listen to this show tonight. thank me later.

barring the remote possibility that there are 2 beat up blue ford expeditions in new york city with bumper stickers that ask "have you hugged your cat today?" i was behind the same exact car this morning and this evening on my commute. figure out the odds of that one.

also my big toe on my right foot has been absolutely killing me all day. there is no logical explanation. i'm blaming paris hilton.

the real reason i'm writing is to tell you that one of my favorite bands in the fucking world is playing tonight on the radio and it's in pittsburgh but it streams everywhere so if you're around between 9 and 10 tonight (they are playing for a whole hour!) you really should listen to endless mike and the beagle club on www.wrct.org. pretty much every band you like sucks in comparison to these guys.

unless you like springsteen. he rules no matter what.

i finished a toilet paper roll tonight so i'm going to listen to that whole show pretending i'm a pirate.

***update***
it was awesome. i hope you listened.

my candyland melted down to syrup

so i woke up kinda early today for a sunday. i'm probably going back to bed, in fact, now that i've done what i woke up to do. which was write.

wow. i guess it's good that i did it when i did, because now i'm sitting here trying to tell you about it and the words aren't really coming. welcome back writer's block, old friend. will you be staying long? the loveseat folds out into a bed.

it was a rollercoaster of a week. seriously. but i don't want to talk about it. you'll hear about it in songs in about 8 months. maybe longer. i've still got this record to finish. but you'll hear about it then. because i got up early today and wrote.

not very much of it rhymes. actually, if there's a rhyme in there it's an accident. when i sit down to set it to music i'm sure i'll have my work cut out for me. but i wrote and wrote and wrote and i think i got something down that came from the right place. and now i'm writing about having written and am i the only one that thinks that's a little weird?

i live in constant fear that i'm going to wake up one day and have nothing left to say.

today is not that day.

...

there're a couple stories worth telling from this weekend, but one is a bit fuzzy. i'm going to do my best.

i was meeting friends last night on the lower east side in the bar that we always meet at when we're meeting there because it's right outside the subway station. but since it was the weekend some trains weren't running right and one was theirs, so i ended up waiting in this bar for a pretty long time. these old irish guys from boston came and sat next to me at the bar and started asking me where they could find girls with loose morals aged 24-27. i said everywhere. so they bought me a drink and gave me their business card (they own a bar in boston, go figure). and then they spent about 20 minutes obsessing over my surname, and insisting that it's not really irish, but in fact from the scottish highlands. then when my friend showed up and confessed to having british blood they called him a motherfucker. i kept my mouth shut about the rest of my blood.

the other thing was much weirder. i'm waiting on the subway platform at 4am on friday night (or saturday morning, for accuracy's sake) to go home and you can infer my condition from the setting. there's a really cute girl next to me on the bench with one empty seat between us. she seems to be alone. so then this other guy stumbles over and sits down next to her and fixes his eyes on her for like 45 seconds. and she puts up her hood and looks really uncomfortable, and i'm thinking that chivalry is dead but i probably should do something anyway. so he gets up angrily after a while like drunk people do when they feel slighted, and stands a little bit away, stewing.

another kid sits down next to her and starts chatting me up. he's fresh out of college, says he went to school in boston, to which i reply i went to school in providence and then after a little dancing we both admit where we went to school which was kinda funny. he went to harvard. and he was planning on running in the idiotarod the next day, which my friends had been trying to talk me into spectating at, and he had just secured his shopping cart so we had something to talk about. around this time the drunk guy comes back and stands in front of this girl (who had been peripherally participating in our conversation), stoops down, and stares her right in the face again, maybe 4 inches between their noses. the train comes.

so when she sits down on the end of a row i sit right next to her, so the other guy can't. and she and i and the kid from harvard continue our conversation, which at this point has shifted to music. i had just come from seeing sam champion (they were good) and blah blah blah. our shady friend interrupts to tell the harvard kid that he really likes his shoes. really likes them. i turn to the girl and incredulously whisper "what is going on?"

