build a little birdhouse in your soul

yeah. not QUITE as funny today. but still funny.

2004-09-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

The adventure that M and I embarked on last night, fueled by sleep deprivation and THC, yielded this little gem of a story. We took turns writing. "Enjoy."

---------

Once upon a time there was a boy frog named Gipetto and he had a little pet lambchop named Suzie. He had received Suzie as a gift from his now defunct grandma, Ester. Lamchop said to Suzie Hey little Suzie. I really like your ball, can we go out to the Jungle and have a safari?

Not knowing how to respond to Lambchop’s request for a safari, suzie stared blankely at Lambchop. Her sheep like black eyes burrowing into his flesh. Her gaze was unstoppable and Lambchop started to look around for an exit sign. There’s that sign you’re looking for said Lammie to Sue. It’s not the exit sign like the one you were looking for, but it’s a better thing to look for. It’s the entrance to Hardees!

The smiling star in a cowboy hat beckoned them inside. HEY suzie, yelled lambchop, isn’t this where Gipetto works? Suzie screamed with gleeeee, “YES, I do think it IS the Hardees that Gipetto works as a French toast stick operator.” They smiled wide smiled and scanned the restaurant in hopeful search for their best friend.

In his spare time, while not operating French toast at Hardees, Gipetto carved beef ventriloquist dolls and one came to life. When he built this one beef ventriloquist doll this one time, it came to fuckin’ life and shit. When the beef ventriloquist doll came to life, you could always tell it was lying because his nose would grow into a sausage link. The first thing the doll said was “HI – I LIKE YOU!” and then his nose grew into a sausage llink

Gipetto exclaimed “WOW, I would like to have THAT for breakfast!”

The beef ventriloquist doll (BVD for short), took issue with that. As we all know BVD’s have nasty tempers! He held out his licorice twist arms and took aim. With a flick of his Mike and Ike fingers a sticky net of finely woven petal pink cotton candy coated Gipetto. He stood triumphantly, proud on his hotdog legs with mustard socks and shoes make out of bubble gum wrappers.

He jumped on Gipettos head and made two mustard dots. You see – mustard socks are when you dip your feets in big ol jars of Mustard from Sams club. His BVD trunk exploded into Gipettos face and Gipetto said “ooooooooooooooh boy. That a might big pickle we in! Eyes gonna has to go to work to get some more beef now to rebuild your little mustard sock wearing trunk! Eyes have to bring Lambshop and Po Little Suzie wit me so weez can all carry some o dat beef! Dat’s a lot of beef, muthafuckas!”

He then looked around at this predicament. And quickly invited his friends Pita Bread and Cucumber and Lambchop and Tangy Sauce over. Once all there he yelled out happily “Who wants gyros?”

The End.

good bye to sandra dee

2004-09-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

I am a dangerous mix of no sleep, 3 cups of coffee, 2 beers and a slice of banana cream pie… and the night is still young.

Watch out!

Tonight started with a happy hour. Every once in a while I’ll field an invitation to tag along from my old co-workers. And while I never took them up on it when I worked there, ironically, I go along now.

My old boss was there. He and I are kindred spirits. We get each other. It wasn’t always that way. I use to be terrified of him. I remember being all shakey with my stomach in knots whenever I had to deliver some kind of proof that I actually DID something around there to collect my pleasantly plump paycheck. But eventually the nerves gave way to this understanding between us and we’ve lived happily ever after.

He could see that I am new now. My drinking and coy whisper in his ear that I’ve finally smoked pot and giggle like a madman when I’m high makes him smile and offer me a little something something, but then he remembers he has to go home and start his second shift as dad and husband soon. He tells me I’m a smart girl. That I’m welcome back. That there is a job for me. That it’ll all work out. And unlike when M or my mom or any other well meaning friend tells me those exact same words, I believe it this time. Because this time, it was said with an escape hatch. It came with a casual mention of a desk and a computer and health insurance and happy hours. A soft place for me to lay my head for a while.

I think I’ll take him up on it.

