Hi! How are you doing today? I'm fine, thanks for asking. I just got a fucking ear ache that's driving me insane! To make a long story short, I couldn't hear much on Tuesday and this morning my ear hurt pretty badly. Naturally, I hit up the local emergency room. After filling out the necessary forms (the receptionist personally asked me what religion I was, I answered Jewish, and she gave me an odd sort of look like I was from a different planet, which is true down here) I sat patiently in ER ..1. I felt like all the hype of the ER is completely overrated. The room did not look particularly sanitary and the doctor seemed lathargic, but I guess that makes sense when you're in there to treat someone with an ear infection. He was generally a nice guy though, and didn't seem too busy anyway. He filled up a syringe with warm water and tried to clear out my ear to no avail. I've got an appointment tomorrow with a good ear guy. I hope it works out, because I'm supposed to fly home Saturday, and the pressure could really screw things up. I won't be able to handle being stuck in La Place over Thanksgiving.
When I got home after the doctor visit, I took some advil and watched the movie "Sideways" again. I didn't like it nearly as much as I had the first time I watched it. Even though Paul Giamatti(I think that's his name) is eerily similar to my best friend Mossberg, the movie is too damn depressing and slightly ambiguous at the end. I realize that is the point, but I just didn't enjoy it this time around. It also reminded me of an article from the New York Times I had read a few months back regarding what sort of outings are socially acceptable for two male friends to embark on. Not that I subscribe to social tenets for fear of being categorized as oh my god "homosexual'! Gasp! but it's funny how there are some outings men just inevitably feel completely awkward in. Sports games, bars, business related affairs, movies (has to be a guy movie though), strip clubs are all satisfactory. Art galleries, walks with no purpose, dinners at nice restaurants fall into that other category. The movie centered on a week long excursion to wine country with two male friends. True, I would not take a walk with a guy for no purpose or at least haven't at this point. Usually the purpose would be getting high. I have gone to Art galleries or nice restaurants. I've ocillated (like a fan baby) in my life from having a majority of female friends to male friends and back again countless times. I frequently switch friends often and I'm not sure as to why this is. Even though I am still in touch with friends from High School and college, I have a difficult time keeping in touch with anybody. I don't email my friends for some reason. I'll randomly call friends when I have time to kill. I'll just scroll down my contacts list and find folks I haven't talked to in a while. Sometimes the calls will go on forever, catching up on the big events in our lives, but it's hard to do that when you're not there, in the general location of your buddies. I had a philosophy for a while that it's hard to stay close with people when you don't know what is important to them in their lives. As time passes, people change and their priorities change. But then there are the friends that it doesn't matter how long it's been, you can always pick up right where you left off.
I have two main friends from High School that I still keep in touch with on a regular basis: Alexa and Krishna. I've known Alexa since I was two years old, so she is more than a High School friend. I still remember being three years old and walking out of the movie theater after seeing E.T. I was balling my eyes out that Elliot and E.T. couldn't stay together, and she was repeating her favorite phrase from the movie over and over, "Penis breath." She was a very precocious tot. Krishna and I became close friends in 8th grade and went through our incredibly awkward stages together. If that doesn't facilitate bonding, I don't know what does. He is easily one of the most brilliant individuals I've ever met. He's stylish, confident, and genuine. He's never on time. He pursues all his interests with an admirable passion and if I were gay, our friendship would be very awkward and mysterious...My dad is still close with all of his friends from High School. They practically all still live in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. I think it's pretty cool to have had close friends for such a long period of your life. My friends are definitely what potentially will draw me back to the northeast. Tangent: I also watched Harold and Kumar go to White Castle last night. Which leads me to my epic conclusion of this post.
Top Three New Jersey based movies in no particular order:
Clerks
Garden State
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
All three embrace the gritty Jersey. Jersey is indescribable, yet each of these movies nail a tone that cannot be explained in words. I'll still attempt to do so...It's just a feeling you get when you're driving down the turnpike or if you're lost in Newark or Trenton. It's hanging outside the Circle K. It's affluent suburbia and ghetto suburbia side by side. It's locking your car doors in the parking lot of Quakerbridge Mall, but not at MarketFair down the road. It's the anthrax that was found in the same Post Office as the one in the zip code of my Dad's office that washed him into an FBI interrogation room. It's the flora and the fauna (as my mom always says). The fauna being the deer or opossum or cat or rat that tragically leaves a red stain on the late night backroad under a curtain of fog and a swerve of tire tracks. It's being eight years old and seeing your older cousin Michael turned into a piece of paper at a David Copperfield show in Atlantic City. It's a place you either never leave or never go back to. Would it be tacky or a symbol of dirty love to get an outline of such a maligned state on my upper arm? This is my year long contemplation. Never had a tattoo, but I might be due. It just means I won't be able to be buried in a Jewish cemetary. My sister burned that bridge years ago. If she's going to hell, can I go with her?
