The Final Installation...

Previously, on The Weekend that Was:

-There was a 12 hour happy hour
-My hero came into town and we giggled and wrote on boys (alright, I wrote on boys)
-I ate South African food
-I slept with my ex

Let's take a dramatic pause for the montage that just occured to some really good music. Maybe Modest Mouse. Maybe Ani. OK, done? Let's proceed.

Ashlee and I take a cab away from Hell's Kitchen. We collect up her things at my place and realize she needs to take another cab to Chinatown and we both realize that we don't know quite where in Chinatown she needs to go. What should she tell the cabbie?

"Take me to Chinatown."
"Where in Chinatown?"
"You know, where the Chinese food is."

That should make it clear.

I don't know if I've disappointed Ashlee. But seeing her made me feel as normal as I've felt in months. Including me the fuck-up. But I just feel like I can't do anything right, including her visit as well. Awww, hell.

I go get Chinese food on my own after putting her in a cab. Must eat and rest and buck up because it's Conor's birthday party tonight (Ashlee's as well--of course, she mailed in her appearance from D.C.).

I have been having these moments where drunk/crazy/homeless people have imparted great wisdom on me. I was waiting for my food so I went around the corner to the bar where it's all old people drinking their pensions away and sit on their stoop to smoke a cigarette.

The door opens. I get up.
"Sorry, excuse me."

[the following statements should be read as slurred as possible]
"OOOoooooo...I see you're lost in thought. Yup, I can see it. I know it. Pretty lady, smile...as you know it's a New Year. And you know what they say..."

I'm waiting for the great wisdom I'm about to receive. I smile.

"See? I can see your teeth. That's better. Ladies are always prettier when they smile. I'm Marvin [shakes my hand]."

"I'm Carrie."

"What are you doing on this fine day today, Miss Carrie? I work at a hotel on 79th and I am enjoying my day."

"Oh, I'm just waiting for some Chinese food."

"Around the corner? Oh, there! You know, I work at a hotel on 79th and I'm always saying...You know if I go in there they'll say, 'Hey, Marvin!'"

This goes on for a couple minutes. I realize this guy is actually too drunk to get to the pearls of wisdom that I need. Notice how he seemed to start a great epiphany and then got distracted? Imagine 7 minutes of that (how long it takes me to smoke a cigarette). I met my match in the Random Acts of Epiphanies. This is why I always try to listen to the fuck-ups when they chat to me, but this guy was too far gone.

I wonder if he ever finished the sentences he started if I'd have a whole new outlook on life.

I eat. I sleep. I try to muster the energy to head out to Brooklyn (wayyyyyyyy out in Brooklyn) on a Sunday and after much debauchery and try to be Conor's little sister.

I manage to coerce Haley and Devon to come with.

We're all fucked up from our various weekends and we stumble around the blocks and the subways like hyper high school kids. We are THOSE people on the train you hate. But we can't help it. By this point, we're actually all sober, but we're acting more fucked up than we have all weekend (with a few notable exceptions).

Conor's thing is laid-back. His roommates are too cool for us. Not in a they're-acting-too-cool-for-us sort of way, these guys just are really that cool and we feel somewhat inadequate about it all. At least I do. And probably Haley. If anyone can create an awkward situation out of nothing, it is Haley.

And when Amanda shows up, Conor attends to her. They've entered the Nebulous Grey Area that seems to be so prevelent these days. She broke up with him for being an immature asshole and then he cried in front of her, and apparently that's enough for her to think that he's changed. He, however, now doesn't know how he feels. To quote Nada Surf:

"And the signals are getting all mixed up
We're always doing damage control"

Indeed. That situation is about to get very interesting.

We are all almost asleep on the couch. I can't even wait around to smoke some pot, I'm that dead.

We're just as goofy on the train until about 42nd Street and then Devon and I fight staying awake while Haley stares off into the distance.

I crawl into bed (so many beds, so much crawling) and I sleep like the dead. I have dreams that are out of a Martin Scorcese film--very bloody and disturbing. And it's a half-lucid dream. I'm lucid enough to think to myself "This is creeping me out. Stop looking at this." And I can exit the violent scene and go onto something else but then the dream takes back over and I'm back in it.

I don't even want to know what that all means.

So that's the Epic Weekend That Was.

An amusing note on the Day that Is--I bummed a cigarette to a guy this morning for the sole reason that he had one of those combs in his Afro--you should always see that while on Wall Street. I think the marketplace would be far more interesting that way.

And Amy sent me the Garden State Soundtrack. Can you guess how many times I've listened to that Frou Frou song? You don't even want to know.

I watched Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle about a week ago and this is my favorite line from that--these stoners were watching some art-house flick just to see some actress' boobs that were apparently in it and then the lead characters meet up with them later--

"So, how was it?"

"You know the Holocaust?"

"Yeah."

"The complete opposite of that."

Yup. That's the note I want to end on.