barfing on my own face.

Today! Today, today, today, at 6:30am on February 9th, 2012, marks the date that I have finished Henry Miller’s The Tropic Of Capricorn. Never would I have believed upon being initially gifted this book that it would become notable enough to celebrate its completion! In it, I not only have found the perfect opening quote for my novel, but now I realize, the perfect closing one as well. And how symmetrical, that these chosen verses fall within the opening ten and closing ten pages of Miller’s book, just as they fall within the five opening and closing of mine.

It begins like this:

Everything that happens, when it has significance, is in the nature of a contradiction.
Until the one for whom this is written came along I imagined that somewhere outside,
in life, as they say, lay the solution to all things. I thought, when I came upon her, that
I was seizing hold of life, seizing hold of something which I could bite into. Instead
I lost hold of life completely. I reached out for something to attach myself to — and
I found nothing. But in reaching out, in the effort to grasp, to attach myself, left
high and dry as I was, I nevertheless found something I had not looked for — myself.
I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live — if what others are doing
is called living — but to express myself. I realized that I had never the least interest
in living, but only in this which I am doing now, something which is parallel to life, of
it at the same time, and beyond it.

And it ends like this:

It seems to me that it is exactly 25,960 years since I have been asleep in the black womb of sex. It seems to me that I slept perhaps 365 years too many. But at my any rate I am now in the right house, among the sixes, and what lies behind me is well and what lies ahead is well. You come to me disguised as Venus, but you are Lilith, and I know it. My whole life is in the balance; I will enjoy the luxury of this for one day. Tomorrow I shall tip the scales. Tomorrow the equilibrium will be finished; if I ever find it again it will be in the blood and not in the stars.

I, too, have begun and ended like this, though in reverse to this process. Henry Miller and I’s parallel romantic experiences are twain mirrors of our separated lives. But sandwiched between bookends of our shared experiences – symbolized by death and then birth, birth and then death – everything else in-between is variable, different, made similar only by our each writing a book and finding ourselves because of pain. Both hint towards the future, though seventy years of question marks divide them, his having completed The Tropic Of Capricorn in 1938 (appropriately, in Paris).

I suppose, contextually, for one to understand what I mean really is to capture this exact passage from The Tropic Of Capricorn – this passage that will begin my second book, the continuation of the first, the hello to the one for whom that is written, my star-aligned Aries, my age-old familiarity, for which this verse rings true:

“One can wait a whole lifetime for a moment like this.
The woman whom you never hoped to meet now sits before you,
and she talks and looks exactly like the person you dreamed about.
But strangest of all is that you never realized before that you had dreamed about her.
Your whole past is like a long sleep which would have been forgotten had there been no dream.
And the dream too might have been forgotten had there been no memory, but remembrance is there in the blood and the blood is like an ocean in which everything is washed away but that which is new and more substantial even than life: REALITY.”

Up until this moment, I knew not where to begin with the continuation; I knew only that my work must be continued. But here, before me, with its red jacket sleeve and 95 cent price point, lies the answer, the door-opening key spun from paper and memory and imagination, brought to me in the present by one Henry Miller, whose history and astrology I shall wander to research in the immediate future. Henry Miller, who his hive-minded, zombie-brained contemporaries foolishly sought to banish due to their lack of understanding his genius. Henry Miller, who similarly finds as much weight in astrology as do I; for no other reason would he write two books in homage of Cancer and Capricorn, for no other reason would he have said that he is “now in the right house, among the sixes…” upon finding his ultimate second love…

EDIT

I did find out that the book is not purely fiction or non-fiction, that the truths and non-truths are one and the same, indistinguishable. I wonder if his description of this love is about his wife, June? Or Anais Nin? Or none of the above? Purely fiction? Regardless, I did find this book, to the right, which has a synopsis like this (it is exactly what I aim to do with my own book, coincidentally) according to this lovely post on Psychicchic’s Paranormal Curtain:

“This book, Henry Miller: His World of Urania, was written by the late Hollywood astrologer, Sidney Omarr in 1960. The book analyzes the effect the planets had on Miller and his many works, including Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Black Spring and even Sour Orange Juice… I have yet to come across a book like this one – a book that dissects a life history in an attempt to examine the impact of any cosmic thinking.”

>>>

Now to get barfy. Forgive me.

I awoke this morning, as if from plague, afflicted, tumbling from me waters like catharsis – only waters poisoned. I have been bed-ridden since late last evening, feeling like complete pale-faced horror, eating rice and carbs in an attempt to create solid ground inside me, but there is none. It’s horrible. I need to work but I have no internet in my home, and I must make the decision of going out and risking disaster or staying here to do nothing except for occasionally write when the appropriate words come to mind. But aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, I feel as though I am dying, though I am not, I hope; I am not often sick in this way, and it is the worst kind. At the same time, I am growing a pimple, I am sweating, oh, it’s horrible. Bathe me royally, is there anywhere for bandages to stop these ridiculous horrors?!! DEATTTTTTTTTTTH.