Leaving happy hour, I was, ironically, feeling more melancholy than the promised “happy.” My mind was lost in swirls of wondering why I had missed so many of these little get-togethers when I was part of the fold. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!? I was thinking that I was nothing much at all. I was plain jane me. Whip-up a casserole me. Drinking diet coke me. Watching Trading Spaces me. Afraid of people me. Consumed by my weight me. Happy on the outside me.

Thankfully, I am not that anymore. The girl I was and the girl I am are one in the same. Wholeness is the difference. I can be the girl at the bar with the easy laugh and I can be the girl who carries around a kick-ASS lasagna recipe in her head, too. I am not all one or all the other. I am a careful and unique balance of the two that is still being fine tuned.

I don’t know how I would have ever gotten to this point if it weren’t for M and the terrible no good very bad summer. It makes the summer look not so very bad or terrible at all. But rather, worth it.

Like this afternoon. P came by, a good friend of M’s. I had met him way back, when I was a wallflower. Never said anything to him though. Friendly hellos, a nice to meet you surely - but that’s all. Nothing like today. Within 5 minutes we were sitting on the couches sharing weight loss revelations and how making the decision to think of your body as “good” changes your life. These are things I would have rather died than share with anyone 4 months ago. And here I was, smiling, eager and having a hard time shutting up because I had so much to say – and to a male casual acquaintance who knows M nonetheless. DANG. I feel kinda proud of myself.

It’s nearly 10pm and I’m waiting on M to get back from a rehearsal dinner for a wedding he doesn’t much want to go to, much less be in. From his arrival on, we will surely embark on some sort of THC adventure where we most likely don’t even leave my room much less go to see the Midnight Evils at the Entry. We’ll fall asleep and not feel our feet and laugh at things that won’t seem NEARLY as funny the next day.

Oh! I hear his key in the door.

honky tonk blues

2004-09-23T20:25:00.000-07:00

My escapist daydream is the south. A road trip in a VW convertible. It’s the middle of summer. Being outside is like breathing in a damp washcloth. I always have a sweaty shine about me. I only wear jeans and t-shirts. I stay in cheap hotels and steal the little shampoos. I eat breakfast in small town diners where the waitresses all call me “Sugar.” I look skinny and innocent. I am neither. I go to dive bars and drink beer with truck drivers and watch them try to pick up big haired blondes. I talk to strangers and sleep on people’s floors. I make eyes at the local boys and let their sleepy drawls talk me into most anything. I take polaroids of them, naked with mussed hair. I steal magnolia blooms from the front yards of fancy houses. I pick up hitchhikers and make them read me their journals in lieu of gas money. I smoke pot and do LSD with art school drop outs at back yard BBQs. I hang out in record stores and get myself on the guest list. I steal bread from well-lit gas stations to feed to birds. I smoke too much. I always go in the wrong direction. I never buy a map. I write about boys and music and how there are some parts of the south untouched by time. I listen to Hank Williams Sr. and the local oldies stations and The Replacements. I take pictures of trees that are so pretty they seem like paintings. I send them to friends via 24 hour Kinko’s. I spend days upon days wandering around New Orleans. I trick myself into thinking I’ll write a book one day. I never go home.

anyone wanna play tiddlywinks?

2004-09-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

I am in full avoidance of making a very big decision. Like right now, oh man, I should totally be thinking about it and making those lame-o lists of pros and cons that all the tv shrinks tell you to make when you have to figure something out and I should maybe even be on the phone with some trusted advisor hashing it through and ending the conversation with “thanks, I always feel better after talking with you.”

But nope. I’m journaling instead.

Let’s hear it for having something else to do! Thanks internet! Maybe I’ll even get high later! That’s SUPER productive!

The highlight of my day today was being flirted with by J. It’s the perfect kind of flirting – all brainy and well written. He’s a master wordsmith and can take a sentiment as simple and sweet as “you’re a cool girl” and make it into a 50 foot high flashing neon sign propped up on a hill in the busy part of town. He’d be dangerous if he lived here.

