Have You Seen Me?

(June 24, 2002)

This girl I used to hang out with, who goes by the name Nancy or Sara or Melody depending on the forum, left me a note on the Must bulletin board (she's Melody there) saying "Is that THE Lexi Kahn? Where've you been?" Never an easy question to answer. Neither is "How are you?" or "What's new?" But those are at least subjective. "Where have you been" is more like, "Hey, you're missing." It's all relative, isn't it? I mean, I don't feel missing. Am I missing?

Because my company (which I like to call GiantSuckingSound.com) is doing oh-so-well financially*, they decided it was a good time to move all the people from the 2nd floor up to the 4th floor, and all the people from the 4th floor down to the 2nd floor. I am now a 2nd floor resident. I lost: a day's work, a recycle bin, a trash bin, and a visitor's chair. I gained: an extra coat hook, a tumbled mess of papers and folders, another five feet of space in my anti-productivity pod (ie, cubicle), and a neighbor who burps. A lot. He may have some kind of medical problem. Gassy McBurperson overheard me on the phone with Laura talking about the WFNX Best Music Poll . I know this because thereafter, all day, he kept finding ways to get me to talk about music. Like "Let me know if my MUSIC is too loud!" and "Boy I really like this MUSIC." Dude, get some Gas-X and we'll talk. (*Caustic mockery. A move like this comes with a price tag of around thirty grand in I.S. and facilities costs alone, not to mention the lost time while we cube rats ignore our work to re-build our work areas.)

So I tried to put my office back together, came home from work late, took a quick bath and then went to the Temple Bar to join the Hey-You-Came-Home-And-Made-Time-To-See-Us! gathering that Jess organized. I walked into a sea of Hoities and Toities, picked my way through the whitest, most generic cast of people ever, and sighed relief to see some non-jaded, intelligent, friendly faces at the back. Scurvyann, Gene Dante, Ad Frank, Lisa McC with the houseboy... yay, cool peeps. When Jess had written "the Temple Bar" in her evite a few weeks ago, I wrote back, "Isn't that the schnazzy place on Mass Ave with the chocolate Martinis?" and made some kind of wiseass comment about being fresh out of Gap separates to wear. Jess was all, "Hey, I'm LA now, baby!" I THOUGHT I was joking with her about the schnazzy, but check this shit out: I gave Slick McRuggedson behind the bar there a $20 for a shot of Stoli (for me) and a Martini (for a girl whose name I forget but she's the wife of the old Krebstar bass player and I liked her), and he gave me back like, six bucks. Then when Laura showed up I bought her an Expresso Martini. $7.50, huh? "That's the only one of those you're getting," I said. Criminy. Laura and I went then to the Linwood to see Rock Bottom. They're a kind of super-group cover band of some notoriety around here. It was a sweaty, merry, drunken crowd. My new boots, it turns out, need some getting used-to, as the footprint is so large I don't, it seems, have an accurate sense of where I'm stepping. I stomped at least three or four Kansas and Journey fans. (I know they're Kansas and Journey fans because I needed to exit the stage area for certain Rock Bottom musical forays into major suckitude, whether or not they were performed in earnest or ironically, it is just too much to ask a person to take. And it was during those hasty retreats that I stomped, for example, on the toes of someone yelling his mullet off to "Carry On Wayward Sun").

"Why would the Boston Globe cover it? It's just a yard sale!" Cynthia von Buhler had said Friday night. Adam and Cynthia are relocating and renting out the Castle, so they held a huge two-day yard sale. "Cynthia," I said, "Do you sometimes forget who you are?" I mean really. Take one old Victorian house in Allston, one visual and performance artist, one bookish, quirky musician/egghead, ten years of collecting, and all the underground fame that goes along with countless parties and events and bands and benefits. It's like if the Munsters had a yard sale. "Fake leg, dead things," read the published list of items for sale, "S&M gear, mannequins..." Of course there were the usual knick-knacks and a million books ("Adam, don't you think everyone needs to learn how to program in C?") and old clothes too. Things like yard sales are always more work than people expect, so I offered to help. It was a fun day. It was a mob scene.

Saturday night was a three-club hop. Details unimportant mostly because I don't feel like writing about it. It was hot everywhere. I was only drinking sparkling water or club soda (isn't club soda the same as sparkling water?) and though I had about five glasses, I didn't even need to pee. That's called barely hydrated, kids.

One fun thing was, Friday night I'd seen Michelle Auerbach and her husband Aaron at the Linwood (Michelle books the Linny), and we were also following each other around on Saturday. Michelle was already at the Castle when I got there Saturday morning, and then she was at two of the clubs I was at on Saturday night. Huh huh. She rules. Huh huh.

Back to the Castle for Day 2 of the Great Purge. I apologized to everyone for the humidity, which I'm sure I caused by waking up that morning and saying, "Ah, it feels MUCH LESS humid today!" The first customer was a guy who bought like, a lot of stuff. Nice enough guy, but he really wanted to be wearing an "Ask Me About My Band" button, T-shirt, and hat. "Boy it's hot today but last night I had an outdoor gig with my band, and it was REALLY hot..." I did not wish to lob that particular ball back over the net, thank you. It was too goddamn hot to ask about his friggin' band, dammit. On one of his lobs, Adam almost provided an opening, and I just about wanted to break some kind of law. Instead I bolted into the house on some pretend-errand. What I didn't realize was that Adam knew exactly what he was doing. He was fucking with the guy. Clandestine derision is so much sexier than open hostility. Priceless.

I had dinner guests due at 7:30, so I was back home in time for another bath. In humid weather, something about a bath is so much more satisfying than a shower. Marinated swordfish on the grill. Fabulous.

Well, I've got all sorts of stuff to do this week, but you know what's weird? It seems that I will be at the same club three nights in a row. The Lizard Lounge Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday. My first triple header. Kiss me, I'm nuts.