volume of beer consumed is directly proportional to miles walked

Given my extremely limited readership (and ability to post anything worth reading) I am always amazed when I'm contacted by a blogfan. One time it was pretty cool (hey, KB!), but usually it's just older dudes on the creepy end of the spectrum. Ahem:

I just read some of your blog. Ihave never done this before. Is this some type of self therapy to write your daily thoughts and doings on line. I mean it is ok and all but I just find it interesting. I notice that you live in New York. I just left new York and I love it up there. I wish I could move there, but my wife refuses to move somewhere where we cannot afford a house. Well , I enjoyed your blog although it seems you may drink a tad too much. I do wonder what you look like. I figure you are about 5'5 and about 140lbs with light brown hair. Am I close? Anyway, have a great life and may God bless you in your future endevours. Please rememer to call on God whenever you are having problems. He may not seem to be there, but he is, and he will carry you through the most difficult times you could imagine.

jeff

He totally thinks I'm fat.

good thing there was no responsibility section on the sat

Those naughty Bush girls sure like their booze! Last night at work Lauren Bush and her boyfriend David Lauren (please God let them get married) had a six-top reservation at a table downstairs. I did not have the pleasure of being their server, but apparently all were very nice. Too bad for her, because the responsible server she did have had no idea who she was and carded her when she ordered wine. Her awesome response? "I'm 17." None of that "I forgot it at home" bullshit. The girl has a monkey for an uncle but at least she has some dignity.

Speaking of responsibility, here's how my week is going so far:

Sunday Night
Finish article in record time after inviting self to dinner at Otto with friend S. Gorge self on red wine and a surprise assortment of gelati, including gorgonzola dolce (yeah, it was as weird as it sounds.) Go to work and drink more wine while waiting for fellow servers to get off and go to going-away party. Volunteer to trade my early Tuesday night shift for the Tuesday closing shift when closing server complains about it. FATAL ERROR NUMBER ONE. Drink some beer and turn in my worst Big Buck Hunter performance thus far (note: my best Big Buck Hunter performance was really, really bad).

Monday Afternoon
Wake up around 1:00, blissfully ignorant that this is the last time I will sleep for 48 hours. Eat muffaletta sandwich. Solve the shit out of the New York Times crossword puzzle. Take bus to work.

Monday Night
On the bus, curse hangover, resolve to take sparkling water for a shift drink, and ponder what I need to pack and clean before I leave for Thanksgiving. Learn at family meal that the chef of a famous restaurant that's affiliated with my not-quite-as-famous one (though we're totally gonna be on Rachael Ray!) is having a going away party in the downstairs room on Tuesday night, attended by his staff and the owners of my place, starting at midnight. Die a little inside, knowing that they will be boozing like restaurant folk (rockstars schmockstars) until the sun comes up. Smoke post-work cigarette, and decide that one glass of prosecco won't kill me. FATAL ERROR NUMBER TWO. But hey, it's free, the novelty of which will never wear off, even though about 62% of my drinks these days are free. Drink prosecco. Decide that one beer across the street with a fellow server and former server won't kill me. Drink beer. Drink another beer. Split a cab home to Brooklyn at 3:30 a.m.

Tuesday Morning
3:40 a.m., Bartender calls. (Didn't I just resolve the other day not to sleep with him anymore because I accidentally started liking him? Whatever.) 3:42, call cab to take me to Bartender's house. FATAL ERROR NUMBER THREE. [Use your imagination. Actually no, that's creepy.] 8:00 a.m., leave Bartender's because he has to go back on tour selling t-shirts. Go home and pack. Lie down and pet the cat for an hour. Leave for internship in Midtown. Take really long time to write blog post because of diminished brain function.

Tuesday Night
Projected: Feel like complete and utter crap at work. Drink a double espresso every 45 minutes. Fear the clock striking midnight. Try really hard to be pleasant despite being sober and surrounded by drunk people, at least three of whom have the ability to fire me. Try really hard to replace everyone's cocaine with Equal. Pray they leave by 5:00 so I can catch my train.

Wednesday Morning
Off to my friend's parents' house in beautiful Cockeysville, Maryland! (Assuming I haven't passed out in a ditch somewhere. Oh wait, New York doesn't have any ditches. You know what I mean.)

better than minesweeper

I am currently working on my first article for a tangible publication. Naturally, I am taking this task very seriously. It's due tomorrow morning, and the plan was to work on it yesterday afternoon before work. After 25 years as the reigning Queen of Procrastination (I took a good extra three years to give up my pacifier...damn kindergarten), I don't know why I continue to kid myself. My friend and Thanksgiving cat-sitter stopped by the Internet Garage (yeah, that whole wireless plan didn't work out so well) to retrieve my keys about a half hour into my "work session" during which I'd caught up on Gawker and looked for black boots on eBay. Before she could finish explaining why she had time to kill before her dinner plans, I was logged off and putting on my coat. We wandered around the neighborhood and shopped a little (I spent two hours' pay on a bronze chain-link bracelet with a heart charm that says "wonder buns") until we deemed it an appropriate time to start drinking (4 p.m., if you were wondering.) Now it's 4 p.m. again, and I have four hours until a work friend's going away party. With a whopping 250 words to turn in and 50 already done, that's exactly 50 words per hour. Ooooh, it's going to be a close one!

squat, goblin-like creatures

May the Good Lord bless the BBC, the British in general, and my friend Dan. This gem of science journalism actually made my eyes a little moist.

attention target team members!

