Mom

I was speaking to my mother on Sunday, as usual. I was going to tell her I would stop by for dinner and to visit on Wednesday or Thursday. But she sounded depressed and about 1/3 of the way into the call she told me my brother got married on Saturday. Neither onw of us can remember if it was 3 or 4. #2 may have never been legal. Whatever. It's a non-event to me. I'm not close to him and he lives in Eastern Europe and he has been back here once in the last 10 years.

But my mother was carrying on as she does not approve and it was no win for me because I could not critcize my brother or risk her wrath nor could I commend him because it would seem hollow. I decided not to visit this week. My mother is obsessed with my brother, like Miss Ellie was with Gary.

In the summer when she was in her K-Hole of depression she lashed out at me and said something like "can't you have some compassion for him, you have so much!" She said it in such a nasty resentful manner. I just kept calm even though it is absurd: I don't have so much and at the time she said that to me I had just stood up after 5 years of utter financial instability. But Sunday I thought about that again and thought back to 1990 when I was living in squalor and she offered to come look at new apartments with me. There was this really great place I really wanted but all she kept saying was "this would be great for your brother and Kim." It's like A) we're looking for me and B) This would be great for her. She never got that my brother does what he wants to do and will not fit into her idea of what he should do. Anyway, she ceases having any interest in me when she gets like this. I told her about how I went to this chichi event and met famous people (that she heard of) and all I got was a dull "that's nice."

Trying too hard to look like he doesn't try hard

This just in from the school of disaffected glances(I stole the following from someone's profile on a personal ad and can't help being a cunt)


Likes
Strong personalities LIKE YOUR OWN, WE MUST SUPPOSE?
Plutarch's "Philosophum non facit barba"(The beard does not define a philosopher)YOU HAD ME UNTIL THE TRANSLATION
Fine arts WHAT ABOUT GRAPHIC ART. OR DARK ARTS. OR DOMESTIC ARTS.
"Ithaca" by Constantine P.Cavafy THE SAFETY SCHOOL?
Simplicity BECAUSE COMPLEXITY IS JUST SO...COMPLEX
Short hair BECAUSE LONG HAIR IS JUST SO...COMPLEX
Summer WHY NOT A SIMPLE, SHORT-HAIRED SUMMER?
Knowledge IGNORANCE IS SO LAST YEAR
Jeans PREFERABLY VINTAGE RED STITCH LEVIS BUT WHATEVER
Antique furniture NOT VERY SIMPLISTIC
Audrey Beardsley's art AUDREY ROPER'S CAFTAN
Pepsi IT ALWAYS COMES DOWN TO PEPSI V COKE, DOESN'T IT?
Hieronymus Bosch BOSCH DISHWASHERS
Black cats CATS ARE A BIT SISSY, NO?
Large coffee tables PREFERABLY LARGE ANTIQUE COFFEE TABLES
Men in casual clothes IS A JUMPSUIT CASUAL?
Aqua-colored objects YOU MUST BE HARD TO SHOP FOR
Bookstores AMAZON IS FOR THE GREAT UNWASHED
Mies van der Rohe's "Less is more" motto SUCH A COMPLEX NAME FOR SUCH SIMPLICITY
Feminine women BOY THE WAY GLEN MILLER PLAYED
Masculine men SONGS THAT MADE THE HIT PARADE
My new house WAS THE OLD ONE SO BAD?
"Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy" by Mircea Eliade IS THAT LIKE THE ZIPLESS FUCK?

Dislikes:

Cynical,negative people DON'T BE A HATER
Watches PUNCTUALITY MUST BE UNCOOL
"To do" lists DITTO ORGANIZATION
Mondays SURPRISINGLUY PEDESTRIAN
Gay events(sorry guys) I LOVE THE APOLOGY HERE
Long flights DOES ANYONE?
Stupidity DITTO
TV AW CMON, EVEN PBS?
Trends AS IN "LOW WAIST JEANS" OR "EL NINO?"
Drugs RECREATIONAL OR CLINICAL?
Stereotypes ONE MAN'S STEREOTYPE IS ANOTHER'S ARCHETYPE