I’ve ventured out am in public. I’ve scarcely been here half an hour. I need to go home. I need to go home. I need to queue up some bookmark links about Henry Miller — no internet at home — and I need to go home. Over this for the time being. Why did I think I wanted to face the world? Oh, right, responsibility. Getting in the way of my comforts. Sick.

yeah, dawg.

i’m listening to… ole time relijun’s 2012 album.

my post titles are getting more and more nonsensical. they’re pretty much useless.

i need to do laundry -so-so-so-so- bad, but it is really not on my list of important things to do, although it should be. pretty much, as a result, i’ve been wearing a lot of dresses and skirts, which is probably a good thing, i guess, considering it’s hot as a motherfucker.

i listened to the beatles a shit ton today, just kinda putting every single record of theirs i have (which is like, eight?) into a queue and just reveling in it. i really probably care for the white album the least. whattarya gonna do.

i intend to find the craziest clothes that i like, bring their images, and get some fools in se asia to make me some epic ass clothes. i have funny clothing style and still find it somewhat hard to find clothes… anyway, like one million hours of surfing later (i was totally ready to go to sleep two and a half hours ago), i’ve found some clothes i want to have made:

most of these came from opening ceremony.

i hate fashion. i love fashion. i hate fashion.

probably not to #3. kind of want all else…

arr.

quick notes.

camping at olympic peninsula this past weekend with lenard. it ruled. so fun. most notably: exploring some far parts of rocky ocean beach (with mini tidepools), weird sand that was like snow patterns we saw in iceland, and lotta weird rocks, including the following specimens: [a] weird amalgam metamorphosis rock; [b] jabba da hut rock. seriously. it looked like jabba — same shape and even had eyes and face. lenny snapped a photo and i will show when i get a copy. as for my own camera, i accidentally forgot to bring my battery, and as a result, could only take pictures with the film camera i brought. finished a roll of 36 exposures finally, though. thank heaven!

stopped by aberdeen/hoquiam on the way back and went to a couple garage sales… highway 101 passes through aberdeen and as we were driving through the town yesterday, we told ourselves that we would stop by the garage sales we saw the next day because we passed by sOo many of them yesterday. so today we stopped by one on the main road that was mediocre — just got a couple of cookbooks — and then a really epic one where we had to follow signs to this guy’s house… and got allllllllllllll sortsa junk. including but not limited to: [a] three awesome tapes! yeah!; [b] cool lace circular patterned thing; [c] really awesome pillow with a top side that has this cool geometrical/nature-ish crocheted (maybe) pattern; [d] nostalgic mcdonald’s limited edition batman glass cups (chose the one with riddler on it); [e] hilarious family portrait of two babies to hang on our wall (it actually fits the decor of our household and i just thought it’d be funny); [f] old ass kodak disk 8000 camera (which they don’t actually make film for anymore but it has 15 exposures and 12 are already used up, but they will be a funny surprise and even better — i have 3 of this weird film format to work with…)

i also ate WAY too many marshmallows this past weekend and was a major fatass. diet begins tomorrow. but most of all: i made what i now call a “it’s s’more” (in the sound of “when the moon hits your eye… blahblah… it’s amore!”)… which began as a marshmallow sandwiched in wheat thins but then turned into marshmallow sandwiched in wheat thins with spreadable cheese. FUCKING NOM!!!

anyway, i haven’t bought stuff randomly in a while, so that felt kinda good, and only cost $5.00 for all that (from both garage sales). yeah, garage sales! yeah, garage sales in hoquiam!

uhh and then tonight i went to a show and it was pretty funny. but first. holy crap. the middle performer, pete swanson, blew my fucking mind. he probably played like a 12-minute set, but both cole and i agreed that we were transported into some other realm devoid of time. as for me, i lost myself in that music and about 75% of the way through it discovered that i had put my arms in some weird way so that they no longer had any feeling, but it didn’t even matter. the music was so, so, so fugging amazing. it… was amazing. it’s one of the best things i’ve seen (even though i didn’t actually see it — i only heard it) in a long, long time. it was… ace. so good.

as for the headliner. i’ve got some mixed feelings about it and am not sure how i’m going to write up the review. even more importantly, though: [a] she broke a beer bottle and evidently got glass in someone’s eye and cut someone else; [b] she had come off stage and was walking around and i just happened to have started to text someone and she was walking up to me and actually saw me texting! oOps. ah, well.

moo cow.

i’m in hk and just had a quite delish dim sum lunch of mostly vegetarian proportions i think although i was insisted into eating some meat, ah, whatever. now my parents are taking care of some banking business at a bank that’s in this shopping center so i’m just sitting outside, listening to the beatles, writing my journal, and spying on random guys’ and gals’ fashion senses. so far a coupla cool ppl but it’s whatevers. i feel a bit strange being here traveling with my parents cuz i’ve done so much traveling lately but all backpacker style, and i’m simply not used to this much luxury. it’s kinda weird and while it’s nice to kinda get pampered, i can’t wait to get to korea and see xtra large and live life like a normal person (or a normal ME, at least). i wonder why the struggle of kinda being working class is so appealing to me… maybe because i didn’t grow up with it. don’t entirely get why it makes me uncomfortable. not that i don’t like nice things or spend money on them cuz i do. i guess i just prefer that they are instrumental in some way to furthering knowledge… computers, cameras, books will do that and i’ll spend money on them. but not on fancy hotels or clothes, no no.

so much so much.

