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  • Regrets, Social Obligations and Expensive Manhattan Resturants

    Today I am full of regret and anxiety for having said I would attend the gathering of co-workers,  food snobs and gourmands, to celebrate the return visit of two former co-workers back home to the Big Apple.

    I struggle with blowing $150 bucks on a meal,  and yet living in Manhattan and having the opportunity to. 

    This money could go very well for bills.  It is true,  I'll be living on fumes all week till the next pay check,  but it is also true that my bills are paid on time and I can afford food.  

    People tell me that I only live once and that I should enjoy life while I can and occasionally toast the good life and live a little and I hardly ever go out.

    People say it's for the experience too,  the ambiance,  the atmosphere,  the nightlife,  the cajoling with friends slash co-workers on a spree with "the other half",  the people who eat well and follow celebrity chefs around the globe to sample their culinary delights.

    Tonight, they picked a "less expensive" place,   Craft Bar Restaurant.

    There's lots of little appetizers they all order,  to sample this and that, and wine and food sharing and stuff,   celebrity chefs  it all adds up at the end.

    Last time they deducted for me for wine and I was grateful,  I will remind them to do so again without being embarrassed about it,  if they forget tonight.

    GOD  I HATE THIS

    I don't know where else this was done but people here always divide the bill and evenly, not based on what you ordered...
    And tipping big is part of the deal too. 

    It makes us think we are big or something (?)

    CELEBRITY CHEFS,  and they GLOAT AND MOAN over the FOOOOOODDDD!

    And they DROOOOOLLL all over the desserts!

    This is the last time.  I am never doing this again.

    I will not drink one of the 4 or 5 bottles of wine,  neither will the Mormon.   I may have a beer.   I hate this.  I said "sure, I'll go,  I'll save for it"  like an idiot, last month when it was planned....

    I'm sure to give a food review tomorrow.  I don't enjoy food as much as these people do.   They know all about it and they sample it.  They know about wines too.

    I have never been a snob and this reeks of the same type of emotions I got when trying to "fit in"  or be one of the "cool people" when I was much younger and unaware of my own feelings and responses.

    These people aren't really phony,  they are good peeps,  there's about 7 of us.    I feel good and always did feel good about being or about having that feeling of being "included",   although strongly aware of its falseness and the phony stuff that goes on around these types of things.

    I never pretend to talk up the food.  I know nothing about the food world and make no bones about my Taco Bell tastes.

    None in this group are trying to impress any of the others,  we are all fully mature adults.   It's really the money that bugs me.

    I'm living the high life,  I feel like the Pauper who lived like the Prince.   I am literally borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, as they say...  but it's a never ending ride, right?

    They tell me it's the ride, not the destination, so I should enjoy it,  right?

    Then why do I feel like I want to back out?   Part of it is excessive social anxiety.  I've been anxious and nervous now for two days,  "oh why did I say I would do this????" 

    Then I checked my checking account after paying rent and bills.

    EEK.  Shit.    and yet to many people living in this city I am still a rich man.    I can do this.   Why does it feel so bad?

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    .It's not so bad is it? 

    It is NEW YORK

    Am I getting it while I can?  Am I just a fool? 
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    Is everything really all relative and should I just enjoy it and let it happen and pass???
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  • Should Hillary Become Vice President?


    Many people would love to see Hillary team up with Obama now as VP.  We would get the experience of the Clinton Dynasty, past presidential experience; Obama Hil and Bill.

    What scares me now that Obama is the candidate, is that racism in this country is so great that people will vote for McCain simply out of fear of a BLACK man or a "Muslim  i.e. terrorist" in the office.

      I believe the stupid and ignorant live and breath in numbers and that this could be a possible response, ending up with another Republican Administration and continuing the downward spiral we are currently in.

    Believe me,  I have heard people say these things.  I know these people are rampant.

    Fear is a cruel motivator.

    I truly believe that a Democratic Administration will change our daily lives for the better.

    Notice I'm not saying that the bigger picture will change much,  I've pretty much given up hope for that and our place in the world,  but the Administration and the Media will do its damnedest to make it appear as if we are on the upswing as opposed the downfall.

    The scary part is if the two sides, if there really ARE two sides to begin with, start an out and out war in America and we get caught in the crossfire.

    An assassination,  more war,  the continued deconstruction of "democracy" as we have known it...

    Possibly another terrorist attack,  if not a real one,  a staged terrorist attack or an allowed one,  just to give us the edge again.  Americans are pretty forgetful and easily fall into a comfortable routine,  I can say that because I am one and do....

    can you say "distraction"?

    They could stage a terrorist attack just to get us to vote for the Republicans too, so watch out for that.

    Who are you voting for?  

    Wanna do a Xanga straw poll?

