The Hive, Part 1--Frill

Behind the windows were the orange-dusted lights of Manhattan. But Frill was looking at the windows themselves, more exactly their casings, which were black. What if they were silver? He turned around to briefly take in himself before concentrating again on the casings. Or a pearly yellow. And that wall with a blue scumbling over it.

His two paintings would have to be separated. He was bored by their fraternal twinning over the past four months. He addressed them individually. You are 8 years older than him, yet you look so good. And you, are a wicked little boy masquerading as an old man. He wondered what these paintings had to talk about.

Through the kitchen to the bathroom by the closet wash. This stone basin sink would have to go. He bought it seven years ago in Italy, and now they were found in Canadian restaurants. Besides, it was too obviously faggy. His last three boyfriends had said as much. The polished shallow curve competing against the hard natural edges. The blow job plateau. Thanks, Stephen. Rosemary lavender something soap--a present from his mother. He switched on the spigot and sloshed his finger in the stream. When it scalded and steam levitated off the basin, he switched it off.

I've got to get out of this business and do something that really challenges me. I should move back to Europe, or this time, North Africa.

He made to punch the mirror, then laughed at this frat boy gesture as it passed. He smelled the hand towel; it didn't need replacing.

In the living room, Terry was on the sofa, fluffing his crew-cut. 24-year-old Terry, who had been out for less than a year, and spent every minute exploring his gayness. Ellen in the morning, and double-ended dildos at night. He had on that too small pink bathrobe he'd stolen when Frill's sister came to visit.

"You're dripping on my briefs."

"Oooh, sailor! Do you talk to your mother with that mouth?"

"Yes. And I will again in about half-an-hour. So turn down the TV when she calls."

"I don't know, nurse, it could be glandular... Does Britney need a high colonic?"

Terry unstrung the bathrobe and patted his lap. Frill collected his papers and sat at the opposite end of the sofa.

A new luxury hotel was opening in Red Hook. This was one of several initiatives to put Red Hook on the map. The hotel's business was going to one of three agencies. Decent odds, he figured, but he had no head for numbers. Nor did he really understand advertising. Concept, execution, tactical, branding. He just made things look nice, look right. Of course, he wasn't worried about the concept. Sten would have the concept. Sten had more hooks than a retired fisherman. Frill wrinkled his nose. I've got to stop spending so much time with him; my metaphors are going straight.

Terry was looking into him. "What's so funny?"

"Oh. That guy on the television."

"I know. I love him." And he turned his attention away.

What I need is a look. Colors and lines. Figures and styles. Something that has brashness, without appearing young or artificial. Something that a banker would find new, but a designer would find tasteful. I can do this. This is what I do.

He closed his eyes, and inhaled over his teeth to clear his head. He waited for his sight to completely wash itself of residue. And from the formless black, he saw pearl yellow in the periphery of blue scumbling. The phone was ringing.

Terry wound himself up in that robe, and mouth-pantomimed as he sashayed to the bedroom: "I'll be right over there, lover."

Frill resented how much he needed what Terry gave, and he knew he'd hate himself when he told Terry he had to move out. He'd probably cry too.

"Hi, Mama. No. I just wasn't near the phone. Another check is always welcome. I want to do some new things with the place."

But first...

A word from our sponsors.

Mobitel, the Slovenian telecom that is so efficient you can be interrupted from a night's sleep by drunken Thanksgiving revellers at 3:40 AM. Mobitel has crystalline clarity, so you won't miss a wine-inspired mumble. Can I get a testimonial? "I was asleep. I'd never heard my phone ring. I thought I was dreaming that sound, then it happened again. When I picked up, it sounded just like the person I was talking to was in the other room, even though she was six hours away. I just don't remember anything I said. Maybe that's because I was asleep." And is it reliable? You bet; when you're not alert, Mobitel will make you that way. With its complicated, no apparent volume-control function, Mobitel will always be the loudest thing in your house at 3:40 AM.

