Of course tonight would be the night that I would run into a bunch of people I know at galleries, a bunch of people I have crushes on. Tonight is the night that the people I was supposed to meet at galleries all flaked out, and I ended up wandering around by myself until Joe made his way there an hour and a half later. At one the Robert Longo opening, I ran into Josh. Later, I ran into Kevin. I finally met up with Joe and ran into Kevin at another gallery. He told me to call him if I went to Broolyn galleries later. That a boy liked me made me so excited. You know that new Liz Phair single. I was fucking breathless.

I bought a pizza and some beers, went over to Peter's, conumed both with him and his roommate, Gina, listened to various radio classics, and then went out to Metropolitan with Peter, where I ran into Kevin for the third time tonight. Talked to him and his cute friends. Talked to his cute roommate Matt, who I think likes me. And both Kevin and Matt inflated my ego, telling me that I should hang out with them every weekend, that I am fun. I am superficial, and yes, like it a lot when "cool" people tell me things like this, make me feel also "cool". I left. They were both sad. That made me feel really nice to have people I just met (Matt, at least) care that I was leaving. Matt is really cool and I am about to develop a crush on him. I talked to him a lot about his art group and was a little critical. Kevin told me about two famous people he hung out with that I did not know about, some people associated with the Whitney. I did not tell him that I had no clue who these "famous" people were.

Tomorrow, two shows. Jaymay at nine, and then the motherfucking Gossip at eleven. Uh uh uh. Dance to this. I bought a carton of milk for one twenty five. It will go on my cereal tomorrow morning.

I got home a short time ago to find that all of nick-nacks in the hallway outside our door had been moved out of the way and stacked in a pile at the end of the hall that says: "Do something with this stuff." This would have been particularly obnoxious on any day, but coming the day after I confronted my landlord about someone stealing our mail, it seems not only obnoxious but antagonistic.

About that stolen mail. I got two cards on Valentine's Day. The first one from grandma had tape sealing the envelope. The second one from my mom was an envelope without a stamp, without a postmark, and written in a handwriting that is not my mom's. I called my mom to find out if she sent it without a stamp and had someone else write the address. She wrote the address, put two stamps on it, and mailed it in a red envelope. It arrived in a white envelope. A little fishy sounding? Damn fucking straight it is, even more fishy when you know that we are the only tenants in the building. The only other people that have access to the mail is the family who lives downstairs, who we rent our floor from. Only someone that has access to the inside of the house would be able to go through the mail.

Dara said that she had not recieved two cards from her family when I asked her if she thought it was fishy, and that she had told her parents to start sending her mail to her work address. Now, this is totally fucked up that we can't even recieve mail at the house where we live without worrying about it being opened, or not even recieving it altogether. Never do we have trouble recieving our bills, Dara her parking tickets, or any of the other things you don't want to recieve in the mail, yet things that look like they might contain money have trouble reaching us. So, I called Iris when I got home from work last night, telling her that I needed to talk to her, that it was very important. She called me back, and I told that we had a problem. Told her what it was, and that I wanted to show her what I was talking about. Shortly thereafter, her and her elderly mom came upstairs. I showed them the envelope without a fucking stamp or postmark (come on, you idiot, obviously this did not go through the mail system) - and they distracted me with stupid stories about how occasionally they don't get their own mail, or how maybe the people across the street got it by accident.

While I was talking to them, I had the envelope in a ziploc bag. I think this freaked them out a little, and Iris offered to hold on to it and ask the mailman about it. I said no, that that was fine, if they did not know what was going on, that I would just take it to the post office and file a tampering complaint, and see if maybe they can figure it out. She made a couple more offers to ask the mailman with the letter. I rebuffed it more times, insisting I was going to go file a complaint, and she went downstairs, and I went back in my apartment to watch The OC without resolving the issue, but at least getting it off my chest, and opening a dialogue about the issue.

So you can understand why I was annoyed when today was the day they decided to stack up all our crap in the hallway. This would annoy me anyways because we live on the top floor, no one is marching through our hallway to get to their floor, who fucking cares if we have a couple mirrors and drawers in the hallway?

