In response, I have added my own calendar item—”Jeff’s weekend of sin and excess”—from Wednesday to Saturday, with some additional Sunday reminders—wash out stripper scent from clothes, return empty keg to liquor store, repair trashed house.
Obviously, I was kidding. There will be no keg. As I said in the most recent Bar Club¹ email:

I’ll admit, I haven’t been drinking a lot of beer lately. Is it just me, or has it been more of a liquor month? It has for me, anyhow. Today I took another step closer to possible personal doom; I purchased the ingredients for making my own sidecar—Cognac and Cointreau. Dangerous—Brandy was my alcoholic grandfather’s liquor of choice.

Sweet, sweet, danger.

I’m a fan of classic cocktails, and wish to discover more of them. Tough to do, too, unless you find the right type of bar. Not sure what they’re teaching in bartending school these days, but I have a feeling most of it centers on the subject of bottle caps, and recommended techniques for removing them.

I hope to make this weekend more eventful than last, where most of the time was spent figuring out how to live without a wife again. What do I do alone? Why does this dog keep whining? Do I need to feed her? Where do we keep the food? Oh, the realities of being institutionalized to marriage.

I did eventually get some good man-alone-time last weekend, though—most of my meals were eaten standing up, many hours were spent sitting in the same place staring at a computer screen blissfully, and several hours were spent watching movies made before 1980, with minimal emotional value. In previous episodes of “Without the wife: Man’s quest for survival and entertainment” I watched a couple of Dirty Harry movies, and Platoon, all of which I enjoyed thoroughly. Last weekend I watched the The French Connection², followed immediately by hours of bonus features. Glorious.

It’s good, though, this sort of thing.  Spend some time apart. Rediscover your independence. Watch some movies your spouse wouldn’t want to watch.  Just not for too long.  After all, life’s tough when you’re on the outside.

And that’s only in print. My digital collection of files extends back even further (all the way back to 1987, I believe) and in some ways, the digital problem is much worse. Need that conversation we had about CoCo Puffs in 1999? I probably have it, somewhere.

Before you start calling me a pathetic packrat, allow me to say that I am aware of the problem, and have identified it even further—”sentimental pack rat” is the term, I believe. The hardest part of resolving this issue is behind me–admitting that I have a problem. Now comes the hard work of eliminating the trail of my past that I’ve kept in two or three bankers boxes for most of my life.

While most of the things I’ve kept are completely useless and shouldn’t have been kept in the first place, there are a few gems.

Here’s one of them, from 8th grade:

English 8, 10-10-94

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

When I grow up I do not want to be sitting behind a desk, wearing a suit and tie, talking to a guy from another country whose name I can’t pronounce having to watch every word I say so that I don’t offend him, trying to sell him a product or buy from him a patent.

I would rather choose a more exciting job like being a test pilot for McDonnel Douglas or Grumman, for instance. I would like this job because I would never have to worry about what to wear. I’d put on a flight suit, with no worries about matching colors, about brand names, or the latest fashion. No choices and no thinking while I am getting ready. Cool.

When I am in the plane, I’m in charge. I would not be driving a bus in the air (like the pilots of Northwest Airlines) and I would be able to fly the plane how I want to and see if it works to the specifications expected of its designer. I would also be testing myself, my knowledge and skill of flying, every detail about the aircraft and even my instinct. If things go wrong I’d have to make a quick decisions, not only to complete the tests but to perhaps save the plane.

I would hardly get bored because new planes, new instruments, and new weapons come out for me to test all the time. This is what I call a cool job, flying a plane, having fun, and getting paid.

There is only one setback to this job if the designers make a mistake, I might not be around to complain about it.

Hilarious. I also included a drawing.

I’m not sure how this happened, but at this point of my life—one year before discovering the Beatles, and two years before discovering programming—I was really into planes. Between the ages of ten and fourteen, my bedroom walls were covered with pictures of jets. I regularly absorbed books about the design details of anything with wings, and drew pictures of planes all the time. I remember all of that very clearly. What I don’t remember, however, is my apparent worry of what I might wear in the future, and fear of one day not being able to pronounce someone’s name.

It’s finding gems like this that assuage my negative feelings of being a sentimental pack-rat. For once, my former-self was correct in the prediction that my future-self would someday take great pleasure in reading this.

20 minutes later, the beeping started again, only this time it was coming from the second floor. Really weird. Some people came out of their apartments and we all started coming up with ideas of what to do. We were going to call the Super, but once someone mentioned that there had been several fires in this apartment building in the past, we decided it would be best to call the fire department, to be safe.

