FRIDAY: After a day of work in the newsroom, I went hunting for a second job to supplement the cost of my move to California. I was hired at the first place I applied. I now work at a HYDE PARK RESTAURANT (HPR).

Waiting to be interviewed by the restaurant's manager, I sat at a small round table that I will surely grow to hate as an employee.

When the manager introduced himself I shuddered: he happens to have the same name as my life long arch nemesis: a bully from Middle School. Some day I will write a few stories about THE BULLY. He may be one of the few people I've ever wished dead. He tormented me. And, to add to the humiliation, he was younger than me. I am scared of fighting. So, I spent a lot of time talking THE BULLY out of wanting to fight me. It was exhausting.

It may be a death wish to label him thus: but I will henceforth refer to my new restaurant boss as THE BULLY. Because I will never not think of the original BULLY when my manager's name is spoken.

My new manager, THE BULLY, bore the attitudinal scars of a young man who's suffered 11 years of waiting tables. I immediately sense he is strong-armer, perhaps in the manner of answering employees' questions with a question or two of his own.

I will work hard and conscientiously for the short period I will be employed at HPR. But I'm sure I'll have fun. I will feel no attachment, no guilt if I slack a bit. I will meet a fresh crop of young, frustrated faces. Cute girls will be forced to talk and spend time with me. People fuck each other silly at restaurant jobs. It will be fun in its temporary way.

Friday evening I went out with MY DJ. Doodlebug of Digable Planets was playing in Ybor City.

The music was unfortunately mediocre, but as we watched the show, a Black girl and a Spanish girl in matching red tank tops and black pants came over and talked to us. This was strange. This does not happen in Tampa. To my mind, they had to have come up to meet and talk to MY DJ, because even if this type of thing happened all the time, I can't imagine it happening to me if I were by myself.

The girls in the matching outfits were friendly. But MY DJ was out of sorts, and has a girlfriend., and relocated to the other side of the bar after only a couple minutes of conversation.

The Spanish girl took me to her car to smoke. I was too drunk to notice if she was drunk. I wasn't much attracted to her but she was beautiful, and when we got in her car she turned the key and some old David Bowie I'd never before heard blasted from her stereo like she'd pulled into the parking lot singing her face off. That projection made her more attractive.

As we smoked, the back car door opened quickly the way it had when I was arrested in Ybor for drinking a beer last year. The Spanish girl's Black-girlfriend slid into the back seat. "I don't usually smoke." She said to me.

"No. She doesn't normally." Said the Spanish girl.

"I believe you." I said. They laughed. The Spanish girl took a huge drag.

"Let me have it when you're done." Said the little black girl with the knots in her hair. The two girls stretched from their respective front and back seats, and pressed their lips together in a soft, un-titilating, smoky kiss. What a wonderful night.

I took a drag and the black girl leaned toward me to take it. We performed the same little ritual semi-kiss. We sat in the car talking and getting happier. I was so drunk that I playfully smacked the Black girl's arm a bit too hard when she told me she works at the same HPR that hired me that day.

Back at the club, MY DJ sat with his elbows up on the bar with his head haunched over. I split from the girls and walked over to him.

"Man," I giggled drunk and bleary. "This is fucking weird and nice. We need to go home with these girls."

He didn't look at me. "It's not gonna happen."

"Whatever! Yes it will!"

"Not for me."

"You're the star dude, they didn't come over for me."

"It's just not gonna happen."

So that's the story: Mars aligns with Venus, women talk to us, and MY DJ was too melancholic to rush the gates with me, the women left us with a wave from the door of the club.

I'll see that one girl at work.

SATURDAY: I'd like to take this time to thank my readers who've written in, wishing me luck with THE LITTLE RED-HAIRED GIRL. I think your prayers are working in my favor. We spent marvelous hours on the floor of my apartment Saturday night, after the play we'd planned to see sold out (I'd also like to thank Tampa Bay for being so supportive of local theater. Thank you).

But I tend to agree with those who have written in telling me to, "quit talking about THE LITTLE RED-HAIRED GIRL. It's boring."

So, I'll just say this: our time together Saturday night was wonderful. The weather was perfect. Things progress. I'm still leaving Florida in January.

That is all for Saturday.

SUNDAY: I came home to THE FRIENDSHIP GARDEN to THE PERFORMER cutting his girlfriend's already short hair. Imposing bright beams of sun sliced through the dense shade, illuminating pieces of her hair as they floated onto the ground. Wisps of cut-off hair on her neck gave her the appearance of a hairy back.

The strong beams of light reflecting off THE PERFORMER's bare white chest and belly, was celestial.

Later, upstairs in my apartment, as I called friends regarding a big Labor Day party that night, THE PERFORMER knocked on my door. Distracted by my phone conversation, I didn't notice the gray finger poking out from his crotch when he walked in.

Before I even asked, he answered: "My girlfriend and I were talking about how men should have pants that show off their genitalia." The excited pitch of his voice rose, but he spoke with a straight face. No irony. He pointed down from his chest, past his bare white belly, down to the penis shaped pouch protruding from his open zipper. "It's right there, but no one can do anything about it because it's totally covered up."

"Your penis is in there?"

"Yeah."

"And you came up here just to show me that?"

"Yes. This is just a prototype though, we're gonna make pants with a…thing…that holds your package so you can see the outline. I can't believe no one's made that yet."

"Cool. Are you wearing it to that party tonight?"

"Yes."

"It looks fake. You can't tell your dick is really in there."

He reached down and gave the little thing a squeeze. "That's what'll be funny," he said, still squeezing his gloved wiener between his thumb and forefinger. He began laughing as he talked but landed his next sentence with a straight face. "People will at first be like: 'what is that?!' then they'll be like, 'oh, it's just a glove,' and then, when they go to squeeze it…my cock's in there.'

He showed up at the party sans wiener glove. That would have made my night less boring. It was boring. Bands, beer, DJ's.

I met Matt Pinfield outside Orpheum as Dakota Coastline played inside the club. Matt Pinfield is the little Uncle Fester looking guy from MTV's 120 minutes.

"Hello." he said, looking into my eyes in a very, "Yep, I'm that guy" kinda way. He was waiting for me to acknowledge his fame, yet he did so in a very submissive way. I just said 'hi'.

"That band playing in there isn't bad." He said to me. "They sound like The Damnbuilders if you remember them…a little Superchunk in there. Nothing to be ashamed of."

Then he asked my MY EX-GIRLFRIEND'S SISTER where he could buy some Ecstasy.

Tomorrow morning I will begin training at the restaurant: begin the exit process.