn't wanna see any other movie so I went with Bourne Ultimatum even though I'd seen it already. I went with my boss's boss and two other co-wokers. The big boss and I talk about movies all the time, which was the reason I wanted to see a movie with him, just to bond a little more.
All was well until about 5 minutes into the movie when four high school girls came in and sat down in front of us. Then they proceeded to talk throughout the movie. Sometimes I'd shush them, sometimes they'd shush each other, and a few scenes drowned out their voices, but still, they were chatting for pretty much the whole movie. I didn't wanna lose it in front of the big boss so I could only shush them.
Then afterwards I was at the subway with my big boss. He jumped on his train, when I saw those four girls on the platform, with some fresh new clothes. I thought, God must'd put them in front of me for a reason. I then went up to them, and I said "hey, weren't you girls at the Bourne Ultimatum earlier?" with this really chipper voice. They were a bit creeped out, but they said yeah. I said "What was your favorite part of the movie?" Still with the smiley voice, I said "My favorite part was when four girls in front of me wouldn't shut the fuck up." They were all turning towards each other, trying to ignore me. But the fat funny one said "My favorite part was the guy kept shushing me." Before they could giggle amongst themselves, I said "Well, I guess my favorite part was 40 times longer than your favorite part."

BUT ANYWAYS
This past thursday I got off of work a little late and went to the library to pay my outstanding fee. I was also really really interested in finding a book called "the big con: the story of the confidence man". I was reading in a magazine a few days before, in which two screenwriters said that was the definitive source for all things con artist related. I couldn't find it at any of the book stores. I went looking for it at the library, the librarian said it came up as "missing." But, before leaving, she told me there was a 50/50 chance that a book labeled "missing" is floating around the library somewhere. She gave me a code and I went after it. I looked for the number a few times on the shelf and on the neighboring shelves, just to see if it was misplaced. Nothing came up. There were about 20 metallic carts with all these unshelved books. I thought if the librarian gave me such a tip tonight, it must serve some kinda purpose. I began looking through the carts. First casually, just once-overing them for matching numbers. Then I realized all of the carts ended with books that were one number off from my number (364.something). I began combing through the carts. After which I was on my knees, with my big-ass backpack, scouring the spines for the number. Two carts from the end I got sandwiched by some dude who was trying to get by who didn't see me. Then a leg tripped on my leg. Then I found the book.

www.tomandrodna.com/america.mp3

I just got sworn in earlier today.

TODAY--

my shoulder is killing me.  working out is for stupid people.

I went on a road trip with Mike and Ben a few years ago, and I'd just gotten this from Mike.  The kid's a beautiful storyteller and I'd like to transcribe it here without his permission.

