i'm watching game 5 of the national league championship series, rooting for the mets against the cardinals. the mets are kind of blowing at the moment. well, my dad tells me that they're actually not but it feels like they are, by virtue of the fact that they're losing.

i sent out another two or three resumes today. barf. i'm tired of all this shit. i started looking at the los angeles craigslist jobs just for shits and giggles, and found not only jobs that i feel i'm more qualified for, but rents that didn't make me want to cry. okay, so, to be fair, i did spend about twenty minutes looking at rental prices on nyc craigslist, which is never good for the heart. but yeah.

i don't know. i feel stagnant. it's not a new feeling, to be sure, but it's there, and i'm kind of sick of it.

not sick enough to go get a job at starbucks, but you follow me, no?

okay my writing stamina isn't what i'd thought it would be. making up for last night's novel, i suppose.

it's 2:30 am and i'm typing this on my dad's computer because mine's in the shop. ok, really, it's somewhere under fao schwarz at 59th street and 5th avenue, somewhere inside the gargantuan new underground apple store getting its dvd drive fixed. hopefully... the silence of the apple people irks me somewhat.

anyway.

so i guess to begin i should tell you about this movie i saw, last night. (if for some reason you can't see italics, that's the name of the movie: "last night." it is not the time i saw it). i'd heard about this movie ages ago, where exactly i can't quite remember. i seem to remember it pre-dated my move to new york, but there's nothing to really substantiate that. the premise is very very simple: the world ends at midnight on the particular day the story takes place. everybody seems to know why, and there seems to be nothing external that can be done about it, because everyone seems resigned to at least the fact that the world is about to end. its written/directed by this guy don mckellar, who also stars in it, so at times it feels a bit pointy. but among the otherwise unfamiliar co-stars is sandra oh, who almost eerily looks exactly as she does currently in grey's anatomy. the movie begins with her going to pick up some groceries at a raided and decimated grocery store; while she's there, a gang of people ruin her car. because of this she can't get back to her husband with whom she's made a suicide pact. she meets patrick, played by mckellar, who sort of takes it upon himself to find her a car. he's just come from his parent's house, where his mother has cooked a christmas dinner (though it is pointedly not christmas) and all sorts of family issues manage to muck up the end of the world, mostly that patrick has decided to spend the end of the world alone in his apartment instead of with his family.

but i don't really need to explain the whole plot of the movie, because it's the very idea of it that's so creepy and exciting. we all went through the y2k crap, and though we never believed it, i do seem to remember thinking fleeting (or, being 16, not so fleeting) thoughts about what it would be like if everything spun out of control. and i know we all saw the simpson's treehouse of horror from 1999, with the apt "life's a glitch, then you die" episodelette. incidentally, this movie is from 1998, so most likely steeped in all of that culty, hale-bopp related insanity... oh the late nineties...

the coolest parts of the movie were the subtle ways in which life had adapted to the end of the world. "the end" as it is commonly referred to, was known some time before (i think perhaps two months), and, as many people meet for the first time in the film, the polite conversation starter is not "what do you do?" but "what did you do before," because it's assumed that nobody is still working. there's a woman who is uncomfortably thin, who runs throughout the entire picture, announcing how much time is left, to which everyone around responds "shut up!" the local radio station is counting down the 500 best songs ever, with a low, sultry-voiced disc jockey delivering great lines like "we can't make time stop, but we can make it go a little smoother." one of patrick's best friends has turned his kitchen into a kind of shrine to all the things he wants to do before the end, that is, all the people he wants to do. and acts, and locations. it's all scrawled in insane asylum script, and there are various polaroids documenting various achievements. his first scene has him hosting a stunning black girl in his bedroom:

guy: what i was trying to say out there is that you're very beautiful... and that i knew that before.... i just want you to know that i'm not doing this just because you're black.
girl: yes you are. you don't have to lie.
guy: yeah.

