14 july 01

Thursday night was Dave and Marguerite's second annual joint birthday party, only this year it was at a bar rather than on a Brooklyn rooftop, and I was in a better mood because I hadn't had my car broken into that morning. Met a bunch of people who live in my neighborhood and know old friends of mine from school, which really, really shouldn't surprise me anymore when that happens.

Last night was Ethan's going away party, held in someone's fantastic apartment/photography studio in Hell's Kitchen with a crazy impressive view of the city. I brought Colleen with me, and only stayed for an hour and a quarter. How many times can you say goodbye to one person? I feel that there needs to be some sort of regulation concerning the number of goodbyes one person is permitted to require within a certain period of time, in conjunction with a categorization of the various types of goodbyes employed. For example, you have goodbyes necessitated by impending physical distance as well as goodbyes of emotional distance, short-term goodbyes, long-term goodbyes, and goodbyes of various degrees of permanence. Easy goodbyes, difficult goodbyes, wanted and unwanted goodbyes, and goodbyes that start out as one thing (such as a short-term, physical distance goodbye) and end up as another (long-term, emotional distance goodbye). There needs to be some kind of guidelines employed, or this can get really out of control. Shouldn't we be able to say to a person, for example, "I'm sorry, this is the third long-term physical-distance goodbye you're asking of me in the past four years and you're only allowed two, besides the fact that you've already used up two emotional goodbyes of differing degrees, and I am therefore refusing your request of this most recent goodbye since it goes against regulation, you're being penalized 30 points, and have no entitlements"? I think so.