2002-05-11 - 1:11 a.m.

1) Just finished The Plague, by Camus. Finally. I was very relieved that I was able to make it through the novel without someone calling me on it, insinuating that I was just carrying it around so that I could have a handy object ready, subjugated to the role of conversation starter.

Felt guilty though, cause it was the Roommate's book, and did I dog-ear it. I hate bookmarks. Listen�when I read, I read hard. (By that I don�t mean brow-furring-ly. We're talking extreme here.)

What's up with people who hate dog-ears? True, I can't bring myself to check out books from the library 'cause I'm not a big fan of page 119's mustard stain, page 204's little bit of chocolate (I hope) crumb in the fold, and the errant literary "observation" written in the margins of a particularly compelling passage. But dog-ears are love marks.

2) Went out to Molly's bar last night, and ended up staying at C. (from work)'s place. Coulda walked the rest of the way, but I was pretty far gone. I made the right decision for right then, but it was definitely the wrong decision for the present and most likely the next three days.

Rex, C. (from work)'s cat (I�m taking the liberty of not disguising his name here) took a liking to me, and Rex particularly enjoyed sleeping on about or at the very least near my head.

Oh, and I'm really allergic to cats.

3) It's worth noting that Randy Research was at Molly's bar last night, and definitely worth mentioning that Randy was on fire. Although I have seen Randy that drunk, I had never seen Randy that happy. Always witty, mind you, but Randy really did make the leap. Don't know quite how to express it, but I'll give it a shot.

You know how someone will make some sort of stupid comment, and you know it's stupid for about five hundred reasons? And you let it pass, 'cause you can't quite verbally sum up what you think about that comment, 'cause your brain goes on far too many tangents; 'cause it would take far too long to explain; cause it�s worth knowing that the comment is stupid, but not quite worth it to opine on the subject?

Randy put some crazy townie dude down so hard that I thought I was going to laugh myself a punch in the face. And the crazy townie dude didn�t even know how to react�he was put down disproportionately to his crime (he wasn�t a jackass, but he was a smarmy loser), and I�m not even sure that the crazy townie dude even knew that he was being eloquently slammed.

Randy's quirky mind and fleshy maw were one for a few quick hours, and I had never been more proud of him, or more glad to be his friend.

In short, he was the Randy Research that I try to describe to people that have never met him, not the Randy Research that works every day that there is work, just like me, and who isn't always the most shining example of just how beautiful someone a little different can be, just like me.

But I did tell him that although all elation clearly comes with an expiration date, he shouldn't go through all of his in just one night.

The next day (at work), Randy was a wreck, and he had to leave early. It was as if he had been sleeping in a bed full of cats, and that he was also allergic to cats.

4) The Allston kids are drunkenly and triumphantly yelling out at the world, maybe the stars, and are also inadvertently shouting through my open windows. Technically, Summer is a long ways off, but in Allston, Summer starts now.

A couple of days ago, I was crossing Harvard and Brighton, and I was wondering what kind of person I was one year ago, leaving the confines of my apartment, and drunk, and at 2:30 AM, trying to play the part of one who, making his way from point A to point B, just happened to be passing through some crazy neighborhood. Hunting down the ghosts of screams.

But now I remember, and in the same seasons not changing but renewing manner of memory, how those inebriated hollers and perturbed car horns can beckon like Sirens to a young man dying in a hospital bed.