now here's where it gets weird. it turns out this girl and some other guy who has kept his mouth shut the whole time and the aforementioned scary drunk were all friends, and they were actors. suddenly the guy wasn't drunk anymore, and he's palling around with us. and 2 stops later they all leave together. i feel like i got punk'd. who are these people? was this some sort of weird experiment to see if strangers would come to the aid of a damsel in distress? do i need to sign a waiver?

the harvard kid got off a stop later, and i'm pretty sure he wasn't in on it, but he certainly didn't seem to think it was as weird as i did. i think i gave him my business card.

so much for writer's block, eh?

my hands smell like metal

you know what's ironic? everything.

there are times i sit on my bed in the dark with my guitar and nothing comes. no chord progressions i haven't already used, no words that rhyme or words that don't. and the irony is that when i sit down with my guitar and i turn the lights off it's because i think i've got something. that all i need to do is put my fingers to strings and close my eyes, and it should come.

but i guess it would be too easy if inspiration was predictable.

i am tired of saying and writing the same old shit. in fact, i'm tired of saying and writing how i'm tired of saying and writing the same old shit. i could sit down and write ten songs right now about breakups and the like but it's just fucking boring. then again what else is there to write about besides girls?

what else?

i'm kidding, i know there's other things. really. really really.

the point is, tonight i sat down with a heartful and then nothing came out. maybe i should just concentrate on finishing the songs that are already written. maybe that's the problem.

i want to walk behind somebody's brilliant mind

i have given up on saying how just when i thought i'd seen everything... because living in new york is nothing if not affirming of the fact that in your whole life you don't have time to see even close to everything.

last night i was on the subway and a group of 10-15 kids got on and stood in a circle in the corner of the train and for the next 30 minutes or so that i shared a car with them they ceaselessly sang and danced and cheered. it was annoying for about 2 minutes, but then i (and everyone else in the car) got over our training not to ever look at anything happening on the subway and we all began to watch. and then we began to clap. and then a pretty old white guy got in the middle of the circle and took a turn dancing. and the subway operator kept coming out of his booth to watch between stops. and the old lady next to me slapped me on the thigh because it was so much fun.

i don't know how to describe the sound to you other than if you've heard the go! team (listen to "the power is on"), it was kinda like that if you take out all the music and just leave the vocal tracks in. really bizarre, cool subway ride.

in other news, i was just checking up on one of the bands i used to love back in the providence metro area, and they've really come into their own. i used to love seeing rooftop suicide club whenever they played in providence and i could get out to a show, and now they've gotten a lot better. they put up a few new demos on their myspace page and i really encourage you to go listen to "boston" and "captivated." if i could plug skills into myself like in the matrix, the first one i would do would be the ability to play pretty guitar leads like in "captivated." god damn.

mano a mano

i spent last night at my parents' house in connecticut, which was a little weird because they weren't home and all the furniture was moved around. actually the part about the furniture wasn't weird because i don't think i've ever seen it all in the same place twice since i've moved out...but there were some very conspicuously missing dog accessories. which i guess is why i came back to nyc early.

that's not the point though. the point is last night i was in town and i hung out with an old friend who has pretty much always been better than me at everything competition related. from sports all the way down to simple parlor games. and last night we drank beers and played pool and darts. he demoralized me 3 games in a row in pool. no biggie. i'm used to it. and then we turned to his new dart board. "i'm 9-0 on this so far" he said. it was on.

i'm not sure where it even came from but something from deep inside me stirred last night. something i wish i could tap all the time. i could not miss. and i beat him. in our first game.

really this is not only a guy thing, but such a specific thing to the dynamics of this particular friendship, that i don't think you could possibly understand the momentousness of this dethroning.

