October 7, 1998.

I think I'm coming down with something. I wasn't able to drag my ass out of bed until 1 p.m. today. I almost made Trevor miss a dentist appointment by turning off my alarm & falling back asleep. I feel really rotten...head full of cotton, bruised knees, sore neck...but these are all things that can be attributed to the last couple of days. Maybe it's just fall-out from my hard-partying lifestyle (snort). Which would mean that I lack self-discipline. Hardly a new concept in self-chastisement for me.

Yesterday was one of those days that you put in because you think you can make other people happy. My parents are going on their 25th anniversary cruise today, so I spent a few hours at home yesterday, hanging out with the family. As much as that's possible...my mom was frantically shuttling between Oprah & taped programs (my mother's weird devotion to interesting teevee and gossipy teevee is a subject that's too big to be dealt with here). My brother logged into punk bulletin boards & ignored us, refusing to spend any time with anyone if he wasn't isolated during that time. My father bounced around doing stuff. Don't ask me what, 'cause I don't know. And I tried to relax to make up for my lack of sleep the night before, but got a nasty headache instead. Go figure.

By the time I left, I remembered why I don't want to live at home anymore.

But by far the most time was spent listening to my grandparents talk about the cruises they've been on. And they've been on a lot. At my father's 50th birthday party last spring, a friend of my parents referred to my grandmother as "Jean, Jean, the Cruisin' Machine," and it's not a bad descriptive phrase. It wasn't that they tried to impart useless information, it's just that they didn't tell very pointed stories. The bulk of my afternoon was spent listening to them monologue about the captain, the people, glamour on board, port cities, foreign exchange rates, the perils of the mini-bar, what to pack, blah blah blah... I spent the bulk of the time daydreaming & enjoying my first take-out food in weeks (I know, I'm such a bad person). It was made particularly excruciating by the fact that my grandfather & I had had a wonderful conversation when he came to pick me up. Then we talked about drinking, immigration, what to say when presented with an ugly baby, smoking, whatever. It was cool...especially when he was pointing out the site of a bar he used to get tanked at back in the day.

In the evening Trevor & I joined a birthday celebration for Aegis at Ein.steins. And it was horrid...unluckily for Aegis, we hit the bar on Comedy Night. If you think poetry readings are excruciating, then I've got a new contender for you. The noise was such that I could only really talk to Trevor - which I'm not knocking, but I don't have to be out to see him (unlike the summer).

Cranly was there, too. I couldn't figure out what was going on with him...he just hasn't seemed interested in being friends with me this year. Sure, he's friendly, but... I dunno. I could easily develop a complex about it, if I'm not careful. I suppose I'm asking too much of the universe, that I be allowed a full compliment of boys when I've already got a boyf.

"I hope that we die holding hands."

- marilyn manson

Had trouble drinking my ninestein (a stein that hold three pints...a house specialty), and was tempted just to leave, but the spirits of Poet & Preacher seemed to rise up before me. How dare I leave 2 inches of beer? Didn't I care that there's a war going on?? In a way I miss heroic drinking, but in a way I really don't - my attempt to be a gentleman & an alcoholic left me queasy for the rest of the night. And then I fell down the concrete step onto the sidewalk on the way out. D'oh. Not drunkenness, but just my general clumsiness. No, really...I've left that bar so fucking tight that I had to disassociate myself from reality just to make possible the lurch back to res & up 3 flights of stairs. And I never tripped then. And now...[kitten wail]...my knees hurt...

one year ago today: cult of the Simpsons