hipster hymnal

Apparently God is on Facebook. If I friend him, will he friend me back? When I post this blog post to my status post, will he "like" it? These are the questions I ask myself as I fall asleep.

Last night was part two of Zac's going away party, part one being a total shit show at St. Jerome's on Rivington where Luc Carl served us beers and I pondered how he used to fuck (and apparently maybe still does?!!) Lady Gaga before she was Lady Gaga. I don't even know if I've written about it here, but he is moving to New Orleans. Zac, not Luc Carl. Just for a bit is the plan and unlike most people his just for a bit usually means just for a bit. Not like when people say, I hate this job, but I'm gonna stay here just for a bit until I find something better, and then they work there until they're 60 and they retire and suddenly they wonder where their lives went and then they die of cancer or a heart attack or something caused by sitting at a desk for forty years while they were getting ready to quit to find something better. No, not like that. Just for a bit, then it's off with the winds.

Last night, Jenny showed us an amazing film she made about our friends and our lives in New York. I teared up once and stayed teared up for a few minutes. Then I laughed and felt OK, but just OK, and today I have an OK hangover, which is sort of worse than a whiskey hangover. When you're reading a book, finishing a chapter isn't nearly as painful as finishing the book itself. When you finish a chapter, it's on to the next one, but when you finish the book you put it down and just cry cry cry because now that book is gone forever and you can never see it again the way you saw it the first time you read it. At least that's what I do. I read books slowly.

Last night, I played guitar in front of people for the first time ever outside of my guitar class. I played guitar by myself in front of people for the first time ever. I was scared shitless, and it was only 7 people, my friends sitting in my apartment on my floor listening to my voice. It's possible that I have never been that scared in my entire life. Turns out, playing guitar in front of people is absolutely nothing like playing guitar alone in one's bedroom. You have to deal with a lot of things that just aren't  concerns when you're alone in your bedroom. I was emotional, and I was nervous, and I was a little drunk and tired, so I forgot lyrics and I flubbed up chords. But two months after the very first time I picked up a guitar, I played a whole song, and I sang, and everyone applauded and told me I did a good job. I felt bad that I messed up so much, but I was touched by everyone's support. I thought about how I could have done better, then realized I didn't remember a damn thing I had done, right or wrong. The only thing to do better is to keep playing guitar.

Last night, after everyone left, I watched Zac and Jenny re-enact a scene from that movie Salt with Angelina Jolie, which I haven't seen, in his almost but not quite empty bedroom. They were upside-down and sideways and their hands were in the air and tied behind their backs with invisible chains. They described a couple scenes in which Angelina's character kills the bad guys, and they laughed and I thought about violence in films. How sometimes, and perhaps more often than not, we suspend reality so that we can feel a certain way, because we want to feel that way, because we need to feel that way.

Like sometimes on my way to work I stop at the bodega on the corner right outside the 6 stop at 103rd street, to get a juice or a coffee or a water pumped with vitamins. Each time I go in, I do a delicate dance with the gaggle of folks gathered at the counter using their pennies to scratch off their cards promising them the opportunity to win their millions. They suspend everything about reality to focus on this one little hope, some double digits strewn across perforated cardboard, nothing but ink on cardboard, but it's everything to them. Most of them will never win, and they know it. They have to know it, somewhere. I fish a dollar out of my wallet to pay for my drink. A dollar a drink, a dollar a dream.

Sometimes long songs seem short, and sometimes short songs seem really long. I haven't decided which is better. I guess it depends on how we want to feel, how we need to feel, what we are willing to suspend on that particular day in that particular moment. My pause and play buttons for suspension, and I suppose thereby for reality, aren't working very well recently.

They're worn out.