my favorite moment in the film (and i hope you'll forgive me, because i'm sure i've given away most of the plot to the extent that none of you will ever have any reason to see it, but let's make sure i don't lose my point here) comes at about fifteen minutes to midnight. for the entire movie, which begins ostensibly at six pm, the sun has been out, and though it's peculiar, it's not prohibitively disturbing, so one sort of lets it go. so, it's fifteen minutes to the end, the two of them are sitting outside and sandra is having an intense conversation with patrick, trying to convince him to join her in her suicide pact (she's been unable to locate her husband). and all of a sudden, so casually, patrick says "it's times like these that i miss night." i don't know, maybe i'm just geeking out here, but... well, it was awesome.

so i finished the movie, and was all ready to go to bed (brushed my teeth and everything) and i look out my bedroom window and for a brief moment i think there's a ufo hovering over washington square park. it only took me another two seconds to realize that it was, indeed, only some sort of crane holding floodlights about a hundred feet in the air. but i could see the park was lit up as well, and decided that, not being really tired, and feeling meaningful after my movie, i'd take a walk around the park.

it's actually a really nice night out. it's been cold the past few days, incrementally and impossibly so, in a way that says almost too happily "winter is coming, suckkkaaa!" i started walking down west fourth, and when i got to the corner of the park, i saw that it was roped off and being guarded by a bunch of twenty-something pas who looked both bothered and important by their job, while at the same time doing absolutely nothing. i couldn't decide whether i was jealous or intrigued or pissed off that i can't walk through my public park because someone's filming some goddamn thing or another. i kept walking on the south side of w4th, and at the corner of macdougal, i saw in front of me on the other corner about fifty people dressed in big puffy down coats. at first they looked like a disastrous group of upper east side women who had all accidentally purchased the same coat, but as i got closer, i saw they were all wearing a lot of makeup, as well as bald caps and what looked like full body unitards. i was thinking i could have asked them what was going on, but i almost preferred thinking that they were just there to be there, and that no big name celebrity had pulled them out at such an ungoldy hour in the cold.

as i kept walking, i received what i would like to go on record as saying more than my fair share of dirty glances from the production staff. okay, sure, it may have occurred to me that perhaps, due to some emergency, like a light falling on the writer or something, they'd need me to bang out a rewrite of a page. but the minute i thought it, i filed it away amongst the other impossible fantasies, like before i go to concerts, always imaginging they'll need some emergency backup singing. you know. fantasies. anyway, they all looked at me like the cool kids in the cool kids club and i was the guy with the retainer and the pocket protector. moreover, they all looked like they were totally ready to jump me if i stepped over the line.

it gave me pause, which is not a term i like using, but it fits here. pause about what the hell i want with a career that treats people like that. not that it's the only one that does--my dad told us some good academia horror stories at dinner tonight--but... i don't know. then i started to do a self-analysis thing that was only going to end in disaster, questions like, "do i want to do this because i like to be in clubs that other people are excluded from." well, as an older sibling, that instinct goes without saying, but when it comes down to it, i feel like i would be happy earning a teacher's salary doing writing... i mean, i have a hard time seeing myself saying no to something that would result in my having money, but i really do believe that i want the thing more than i want everything that comes with it.

on the other hand, it could be cool to have 250 people freezing their nuts off in the middle of the night in washington square park, just so something i wrote down can be put up on a big screen. then again, maybe not.

so, now i'm starting to think there's something wrong with me. i feel like i've sent out so many resumes and cover letters... *groan*. the scary part is i'm finally coming round to the idea that perhaps certain things need overhauling, like my resume, and if there's one thing i hate, it's working on that shit.

so, still no job. on one (smallish) upside, i've been doing some actual pen-to-paper writing, which is somewhat enouraging. and i won't lie: it's exciting. i like it.

okay, well, at the moment i don't like writing... at least, not this particular drivel i'm working on currently. but en general as they say in france.

well, this seems to have been a futile blogging attempt. i'll post it, because, well, it's so rare that i write anything good or bad for this thing, but don't hate be because it's boring.

all right. i'm done.

i wonder if there's something about the fact that i have nothing new to report that keeps me from bloggging. i mean, i think i'd feel a lot better about not blogging if it was symptomatic of something besides laziness.

