on friday i went straight from nap to party upstairs at wake forest dave's. on the roofdeck. one of his penthousemates (the bolivian interior decorator) was celebrating her birthday with sangria, a potful of paella, and a roomful of very fine liquor, including my diabolical friends tangueray no. ten and vintage porto. dave (from my program in italy), who managed to live two floors above me for three months before we ran into each other in the elevator and began getting shitfaced on the roof together, took me to meet carlos, the penthousedweller across the way and custodian of the veryfine roof place, so that i would be welcome to come up without dave and dave's penthousebrethren.

carlos gave us the first allow-me-to-show-off-my-room-and-all-of-my-fabulous-toys tour i've been on since the fourth grade. first, he showed us the front room with its blue-muraled walls that climb to retarded heights and its giant fish tanks and, yes, its jacuzzi from which you can remote-control the air-conditioning or one of the penthouse's many stereo units, or pretty much anything electric. for all his affection for the remote control, this man also has a great fondness for the orgasmically posed cast-metal feminine figure. they pepper each room, sometimes free-standing, sometimes paired together in a concave formation to support a clear glass tabletop. the tour reached its pinnacle when carlos opened closet after closet of suits, always making stroking motions through the air (the best comparison to which i can make being wayne and garth's DOO-doo-doo wavy motion that signals yet another alternative ending) while intoning, 'versaaassssshhhh, versaaasssshhh, ALL versaaaasssh, ONLY verssssaaaasssssh.' then we saw the shoes. those had their own closet ('manolo BLAAAAHHnik, yes, yes, manoooolo'), including a snazzy pair of white leather short boots that dave wanted to borrow.

while we were gone, dave's bathroom caught on fire! and you know what? i was too drunk to notice. i went in there and was like, hmm, there's sort of a strong smell in here. and who put all those ashes in the sink? and, man, that sure is a beautiful black streak going up the wall. i hadn't noticed it before.

duuuude...a technical position just opened up in our NY museum, on ed's, like, second day in the city. i am so excited. i think it looks like something close enough to what he's done. i am containing myself by wisely drinking yet another cup of coffee and munching on donut.