January 22, 1994
I’m battling the flu and guilt. I feel bad about not seeing Ann. I like sleeping with her, but not spending a great deal of time with her. This is the sort of thing that prevents me from having a proper girlfriend. Being unemployed doesn’t help.
I got another short letter from Sedaris. He said his life is still pathetic and he’s still cleaning apartments but things are changing rapidly because of the play and his exposure on NPR. Bang. Zoom. Right to the top. He said when he wrote Stitches it was just him, his sister and some friends sitting around smoking weed. I don’t buy it. I laughed hard and stuff that you write stoned is never funny the next day.
Had lunch at Bendix Diner with Laura. She’s a stunning beauty with the sexuality of a cloistered nun. The bill was $18. She ‘forgot’ to go to the bank and didn’t have any money. I probably shouldn’t be going out at all, much less buying lunch for someone, but we have a nice time and I enjoy her company. We’re quite close. We gossiped about our friends.
I called Karen at work and told her I spent New Year’s Eve in Times Square but left out the part about being alone. She went to a party with her boyfriend and when they got home he vomited all night. She gave me her home number and told me to call in the evening because he doesn’t get home from work until after midnight. I haven’t called intentionally to make her think I’m out having fun and living the champagne Manhattan life. I should call in the middle of the day and hang up when he answers.
Jessica called and I can tell she didn’t think I’d be home. She just wanted to leave a message on my answering machine, I’m sure. We talked for a while and it was nice. I’m glad she makes an effort to keep in touch. I told her I haven’t called because I don’t have a job and am ashamed. She said she understood.
Tomorrow I’m going to watch football games and stuff envelopes with resumes and cover letters. I’m mailing out 21. I hope to God Ann leaves me alone.
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The construction of 1 Vanderbilt continues. It will not obstruct my office view of the Chrysler Building, but it’ll compromise the aesthetics a bit. It’ll be much taller. When complete, it’ll be the fourth tallest residential tower in the city.
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If you stare into his eye for too long, you’ll inexplicably find yourself sending cat treats to New Jersey. Beware!
Unfulfilled yearning.
I was focused on the composition and lighting and didn’t notice the background until the next day.
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Security guard at the Whitney Museum’s expansive Andy Warhol retrospective, From A to B and Back Again. 300 pieces. Catnip for any Warhol fan.
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My daughter took this on Christmas morning. A cup of coffee, a cat, something to read and my family close by. If I’m not content now, there’s no hope.
Exile on Pain Street 
All those women… you should have scrapped the resumes and started a dance troupe instead.
Meanwhile: Don’t you look chilled sitting next to the Christmas tree?!!
Happy Christmas and have a fantastic New Year!!
Sxxx
Thank you, dear. Same to you. All those women were merely acquaintances. None of it amounted to anything permanent or long-lasting. The folly of youth.
Happy, happy, sweetpea! Here’s to 2019 and better times for all of us! xoxo
Yup, same to you, dear. Thanks for stopping by year, after year, after year…
I’ve been to the preview of this show.
So many women to juggle!
We all know how it ends. He drops the balls.
Are you content? i still think{ducks flying house slipper}
Your journal entry is relevant to my response to your recent comment at The Trailer Park — when you were swirling around Ann and Laura and Karen and all the others (while getting letters from Fucking David Sedaris – nice namedrop), could you ever imagine the future you, sitting on a sofa, cat/coffee in your lap, being photographed by a teen child of your own making?
The future – we sometimes really don’t see it coming! Remember that when things get dark again…
As content as I could hope to be. What do you want from life? Day to day perfection? It’s just not gonna happen for anyone.
I’m sure that everyone is surprised about the future to some extent. There’s always a giddy-up, to even the best laid plans. The test of your metal is how well you respond to the unexpected. It is my opinion that you have gone through the biggest arcs I’m just about anyone I know. Particularly when it comes to your kids.
Ohio, Manhattan,NJ…what an arc! Yes, gritty in parts, melancholic at times, but with an honesty and a zesty levening.
Please keep this car rolling;some of us have an addiction….
Happy New Year. 🙂
You are too kind. Thx for your continued patronage. You are well-traveled and so is your blog. We wonder what’ll happen in 2019, don’t we?
Well, I sometimes wonder, in a dreamy way, but I don’t worry about things I can’t control.
Here’s to happiness!
Thought of you twice this week…once when I was working on a mailing for my (volunteer) job and thought “Gee, I sure could use a folding bone…” The other when you mentioned Ricky Jay. Many years ago, he was friends with a cousin, whose mother remarked to me, “I suppose he’s a nice young man, but he spent six months living on Cousin’s couch and doing nothing but playing cards.”
My bone folder is in my nightstand drawer. Sometimes I take it out, turn it in my hand a few times and put it away. So it still gets used.
I always wanted to bump into Ricky Jay later in life to tell him what happened to our mutual friend. It’s a fascinating story but now I’ll never get the chance.
How far you have come! The juxtaposition of your youthful diary and your present self is compelling; I do hope you are content, most of the time at least.
All I’ve ever strived for is to be content most of the time. To expect any more is not realistic. The distance makes me wistful. There are more years behind me than there are before me. All that wasted time.
You’ve spent that time trying to work out how best to live, and you seem to be doing pretty well, so it doesn’t look to have been wasted to me.
Gorgeous photos, funny as always about you and Sedaris. Straight to the top! Seems just weed and eccentric, neurotic behavior. Not “just,” but mostly.
I wish that weed were the answer to unlocking creativity. Lord, what a genius I would’ve been. That’s why I doubted him (and still do). Weed did a number on me. I wish we’d never met.
“A stunning beauty with the sexuality of a cloistered nun”
That, my dear, is a great line. What a hideous and frustrating ordeal that must be for a gigolo. Still, there’s always “Jessica, Alison, Phillipa, Sue
Deborah, Annabel, too (I forget your name)” That should be your theme tune (for back then, obviously)
Great shots as usual! Love the coffee morning ad!
Happy New Year, M! X
Hello, dear. I can assure you I was never a gigolo. They enjoyed my company well enough and didn’t mind my picking up the tab but it rarely progressed beyond that. It was frustrating but I was also grateful for the companionship.
The tagline for that coffee and could have been, “Don’t point that camera at me. “
Even though we didn’t have carnal knowledge with all our women, it felt satisfying that someone (female) would tolerate us.
It was easy to see when being used. The difference is when we did it, the hurt factor was more degrading than monetary.
You look very happy now. So am I.
You’ve made a good life for yourself so just enjoy.