Well, I'm at work, it's 10.01p, I have yet to write yesterday's entry, but I want to skip it and write today's entry because yesterday was so interesting and fun that I haven't a goddamn thing to write for yesterday's entry, because I cannot remember a thing about Friday! But it doesn't matter anyway, because I cannot upload any entry, either yesterday's or today's until I get home.

Okay, so I'm a little sleep deprived, but trust me, the above paragraph makes sense. I think.

So, yesterday was the NYC OLJ gathering, which actually started out being the big NYC OLJ gathering, then turned into the rather a bit smaller NYC OLJ gathering, until I feared that it would basically be me, Tracing and Dawn. But when I realized that that would be just dandy, I relaxed and stopped worrying about how many people would or would not be there.

It ended up that there were eight of us, which was just the perfect number, because everyone was really able to talk together and be a group rather than it being the People Who Knew Each Other Really Well (and a couple of strangers on the fringes). So even though I would have loved it if Melissa and Colleen and Amanda could have made it, it was swell anyway.

And besides, with a group that small, it is alot less likely that there will be all these entries about what a bitch I am, like after the last one. Hold grudges much? O no, not me!

I went to work first--I had a bunch of stuff to do and thought that I'd get some of it done. I was only there for two and a half hours, though, and when I left I thought, "Gee, maybe I'll come back after this thing is over, that way I can just laze about like a lox tomorrow and not have to worry about getting anything done."

Well, that didn't happen.

I got there about half and hour late, as is my wont, there being here, this fabulous Friends-y place, which is this enormous room with all of these little cosy corners with sofas and things. It's like a giant living room. Where they charge you $3 for a Coke.

When I got there, it was just Tracing and Dawn and Josh, whom I ken vaguely from Journal-L, and who turned out to be just the cutest little thing that you ever did see. You know that you are old when a 21 year old man makes you react as though he is a cocker spaniel puppy, "Aw, isn't he just the sweetest thing!! I wish I could take him home with me, but I have no room in my apartment, though, and the cats would take him apart." But later on, I got over all that and realized that he was a really nice, smart funny guy, not a puppy at all. And I resisted the urge to scratch him behind the ears.

Dawn was great, just great. The longer I do this journalling thing, the calmer I am about meeting journallers, it only really strikes me when it's someone that I've been friends with for years and years, like Dawn. How could we not have met already? We know each other so well, it is just not possible. You know, except for the bit where we live on different continents.

Anyway, she's fab and swell and trif and stuff, and do not believe another single word about how fucking fat she is ever again. I am here to say that she is about the size of my toe. And not even my big toe, one of the little ones. She is skinny and beautiful and stylish and had I not wasted all of this time liking her, I certainly wouldn't have started now. You know, but that she's all nice and funny. Damn her!

After I got there, another stranger came, Byrne, who was also pretty swell. He was one of those people who really seemed to get me right away, an excellent quality in a person, and if he didn't, he was pretending quite convincingly, another quite admirable quality, one I evidence myself when I don't quite hear what someone said, but I can tell that they meant whatever they mumbled to be funny, so I oblige with a bubbling laugh and they love me forever.

Not that he did that. I don't think.

Then came Dreama, the wonderful Dreama, so completely different than she seems online, where she is all scary and sharp, when in real life she is just so laughing and jolly and friendly and nice that you think that there must be several of her. And considering the number of aliases she has, there might as well be.

The great thing about Dreama really is that she just never stops talking, not even for a second, she out-talks me (which is an achievement), but she is never boring! She is just this font of interesting stories and observations, and is great to have in a group where people are meeting for the first time and might be feeling a little shy. No uncomfortable pauses with Dreama around! She just keeps that conversational ball rolling until everyone feels comfortable enough to talk, and then everybody was. Even the people who seemed like they might be a little shy about talking, just let go and started flapping their jaws like the rest of us.