I’m watching… “Australia”, cause my roommate rented it. It’s um… interesting.

00:25 on June 24th, 2009
So much to write up, but feeling much too lazy to do it all :L I’m writing this well after the fact. But whatever. These events took place June 12th to June 15th… ish.

Saturday, June 13th
Got a ride down to the Olympic Peninsula with some Couchsurfers who were silly as fuck and seriously paid $200 to rent a vehicle for two days!! WTF!! I only paid them $20… cause it was just too expensive… as I was leaving, I unfortunately left my camera in their godamn car. I called them and told them to hold onto it. Later, upon returning, I discovered that they’d lost it… and that they were splitting payment for a new one for me… so I had to pay for 1/3 of a new one. Kinda sucks cause I woulda liked to you know… not pay for any… but I left it in their car… although it was stupid that they lost it. Someone must have taken it. Who could have taken it? Nick, one of the CSers, was super communicative though, so I appreciate that. :L

When we got to near where Josh and Regina were, near Dosewallips State Park, I told them they could drop me near the side of the road, and they’re like, “REALLY?!!!” but it was fine… I got dropped off near this jerky truck!! I was hoping to go to the store to get some food but there was no freaking places open even though it was mid-afternoon.

Jerky truck!!

Campsite homebase at Dosewallips State Park in Brinnon, Washington. Josh and Regina picked me up from where I was dropped off, and then by the time we got back, food was READY. Clam bake and potatoes with carrot mix stuff. Pretty good And very plentiful.

I took a lotta pics of the fire cause it looked so awesome while it was burning…!! It’s crazy how different it looks while burning and after. Silly as that may sound.

Campfire nighttime action! This evening, I got to chop firewood for the first time ever. SO FUN. SO FUN. But so much harder than it looks!! But I made a little fan torch thing at one point, simply because I couldn’t chop in the same godamn spot and kept chopping a new spot every swing til there were like 25 unique cuts. Haha.

Josh and Regina, in TRIPPY mode!!

Part fire, part sky. While around the campfire, Josh told us some interesting military strats for stuff, such as “running the rabbit,” which is like, when you’re in a school and you have doors on all the sides and a door down the end of the hall… and that running the rabbit is letting the lowest-rank guy run down the hall at full speed so that the people behind him can come out and shoot anyone who pops his head out wondering why some dude is running down the hall. Pretty smrt.

Oh yeah. How could I forget? Some lady… who was kinda weird… came over from the adjacent campsite and was like asking if she could have some wood to burn, and we said okay, and then she came over later and asked if she could sit down because she had “nothing else to do.” We were reluctant to answer, and she was like, “You all are probably wondering who is this strange lady!” but despite saying that, she didn’t leave or get the message. Eventually, Josh told her to sit down. Sat down she did. Initially she was tolerable, although just kinda off… at one point, her friend called, and she said, “I’m sitting with a bunch of Chinese people,” which is a funny assumption to begin with, and I guess someone on the phone said something along the lines of, “Is anyone hitting on you?” and she said, “No one’s hitting on me,” and I said, “I’m hitting on you,” and she laughed, and told the person on the phone that I’d said that, and that I was cute. LOL. Later, she got off the phone and started being all demanding, telling Regina that the allergies she has are not “really” allergies because this lady KNOWS bad allergies cause she has bad allergies… and she no longer has allergies this late into the year, so Regina’s allergies must not be allergies, either. Silly sauce. And then she’s like demanding we put more wood on the fire even though we didn’t want to… soon, Josh and Regina head to the bathroom because they want to get ready for bed. She excuses herself and says she’s going to go to the bathroom. We assume the camp bathroom. Josh comes back from the camp bathroom and sees her near his car and asks her what she’s doing. Evidently, she’s peeing. Right next to his car. Her mother, who was supposedly “sleeping”, hears the commotion from her tent and immediately starts calling for this lady to go back to their tent. She must’ve been eavesdropping the whole time!!!

Sunday, June 14th

Woke up at around 11:00am. I pulled some charcoal out of the fire and was drawing on random things while we were waiting around doing nothing. This is what I came up with… hopefully it’ll make someone think twice. I dunno why I picked that message, but whatever.

Worshing of feets.

We went clamming, which I’d never done before. But it was not very fun at all… I just pretty much took a lot of pics while everyone else digged. I dug for like… 20 minutes until I found one live clam, and then I called it quits. Not cause it was tiring, but it’s pointless. And frankly, digging them up doesn’t make me want to eat them. Going clamming made me want to try being a vegetarian again.

“I’m awesome.”

Digging, digging, digging.

Look at all those poor oysters and clams :/

Soon, Lenny appeared after taking FOREVER because he decided to take the ferry instead of just driving around (n00b mistake). He was excited, as always, by the crabb0rts.