Somehow, I was volunteered to do this. Having had previous shitty experience from dialing 311, I decided I’d call 911 and state that this wasn’t really an emergency.

911: What department do you need?
Me: Fire department
911: “What borough?
Me: Manhattan
[Transfers]
FD: Fire Department, where’s the fire?
Me: No fire, but there’s a smoke dete…
FD: Sir, what’s your address?
Me: [Gives address]
FD: (frantic) What apartment?
Me: [Gives apartment number], Now hold on, there was a smoke detector going off, and I thought it was the battery so I took it out, but then later a smoke detector went off on another floor, so I thought it would be…
FD: The fire is in your apartment?
Me: NO. NO FIRE. PLEASE, just listen to me. We just had some smoke detectors go off intermittently in the hallway, and we’d like someone to check it out. That’s all.
FD: Oh, ok sir, we’ll send a fireman over.
Me: Great, thanks.

I made that call at about 11:30, I’d say.

11:31: HOONNNNKKK HOOOOOONNNKK BEEEEP BOOOOP BEEEEEP BOOOP HOOONNNKKK HOOONNNKK

Aw, shit.

11:32: Seven fireman in full gear come barreling up the stairs, complete with axes. I told them what happened, and they started banging on everyone’s door, asking if everyone is all right. Lots of people were out of their apartments at this point — you could hear chatter on all the floors — …. and it turned out to be nothing. Their detectors didn’t detect anything, and they surmised that someone probably walked down with a cigarette, or the smoke blew in from outside. I wouldn’t think that would cause two smoke alarms to go off for an hour, but whatever. That was that. I apologized, and they said “no problem, that’s what we’re here for”.

All in all, I guess it makes sense they sent the whole crew. If they had just sent a peon over to check things out, and he ended up finding a door with smoke pouring out from underneath it… that probably wouldn’t have been good. I must say, though, I’m really impressed with their response time. Nice work, FDNY.

Q: What are you doing right now?
A: Eating cheesecake, and drinking wine.

Q: Aren’t you at work?
A: Yes.

Q: Uh, isn’t that, I don’t know. Wrong?
A: It’s the “holiday party”, and there’s booze flowing left and right. Unfortunately, there’s also a crowd of morons making awkward small-talk, which really, is my own version of hell. I need a lifeboat, i.e. someone I actually like here who I can talk to for more than 5 minutes and more importantly, can be honest about what I really think.

“She might be the most annoying person I’ve ever met”.  There’s something I can’t say to people here.

Q: Dude, you’re a whiner.
A: Yeah? Well you look fat in those pants.

Q: Is the semester over yet?
A: Yes, I took my final yesterday. It’s a toss up as to how I did. It was harder than I thought it would be.

Q: Any big plans, now that you’re not shackled to your computer?
A: Overall, to jump off the wagon (done!), and otherwise, work on some nerdy side projects and hang out. I’m going home to Christmas for 5 days, too. It’s the first time the entire family (including Maggie) has been in the same place. This could get ugly.

Sorry, I was just interrupted by a coworker trying to ask me some work related questions. I’ve had a glass of some some heavily spiked eggnog, and a glass of wine, and didn’t have the mental capacity to process her request. I did, however, have the will-power to refrain from bursting out laughing when I realized I didn’t hear a word she said. Funny.

Q: Is it just me, or is this blog entry going downhill fast?
A: I think we’re at the bottom.

Q: Are you going to post it anyway?
A: I guess. I haven’t posted anything in a long time, and this is better than nothing.

Point: No longer have to share an office. This office is all mine.
Counterpoint: A shitty 1979 Pontiac Grand Prix also used to be all mine.

Point: My old office mate used to hum the same gibberish incessantly. If it could be put into text form it would be “HMM HMM HMMMMMMMMM”
Counterpoint: None needed, that was fucking annoying and I’m glad it’s over.

Point: I can have private conversations now, without someone listening in, and I also don’t have to listen in to someone’s private conversations! Brilliant!

Point: I don’t have to listen to by the minute updates of the current weather conditions by the previously mentioned office mate.
Counterpoint: How will I survive without knowing that by noon the temperature will be 5 degrees warmer than it was at 9!?

Point: The lighting in here sucks. There are nasty yellowish fluorescent overhead lights, and then under cabinet bright white fluorescent lights. The old office lighting was much cheerier.
Counterpoint: I just got a lamp, though. One of those stand up ones that shoots light out its top. Not my #1 choice, but it was free, and I got it immediately. No light bulbs, though. Bulbs should come in 4-6 weeks, if I’m lucky. This is Columbia, after all.

