This Saturday is kind of dreary. It has been rainy the past couple days, kind of ruining the fact that it has gotten slightly warmer. The weather is changing, faster than normal, and lately I find that I got to bed before the sun really rises, and wake up after it has set. Even on days like this where I am up all day, the sun couldn't be seen at all. I love fall, but is just miserable.

This morning I woke up to a ringing from the buzzer on my door. This happens every so often, I never answer. MY friends do not ring my buzzer, I can't open the door from the buzzer, so if on the off chance someone is coming here, they just call. At first when my buzzer would ring I would answer, and it would be someone who had the wrong apartment, and just couldn't seem to understand that you were not the person they were looking for. They would ring, and ring, and ring, until I yelled through the buzzer that they were in fact mistaken, I was not Sally. This morning though, it woke me up, and in the haze of my semi awake mind, I answered.

"Hello, this is you neighbor," this threw me off, I thought maybe it was actually my neighbor, who might actually need something, "My name is Milton Struther and I'm having a pot luck dinner and would like to invite you." This is what I heard at first, still barely awake, I was excited, I had some peas left on the stove from the night before, I could bring those and get some food at a pot luck. No such luck, a moment later I realized what he actually said was, "I would like to take a moment to talk to you about the bible, and our Lord, Jesus Christ."

Fucking hell. Really? In Bushwick, going door to door ringing buzzers? At least in Maine, when you knock on a door someone answers it in person. When religious people come, they are trapped, at least for a little while. One HAS to listen for a short time, while they throw as much religion talk as they can before one says "No thanks." and shuts the door. But really, this morning I was three floors up, talking through a door buzzer, this was not happening. Whatever, just kind of shocked me that it actually happened. I will now return to my previous act of just not answering my buzzer when it rings.


Also, today I woke up to no running water. My neghbor had a leak I guess, and the plumber came on Saturday morning, and turned off the water for "half and hour." Only no one told anyone. No shower. No food. No coffee. No brushing my teeth. No bathroom. No washing my hands. No nothing. For half an hour. Not so bad right? Four hours later, I was really not happy. It's all fixed now though.

I have a charity event to go to tonight, 25 dollar cover, open bar, free food, for a good cause. I think. I don't actually know what the cause is, I just got an invite from the guy throwing it. It's a holloween party too. And it's probably a good cause, I guess. But never the less, I feel pretty good about it. I'm a good person. I'm also really excited to get out of the house, clean, fed, and bible free.

Something from nothing

I am beginning to worry about myself. I seem to have lost track of any real direction. Growing up I lived in an area that was literally all back roads, the only reason one used the main road was to get to another back road which held their destination. I knew all the roads, I may not have even been able to drive them until my 18th year, but I damn sure knew them; likewise, I knew every short cut through the woods between the roads (just in case you needed to run from the police). Every time I left my house, there was a reason, and a direction. I knew where I needed to be, I knew how to get there, and I knew a means of getting there. Life was simple on the curvy roads that were seldom well paved, if paved at all. Now though, living in a city built on a grid, structured precisely to be easily navigated, I am forced quite frequently to wander aimlessly, simply because I don't know know where I am going. This lack or general direction, I believe is a direct result of a lack of any general interest. And for that, I fear for myself, mostly I fear for the things I'm good at. 

I've believed, for most of my life, in not doing things I wasn't good at. It really just doesn't make any sense to me. Growing up I tried playing basketball, and well, I wasn't very good. It wasn't that I just didn't practice, I just wasn't very good, and wasn't getting any better. I stopped playing basketball. I never played drinking games with my friends, I've always been pretty good at drinking, just never very good at the games that go along with them. During my short time in college I was presented with these games quite often, beer pong, and the like, but by this time I was smart enough not play. I knew I wasn't very good. I knew that because of this, I would lose, and consequently get drunker than I had intended, putting myself at risk of doing something stupid, or possibly even something I was less good at than beer pong. This seemed like very rational thinking to me, and it still does to this day. One should always try things, try things as many times as it takes to realize if one is good at it or not. That is when the decision should be made it the activity should be continued, or just move on to something else. 