Bio

I had to write this bio of myself for something creative that I'm doing as a sidebar. Non-work related. I did not want to write a normal bio/CV. I tried to get down the essence of me but of course it is hard. I guess the hard thing for me is to express that I am cool without saying I am cool because that is very uncool :-) Kind of like the personals where they say "VGL." I guess the only thing worse than "VGL" is "I've been told I'm good looking." That is so wrong on so many levels. First" You want to tell everyone you're good looking but don't want to come across as arrogant so you use the third party endorsement but nobody knows your thrid party so who cares? And you want to be all blase about it but if you really were blase you wouldn't say anything. I'll take the straight up self-described VGL any day.

Anyway. Me. So it's hard because I am cool but I mean relaxed as opposed to trendy, and non-judgemental. I have an incredible ego except I try to hide it because I know it is obnoxious. And I would do anything for the downtrodden and victimized. I have hero fantasies :-) But my monster evil ego comes out when I see injustice and I need to read someone. Case in point: yesterday this woman very uncooly really pushed me at teh subway door because I was not going on fast enough (there were still people leaving.) Of course I am like a boulder so pushing me will not really work. I looked at her and said "what's your problem?" But it was low and maybe she did not hear so when we're getting on she looks at me like I'm nuts and says all sing-songy "Excuse me" and she starts to go for the last empty seat but I'm ahead of her so I sit in it even though I never sit on the train. And she's annoyed.

Then, Karma enters. This distressed lady with like a 4 month old gets on and is holding onto the pole so I get up and say to her would you like to sit and she is so grateful (she even says thanks to me when she gets off like a million stops later.) But my favorite part is when I get up and give this lady my seat I make eye contact with Miss "Excuse Me" and give her a really fake kind of fuck you smile.

See, the world evened out just then because nobody else would have given that woman a seat, certainly not Miss Excuse Me.

So, yes, I take my subway shit a little too seriously, I know. But without further pomp, here's my bio:

Bart was born in Brooklyn and got as far as Manhattan and Westchester County before rounding back again.

He has been a club kid, a coke head, a retail salesperson, a real estate broker, a dot-com entrepreneur, a gym-junkie and many other things. Today he works in marketing for non-profits.

He has known a lot of people. So many so that he can’t read the newspaper without seeing the name of someone he knows. He rarely loses touch with someone and if he does, he doesn’t hesitate to get back in touch with them no matter how much time has gone by. He thanks the Internet for making that possible.

He always liked music and movies and books. The first band he saw live was Santana. His father took him to see Carrie when he was in third grade, after which he was the only kid in his class with a favorite director. He thinks that 90% of movies today are unwatchable. His father had 20,000 books when he was growing up. You could go to his library and learn about anything.

Bart loves people but hates ignorance. He hates when the weak are exploited and thinks he would intervene if someone was being pushed around.

He’s physically very strong. One of the best things about getting older is being invisible to teenagers; one of the worst is losing physical strength. He’s not afraid to die but he wishes he could live to experience all of the technology that’s sure to come this century.

He loves to learn new things. He wishes he spoke a foreign language fluently. He’d rather read about a place than visit it.

He has a healthy ego but he’s not arrogant-except when he’s with someone who’s asking for it.

Bart loves dogs and cats but he no longer has a pet-he could never go through the loss again.

He likes to play with children and thinks he would make a good father but he recognizes the extent of his selfishness and does not think it would be a good idea.

He hates predictability but it’s so hard to be original when almost everything has been done before.

He loves to write but he’s not looking for money or fame, there are more surefire paths to those.

He’s not an asshole though he can sound like one on paper.

This week.

I am seeing my old boss tomorrow for coffee as she is in the city. I have not seen her in 2 years and she is in for a meeting and invites me and I agree and then she tells me she has half an hour. Cunt. She cannot even take an earlier train in? Meanwhile, I leave my job nearly every day to go on an "appointment" (AKA the gym) and she is cutting into my gym time. All she's gonna do is bitch about her psycho son anyway. I used to think she was the smartest businessperson I knew. Now I have surpassed her and think back on all these meetings she lead where she wasted 20 minutes playing the name game with potential clients trying to establish her tech cred. What a waste of time. The more meetings I go on the more I realize: just listen and respond appropriately, ask questions, stroke their egos, don't be afraid to say something risky, and just go in there wanting to learn something. My old boss is kind of like my parents. Speaking of which they are certifiably insane. My mother now asks me every time I see her if I "drink milk." And my father asks me every time I see him (for the last 10 years) if I get the NY Times delivered.