Point: This new office has no carpeting, and on a certain level feels like I’m working in a bathroom. I might as well be, since the bathroom for our floor is 10 feet away from my door, within eyesight. Carpeting is being “looked in to”, which probably means it will “never happen”, which leaves me to consider my rug options. But honestly, who has an office without carpeting? Who has an office with tiled floor and a rug? Oh right. Me.
Counterpoint: The mystery of why people from other floors come down the stairs (the stairs are 5 feet away from my door) with books, and spend an eternity in the bathroom might be enough to entertain me annoy me for the next year. Of course, we all know what they’re doing in there, but why on my floor!? Why right next to my office? I am in a position where when they walk out of the bathroom and back up to their floor, they’ll have to look right at me. Maybe I’ll give them a dirty look and do the ol‘ head shake if it happens again.

Here’s a map, brought to you by MS Paint.

Note the lack of arrangements possible for this room. People can see what’s on my screen when they’re standing at the door. Not only is this really annoying, it presents a problem since I rarely have actual work on my screen. I thought I had this problem licked when I ordered myself one of those fancy privacy screens so you can only see things if you’re directly in front of the monitor, but that sucked. It made everything really dim, so I could barely see things at all. Yesterday, though, I acquired another monitor (dualies, bitch!), but don’t have a graphics card that supports two. Basically, I got served. Getting a new card should be an ordeal, but when it’s over I shouldn’t have a “privacy” problem anymore since the second monitor will be at an angle and not directly visible from the door. First monitor = work. Second monitor = play. Perfect.

But seriously, I shouldn’t complain too much since this is my first office. I’ve had cubes, and I’ve shared offices, but now I’ve got my own door. Who knew it could be this sweet?

Ok, that was sarcastic.

• Maggie graduated. She is now officially a Nurse (RN). 1.5 more years and she’ll be a Nurse Practitioner. Need a prescription for some heavy narcotics? I’ve got the hookup.
• Maggie’s parents were in town. 4 days of quality in-law time, and I’m still alive! Really, they’re great.
• Went out for Sushi with the in-laws and their friends. Turns out the stomach flu (or a similarly nasty jungle virus) I had a few months ago (that coincided with the previous night’s delicious Japanese feast)…is still in affecting my appetite. I miss liking sushi.
• Saw the Darwin exhibit at The Natural History Museum, and visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. We love museums, I guess.
• Saw the DaVinci code. Meh
• Had a movie-like New York experience, which I will now detail.

Last night I noticed some college kids on a fire escape smoking, a couple of apartments over from us. They were outside talking and making some noise, and I considered telling them to shut up, but I refrained. Much later (around 1am), while I was trying to sleep, I kept hearing someone playing the piano (very, very badly, too). I tried to tune it out, but this kind of “I know the right note is around here somewhere…” type of playing really inhibits sleeping. So I tried whistling out the window. Then I yelled “shut up!”. No response. Then I tried throwing a tennis ball over there. No response. Then I started throwing coins. Nothing was working.

Then, when they finally paused, I yelled “Hey Liberace! Shut up! Do you hear me? Shut the fuck up!”.
Then they started playing again. UGH! I waited a little while, then I heard a mexican guy a couple of floors up…

Him: Please be quiet and turn off the music! I’m trying to sleep!
Me: Shut up!
Him: NO! YOU SHUT UP!
Me: Not you! The piano players!!

Oh man, I nearly died. Isn’t that something you see in a movie about New York apartments?

The following is a guideline for greetings involving a comment about the day of the week.  I should note, while not absolutely necessary it is preferred to use alliteration.

• Good
• Thirsty Thursday
• Better
• Taco Tuesday
• Best
• Thor Thursday
• Fuck You Friday — “Have a Fuck You Friday!”

Saturday and Sunday need not be referred to, as they are universally accepted as the best days, and complimenting them any more would only give them an ego problem.  Monday, on the other hand, is generally accepted as the worst day, and all that could be said about it has already been said, so it’s best not to say anything (unless you want to sound like a jackass).  And per usual, Wednesday gets shit on.

How do you plan on making new friends?
I don’t know. Making friends is hard when you’re not forced into a social setting with people. School and work are easy ways to do that, but when you’re without that…it’s a bit more difficult. Hopefully the job I get will provide avenues for friends.