Today my mother, visiting from home, brought me a pound of coffee from the coffee shop that I used to work in. During my time there, I learned how to make espresso. I put it off for a very longtime, for fear that I would not be good at it, but eventually, I gave it a shot. Well hot damn, I was actually pretty good at it. This was mostly due to wonderful young lady who showed me how, she too was very good at it. Espresso is not exactly a skill, it is more like a craft. Practice doesn't make perfect. Timing, pressure, grind, tamp, weather, all these things combined make perfect. One has to know how these things work together to make perfect. I figured all this out. I took it on as a craft, the art of making good espresso, and most importantly knowing when I had made bad espresso, and how to fix it. 

But now, long since passed my time with coffee professionals, I am surrounded by things destined to make me fail. I still have all the knowledge of this craft, the espresso craft, but I don't have the tools. At work now, a shitty hotel, in a shitty neighborhood, in a shitty city, I have shitty coffee making instruments (only one of those is true). Rather than a tamp, I have a wedge of plastic, custom fit to no particular portafilter at all. Rather than accurate coarseness for the grounds, I have exactly the same grind as the day before. Instead of demitasse, I've got paper cups. None of these things come together to make good espresso. But, alas, I have adapted. I now know, using shitty everything, how to make good espresso. In fact, Tiam, the only person I make espresso for other than myself, will only drink mine, because he says I am the only one who knows. And that is a true statement. Hooray for me. Or is it? Is it on par with evolving? Survival of the fittest, taking what I have and molding myself to it? Who is to say if I would now be able to go back, use a naked portafilter, a perfectly weighted tamp, with an excellent espresso machine, and still know how to make good espresso. Isn't it more likely that I, the college drop out, the graveyard shift bellman, commitment fearing, responsibly lazy slacker, took all that I know on a shortcut through the woods and accidentally turned it all to shit? 

How to impress girls.

Dress well. Don't do anything to excess. Be funny. Be smart. Motivated. Listen. Be interested. Open doors. Buy them dinner at their favorite vegan place, and pretend not to be disgusted at menu containing nothing but tofu and brussel sprouts. Or don't. I've found, in the past, that if you start out by showing them just how low you can go, so that whatever you do in the future will seem to be an improvement, that that alone will do the trick. Most people would argue with this point, saying that is isn't true, and it isn't what I would call "true". But sometimes, it is.

I once met a girl in college that I liked more than any of the rest of the girls in college. I liked her more than her friends, more than my friends, and more than all the other people I would come to meet. I liked her when I was drunk, and I still liked her when I was sober. I liked her when I woke up in the morning, I liked her all through breakfast, I'd spend lunch and dinner thinking about the fact that even though she wasn't currently with me, I still liked her, and I eventually went to bed still liking her. Sometimes, she liked me too. I quickly started shifting my usual activities around her, rather than eating my breakfast alone, enjoying my coffee and cereal by myself in chaotic mornings at the Hilltop foodery. I began to enjoy those things with her. Sometimes we didn't even talk, but just the fact that she was there made my breakfast a little better. She would read, or start working on some unfinished work, or maybe glance over some text books, and I would sit in silence while she waited for me to finish my second cup of coffee.