there was some flurry of activity over the last few days that made it seem not quite so... desertlike? in the sense of vast stretches of free, unproductive time stretching out in either direction for eternity. there was this sojourn to massachussets for my mom's cousin's wedding.

i guess i need to talk about that. the wedding, as some of you may know, was in a conservative christian church. this particular cousin comes from (wait for it) my mother's mother's sister's family. they're an intersting bunch: i knew their dad as a very young boy, but remember him fondly. my grandma's sister (this is baga, for those of you who know [of] her) doris was always sickly the entire time i knew her, i don't know with what. she smoked like a chimney, though, and died not that long ago... five years, maybe? perhaps longer.

anyway, they had three kids, david john, the oldest. he's a pretty standard guy, works in computers, episcopalian perhaps? whatever it is, religion's not, like, a major factor in his life, so far as i can tell. his wife is very nice, and his two kids are cool, both anna's age range. the youngest, laura, is on the earthier end of the spectrum. she got married a few years ago; i was out of twon when it happened, but apparently it was a pagan wedding in the woods, worshipping the four cardinal directions, stuff like that.

annie is the middle child, and i'm not 100% clear on the history, but i feel like there was some concern that she might become an old maid? wow... that sounds awful to say, and i can't think of anything to support it, but it feels like that was the general sentiment. anyway, she's also, since her mother's death, i believe, become very involved in this church outside of worcester, mass. when i came back from san francisco at the end of the summer and baga told me that annie had gotten engaged, it was exciting, and i didn't even make the connection until later that she'd met this guy in church, meaning that, except for the fact that they found eachother, it was basically an arranged marriage.

it was about three or four weeks ago when i started to get wind of the fact that this was not your average engagement. i can't remember which happened first of these two episodes, but i'm pretty sure they happened in this order: i heard from my mom or dad (or possibly my aunt) that annie and bob (that's her husband's name) were waiting for marriage to... now, if you were going to fill in this blank, i'd bet you'd say "do it." but in fact, the end of that sentence is actually "they were waiting for marriage to kiss." désolé... quoi? i mean, if that's what you're in to, that's fine, but... wow. the other thing that happened which acted as a wee bit of a red flag was reported to me by aunt julie: she got a call from annie, who was just calling to... warn(?) everyone that it was going to be a conservative christian wedding. unclear as to what exactly she was warning against, julie decided to think broadly and, uh, reminded her that, you know, charlie is gay. apparently, the reaction was "oh, well, oh, uh, isn't that nice, good for him!" the conversation continued into things like "remember that half of the family is jewish," but, as julie told me, she [julie] was hoping to avoid a long sermon about the holiness of "adam and eve, not adam and steve!"

because, in the end, i found out that annie's politics have strayed from the fervent democratic roots that everyone else in the family seems to follow. not on topics like iraq, or president bush in general... in fact, i think she's probably economically very liberal, and in some instances, socially liberal as well (say, when it comes to homosexual, once-removed cousins). however, on some issues, the most impassioned being abortion, she's dived off the conservative end of the pool.

anyway, being prepared for all that, we drove up to worcester, checked into the courtyard marriott, and steeled ourselves for the ceremony. there was a tame rehearsal dinner that was nice, though my mom forced challah on everyone in the room. the next day we drove out to the church. it was almost in the middle of nowhere, and i was startled to find that there was no cell phone reception... some alien-esque slogan: " in rural, religiously conservative massachussetts, no one can hear you scream...." we walk into the sanctuary to find that it's a giant octagon, one half of which has chairs arranged for the service, and the other half was arranged for the meal afterwards. hanging above the altar was a gigantic cross, that, strangely enough, was hanging from the rafter by a caribiner... which meant that in an earthquake it would sway, which both my uncle and i noticed as bizarre.

so the service is about to start, and suddenly david john's wife diane is tapping me and bernie on the shoulders, saying that we're supposed to process with the other children. so we get up, step on some people's toes as we get out of the aisle, and get into line between two sets of what i guess are technically now cousins, who we completely fail to get to know on any level (though i really think it was their fault, not ours... bernie and i were unbelievably charming by preparing for the procession with some lunges and stretches, and they just looked at us like we were weird). anyway, we process, and then we sat, and there was a beautiful procession of the wedding party, i even got a little teary-eyed watching annie walk in on the arm of her older brother.