The other day I was asked the sweetest question I think I’ve ever been asked and it was by a 4 year old boy with perfect little kid teeth and curly brown hair. I wrote it up all fancy like:

I babysit two days a week. I carry an army green Modest Mouse tote bag decorated with tree branches and hummingbirds. I sing along to any song I know the words to, usually off key. I can invent a naptime story on the fly. I like to make up songs about room cleaning, booger sandwiches, eating the last bite of lunch and not waking up little sisters. However, I am no Mary Poppins. But Sam today, after watching that movie over the weekend, asked me in earnest if I could fly. And why I had never shown him.

There is a dead squirrel in the yard. It’s been there for over a week easy. Initially it was fun to joke about running him frantically up to the vet yelling about how he hasn’t touched his peanuts in DAYS. Or how it was my one and hopefully only opportunity to get that upright squirrel in a 1950s apron holding a tray of chocolate chip cookies for my mantle via the fine art of taxidermy. Now he’s more like a 3D rug. All skinny with nothing left inside him. He’s been rained on, too. I have to think that helped move his decomposing along. I keep writing a haiku about it in my head, but don’t get anywhere with it. Something about how squirrels aren’t so cute once they’ve been dead for a week or so – and that’s a lot of syllables so it makes for a tricky haiku.

This is my most rambling journal entry EVER. Maybe I’ll win a prize!

Tomorrow the ad is in City Pages. Yikes! It’s weird to think that other people, TOTAL STRANGERS, are going to read this. Yet, I want them to read it. Writing is an odd art. So intensely personal and often times clearly communicated. It’s unlike music or art where there is usually more sway in the interpretation. But I guess it’s like them all the same, too. Language is just as vague as colors and notes. It’s also like music or art in that it wants an audience. Writing away for years on end without another set of eyes gleaming meaning from your scribbles seems lonely. I want to be read just like a band wants to play live. The band gets to have more fun though.

So hi new people. Thanks for coming by. Leave a note if you dare.

we thought the phrase "pancake sammich" was REALLY funny, too

2004-09-19T19:23:00.000-07:00

WOW. This week has been kinda sucky. Mainly icky stress due to the tornado that I live in. The bright side – it’s SUNDAY and that means the week is officially over and if there is one thing that I know for sure right this second its that next week could not be any worse. It just can’t. Seriously, it’s not even possible. WHEW! THANK GOD! HALLELUIAH! HIGH FIVES FOR EVERYONE! Could someone please cue Barry Manilow’s I Made It Through The Rain, please? I’d like to sing and sway along to that right about now.

To cheer myself up, I got the hell outta dodge (in a rented Chevy nonetheless) and headed for Wisconsin to visit my parents this weekend. I felt like I could breath there and I don’t think I even knew how much I needed that until I was sitting on the deck with my mom getting tipsy off these crazy strong sea breezes with lots of ice served up in Green Bay Packer mugs. Ahhh, Home.

After waaaaay too much cheesy bread and pizza, we talked some about my desire to see squirrels, chipmunks, mice and other furry woodland creatures in sweaters. Striped ones for squirrels. Autumn colored cardigans for chipmunks. Argyle for mice (obviously!) Maybe even little tubular polka dotted ones for friendly garden snakes who are the perfect shade of bright green. (hi A.)

It was PROBABLY the THC talking, but my mom and I thought that while furry woodland creatures would never recognize the benefits of donning the little sweaters I would like to knit for them, they may see the benefit in taking a tiny patchwork quilt back to their quaint log cabin houses. A little something to lay on top of the crunchy dry leaves and pokey twigs to make them all soft and comfy. OH, we laughed and laughed…

and then bought all the stuff I’d need to make one today before I left!

It’ll be my special little fall project. When done, I’ll leave it at the base of a stately oak tree surrounded by peanuts with a little note pinned to it letting them know it’s up grabs and to send me a photo of the kids all curled up in it if they can, please.

I’ll get on that as soon as I finish my paint by number.