Mobitel, for emergencies and whatever the fuck else happens when you could be sleeping.

Introducing...

I've given up on Fifteen Minute Story Fridays. They served a great purpose, which was distracting me from advertising. Now that I need no distraction, they seem soft and uninspired. I need something with a thread. A cable. Something with staying power, not burn-out brilliance.

When I wrote my column on advertising, a friend of mine read it, and said "I want to hear more about the Hive. Please, write about the Hive." And that's what this will be. I've decided to distract myself from life with advertising.

This will be a Friday serial in the Conan Doyle, Dickensian sense. And it's not about "The Hive." There are no characters ripped from my days in advertising. Those anecdotes are too precious and in-jokey to make good narratives. Traits, situations and perhaps quotes may be borrowed from experience, but the total package is fiction.

It has to be. Advertising is the biggest fiction around.

Top 5

I made an error in my Slovene in my latest column. I asked my editor to read it, but I don't think he caught it. I had an East Asian moment and wrote "vreci," instead of "vleci." A very weak slight, but it changes the meaning of the sentence so much...well, it's no longer as funny as it should have been. (Good thing I didn't write "vleči." That's the infinitive form of "to give a blow job.") Anyway, these are the little details that plague me. Not that big details don't, but I can maneuver around them easier; big details have no agility. Verbally, there is nothing worse than posturing to be clever and ending up dumb. So:

Top 5 pet peeves or irritants in your life...

I realize that this post runs counter-clockwise to Thanksgiving. But, Thanksgiving can be pretty irritating too. Regardless, Happy Thanksgiving all.

Winter Wanderlust

Winter is here like a punch in the face. I saw it coming, but I never imagined how much it would hurt. My own face is a peachy pink for those several minutes before I defrost indoors. Within ten minutes outside, my nose loses its dam-like qualities toward mucus, and my scrunched upper lip pulls double duty. Even inside the relative scorching temperatures of my jacket pockets, I have to flex my hands to keep their circulation going. (Note to self: Must buy gloves. Must buy boots.) This is the sort of epic cold that wars are fought in. The valor of each side made all the greater by their mutual enemy. Yes, it's that cold.

Still, I walk the 8km to the Slovenia Times office. This is masochism without a center...it is the invention of masochism. And oddly, I'm picking up bits of enjoyment from it. When I walked this stretch in the summer, my thoughts were always my own. A chronicle of memories and ideas, sensations and hypotheses. Under the current conditions, such solipsisms last less than five minutes. It's too cold to concentrate. Instead I've taken to making observations, and then recording them through forced recitations. Today, I noticed that traffic lights here have an intuited protected left. Before, I saw the lack of left-turn lights and thought I was in baby LA. But, no, the traffic of one side is stopped, while the other is free to continue apace. Not a brilliant revelation, but a landmark alternative to a candy necklace of hiccuped thought.

Last night, the weather was spectacular. At 6:30PM, the sky feathered out cottonwood, goose down, burnt-page snowflakes. Any that hit my face or hands instantly became water, which gave me the weird illusion of sweating. It was that snowfall where you look up and wait for just that one flake which should hit you in the eye but at the last minute you outsmart gravity and move. You could actually see a field of perspective through the snow; it was that thick. I was outside on the phone with my grandmother during the heaviest part of the fall. She was trying to convince me to give her my landlord's number. "We're not that close, Ma. I'd feel uncomfortable doing that." "We need the number of someone there." "No, you don't. Call my cell." And all this old people worry just ate me up. Here I am in the middle of my social circle...meaning not "in the thick of it," but that everyone I care for is equidistant from me. I should be more bothered with myself, I resolved. And as I listened and discouraged and assuaged, the snow stopped. Like a switch. And the cloud cover climbed easliy twelve stories off the ground. This whole event took maybe fifteen minutes; a flutter of a bird's wing when you're on the phone with my grandmother. It was as if the sky were being vacuumed, cartoon-style. And the spectacle was not over; two minutes later, fireworks started going off in the northern part of the city. No one knew what they were for, but residents and shopkeepers were standing in front of their places, watching the tracers bat through the clouds and into frosted colors.