and that wasn't even the end. of course he insisted on a rematch. and i don't know if you know the rules of cricket but i'll not waste space explaining here. suffice to say the ensuing 0-0 tie goes down in my mind as the most epic game of darts to have ever been played. there was really sweat. really. for darts. my heart is pounding as i write this, even.

then our last game he beat me, but not by much. and it was his home court. i walked away feeling like the victor last night. where are my spoils?

oh yeah and also we ordered cocktails from the town diner which is something i'd always wanted to do since i was a kid, so i choked down a nasty tom collins and i can cross that off my life's to-do list.

someday very soon i'll write about my songs again.

sea green see blue

this will be a plug. only i don't know if it counts as a plug since this girl doesn't have a clue who i am. this will be a promotion. no, an endorsement. recommendation? all these words suck. i am going to tell you about a girl who sings songs and who i've slowly been becoming obsessed with. in a musical sense, i mean. i'm sure she's very lovely company too, but i wouldn't know. i don't talk to girls.

right. here's the point. listen to her. and i mean really listen. hard. her name is jaymay and she's from brooklyn and the songwriting is out of this world. (her official site is here but it's under construction i guess.) she's not so huge yet and plays nyc a lot, if you're vigilant you can probably see her for free somewhere and really, you must. because she'll go somewhere and people will be talking about her (unlike someone i know (me)) and then you'll have missed the boat.

she just put up a few new songs on her myspace page and actually a recording that was done the first night i saw her: "you are the only one i love" from the living room. that was the same night i saw josh pyke play an awesome set and then nora jones got up with a little jazz band later on and did a few impromptu songs for about 20 people in the room. you guys should hang out at the living room. fucking cool shit happens there.

i've been cycling through these songs for about 20 40 mins so i figured i'd just get on here and tell you about it.

also...thanks to everyone who's said something kind to me about my dog and to everyone who bit their tongue at the temptation to tell me i was being melodramatic. she was a good dog and we'll all miss her very much.

buster

to the one who more often than not was the first soul to hear my new songs, and who never protested to all the noise. to my most willing childhood playmate. to my favorite crying shoulder. to the most charming toothless grin i've ever known. to a patient ear, a cocked head, a forgiving kiss. to the only friend i've ever had whose poop i would clean off the floor with neither contempt nor ill will.

i am sorry about the boyish name, but i was just a little boy. you made it your own. you made all of us your own.

forever and always, friend, you will be missed. thank you. i love you. goodnight.

rising sign

i'm not usually a "now playing on my mp3 player" kinda guy but i'm listening to mike doughty's skittish right now (the real one that he autographed for me and i gave him an awkward handshake and sputtered out some bogus shit at the met cafe in providence (r.i.p.) not the one you can buy in the store now but whatever they're the same). this fucking guy, man. i know you can hear his songs on gray's anatomy or whatever now and those songs are ok but seriously. listen to skittish. because he doesn't even come close on his current record.

"i've seen
the dangers of
your rising sign
but i swear
i'd like
to drink the fuel straight from your lighter
it's all inside the wrist, it's
all inside the way you time it
i resent the way you make me like myself"

if i ever write something that good please hire a ninja(turtle) to put me out of my bliss before it wears off on its own.

i saw an old guy on the subway tonight reading a schedule for queens library's english classes for speakers of other languages. he was underlining times he could make it, from what i could tell. for some reason it put a big fat grin on my face. i guess i just like people that do things.

giving a loud voice to the silent killer

last night my carbon monoxide detector started making noise. at first i thought i was going to have to call 911 and go stand outside in my bathrobe or something, but then i read the thing and it said that when it chirps every 30 seconds that means it needs new batteries, not that i'm in mortal danger.

for the first time in my life that i can remember, i actually had some batteries in this place that fit. and so, after writing the previous discombobulated and completely ill-thought-out post, i was awake again around 4am trying desperately to pry the battery compartment open on my carbon monoxide detector as it blasted absolutely deafening sounds into my ear every 30 seconds.

