It's been a fairly surreal set of days, lately. The Hearst gig drones on and on. My other clients clamour for my time, which I give them, and suddenly it's 11:30 at night and I'm just getting home feeling really goddamned good about the amount I can accomplish in a day.

Today was not such a day, today was dedicated to Ben's father's funeral, so there was nothing accomplished, a needed break from the hectic schedule I've kept myself on. I missed many social obligations, and will have to spend some time playing catch up, but that's ok.

Of course, there's a lot that happens in the spaces between what I write here. For example, I saw Jill, Barbara's friend, at Simone's. [note: I didn't see her, points out Barbara, [below] which is why she was so unfriendly to me [jill] and that would really make me feel a whole lot better about this whole situation. In other words - case of mistaken identity lead to me shooting my mouth off. oops] And Nicole at Tribe. Which brings me to a bit of a quandry, and a lesson I should have learned long ago - if you take those that you're interested in to your places, you can expect to see them again in your private playgrounds, even in a city the size of Manhattan.

Barbara, a coworker of Alyson's, and I had a not particularly tumultuous fling starting in around Halloween, and we'd been to Simone's on several occassions for a glass of Merlot and conversation. Imagine my surprise to see her best friend in the window yesterday. Yes, I know all the coolest places downtown, no I don't want you taking them over. I'm going to have to start taking women to places that are lousy, and keep the good ones to myself. I've brought a lot of women to Tribe, which was my refuge for awhile, and then they all started going there on their own, and boom, refuge gone. As if there's only a few place in Manhattan to drink. It gets irritating. There's more to this story, but I'm past venting on it now, more or less. Suffice it to say that I was shocked to see Jill at Simone's, and Nicole at Tribe, but I shouldn't've been, considering the Gustavo chronicles.

On Friday night at Tribe, I bumped into Nicole, whom I'd gone on a few dates with back in November or thereabouts. Tribe being the bar that I frequent much like a fat man frequents his refrigerator, her surprise at seeing me there seems to have been a bit misplaced. "Of all the gin joints in all the world..." and so forth. I emailed her, and hopefully we'll get together sometime soon. I liked her, and was saddened when we stopped seeing each other.

I saw Catherine on the A train last night while on my way home. She was on her way back from a show (shows are chronic in her life) and I was on my way back from the funeral, and in a bit of a mood. Somehow, she's ended up working in a law firm and I'm working in a web shop. I'm a lawyer and she was the Tech Director or thereabouts for Village Ventures. There's irony there, but I'm not going to delve into it. I don't think I'm going to see her except for random meetings on the subway anymore, based on an offhanded comment she made as I was leaving, but hey, one never knows.

Chris has cockroaches. See his fear? And he wants to stay with me for several days? Chris-san, my friend, explain to me how you'll live in my apartment for several days if bugs scare you? I've got a very clean place, but there's this messy chinese restaraunt below me that... well... is messy.

I don't have much of a report on the funeral, because I decided that that was a family affair and in good taste it should stay internal. I did enjoy seeing Chelley, Chris, Sarah and so forth, was amazed at how much one of Ben's cousins can't stand me (being convinced that I was hitting on her at the wedding (I was flirting as much as I flirt with anyone) ) and that Rob and Sarah of RobAndSarah are no longer. I drove down and back with Sarah, and had dinner with her afterwards. I'll probably see her again sometime next week in a more informal less stressful situation. That should be good.

Still no word from the woman at John's party, alas, I think I won't hear.

It is dangerous to bring potential dates to places that you frequent because they will go there after they're done dating you and you'll all feel uncomfortable. Discuss. Use anecdotes as necessary.