Instead of a year-end review or making predictions about 2015, I’m dipping into my journals and going back to 1994.

April 24, 1994

Klinger and Fun threw a great party last night. He’s insane. He’s got one of the tiniest apartments I’ve ever seen but he invited everyone he knows. People were standing in the staircase drinking and smoking and carrying on. It’s like they were queuing up to get in. The party spilled out onto Cornelia St. I’m surprised nobody called the cops. It felt like everyone in town was there EXCEPT the cops. Maybe there wasn’t anybody left to complain.

Cornelia St., January 2, 2015, 5:45 p.m.

Klinger, scam artist that he is, got the invitations to us without spending a penny. [Note: 1994 is long before email or texts or Facebook or any of that stuff.] He addressed all the envelopes to himself and used our addresses as the return address. Then he chucked them in a post box without putting a stamp on. Every invitation was delivered on time. They’d been cancelled with a red rubber stamp that said ‘RETURN TO SENDER. INSUFFICIENT POSTAGE.’

Some friends of his brought their new puppy. They were so in love that they couldn’t stand the thought of leaving it alone for the night. Everyone was ooh-ing and aah-ing the little fluff ball. It was kind of cute. It went missing for a few minutes and when we found it, it was almost dead because it had eaten rat poison. They rushed it to the puppy hospital and I guess it’s going to be okay. They’re lucky nobody stepped on its head. Idiots.

Mimi was there. Klinger and I are so in love with her. She’s beautiful and deeply troubled. Just the way we like ’em. I told him to fuck off because he’s already got Fun and I don’t have anyone but a prior commitment is no match for raging hormones. It’s no matter. She thinks of us both as amusing/ annoying little brothers. She dates a famous artist who takes her to the Hamptons every weekend. When she’s out there, Klinger and I sit on our broke asses in a dive bar on 4th Street nursing a beer and stewing in our rejection while insulting her boyfriend’s work and manhood and question her taste in men. Yesterday, she told us about their morning walks on the beach to watch the swans crane their necks. I wanted to DIE. Did I mention that Fun calls me Dark Mark? Not in a mean way. Fun and I are pals. But I don’t know where that comes from.

I told everyone I’d submitted writing samples and had been chosen to interview Richard Nixon for Interview Magazine. I said they were looking for a complete unknown who didn’t have any affiliations and that it was a once-in-a-lifetime shot that was going to change the course of my life forever. I acted all excited and pretended that I hadn’t heard he died the previous night. Most people got the joke and laughed but the ones who hadn’t heard he dropped dead seemed genuinely impressed. Are they insane?

In other news, I didn’t see Special Beat at the Marquee last week because I couldn’t cough-up $19 for the ticket. I’d spent a fortune at CBGBs buying beers for everyone the night before and I was very broke. Then Laura phoned and said she was free so I took her to a movie and spent $28 on tickets. Pretty smart, right? The next day I met her in Central Park. She was on her rollerblades and I rode my bike. We laid down in the middle of the Great Lawn. The sky was blue and warm. The grass smelled nice. The sun was shining on her hair. It cascaded around her shoulders and down her chest and it broke my heart just a little bit. Ella Fitzgerald is right. Spring can really hang your ass out to dry.

I spoke to Diane and asked what she’s doing the upcoming holiday. She said, “Getting divorced.” She’s meeting Marcello in the Dominican Republic. If they file here in New York they’ll have to wait a year. They just want to get it over with. She’s going from the airport straight to the courthouse and then to Club Med in the Dominican for a few days. She said a few people asked if they could go with her to be supportive but she told them all to fuck off because she wants to be alone. I wonder if Marcello will be stupid and tactless enough to bring the woman he’s leaving Diane for? I wouldn’t put it past him. Idiot. Brazilian men are not to be trusted.

Fun with the pause button.