You can never go home again

NOTE: If you click on the sign image at upper right, you can see the newly revised "Gallery of the sign"
{or click here}

Weekend's over, loads to report, in reverse chronological order, with several photos at the very end. You can skip to the pictures and to the question of the day if you click here.

[quick guide: sun sat fri thurs]

Sunday

Brunch with Dakota and Bethany today. Brunch at Stingy Lulu's (overpriced, underfed) and then a nice wander around SoHo.

The problem I have with spending my social time with beautiful women is that sometimes I have to do the things that married men are stuck doing - shopping, which I normally enjoy, and listening to them complain about things.

Shopping is usually fun for me, I used to do trips all around the city to find new and overpriced things to wear - keeping up with the joneses for the dot com economy. But those shopping excursions normally ended with me throwing new things into my wardrobe. Todays excursion didn't, because we went perfume shopping for Dakota (who now smells like Cotton Candy) and then to Victoria's Secret. Highlight of my shopping trip was buying six pounds of chicken bones so I can make stock.

The ladies were in rare form around me, and my nostrils are a bit burnt out at this point. Actually hearing women speak about blowjobs with the frank attitude of "well, we do them, it's part of life" was, well, revelatory. We looked at various colognes for me, and settled on the fact that of the available colognes, only "Egoiste" would suit me better than the D&G that I've got right now.

We spent a lazy Sunday afternoon lolling around New Era Cafe, drinking coffee and not trying hard enough not to be evil. I'm sure Karma is listening and will be biting me on the ass sometime soon.

We ended up at Tribe for a drink, but although Mike and Mike were there and in good form, and Mike the bartender was spinning some mean records, we left, came back to my place and watched a movie I've been meaning to see for many months now: Whipped.

As to whipped, a few comments:
1) Throughout the movie, I kept watching the Jonathan character and saying "That's me... shit..."
2) Amanda Peet is dreamy.

3) Amanda Peet is still dreamy. Almost as dreamy as Claire Forlani.

Bethany hied herself off to her home, and Dakota and I had a sleepover, replete with girl talk and gossip. Women are weird.

When sleep eventually overcame me, I was pleased, because that's where I can be a viking.

Saturday

Went to a Mac N' Cheese party that Bethany invited me to, and dragged poor Dakota along with me. When we got there, there were crudite's out, and a smattering of people. Eventually, Andrew showed up, bringing his patented Margarita mix with him. This livened up the party considerably for me.

MAtt showed up (yes, that's a capital A and not a typo) as did Ethan, and dozens of people I don't know. To the person who commented that my life looks like a friends episode, the only thing I can say is that I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures because the women there made Courtney Cox pale, and the men made Matthew Perry look like a fat strung out idiot. Young, hip, urban, self aware, and vaguely self-mocking.

It was Brigette and Chris (Bethany's Chris, not my Chris)'s birthdays, and therefore this third annual Mac N' Cheese party. I felt like a dork not having brought a present, and nobody would accept that my present was having brought Dakota. Hmph.

The party was good, we spent a good deal of time naming the balloons (one was named four poster bed in my honor, I'm not entirely sure why, but when I tried to take people "to my bed" they thought I was talking about something else entirely.

As with most parties, there was the share of players trying to take one another home, helium eating, and just general good company. It was a very low key affair, my favorite sort.

Friday

I went to Vassar. I've been jobless for long enough that it's about time I spoke to a career development office with a proven track record and with over 8000 alumnae who are willing to be contacted. So I went up.

This isn't the first time I tried to go up - last time I was stopped by a freak snowstorm. When I got onto campus at noon, and saw that rain started this time, began to worry effusively. However, it all turned out for the best, as I was able to see Michael Joyce, have a very very useful meeting with a very knowledgable career counselor, meet with James Challey, and realize what my intellectual stumbling block has been for the last three years. Not going to say I've gotten past it, but as a Jew, I know the power of naming things. I've named my problem, and now it's facing it, addressing it, and minimizing it.

My immediate short term problem is simple: my resume is poorly drafted. This is emininently solvable, but must be addressed immediately.

I wandered campus a bit, but since it was raining, I didn't get to really delve into the place. I emailed Ethan from the computer cluster, telling him that I missed Vassar, and he reminded me that you can never go home.

It's true. When talking to Michael, we discussed business plans and career goals, not Derrida and French Feminism. When I saw professor Challey, it was "so, how are the rest of the alums" and not "what was the homework again?"

A lot of memories were sparked by the visit though, some more recent than others. Talking to Ari about how difficult it was for me to make friends at that place, and how nowadays all of my friends seem to be alumnae that I didn't know then. Late night walks along the trails in the massive arboretum that is the college. Being constantly surrounded by beauty at every turn and being utterly overwhelmed most of the time.

I don't like the person I was back then, but lord I wish I could do it all again as the person I am now.

But memory lane is a trail best left untraveled with that place, because life will never be as easy, as carefree or as simple as it was back then. And if it is, I'm likely not to recognize how easy and carefree it is, just like I didn't then.

Memory lane is a very wide street in my head right now. I'm going to have to stop this detour before I get depressed.

I came back to the city rejuvenated, and with a newfound lust for life. I realied, as I said, where I screwed up. It was years ago. I'm better now, and I've got direction again. I'm a lawyer and that's the least of my skills. I'll get there from here, and I've finally started to see the path. We're good. Oh yes, we are good.

Thursday Another El Conquistadors show. They utterly rocked. I mean, they fucking tore the roof off the joint. New venue, the "Elbow Room" and they rocked harder than any other group I've seen at a venue smaller than Madison Square Garden. They were having fun, and the crowd was too. The usual posse of band-followers showed up, everyone had a good time, and I got photos. Unfortunately, the photos I got of the band were all flat, the stage lighting making it really difficult to get anything decent.

Here are all the pictures I've managed to get these past few days:

Dakota and Michelle love me.

Dancers

More dancers.

Morgan.

Michael Joyce with the Sign

And, for me, take a trip down memory lane and tell me what you remember wistfully.