Looking for a hex key

I didn't "do" anything yesterday. Not really. I recently got a new phone after switching to cingular and spent most of my saturday figuring out how to use the bluetooth connection between the phone and the laptop, making little videos (I want to make a feature shot entirely on my cell phone) and creating ringtones. I'm determined to create the perfect assigned rings for all my friends after Magz reprimanded me the other night: "dude, you need a new ringtone". Ugh. Now I'm truly in the 9th ring of cell. Could I be more of a dork? I went out once to pick up my laundry, and watched "Cry Baby" on Oxygen. I'm determined to do something today!!

Oh, the other thing I did was fix the broken leg on my new loveseat. I busted out my drill from under the bed, but couldn't find the hex key to change the bit. I thought I had remembered seeing one somewhere around my desk within, oh, the last six months... so I went diving into the drawers to find it. Like most desks, mine is a black-hole of useless crap that, for whatever reason, I couldn't bear to part with (or thought I might need) at the time. Since a hex key is so small and hard to find amongst clutter, I emptied out my drawers item by item: several photo ids from old jobs, 2 clown noses from the circus, business cards collected from people i barely remember now. A broken watch - a christmas gift from a lover - relic of a broken relationship. Scraps of paper with numbers of girls I never called. I briefly considered calling one, any one, just to see what would happen. "Hey, Jessica, this is Tom... we met at Barramundi back in '97 and you gave me your number, so I just wanted to call and say hi and see if you maybe wanted to get a drink or somethlng". Nah. I was sure the numbers didn't work anymore anyway.

There was an impressive collection of my own business cards - some from actual jobs, some I'd had made - an interesting chronicle of my own personal ambitions over the past several years. One just said "Tom Tyler, Producer", another was from "The New York Comedy Network", the first project I'd undertaken after my return to New York 8 years ago, another: "Grindhouse-A-Go-Go! Hardcore Comedy". I saved one of each and tossed the others in the trash along with the other personal jetsam of my past. Way in the back of the drawer was a crumpled up piece of paper which I smoothed open to find a poem written by my niece Rachel back in 2000:

Friendship Is...
a smile
a garden made of love
the joy of being happy
and knowing there is hope
climbing trees together
sun and moon and stars
friendship is a secret home,
inside a heart forever.

-- Rachel Tenney Aptekar (age 9)

I read this and wondered if she was just a naive 9-year-old, or if I had grown too cyncial for my own good. Probably the latter, I concluded. It's sad when friendships are outgrown, when the garden is razed or turned slowly into compost to feed future flora. But it's sadder, I suppose, when stale friendships remain. I finallly found the hex key and fixed the damn couch.

Later, Rev called to ask me if Michelle Shocked had been in the Go-Go's. No, I told her, she hadn't.