She put up with my friends, while I openly choose which of hers to like. She put up with my bad habits, while she had none. She pretended to like my favorite bands, sitting through my stories of how I once met the guy who did the handstand on his keyboard on that video I showed her on YouTube, and I complained when she played her stoner rap. She pressured me to go to class, while I begged her to stay in bed. She smoked a lot of pot, while I drank a lot of beer. Things were going pretty well. Until one day, when she told me that she had decided, just after mid-day sex, that she did not think we should date. I hated her, I felt used. We were not dating as of yet, we were just doing all those things that people who date do. We woke up together, we ate together, we spent time going on walks, seeing movies, until finally we would go to bed together. But we weren't dating. And she told me she did not want to cross that line of acknowledging what we were doing. I was furious, sort of. I more so was just crushed. This was college, and it was supposed to change my life, not just continue it on the vicious cycle it had been in for the past 8 years of my life. I got up, threw myself together, and went in search of my friends, who I had long been ignoring to spend time with this girl. My friends were understanding, and very giving with all the booze they had just bought. Upon showing up at the dorm containing all my friends, I told my tale quickly, explaining the seriously disgruntled look on my face, and was promptly handed a beer, and a shot of Jack Daniels. Problems would surely be solved tonight.

So I drank, it was a Friday, and the normal Friday things were happening with people who do things other than hang out with a girl they like. And I got drunk. I got REALLY drunk. One might even say I drank too much. Much was said along the lines of, "Fuck it dude, there are plenty of other girls on campus." That much was true, but I had met a great deal of them, and I liked this one more than all the rest. I liked her much more now, knowing that it was possible that she didn't like me that much. As more friends came in, more booze was had, and so it continued, bad decisions were made, and my night started to take a turn for the worse. What happened? Well, I'm not sure. There is a good chunk of time that escapes my memory. But apparently, I got sad, and pathetic, and drunk, until one of my more responsible friends, and his girlfriend, took me home, and put me in bed. That's when I woke up, probably 3AM, crashed around my room, waking my roommate, and told him I was going to see this girl. Really great idea.

So I leave my dorm, clad in only my boxer shorts, in early October. She lived in the dorm across from mine, in the wellness dorm. Meaning it was a chem free dorm. Meaning that drinking or even smoking was highly forbidden for the folks that lived in it. And it was late, so I couldn't get in, as the doors were locked to those who don't live there. Someone let me, the blacked out tattooed kid in his boxer shorts, into the chem free dorm at 3AM. I don't know who, but later, in the halls of that dorm, so girl I didn't know burst into laughter when she saw me, it was probably her who let me in. Anyway, I stormed up the stairs to my girls room. Pounded on her door until she answered. I remember she was pissed. But I argued my point, which at this time was that I had made a really bad decision and now had no where else to go. Being the caring and lovable girl that she was at the time, before I ruined her, she let me crash on the spare bed in her room, she might have even given me a pillow and an extra blanket. Maybe.

In the morning, bright and early, she shook me awake, still furious, and threw me out. But not before giving me a sweatshirt to borrow for my walk of shame home. I wasn't really sure what had happened, but I put the pieces together. Spare bed, no clothes, no keys, killer hangover, and really mad girl, I was in trouble. I thanked her for the sweatshirt, and she slammed the door in my face. I spent the rest of my day, after getting let back into my own dorm by someone, and having to explain to the RA that I didn't have my keys, or many clothes, and I desperately needed to get back into my room, I was let in, with some serious looks of disapproval. I didn't sleep, I just stayed in bed hating myself, on the brink of tears, asking myself what the hell I had done, until finally she called me. She wanted to talk. I quickly showered, made myself presentable, brushing my teeth and putting on a nice sweater, and went over again, this time with keys, and clothes, fully prepared to get thrown out again.

Again sitting on the spare bed, fearful for what was about to come, I waited for her to cut off my balls, and put them in a jar, keeping them until I made this up to her. Instead she told me that she had talked to her father about what had happened. Oh. My. God. Something bad was about to happen, I was sure of it. But, he father had said something to the affect of, "These things happen." This parent truly understood. And I confessed how sorry I was, and that I had personally paved my road to hell with the best intentions. All I wanted was for her to like me. She told me she did, "OH REALLY!? EVEN STILL?" I was excited. And yes, even still, she liked me. And she had decided that if she was going to have to put up with this bullshit from me even if we weren't dating, that we might as well date. I had apparently left her with no other choice. I didn't, until that point, know that that could happen. I had made this girl so angry, thrown myself in a gutter, doing whatever I could to make myself utterly repulsive, and she had seen through it to my possibly good intentions buried underneath layers of undateable qualities. (She also bought her drugs from my friends, meaning we would have to see each other, a lot, anyway)

