6.24.2006
I noticed a couple years ago (I think it was during a mushroom trip) that I almost always feel really busy, regardless of how busy I actually am. Most of the time I just feel like there are looming tasks that I'm not working on, so I feel a little stress all the time. It's the same feeling I had in middle school when I had homework due on Monday--even though I wouldn't ever do it until Sunday night, I'd still have the obligation sitting heavy on my conscience all weekend. And while I think that pressure is largely responsible for whatever work I do get done, I hate that I still feel that way even when I have absolutely nothing to do. (There's probably a pill to nix that sensation, but the idea creeps me out.)
5:30 PM
There are so many things I want to post about, but can't. I never know who could be reading this--and in other cases, I do.
5:25 PM
6.20.2006 Do you ever get the feeling that something is terribly wrong, but you just can't put your finger on what that something is? I get that feeling every once and a while.
Hey, jerks and jerkettes. Come kick off the summer with a brand new Olde English show.
That's right! A brand new show of all new material! In fact, the show is so new, it hasn't even been written yet!
Last night, the writers of Olde English met up and we each gave each other rules and challenges for writing sketches for next week's show.
What would you do if you had to write a sketch with no physical objects or characters? What if you had to collaborate with someone you haven't talked to in over a year? Could you write a sketch in under five minutes? We'll be tackling these and other problems over the next week, and the results will be on full display next Friday. Who will rise to the occasion? Who will freefall into a sea of shame? The only way to find out is to come to:
I think they should have named the baby 'Brangelina.' It's such a lovely name.
9:41 PM
6.03.2006 Four months ago, for the third time in my life, I went on a date. A real date. The kind where you hardly know the other person and you become close by sharing the same horrible experience--like crash survivors or war veterans (except our struggle was against awkwardness).
The date itself was fairly uneventful: she ate her Japanese noodles very slowly, I compensated by talking too much, we saw a soul-crushing movie about divorce. Really, the most noteable moment of our date was its beginning.
Earlier in the evening, on the phone, we'd agreed to meet at a large, cubic sculpture in the center of Astor Place, and when I arrived, I found that I'd arrived first. I checked my phone, and I'd missed a call during the subway ride downtown. I figured my date was running late, and checked my voicemail messages.
To my surprise, the message wasn't from my date, but from my mom, who was crying.
"Hey Ben...it's Mom. Umm," she paused, breathing in, "we put the dog to sleep today." She cried into the phone. My eyes welled up, I leaned back against the sculpture. This was a dog we'd had since I was ten years old.
"Your father and I were both crying...she...she went really peacefully. She just...sort of...went to sleep..."
My cheek muscles tightened. I was crying...in the boy way, where you don't let anyone else know you're crying, even when you're by yourself. I tried to dry my eyes with my sleeve, but it was difficult.
She described everything at length--why they'd decided to do it, how hard it had been for them to watch, the way they felt like they were losing a part of our family. And then, my face soaked in tears, in the middle of my crying mother's description of how the dog's muscles had twitched before her heart had stopped, I turned around to find my date behind me, smiling.
While the date itself wasn't bad--certainly not as bad as the minutes leading up to it--I haven't really been on a date since.
7:19 PM
