Feeling Right, Feels Fine, But Being Right is Better.

Yesterday went well. With the philosophy mentioned in yesterday's post in mind, I ventured out into the world clear-headed and enthusiastic. Met up with Dan. Nice to have friends that have nothing to do either. Sat at the weird anarchist cafe on 45th, just off Spruce. Sat outside. The weather was nice.

Dan worked for the AFL-CIO (America's largest labor union) for a while and saved up God knows how much money, quit, moved back to Philly, became a barista, did some other stuff, and has been virtually unemployed for the past year. At least I can't ever figure out what he does. Just lives off his savings from his time at the AFL-CIO. So we go and get coffee together, since I'm living off my savings from my year abroad, and have no editorial work for at least another week and a half. Dan doesn't talk much. That's an understatement. He rarely says anything. So our conversations tend to be a bit one-sided. Which is fine. I talk more around him than around anyone else. I probably tell him more than just about anyone else as well. And it's hard to tell how much he is absorbing sometimes, because he always seems a little bored, but every once and a while he'll make some insightful response that proves he's not entirely sedated. If Dan was born with any super-power, it would be his Zen. I don't know how you fight crime with that, but yeah. He's almost disturbingly sedated. You almost never get any reaction out of him. I find something comforting about this, but can easily see why other people feel disconcerted by this weird, seemingly disinterested demeanor.

We had coffee and chewed the fat. He was more talkative than he's been. Got into a fender bender the other day. I witnessed it. He just backed into an impala while parallel parking. I was there. It wasn't that hard. That sorta thing happens all the time. And Dan inspected it and started to walk over to the car I was in when this guy smoking a cigarette outside the barber shop came over and started looking at it. Dan tried talking to him and the man wouldn't acknowledge him. Finally Dan got in the car with us. Apparently the man is trying to claim that Dan was drunk and was in fits of laughter afterwards and that he was latino. And that the crash was so loud he could hear it in the barber shop with the doors closed. What an idiot. Is he taking for granted the car full of witnesses that was there as well?

Later on I met up with the Lithuanians. Gint and Aistis. Ate dinner at the Good Dog. Went down to Old City, shot pool the same place me and Megan B. shot pool at last Friday. Then went to Ray's Happy Birthday Bar because Aistis is new in town and doesn't know where to buy pot, and I know a few people and they were hanging out there. Then I walked back to McGlinchey's and plopped myself on a stool in the corner next to my good friend Rebecca and we proceeded to drink beer and smoke cigarettes the rest of the evening. At one point in the history of our friendship I confessed I had feelings for her. Bought her a plane ticket to Rome. It didn't go down so well. We are both to blame equally for that disaster. But now that that's behind us, and she's with her on-off bf of forever, I remember how much I enjoy her presence and friendship. She talked a lot to me about how fucked up her finances are and I told her I would come to her house today and we would work on some of it together. I'll see what I can do. I'm trying to encourage her furniture making career as well, because she has a lot of legitimate talent that she isn't marketing very well. So I'm going to try to encourage her to build a portfolio and start giving it to some of her contacts in NY. She says a friend is selling tote bags for 300 bucks a pop there. Her lamps could fetch over a thousand in some stores.

Only at one point, when me, Gint, and Aistis, were playing pool in Old City did I think or stress about Kate yesterday. Which is definitely a good thing, but also it was disturbing for a moment to start to think that I wasn't really over it. I think it is really helpful hanging out with Rebecca, because I do have a different relationship with her. We seem to read each other better and know each other's thoughts oftentimes. Kate and I could never read each other. We knew what the other was thinking, but neither of us would ever bring it up or acknowledge it. Not a good way to have a relationship. But it is hard thinking I have to try to develop that with someone new now. Kind of intimidating. Especially since I'm always bouncing between here and Rome.

Lately there has been a girl at fiume that hangs out there all night at the bar and drinks Seltzer and reads books. I used to do that all the time, but that's because I was living in a boarding house filled with crackheads and nutjobs and I would use fiume as my living room. I would study, drink, eat, etc. Wasn't much of a cafe in the evening person. Like my smoky dives. Then I'd finish studying and the place would start filling up and there would be live jazz or blues or bluegrass. So this girl is there all the time, and I really, really thought she was flirting with me the first time I went in there. But I thought she was dating Kevin. Because he referenced his gf. And she'd stay and help close the bar every night. And I've seen them walking around together. Well I ran into her last night 3 times. Once in S. Philly. Then again at Ray's. Then when she was leaving I said, "You going back out West?" And she said, "No, 12 steps down first. Then back out West." An hour later she and Kevin walk into McGlinchey's. Wtf? And who was with them? Kevin's girlfriend. The same damn girl mentioned a few posts ago that held my gaze for so long that one night when I was out with Megan S. So I guess I got mixed up somehow. They came over and she talked to me a whole lot, Alli, is her name. And as soon as they left, Reba said, "Well she sure took a liking to you." I told Rebecca that I had mistakenly thought she was dating Kevin.

Unfortunately this girl seems kind of annoying. And Rebecca doesn't seem to like her, and though Rebecca doesn't seem to like anyone, her reasons with this girl seemed legit.

These posts might be too long for most readers attention span. I should be less verbose. Tighten my prose. Maybe I should start trying to make these things more readable on at least a literary level.

-southern