Shortly after clamming and stuffing our faces with junk food Josh and Regina had brought, we started to drive northwest over to where Hurricane Ridge is. We’d be camping at Heart O’ The Hills for the evening, right next to Port Angeles. I didn’t take any pictures of Port Angeles cause I’m a noob. We went back to town after settling into our campsite because Lenny wanted a steak. SICKO. We also had some leftover hot dogs and zucchinis and stuff that Josh and Regina had given us… so we grilled that over an open fire… which caused the steak to “supposedly” be one of the tastiest steaks Lenny has ever made (yo no lo probe), but these zucchini and mushroom skewers we made (using tent stakes) turned out to be covered with soot since it was an open fire and there was no tinfoil. Pretty much uneatable, although I wiped them down with wet rags. But haha. They were like, BLACK! On all surfaces!!

Heart O’ The Hills campsite!

Monday, June 15th
The next morning, we got up early to drive to the freaking Hurricane Ridge which is supposed to be “the best thing to see,” say some lazy peoples.

Awesome car on the side of the road. I WANT EET.

The top of Hurricane Ridge was pretty nice, I reckons. Very crisp.

This thing was a major WTF. A good idea, but have you ever SEEN such a thing?!

Mountains and glaciers.

So the coolest part was this big block of unmelted snow and the reflections it was casting in the parking lot. We also kept running into German couples, from Germany, and all of them were there independently. Like, seriously, four different groups of German tourists — neither of whom had run into each other. I can always identify Germans right away, which totally throws them off-guard. Haha.

This dog (which belonged to a German couple) LOVED the snow SO SO SO SO much.

The awesomeness.

Mountains and sky, oh me, oh my.

We were pretty much purposely taking glamour pics.

Lenny enjoying the snow. I wasn’t enjoying it, though, because I had no socks on and the shoes I had on were terrible for walking in the snow… so I boycotted a walk-in-the-snow hike although it woulda been really cool, I’m sure. :{

Its’a me! Vee!

Next stop: a campsite on the beach, and whatever stops we wanted to make on the way.

Including this stop at a Humane Society… there were only cats, though, and it smelled like shite balls, and also, Lenny got like immediate allergies from being in there for less than five minutes.

I loved these weeds growing out of these old toilet bowls. Loved them.

On the way, we stopped by the town of Forks, which is now a major tourist attraction despite its out-of-the-way location. The reason? The vampire book, Twilight, is based there. And people are obsessed with that shite.

LOL.

LOL. (And my clothes are terrible.)

LOL. Guest book in one of the (many) Twilight shops.

All these were from ONE DAY. And one of the previous pages, too. INSANE. Read the last entry. It’s hilarious. Coming out of this shop made me feel SOOO weird about life, like I was in some movie, some corny b-rated horror movie where vampires exist and are seen as superstars and everyone wants to be a vampire because it’s so glorified and they’re so cool. That’s what I feel like in these twilight-themed stores. It’s so trippeh.

LOL. LOLOLOLLOOLOLOLOLOLOL. In the giant supermarket place.

LOL.

On the way to the Kalaloch beach campsite, where we would be staying for the evening, we passed the Hoh Rain Forest. We went to the campsite first and then drove the 20 or 30 miles back to the Hoh Rain Forest to scope it out. It’s only a partial rain forest, but that’s okay. It was a beautiful time of day… and we went on a pretty brief, one mile hike.

Me and a HUGE Sitka Spruce.

Mossy McMoss.

There was this awesome swamp-like thing. Probably my favorite part, honestly. It was so beautiful, especially since we were there during the witching hour!

On our one mile long hike or whatever, we saw these nifty trees… there’s four trees growing out of this one fallen one! Actually, there were five, but the last one wouldn’t fit in this freaking shot.

I just looooove how the vegetation grows up the side of this fallen log bridge. Some lady stopped us and asked if we’d seen these clear crane flies that are supposed to look like little puffs of dust. We did not.

Best. Phone. Booth. Ever.

On the hurried drive home, because we wanted to catch sunset on the beach.

Kalaloch Beach. We were afraid we wouldn’t make it all the way to our campsite, so we pulled over on the side of the road and found a way down to the beach through the fallen rocks. It was fucking gorgeous, I gotta tell you. That kind of beach… makes me able to like beaches. Not your typical touristy stuff… but just beautiful, beautiful flat, fine sand… AMAZING. I want to go back. I aim to go back. This summer. Soon.

There were all these super round rocks that were strangely out of place… like river rocks, but flatter and perfectly round. They were AMAZING. You can sample what they look like in the message some random people wrote above.

Lenny chasing after seagulls.

Fallen tree Looks like it’s growing out of the sand kinda.

<img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_RqrWKVC07xM/SkE6nUS-rpI/AAAAAAAAR5E/E5jCRoX-9_c/s576/DSC_0767.JPG"
My favorite picture from the trip. So untainted. So few people on that beach to spoil it. Fucking. Amazing.

