Thurs: Dan and I had lunch at Union Picnic after I’d spent the morning doing some photoshop work. night I ate dinner at Eat Records with Brooke, Aug, Willow and Sandman. These japanese people cook you dinner and you pay them $25 and you can bring booze and sit there and eat and drink all night. We talked about Brooke’s store while eating. I think Willow was bored. Jen stopped by later. I forgot my wallet as well.

Friday: I didn’t have anyone to eat lunch with so I went to the Thai place on Bedford and did some record shopping and didn’t find any of the ones I thought I wanted. Later that evening I was going somewhere and there was this stack of records in the hallway. There were a couple good ones in there. Gino came over for some beers, then we went over to Ryan’s for more beers. I got a burrito on the way home.

Sat: Aug came over in the afternoon and we played computers. Jennie and I watched the Wire. I met the gang and went to go see the suckers. Then Brooke and I went to this new “club” down the street. It was all decked out, but totally empty. We were the only 2 customers in this giant place and there were about 15 people working there. Someone informed us that Tues was “indie night.” …racialism. Then we went to Union Pool. Then I went to Quinn’s. Then I tried to get a burrito, but the burrito place was full of people and they were all speaking spanish, and I was ignored and went to the corner store and got a microwave chicken sandwich instead.

Sun: I cleaned my bike up and rode around. I went down by Pratt and thought maybe I should take a class this summer.

Monday night I rode up to Times Sq. and met Jennie to see the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. It was ok. I concluded that you don’t need to see a cartoon movie on a big screen or be forced to pay attention to a cartoon for more than 27 minutes. It’s worth a rental though. I also canceled my cell phone, I’m gonna get new one sometime this week. I don’t think I’ll miss too many calls though…

Last night I watched the dvd Glory Road. I liked it.

Tonight I met up with a MASS MoCA friend for some beers. I tried to convince her to be a little crazier–but I was too subtle I think. What do I know? I watch movies every night apparently… I’m going to go watch The Wire.

Friday night Mike and I went to see Hot Chip at Webster Hall. It was overall a pleasant show. The beer was too expensive. They played a lot of new stuff and put a twist on their old stuff. I think I could make the music they make. Afterwards we got some nachos and then went to a birthday party at a bar.

Saturday Jennie and I rode down and around Prospect Park and got some dinner in Cobble Hill and met Karyn for a drink. We watched the DVD Running with Scissors and I did not enjoy it.

Sunday we rode to the flea market on Avenue A. I bought a shirt for $5. I met Kelly at her studio in DUMBO and I helped her make a zine and drank a beer. We went to see her friend Yoni’s show, then I raced back to Williamsburg to see Jennie’s friend’s show, but Jennie wasn’t there. So I watched these dudes play metal for 30 minutes.

I had sliders for lunch today.

The ad agency temporarily put me on hold until further notice. I spent most of Wednesday sitting there looking at the internet, doing the usual things I would be doing if I were home but I found sitting in an office much less pleasant. People jawing on the phone all day, wondering if someone is going to start talking to you while you’re using the bathroom, the inability to just stare out of the window for a few minutes, lack of snacks… working from home is much better. Yesterday I ate soul food with Dan for lunch and watched The Wire most of the evening. My upstairs neighbor stays up all night and her dog barks and it has woken me up every night this week. Last night at 5am.

Today I went over to my friend Sara’s, she’s also a freelancer and I helped her out with some work. It wasn’t too bad of a deal. It’s a nice day and I rode my bike around. Going to a concert with Mike tonight.

Working at the ad agency again. Ate some BBQ with Mike last night and it made me full and tired. The waitress was a vegetarian. Today at lunch me and Dan were eating burgers and this nun lady comes up asking for change and I said “sorry” and she looked at Dan and he shook his head, then she sort of pushed the change bowl towards him and he said “I’m trying to eat my lunch” and she said “excuse me, I thought you were taking a shower.” Dan blames Whoopi Goldburg for her attitude. We tried to come up with some more suitable remarks for her, like “have a nice day, bless you, sorry” any of those would do. Fake nun!