So, we basically picked up where we left off, with dinner that night, and then probably watching TV until we fell asleep. And then, very shortly after my drunken escapades, I met her father. I put on a nice sweater again. Shook his hand, and was super polite in the way that always makes parents love me. He laughed and said, "So, I heard you had a little to drink the other night." Well what do I say to that? I threw my arm around his daughter, laughed, and said, "Ohhh, college." To which he laughed and said, "College, good times." I couldn't believe what was happening. Her father STILL liked me. It was almost more shocking than the fact that she still liked me. I had somehow accomplished the impossible. He later asked about my tattoos, and off came the sweater, revealing what I truly was. Some older guy with a beard, covered in pictures on demons and death, who does not hide his underage drinking and long list of bad decisions, and currently dating his daughter. I think he called me "Hip."

She was very impressed of how well I behaved, and got along with her father. She was so happy that he liked me, and I pretended that it was no big deal, and that I wasn't hugely relieved to not have my knee caps broken. And I continued to be me, but I always remembered to keep it under control, and not do stupid things. Often even being the responsible one. And well, she continued to be impressed with me. I'm still not entirely sure how I worked such magic, and I have never dare to attempt this again, though there have been times since that similar things have happened accidentally. I would not recommend this method of impressing girls to anyone, ever, but it worked for me. I think it is the reason why I have such bad luck most of the time, I use up years of good luck all at once, impressing girls in ridiculous ways.

Short list of complaints.

Nothing changes.

Now on to less depressing things.

How long can I go jobless, should I decide to quit my job tonight? The answer to that is: Financially I can go much longer than I can go mentally. I've done this before, with far less in my pocket, and my boredom from not having a job wins long before my bank account is empty. I almost quit last night. Now, I think I may hold out for a month, maybe two months longer. I should at least use my paid vacation time first, right?

A long list of things I could do while not working at my job.

I could sleep normally.
I could have free time to use effectively on things that make me not completely fucking miserable.
I could see my friends.
I'd have time to see that girl.
I could grow my beard.
I could go home and see friends.
I could go home and see family.
I could work on getting healthy.
I could finally work on writing that comic book with Sean.
I could finally start working on that punk band with Sean.
I could get out of bed, for reasons other than I have to go to work.
I could have the time to get my other arm tattooed.

Sometimes I wonder.

A couple things about not much at all.

My taste in women is getting a little too classy for my own good. This morning, in a very Vince Vaughn like manner, I hit on Jean-Georges daughter. It was like the scene the scene in Wedding Crashers where Vince Vaughn notices the blond across the chapel, and mouths the word "Hi." She blushed and sent her own hello in my direction. Our eyes danced back and forth in flirtatious glances like we were at a god damn senior prom. Then my coworker noticed, and told me who she was, and then reminded me that her father runs the restaurant that's with the company I work for. Dangerous territory. It didn't stop me.

This is almost as good as my secret relationship with Amber Rose(not really that classy). But like I said, that's a secret, we don't want Kanye to find out just yet, he is dealing with enough already.



Also, it is amazing how much less angry I get when my cable company phone technician speaks English. I have been having problems with my TV/internet all month, and have done a lot of calling, and a lot of yelling at people who don't understand the things I say, and respond in an English that very closely resembles Spanish, which I don't understand. But today I call, fully prepared to get angry very quickly, as I have a tendency to do. And then...the guy on the other end of the phone understood me. And then when he said something back to me, I understood him as well. And because of this, he was able to help me. And, well, I didn't yell at anyone.

Working hard, or hardly working?