By later in the night, like 10:00pm, the sheer number of seagulls had multiplied x 100,000 and they were fucking dominating the seaside. It was crazy!

Dinner this evening consisted of this instant pasta stuff, some sauteed pea sprouts (which were harvested by Regina’s friends at the riverbank and were REALLY good), and a hot dog dribbled with cheese. So delishhhh. Eating like pros. Not enough exercise on this camping trip, though. Too much eating.

Chez Lenny.

The end.

los angeles, day five — valentine’s day with friends?!

The next day, I sat around home for a while while Jeanette took her car to the shop to get it fixed. She ended up having to change her tires! Aiee!

Meanwhile, Claire picked me up, and we walked around Melrose.

Neckface!

Einstein says, “Love is the answer!”

Barack, Hilary, and John!! Clown-like!

Mao’s Kitchen is more a cafe than a Chinese Restaurant, although they serve some pseudo-Chinese food.

Rhino shoes? Well, alriiiighty then.

That evening, Claire, Phil, Jeanette, and I went to eat at some Persian restaurant. I got a really tomato-y dish. It was goot. And there was some good conversation! I miss hanging out with Phil Wu. He makes me crack up. He was reading or reciting something, and I told him to do it with a British accent, and to my surprise, he actually did. It was like, hilarious. Dinner was a fun and random sampling of assorted foods. Woot! Jeanette’s chicken was sooooo delicious.

That evening, we went to an Anavan show at the Smell. We got there early, and Jeanette wasn’t aware that it was an all-ages venue with no alcohol, so we had to go get her alcohol. She wanted to take me next door to the Edison, but my tennis shoes would not suffice. Instead, we walked down a couple blocks to another bar…

As soon as we got there, and Jeanette was at the bar, she started talking to a gay couple, and soon they became our brand new buddies from Kansas City. They started off by saying that everyone in Los Angeles was really mean compared to how nice everyone was in Kansas City. Then they said that they had gotten beat up before by like 6 other dudes (3 of whom went to jail?) for being gay, and that everyone in their town knew everyone, but that didn’t make them want to leave. They were pretty funny. I liked the blonde guy. He reminds me of someone… somewhere… I don’t remember who… and I don’t remember where… they were also talking about how the black guy could adequately pretend that he wasn’t gay, but the other one, who was flaming, obviously couldn’t. Heh.

Afterwards, we went back to The Smell, which I had wanted to go to for a long time because I’d heard such good things about it, and lots of bands like HEALTH and No Age had gotten their start there. Anavan’s show was EGGCELLENT, but not as good as last year’s SxSW showcase was. I actually liked the last band, Extreme Animals, surprisingly, better than Anavan, though. Although their music was like happy hardcore crap I don’t usually like, it was a lot more layered and so technically proficient since they were making it live right there. The crowd was also full of youngsters, but it was cool, because they were all really energetic and dancing their asses off. Pictures didn’t come out so well. The venue also had like a zine rack and a book rack — both of which were really cool additions. The end. Valentine’s Day with friends. Wee!

yoga flame!

I’m watching… Sleepless in Seattle. After all the hub-bub, I finally decided to watch this movie since it was streaming on Netflix. Well, thus far, 85% through the movie, it’s fucking terrible and ridiculous. I mean, I guess it’s okay if you believe in true love and “fate” and “destiny” and all these silly ideas, but I don’t, so I think it’s silly

I went to my second yoga class today, and it was kind of fun. I was skeptical at first (last week), but now I can solidly say I like it. It’s very relaxing and you feel nice afterwards. I went snowboarding yesterday as well, so I was super sore today, so I couldn’t do all the moves in yoga, but the moves I could do were quite very comfortable and helpful to my recovery. Stretching and deep breathing and what not.

Anyway, Micah came up for the past couple days and we hung out. The first day he came back, we went to eat at Purple Dot, and he hasn’t eaten much Chinese food particularly, so he thought it was pretty good. I mean, Purple Dot is the shit, so yeah. That’s about all we did that evening.

The next day, we went snowboarding at Alpental in Seattle, and it was EXCELLENT. There was fresh snow and sunshine. I couldn’t have asked for better conditions. That being said, some wax for my board would have been nice. But at least it wasn’t icy, which Alpental has been every other time I went. It wasn’t so bad. Maybe my snowboarding skills got better, or the powder helped. I don’t know. It’s actually kind of frustrating because it feels like from year to year, I never really improve in snowboarding, but what-in-the-fuck-ever. Micah is quite good at snowboarding and did all sorts of tricks and twirls and jumped off of some mini cliffs. Ha. Oh yeah, prior to snowboarding, cause we got there a bit early, we stopped by the outlets in North Bend, and I bought a Volcom thermal for $10 because the outlets are having major sales cause no one is buying shit.

