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January 28, 2004 #
 Stanton and Orchard, 1999. Photo by Josh Levine from his (old) roof. More pictures on his site, SixFive.net. Breaking News: Yesterday my sister gave birth to a baby boy, Jordan Borell. He's a true New Yorker, first among the Krucoff clan, by beating the snow fall and arriving before evening rush hour at 2:07pm in the warm and caring confines of the Upper East Side's Mount Sinai Hospital. He will spend the first 3 months of his life in the Bronx before the family suburbanizes to their new home in Westchester County where he will probably turn into an annoying Yankee fan. (Sarah & Frank, I'm kidding!! Love ya Jordie, welcome aboard!) Since I am burdened with much Uncle duty today ("who needs a beer? more chips?") we turn to Chris Gage with his special talent of TOP-spinning. He never actually sticks to a topic I request but it's better that way since he's an actual "writer" (East Village lit-prick!) where I tend to just vomit words with exclamation points and parentheses. Well, he does mention the Lower East Side in the first line so the judges can't technically disqualify this. But at this rate, he might turn The Other Page into one of those genuine "literary" sites. Yikes. I Am Your Blog by Chris Gage Monday You tell me where you went last night, to a party in the L.E.S. at a bar with a girl you knew from school who you hadn't seen in years. . . who . . . who . . . long story. 'Nuff said. She wore a green dress with no sleeves; you wore a sport coat because you thought it seemed like a reunion thing to do. You found that you liked how it had a lot of pockets, plenty of places to put your hands while you wondered what to say to the girl you hadn't seen in so long. Your conversations were stilted, like dorm room bull sessions except you are now 29 and should know a lot more than you do so it was, all in all, disappointing. The jacket, though, was a hit with the hot, blonde bartender, who kept calling you Professor all night. Tuesday The news is depressing. They showed that photo of a dead girl from New Jersey again and you had the same thoughts about it as you did yesterday: about how you have the same thoughts about seeing a dead girl from New Jersey as everyone else has. The news would be proud of that. It's a coup for them. If you had a coup it would go like this: everyone pantomiming "I'm a little tea pot, short and stout" at the same time. That would be sufficiently stupid to be a major coup. And it sounds like something that you should say so that people would think you have nice thoughts when really you wonder if you ever have had a nice thought about anyone. You mean a truly nice thought. Like the kind of thoughts fucking Gandhi had. (You've decided to refer to the girl from Monday night as the Monday Girl. Not entirely original but that's how you've been feeling lately.) Wednesday You didn't do much today. It was too cold to even open the window and let the smoke from your cigarettes out. That damn grey squirrel might try and get in too. Shit, I bet he's colder than a tit mouse in Alaska. Poor fucker. (You tried to call the Monday Girl but she wasn't home. So you left a long voice message on her answering machine where you didn't say anything and you were careful not to let your breathing be heard; you didn't want to scare her but you also weren't sure how to proceed with her. When you hung up the squirrel was knocking his head against the window.) Thursday Thursday is a good name for a day. It has a sound that slips off your tongue, that rushes to get out. You like that about Thursday. Through the thrushes on Thursday. Another good name for a day would be Slender. The old guy you met at the coffee place didn't seem all that interested when you told him this. He kept asking if you would get your elbows off his newspaper. He should have moved to another table, but the only option was one where a woman with many shopping bags was talking to her dog and writing what looked like thank you notes. You asked the old man if Slender was a good name for a day, and he said, "What do I look like? The Shell Fucking Answer Man?" And you replied, "Can't rape the willing," because it was something your ex used to say, just like that Shell Answer Man thing was, but it made no sense to him and you realize you have to stop talking like that to complete strangers, and everyone else, too, now that you think about it. Next Slender you will start your diet. This coming Slender you will finally ask for a raise. Not this Slender, that's when I do my work with the poor. Shit like that would be nice to say. (You realize you only write about the Monday Girl in the comforting fortress of parentheses -- she must have really gotten to you.) Friday Ho hum. More photos over there on the right. (One of the Monday Girl, who you saw at a birthday party for a friend you two shared.) Check them out if you want. (Monday Girl is the one in the bright yellow winter hat, like an apparel apostrophe.) You should say, though, into this void that may contain thousands of listeners or one (who knows if she knows about this) that you won't be posting for a while, though maybe you'll drop in to say something on Sunday after you get back. You can't really say what you're doing, but it has the potential to be big. Or big in a "I didn't know that was you." -- long, long pause -- "Kewl." They'll even say it like that. K.E.W.L. That's how envious they'll be of you. But you'll start up again next week. Stay tuned. (Monday Girl called and asked that you take down that picture of her. She would send you a better one from that same night in a few days. This seemed like a good portent for the two of you. Inexplicably, you no longer worry about the squirrel and you vow to stop wearing sport coats.) 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