The weekend of February 22

The weekend of 2/22.

I got home from work on Friday night at 1:45. Obviously, I didn't manage to go out very hard after that, and to the best of my knowledge, I got inside, head hit pillow, and I started having that dream where I'm chased by three women vampires who want me to join in with them, and they bite me, and suddenly the four of us are hunting together.

When I woke up at 7 on Saturday, it was because I had to be at work by 9. I remember a vague haze over everything I was doing, and wondering if I was awake or asleep. I met my boss at work at 9, and we worked steadily and efficiently until 5, at which point he gave me a ride home. Excited, after this week of no sleep, to finally take a nap, I made a few calls that I had to catch up on, checked my voicemail, and was about to go to sleep when I noticed a voicemail from 415 that I didn't recognize, telling me that she (the voice was a woman) was with Bertie, and that I should come out with them, and that she was in town to visit her boy.

Selena? No, she's in Philly. Other Selena? No, she's in Mass. What's the area code for Mass? Not 415. California? Jess? Jess doesn't know Bertie. Who the hell was it?

So I called the number back, and as smoothly as I could, agreed to meet for tea.

"Hey baby, how are you?"
"Good, good. What's up?" We continued like this for about five minutes. They were in a cab, I was ready to get into my bed.
"Ok sweetie, we're going downtown now, and we've been drinking, we're going to a place on the West side."
"Why don't you come to my place. I've got booze here, and tea, and water, and I'm beat." They agreed to meet me at my apartment for a bit, before jetting off.

Imagine my surprise when I let them in, and discovered that the mystery guest was Min Jung! Last time I saw her was around two years ago for the Oakenfold show at Exit of all places. And we'd sporadically instant messaged since then, each one promising to go visit the other in their home city, while acknowledging that we're frankly too busy to actually ever do that.

Hopefully my shock only registered in my head and wasn't totally apparent to her.

Bertie, MJ, her friend and I all walked up to my apartment, where we had a round of Scotch, regaled each other with stories of how we'd been, and then they fled, extracting a promise from me that I would meet them at Figaro's in the West Village for desert at 9.

Chris-san was slated to visit on Sunday, but I hadn't heard from him in three or so weeks, so I began to assume that I was on my own.

Until I lay down for my nap, that is. At which point, Chris called.
He had called on my land line. This was confusing, since I thought my landlord was the only person with that number.

"Hello?"
"Hallo Jon, it's Chris." Chris is British. They say "Hallo."
"Hey! How's it going?"
"Good, are we still on for tomorrow?"
"Umm, of course."

So much for my nap. We made plans for him to meet me at my place the next day at around Noon, to hang out, and then he'd leave at 4 am on Monday morning.

Just as I started to try to lay down for my nap again, I realized that it was time to meet Brian over at the bar we were going to predrink at. I changed clothes, took a quick rinse of a shower, and hauled ass the one block it took to get there.

Sat down at the bar.

Ordered myself a Patron. Rocks. (It's not straight Tequila... it's got ice in it) And waited. For Brian.

Who showed up shortly thereafter.

Now, if you can picture two well educated guys, sitting in a bar, one, a svelte yuppie, sweater from Banana Republic, expensive haircut. The other, a punk rocker with a chin-only goatee and... let's not describe Brian, you've all seen him on his site already. The juxtaposition is often interesting.

Brian

(clicking on photos will pop up a larger version)

The bartender poured him a drink, and we had a talk about life, where we are, how we're doing, that kinda thing. Looks like everyone I know is assessing their lives right now. Sometimes I wonder if September 11th reset everyone's internal clocks so a lot of people are on very similar cycles. But I digress.

We went to meet MJ and company at Figaro's in the East Village for "Dessert." I put that in scare quotes because neither Brian nor I had had dinner yet. We each ordered food and a beer, and met everyone around the table. I'd met MJ's friend, her other friend R was there, as well as a guy that looked vaguely familiar but I couldn't quite place.

R

We started talking, I mentioned that I went to Vassar, and the guy I couldn't place asked if I knew Nobi. I told him that I did, and we placed him as one of the actors in a play that Nobi did, that I'd actually seen.

It was a Friendster moment without Friendster. As they used to say: it's a small world.

I called Nobi on my cell, and yelled something at him about "the first rule of Dim Sum club is you don't talk about Dim Sum club." Not knowing quite what I was talking about, I hung up shortly thereafter.

Since MJ is a web celebrity, I got a picture of her with my sign for posterity.

MJ with sign

And since MJ is MJ, I got a picture of her smiling at the camera with me for posterity.

MJ and Swerdloff

The night wound down when Brian and I decided we were tired, and we walked a ways, parting at CBGBs, him to treck to his house, I to saunter to mine. [Who says saunter anymore? You do. -Ed]

I passed out. Woke up early the next day because my evil traitor of a body doesn't like getting more than five hours of sleep anymore, and puttered around my house, looking over my finances, considering my taxes, putting my finances into nice neat piles and then ignoring them completely, being heckled by my finances, and finally, avoiding them altogether.