That night, driving back was quite very miserable cause I was totally braindead from one of the most painful times snowboarding I’ve been on in a while. But it was worth it. I went home, took a shower, and then we headed to Scarecrow cause we were going to rent “They Came.” Instead, I got a Chinese movie, “Mr. Vampire,” and Micah chose “The Toxic Avenger.” We also spent some time looking in the Drugs sections of the movies, and then checked out the Shock section, with faces of death and stuff, and then the somewhat Erotic section (but tame), which for some reason had a TON of films centered around Nazi Germany and erotica. Like… at least 20 titles with names like “SS Babes” — it was ridiculous. And then I saw a section called “Naked Sports,” and I just HAD to look. The best one? Naked Bowling Party! These were like videos put out by Hustler and crap. Another couple came by and also had a good laugh about it, and together we discussed fun porno crap. There were some vintage pornos with very busty and large babes, which was pretty interesting. I’d like to see one of those sometime.

Anyway, after that, we went to Umi Sake House and gorged on fucking deliciousness, and then watched “The Toxic Avenger,” which started off really great but turned just mediocre. And Micah, as always, fell asleep. Ass. I’m quite good at dating dudes who fall asleep a LOT.

And today, we basically just went to walk around Pike’s Place… and that’s about it! And then Micah was back off to Portland, after I had a talk with him about long-distancing not working out so savvy. Amongst other things. Ultimately, we get along very well, but his maturity level is, at the moment, not at a level that I can really stand. Not looking to babysit, yo.

Below: Micah at Umi Sake House.

sometimes, life feels legitimately good.

Like right now!

I was a bit skeptical about hanging around in the Bay Area for an extra three days, but since my parents seemed like they really wanted me to hang around and paid for the additional $60 Southwest Airlines ticket for me to return to Seattle on Monday morning instead of Friday morning, I just said, OK. And you know what? I’m surprisingly glad I did hang around. As a result of hanging around, I have managed to accomplish the following (instead of sitting at home on my ass, even though sitting at home on my ass also probably would have meant playing some muthafuckin’ Left4Dead!!!):

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23RD, 2008

DOING JACK SHIT!
Yeah! Arrive in SF. I don’t know what the fuck I did today. What the fuck did I do? Probably NOTHING.

***

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24TH, 2008

DOING JACK SHIT!
Yeah! Arrive in SF. I don’t know what the fuck I did today. What the fuck did I do? Probably NOTHING.

***

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25TH, 2008

MEETING UP WITH ALLEN MA!
Since I had a car this day as my dad was out of town, I drove into San Francisco to eat dinner with Allen Ma. But he had a deadline, as he works at a cellphone game company, so I had to wait like an hour and a half before he actually got off work. I attempted to pay for meters but holy shit. 25 cents for FIVE MINUTES. Can you believe that?!!! CAN YOU REALLY?!!! It’s positively insane! I ended up going to Border’s and spending a little bit of money buying Christmas presents and crap. BLARGHHHH!!!

EATING AT THE FANCIEST SUSHI KAITEN RESTAURANT EVER!
We went to Japantown for sushi when he was off work and there are a million sushi restaurants there, but we finally decided on Isobune. Isobune is the finest kaiten restaurant dining experience I’ve experienced. Wow. ~__~ Great sentence. It’s sushi boats, but they’re like… really good cuts of fish. For good reason, I suppose, because you’re paying regular restaurant prices. Not cheap restaurant prices, either. The minimum plate I think was $2.25? Maybe? Not cheap at all. But delicious. I had ama ebi and some other crap and they were all delicious. The king crab nigiri cost I think $8.00!?!! Holy.

PLAYING FUN IPHONE GAMES!
We went back to Allen’s apartment and I pretty much played his phone games for an hour. The games his company makes for iPhone, that is. I forget the names. But they were fooking amazing. Really fun ~__~ Makes me want to have an iPhone… almost.

GOING TO A DRAG SHOW!
I picked Jeanette up from the Oakland airport when it was time, and we headed over to the Stud in San Francisco to see their weekly Tuesday night drag show. It was awesome! Let me recall the acts. They were ALL trannies btw, in various stages of transexualness, but Allen and Jeanette would scarcely believe it. LOL. Here they were in order-ish.

1) Larger guy in woman’s business suit type attire. Funny but pretty boring. Good personality, though, and looking at his jolly ass face made me jolly.
2) Host, who I loved. Goth/industrial type styled crossdressing dude who was pretty much hot as a man and as a woman. Right up my alley. Some corny jokes, but amusing enough. Sang, pretty well, but melancholy.
3) One that totally looked like a woman, who Allen and Jeanette still maintain was a woman, but that makes ZERO sense. Also doubled up as a host. She did a silent act, with a chair and a cigarette. Good facial expressions.
4) My favorite, a dude dressed up as a woman with this long rainbowish dress and long hair in two brown buns on the top of the head. Really messy. Really dude-ish. Did this really awesome lipsync that was perfectly synced with the music and was about snakes or something. At some point pulled out a box of dog food and chomped it down, spraying food and lipsyncing… IT WAS SO AWESOME. I wished Jeanette had gotten a video of it it was so so so great. But unfortunately not. I am sad about this. It was seriously so great.
5) Another one that totally looked like a woman, tall and black, with a really good female-ish voice. Really fucking hot. I am a fan. REALLY hot.
6) Another crossdressing dude. Lipsyncing act. I don’t really remember this part, unfortunately.
7) Fully surgerized guest who Jeanette and Allen thought was a woman. Totally was a man, though, and a really hot man. Lipsynced and danced around for a really long mixtape session. Got kinda boring, but she was pretty fucking hot. Woulda been a hot man as well.

