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valentines day
friday feb. 15 2002 2:17 am i wanted to post something on here the other night and i didnt. im only on here now because im in a sleepless fit again and im in a kinkos on mamaroneck road in white plains new york wondering what the fuck im going to do with myself tomorrow. work is thrilling most days, but incredibly stressful on all the others. losing campaigns only intensifies the feelings i already am developing of utter powerlessness. i am more and more frustrated with my inability to change the world around me. i am more and more depressed by how alienating the attitudes and opinions and values of the world around me are. i want to devote my life to fighting for what i feel in my heart is right, but when it hits me how impossible it is, and how lonely it is, and how i may die never seeing the world i believe in, then i fantasize about giving up and focusing on family and a simple life in a small town like the one where i grew up. today is valentines day and i gave someone a present that they may or may not have liked. i dont know. but i know that even if they liked the present very much, its pretty clear she didnt like that i had given it to her. i am sad, stressed out, lacking sleep, and in need of adventure. this weekend i have half a mind to grab an old buddy and road trip it back up to toronto to visit old friends and escape new york for a day or two and clear my head.

Wednesday November 14 in 2001. I'm now in Troy, NY in a Best Western. So much has happened since the last post when I was still working in Toronto. I spent the summer working in Westchester and then the fall in Long Island. I'm so glad to be far away from the city now. Airplanes keep falling out of the sky. Its becoming such a tragic place. New Yorkers seem to revel in the tragedy too, almost like they love it. Its weird. The firefighters duke it out with cops over the right to stay down at what is essetially a mass grave and mourn. Its been two months and we still want to mourn. I can't stand mourning. Even when people close to me have died, I have always been one to celebrate their lives and move on rather than to become paralyzed with greif. and we think of ourselves as such a strong nation. Troy is quiet, its quaint. I like it. reminds me more of home. I need to justify being here by finding work. which is easier said than done. I have more to say, but cant find the inspiration to say it knowing no one is reading this but me. ahwell. gnight

a short entry just to say i was here
its been a long time since i added an entry on this page. today is friday, march 16th, 2001. its 11pm. im in my apartment in manhattan, upper west side, waiting for some friends to call me about a party. but im halfway hoping to get stood up, im so tired. i got up at 4:30 this morning to catch a plane from toronto, where i spend most of my time these days. im working there, and im there alot more than im here. im enjoying my work, though. im a union organizer. and its a strange job in the sense that saying to you that im a union organizer is a lot more like telling you who i am than telling you what i do. being an organizer is so much a part of my identity - and in a good way - that its not my job. its my life.

say it aint so...
they've traded ewing to seattle??? i can't believe this shit. i wanted him to finish his career with us in new york. i can't handle the idea of him watching us win the championship from seattle. its so depressing. dont get me wrong, i hated ewing so much. like all knicks fans, i blamed everything on that lug. he was the biggest fuckup. he blew so many big shots. didn't have the finish. no finesse. but he had all the grit and toughness that was new york basketball. he worked his way into the lane like a damn bulldozer. he could bully anyone out of his way in his prime. but the knicks are moving on. they are moving out to the three point line. they are looking for shooters. so i brace myself for a new style of knick basketball. i brace myself for a season without our big man. 15 years. nobody can remember a knicks without him. its sad. i don't think its weird. i love basketball. and if basketball is my religion, the knicks are my lord and savior. this is a sad moment. almost as sad as losing to the shit ass spurs. i need solace. im going to think about glen rice and all those threeeeessss. good luck patrick. it was fun while it lasted.

anger in losangeles
im just returning home from mexico. i spent an entire week there, and im only half regretting it. i planned the trip with friends many months ago, so i was committed to it, like it or not. but im wishing i could have used the time off to attend the Democratic National Convention in LA. I have the strangest feeling that its going to really be a provocative affair. i feel like it will be historic, almost. perhaps more than seattle. the last days in philly were so angry, so enraged. broken windows and streetbrawls with cops, reminicent of the vengeful "days of rage" in chicago thirty years ago, where pipe-wielding weathermen rampaged the city in retalliation for their own DNC protests a year earlier. people are angry, and they are impatient with building this movement. i worry they will lash out in l.a. if provoked. i worry about this, because i feel its politically premature. i wish i was there. not because i could do anything about this, but because more and more its feeling like i need to be on every barricade.

late night (3am) hotel room
i live in hotels. its really strange, but ive grown to love it. i love staying in these little rooms all over america. i love being up late in my little room, sitting on the computer, wondering where my life went. i love sitting next to the hotel-room air-conditioner after ive been out running and reading a magazine. and i love that there is always a box of kleenex and clean towels. and if i run out or use the towels, the next day they are there again when i get home from work. i love being out here all alone and staying out late at night playing cards with seriously degenerate gamblers or going to the movies alone or to the bookstore to read magazines. sometimes being lonely is such a deeply moving experience. not lonely like im so sad i dont have anyone to sleep with tonight, but really lonely, like i dont know anyone for a good one or two hundred mile radius and i cant sleep so im going to have to wander around by myself. movie theaters are good places to escape your alone-ness. but restaurants are absolutely terrible. they accentuate the fact that you are alone about a hundred times. tonight i was all alone in my hotel room, watching myself on national television. and right now im writing on a webpage that no one will probably look at for a long time, and it really strikes me how strangely alone i really am. and i fall asleep wondering "what happened?"

work sucks when you stay up late
im on the internet entirely too much these days.