Intro

O full-orb'd moon, did but thy rays

Their last upon mine anguish gaze!

Beside this desk, at dead of night,

Oft have I watched to hail thy light:

Then, pensive friend! o'er book and scroll,

With soothing power, thy radiance stole!

In thy dear light, ah, might I climb,

Freely, some mountain height sublime,

Round mountain caves with spirits ride,

In thy mild haze o'er meadows glide,

And, purged from knowledge-fumes, renew

My spirit, in thy healing dew!

Goethe: Faust I.

Thursday, October 11, 2001

Consquences?

This morning I hit the alarm approximately 15 times, with 10 minutes between each alarming. This didn't seem to bother me in the least. I had the most comfortable sleep in those 10 minute sessions. Then I came to work to find my boss and her friend the HR person right in the front doorway. I smiled and then walked past. HAH! She said "hello" in a cheery voice. What the fuck? It was past 12:30 I think! Tomorrow I have to see her in the morning to help her with something, so I'm not necessarily off the hook.

Well at like 11 the Con Edison guy came by and asked to see the meter. Since I didn't know where the meter was I let him in and told him where I would be.

A few minutes later a big fat guy who I assume is Shlomo the landlord stopped by to tell me that I messed up and let the Con Edison guy in and that I'd caused a lot of problems.

Tuesday, October 9, 2001

10/09/01

10/09/01

I've been very disappointed today. My friend does not seem to be coming to visit me. I'm so cold in my office
that I'm wearing my coat. I've been eating candied almonds all afternoon waiting for 5:00 to come around. The
candy tastes not too great, but the almond is good.

All I ever want to do when I'm at work is go home and go to sleep, but when I finally get home I don't.

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to move out of the apartment where I live now. Need money.

Friday, October 5, 2001

It doesn't matter these days

Such strange arrangements lately. I've been sort of out of it. Skateboarding the other night in mid town at a nice slippery high ledge and open park. 50-50 grinds, I couldn't land any, but shot sparks down the ledge. We, my roommate and a guest from Melbourne, drove up the FDR hoping to get off on like 41st street but the exits had been closed by NYPD all the way up to 96th street. We had to backtrack down 2nd Avenue I think it was to around 40th street. On the way a black sedan started to veer into our lane at our car at which point my roommate swerved and honked and the sedan corrected back into his lane. Then it happened again as we were passing and I banged on my window to get attention while my roommate swerved and then flipped the other driver off very excitedly.

We were having discussions in the car about how the NYPD is taking all sorts of liberties that were entirely unnecessary and sort of exploiting the tragedy at the World Trade Center. I personally didn't agree with him, my roommate and generally think that although his opinions are well presented a lot of the time, he fails to factor in things that counterbalance whatever he's saying.

I've had my run-ins with the NYPD and while they're not the most fun company, they do a complicated job. Not all of them are going to be the smartest, fairest, most polite, etc. but they're taking on a task that isn't usually glamorous and their praise is grossly outweighed by their blame. No one thinks about the body of police that were dealing with rape, shooting, assault, domestic violence, neglected children, heroin addicts and everything else while a few police were committing such vile acts as those publicly recognized in the Louima case. I'm not saying these people are saints. Far from it. But I'm sort of through with criticizing the Police as a whole.

My roommate was offended as we drove up the FDR that the police wouldn't shout back anything coherent as he loudly whined "where can we get offf" in a passing red honda civic at 30 or so MPH.

Then after my roommate flipped off the black sedan and I banged on the window, about two blocks after, we saw flashing lights behind us. Because this isn't abnormal right now, we thought they just wanted to pass until we recognized the car as the one he had flipped off. He had flipped off an unmarked car.

Now I'd like to mention that when I banged on the window the driver of the black sedan, who is now turning out to be a police officer, was genuinely surprised that I, inside a car, was so close to him. He didn't know he was cutting us off.

He asked for license and registration and then my roommate apologized but emphasizing that the cop almost hit him, which I thought was a mistake. The cop said that he shouldn't have been flipped the finger and so on. Another cop was flashing a light in the car, which was a hatchback and didn't really hide anything. The cop chastised, my roommate whined, and in between were funny exchanges like from the officer, "What if I was some crazy guy and wanted to get out and fight you, then what, huh? You know karate?" to which my dumbass roommate replied, and honestly so, that he had a black belt. Now having a 'black belt' doesn't necessarily mean anything, but he felt confident in saying it. After this, the officer asked him how long he'd been studying, to which my roommate replied, "16 years." The officer announced that he'd been studying 29 years and that my roommate should especially know about Discipline and then went on to say that, "Every action is a reaction," which sort of makes sense, but maybe "Every reaction is an action," would make more.

The cop went on for a little while talking about a car being a 2000 pound lethal weapon and how he had to see brains splattered all across a dashboard, stopping long enough to ask but not enough for an answer, "I've seen brains splattered across the dashboard, you ever seen that? NO!, I've been down there at ground zero digging out bodies for two weeks, you ever seen that?... I didn't think so." Whether or not he has been down at the recovery site for two weeks is not easy to know really, but it did seem a bit like he was playing the tragedy card. Eventually after my roommate shut up he told us to get out of there and behave.