When in San Francisco!

***

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27TH, 2008

EATING HOT POT WITH THE PARENTALS!
That’s about it, really. Roxanne and Phil came over. We ate hot pot. We watched a weird ass super artsy Chinese movie. Very artsy but made ABSOLUTELY no sense. Haha.

***

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28TH, 2008

GOING BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING? HELLZ YEARER! FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, IT WAS EXCITING!
I woke up at 9:00am and went shopping with my mother on Black Friday and receive $115~ worth of free clothing. I was certainly prepared to pay for the stuff (and I would have bought less stuff), but my mom was like, “When you go shopping with me, I’ll pay for it!” and I said, “HAIL YEAH!” Of the aforementioned $115~ of clothing is: 1) A pair of black corduroy-ish black pants for $19.99; 2) A pair of grey and black leopard print pants for $19.99; 3) A grey and black zebra-print (I really like patterns) zip-up sweater — I mean literal knit sweater — with hood, by Fox, with neon yellow trim that is pretty much my new favorite article of clothing ever for $49.99; 4) A super warm quilted Hurley plaid purple and grey hoodie, like a Matix Asher hoodie, that I had really wanted to purchase before when it was $65.00, which I deemed to be too expensive, but now it was on sale for just $30.00!!!!; and 5) A dark green and black plaid mini skirt from H&M that I have wanted for a while for $19.99 (this I paid for myself).

During this excursion, I discovered that, WOW, MALL FASHION HAS FINALLY ALIGNED WITH MY TASTES IN CLOTHING! I had actually previously thought it a terrible thing that my tastes in clothing NEVER aligned with mall fashion, cause there was never any way for me to find clothing I actually liked. But now that it actually lines up, the dilemma, as stated by Alex, is this: maybe before I had my unique fashion style going on, at the cost of not being able to find clothes I like in most stores… but now I just look like everyone else. Shit. Dilemmas.

MEETING NEW PEOPLE, SEEING OLD PEOPLE, AND LISTENING TO BANDS IN SAN FRANCISCO!
On Friday evening, I picked up Xinlei and Isabel from Xinlei’s house so we could go to San Francisco. I left the house at 8:00pm, and my parents were amazingly receptive and non-questioning of this behavior. It’s like shit! They finally see me as a somewhat grown up. Well, maybe a little bit only. But still! Holy shit! I haven’t seen Isabel since high school, literally, and we were never really close in high school anyway (maybe just a couple sentences), so that was most interesting fo sho. We drove, and got slightly lost, but thankfully Xinlei’s phone’s GPS saved us, and we got to this dive bar in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District called the Hemlock Tavern. A really good dive bar, in fact, and quite populated with humans, AND WITH A FREE JUKEBOX!!!!! Unfortunately, I did not get to make use of this free jukebox Failure!! Mr. Allen Ma met us there. Hoorah.

Our primary reason for going to the Hemlock was to see Mr. Jesse Dienner’s band, Room For A Ghost, play. It was a double perk for me, as I have never met Jesse, despite the fact that he has written for me for REDEFINE for probably more than a year now. Apparently he was going to attempt to greet Nick (see below)’s girlfriend with a British accent, and he would have done the same to me, but he didn’t know that I was going til it was quite obviously too late! His band was actually really REALLY good, though, and the way they worked their song transitions into one another made the show definitely more cohesive and epic. It was good. I had the feeling like I had when I was watching Battles. Maybe I don’t see bands like this enough, but I was fully captivated by their live show. Absolutely. The recordings I’m not sure about yet, but the live show definitely had me HOOKED, which is a great sign considering it was the first time I’d ever heard them. It was also REALLY obvious that all of them were amazingly good musicians, and Jesse had really freaking good stage presence. Haha. Interesting movements haha.

Anyway, I also met Nick Hubbard’s girlfriend there, if only briefly! I guess I could have maybe eventually done this in Seattle as he and she live there, but maybe not. It was just interesting seeing him in California considering, well, I usually only see him in Seattle?!

As for the two other bands who played with Jesse’s band… they were interesting. The second band, Aunt Dracula, according to my notes, had a song that reminded me of “galloping cowboys” — although with a spastic, kind of retardedly strange vocalist. I hated the music, but rather enjoyed the performance because it was so bizarro world. It was amazing to me that there were four guys who saw eye-to-eye on that kind of strange, strange, hard to fathom music.

The third band, Her Three Eyes, was initially my bag of chips, at least in the way that it reminds me of Neon Blonde and Duchess Says. I had high expectations for them, and all that, but they quickly turned to shit throughout their set. It was a downwards spiral. By the middle of the first song, I was thoroughly all bout it. By the last song, I could hardly stand them. Redundancy galore, both in vocals and in music. BORING. Even despite the fact that the type of music they play should NEVER be considered BORING. UNFORTUNATE-O!!