I smashed my hip skateboarding and was limping like crazy when they dropped me off in Oklahoma City. I took another bus up to Topeka where I'd meet up with Ben and Pete Lee. They were going to arrive at eight pm just as I did, but Bens car had broken down before leaving Colorado. He left a message on my voicemail saying he was back on the road and would be there in a few hours. The woman in the Greyhound station locked the door at ten but let me read the Unbearable Lightness of Being, which Travis had given me, by the vending machine light while she cleaned up. She was probably in her seventies, she rolled a bucket and a mop out of the closet. I asked her if I could help, she handed me the mop and took off to clean the bathroom. All alone, mopping the the floor of the Greyhound station in Topeka Kansas, I didn't even realize the radio had been on until I heard "I go out walking... After midnight... Out in the moonlight..." My grandmother always liked Patsy Cline. I thought how she would be happy that I was helping this lady clean up. Around midnight she had to lock up and go home. She said she felt bad putting me out in the cold and gave me a sweatshirt out of the lost and found. "I took this home and washed it, so it's nice and clean." she told me. I told her I'd leave it on the door handle when my friend picked me up. The fall was in full swing so it was getting pretty cold out. I'd skateboard a bit, every so often to keep warm. Just rolling around since my hip was so badly bruised and I had a cast on my right arm still. At one in the morning a cop pulled up. I figured he'd give me a hard time about skateboarding and at worst give me a ticket. He was cool though, and asked me if I worked at the station. I told him no, and that I was waiting for a friend who had been delayed by breaking down in Colorado. He said he drove by earlier and had seen me mopping. I told him that was just in exchange for that lady letting me stay inside for a while. He said if Ben didn't show up and it was getting really late that I should walk next door to the police headquarters. He'd be at the dispatch till nine am and said I could sleep in one of the empty cells if I wanted. I told him I feared waking up with the cell locked and some other cops trying to figure out who I was and what I had done. It sounded funny though, and it was pretty cold. After he left I thought it would be hilarious if Ben didn't show up and I ended up over there. Around two thirty Pete and Ben rolled into the station. They gave me a thanksgiving sandwich: turkey, potatoes, stuffing, carrots and cranberry sauce on a really good roll. It was awesome, the first thing I'd eaten in over twenty four hours. Pete Lee had never gotten his license. When he had his permit he smashed into the town library in Westford Massachusetts where he grew up. Books fell off the shelves that were closest to the wall he had hit. Ben and I took turns driving though the night while Pete slept in the back. We stopped in Columbus to get ice cream at three pm. One of my favorite ice cream places, Graeters, is a little out of the way but well worth the trip. I'd only met Pete a few times before, but it was hilarious getting to know him better on the trip. I could see why Ben liked him. We got to New York late that night and slept at their friend from Emerson's apartment. I can't remember her name, but she was a really cute Asian girl so Pete and Ben crowded into bed with her. The next morning we had breakfast with Jon Roy before getting back on the road. As always, it was good to see him, as brief as it was. I fell asleep in the passenger seat on ninety five north. Ben skipped the route through Hartford and New Haven so we ended up in Providence. My favorite chocolate chip cookie place, the Meeting Street Café, was there so we stopped again for a snack. I basically lived in Providence with my first love, Simone, a few years earlier. It was weird to be in a place that reminded me so much of her when we'd grown so far apart. In college I'd go to visit my good friend Reby at RISD every so often. She'd always insist "You have to meet my friend, Simone. You're going to love her." She was right too. Finally, after a full year of hearing about her they had become roommates and I was going to meet her. I showed up at one am to their apartment on Langdon street. Reby greeted me and said her roomates were asleep and that I'd meet them in the morning. I slept on a mattress on the floor in the living room in front of the giant wooden door that lead into Simone's room. When I woke up the next day the apartment was silent and empty. I wandered into the kitchen where I was surprised by this girl quietly sipping tea at the small round table by the window. She had brown hair all tied up with something like a chopstick stuck through it. She was wearing her silver silk pants that were big and looked more like a dress then anything else. In the future I'd get to know them but at first glance they were confusing the way they tied up in the front. She said "Good morning." and at that point in my life was the best looking person that had ever spoken to me. I asked who she was and said Simonette with a Swiss-German accent. I didn't put it together that Simone and Simonette were the same person so I sadly decided that this wasn't the girl Reby had been telling me about. I figured she was someone's older sister, just there for a visit. She was so relaxed and exuded a confidence that made her seem like she had her shit together, somehow. I figured she was in her late twenties, and here I was nineteen. She was way out of my league. I asked "Do you live here?" as she poured me a glass of tea. She said "Yes." and pointed to the big wooden door. "I thought that was Simone's room?" I said. "I am Simone." she replied. I lost my stomach like I was on a rollercoaster. Holy Shit! This was the girl Reby had been telling me about all this time?! There was no way, Reby must have been crazy, I couldn't even hang out with a girl like that. I was boring, average, american. She was opposite in every way. Reby came home and took Steve Carter and I around town all day. I mentioned Simone every chance I got. It was Reby's birthday, early September, and that night we went out to sushi with about nine friends. Steve sat to my left as Simone was about to sit across from me, then at the last second she slid over to the setting right next to me. I tried very hard to stop grinning like a fool. I'd never eaten sushi before and didn't know what wasabi was. She gave me a huge chunk on the end of her chopstick and said I should eat it. Everyone at the table looked over to see, "Do you like candy?" she asked. "It's sweet like candy, you'll like it." I couldn't believe she convinced me to eat it. My eyes watered as she giggled. "Okay, this girl is evil or something." I thought to myself, but it was funny and sort of broke the ice in a weird way. Now I could push her and say "You're mean!" We all walked back to Langdon street, she talked to me in the back of the group the whole way as we started to lag behind everyone else. Back at the apartment we made a huge nest of blankets and pillows that slid across the hardwood floor in the living room. We tried to watch the "Milagro Beanfield War" but people lost interest and slowly trickled back to their respective rooms, till it was just the two of us left. Although, I do recall Steve was passed out on the couch not far from us. She kissed me on the neck as she got up and left. I figured that was it and laid my head back, content and smiling. Then the big wooden door slid open a little and she motioned for me to come in. As I was shutting the door behind me Steve awoke and whispered "Who's room is that?" as if he didn't know. I silently mouthed the word "Simone" he smiled and shook his head in disbelief and went back to sleep. She was my girlfriend off and on for the next two or three years. The first girl I ever loved and I finally told her just before it all ended. One summer I bought a Plymouth Colt for seven hundred dollars and immediately drove from New Hampshire down to Washington DC to see her at her moms house. In the fall I drove three hours down to Providence just about every weekend. We'd eat banana pancakes at Louie's for breakfast and go to the Meeting street Café in the afternoon to split a cookie that was the size of a frisbee. "Cross over Thayer street and take a left at the Citizens bank. Two Blocks up make a left on Meeting Street and the café is on the right." I told Ben as we rolled into town. The sign was the same, two tea cups made into heads facing each other. The cookies had gone up in price to four twenty five, but hey had gotten even bigger then before. It was October and the taste of the cookie reminded me again of seven years previous. It was kind of creepy, how little had changed. Thayer street was even more infested with teenage gutter punk wannabes. When these confused kids walked by Pete would yell out "You guys wanna get high?!" They'd kind of pause and look at him, as if to say "Yeah." but he just stared back and then would shout "HIGH!?" As we walked back to the car a waitress was smoking a cigarette behind the restaurant near our parking spot. Pete told her she was too pretty too smoke and that she smelled like rainbows. There was a huge new mall in Providence and we got lost trying to drive around it. The road I had always taken was gone. Right across the street from the capital dome we found an abandoned building. It was really cool looking from the outside, so we parked and walked over. I was surprised I'd never seen it before. Simone's old apartment on Pitman avenue had an awesome view of the capitol building. The gate was open so we walked in and took a few pictures. It was pretty unsafe in there and obvious that we shouldn't be in there. Just as we came out of the front door a worker walked up to the gate. He looked at us, said nothing and proceeded to lock us in. What a weird thing to do. We hoped the fence and made our way up to Boston.