Reason number 2,349,886 why I love my sister:

The other day at work I got called to the back office to chat about how I'm apparently too dismal while I'm cashiering/answering phones/etc. It seems some "guests" have been "worried" about me, and they wanted to remind me that I'm the last thing people see in Target before they leave, and they don't want anyone leaving with a bad impression.

It's weird because I actually don't really mind working at Target.

Perhaps she should look into a gig at Duane Reade in New York City, where cashiers won't even acknowledge your presence at their registers until they've finished their cellphone conversations.

last night at work

Weekend nights really bring out the best to Bourbon Street, er, I mean, the Lower East Side...

Stripey Shirt Dude on Cell: I'm at this place on the corner of Ludlow and Essex [note: Ludlow and Essex do not intersect.] ... And the Stern pub crawl is at Max Fish right now.

My Manager: Some girl just called and asked if she left her kitten in the restaurant.
Servers: ...
My Manager: She said it might have fallen out of her purse and asked if I could check the bathroom.
Servers: ...

I also had the pleasure of waiting on Martha Stewart's daughter. She neither smiled nor acknowledged my presence through the entirety of her five-course meal. Shocker.

give me an a

Girls getting accosted on the street by construction workers is as old as prostitution. But today I heard a new one:

Excuse me, did you used to be a cheerleader?

Of all the girls I know, I'm probably the last one I'd expect to get that comment. But hey, at least he said "excuse me".

where's the wagon?

Goddamn. For the first time in many many months I feel like I might be back in blogger mode. As in, something happens and I'm cognizant enough to remember it, or I have an idea and write it down in my Moleskine aka my "digipad" (long story), or I'm not so busy that I don't have time to obsess about shit. In other words, I'm kind of maybe a little depressed again.

Though a home internet connection still eludes me, I've almost got my hands on an out-of-production wireless card for my out-of-production iMac, and if some of those majestic airwaves penetrate into my windowless basement apartment, here's what you have to look forward to (or not):

*Some pictoral love for my cat, who has somehow managed to grow on me even though I will never be comfortable with the whole litter box thing, or his mysterious tendency to put his butt in my face while I'm trying to watch my Freaks and Geeks DVDs for the 53rd time.

*My parents' recent visit, in which they stayed at my apartment, and which was actually pretty great.

*How I ended a night of moderate (for me) drinking with a glass of an aged red wine at work and woke up with a debilitating migraine-like headache so painful that I threw up for the first non-drunken time since I was eight years old. I guess the whole "red wine headache" thing isn't bullshit, and I have developed an unfortunate condition given my current profession.

*A rambling treatise on public urination, including the best (worst?) public peeing story I have ever heard (preview: it involves a bloody, pantsless guido.)

*My continued and growing obsession with a little place called Pies-N-Thighs.

*The sheer volume of, and absurdity of my connections to, all the people I ran into at the MoMA party on Tuesday.

*A list of words that give me that icky "I need a shower" feeling (no, not "moist".)

And much, MUCH more!

a eulogy

Friends, drunkards, NYC-ers, lend me your livers; I come to bury the to-go margarita.

It is with great sadness that I spread the news that the to-go margarita has lost its valiant fight against the authorities. After The Hat entered a comatose state a couple years ago, it came back strong and healthy as ever, while that other place down the street (the 'ritas were better there anyway) kept soldiering forward. I thought, perhaps, that the worst was over. But it wasn't to be, for now these two establishments are good for nothing more than mediocre, overly greasy enchiladas and generally unoccupied bathrooms. Valuable neighborhood services, to be sure, but not the same.

Though it's hard to imagine during this upsetting, fragile period when the wounds are still fresh, the hurt will eventually subside to make way for joyful memories. These little frozen miracles provided me with years of treasured good times. There was the first time I got my little sister drunk, the hours spent on the bench across the street from Pianos making fun of people in ill-fitting pants, the strolls up to the dog run in Tompkins Square Park (yes, dogs are even cuter after some tequila,) and that time with Drone when "to go" turned into "to stay" and four plastic cups later I was drunk dialing inappropriate people and puking out the window of a cab. I can't say I remember all my interactions with the to-go margarita, but isn't that how it should be?

To-Go Margarita, you were so delicious and deceptively potent and an important part of my young, retarded life. You will not be forgotten.

A moment of silence, please.