But, there are enough positives right now to distract me from this, or at least distract me for the most part. First, where I was coming home from when I saw the hallway shit was my first day of an "internship" at Lamda Legal. The internship term is theirs. I think it is more like volunteering since it is only four hours a week, but if they want to call it an internship, neither I nor my resume minds. It is basically just filing all their donor information. There was an insanley huge stack of papers that needed to be filed, I got through them all, and Sam was speechless (in a not kidding way) when I said that I finished filing everything and that I was going to go home. "You filed all of those?" And he looked, and I had, and he seemed genuinely shocked.

And to distract me further, I am leaving right now to go consume wine at galleries with Beth and Chris, and then after that I am going to go rock the fuck out to Breaker Breaker, Young People, and and and THE GOSSIP!!! And for free, no less! Look out world, here I go. PS- Don't fuck with me. I don't put up with crap anymore, not ever.

Each and every morning as I cross the hallway from the shower to my room (which I enter through the apartment building hallway), I spell bacon being cooked. It is such a distinct smell, and so unique in its ability to make you fucking salivate. Not many foods have that ability to turn you into a dog smelling a bar-b-que on the other side of the fence, howling and howling, but bacon is one of those, and smelling it is torture because you don't have any bacon to eat, and the smell is something you can taste, something you must. The family downstairs must eat bacon every morning, because every single morning as I pass through the hallway, I smell it, and I turn into that tiny dog at the dinner table, can't see the food, but can smell it, and want to taste it so bad.

The salad I was planning on eating for lunch just seems so stupid when I smell that bacon. What am I thinking? Why isn't my fridge stocked with nothing but meat products that smell good when they are fried?

This week, I have come across two essays slamming John Currin. These are the first critical pieces I have read about his current show, and I am just glad that I am not alone in my dislike. I have been feeling a bit like a spoilsport talking to people about John Currin since no one seems to have so hostile a reaction to his show. First, there was Jerry Saltz. And then there was Jed Pearl, who is hyperbolic to say the least. Only a week left to go though, then show will be over, then my anger will have to move on to new subjects.

Seth Coen, yes, I still love you and think you are dreamy. In tonight's episode of The O.C., there was mention of his love of Death Cab, and he was talking about how good Chabon's The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is. He's literate and cute! Even if it is a book that everyone and their mom has read. Seriously, is there another teen drama where characters talk about contemporary fiction? Forget teen drama - how about any sitcom at all? No, there's not, and that is why this show is so amazing. In addition to all the incestuous drama that we have come to expect from high school dramas since 90210, it also has references to fiction and "hip" music. Oh, it is so good!!! (Count 'em. That is three exclamation points to emphasize this show's goodness.)

Normally, I am prevented from watching this sinfully good show because of my work schedule, but today, I called in sick, did nothing, and spent my evening indulging in teen-oriented tv. For those of you keeping tabs, I am feeling better. My throat is still kind of sore, however.

TV can be so good and so bad. It has been a long time since I watched it, but there was a commercial for Axe cologne that involved reference to Spanish Fly, and it had a skinny lad getting lucky with two hot chicks, and an old dude scoring with a hot chick and then croaking, two worms in his grave forming a heart. That was bad. And appearantly minstrel humor is okay again?! What in the hell is Showtime thinking? Queer Eye is a show that I find mildy amusing but also find obnoxious for the way that gayness is camped up for humor. But this "Make Me Cool" is a totally different level of offensiveness. Can we stop it before it starts?

Shit! It is a weird feeling to check out the Voice online, fucked up on Dayquil and some as yet undetermined virus that makes your throat sore and you very tired, and to come across someone you know writing this week's The Essay.

Izzy used to work at the Strand and I spent the day of the blackout with her and a couple other co-workers who have also moved on to better things, downing forties in Union Square. Coming across this article makes me realize how stangnant I have been here in New York, working the same job, creating nothing, and watching other people tackle their ambitions without any hesitation or self-doubt.

Can I tell you much I hate being in this ill condition? I have been awake for a grand total of maybe three hours today between naps and am going to take a shower, drink some Nyquil and go to bed, and hopefully wake up all well.