then, of course, the priest started. he was a total hollywood preacher; he obviously spent a lot of time working out, and whether or not he really feels the stuff or not (i hope he does) he has all the facial movements and hand gestures down for an evagelical priest, the craziest of which was the fist up in the air with the eyes closed to express real divine meaning. the message of the sermon itself wasn't that upsetting, nothing i hadn't been expecting. most explicitly political it became was when he said that "marriage is ordained by god and jesus, not by democracies and governments." really, it seems like we just need to rename marriage so that you have a different ceremony if you're getting married in a church versus just getting married. but whatevs. that's another argument.

in the end, i didn't spontaneously burst into flames, which i can only hope is a good sign. the thing was far from interminible, and i had plenty of liberal cohorts to share my frustrations with. in fact, i'd say i was even less upset than some of the other family members... my mom and her sister had a nice sisterly argument over nothing really, but it did continue into the evening. whatevs. this is the longest entry in the universe, so now, i say goodnight.

charlie.

it's yom kippur today. well, to-jewish-day. i've sort of half heartedly decided to fast, and already my throat feels scratchy and dry... amazing. i love it. oy vey.

its funny, i feel like i have a lot to say, but really... i can't think of any huge gaping holes. maybe i'll think of some for later.

i finally got my design portfolio finished, for two different jobs, and i sent it along. if you want to see it i think you can download it at homepages.nyu.edu/~cmb296/Portfolio.pdf. it was a little weird traipsing down memory lane to get all of the stuff together, but it wasn't too arduous.

i hung out with bronnie and sam last night on the roof for a little while, wherein i learned that sam met brandt of washington square news fame... this was the guy who tried to get me to resign. it was strange, but for a brief moment, it all seemed to matter so much, and then, half a second later, it didn't. i didn't feel an urge to go and become best friends with him, but still. high school. college. so major. so trivial.

i taught the first session of this kaplan class i'm teaching up in harlem. it's me and 23 black kids and one hispanic kid. and their... counselor? activity leader? anyway, i was having nightmare scenarios of having a class that was impossible to control, but really, these kids were just as easy, if not easier, then the smaller groups of rich kids i've taught on both the upper west and east sides, respectively. it actually kind of helped to have such a big group, because it was more likely that one of them had an answer. and yes, there were about half a dozen who really looked like they'd've rather been anywhere else but there, but they kept it mostly to themselves.

boy, oh, boy, though, did i feel white.

right before my class i grabbed some breakfast at a place across 125th street called "jimbo's burgers." it was more or less a diner with a burger-centric menu, but they served eggs and sausages and other breakfast stuff. anyway, there are signs all over the place saying "no hanging around atte jimbo's." i'm trying to think of a clever way to make that my motto.

hopefully i won't have to spend all the live-long day in synagogue tomorrow... nothing makes me feel less religious than a trip to a house of worship. my mom is on west coast time, though, so perhaps that will minimize my exposure.

well, that wasn't too bad, considering i thought i didn't have anything to say. i saw this film mutual appreciation the other day. it looked like it was someone's thesis film, shot on grainy black and white, little-to-no lighting, mostly inside people's apartments. i can't say that i loved it, but i liked it, which i guess was inevitable, given that it's about a young twenty-something following his dream, and who has a cardboard-cutout dad who calls constantly so that they can talk about his future. in fact, i found myself slightly creeped out by the father when he said "you shouldn't be holding out for a dream job, any job will do, just so you can start paying the bills, and..." the creepy thing about it was that i found a part of myself agreeing with him; though i purge my correlating responsibility by saying that i am living at home, and, really, i have no bills to pay. it seems like a fine line, on the one side, you have to be practical and have to pay the bills, but on the other, there's always the fear that any job you take simply to take a job will turn into your life. ugh. i'm getting introspective, and it's not even six hours into yom kippur. i'm going to bed.