Have you found a trivia venue that equals to the Leaning Tower Of Pizza?
Not even close, yet. There are a few places, but the ones I’ve been to have been run by super nerds (think black jeans, bar glasses, and tazmanian devil polo shirts), so it’s a bit off-putting. We did come up with a good team name, though. “Coed Naked Trivia: Who knew the facts of life could be so hard?”

Have you played the drums since you left?
Yeah, I played with some band a couple of weeks ago. It was ok. I’ve never played on such a shitty drum set, and I really miss mine. When you’re playing on a snare that sounds like a can filled with rocks, and a bass drum that sounds like a bucket, it’s kinda distracting. I mean, I have confidence in my drumming abilities, but having a good set really helps. Further, the band played good music to listen to, but not to drum to (for me, anyway). And the lead singer was a douche bag. But it was interesting.

Any other comments to make as far as music goes?
I miss my fragment of a band I once had. I’m concerned about the future of my music career, because it’s hard to replace a musical soul mate, you know? Damn, that was deep. I also have a surprising lack of creative song writing ability, lately. I’m in a funk, I guess.

Is it true that when one area of your life is bit chaotic, it transfers to others?
Yes. The not having a job or a daily structure thing has made me very disorganized and forgetful. It sucks. It’s like this: What day is it? Doesn’t matter! That’s not the best sign of being organized.

What do you do all day when Maggie is at school?
I’ve been doing lots of independent work on various software projects and a lot of “building my computer skills” shit, that people with no friends like to do. I’ve explored the city a bit (including seeing the famous abandoned City Hall subway station by disobeying the rules and staying on the train past the “last stop”), but mostly I sit around on the ‘puter all day. I’ve started going to the Columbia library during the day to apply for jobs and do work, which is much less depressing than staying in the apartment all day.

Have you interviewed for any jobs yet?
Yeah, 2 in person, 1 phone. Otherwise, it’s been lots of email conversations, and sending resumes out into the abyss.

Have you been looking hard?
Not really. For the first month Mag was on vacation, and the apartment was in shambles, so it was easy to find better things to do — I spent my days hanging with her, being a bum, and putting together furniture. Then she started school, and I got some more motivation to look for work. Now I’m in high-gear.

Seen any movies lately?
Yes. Lots.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – Meh. It was ok.
Walk the Line – Rocked my socks.
King Kong – SUCKED.
Brokeback Mountain – pretty good.
The Family Stone – pretty good.
24 Hours on Craigslist – awesome.
Match Point – intense, dude.
Capote – awesome.
Failure to Launch – surprisingly funny, and not too chick flicky

Still to see:
Good Night and Good Luck
Why We Fight
The Squid And The Whale
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
The 3 Burials of Melquiades Estrada

What’s it like being engaged?
Great. It feels really good to be able to duke it out without questioning the fabric of your relationship. Not that you can’t do that without being engaged, but being public about it, and knowing that they’re right for you just puts you that much more in that mind set.

I feel very young, though. It seems like people in the Midwest get married as early as they can, where people out here wait as long as they can. New York is full of single people and full of people who have been together for 6 years, still living separately without any talk of marriage or engagement. And here I am, having met this girl a little over a year ago…being engaged and living together.

When are you getting married?
Not sure. 2007 sometime. Spring, summer, fall, it’s anyones guess. Planning a wedding sounds fun! NOT!!! It’s going to be difficult, since she’s in school most of the year, including summers. It almost makes us want to wait until 2008 when she’s done…but that’s just a long time. Honestly, we really haven’t talked about it that much. We’re just trying to be as carefree as possible right now.

But to quote one of my favorite comedians, Greg Fitzsimmons…
“Everyone who’s married wants you to join them in their misery, so they always ask ‘When are you getting married? When are you getting married? When are you getting married!?’, so I like to ask them, ‘When are you gonna die? When are you gonna die?’ ”

How would you describe the transition of meeting a girl, to moving in with her?
You go from painfully holding farts in for days to pushing them out in order to make them louder.

What’s the funniest things that’s happened as a result of living together, so far?
Recently, I made it a mission to get Maggie playing Nintendo. See, she missed the crucial point of childhood where the days were filled with Mario Brothers and as a result she has zero ability and zero confidence in anything video game related. It was a rough start, but she’s finally getting the hang of it and actually enjoying it. I never thought a girl craving Nintendo could be so hot. And hilarious.

“I’ve been craving Mario brothers all day”
“I hate it when I lose my fireball pants!”
“FUCKING SHIT FACE. I HATE THIS PART. SHIT! This game just makes me want to punch people!”

