watch you on the universe!

Zee blog, zee blog - man. I don't feel much like typing, but times have been juicy, and so i must capture them.

Getting used to being back to normalcy, or mostly that- my girlfriend has been outta town, so I have been living the bachelor lifestyle (well, sitting in my quiet apartment). Actually I have been meaning to go out and party more, for the reason that I don't like to do that too much when she's around - she doesn't give me a tough time about it, but personally I don't like showing up at home at the end of the night in an altered state, and making her deal with it. Not that she even complains about it even, and not that I am some overbearing burdensome drunk or something, but I expect it must be quite a drag. I'll put it this way, when I am sober and others are drunk, it's pretty uncomfortable for ME. Anyway if she's outta town, it's a good excuse for me to get it out of my system then. Last week I didn't do anything all week, as I was still pretty beat down due to adjustment (jet lag and all). I did go out friday night, there was a skating event with free whiskey and then we went dancing after. The whiskey did it's job a bit well and I can't say I remember the dancing part..

Saturday was alright, I ran around town picking up stuff for an impromptu mini-BBQ at my place. We'd had a party last month for May's graduation and there was a ton of booze leftover in my fridge to kill, so I called up some buddies and shelled out for a little korean marinated meat and threw that stuff on the grill, and of course we played some videogames (boom blox is the current party favorite). The night went late, of course it was an extremely mellow party (which was fine!) - a sign that we're all getting older, I suppose.

Sunday wasn't much to speak of. My "first day of nothing to do," really. I ran some errands, ate a philly cheesesteak, picked up my apartment, did some laundry. Spent a lot of time yakking on the phone. Sounds kinda pointless to mention this in here, but it was really my "back to nothing to do" day and as such it was NICE. I didn't get some of the extra maintainence-y things done that I'd've liked....

So yesterday, Monday, it was the crazy day. A buddy of mine accepted a job out of town, so we were gonna have a little send-off for him in Little Tokyo (somewhere I've not really partied before). Exhausted, as it was Monday and I'd not really slept too well all weekend, and hey - it WAS Monday! But hell, you gotta do what you gotta. I jetted home after work and stopped by my favorite schwaerma place to get a sandwich before heading out. Waiting in line and I noticed a woman picking up her food in front of me. Wh..is that? Holy crap, that looks like my ex-girlfriend - who I have not seen, or spoken to, at ALL, in nearly 5 years! I didn't wanna be all weird and just gawk, so I kind of checked it out in the reflection of the window. Yeah, it had been awhile, but it's hard to forget someone you'd dated for a couple of years, lived with, etc. I picked up my food and headed out, looking through the window as I started up my car. It was definitely her, with (I assume) her husband and their kid. Now this was just very weird to me - it was like looking at "what might have been" had things played out differently, like it would be US sitting there with OUR kid. But really it just felt like I didn't belong there, I didn't feel some remorse about it or anything. The weird thing is that I had heard she moved to the east coast some time ago, maybe they were in town for a visit, who knows. This particular restaurant was a favorite of hers (and certainly a favorite of mine!), and was actually quite close to her old house..

As I am sitting watching through the window, I back my car up out of the spot. My parking spot was kind of dubious, unfortunately, and as I am backing up KERRRANG!!! I nearly ripped my poor sideview mirror off the driver's side door (the one I JUST FREAKIN' REPLACED). GAH! Here I am trying to be inconspicuous, I certainly don't wanna be drawing attention to myself now of all times, that sick shitty feeling in my stomach "oh man do I have to replace this expensive shit again?? I just want to LEAVE!" I pull forward and my car, still getting out of this dubious spot, kind of plunks down over the curb, making another loud (and very bad-sounding scraping sound) and I just sort of drag my way out of there "please don't be causing expensive damage!! Fucking car!" Man, it was making me feel all shook up, and at the same time it felt HILARIOUS. Like a scene from a stupid Jim Carrey movie or something. Anyway I scraped outta there without any further incident, got home at and showered and got duded up to go out.

The night was long. It was really weird too, following the already-bizarre setup. Little Tokyo has never been my favorite place, it's really tiny and not very interesting or colorful - just sort of beat up and (dare I say it) slightly pathetic-looking. I mean, if it was a different ethnicity it would be bad enough, but this is freaking TOKYO! It's SUPPOSED to be superkickass! Anyway there are some redeeming things there, some good joints to eat at, I think it just brushes a little close ot some of the gnarlier parts of downtown to ruin it's vibe. Anyway I caught an expensive cab over there (sigh, but what're ya gonna do?) and met up with my small gang of friends. Everybody was pretty loaded by the time I showed up (past 11 in the evening), I threw down a couple of whiskeys to try and catch up - why buck a trend, right? That shit goes down tasting like furniture polish at first, but gets smoother once you follow it a little..

We ended up at a little karaoke-type place up the street. It was pretty dead except for our crew.. I was having a good time, enjoying my buzz and talking with friends, it was alright. Sure enough, a Monday night in LA, and weird shit is bound to go down. I got coerced to go outside on the patio with the others, my friends were hanging out with some hot but extremely slutty looking girls who were evidently very trashed, and talking like it - I mean, cussing up a storm. I don't mind the cussing, but it's a little funny when it's hit-you-over-the-head, especially from the "demure princesses." THese chicks are talking with my buddies, and this real ancient looking Japanese guy, real small, I mean he looked like a caricature of what a little cartoony old asian guy would look like. I think he was bombed as well, arms drapped over my friends, talking in broken english and the guys and chicks were sort of making fun of him, all in good fun though - he was diggin' it. I think he was the dad of one of the owners or something, not sure. Anyway one of the sluts pulls out a pipe and starts loading it up with some green shit, are you kidding me? Man, I gotta give Little Tokyo more credit, this place is lawless. They start hitting that shit, it was kinda giving me the willies "are they gonna call the cops, can you do this? It's not the goddamned 1970s!" Meanwhile the maitre'D is inside watching us, looking very displeased, walking back and forth and crossing and uncrossing his arms, I don't blame the dude. I decided to remove myself from the scene of the crime and go back in to wrap up my drink, last call has come and gone. Back inside, I notice there's a bunch of real drunk-drunk Japanese chicks kinda cavorting with everybody, one of my friends was thinking they were whores - I dunno - it's hard to tell in those situations, I am innocent alright? (right?) Anyway the barkeep took care of us and served us a couple late-night drinks (that never happens) and then we wrapped up and headed out, bade the sluts and whores farewell for the night - yes, it was all very wholesome, I know.

The leftovers of our crew headed out to Denny's, for what turned out to be the weirdest experience I've had in a Denny's in my life, honestly. I won't get into it at the moment, you will have to ask me about that one in person! Finally ended up getting home and knocking out close to four a.m., forgot to turn my cellphone alarm from vibrate to buzz - somehow, miraculously, just the vibration noise woke me up from my precious few hours of slumber. Made it to work, belly a little funny but overall I was able to hang in and do m'business.

Yup, another crazy godforsaken night in the city..