Wednesday,
Saw Grindhouse, very fun.

Thursday,
Ate at Bonita, went to a too crowded art opening, got a couple beers.

Friday,
I rode my bike all over town and dropped off the zine at some bookstores. Hopefully they can get rid of them. Met Jennie for lunch in Union Square. Ate some pizza for dinner and Jen N. and Jeff came over and we went to party downstairs. It was kinda crappy but there was free beer.

Saturday,
Woke up late and got a sandwich. Jennie and I rode our bikes up to the Armory to see a bunch of photographs. We looked and looked. There was some schmoozing. I liked the really big photos. We rode over to the Natural History museum but they were closed. Then down to get some Indian food. I asked the man for something spicy. We got home and Nato, Miranda and Kelly picked me up and we went to this bar that was too crowded so we went to another bar that was less crowded but quickly got too crowded. After that we met up with Greg at real-deal downtown party. It was some apartment building that I assume is getting torn down cause people were trashing the place and everyone was dancing and we thought the floor might fall through. As we were leaving the cops were there, but they only asked us not to drink on the sidewalk. We got back to Brooklyn and went to East River bar, had a couple beers and plugged the jukebox. I got a sandwich and went to bed.

Sunday,
Laid in bed all day and watched DVDs and looked at the internet. Ate pizza.

Ok, I’ve hit a new record with this 2 month lapse here… From my online calendar I can gather that I went to the dentist (no cavities) and a couple birthday parties, worked for 3 days, worked on a proposal with Aug and Kate that we didn’t win, got the artist’s guide delivered, and went to Mexico. I think for a week or 2 there I was on a party binge too.

Anyhow the bigger issues: The Artist’s Guide, I have a good pile of them in our apartment, I was pretty nervous to get them cause I felt I needed to get them all sold in 1 week. They arrived and I felt good about it. I liked the paper and color and all that. I immediately noticed the 5 or 6 mistakes in it though. They’re all my fault and I feel guilty for not catching them, but no one has brought them up to me yet. Some friend and people I’ve dealt with online gave us some publicity and posted us on their blogs and what not. But we’ve sold less than 100 so far, which is depressing to think about. So far I would comment that it was fun to put together, but selling it is a pain in the ass. Anyhow, I do enjoy managing the project and hopefully something like that will come to me in the future as a career option.

Mexico was really great. Probably the first ever vacation I’ve taken that was a real “vacation” destination. Other than tourism I saw no other source of income for the area we were staying. Jennie and I left NY at 6am and got in to Cabo around 3ish. We drove to the house we were staying in, it was pretty amazing. Great views, little pool, great patio for grilling and outdoor bar. loads of windows and all the nice stuff inside the house you would want. We did a pretty good job managing 8 people hanging out together for 7 days. We did all the usual stuff, beaches, fishing, drinking (way too much), dining, etc… The tourist stuff did not really appeal to us, but we gave it a shot and went to some overpriced bars and watched middle aged moms dance to AC/DC and drink $10 watery margaritas. We laughed a lot, but I think I laughed the hardest when Sam yelled at Bethie about some towels. We had a layover in the Dallas airport, it’s a big one.

I just sent off my taxes today, so I’ve bummed about being broke and I should probably get back to work.

January was a busy month. Just after my last entry my client from Texas came up to talk about his fishing lure and to share some Japanese food. I spent a lot of time working on finishing up the Artist’s Guide, which I sent off to the Canadian Printers this week. I think it looks pretty good and we even squeezed one more artist in at the last minute. Last week Jennie and I went to Chicago for 5 days. I knew it was going to be cold, but it was worse than I had anticipated. The average temp was 2 and lots of wind of course. We still managed to enjoy ourselves. We shopped and looked at art and I had my show, which took up more of my time than I would have liked. The gallery is fairly new and the person running it seemed to rely on the artist’s to do most of the work. Lots of people showed up to the opening and I received some compliments, but no buyers for my overpriced art. In general the focus of our trip was food, and we had plenty of good meals. While we were in Chicago my brit friend Rich and his friend Fos were crashing at our place. They had an art show here in Brooklyn that seemed to be a success. Luckily there was some overlap and we were able to hang out for a couple days. We watched the Superbowl over at Brooke’s. There was a lot of beer and food and nobody really paid attention to the game. At the end everyone was like “oh, it’s over?” Now that my month of personal projects are nearly wrapped up I suppose it is time to look for some new work. Hopefully the kind that pays a lot for little effort.