Have you left the city since you left?
We went New Haven to visit some of Mag’s friends who go to Yale. Oh damn, they have this EVIL game called Lightning Reaction, that’s this sort of speed reaction game where you have four metal trigger handles you hold on to, then when the music stops and the light turns green you hit the button, and the last person to react gets shocked. Man, it rocked. Noah and Jess wanted us to take it home, and I really wanted to…but was forbidden to do so. I put sex above electrocution, so it was an easy decision.

Any plans for the upcoming weeks?
It’s my birthday on Thursday. That’ll be cool, right? I’m also going to Austin, TX in a couple of weeks to visit my brother. I mean, why not? I’m not doing much right now.

More questions? Let me have ‘em.

1. When we got here I had the unfortunate realization that the apartment was much smaller than I remembered, and my shit was a lot bigger than I remembered.  The first few days of unpacking were extremely interesting, since there really wasn’t room to unpack. Somehow though things got put away and our apartment is now surprisingly nice and comfortable now. Although small, it doesn’t feel very cramped, which is a big plus.

2. I did not get into school, as I had hoped. So I’m unemployed, and lately have had a serious lack of motivation. I thought I would use this time to “do the things I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but haven’t had the time for”, but I haven’t. Instead, I’ve been spending my days fretting over curtain color, picture hanging, furniture assembly, and various other household-type chores. In the past three weeks, I’ve Bob Vila’d and MacGyver’d more things than I ever have. Who makes a shoe rack out of a curtain rod? – MacVila, that’s who. Holy shit, that was so lame. Don’t ever call me MacVila.

Well, right now I have about a half cup of motivation and as usual I’m squandering it on things that don’t matter very much (this blog), and not using it on the things I should (updating my resume, sending it to potential employers, working on some web stuff that makes me money, finding a way to release this pent up drumming).

Anyway, I’m alive and well. I was growing an “unemployment beard” which lasted 3 weeks until it became apparent to me that I suck at growing full beards. I tried to salvage what beard I had into a goatee, but soon enough realized that a goatee makes me look like a douche bag. So I’m baby-faced once again.

Other notable events –

Wasted 2 days of my life at 2 different Ikeas. This included 3 hours lost in New Jersey, at least 10 hours in the store (the combined indecisiveness of Maggie and I will be our doom, someday), and several hours on public transport. Further, on the last trip, our receipt was about 4 feet long. I’m not even kidding. We ended up returning about 3 feet worth of that stuff. We make bad decisions.

Lessons Learned: Ikea will not solve all your furniture problems. When it comes to making window covering choices, both my girlfriend and I are brain damaged. New Jersey’s roads are complicated. Parking tickets are expensive.

I got engaged.

That’s all for now, I guess. I realize that before moving here I promised a dramastic (not a typo) increase in my frequency of blogs, and in that regard, I have failed. Sorry. I really hope to blog more in the future. I enjoy writing this much much more than you enjoy reading it, and it’s a shame my motivation hasn’t been the strongest in this department lately. Maybe I just needed to break my 2006 blogging hymen. Now that that’s done, the real sex can begin. Wait, no, blogging.

Goodbye Natasha

Hello Bessie

I finally sold my car on Saturday to a guy who was in the same position I was in when I bought it — recently graduated, just got a job, had so much money he didn’t know what to do with it. Anyway, the car is gone.

Well, after he drove off with the car, I didn’t know what I was going to do, as I didn’t have plans for a second car. I pretty much had three options: buy, rent or borrow. Renting would have been expensive ($1500), and buying would have been a pain, since I’d have to sell whatever car I got in December when I left, and I’d have to time it right.

Well, anyway, I lucked out and found the best solution ever. Sam’s parents wanted to get rid of their old car (a 1987 Plymouth Caravelle), and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. They didn’t even want any money for it; they just wanted it out of their sight.

So fuckin’-a, dude, the car is mine! I had to put some new front tires on it, and buy tabs, but still, total money invested into car : $140. It’s only got 83,000 miles on it, which isn’t bad for a car that’s nearly 20 years old, but most importantly, the thing runs. Things rattle and it certainly isn’t glamorous, but it runs. And for what I need it for…hopefully it will do me fine.

Driving this car cracks me up. Something about going from a flashy car to this is just funny to me. I went to the gas station on the way home, and went inside to pay.

Him: What pump?
Me: Uhh [looks outside]…It’s that grey…

At this point I completely forgot what type of car it was (Plymouth Caravelle)

Me: ….piece of shit out there
Him: [barely skipping a beat], Oh, pump 8?

Two of the biggest hurdles in getting to NYC are through — the GRE, and the car. I haven’t felt this happy and stress-free in a while.