david, it reminded me so much of our smoke detector woes in providence that i almost called you.

you see, when david and i lived in providence we had a building full of smoke detectors that were wired into the building's power and there was a month or so that at least 3 times a week they would all simultaneously begin to chirp as if their batteries were dead, and there was nothing we could do to stop them other than rip the things right out of the ceiling. but of course, that's not consistent with firecode so we didn't dare.

you can learn to sleep with 12 smoke detectors chirping around you at unpredictable intervals, if you're tired enough. why does that strike me as such a telling statement?

squint and it'll be clearer

many wise men and probably far more stupid ones have said that the best way to get to sleep when your mind seems determined not to let you is to stop trying. and so here i am, not by any means attempting sleep. although i suppose that by even exposing my motivation to you this early on i may as well be. i promise not to keep writing after i've run out of steam simply because i'm still not tired. and if nothing else, i am a man of my word. selectively. when it counts.

i've been reading again lately. i think i stopped reading habitually for pleasure when i was a freshman in college, when there was so much positively miserable reading that needed to be done that i couldn't justify reading what i wanted to when i was so busy concentrating on ways not to read what i didn't want to and still perform as if i had. that was going on 6 years ago now. i suppose it's time to get back on the old horse.

it's got me thinking extensively about my own writing (most of which you read right here on this non-page). specifically, why it is that i do it. this site began in earnest as a place to put things pertaining to my musical aspirations (which i assure you are as strong or as weak as they have always been). but it's become something else at the same time. maybe it's just matured. but now this website (i'm so uncomfortable with calling it exactly what it is because it is so temporary and so permanent. what i mean is that you can't touch it, i suppose, and i've always trusted things more when i've been able to paw at them. but you can't touch me either (most of you, not that you'd want to) and i am pretty sure i trust myself and i'm pretty sure i've just rambled myself nonsensical.) --now this website is more than what it was.

it makes me extremely happy for the most part to sit here most days and just babble about what's on my mind. i could do it privately and i assure you that if i did i would go into much greater detail and probably talk about entirely different things. but nothing would be at stake then and an anonymous audience (if indeed one exists) is good for instilling a sense of sustained urgency in the writer if it's good for anything. is this making sense? let me try another way.

this is an excercise in expressing myself in a way i can be proud of. it's to make me a better (song)writer but also just to make me better. when i sit in my apartment i'm happy to sit around in my underpants but when i go out i like to have real clothes on. when i write on here knowing anyone or everyone or noone could read it, it's like putting clothes on my thoughts. and you may think they're better off naked. maybe. but they can't stay naked forever, because they're always insisting on being let out. so this is me practicing getting them dressed in the morning, until they're old and savvy enough to be able to dress themselves properly. i was the kid who kept wearing sweatpants to school a little too long. i don't wish the same fate upon my oft-immature ideas.

i wrote a little before the new year about growing up. this is part of that, on its good days. and that's not to say i may never be guilty again of speaking in ambiguously broad terms and abstracts on purpose to code a message to one specific person who may or may not read it. or that i may just tell you stories about my friends for no greater purpose than a good story.

i can feel the point drifting away from me. all i meant to say was this: i really do enjoy writing this thing, and though i'm clearly grappling with the precise reason, i'm sure when i figure it out it'll seem very intuitive. and if you enjoy reading that which i write, i thank you categorically. if you don't, well then i can't imagine you'd be reading this very sentence at all unless you have some masochistic tendencies, join the club.

i'm tired now, i'm going to give bedtime another shot. but this has been fun. i'll see you again soon.

ps: i'm going to try to use a higher concentration of awesome words on here going forward. like "coquettish." tell me you wouldn't smile at least a half smile if you read that on here in a sentence.

the phone rings

last night i went to my friend's place in manhattan to watch the premiere of 24 and to drink every time it went to split screen, the clock appeared, jack did something with his sunglasses, someone got shot, or we just felt like it. those things happen a lot. really.

before the show we ate steak and potatoes, though, which is really the point. because i was in the middle of a very nice dream this morning around 8:30am when my phone rang and scared the living hell out of me. i answered with what probably more resembled a gargle than an actual word, and then i heard my friend, who sounded worse.