Much of this could be described as a miracle. Were it not just so typical.

Blopez

In a September entry called "Quiz/Show," I introduced my friend Wayne.

Wayne is the Falstaff to my Hal. He's likeable in a way that I will never achieve. His personality has a softness to it, no edges. Which isn't to say he's without his angles. He's like a parabola, headed one way, then sloping off to another vector.

And I'm Falstaff to his Hal. I'll never be more jolly than him, but I'll forever be less responsible. Wayne has always had a job since I met him when he was 17. He's dependable--dependable good and dependable bad.

When I lost my cell phone, he asked if I lost my SIM card too. I found this question too foolish to answer over email. But Wayne honestly wanted to know. (Dwight, Josh and I have developed a rapport with Wayne where we often speak in a satirical negation of his premise.) Our spoken exchange later went something like this:

Wayne: But you still have your old SIM card, right?

Me: Yes, Wayne. I'm thoroughly in the habit of removing my SIM card before I lose my phone. When I'm going to get my backpack stolen, I remove my laptop and cash too. When my bank cards fall out of my wallet, it's cool because I cancelled them the day before.

Dwight is more harsh; Josh is less. Wayne's wife has frequently admonished him about putting up with our bullshit. It's not bullshit...or rather, it IS. It's an ages-old script for comedy where Wayne plays the wild card and we play the straight men.

When we were kids, we would go out clubbing and follow that up with a trip to IHOP; these nights essentially defined Wayne's persona. Dividing up the bill went something like this: "OK, here's Josh's $5.50, there's my $6.00, and you owe $12.00." Wayne was aghast at the disparity, but he obligingly paid up. (I'm sure he secretly thought we were cheating him.) After five more such visits, he asked us how come we paid so much less. Josh and I simultaneously pursed our lips and shook our heads, talking on top of each other.

Josh: We order the specials, Wayne. You order everything a la carte. That shit's expensive.

Me: And when you want more coffee, don't hand the waitress your cup. That carafe is full. She charged you (picking up the receipt) for four coffees.

A few years ago, as Josh and I were detailing a recent Wayne story to his sister and her friends, Wayne's sister blurted out "That's so funny, because Wayne totally talks like that," referring to our faux-doofus rendering. Josh and I simultaneously pursed our lips and shook our heads, talking on top of each other.

Josh: Wayne doesn't talk anything like that!

Me: It's like a red octagon means "Stop;" THIS is the universal symbol for Wayne.

Last night, Josh and I were SMSing. 4AM, my time. 7PM, his. He asked me about my last days in NYC. I told him a stripper gave me her phone number...in a strip club.

Josh: Maybe your new thing should be going 2 strip clubs and leaving w/phone numbers + more money than you arrived with. It would make Wayne crazy. Like IHOP 4 adults.

Me: I'm trying to go to sleep & now i cant b/c ill be laughing for the next 7 hrs! "hey jer that one let me touch her." "is that a fact, wayne? good job, real good..."

Josh: "Josh, can I borrow $20? I want a lap dance." "Ask Jer, he's getting a lap dance and $60 as we speak."

Good friends eventually become parodies of who they really are to each other. It cuts down on the need to "talk." We just share in-jokes like AIDSers with IVs. It's easier and harmless in comparison with going outside our circles.

I know Wayne will like this post. We talk nostalgically about being kids now that we're not. His wife won't like this at all. And anyone who knows us will just go "Yep."

Wayne's birthday is April 25th. The best thing about this post is I can email it to him in six months with this paragraph removed, and he'll go "Heh, heh," like it's completely fresh to him. Or I can email it to him with this section intact, and he'll go "Wait, Jer, TODAY is April 25th."

You can't get better comedy than that.