The drive home was nice. I like to drive. I listened to a lot of Simon and Garfunkel, a healthy dose of The Replacements (I think they are my official road trip band,) and about 45 minutes of TV theme music. I thought about my life here and what I want to do with it and I balanced it out with thinking about how I’ve never eaten a Funyun when I wasn’t going at least 55mph.

Nice to be home, kinda. Nice to just be.

what do you MEAN there is no santa claus?!?

2004-08-31T14:46:00.000-07:00

sam running ahead
speckled orange leaf in his hair
first sign of autumn

---------

I "suffer" from magical childhood thinking.

It's characterized by an otherwise grown-up persons ability to believe in something that makes no good sense. Things such as imaginary friends, life being fair, toothfairies and horoscopes. It's the horoscope thing that's messing with me today.

A week or so after a day that I probably should have a name for, like D-Day or The Terrible No Good Very Bad Day, this horoscope appeared in City Pages: "I predict that some of you overly sensitive Pisceans will soon be beaten down by the cold, cruel world. Maybe you'll move in with your parents or flee to the middle of nowhere and live off the grid in a log cabin. Similarly, more than a few of you Piscean artists, actors, writers, and musicians will get weary of the uphill battle to make a living from doing what you love. You'll think about selling out, seeking dull but secure gigs in the corporate world. But I'm begging all of you not to give up. Please continue your heroic struggles to be true to yourselves. If you can manage to hold on a while longer, you will be blessed with a breakthrough no later than September 1."

Did you catch the whole September 1 thing. YEAH. That's TOMORROW and as far as I am aware, I have not had a breakthrough of any sort. Now, granted, I don't know exactly what Mr. Rob "Free-Will Astrology" Brezsny was referring to when he used the word "breakthrough" but I took it to mean that everything would be FINE as of September 1. Clearly, he has LIED to me.

Regular people with regular type thinking might not get this - but I'm really a little bummed. No, I'm not in immanent danger of throwing myself on my bed anytime soon, but I did, honest to goodness, harbor a little hope that as of tomorrow my life would look more like a bouquet of happy daisies than the unfinished jigsaw puzzle it is. When all this started, back in May, and I read that horoscope, I hung on to it. September 1 wasn't THAT far away. I could weather this. Fall would be great. We'd be happy and on and on and on. Silly? Probably. Er. I mean, TOTALLY. But I just can't help it. I really BELIEVED it. That's the whole magical thinking thing - you really believe stuff that most people would just think is nice and fuzzy and let slip through their minds.

Except for the few days where I get a little bummed because there is still a tooth and not a quarter under my pillow, I think I would pick to think this way if given an option. I mean, who WOULDN'T pick it?!? It's WAY better than adult non-magical thinking. Way better. So I'll bounce back at approximately 12:01 am on September 1. And I'll go ahead believing in horoscopes and that the spirit of my dead grandma lives in my Magic 8-Ball and that if you wish hard enough, sometimes it does come true.

And for those of you following my Adventures In Babysitting... I got pooped on today.

blanket ponchos are the next big thing

2004-08-30T14:53:00.000-07:00

Due to a horrible baby bottle mishap, I now have breast milk all over me.

Not MY breast milk mind you - someone else's. Just like the baby who was about to drink it is someone else's too. Cute and all, but happily someone else's.

So. Yeah. I don't really know what to do about this. I am mostly thinking "ewwww!" right now, but a few ideas have crept in. Like wondering if I could convince the 4 year old big brother that my underwear is really a bathing suit while I quick do a load of laundry. Or like wondering if I could fashion that blanket over there into a stylish poncho and wear that today instead - and if I did that, would anyone notice that I wasn't wearing pants? And why is this so gross anyway? It's natural and babies seem to like it just fine. But, poop is natural too and babies don't mind sitting in THAT. Apparently, their judgment isn't the best on matters regarding bodily fluids.