As the car pulled out and passed us, the cop flipped us the finger.

I was skating well enough when we got to the spot, but fell really hard when this lid for some gas or water service or something that was on a pivot thing in the ground trapped my wheel and I was launched straight into the ground. I'm not as agile really as I used to be. My neck hurt the next morning, but that could have been from a number of falls.

I woke up with a fairly nasty cough and decided not to go to work in the morning, which turned into all day. My sleeping spot is not comfortable. I need a proper bed. I don't feel like building a loft either.

Tuesday, October 2, 2001

Naval

U.S. Naval Observatory
Astronomical Applications Department

Sun and Moon Data for One Day
The following information is provided for Brooklyn, King's County, New
York (longitude W74.0, latitude N40.6):

Tuesday
2 October 2001 Eastern Daylight Time

SUN
Begin civil twilight 6:27 a.m.
Sunrise 6:54 a.m.
Sun transit 12:45 p.m.
Sunset 6:36 p.m.
End civil twilight 7:04 p.m.

MOON
Moonrise 6:41 p.m. on preceding day
Moon transit 12:37 a.m.
Moonset 6:42 a.m.
Moonrise 7:05 p.m.
Moonset 7:42 a.m. on following day


Full Moon on 2 October 2001 at 9:49 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

Monday, October 1, 2001

Edinburgh

I've got a cough and I'm exhausted but it's somewhat satisfying for some reason. I did my laundry last night but didn't dry it all the way so it's still really damp in my bag.

My room is a mess. I went to Edinburgh. My flight was scheduled for around 7PM Friday evening. I didn't expect to actually be able to get on the flight, but I went to the airport anyway. I figured to be there would be the most likely way to be able to get on a plane. Air France was very nice to me and put my name number 5 on a list. I got quite drunk and then they gave us all cots. I woke up with a hangover at 7 AM in the airport to see that my flight was cancelled for Saturday so I went home and slept.

On Sunday I went back to the airport to find a very very long line for the Air France check in. I found a very nice customer service person who was talking to breated people in the line and calmly explained that I had been put down on a list as number 5. He told me that I was invited to check in immediately. This made me very happy.

Because I had shown up to the airport like 5 hours earlier than my flight was supposed to leave and the flights were all running late, I had some more time to drink in the airport. I made friends with some Greek guy and we took a photo. He was showing me the receipts from the cash that he sends back to his wife.

I fell asleep as soon as they let me on the plane. The next thing I knew my breath was really bad and Dr. Doolittle 2 was playing on the flight to Paris. I found a steward and asked him for the whole bottle of evian. He gave it to me.

Paris airport, then Edinburgh, then more wine and sleep. Not before making all sorts of asinine declarations. Next morning, very bad breath, thirsty, dizzy. Right, headache. Zoo. Giraffes. Sketchy panthers or leopards that made me jump.

---

Flip flop between loving Edinburgh and thinking it's the middle of nowhere, nowhere I would want to live.

more confusion.

time to go..

back to New York. New York is really sad now. I don't feel like going out really. Maybe that's exactly what I should do. I haven't really been 'out' for a long time in New York. I feel like I should go to Toronto for some reason.

There are army trucks and strange trucks lined us filled with sand on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn. There was no gas for heat, hot water, and cooking from Saturday to today at my apartment. I went to Z's to do laundry and shower. How kind she is. I made plans and then didn't show up on Saturday night because I fell asleep at like 6 or 7 or something ridiculous.

I need money to build a bed. How long should I stay in this city, in this country? I feel like it's only going to get a lot worse.

09/27/01

I don't really feel like noting anything.

Tuesday, September 25, 2001

09/25/01 (the222problem)


things that are 222

09/05/01 ~11:45 AM
Deli on Madison and 65th.. woman buys salad by weight.. the price = 2.22

Dumpster cart in front of my apt.
On Flushing Ave.  Marked with numbers 222 in large 1ft. stencil.

09/23/01
Flight 1161 Air France from Edinburgh to Paris lands at local time
"twenty-two minutes after two" in the afternoon.

Friday, September 7, 2001

09/07/01


09/07/01

It's a very nice day. I do have my completely dark room now, and plan on enjoying that as soon as
possible. Today I am enjoying. I played basketball for like 15 minutes yesterday and I'm actually sore. I also
played tennis. For some reason I always have suspected that I'm some sort of tennis prodigy. Perhaps its because
it looks so easy and people always seem really lazy about it. Unfortunately, I turn out not to be a tennis
prodigy. Not a chess prodigy. I haven't really owned an instrument yet, so I don't know about that. Doubt it.
I'm reeling because I'm so tired. Sleep. It's only 2:22 as I look at the clock. Why? It's absolutely true.
Actually my phone says 2:22 but my computer says 2:20. The numbers on my phone display are larger, so, well.. they
must be correct.