Truth be told, I'm online shopping. Previously, I was eating pasta, the empty dish still sits beside me, a trophy of sorts. Before that I was reading Animal Farm, it is my first time. Almost mid way through, that too sits beside me, underneath my phone, the same phone I was earlier using to play poker. Before all of this, I'm sure I was working, I'm sure of it. Now done with shopping online, I have found two new items to spend my money on, though they both include sizes, and unless I can literally put something on, I have no idea what size fits me. I will buy these two things in person.

Item one is a new hat, I will probably buy multiple ones of these, as I want different types. I need, not want, but need a new cap, just like the one I lost. I belive my brother will pick one up for me when he returns to Miane shortly, there is a British/Irish import store there which sells Hanna Hats. That is the hat I want, a Hanna hat. Sean, my brother, will have strict instructions on this hat purchasing, and the use of the iPhones ability to take photos of said hats an email them to me will obviously be in use to make sure I like the hat. I'm really not that picky. I have decided with my thrid Hanna hat (yes, I've owned two others. One of which never really fit right, and one other that I drunkenly lost of the subway) I will go solid color, my other two have been patch work. And my only other request is that they fall into the colors ranging from gray, to black.

Much a long the same lines of solid color grey or black hats, I want a Fedora. I just do. I want a black one. Or maybe a gray one, with a black band around it. It will be nice, and I will probably never wear it. Online shopping for these has told me that they are not cheap. Well, fuck if I care, I want one, to wear maybe at least once. Mostly just to own. Fedoras take confidence, which I have, but rarely use in the right places, or times, like when I foolish looking hat is residing on my head. I will own one though, and do with it as I please. And that will please me.

Once again in terms of semi ridiculous clothing, I want some boots. Cowboy boots. Again, of a dark color. I want black, though I think when aged, brown would look better. I have long heard of the comfort of cowboy boots, and well, I just think they look pretty alright. I want no crazyness, solid colors only, and it just minor fancy thread work done on the upper portion of the boots. I arrived here, at cowboy boots, because I have recently decided to by running shoes, to go to the gym, and run (try to, I probably shouldn't because of my hip, but to hell with that). And buying new shoes made me think of buying other new shoes, that I would wear while doing something with no real effect ony my health, like drinking, smoking, drugs, or possibly horseback riding. I will never actually ride a horse, it has never seemed like a very smart idea. To me it seems like getting into a convertible that has a mind of it's own, and sometimes decides to throw you out of it, and then step on you. And you have to feed it. Anyway. I was reading the Stand, and the evil man, the walkin' dude, as he's call in the book, always has these worn down cowboy boots that we walks around the country in. The image of these boots is always so menecing, and mostly cool, and I just want some. Though I will probably never walk across the country, be immortal, throw people through windows, inhabit the minds of crows, or do any of that other shit the evil bad guys always do. I will have the boots though. These too, as proven through online shooping, are expensive. But. as always my irreversible cheapness has lead me to discover that all the ones I like are the cheap ones (under $150), so at least I've got that going for me.

And no, I do not (yet) have any desire for a cowboy hat. The above mentioned hats should hold me over for the time. Until of course I stop doing things, buy a house with a porch, a rocking chair, and stick a long piece oh straw between my teeth. Maybe then I'll buy one. And I'm pretty sure that day will come.

Memories of reader, and a coffee drinker.

