i've said it before and i'll say it again.

rainy days in manhattan suck.

maybe not if you're snug in your bed with or without your favorite brown haired, blue eyed beau.

speaking of which

i always wonder where my favorite homeless guy goes when it rains.

i always walk past his usual spot. looking for signs that he was there earlier, but woke up and moved because it was raining. like his outline should be there in a dry spot.

does he double as a mole person?

i think that mole people are really in secret societies. they tell you it's the last stop. but that's just a facade. they use the rats to throw the squares off. come one now, you've got crazy, crackie, and just plain broke- the ringleaders. and then you've got the artists and writers who would rather live in the trenches down below the ground than live in the trenches in a stuffy office, doing something they dont really even care about. it's probably really a 24/7 party.

sometimes i think it would be cool to go to a party in a mole cavern.

hey man, we're going down to the 6 at 33rd street tonight for a killer party. uptown tunnel, 3rd right. 8 kegs. lots of beautiful people (not to mention crazy, crackie, and just plain broke). i hear they're having muralists doing caricatures and live entertainment: banjos and harmonicas and bucket drums. and you can't even imagine the drugs that'll be there.

it sounds just like parties we used to have in highschool at beach houses and river houses and hunting camps. only in addition to crazy, crackie and just plain broke, we had fratty, frattier, and many a rich hippy.

highschool parties were fantastic. everything was so carefully choreographed.

i had a few parties here and there.

what a great feeling it was to find out your parents were going out of town. it took a lot of planning to invite all of the cool people whilst simultaneously throwing losers and thugs off the scent. there's always something so, i'm-cooler-than-you about hosting a party.

you have your friends, and blah blah blah, but then there was the booze element.

enter 22 year old dork who still goes to highschool parties and doesn't mind supplying the alcohol.

fortunately, we didn't always have to go to those desperate lengths. my older sister and i doctored up one of her international IDs when i was 15, and i've never looked back.

iwas lucky in that my fabulously cool older sister showed me the ropes. everything she ever got caught for, i was able to pull off, tenfold, simply because i took very thorough notes. (a side note: the only thing i was never quite able to seamlessly achieve was throwing the chain fire escape ladder out of the third floor window, past my parents' bedroom window, and shading off into the night for some post-curfew scandal. i am secretly very jealous of this accomplishment on her part). anyway, among the things i learned from older sister:

-let the guards and any nosy neighbors know you are planning an "event" of sorts. that way, no one will be surprised when cars line your street and there are youngsters and ruffians coming in and out of every orifice of your house. one great story is the "young life lock in." it was good enough for my sister, it was good enough for me, and it is certainly good enough for the next generation of highschool beasties. ahhh, like the very good christian soldiers that we were.

-take a mental inventory of the positioning of every thing you intend to move. i'm talking down to the throw pillows on the parlor sofa. my sister was busted big time once for hiding mother's jewelry, putting vases back in wrong spots, making beds incorrectly, and other such nonsense.

-if you're going to steal dad's vodka, atleast have the common courtesy to fill it back up with water.

-it's alright for your friends to have sex in every room in the house, as long as it is not yours. i am still holding a grudge over a box of wet n wild condoms that was unearthed from beneath my bed one morning after a party. there is a hard and fast rule about my bed: the only unbridled passion that should ever be going on there should involve me. period.

-microphones and amplifiers often seem like a good idea, until the neighbors "happen" by.

-jacuzzi tubs in parents' bathrooms that could potentially overflow and leak onto the kitchen table are usually a buzzkill.

-it is not always easy to convince your mother that yes, those kool-aid stains were always on the porch.

-and if all else fails, deny deny deny.