    Let's elect a Xanga President right now instead of waiting!  Hoo Haw!
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    ...oh, i just remembered... this isn't a democracy either.
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  • Persistant Life Form Reaches Large Intestine

    It's true what the television says about Activia,  the yogurt in the green container.   That bloated and sluggish feeling is gone.  Let me be blunt and just put it out there;  taking a shit is like pooting out fluffy puffs of cotton.  Taking a shit leaves a remarkable likeness of the shape of your colon and intestines.   Having something "whipped into shape" takes on a whole new meaning.

    I know it's healthy to have colon shaped stools because I heard Oprah Winfrey say it on her show.

    ...anyway,   it really is possible to fly off the toilet, arms outstretched,  bounce around  with joy and scratch the floor like a happy dog does, and you'll completely understand why dogs do that when you take the Activia Challenge ( 2 weeks on the stuff to a whole new sense of regularity)

    I don't know much about the science of probiotics,  but I do know I am on an antibiotic for a knuckle infection and in general,  have had those sluggish, full, bloated feelings that people talk about on the television, and that eating Activia yogurt has made having a bowel movement a whole new experience.

    Of course I was constipated until I was in my thirties and didn't know it,  all related to lack of water,  lack of exercise and poor diet,   but THIS!  This is a whole new level of bowel movement satisfaction.

    That said,  knowing the antibiotic would kill all of my positive symbiotic tissue sharing lifeforms, I stocked up on all the YoGoat, kefir and other probiotic enhancing and containing,  and otherwise living cultured foodstuffs I could get my hands on.  

    I hate taking antibiotics,  and for the stupidest of things, an infected finger....  but,  didn't want any flesh eating bacteria so I jumped on it and everyone seemed to think it was a good idea. 

    I showed a Dr. at the work place and he recommended the antibiotics, in fact I showed 2 and then went to my personal Dr. and got a weeks worth of Bactrim,  not my choice,  and very STRONG...   Can't wait till Friday... Until it's over, I'm pushing live cultures through my slimy tube and strength to the troops who make it to the LARGE INTESTINE.     I can't afford to not keep things moving.

    Ok,  enough of the dinner talk.

    On Friday I saw  Indiana Jones and was pleasantly disappointed that I wasn't as disappointed as I could have been.   I remember the excitement and joy of seeing the original,  a rarity from Hollywood for me,  yet was able to maintain a sense of LOW expectations enough so that its sugary sweet skullyness wasn't too disappointing, and seeing the OLD STARS get together was quite bucolic,  and having this regularly shitting digestive system, that wasn't a problem at all. 

    (the crystal skull was a plastic skull stuffed with Saran Wrap?)

     It was a fun jaunt and I only resented the ticket price for 2 days, and didn't grumble much  about the law suit which I read about having to do with showing fifty billion commercials before the movie starts and NOT starting the movie at the listed time...

    ...okay they seemed to have trouble in the projection room,  what, is this for effect?  Take me back to the fifties,  NOT!

    On Sunday was Japan Day in central park and although I got a ton of free green tea samples,  it was quite dull and the pictures were not that great so much so as I didn't even try to edit or otherwise dick with them as yet.

    The only good thing was a big Hello Kitty with a  GIANT  HEAD but there were tons of people around it and I couldn't near the tent to take photos.

    So that was my weekend,  and this is my week.  

    The moon is dark today.   The blog bug has not bitten me in several days,   although the blog has been 'calling' to me all this time... 

    But, needed to blog something this far,  aching to blog,  yen to write...

    ...i guess you could even say i got a bug up my ass...
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    I pray this becomes featured content.

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    although i know it's a crap shoot...

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  • A CRANE JUST COLLAPSED

    It's a crane I can see out my window!  I KNEW that crain was going to collapse.   I blogged about dangerous construction sites the day BEFORE that LAST big construction accident.

    If NYC construction is NOT UNSAFE IN GENERAL>>>

       THEN I must be PSYCHIC.....

     so that means..., 

     thank god nothing is going up near me but there are construction cranes ALL OVER THE PLACE!

  • TB Test and Infected Finger


    I was so good,   after scraping the knuckle of my index finger off, basically, the top skin anyway,  ...at keeping it clean and covered.   That was until I ran out of band aids.  

    I think it's infected.  

    The knuckle is all red and swollen and it feels tight and when I bent my finger I think some pus came out under the scab, which is right exactly on the top bendy part of the finger,  right exactly where, if you knocked on a door with just the index finger,  the part that touches the door,  the part with the accordion skin.

    I had to go to the ER for an infected finger,  a hangnail,  a few months ago.   It was a holiday weekend and the Dr. was on vacation or otherwise unaccessible so I went.   They gave me a lung x ray and everything  because I had a slight cough,  and they said I was wise to come in because the finger was infected.