OH why couldn't it have been a horrible jar of pureed sweet potatoes mishap instead?!? Whyyyyyyyy!!!

gambling is SO not fun enough to be a sin

2004-08-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

white spot in the dirt
my underwear, out of reach
dang! i was real drunk

----------

This weekend was full of fabulous adventures!

Friday night, A and I hung out. We started out the night with spicy wontons, spring rolls and a good amount of beer to wash it down. She is an excellent conversationalist! That’s kind of a rare skill! Seems like we talked about almost everything you could think of! Boys with glasses, moms, board games, weird sex chains, questionable pornographers, not so questionable porn, cute yet creepy art, mutants, how some fantasies are best left as fantasies and on and on and on. Good mental exercise! One of the best parts of the whole night was her promise to show me how to make origami butterflies so I can make what could be the loveliest and most delicate chain of them EVER to hang above my bedroom windows. So pretty.

Ever have one of those ideas that you just can’t shake, like a little devil on your shoulder? I had one of those on Saturday and I gave into it. I won’t say much OTHER than it led to a trip to Target and a few minutes alone in the bathroom. *blush*

After my little personal adventure, M and I embarked on a shared one. The cast of characters for the evening: M, me, a crazy heavy box of change, Dawgwild and my undies. OH and a couple really really big beers.

We’ve had the jolly plan of hauling the crazy heavy box of change to a local casino in a dream filled attempt to become thousandaires for a few weeks now - and on Saturday, the time had come to put it into action. We donned our adventure suits, team lifted the box of change out to the truck and embarked on what would become a misadventure thwarted by TERRORISTS!

But first, we had to get drunk! Neither of us thought that we could take the 60 year old women sitting at the slot machines since 10 a.m., Virginia Slims hanging from their mouths, jumbo sized cup of quarters, and polyester pants without a slight to giddy level of intoxication. Otherwise, that sight was libel to make us cry. So we stopped off at the Southside Music Café for some beer drinks. And, as an extra special surprise, we were treated to some musical entertainment by none other than DAWGWILD!! A coverband right out of some nutty 80s movie with a lead singer who smoked, drank and clapped on stage like a true professional and all without messing up his perfectly feathered hair!

Ever wonder where all those bleach blond women with huge boobs and no ass who have a penchant for faded Levi’s and tucked in black t-shirts hang out? I’ll give you one guess. YUP. Southside Music Café!

After a few songs and a trip BACK in to watch them perform Detroit Rock City (an extra special treat for M!) we headed to the casino. M = slightly, barely drunk. Me = about to lose undies in 3... 2...

We successfully get to the casino and after a few laps around the parking lots, find a nice little spot to call our own in the well lit and well populated ramp across from the Tee Pee of Lights. Somewhere between getting out of the truck and team lifting the change box, it seemed like a really good idea to rid myself of my undies. So right there, in the parking lot, for the whole world to see, I slid them down and threw them over the railing. Yeah. I was pretty drunk.

We haul the change box the half mile to the entrance of the casino, through the main doors, down the crazy carpeted corridor to the security guard.

“What’s in the box?”

Uh-oh.

“You can’t really take that box in there, since 9/11 you’ll be stopped by every security guard in the place. You know... terrorists.”

Terrorists?!?

“Not that you two are terrorists.”

Whew! We were starting to worry. I mean, we ARE carrying a big box of change and all.

Sooooo back to the truck with the now well-traveled and heavy box of change and off to Cub Foods to use the potty and buy some ice cream bars for the long drive home to a quiet night of no sleep, drunken neighbors and thunder storms. It was oddly perfect in it’s own little way.

We did manage to complete the adventure on Sunday. Changed in the change, drove out there AGAIN, made it past security, and gambled the coins away. While not drunk this time, the silver haired, there since 10a.m. set didn’t make me cry, BUT I was quite surprised that we seemed to be the only two people in the whole place who were laughing! Gambling is, apparently, some pretty serious business!

