So today should have been lazier, given that we got back from Hellboy around 2am after dodging some drunken mics on the train who trampled poor Mark’s sandal to the point where it snapped and I had to step in and walk half-barefoot all the way home, and then lingered online for a while before hitting bed, but it felt good to hit keiko and then Rob Chin up for some authentic Frisco-beer bought in USq and spicy pickles to boot, though City Bakery ought not to smell like barf-cheese, I’m just saying. I should do more planks as my glutes need a good deal more work than they’ve been getting, perhaps. And then off all the way to Flushing for the usual 359 goodness plus even red mango, though mochis distressingly bear 62.5 calories per serving, which of course is irregular given the vicissitudes of serving size.

I’m glad that Mark and I are enjoying different wines. In the past week-plus, Mark West Pinot Noir 2006, Charmee Pinot Noir 2006, Rock Rabbit (the house white). All right, I guess it’s not that many, but at least there’s variety!

So there are some things one can only realize when one is standing guard as a break from the wind and the view for someone who has the functional role of a Joephet in your life, being lightly sprayed by the unending stream of much-complained about piss even as you are not looking, cuz you’ve seen that particular unit before, as the piss splatters on a Prizm you hope the guy walking across the street does not own. It is not clear what realization this is, but it is pretty clear that one should be pissing on a more expensive car.

And it started out relatively well, a bag of Cape Cod chips, and plannings with Alric to recoup the loss of last night, though not the $400 worth of drilling (teehee) that Alric did manage to somehow purchase. But waiting around so long for Joephet to show up was a little lame, and hot, but so it goes: falling in and out of sleep while reading Waugh is frightening: it makes one quiver like an English schoolboy about to be caned.

And after a dinner at Golden China with Joephet, which was a bit tense given what was discussed so drunkenly last night, it was off, late to Alric’s, where we managed to polish off a bottle of wine (we could have done more) and the first disc of Manhattan-based namedropping which now at last makes sense to us both. And yes, it is difficult watching this show as a Marxist. It is more difficult watching the show with a Marxist. And to Alric I grow closer, if only intrigued by how his attempt to make straight male friends in the city is stymied by the fact that his lunchdate casually mentions “this guy I’ve been dating for a few years” in the elevator ride back to the office. A lot of learning yet left for the both of us.

Out of loyalty I drag myself, sweating, swearing, my pencil broken, down to 46 Grand, for Joephet’s cousin’s birthday party, or somesuch. In any case, this is a drunken mess, in which Joephet loses his hat, and I am swallowing half of the bitterness that I could so easily spew (but it would be too easy…): and so I have little more to report, beyond perhaps the following attempt (for I have not much of an ear for dialogue, which makes my fiction suffer) at transcribing some Flip plans for what is to happen next in the evening:

“Yo, let’s just go to White Castle.”

“White Castle, their burgers are so small, yo”

“But they’re cheap, like fifty cents for a [gestures with hand, in a small square]“

“You need like six to get full”

“That’s like 3 bucks, though, so let’s go”

“Naw, 70 cents each, that’s 420. We should go to Chinatown.”

“For dimsum?”

“No, for 4 bucks you can get some fucking wonton noodle soup. That shit will fill you up.”

“I just want White Castle, I wanna go home, I’m tired.”

“No, you can get curry beef rice for 4 bucks, rice, man, they’re still open, and it’s like not far.”

Lather, rinse, repeat. Better Luck Tomorrow here we go again.