A gross idea

Here's a gross idea proposed my friend John and elaborated on by me about the spectacle of excess:

John: What if we staged a contest that pitted Takeru Kobayashi against Annabelle Chong? He would eat hot dogs. She would have sex. Whoever did the most in their respective field would win.

Me: This idea intrigues me as both a mathematical story
problem and an illustration of human consumption. Perhaps we could run the whole gamut of human vices...herewith, gluttony and lust already taken care of. The synch cam on this would be artistically exciting. Kobay stuffing himself full of hot dogs; Chong, um, doing the same. To truly measure the impact of this comparison, there would have to be no time limit. The mandate must be CONSUME. And already I must correct myself. Then we would lose the preciousness of time, the race, the record, those boring human details that put numbers ahead of actions. Could he keep pace with her over the course of a day? Could she be as riveting over the course of five minutes? And where does this satiation become routine? Maybe that's where this execution has its real life? We would monitor those watching this spectacle and see where their breaking points were. It would be, from my perspective, much more fun to bet on the viewers rather than the participants.

Sadly, he didn't get to respond, because he's bounced off to Cali for Thanksgiving week. But, this particular idea made me think of how earlier I had easily watched an hour-and-a-half of two-man bobsledding. This was quite possibly the most boring way I could have spent that time, yet I was entranced. The steady cams never changed. The principle or execution of the sport never changed. Nothing ever changed except for the numbers registering the times. (Oh, and a Swiss team wiped out at close to 120 Km/H, which looked painful, but they got up no worse for wear.) I watched and watched and it was only when Latvia tied for first that I could watch no more. There was some finality to seeing +0.00 pop up at the bottom next to their flag. It was like one night in New York, I watched the countdown/countup clock in Union Square. And when the zeroes hit the center at midnight and began spreading outward again, I knew it was time to go. And even rereading this last sentence, I feel stupidly aphoristic. "At that time, it was time." In many cases, the grossness of an idea is not the idea, but the time spent on it. European basketball is a shorter game compared to the American variety, therefore I will watch more of it. Doing a crossword or mental puzzle is only a success if accomplished in a certain time for me. Sprinter to the end, I don't have the patience for the "big" game. And lately, I've been wondering how this corresponds with my life. Will I continue to tire of long-term projects or will I eventually adopt a Zen mastery of letting time pass unnoticed, like while watching bobsledding?

I always loved Einstein's metaphor for relativity involving the stove and the girl. Maybe both aspects of time can live in the same life. I will make that today's gross idea.

My commitment to service

So, I just bought a new cell phone. Some French model called Sagem. It works. And I bought an extra SIM card, that way if anyone decides to visit me and they have a Tri-Band phone, we can stay in contact, if I have to go do something. Smart, huh? So, bring on the visitors.

Top 5

Oh yeah, it's Thursday. Time to get the Top 5 on. Thanks to all my friends who wished me happy birthday. You guys rule.

Top 5 new holidays that should be celebrated...

A series of closed letters to yesterday

Dear Andrej,
True, women are great. And if you want to date three of them, go right ahead. Seriously, knock yourself out. But, do not rope me in to juggle for you. I'm not a juggler's assistant. In fact, the thing that makes jugglers stand out is their ability to do what they do...WITHOUT ASSISTANCE. Kaja had great fashion sense, and Petra had beautiful eyes, but I'd put my money on Jasna. She's a little hyperactive, but I like that. That's just me. A word of advice, take it or leave it.

Dear Jaka,
Your theories about the roots of drum and bass intrigue me. And although I'm not 100% on your ideas, the music you played was surprisingly good. Next time, yes, we will have to have some old school hip-hop at our disposal. "It's Tricky," "Strong Island," and "Criminal Minded" were all good calls. Also, don't change topics so quickly; I'm still curious to hear what you think about the US presence in the Middle East.

Dear Eva,
No. And that's final.