    Since I'll be at a medical facility today and will be having a TB test I will ask the nurse to look at my finger and I may need to see my Dr. if the can see me this afternoon,  or a Dr.   I hate to take antibiotics.... oh,   another reason I went to the ER that time is because it was the time when the MRSA virus was all over the news.

    I just rememberd MRSA ... .... shit, 

    .......I gotta get a new box of Bandaids!!!!

  • What are five things you hate?


    1.The Bush Administration
    2. Ignorance
    3. The Propogation of Fear
    4. Pain
    5. Unnecessary Social Conventions
      
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  • Did Anyone Else Get A Free Scented Oil Candle From Glade?

    What did I do to deserve this?

    Of course a wave of curiosity hit me when I found the little orange slip in the mailbox.
    I hadn't ordered anything.

      Perhaps someone sent me something!  A surprise.

    The small white box with little flowers on it was mystifying.  The return address hinted at some type of FREE SAMPLE,  and this was no little packet of shampoo,  no tiny toothpaste, this was a large FREE SAMPLE,  unless, this wasn't the original box.

    I hate to brag, but;

    It turned out to be a full sized scented oil candle from Glade,  something I have seen before but would not buy.  I don't go for artificially scented things in general, but something this BIG and this FULL SIZED, was a nice surprise.  

    The scent was 'spiced rose and vanilla',  which sounds really disgusting but it smells okay. 

    So now, the next morning it's like,   whoop-de-do, and what a nauseating scent....

    They claim to be natural now.  This will not sway me.

    It came with coupons for refills.

    I do have a thing for candles,  how did they know?  This thought is semi bothersome.

    I would never buy one of these disgusting things,  and rarely buy air fresheners in the supermarket, only for true odor emergencies.

      I'm sorry but EWWW.

    I do, however,  admit to a certain amount of JOY at getting something for free.  It's the best type of advertising, and I'm not talking about free sample,  I'm talking about FULL SIZED PRODUCT.

    SUPERSIZE ME BOY HOWDY!
    (god i haven't said that in a long time)

    I put it away, for a stinking day,   or the fall,  when spiced rose and vanilla might be a bit more appropriate. 

    It both disgusts me yet gave me a little lift at getting it free in the mail,  like a gift from a large corporation.   Obviously they know I despise these,  they want to reign me in.   It came to the post office and not the house so at least they don't know where I live.

    Did anyone else get one????
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    ...who do they think I am?  Divine, in Polyester? 

    (the john waters movie)

    (do i dare interpret this as some type of gift from the gods related to the metaphoric interpretations of the significance of a candle / flame?, some type of help or inspiration or otherwise divine guidance?)

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  • What is your favorite movie quote?


        "We may not enjoy living together, but dying together isn't going to solve anything" 

    (couple in basement)

          And a close second  "They're coming to get you Barbara!"   ( opening scene )

           Both from the George Romero classic   Night Of The Living Dead
       

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  • "Happy Memorial Day" An Oxymoron, YOU MORON!


    "She called to wish ya a happy holiday..."
    "What's so happy about it!",  he shouted,  "this day is based in sadness."

    I was in the bodega buying a lotto ticket and the girl behind the counter had just hung up the phone and was telling the man selling me the ticket what the caller had said.   He looked at me and rolled his eyes,  then over at the door where the little bell tinkled as another lazy customer ambled in.

    "This holiday is based in death, grief and sadness..." the lines in his face told me he knew what he was talking about.  I agreed with a "yap" and took my ticket,  walking out into the unusually hot and unexpectedly slow moving sun.

    It was a memorial day to think about my mother a lot.

    We went to brunch.  AA lost himself in a day long video game and I had no desire to do anything.  We went to the store and bought groceries on the way home and that was about it.   I took a nap and was surprised to find it  still before noon when I woke up again.   The day was not unpleasantly hot,  but strangely so,  and quiet.  Almost quiet beyond belief.   With the constant construction around the Second Avenue Subway,  three days of near metropolitan silence had dulled my senses. 

    I was startled by a breeze blowing the pin wheel in the flower pot on the window sill, as its blades stroked the screen.   "Time to get up and do sumpin", I told myself,  trying to grin, opening the other windows and trying to decide what to do.

    It didn't happen.   The day dragged on,  moments stretching themselves out tauntingly.  A memory jogging wiff of BBQ smoke from the senior complex next door hit my nose and my heart sank, again.

    I thought of my mom.   I thought of the day I left California,  and knowing she cried for three days straight... The times I didn't go home,  but could have.  The times I didn't call, but could have.   I wished I could call now, much much too late.

    Dry, too tired to cry,   I try and ask AA if he wants to do something.  Oddly, he doesn't.  I don't either and there really is, on this day of holidays,  nothing at all to do.