I'm taking Friday off. I never take days off. I am psyched. I have a client's thousand buck a plate gala to go to Thursday and I am going as a guest and taking two guests gratis then taking a car service home.

I went to Artisanal with three friends the other night. It was fine. The server kind of sucked. It was so dark and the menu was so tiny I swear to God I needed that old people magnifying light like on TV. I ate an entire Fondue (serves 1-3 people thanks)but the fish soup was rather ghastly. I was not that impressed. And there were these people next to me that were acting like me in 1986 if I got into Nells: we're so cool to be here. Uh, it's a restaurant.

I'm feeling jejune, post-post, above it all. I just want to nest. I'm ordering a new Baker chair Friday. And I am harassing ABC for carpet samples. For the stairs. They are grim. I got a new rug for the bedroom as well. I'm not wealthy but I play a wealthy person on Television. My contractor has 5gs of mine though and is not returning my call. For new windows. Marvin. The best. But in the front only for now. Can't be extravagant.

God, I have not had a drink or a pill yet this year. And it's almost February. Maybe Friday on my day off.

Hard Drive

For the second time in a year, everything on my hard drive was wiped out. It is incredibly tedious. All these stupid fucking passwords that have to be re-entered and of course I can't remember them so have to wait for some email. And the bullshit with iPod. Apple will not allow you to populate iTunes from iPod sothe only choice you have is to lose all your music or search fro some dubious shareware to "force" the tunes off ipod and onto iTunes. I scanned all this shit too over the last few months and all of that is gone. Anyway, I am pissed.

Orlando

So, I'm not even going to write about the holiday season except to say I'm glad it's over. I cannot take the pressure, the dates, the expectations, having to buy people presents, having to buy myself presents. I just like time. Flowing time. Seasons. Holidays are fine but I can do without the inflatables.

So, I have to go to Orlando to this trade show soon. I do not want to go. Because it is futile. Unless you have a booth/are an exhibitor trade shows are no way to get business. This trade show issue is everything that is wrong with my boss. He thinks they work and I actually said to him, "Have you ever gottany any business from trade shows?" And after rambling for a while, the bottom line was "no." But it's his deal so I have to go. I am dreading it. I hate Orlando. At least I hate the concept of Orlando. Orlando is kind of like Christmas to me. Mass. Lost its original value. Commerce driven yet hiding behind some cheap family warmth.

How am I? Work is fine. Save Orlando. I am on a roll. Bed early wake early. I'd like to lose a few pounds. I feel the first Christmas weight gain I've had in years. I suppose it's because it's the first Xmas season I have not been working out 7 days a week since 2000. C'est la vie. My friend moved to Sullivan and Prince from Harlem. She is so happy. She said "everyone is either wealthy or works from home in an interesting job and lives in a great space." It made me wistful for all of the above. Food shopping in SoHo at 11AM on a Tuesday morning wearing my Todd's loafers and my ghetto fabulous Gucci belt on my low cut Helmut Lang 31" jeans as I chatted with the sales boy in Burberry and pet some Brazilan's Havanese. Maybe again. Not. Never again. I will never be 34 with 4% bodyfat and not a care in the world again. And I knew it at the time and enjoyed it for the most part. I was shallow but I was recovering from PTSD and that was what I needed. To think, I did not have one drink or drug in all of 2002 and 2003. No wonder my skin looked so good.

Anyway, I'm sounding like the asshole's I revile. The girls I work with who buy $140 face cream and read Star Magazine. Why do so many people want to be famous? I think it's like Zeus and Hera and all that. I think people are unhappy and just think that that kind of life means happiness. More people should read.

Anyway, that's my brain dump of the night. I'm back. I'm here I'm queer get used to it.