Dear Jasna,
Aww, it was so good to see you too. Flattery will get you everywhere, including into my good graces. If you didn't live in Vrnika, I would have paid for your taxi home, but that's like 7000 Tolars and really...ouch. But, you're working again tonight. I'll probably stop by after the Slovenian Wine Festival in Hotel Slon. You're tongue-pierced lisp is your best quality and I totally mean that in a good way.

Dear 9/11 Conspiracy Theory, Living in Brazil Dick,
If I tell you I do not give a shit what you think or what facts you're bringing to the table, I mean it. I totally fucking mean it. I'm not pulling your leg. I do not care. I physically, mentally, and spiritually could not care less. I'm just trying to catch up with Jasna here. I'm not a fucking sounding board for you to try out your profound ability to aggrevate. And just because you traveled all over the US for three years does NOT mean that you understand America better than I do. It's impossible. It is "a black hole forming directly over my bed that spits out well-read sex-crazed English-speaking alien humanoid females" im-fucking-possible. OK? Now that we've gotten that straightened out...sip your fucking Guiness out of a can, pay your bill, and stick where the sun always shines, like back in Brazil. Fuck you, it's my birthday. Jesus.

Dear Bartender at Global,
Your memory is amazing. Your partner's not so much. She had to make my drink three times, because she kept adding Coke. One complaint: take fewer bathroom breaks.

Dear Wasted Dude,
You may be the future of Slovene music, but you can't sit up straight in a bucket seat. That doesn't bode well for anyone, especially you.

Dear Polona,
I could talk to you all night. And from the looks I was getting from your boyfriend, I did.

Dear Photobooth in the Train,
Thanks for nothing. At least, you didn't take my money AND not work.

Dear Alcohol,
You suck. But I still like you.

It's my birthday today.

Well, 8pm EDT.

I'm about to go buy a coat, because someone stole my leather jacket at Hombre last night. Then I'm going to buy a new cell phone. I know I'm inviting disaster with these purchases.

Motherfucking 31 was the year of loss. And gain. And I assume 32 will be no different.

Incidentally, according to some astrology book, I was born on "The Day of the Boss." I'm going to try to boss a lot of people around today.

Unrelated to anything, my face hurts.

The US & how to fix it

So, last night, Josh and I were emailing about our current reading. (FYI: Simon Singh's Big Bang for him, DeLillo's Cosmopolis, Nabokov's Pale Fire, MacEwan's Atonement, and Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club for me.)

Here's a brief recap of the conversation:

Josh: I just picked up Big Bang by Simon Singh. He rocked the history of cryptology so hard in The Code Book that I can't wait to see what he does with the birth of the universe. Oops. I mean, "The Birth of Christ" for all those kids in Kansas.

Me: Thank Jesus, Dover still has some sense. Can we unannex Kansas? Is there a clause in the Constitution that says we can get rid of states? Kansas hasn't done shit, but be associated with shit and shit philosophies. I hope God gets mad that human beings have not figured out He really doesn't exist. Only that could justify the Apocalypse.

Josh: Kansas gave us In Cold Blood and Dwight. I think that's all it has to offer.

Me: Kansas also gave us Dennis Hopper and Damon Runyon...notably neither made a name for themselves there.

There you have it. Unless someone has some secret knowledge proving Kansas is a cultural mecca, I'll continue with my American image gerrymandering.

I've long held that America is not 50 states. It's only three. New York. California. Texas. The rest are pale impersonators of some dominating aspect of one of these states. And, the actual capital of the United States is Chicago. Washington DC is too poor, too facadey, too government to represent a focal point for the American polity. Like other artificial capitals (Ottawa, Brasilia, Canberra), it sucks.

So here's your map of the future. Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota...all you fuckers are California. Alaska, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico...that's new Texas. Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts...new New York. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia...that's Chicagoland. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia...I'm not feeling very imaginative. Let's call them The South.

OK, I had to add two, because I need an odd number for legislative matters. And Texas doesn't want to be associated with The South, even though it is.

