Blockbuster

Friday night was a very weird and depressing night. As I've mentioned before, I am broke. Not "I can't hang out with you tonight because Monday is the night I got to Spanish Harlem to suck dick for cheeseburgers" broke, but "I really can't be spending $7 a drink at a bar and have 15 of these drinks and order out $25 worth of dinner four nights a week" broke.

So after work on Friday, I had only one goal: get drunk and watch some TV at my place. Knowing that the few friends I have in Jersey (whom I have to pay to be my friends) were out of town for the weekend, I had a special John night planned: some wine, some candles, Maxi Priest and Roberta Flack softly singing "Set The Night To Music", and of course wrapping up the evening by masturbating in front of my open window, swaying back and forth because it's hard to beat off standing up and drunk with your pants around your ankles (trust me - it is).

But it was not meant to be. There was nothing worthwhile on, other than that terrible David Arquette movie "See Spot Run", the one with the dog in it. After throwing up all over myself and my couch, I pulled myself together and made a sandwich.

Depressed, I channel-surfed and pounded some wine before eventually deciding that I would go to the Blockbuster nearby to rent a movie. Not a good decision.

See, Blockbuster on a Friday night at about 9pm is not a good place to be for a half-drunk, lonely manic depressive for hasn't shaved since Wednesday morning and is seriously considering the seminary to justify his celibacy. Everyone in the store was either a happy, young couple looking for a movie to watch and cuddle to, or a really hopeless-looking single person. It was unbelievable. About a dozen or so twenty-something couples of all races walking around arm-in-arm, saying things like, "Well, I guess I could watch 'Love Actually' if you really want to" and "But babe, we got the movie you wanted to last time - now it's my turn" as I sobbed loudly into my hands and shook with tremors of sadness (and lust).

Also, there were about a dozen loners walking around. I'm not talking about "loners" in the dangerous, mysterious but cool sense; I'm talking about people who look like me, but older. You know, mildly successful single people in their early thirties looking for a constructive way to spend their Friday night. And I take it back, they didn't look hopeless, but that's what kind of made them seem hopeless to me. The fact that they were content with this plan, thinking, "Well, I don't have anything to do or anyone to hang out with, so I think I'll go to Blockbuster to get a movie and watch it alone" made me very sad, and even more determined to propose to the next girl I kiss.

I wound up leaving the Blockbuster without getting a movie. And to be honest, I don't even remember what I did on Friday night, I got stoned (all by myself!) and basically passed out. I know I talked on the phone for a while to my long-lost friend Veronica, and I remember going to bed at 3:30 (though I started drinking and smoking alone at about 6:30), but that's really all I got.

Exciting, I know.

[Jesus, I just read this over and it sounds like I'm going to kill myself. Good lord. Honestly, I'm not going to kill myself. It's just really too much work. So let's talk about something happier!]