"hey, you haven't been up all night sick*, have you?"

!!!

i hadn't. i'd been sleeping awesomely, and i still feel pretty awesome. but now in the back of my head all day today i will be waiting for some horrible sickness to strike.

also i just wrote about 20 sentences about how it's dr. mlk jr. day today and be good to each other and all that, but it kept reading like a sermon and who needs a sermon from a guy like me on a day like this? ah well. at least you know where my head is.

peace.

* actually he was far more graphic about it and i originally posted his exact words but when i read it over a few hours later i realized how incredibly gross it was so i changed it. if you ask me privately i'll tell you what he said.

are you underestimating me or am i overestimating myself?

i went out this weekend with money burning a hole in my pocket and picked up a pretty sweet digital camera with the help of an old friend from high school who has been my electronics shopping buddy for as long as i can remember shopping for electronics. if i do say so it's pretty f'ing sweet. i've never had one before so of course i was out last night taking pictures of cupfuls of beer and coathooks and whatever else i could point and shoot at to the minor annoyance of most of the patrons of cheap shots.

then messing around with it again this morning i deleted all of it. oops.

at any rate, at some point soon when i'm feeling especially pouty and vain and i'm having a good hair day i'll take some pics to replace all the stale old pics you see around at purevolume and myspace and all that which were all taken a while ago on my lame camera phone.

i guess the real point is, i no longer have to worry about having rolls and rolls of undeveloped film continue to accumulate. now that i have a digital camera, i can concentrate on shrinking instead of growing my collection of pictures i've forgotten i took, and see what comes up.

should make for interesting blogging, if nothing else.

i can't believe i use the word blogging now. what has become of me?

creepy crawlers

the other day i had a sort of business lunch. this doesn't happen often where i work, but sometimes it does and i'm pretty cool with it because it means i'm eating for free.

we went to boston market. meatloaf with creamed spinach and macaroni and cheese, please. thanks.

considering i work where there are about ten thousand businesses, i was surprised how empty the place was, but whatever. easier to find a seat. i am making this story too long already.

so we talk business for about 45 minutes, and then since none of us are aching to get back to the office, the conversation just drifts. and it wasn't me (miraculously) who did it but somehow the conversation ended up about bugs.

and a few cockroach and centipede (mine, of course) and palmetto bug stories later, we had laughed enough and were ready to head back to work. so on the way out my sorta boss does something i would never ever do and says to someone eating alone "excuse me."

"weren't you sitting all the way over there before?" he asks.

turns out the guy had been sitting directly behind me so i never even noticed, but not long into our stories the guy got up and moved. something about 3 inch palmetto bugs coming out of hot tub jets turned his stomach, i guess. wimp.

i don't care if he's great, i just hope he's lucky

first of all, i remembered something i wanted to write last time but forgot. i am never buying the clementines with dora the explorer on the box again because like 4 of them were moldy and most of the other ones have at least 20 seeds a piece and clementines aresn't supposed to have fucking seeds god damn.

tonight i had 4 trains to catch and all 4 rolled in right as i arrived on the platform. and i got a really good parking spot this evening. and i saw match point which was totally intense but i would recommend it to you if you asked me if you should see it. work wasn't so bad today either. i just heated up some leftover pasta and i didn't heat it enough so most of it was cold but other than that i'm gonna say this day can be notched up as a victory. i'll sleep with a smile on my face tonight.

