So, what did I do with my fabulous and exciting weekend? After all, it was the 4th and a long weekend. And I live in NYC, the bestest place in all the world.

I packed.

Friday, I packed. Sunday, I packed. And the sad thing is, I've got lots left to do. But on the up side, all of my books and magazines are packed and ready to go. Most of the stuff I have left is of that "I'm not sure what it is but I'd better not throw it out" variety. Lots of little scraps of paper. Keys to locks I'm not even sure I own. That sort of thing.

Now lest you worry that all work and no play makes Crash a psychotic lunatic (it takes so much less than that), I did have some fun.

I hung out with Mike'nDavid on Thursday. Took a nice walk down the new Hudson River Park. Very nice. Saw a really cool looking jellyfish in the Hudson (the City is way below the salt point, so there are sea creatures galore); it was translucent, of course, but it had purple and maroon lines coming out of the center of the top. Very pretty.

Saturday was my "salvation from packing" day. My buddy Todd called to say he was coming to town. Todd is one of my oldest friends and one of my best. We've known each other since elementary school. If I remeber correctly, we also both had Great Danes when we were growing up.

Todd is married to a great woman and they recently had twin girls. This was his weekend away from family. He hooked up with some friends of his down here (two of whom were visiting from San Antonio) and the group of us went bar hopping. We started in SoHo (or rather, that's where I hooked up with them) and we worked our way up to the East Village. They were still going strong when I left (around 11 p.m.). After all, I still had packing to do the next day.

Every bar that we went to had cider; many of them had it on tap. God, I love this city.

The best part was that all of the folks were cool with me being gay. I mean, I had met a few of them before, but I'm alway a little nervous hanging with the heteros because you never know how they're going to react. Last thing I want is to go out drinking with someone who wants to "save my soul". But these guys were cool and I genuinely had a great time. It was exactly what I needed.

Alcohol tally: around 8 or 9 ciders. Feeling good.

The last bar I went to with them was in the East Village and for the life of me I can't remeber the name. It was around 13th and A. But it was a cool little bar with lounge chairs. I nearly fell asleep in one of them which would have been embarrassing. But this place was showing Japanese cartoons. These things make absolutely no sense if there aren't subtitles (I'm not sure they do with subtitles). Anyway, this thing was called Magic Monkey. After that, they showed a movie from 1979 called The Warriors. This was one of those gangs ruling New York movies. Only these gangs were really into costumes. Leather, baseball gear, shiny satin coats. Really, it was like the Pride Parade.

I missed the end of the movie, so I'll probably rent it. The funny thing was, one of the gang girls was the same actress who was on Too Close for Comfort, Deborah Van Valkenburgh. Very strange to see her playing "tough." At least it wasn't Jim J. Bullock. It was hard enough to buy him playing a hetero on Too Close for Comfort. Seeing him in a gang movie would have been . . . well, words fail me.

So that was the weekend.

My work "lunch buddy" is on vacation, so I think I'll skip lunch and take some boxes over to the old apartment. I wish the fucking elevator was working over there. I hate climbing those six flights.