How I met your mother............

Pierce, How I Met Your Mother

This is the forth time that I started this blog entry only to get 8 words down before I hit delete. My thoughts are all over the place and the “monkeys in my mind” have been downing moonshine for the last 15 hours. Japan. I can’t even fathom maintaining an ounce of sanity through such a tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are with all of you, godspeed! Those of us not directly affected should count our blessings, those of us who are fortunate enough to wake up every morning, pour a cup of coffee and grumble about our 9-5 daily grind (no pun intended).

Two of our best friends, Jason and his wife Kaori are living in Tokyo. Jason filmed the 8.9 magnitude quake during it’s peak while in his apartment. The last time I checked last evening, that video had over 270,000 views on Youtube. This, my second blog is dedicated to Jason and Kaori, a couple who forever changed our lives.

In the 1984 movie “Repo Man” Tracey Walter’s character Miller tells Otto (played by Emilio Estevez), “I do my best thinking on the bus. That's how come I don't drive, see? The more you drive, the less intelligent you are”.  Being that I spend an average of 3 hours a day, five days a week, 1 entire month of my life every year commuting on the bus; the monkeys have more then enough time to bounce of the sides of my cranium.

Obviously, like the rest of you reading this (all 3 of us) the horrific events in Japan are monopolizing my thoughts. Riding the X19 into Manhattan this morning, sun starting to rise, nasal passages blocked from the horrendous head cold my son brought back from daycare,  seat to myself thanks to the horrendous cold my son brought back from daycare and the book “Alive in 5.”. Fantastic, healthy reading however, not a novel filled with intrigue, vampires and phallic Da Vinci symbols of the Illuminati. My mind began to drift.

Kingston upstate NY, cheap rent, abominable winters, guys who hang out at the car wash picking up chicks, the IBM ghost town and me. In 2002 I moved up to Kingston under the assumption that I had a position as a licensed Acupuncturist with a friend’s (now a nemesis for other reasons) doctor sister. That didn’t happen. Now to fast forward past both good and bad times in the Hudson Valley and skip ahead two years. In April 2004 I reconnected with my ex, 5 months later I moved back down to Sunnyside Queens. For the rest of this blog I’ll refer to this individual as “E”, short for Evi…… Like I’d call her that?! One brisk fall evening E and I were out at a local pub called the Colony on

Queens Blvd

and

42^nd Street

. We were hanging out in the enclosed back patio, sipping a pint and smoking up a storm. Pretty blitzed and an hour before the bar closes a tall dude wearing a Misfits t-shirt, cupping his hands against his moth to beatbox strolls into the patio area.

Mr. Misfit t-shirt guy sat next to us, his two friends grabbed a bench further away. He bummmed a cigarette, we talked about music and hit it off like two long time bros. We closed out the bar and invited the crew back to our studio apartment around the corner where we drank until the sun came up the next morning.

Jason was the dude wearing the Misfits shirt and he quickly became my best friend.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that getting back together with E was an enormous mistake. I won’t get into the details but I will offer a comparison; sort of like Gandhi dating Charles Manson (guess who is who).

A few weeks after meeting Jason, E and I were at a breaking point and I ended up sleeping on the couch. It was beyond obvious that our relationship was over. The lease to the tiny studio was under her father’s name and upon arriving home from work one day I found most of my belongings packed up in boxes. I had only lived in Queens for two months and had given my bed and most of my furniture away before I moved downstate.

It wasn’t long before I stepped out of the apartment after handing over my keys, walked down the four flights of stairs and out the front door of

45-15 42^nd Street

. Nerves fried, I lit up a Djarum Clove cigarette and walked down Queens Blvd. Technically homeless, 2 weeks into a new job and not ready to move back with my parents all the way out in Huntington Long Island. Called a few friends including Dan and Matt, they both offered a couch to crash on until I could sort things out and find my own place. Anxious as all hell, I headed over to Jason’s on 39^th Place, 12 pack in hand. A few minutes later I was chilling on his living room couch, drinking beer, filling him in on the details of my split. Jason got up off the couch, left the room for a few minutes and came back after speaking with his wife Kaori. “We’d love for you to stay with us!” They were lifesavers and I rented their spare room for several months.  

One freezing cold winter day, I remember it so vividly, Jason and I were walking back to his apartment when he started telling me about one of his coworkers.

He went on to tell me that she was gorgeous, tall, European, (insert a couple male expletives/ guy talk) and a perfect match for me. Unfortunately, she was living with her boyfriend in Brooklyn and had been dating him for 6 years. “He’s a total tool and Dawn can’t stand him! She’s your future wife, she’s your soulmate.”  He would attempt a sexy Eastern European woman’s voice anytime he imitated Dawn, but always sounded more like a drag queen from down south.

Well that’s it for this blog entry, sorry to leave you hanging but I’ll get to the rest real soon!