oh yeah another thing. in nyc it doesn't happen that often that you're the only one on a street and when it does it feels pretty weird. but what is way worse is when you find yourself with one other person and you're both on the same side of the street walking in the same way at different speeds. tonight i was behind a guy who was way bigger than me but the street lights must've been making my shadow look like the incredible hulk because he kept glancing over his shoulder. i was going faster because i was in a rush to get home and check out some new tunes i got so eventually i had to just pass him which was awkward. then i was getting nervous because some big dude was behind me. i love this city.

peas that rattle in a can

1. the word "conformity" is quickly climbing to the top of the list of most ironic words in the english language. if it's not immediately obvious to you why, you either have never used the internet or you are part of the reason.
2. some things are immensely popular because they appeal to the lowest common denominator. and that's fine, i guess, but it is what it is. but other things are immensely popular because they're fantastic. like how dark side of the moon still sells upwards of 400,000 records a year.
   
3. speaking of the sublime, i read raise high the roof beam, carpenters last night. that story just fucking blows me away and i could just write pages on it, but i'll spare you the bubbling. what i wanted to mention was salinger's dedication at the beginning of the book:

   "if there is an amateur reader still left in the world--or anybody who just reads and runs--i ask him or her, with untellable affection and gratitude, to split the dedication of this book four ways with my wife and children."

4. why do so many people who clearly intended on being famous hate it so much when they get there? is it as bad as they make it seem? nobody forced you to submit those stories to the new yorker, JD.
5. i would probably hate it too. but that doesn't mean i'll never try.
   
6. i really thought i had more things on my mind i wanted to write about tonight. you don't start a list unless you can make it to at least 10. or at least i don't. usually.
7. grasp
8. at
9. straws
10. made it.
    

car dodging

last night over indian food and red wine i was reminiscing about something silly i used to do with my friends when we were in high school called "car dodging." it wasn't as dangerous as the name implies. but i guess sometimes it was still pretty dangerous. and awesome.

when you're about 15 years old in the burbs you become acutely aware of something you've always suspected but now know to be true. there is absolutely nothing to do in your hometown. and since you can't drive yet to go find something to do elsewhere, you have to make your own fun. we made up a game.

the only rule was that you had to get from point a to point b without letting headlights spot you. usually that meant instead of calling our parents for rides when something like soccer practice ended, we would just start walking. the routes we chose were usually windy, so you had some warning when you saw the glow of headlights approaching a corner.

basically someone would see lights and holler about it, and then everyone would dive headfirst into whatever driveway or treeline or hedge or flower bed or stream was within reach. and then once the cars had gone, we would reconvene in the street and continue walking. and you know, we probably punched each other in the arm a lot and talked about who we would be when we had the chance to be someone else and about the girls we passed in the hallway every day but never could muster the courage to talk to. it would still be about a year before i'd kiss a girl for the first time.

rarely did we arrive at our destination without someone having broken glasses because a pile of rocks looked like a flower bed, or a twisted ankle because they fell into a 4 foot ravine in someone's front yard (that was me). and one time we all ran into a driveway and hid behind shrubbery and the car pulled into that very driveway and i have never run so fast in my life. and when we'd get back to my place covered in mud and grass stains my mom always looked at us like we were retarded.

i guess it all kinda died down once we got our drivers licenses, but i know for sure we did it at least a few more times and just left our cars where they were. the bonds formed while car dodging last a lifetime, and we still talk about it whenever we get together.

i wonder if i could talk any of those guys into doing it one last time.

how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya

tonight's friday night but instead of going out like i usually do for some potent potables i indulged myself in a book and some good music and a candle that smelled like berries.

the book was one of the narnia books, which even though i've yet to see this huge blockbuster all the press has motivated me to reread them all since i remember loving them so much as a kid that i would read them at recess when everyone else played kickball*.

and the music in case you're curious was jeff buckley's grace and is now elliot smith's from a basement on the hill, both of which are albums i came to a bit late (moreso for jeff buckley), but i'm not ashamed to admit that and every time i listen to them i hear new things and i keep going back and listening to songs multiple times.

if there were a doctor who made his practice from ordering things like nights with children's literature and great songwriters cut down in their respective primes, then i would say that tonight was just what the doctor ordered. but since there isn't that'd be silly.

change gears.

i'm hearing still that myspace is cantankerous and collicky. i'll be putting that new song up at the pulverradio site before i go to bed tonight which hopefully should work.