Last friday night Forest came by and we went to check out a karaoke bar across the street from me.  I got curious about the place when coming home with some friends one night and heard townies all singing "take me home country road" in unison from there.  It was a total dive bar, and I guess it prided itself in being san francisco's #1 dive bar as voted by some newspaper once or something.  there were a lot of hot girls and a lot of giant booties, but most of them belonged to other dudes. 

I did "afternoon delight" but I wasn't as into it as I thought I'd be--it looked funner when anchorman did it.  then Forest and I caught up and stared at booties for an hour, then I went up again and did "can't take my eyes off you."  It was the "gloria gaynor" version of the song.  I'd heard someone in LA done a kickass version of this song at a karaoke bar (as documented from the last post), it was like a smokey robinson synthesizer version or something.  but my version was wicked slow, when I really felt like dancing, y'know.  I was a little bummed out, but I kept on singing anyways, then, after the first verse, the words on the screen disappeared and the screen just said "have a good time" and I was like "what?" and then this techno beat kicked in and the song became all techno and stuff.  I was like "aww snap" and I began dancing my ass off.  It was a really long instrumental break between the verse and the chorus, like 8 bars of dancing or something.  So I did my thing.  Some drunk people threw me their plastic horse prop to have me dance with it, and I did.  It was a good feeling, to get the booty girls of all stripes up and dancing.  I went on singing, to be followed by more dance breaks.

Afterwards this cute girl in black hoodie started talking to me, she had a friend with big hair and big hair's long hair boyfriend.  we were making jokes and stuff, when I smelled this rotten egg smell.  I dunno what she was having, but I was like, ahh, that was why it was too good to be true--OF COURSE the only available pretty girl at the bar talking to me smelled like weird eggs.  I tried not to be superficial and tried to let go of the smell, she seemed like a funny angry girl, but the smell was just weird.  Eventually I went back home with Forest.  Forest sat down in my room, and the smell still lingered.  Then I realized--it was Forest who had some seafood salad or something that stayed with him.