Now go look at your electoral college map. Check it. New York, California, and Chicagoland keep Texas and The South in balance. Now, with the Midwest spread evenly between Chicagoland, Texas, and California, we don't have to worry about family values going all haywire. True, there is a bit of a rub with all the major metropolitan centers concentrated in New York, but I imagine the other four states can juice something out for themselves. C'mon, Chicagoland...they've got wide shoulders there. I realize the assumption of Alaska into Texas will raise some eyebrows. Go with me on this one.

Now what to do with the old capital. I suggest we turn everything from Baltimore to Alexandria into a national reserve. Sort of like colonial Williamsburg, but we don't change anything. We use it as a living museum to city mismanagement, fat cat politics, external renovations at the expense of infrastructure, etc. The best part is we can pay the poor people to stay there. You're probably asking "But, if we pay them, won't they not be poor?" As a person who has rarely lived longer than paycheck to paycheck as an adult, we have nothing to worry about at all. I may move into Tenleytown, if this thing takes off.

You're probably wondering who will come to this national reserve. For one, high school students. It's part of civics class. Another group, Scandanavians. I always hated seeing the Norse backpackers schlepping down 125th St. It was like "Hey, you blonde dick, get your own black people." (Which brings out another point, all travelers are basically human zoo visitors. That so makes me chuckle.)

I'm wondering if we shouldn't keep government in DC to teach future politicians a lesson, but the fuck...it's been a shame of a city since what? 1820? 1866? Let it be a beacon of failure.

OK, now that we've consolidated the states, let's get to work on fracturing political parties. TK.

Birthday countdown

This is a call to action. I usually make myself a birthday mix. Yeah, I'm all kinds of selfish. But this year I'm spinning it a little different. I want you guys, my friends, to help me make one. Here's the rub: I have to be able to get the songs from the Internet. Either an MP3 site or some file you can email me. I'm using the office computer, so I don't have any of those nifty file-"sharing" progs at my disposal.

Or you can just post a playlist. That way I can go back to it later, when I have my own computer to put whatever software I want onto.

Nus, you're off the hook. That MP3 CD you made is really high.

More of the same

So being without a cell phone is a fucking dog. It's proof that no one loves you. Well, maybe not proof, but a serious method for conveying that point. Right about now I'd text someone I know and totally get it on...like hang out and chat and shit. But I can't and every person I know here is undoubtedly going "Where the fuck is Jeremy? I haven't gotten a text from him in like...48 hours. And if that jerk asshole tries to bounce some lame excuse off me as in 'I lost my cell phone,' I'm just going to bounce him right out of my circle of friends." So there you have it. Without a cell phone, I'm garbage. Er, more garbagey.

I'm a fucking idiot.

I lost my cell phone. Technically, it's Ashlee's, but I use it...frequently. I lost it the first time near a dive bar in Vevče. My friend Alisa called my number and found it on a dark street by a paper mill. WTF?! Then I lost it AGAIN!!! And I fucking turned it off, since the battery was low. So I can't even check to see if someone picked it up. I feel remarkedly Meganesque right now. (She lost her cell while I was in the City under similarly conspicuous circumstances.) If anyone reading this knows my family, please call them and let them know I'm not ignoring them. So fucking stupid. Can you see me slapping my forehead? I blame Martinovanje. Dumb wine festival on a dinnerless stomach. I'm surprised I wasn't organ-harvested at some point last night. In other news, I met this really cool girl who paints porno tourist calendars and dinosaur Christians. The shit is so nonsense. Jesus as a Tyrannosaurus Rex and the wisemen as velociraptors! A chick taking it in all holes next to the fountain in front of City Hall! Some fucking people...I'm glad it works out this way.