* no wonder i used to get beat up. i will never teach my own kids to read until after they've learned karate.

warning: atrocious metaphor contained within

so i heard from a few different people that myspace was being shitty last night and that's just a dirty shame and i'm sorry. i just tried it now and it seemed ok, so if you tried listening to the new song last night and couldn't, give it another shot for your old pal mikey.

and thanks for your feedback so far. seems like most people think it sounds alright, which is alright with me.

and while i'm at it, a special thanks to you if you've been telling your friends about this stuff. you are the ultraviolet rays from the sun by which this little dandelion photosynthesizes.

but one inch the other way and you would've missed completely

there was almost another truck vs. bridge today on the northern state parkway, but this time i guess the truck realized it was a bad matchup and hit his brakes pre-disaster. nevertheless, it slowed down my ride a bunch because there were a bunch of cops trying to figure out how to get the guy off the road during rush hour. no big deal really, i just wanted to use the term "truck vs. bridge" again.

in other more relevant news (to this particular website anyway) i'll be posting "triple deke" a little later tonight to the myspace page. listen to it if you get a chance and let me know what you think.

if the past is any indication (and the past is always an indication) i'll probably make a few more changes to it (maybe add some keys?) before i officially call it done, but i kinda like how it sounds now and maybe you will too. it's going to be the first song on the record and probably the only one that'll even sound close to how i'll perform it live since i'm really just one guy.

so there's your disclaimer. enjoy.

if i have to hear this guy sing along with the dukes of hazzard theme song again on his cell phone i am going to kill someone

i don't know if you watch college football. i'll be honest i don't either very often. but tonight i have had at least 6543789162 heart attacks watching the orange bowl. i was going to write something about playing guitar but now i am just too rattled.

it's triple overtime. my hands are shaking.

i am considering a career change. i will be a field goal kicker. not.

if i had missed those kicks, it would really mean a lot to me that my teammates would stand in front of me to block cameras from seeing me cry. that kinda warmed my heart. of course the camera men still found a way.

ok. there it goes. psu all the way.

i am never ever going to be able to sleep tonight.

off to a good start

i don't even know how many people live in new york city but it sure is a heck of a lot and on a night like new year's eve there's way more people even. so when you bump into people you weren't expecting to see on the subway it's kinda crazy. and it happened twice last night.

first some familiar faces without names from high school who i didn't talk to but did exchange puzzled glances with and then a few minutes later an old friend who used to live in nyc but lives in cleveland now and whose fiance apparently hates cleveland which is like the first thing i ever heard her say since i had never met her before. i've been there once and thought it was a nice little city for whatever it's worth.

add to that a totally awesome chicken parm roll from ben's pizza in soho, seeing a bunch of old and new friends at the kind of party people will be talking about for some time to come, and a renewed ability to talk to strangers, and you've got yourself a great new year's eve. the kind of night that just might turn me into a guy who gets excited about new year's eves in the future.

there was this one bogus thing where a guy who looked like he was on every drug ever wouldn't leave a few of us alone on the street and spoke complete gibberish but eventually he got pissed at us (thankfully didn't kill us) and ran off into traffic and a car almost hit him. but i guess all's well that ends well.

so far 2006 has a bit of serendipity and mystique surrounding it. which is nice. and i know really it's just another day but we think in terms of months and years and hours so that we can compartmentalize all the crazy shit in our lives and 2005 wasn't bad but if 2006 is better that'll be super and it feels really nice to be holding a pen and looking at an empty page.