Around Noon, Chris called.

Chris-san

He'd landed at the airport and was on his way to my house. Excellent. I cleaned up as only a man can (dirty clothes into the closet, check, neatly stacked finances into a drawer, check, shower and dress, check) and waited for him. When he arrived, we said our hellos, and immediately struck out into New York.

We had a good brunch at Cafe Habana (mmm... Chorizo...) and walked around NoLiTa and SoHo a bit. Chris wanted to go to the Apple store, and I wanted to walk since the weather was starting to be nice.

At around three, we decided to go to the AMNH. The line, once we got there, snaked ten or so people across, and twenty or so wide. At that rate, we'd get in around the same time they were closing.

I did the only sensible thing I could do. I joined as a member, got our free tickets, my free Imax tickets, and went off in search of interesting things. We spent time looking at Meteors (ooh, rocks!!) gems (ooh, more rocks!) the planetarium (ooh, really BIG rocks!) and the Dinosaurs (ooh, not rocks, really...) We saw the oceans exhibit, which looks beautiful the way that they've redone. The Whale is really pretty cool, and still godawful big.

The Whale

The Dinosaur exhibit has been a favorite of mine since I was a wee lad. A tiny tyke. A kid, even. I was such a goofy sweet geeky kid. I loved the dinosaurs at the Peabody in New Haven and the ones at the AMNH as well. Even if they did have a copy of the creepiest thing in history, the Evil Rabbit Fish

Evil Rabbit Fish

Nowadays I love the ones at the AMNH because of the design and flow.

When I went to the Vatican, years ago, it was as a student of Roman history, not of Catholic history. I wanted to see the amazing Roman collection, or as my professor, Jan Gedane called it, the "old rocks" made by people who are "dead now." When I got there, the design was obviously created to shepard fat folk from Iowa around, so that they could see the important stuff, and ignore the lesser stuff. Never mind that Laocoan is one of the most amazing sculptures surviving today, most tourists want to see the Sistine Ceiling if they're pious, and the last judgement if they're teenage boys. I wanted to see a particular Roman sculpture at one point, and I'd walked by it without noticing. I tried to amble back casually. The guard said "NO. You must follow the signs." (translated from the Italian). I was pissed. Who'd ever heard of unidirectional museum touring?

Not so in the AMNH. You can go any way you want. And more to the point, if you look at the floor, you'll notice that you're standing on a timeline which explains the evolution of animals from nothing through the various ages of history. It's amazing. And so I took Chris.

After we left, I checked my voicemail. My boss had called. I called him back, and he told me that it was just a courtesy call, because he might need my help that night. Sunday night. It's hard to be mad, since he'd been at work all day and I hadn't, but it was frustrating.

We took the subway back to my neighborhood, to my house, and we showed each other some of our music collections. He introduced me to Mr. Scruff and Plump DJs and I introduced him to Handsome Boy Modelling School and Listen and Lose.

I called my boss at 8pm to make sure he didn't need me. He did.

Wait, he did?

He asked nicely whether I could come join him at work.

Of course I can, because that's why they pay me the big bucks.

I left Chris in my apartment with a promise to be back by midnight. I told him to play on the internet or do whatever else he liked, this shouldn't take long.

I got a call a little while later from Chris telling me that he and Brian were going to the bar that I had gone to with Brian only the night before. I promised Midnight. Come hell or high water.

Which was of course a lie. Brian, gentleman that he was, wasn't about to leave our British comrade from the Fictionsuits days alone in a bar. Not when there was liquor to be had and two pretty bartenders.

But he also has a life, and got antsy at around 12:30.

I received the following voicemail while I was in a meeting at 12:30 in the morning:

Hey Johnny, you twat. It's Chris and I. We're at lit/fuse, I don't know how much longer we're going to be here, but there are free drinks Call me and get the fuck out of work. Oh, and I've been hit by a car, and you've got to come soon, because I need bail money because Chris is about to be deported and Chris has just shot somebody. With my gun. So you better come quick. We need legal help.

They kept calling every 15 minutes until 1:30, when we finally finished my project. I played the phone mail for my boss, who had a good laugh, and sent me on my way.

I sped up to Lit/Fuse, met the boys there, and the Tequila started to flow. First round on Chris, second round on Brian, third round on the Bartender. By this point, Brian decided to leave, and things become a bit hazy in my memory. It was around 3, we left and got hot dogs over at Grif Dogs. I took Chris back to my place, and killed time for around an hour while he put his bags together and we made sure we'd finished giving each other all the music we wanted to, and said our goodbyes. At 4, bleary eyed, I locked the door, as Chris tottered off to his car, and I collapsed, spent, into my bed. Happy about a wonderful weekend, sneaking a life in between working moments.

Posted by Swerdloff at March 09, 2004 10:55 AM