The seventh to arrive was Claire, who was so late, and had been so nervous about coming to the city, that we all thought that she had been raped and murdered, or at the very least eaten by wolves, but she was not. I think that she had gotten lost, but I cannot remember. Perhaps her knees were knocking so hard that she couldn't walk very fast! She was really nice, too (I'm so controversial! Meet Kymm, and she'll call you "great" or "nice"! You can't stop me!)

So we sat and we ate and we talked and we tripped over each other getting up to go to the bathroom (Josh made one rather spectacular semi-leap over Byrne that was extremely entertaining) and realized that every single one of us was wearing glasses. So if you have perfect sight, go do something else, on-line journalling is only for the blind and squinting.

Sara Astruc was at work, but afterwards she came round to join us. She took ages, too, leaving us with a view of the door to spend absolutely ages perking up like a pointer dog whenever the door would open...and then wilting down again when it wasn't her. Turns out that she got lost, which she had no right to do, being a New Yorker.

We ate and talked, blind and squinting, for awhile longer, then decided to go somewhere else to eat more. We went to a rib place that originally told us that it would be a 45 minute wait, but then, as we turned to leave, there was a table magically free! It was like a magic trick.

Now, the reason that I could afford this outing was thanks to my Mom, who had offered to buy me dinner on Easter on her credit card, but since I didn't go into town on Easter, I was able to save it for this extravaganza. However, since I wasn't really clear on the whole "going somewhere else for dinner" thing, I had a hamburger at Place #1, and the ribs were too expensive at Place #2. Good old Tracing, though, the nicest British/Chinese/New Yorker architect in the whole wide world, offered to spot me dinner. Now I owe her two, because she did the same thing last time we went to the movies. Hmm, if I play my cards right, maybe I can get her to start paying my rent!

The funniest bit at dinner was when we were talking about the various Jew-osity of the participants, and Dreama was talking about how good her Hebrew was, and Sara said that for her, it was all on a need-to-know basis, so she only knew her Bat Mitzvah and the Kaddish and a few other things, and then Byrne piped up with, "I've got you all beat, I didn't even find out that I was Jewish until I was 18 and my mother told me!" to which I answered, "Didn't you ever look in a mirror?"

This, of course, meant that for the rest of the evening, whenever Byrne was the tiniest bit slow on the uptake, all would chorus loudly, "Well, of course, you didn't know that you were Jewish until you were eighteen!"

I mean honestly, with that face what did he think he was, Swedish?

After hours and hours or so, we finally looked up and noticed that we were alone in the restaurant but for the staff, all in their street clothes, standing by the door, glancing pointedly at their watches, so we decided to leave, all but Dawn, who decided to go to the bathroom. We were out on the street for quite some time before she came out, and I wondered what we would do if they closed and went home and just left her in the bathroom, but she finally emerged, struggling with the door as the entire staff stood and watched and didn't help.

They figured, I suppose, that they were done, fuck the customer. And who could blame them? Not being able to open the door indeed...

Anyway, at this point was the evening over? Fuck no! We have only been to two places, that ain't enough! So we wandered around, peering into Dawn's Palm Pilot like it was the Dead Sea Scrolls, trying to find another place to go. We finally found a nice little coffee place (Place #3) that had great hot chocolate, not too chocolaty, where we stayed until it closed as well.

Byrne and I had one of those conversations where you realize after an hour or so that you have just been talking and talking and talking, and that the other six people with us were having some sort of conversation or another to my left, but I, for one, wasn't paying the smallest bit of attention. I couldn't really tell you what we talked about, really--I certainly hope that we didn't spend as much time talking about my food issues as I think I did. I don't know why I always think people will be interested in the only way I will eat eggs, but I insist upon telling them anyway!

Then the coffee place closed, and that was when we realized just how tough and hard and fun and cool we were. Sleep? We don't need no stinking sleep! We aren't old and tired, we are only around 19, we can stay up all night! If we could find a damn place to go, at least, because the whole "City That Doesn't Sleep" thing is a crock, although perhaps what is meant by that is "The City That Doesn't Sleep But Cannot Find a Place To Sit and Have a Drink at 3a on a Saturday Night".

