Last month, I was being very smart and jumping over parking meters after drinking 4 martinis and some tequila. I made it over two, but caught my hands on the third meter and fell directly on my face.
This hurt pretty bad. Fortunately, though, my body was full of sweet, pain-killing alcohol, so I dusted myself off and went to my friends' place to crash.
The next morning, after going out to brunch, I decided to go to the nearest E.R. as my wrist was pretty clearly broken. I got a nice cast and was on my way.
A week later I flew to London, where I spend a week sleeping on my friends' floor, and participating in some performance art.
A week after my return, I got my cast sawed off. While I was at the orthopedist's office, I mentioned that I was suffering from some minor back pain, and made an appointment to see a back specialist in the same office a week later.
Last Friday, a month after the fall, I was diagnosed with a compression fracture in one of my vertebrae. To quote the doctor "Well, these things usually take about 6 weeks to heal, and you've already been walking around fine for a month, so I guess I'll just let it be."
I will be turning 29 this Wednesday. To ring in this inauspicious occasion, I will be having beverages late Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning at the Motor City Bar. Show up any time after 10:00 to give me a swift birthday kick in the nuts.
Some say "lightning never strikes twice". Others say "when it rains, it pours". And some get out of their house and have sex on a regular basis.
I like to count myself among this third group, yet I still must say that, yesterday, lightning struck twice.
For those of you who don't know (probably no one who bothers to read this journal) I come from a college town in south-eastern Michigan called Ann Arbor.
I have a lined nylon jacket that I occasionally wear in the spring and fall from my days as a high-schooler which reads "Ann Arbor Student Home Building", and it has my name embroidered on the left breast. I can only imagine that most people who see me wearing it assume i'm some jack-ass hipster, who thinks it's ironic to wear such blue-collar trappings, especially with such a ridiculous name embroidered on it.
I was wearing said jacket when I went into Tiny's sandwich shop yesterday to pick up a spicy rizzak for lunch. I go there once every couple of weeks, and always order the same sandwich, from the same guy. He's pretty friendly, but we've never bothered to introduce ourselves or have a conversation. Yesterday was different.
As soon as I enter the shop, he says
- "Hey that's funny, I grew up in Ann Arbor" - "So did I, this is my jacket, I'm Gus"
So, the usual small talk ensues, we talk about what schools we went to, what neighborhoods we lived in, etc. He was a pretty nice guy. Nothing earth-shattering, but a funny little incident.
Now, fast forward to 5:30, when Evan and I have planned to meet at City Hall Park to see Blondie play for free. It was a decent show, pretty short. Evan and Lam and I are just kind of hanging out after the show, as the mass of downtown workers and blondie fans stream out of the park around us. We decide to get out of the torrent, so we turn around and head toward the subway. I figure now would be a good time to tell Evan the Ann Arbor story, as I thought he would appreciate it.
But there is one other small group standing like rocks in the stream. One of them looks like something out of a modern day Midwestern "Deliverance". He has a baseball cap pulled down over his greasy short hair, a members-only jacket, coke bottle glasses, and is leering over his can of pepsi with a set of teeth that would make any mother weep with horror. His comrade looks a little more subdued, with a tie-died t-shirt, long, stringy hair, and a thin, unkept beard.
This second fellow looks oddly familiar, and he's staring right at me.
- "Hey man, are you from Ann Arbor." - "Yeah." - "So am I, man." (extends hand to shake) "My name's Andrew" - "Hey I'm Gus." (pointing at jacket) (Andrew extends hand to shake again) "It's funny, this is the second time this has happened today." - "Yeah, that's funny." - "You're Andrew W. K., right." - "Yeah." (extends hand to shake a third time) - "Cool. I gotta go, nice to meet you." - "Yeah man, cool."
since i moved to new york, over a year ago, i have been consumed by consumption.
i'm not talking about the 19th century kind of consumption, where you spend the last years of your short life lying on an old couch in some tiny attic studio coughing blood into a filthy handkerchief. that is, until someone notices you coughing your lungs out, and throws you into a TB quarantine somewhere pleasant, like in a cave*, where you die of pneumonia. ( Read more...Collapse )
in my last year of college, and for a year after i graduated, i worked for a very small software company (about ten employees).
one of the advantages of working in a small company is that you learn a little bit about every facet of the business. with this in mind, i learned a couple key points about marketing... ( Read more...Collapse )
earlier this evening, i was sitting in my apartment, pulling the hairs out of my nose (which is my want of a tuesday night.) i was struggling with a particularly stubborn bunch of snot-filters and thought to myself (in rather cliched fashion)
christ, it's like a jungle in there.
suddenly, inspiration struck! if the hair in my nose was like the dense vegetation of the rain forest, i must attack it with the same fury and, indeed, the same techniques used against the rain forest itself. ( Read more...Collapse )
14:23 < phil> gus? 14:32 < gus> phil? 14:32 < phil> Did I ever tell you about the summer you and I spent in California, smoking crack and hanging out with the cast of 90210? 14:34 < gus> no, but that explains the four-year-old ham sandwich the doctor just found crammed up my ass.
mr_giggles