Grumble

Today is Mana's birthday. She is crazy smart and quick-witted and pees on people when she sits on their lap, which makes her a perfect candidate to be my friend. I grumble, because I did not get the opportunity to be graced by her presence during my Boston breeze-through. You see, most smart people are completely one-track in their expression. (I know from whence I speak being casually smart at times...when I'm not trying extra-hard to seem dumb.) But, Mana can go from seriously high-brow to cornball in less than a nanosecond. You're all trying to digest these detes she's just laid out about the effect women's lib has had on the Iranian street and you think you've got your addition to this lecture/convo figured out, but then she throws you a curveball like "So, I fell down on the way to class the other day; I think I fractured my tailbone." And you just kinda sit there holding your mouth thinking "Is this her way of saying 'Don't bother, monkeyman. I've got this one covered.'?" The reason I bring this quality up is because there are very few ways to get hard info out of your friends. There's always that ticklish facade that presents itself as "sharing." Every so often, you don't want to share. You just want to get and get and get. Mana understands this. I get articles forwarded from her on subjects I should know about. I get drunken rambles on Harvard internal politics. I get these facts that I can fictionalize and internalize and metamorphose into something my own. She's like your favorite teacher. The one that bought you beers, even though that's totally unethical. Who needs ethics in the field of facts? Her husband refers to her as "his little brown companion." She is little and she is brown. She basically a less-hairy Ewok with a master's degree in skewering mass media. This cuddly quality is regularly undercut by her intensity, and her intensity never reaches severity, because she's so cuddly. If I ran the US, I'd appoint her Secretary of State. I'd send her in after I'd said something completely grievous in a fit of pique. And she'd smoothe out everything I said...by refuting it to the nth degree. Then she would make all those ministers and appointees give her a hug. Then she'd fart on them. This is my new model for political diplomacy. Silly, but aggressively silly. "Don't fuck with us. We have loose bowels." Ineffectual? Perhaps. But how much cooler would it be to be pressured by a stink bomb that's going to land on you personally, than a MOAB that's probably going to miss you and blow up an orphanage? Mana would say "But, Jeremy, we shouldn't pressure anyone." That's true. But her ability at detente is ironclad; that girl will NEVER sit in my lap.

Jetlag

I have now slept 25 hours in two days. This is disturbing the feces out of me. I can't believe I'm having this allergic reaction to being outside the CEDT for only a month. It reminds me of the time Josh and his wife came to visit Ashlee in Amsterdam. I was hoboing around Europe and we happened to coordinate a group hang at her place. Josh slept the entire time. We couldn't get him to do anything. It was sad...critically so. I eventually went to Paris and brought back my French girlfriend, because Josh was such a housecat.

It gets dark around 5 o'clock here. I have no idea what time sun-up is. None whatsoever.

So, last night, I reintroduced myself to Slovenian social life by going to Tombstone for 3 pints of Laško. My friends Samo and Ana met me and we played catch-up. Samo is finishing his driver's exam. He's 28. Ana just passed her math exams. She got a B. Then it was off to Metelkova. There was a Belgian trip-hop band playing at Gromka. They were good. Portisheady. Live drummer. Some girl I'd seen in town once or twice convinced me to go to Gala Hala for a DJ set that lasted till 5 AM. The dancing was fun. I got a solid workout. And scoffed at Slovenian moves. At one point, I pulled down a shot of vodka and thought that was probably a good sign to go home. But I did not. Ended up at Ajda, ordering pleskaviča. Will I NEVER learn?

Woke up around 10. Realizing that 4 hours of sleep is not enough, I went back to bed. That nap turned into something else. I eventually got up around 4. Took care of some necessary hygiene matters, namely a thorough soaking and scrubbing.

I feel good, but still tired. I think I'll grab a pizza at Foculus. Then convince myself that I should see sunlight some time soon. If I'm not active by 11AM tomorrow, someone should give me a ring. That'll be 5AM for most of you.

Top 5

I just woke up from 15 hours of sleep and I'm actually psyched to get another 7 before morning. I used to never jetlag. Oh well.

My old boss, CB, asked me to come up with excuses for missing work after attending a Thursday night party. I sent her some, but the field is ripe for exploring, so I'm stealing her bit for this week's Top 5. Excelsior!

Top 5 excuses for missing work on a Friday...

Yes, the Correspondence School is again in session.