Before I left for KS I finished up another whirlwind working week at the ad agency. They are always working late nights and weekends. I am not sure why. There were a slew of christmas and birthday parties. I was pretty beat by the time I got on the plane to Kansas. Flight was nice and all that. Matt B picked me up and he showed me his new house, ill spouse and puppy. We got some beers on his gift-card at the local brewery pub and talked about mortgages and money and jobs. I holed up in his house the next couple of days working on some stuff and walking the dog and eating various baked goods and cookies. Darren and Sam arrived on Friday and we barely navigated ourselves to Arthur Bryants (apparently my fault) and had some good BBQ. Usually I don’t care for it, but Sam did the ordering and it was better than I remembered. Then we headed to the WWI museum to try and figure out what that was all about. There were guns and trenches and laser light pens. Friday night everyone in town came over to the Blume’s for a pizza party. I snuck off to bed around midnight and woke up with Dave next to me. Sam drove me back to the Wam with a pants buying pit stop.

Got home and caught up with Scott. Later that night the locals gathered at Mama Cass’s for some nachos and miller lights. Then we headed up to a high school reunion-esque party at the Purple Pig. All the party dudes from the class of 98 were there and more. I felt like it was a sitcom scene when we walked in and everyone turned and looked at us. I could see a few people mouth my name and I thought “oh man I am in for it.” Most of the night was spent with usual greetings, but I think I managed a few real conversations prefaced with my disclaimer “listen, I am really drunk…” I woke up in a chair at Ted’s. The next couple of the nights were spent at Jake and Alison’s drinking more miller lights with all sorts of special visitors, we discussed mortgages, money, jobs and babies. Christmas was at Grandma’s and we ate soup. That night Scott and I met up with fellow Brooklyners Dan and Jennette to see The Good Shepard, which was too long. We opted to skip smokey Auntie Mae’s.

My last night in town we all went to the union to do some bowling. I think most everyone won a game. We drank more miller lights and just after last call Ted fell down while bowling. It was agreed that bowling is fun and as I’d predicted my arm was sore for a few days.

Got back to Brooklyn and met up with Mike K for some beers and we discussed how we didn’t need to drink any more beers. Jennie came home from LA the next night. Saturday we headed up to Shaker Meadows in upstate NY for NYE weekend. We got a flat tire in the Bronx and it was a nightmare that we calmly managed to get through. We finally got up there to meet up with everyone at this cool old house Kelly and Miranda rented. We ate and drank and partied and around midnight I decided I should stop ignoring the sharp pain in my gut and my need to visit the toilet every 10 minutes and call it a night. I woke up a few times in the night to puke and that sealed the deal. Mike says he had the same thing the day before and we determined we’d both got it from the bar we were just at a couple of days ago. On New Year’s I was still feeling like shit so I hid out in this separate cabin Brooke rented and kind of popped in and out of the party around midnight. When we got back to Brooklyn I slept for 2 days.

Greg had a post NYE dinner party were we traded CDs and stories and drank some beers. I worked at the ad agency all weekend. Jennie and I went to the PBR bull riding event at Madison Sq. Garden on Sat night. It was pretty down home and cool. These dudes were into riding on the backs of bulls, America and God. Sunday Dan and Jennette had a party with lots of cookies and snacks. I’ve been working on the artist’s guide and some other freelance stuff this week and I have a bunch of art to make for my group show coming up in Chicago… I’m actually busy. That was an epic post!