The funny thing was Dawn, who had started out sleepy and jet-lagged, and ended up skipping down the street like That Girl. She must have been sneaking some coke in the bathroom--either than or whatever she had at the coffee place was really strong!

Sara bailed at that point, but since she wasn't certain that she was going to show up in the first place, the fact that we had her for five hours or so was a pretty good deal.

Anyway, we went to a bar (Place #4) that was like Place #1 in that it had Friends-y couches, but instead of $3 Cokes it had $7 screwdrivers. That was how you could tell the difference. It was the hardest place to be in, because it had loud music and it was hard to hear people talk. And the Dawn started crunching ice cubes and made it impossible to read her lips, so I did alot of smiling and nodding.

Then it closed down ("City That Keeps Closing Down") and we went outside to decide what to do next. Dawn wanted to go dancing, but I think that was the drugs kicking in, or the hallucinations that come when you are that sleep-deprived. Dreama and Claire went back to Dreama's hotel room (that sounded like they discovered the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, but no, this was arranged ahead of time so that Claire wouldn't have to travel home so late, you don't get journal gossip that good here!).

Then Josh decided to go home as well, proving that they don't make college students like they used to. Why back in my day, if you didn't stay out all Saturday night dancing and boozing and fucking and getting high, you would go to the student health service for treatment, because you obviously were terribly ill ...excuse me while I thump my cane, to quote Lucy.

We walked him almost home, because we were looking for an all-night place that Tracing knew, except that when we got there, it wasn't. And at that point Byrne burst into tears. No, he just decided to go home rather than to the East Village, but it makes a better story the other way. I was berating him for wimping out, but he did point out that he made it until 4a, and should get some points for that! I suppose. Apparently he had homework to do. These students need to get their priorities straight.

So Dawn and Tracing and I, the Intrepid Survivors, hopped in a cab and went to St. Marks to a really truly all-night place (Place #5) and had breakfast. This was when Tracing and I really started to flag. Dawn, of course, was flag-free. I had a bagel and thought that it would wake me up, but it actually started to put me to sleep.

We were there from 4.30a to 5.30 or so, when the trains back to Long Island (where Dawn was staying with her sister) started running again, so we decided to go. Dawn insanely wanted to walk to Penn Station, a two and a half mile walk, might I add, and could not be dissuaded. And I was glad, because it ended up being really great.

When we left Place #5, the sky was just starting to become light in the corner, and then it became lighter and lighter and the birds started to scream (I commented that we get a dawn chorus even in the city, and Dawn thought I meant that she should sing, for a minute), and we just kind of strolled through the city as it was waking up on a really beautiful Sunday morning.

I borrowed Dawn's camera and took all of these abstract shots, like I do, and we saw Tracing's showroom and went to the bathroom in one of those really fancy downtown boutique hotels and sang "Morning Has Broken" really badly (we were trying, but it was a bad key and none of us really knows the words).

We got to Penn at 6.51a and Dawn's train was at 7.05a, so we split up and went our separate ways. I got home at 7.30a, went to sleep at 9a, having breakfast and starting to read Byrnes' journal in the intervening hour and a half, then flopped into bed until 3p.

That was the kind of Saturday night that you talk about for years afterward. "Remember when we went to five places and closed them down and had those ribs and Dawn was almost locked in and the hot chocolate was so good and the sun rose and we walked uptown and we didn't go to bed until 9a? And Byrne and Dreama and Dawn and Claire and Josh and Tracing were there? Remember remember remember?"

I'll remember. I know I'll remember.

Other takes on the evening so far, Josh's, Tracing's, Claire's, and Byrnes'.

Today's horoscope:
Leisure themes are mixed between an inward, private focus and an emphasis on friends and groups. Blend solitary and social needs.

One year ago today:
It felt terribly, terribly old, medieval, traditional, real, true, and above all, really really Catholic.

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Last Updated Mon 23 April 03:23:09 2001