I did learn something though! Things that would need to be added to the casino going experience for me to ever be at risk of becoming addicted:
1. Clowns who pass out balloon animals!
2. Free alcohol!
3. Can-can dancers!
4. Petting zoo!
5. Mini-donuts!
6. Free chair massages!
7. Face painting!
8. Tap dancing cigarette girls!
9. If you were required to dress up like it was 1978 and HAD to wear rollerskates at all times!

Off to be happy that this weekend couldn't have really been any funner...

wanna be my friend? eat artichoke dip with me.

2004-08-20T13:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a fun day! Hooray for fun days!!

I finally met A! We had artichoke dip at Pizza Luce. GOD, I love that stuff. We also had lots of good conversation. She’s super funny and has this cute little way of storytelling that is quite charming. She’s a new girl here. She moved here for grad school and is in the throws of all the awkward awe that is moving to a new city. I was having sympathy pains as I relived my own geeky misadventures of trying to fit in here. And trying to make new friends. And the crazy loneliness that often times went along with it. I’m glad we hooked up.

I think that I started something I will regret in the very near future. I started painting the bedroom. It’s not a regular bedroom. It’s a bedroom that had previously been the boudoir of a very persnickety man who was obsessed with molding. There is molding EVERYWHERE! He did this design to make it look like the walls were paneled, all French Revolution style. Which looks kinda cool, but is shaping up to be a huge pain to paint! I suspect that this project could take me up to a decade to finish.

M and I hung out last night, too. A near perfect end to a pretty perfect day. We capped off the night at a swinging Thai place, bothering J, drinking foo-foo drinks and munching on more golden fried things all the while listening to loud, throbbing techno music. I had some crazy vodka infusion that had eerie lime green vapors rising from it when held up to the light just right. It knocked me on my ass! I was drunk after like two sips! DANG. We chatted about journals and music and customers and I pretended to walk like I was a gang member in West Side Story. It was fun.

Ahhhh. Back to work.

wishing i were somewhere else

2004-08-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

watching him, asleep
reminders of what is and was
it’s all orange now

---------

It feels like fall. Which is terribly depressing. Although, I do like sweaters a lot. I'm not ready for summer to be over. I'm not ready to be cold. But alas, the seasons are one more thing to which I have no control. Usually I greet autumn with a big hello and an eager trip to the basement to haul up my wool sweaters. This year, it's met with melancholy. This year, I'd like summer to last forever and ever and ever.

Off to dream about worlds where sad people float along in the breeze.

just call me minnie purl

2004-08-17T19:06:00.000-07:00

little stack of books
where your alarm clock had been
kind of a nice change

---------

Those who know me can attest that my life has been more like a thunderstorm lately than, say, a field of wildflowers swaying in a gentle wind. Yesterday was all about the storm. The rain. The hail. The loud crashes of thunder that make you jump. The very best thing about yesterday is that it was yesterday.

The good news - I'm learning how to knit more better! Thanks to E and S! At about 9:45 p.m. last evening, I successfully did my first purl stitch ever! Prior to that, I could only do the knit stitch. BUT OH, could I do it well! Perfect little inch worm like rows of perfectly tensioned stitches. When you can only do one type of stitch and you've made your fair share of lengthy scarves, you can't HELP but to be good at it. But now with the purl stitch in my arsenal - watch out! I can make ribbed scarves now! If I ever learn how to make a pair of mittens, I'll be DANGEROUS!

IKEA and I made up on Sunday. I don't like going there, which surprises the poo out of me, because I had fully planned on moving in and living there all stealth like off left-over meatball gravy and squatting in one of the many model homes... but after my first trip and the near seizure that accompanied it, I've kinda stayed away. That is until last Sunday, when I forgave IKEA for trying to kill me. What made us friends again? A combination of my credit card still having money on it and them having some cheap bedding so that in an afternoon my room was mine again. Now I get to sleep in a fluffy cloud of soft green and baby blue puffiness dimly lit by the coolest retro plastic green lamp you can buy for under $20. Ahhhh. Happy.

I think I'm doing alright on this whole patience thing. M is probably the better person to ask! I'm slowly starting to see the benefits of letting things unfold at their own pace. And the conversations that we are moving slowly along are surely more meaningful at this pace and surely more real. Who knew.