Yawn. Stretch. Repeat. My lazy Sunday continues, only now it is Monday. Meaning that I've really just become lazy. Not in a bad way, it is not like I'm putting things off, or ignoring responsibility; I just have nothing to do, and I am in turn doing nothing. Today I left the apartment for the first time since arriving home Saturday evening, I needed to buy more Tropicana pink lemonade. Unfortunately C-town was out of said lemonade, but being that I was already in the grocery store, I spent about $30 on other food/beverages that I didn't really need (yes, I needed pink lemonade). This was quite a task, considering the amount of effort I have yet to use on anything constructive in the past two days, it surprisingly involved many steps. I first had to put pants on (real pants, I have been living in some very comfortable PJ pants), this was kind of a bummer, as wearing clothes suitable for public viewing made me feel more like a contributing member of society (this was not my goal for the weekend). Along with pants, I had to put shoes on, though not wanting to have to also put socks on, I opted for flip-flops, which don't really count. I then threw a 2 sizes to big for me sweatshirt on over my wife beater, and hit the road for my two block trip of actually doing something. By the end of my journey to the store, after carrying my 4 bags of groceries up two flights of stairs, I had almost broken a sweat. Almost. It may have been the sweatshirt. It has been cool lately, cool enough to pull off jeans and a sweatshirt, provided you aren't doing anything more than walking at a moderately slow pace. I've gotten off topic though, I intended to talk to you about reading, and coffee.

I am, not surprisingly, on my couch right now, with an empty cup of coffee and a half read article for the New Yorker. Not only is my cup of coffee out, but all my coffee is out. I usually have 2ish cups in the morning(afternoon/evening), today I only had enough for on cup though. This leads me to the half read article. It was pretty good, about one of the many people who decided to go totally green and write about it. So far it seems like a huge pain in the ass, and make his life suck, and begs the question, "for what good?" I assume they answer that at the end of the article, as I am sure the New Yorker wouldn't completely bash going green, even if all this one guy really did was make his life a pain in the ass for a year. But now that my coffee is gone, so is my desire to keep reading. Not to mention the writer of the article keeps talking about Thoreau in a very unforgiving light, repeatedly saying his time spent on Walden Pond was little more than I stunt to break him into the literary world. Makes sense I guess, but it's just far more interesting than a stunt. But that is a subject I am not really qualified to speak on. I think I'm getting off topic again, I was saying something about coffee and reading.

Right. I remember similar situations in Maine, more importantly in Rock City Coffee, where I used to work, and where my love of coffee and reading grew exponentially. Now when I return to Maine I go there everyday to sit and read while drinking coffee. That's really all I want to do when I go home. Mostly because I can't do it here, at least I can't do it as well. There is a coffee shop called the Archive just a few minutes walk from my apartment here in Brooklyn, but it's just not the same. Rock City was full of real people. There was Captain Neal, the published writer, and the arrogant pain in the ass. There was Joe, rest in peace, who was crazy, probably due to years of alcohol abuse, who would dance to the music, while sipping his dollar cup of coffee. Either that or he would talk about his days as a sailor, I'm still not quite sure that he ever was a sailor, he had some good stories though. And of course there was KT, working behind the book counter, always there a new recommendation, and an infectiously loud laugh that could convince anyone they were funny. At the Archive there are just two people: some worker, and then some hipster. These two people multiply enough to fill most of the seats, and cover the tables with Apple products, but really, they are all the same person.

Really I think everything about the Archive is just less appealing than Rock City. Instead of endless cases of books, they have a few shelves of movies. Rather than a good selection of papers to read, they carry a few copies of the Onion. It's never a gamble of which of the 15 or so different roasts they will serve that day, it's always the same roast of Gimme, which is of course delicious, but my least favorite roast from Gimme. And also, they don't have whip cream. That means a con panna party just isn't possible. Not that anyone there would really appreciate it anyway (that is kind of irrelevant, I think myself and my good friend River, also from Rock City are the only two people who like con panna parties).

I am being pretty hard on the Archive though, the people are nice, and the coffee is good. Which is really all you can ask for from a coffee shop. And even still, I have brought my book in there to read before, and as long as you can concentrate well enough in the hipster hangout, then you're ok. And I've never had the problem I'm having now, because it's a coffee shop, they don't run out of coffee. And now I've reached another point of empitness, my cup of Irish Breakfast tea is empty, and my desire to keep writing is quickly fading. I have lost the motivation to end this well, but seeing that I am still on my lazy Sunday, I'll end with the same advice I gave to a friend yesterday: It's Sunday, and no one needs motivation on Sunday.