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I love it when I decide not to go out, like I did this Friday and Saturday evenings, and instead go to bed early with the expectation of waking up refreshed and not hungover. It’s such a good, clean feeling to pop out of bed and read the NY times with an accompanying cup of organic green tea.

But then I’m swiftly yanked back to reality when I turn on my phone. My friends have not followed the same path as me and are up until all hours, partying, dancing and wondering why I’m not with them. What follows are a few of the 10 text messages I had on my phone when I turned it on this morning, notice how they become progressively more illegible as the nights wears on:

12:57.55 AM 10/28/2007: Hey T-Ruble what’s UR scene?
1:00:09 AM 10/28/2007: Shane Where are you? Just saw Jamie outside of Cain.
2:40:49 AM 10/28/2007: UR scaaaaarin me?? Ted Wongs? Where at creepy
4:26:55 AM 10/28/2007: What’s up buddy?

I recently decided to end a friendship with someone who, quite frankly, didn’t have a lot to offer. You know those friends who it’s kind of a chore to be with, who it takes work to maintain a friendship with? Well this person was one of those.

So after some passive-aggressive ignoring of this person’s texts and after I found out this person called my boyfriend and told a few non-creative lies about my academic career and non-existent drug use, I decided to end the friendship by sending an e-mail saying my trust had been violated and to me that was grounds for ending a friendship.

Well, the response I got back was, for lack of a better word, quite hateful. Not only am I “lazy” but also “sad” and “rude.” A long list of my personal failings along with perceived slights I’d made to this person was e-mailed to me. It ended with the highly creative phase “Oh and Shane - FUCK YOU!!!” I read it, laughed and hit the delete button.

When I do this kind of thing, and I’ve had to fire friends as well as employees before, I try and keep emotion out of it. “Lead with facts” one of my mentors once told me and that’s what I do. The overly-personal and emotionally-charged response says volumes about this person’s mental health and character of fitness and the fact that this person took it upon themselves to call my boyfriend and tell lies about me is even worse.

Now I just have to get through the semester because we have two classes together. I’ve no problem being in close proximity to this person because I’m not upset over ending the friendship. What I’m concerned about is their reaction to being near me. I’ve a feeling they’re not the most emotionally stable and healthy person to being with - I hope this doesn’t send them right over the edge.

As a senior at NYU I’ve now been taked with the responsibility to write more enormous and (hopefully) well-received research papers. This semester, for my Politics of the Middle East and North Africa class, I’m writing:

“Survival or Extinction: The position of the Mandeans and Yahzidis in the ‘New Iraq.’”

Fun stuff, at least for me. The Mandeans are the last gnostics, followers of John the Baptist who hold their services in running water, and the Yahzidis are an even older religion.

Some people were unaware that I have been without a phone since Friday night. Yes - I lost both my phone and my passport at Bungalow that evening and have been dithering on returning to find out if they were found or if they had been stolen.

Well the perfect opportunity presented itself last night because my friend Chamonix Bosch was in town staying with me for the evening before jetting off to London today. I took her to Bungalow under the pretense of visiting but in reality I wanted to see if my stuff was there, and it was. Not only the aforementioned items but a credit card and drivers license as well. When you’re leaving every conceivable piece of ID you own along with your only communications device at a nightclub, and they know you well enough to call your friends and ask them to remind you that your stuff is there there then you’re probably hanging out at that club a little too often.

Now onto my phone-less status. I quite enjoyed not having a phone for 4 days. Other than the fact that I actually had to walk to the pharmacy to get my Prozac I didn’t find its absence to be overly taxing. No more late night messages from drunk and/or cracked out friends along the lines of “Where’s aftrprty? U goin?” or “Meet@B8@2:30″ or gems like “I did 20 pills in 2 days” like the one I received today. And better yet no way for me to reach out to others when the urge strikes me to engage in naughty behaviors - the likes of which usually start at the notorious Bungalow 8.

I’m happy for the return of my stuff but I’m already missing the peace and silence I was enjoying. I’m going to have to take more phone-free breaks in the near future. And I do thank the staff at B8 for keeping mys stuff and taking such good care of it - you’re all a class act.

What a fun weekend its been! A guy tried to stab me outside of my friend’s bar in the Lower East Side on Thursday night. I deftly avoided the shank he had in his hand and was then pulled backward into my friend’s bar, literally off my feet, while he locked the door and called the po-po. The NYPD arrived, caught the suspect who then head-butted and kicked one of the officers. The other officers then Tased and beat the suspect with a metal baton before unceremoniously tossing him into the back of the squad car - and I liked it.

After that two guys, my friend’s girlfriend and myself all went up to B8 where I found that one of them worked for Moby. Moby is like a little hipster Donald Trump - he owns bars, restaurants and more but unlike the obnoxious Trumpster he actually keeps his mouth shut for more than a second or two.

Slept Friday and then met up with my friend Cliona, who is the niece of one of our martyred H-block Irish prison hunger strikers, Patsy O’Hara. She and I went to Love but they wouldn’t let her in because she had no ID. Those crazy Europeans - they just can’t seem to understand the ridiculous and fascistic ID requirements in our country!

So off it was to Bungalow, AGAIN (where we don’t get ID’d). From there to another wild after-party somewhere up by Union Square. At that point my mind was so clouded from exhaustion and alcohol that I barely remember walking home, just a vague sense of extreme exhaustion bordering on psychosis.

Now I have a head cold and a sore throat which I’m nursing with green tea and lots of rest.

I’ve had a crazy week and it’s only Thursday.

Tuesday evening I went to a birthday party for my friend Jamie, who works the door at Cain. The party was at a cool restaurant in the East Village and featured a lot of cool people, delicious food and cold wine. After that we left and went to Gold Bar, stayed for 5 minutes (that place, while beautiful, had terrible music and a bad crowd that night) and then went to Bungalow 8. I hung out there for a couple of hours, got really drunk (I was already pretty drunk at Gold Bar) and then my friends and I came back to my apartment, chatted for a little while and then headed out to Florent for a nice early breakfast.

Last night I attended my weekly fellowship meeting. We had a great discussion on how Jewish law pertains to the ransom or trading of captives and how this pertains to modern issues like Israeli soldiers kidnapped and held by Hamas and Hezbollah. The discussion was so good we actually stayed after 7:30 to keep talking.

I then walked up to this restaurant by Gramercy Park and met my friends Hunter and his wife Michelle for dinner. Delicious.

Tonight I have class and then after I’m heading over to my friend Nick’s new lounge/bar combo in the lower east side for his 30th birthday party. Should be another fun night.

From Wonkette (via Maxim)

One of the last true mercenaries died in Paris on Saturday.

Robert Denard was said to be the inspiration for the book and movie - “The Dogs of War.” He led more than one coup in the Comoros Island, a place I visited in 2000 where the home he fled in 9 years prior was visible across the azure Indian Ocean from the white sand beach I would lie on.

Among the eager Comorrienes who would flock to the beach, hoping to do a little business with the few tourists who had found their way to these islands, were a couple of men who claimed to have known Denard. The stories they could tell… I’m sure he had a few of his own.

From Slate’s excellent series: Jurisprudence, the Law, Lawyers and the Court.

The big picture reveals a nation that, let’s face it, likes drugs: Expert Joseph Califano estimates that the United States, representing just 4 percent of the world’s population, consumes nearly two-thirds of the world’s recreational drugs.