I think I'm gonna go daydream about swing sets now.

me = young grasshopper

2004-08-15T15:03:00.000-07:00

open my mouth and
words pour out like glass marbles
you take what you can

--------------

I worked at the Pizza Luce Block Party yesterday. Saw the Soviettes and immediately added them to my ever growing list of things I like. What is it about yelling punk rock girls that is so fucking AWESOME?!? Especially ones wearing pink shirts! It’s some kind of careful mix of boy-like energy tempered with explosive and unapologetic girlieness that makes me smile every time. Or perhaps it’s as simple as seeing the secret day dream me from high school yelling into a microphone on stage. Whatever it is, it was super fun to see.

Today I had some time to work on the magazine. AHHH. I love working on this stuff again. HELLO WORK INDUCED PERSONAL FULFILLMENT. I have missed you! It’s so amazingly nice and welcomed to care about what I do again.

A few bumps in the morning, but nothing major, I guess. Started a conversation that I can’t believe I am patient enough to let unfold over days instead of pulling it along unnaturally in a matter of hours. Patience is a theme of mine lately. Seems like the whole universe is yelling that at me and I guess I better take notice. So this is day one of my taking notice. Wish me luck.

The rest of the afternoon is pretty much mine to do with as I please. What a luxury!

can i take a nap now? how about now?

2004-08-14T08:39:00.000-07:00

Two days of no sleep IN A ROW. You’d think I was some sort of rock star. Hmmm, maybe I am!

We went to see Weird Al at the State Theatre on Thursday. YES. Weird Al. HEY! Stop laughing. He’s a comic superhero! I smiled the whole time. I was even lucky enough to get serenaded before the night was through – I Wanna Be Your Lover, even. Truth be told, I am harboring a little crush. He is kinda, well, um, I’m just gonna say it… he's kinda SEXY.

M got hit on the head with a plastic cup there. When he went to Primus, also at the State Theatre, a big piece of curtain fabric fell on his head. INTERESTING trend, don’t you think?

After, drinks and plates of golden, glistening fried things at Sawatdee. I got DRUNK. We talked. I had a little bit of a hard time walking in a straight line. I was kinda mean to M. Thursday was a LONG day for us. It ended alright though. We’re friends again.

Exhale.

Last night wasn’t as fancy. Gone Out Gone at the Terminal Bar. The Terminal might just be one of the most UNfancy live music venues in the entire city. It was a good show though. The GOG boys were a tad bit drunk by the time they played. And by tad, I mean COMPLETELY drunk. Good old rock n' roll. It was full of slurred intros, karate kicks and bumping into each other.

I can’t help imagining bands practice when I see them. Working out their set lists and cool stage moves. How they write songs. I try to guess if they have a space or if they set up in the drummer’s mom’s basement out in Coon Rapids or something. I especially try to figure out if they are friends. Do they fight at practice? Which one is the brat? Which one is the mastermind? Do they dream of being famous like J dreams of being a superhero?

I remember a part in Catcher In The Rye where Holden goes to see a show at Rockefeller Center and there is a midget riding a unicycle and swallowing fire – he can’t enjoy the show because he keeps imagining him PRACTICING to do that. It wrecks it for him. Riding around some warehouse, falling off his unicycle, burning his tongue, wearing tight sparkly pants. The ridiculousness of it all is too much. It’s not like that with my weird band practice ponderings. They don’t ruin the show for me. Rather it adds a little something. And after each set, I always think I have it figured it out. I pick out the brat. I pick out the ring leader. I pick out the guy who just shows up. I feel sure that they like each other or that they don’t. That they are all gonna go home after this, or that they are all gonna stick around and drink more beer.

I’m at work. Hence the page long ramblings about almost nothing. It’s only 8:30 a.m.

YaWn.

Wish I had a pillow.

testing testing

2004-08-02T15:09:00.000-07:00

This is my first ever post to the great beyone. Hi and nice to meet you.