    I avoided stress provoking anxieties,  tax stuff,   paper work.   Struggled to want to write.  Wrote nothing.
    Knocked off a writer's magazine as if it was going to do me good like medicine,  read about my bad habits and how to solve them,   and took a sigh of relief at the sight of the other's with bad habits too.
    I tossed the magazine into the recycling paper bag making AA jump.  
    I had to go walk.

    I walked and sat in the bank lobby, away from the sounds of traffic, to have a chat on the phone when a friend called.   I told her I was sad.

    I went to the GNC and bought a set of rainbow colored essential oils because they were on sale.  Their orange, purple, yellow, blue, green, red,  not in that order,  satiated my eyes.  I needed something.    I lazily ambled through Circuit City,  buzzing with lazy shoppers and 3.99 DVDs, none of which could catch my interest.

    I spent over an hour in Barnes and Noble desperately sifting through novels,  trying to find something to take the time away,  now that I had it, it rains, it pours.   The lack of newly released mass market paperbacks threw me for a loop.   The clerk thought I was stupid for lamenting the huge selection of new releases, now forever lost to author's last name in Fiction and Literature.
    I didn't want to see anything specific.   I wanted to see what was new and easy to carry.   The book world has gone topsy turvy.  
    "I don't stand a chance" I told myself...

    I ended up back home with another Victoria Thompson Mystery... an old New York tale to spend my shaking moments in,  avoiding the pain of the real world,  which is the pain or absence of feeling,  not always an even trade off....

    I lay in bed another hour or so.  I watched the sun lighted brick wall fade into later afternoon shadow.   Senior citizens danced to big band music which floated up and into my room.  AA played a video game with headphones in silence.   There was nothing antagonizing about the day.   I tore a fiction contest page out of another knocked off writer's mag and pinned it to my bulletin board.  As if....

    The sun took forever to go down,  darkening the room.   I ate a box of Good and Plenty and got a sugar high. Falling asleep again,  to be awakened rudely by AA hanging clothes, and fixing the bed.   I drank down yogurt to take medication with and got back into bed.

    I didn't even brush my teeth.

    This morning, now,  preparing for work,  hearing jackhammers in the street,  radio news,  its raining...   I'm trying to figure out if I regret wasting yesterday or if I actually got something out of it. 
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  • The Lower East Side on Sunday, Loisaida Festival

      For Posteritie's sake, should anyone care.

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    It was a seemingly uneventful day in the Lower East Side, for the Loisaida festival.  I realized I'd been to this festival many years ago and did not realize it was the same festival.

    Basically your average street fair, although smaller,  centered around the still thriving Puerto Rican community there and full of food and fun for the families there.
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    It was a bit dull for us,  being jaded New Yorkers, but it was good to get out in the overly warm holiday sun.   Memorial Day Weekend is generally quiet in Manhattan and that it was.
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    This is a walk from the center of town and is less populated than some of the other street fairs may have been, full of tourists on Broadway and Madison and the like....
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    Two corn dogs later, one was $5 and the second was $4  and none the worse for wear,  we stopped in

    McSorley's Old Ale House 

     the oldest bar in the country,  154 years old for that matter and had 2 lights, which became 4 because when you order a beer you get 2 mugs full, or is it mugfulls, or mugsful? at the same time. 


    It's a nice place to stop while you are walking from the East Village to the West Village. 

    AA had never been in there.   He decided to accompany me on my Urban Adventure, which turned out to be a hip aching walk through the dullsville 2000's and ended in an early night for me,  rubbing sore joints with Badger Healing Joint Balm,  and they weren't actually that sore,  compared.  I think the weather and the fish oil caps I've been taking help.

    We did go to Washington Square Park to find it all torn up and under construction, in spite of big community protest,   because the BLOOMBERG ADMINISTRATION wants to center the fountain with the famous Arch and make formal gardens hence LESS PUBLIC SPACE in a park that is FAMOUSE FOR ACTIVITISM and HANGINGS all the way back through history.

    The art was all around the park and expensive and my hips said by then,  go home and a beer that is paid for in the refrigerator and list something else on ebay.   AA wanted to go to the village but it was both too early and too late for me, if you know what I mean,  I felt like I had to poop,  and so we went home,  he napped only to go back out during the night while I did some healing meditation and had a party with afore mentioned natural and smell good healing balm, albeit sticky and gooey.

    I listened to my new cd Awakened Mind System, the natural internal healing part, and fell fast asleep by 10 PM.  

    My dinner consisted of mixed nuts, wasabi peas with no MSG of course, and half a beer, the other half I spilled on the floor by candle light.

    I did not make a nice relaxing television program,  had intended on a vintage episode of Alfred Hitchcock Hour but didn't last that long.

    I just killed the biggest mosquito.

    Today is chores and boredom.

    How did u spend ur holidy weekend?