Hopefully this will pass with the same quickness that it emerged. Last night: quick, happy. This morning: slow, tired, sore throat, and sore upper back. My glands are swollen. The passage in my throat has shrunk to a miniscule size, requiring effort to even drink water. I would like to call in sick today, but I will save this sick day for a day when either I am immoblized sick, or insanely happy and the sky is clear. Why not get paid for being like this?

Last night, I took a bath in the dark, lit only by the lights of Brooklyn coming through the bathroom window, by the stick of incense burning and by the lovely sounds of Frank Sinatra. It was really nice. I must do that more often. I stayed in the bathtub until the water turned cold, exploring my asshole, which I am just learning how to do. The last time I attempted fingering myself was back in high school, I believe, and then, I don't think I was too succesful. Last night, I was at least more so, touching weird muscles and insides that I definitely did not reach in high school. It was a weird sensation feeling the inside of my body. For a brief second, it made me scared, this fragileness being felt, and I thought about death, and the impermanence of flesh. This morning, I read about giant squids and I experienced a similar sensation, reading about their nervous system, about the mechanics of living things. The skin creates this illusory boundary, that there is something more than simple parts, than prostates and ink sacks. Illusion temporarily fades, flashes of something else, a hidden world, appear with swollen glands, massaged prostates, and knowledge of the squid's digestive system. Then flashes of something else appear when warm tea is consumed, or when the prostate is touched just so.

Really, there was no reason to go out to Opaline after getting trashed at the Gen-R-8 opening, and really I am wondering if there is really ever a good reason to go to Opaline. There's a cover, there's silly music, and cheesy gay guys, but sometimes, in fact a lot of times when I am drunk, I want to do nothing more than dance.

So I danced all night long, talked to so many people and remember none of it, a blur of bodies encountered, lost Joe at some point, and then left to go home, walked to the L, only to find out that it is shut down again this weekend. So, insanely drunk, I hiked to Union Square to catch the 6 to the JMZ, and in the course of the hike, I got two slices of pizza (not at the same place) and bought a can of V8 that I dropped in Union Square. I ran into Bibi on the platform, talked to her, and hoped that I didn't throw up.

The two GAS openings that I have gone to have been insanely crowded. Last night, there was a line to get in the place, and then once in, there was really no way to look at any of the pieces since it was packed wall to wall with people waving wine glasses around, talking, and checking out the other people waving around wine glasses and talking. I really wanted to see Bill Morrison, to see what the man looks like, but I had enough trouble just finding his video in the mass of people. The show included Decasia, which I recently saw at the Maya Stendhal gallery, and it was right at the entrance, but no one knew this. An intern working there did not know anything about the video when I asked about watching it in whole, saying that she thought it was just a constant loop and did not matter where you started watching it. Before this conversation, I asked a few people if they knew where the video was, and no one knew. I asked the people selling catalogs and serving wine. They did not know. I asked a woman laminating bugles (the snack food) and she did not know. It's said that no one goes to gallery openings to look at the art, which is usually true to some extent, but last night was a pretty egregious display of this maxim. Don't get me wrong. I love hanging out with tres chic people and drinking nice free wine and eating fancy cheese. I'm just saying.

I don't even remember what the joke was. I have no clue who was telling it, but I can clearly remember laughing about it, laughing hard. I know because while I was laughing last night, I felt my cheek muscles stretch to an insane degree because I was that happy, and the muscle tension felt great, made me happier, made me laugh harder. It was almost to the point where my cheeks hurt. The sides of my face were gathered about my ear, and man, that sensation, I have not felt in a really long time. I laugh a lot. It is how I get through this life, but a laugh like that, man, those don't happen that often these days. That's going to change.

what's your take on cassavetes?

So last night, I finally got around to watching one. A Woman Under the Influence. And no, I don't know what my take is yet, other than I love this movie. I wish I didn't have to return it this morning so I could watch it again. It's so tense and ambigious about its message.

Do you really hate yourself that much that you would eat that and sit there? Get the fuck up, we have to move.