One of Jesse’s friends who was there, named Josh Hug (literally, his last name is hug), turned out to be quite similar to me in terms of liking to do weird people interaction type stuff, so I told him to join me in my “Talk To Us” project, and then we made time to DO SO!!!! He said the coolest thing he and his friend had done was to challenge random groups of strangers to play TABOO! (one of the best board games ever), and I guess that worked out well well well and he had done it three times but only been rejected once every time before finding a group of 2-4 that was willing to play with them. Coolio.

EATING AT MEL’S DINER AND NEARLY DYING DUE TO FOGGINESS!
After the show, Isabel, Xinlei, Allen, and briefly Josh went to Mel’s Diner, where stuff was REALLY WEIRDLY PRICED! Their menu had like prices like $1.66 and $3.28, etc. etc. Initially Xinlei thought that maybe it was cause shit included tax in it, but it turned out it didn’t, so we were all very confused as to why that was. The conclusion was that it was done on purpose to confuse consumers into purchasing more expensive things. YEAH. The food was American diner food. AKA lamesauce. Oh well. Isabel paid $7.00 for a fucking grilled cheese sandwich and a couple of fries. Haha!

The trip back with Xinlei and Isabel was interesting, with Isabel giving a monologue about true love. I found it to be a bit idealistic, but I’m cynical when it comes to that whole love thing (cynical and still somewhat a believer), so I was rendered pretty speechless. Not to mention it was late. And REALLY fucking foggy. Like REALLY foggy. At some points we could NOT see more than like, thirty feet in front of us. Or less. I’d say less. Practically like ten. It was crazy!!! Luckily we all made it home okay. And pretty much once I got into Livermore city limits — and I’m not exaggerating really — the fog cleared up magically, 100-freaking-%.

***

(On a side note, it’s currently 2:05am on Sunday night, November 30th, and Kyle Parsons just called me. He’s one of my writers from Southern California who’s this like total scene / MySpace kid kinda. Very amusing, though, because for some reason he always calls me when he’s drunk and relates these random ass stories to me. Haha.)

(Lately, I’ve been talking on the phone a lot more, too, and man, I miss it. I like talking on the phone quite a bit. I’d forgotten.)

(I’m going to finish this post tomorrow. More later. )

***

Hey, I’m finishing this post, like a week later, but that’s okay, right?!

***

I’m listening to… These Arms Are Snakes’ Easter album. Their show is next Friday. Hollllllllar.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29TH, 2008

BEING STRANDED WITHOUT A CAR IN LIVE-NO-MORE!
I woke up this morning without a vehicle because my dad’s vehicle had been taken to the Lexus dealership to be fix0red and my mom was driving him somewhere or they went somewhere and they had to use the CRV that I usually drive. Oh wells. Jesse and Josh texted me early in the morning and I was like, “Whoa, I like need to go and do stuff with them but I don’t have a car,” and then I remembered that Xinlei was going to the city for the day and wondered, was she still going? Could she take me? Turned out she was going to laze out and was no longer going to go, but she agreed to pick me up in my backassbackwards house location anyway and she brought me to the BART station, like a good ol’ sugar mommy. So I got to the BART station and continued to pass the fuck out until I arrived in Oakland (with the exception of the time between one transfer because Pleasanton BART only goes to San Francisco and not Berkeley or Oakland). I was supposed to meet Josh in Berkeley, formerly known as Berzerkeley, but decided to meet him in Oakland’s 12th Street exit instead because…

RIDING A MUTHAFUCKIN MOPED FOR THA FIRST MUTHAFUCKIN TIME, YO!
I was going to ride on Josh’s muthafuckin moped! After I hopped on and declined to wear the helmet that covered the entire face — because it felt claustrophobic — and instead going for the one that a soldier might wear, although not quite, it’s just that it’s half the head, we took off! Initially, it was a little scary and I was holding on for almost dear life. Well, I mean, not that extreme, but both hands were definitely feeling the need to hold onto something. But that soon passed and over time 25mph no longer felt like 80mph and moving on with life felt easier. I mean it probably woulda been faster had I just taken the BART to Berkeley, but I thought, hey, why not, this is my chance to ride a moped. Of course, after I hopped on the moped, Josh casually remarked that he didn’t have his license, nor insurance, oh BOY! Sounds great! That made things so much more funner!!!

As we were riding down Telegraph, we passed a candy store, and this Asian boy outside was waving around a sign that said, “FREE CHOCOLATES” and he was occasionally quietly yelling (yes, quietly yelling, seriously) “free chocolates”. We passed him and decided to bust a U, which turned out to be an ultra long U-busting as it was actually three right turns around a city block, and then, six speedbumps later, we fell into the arms of the McDonald’s parking lot which was next door to the chocolate place. We hopped off, locked up, and headed into the land of free chocolates. Josh was first, and he asked the Asian kid what the password was to get free chocolates, and the kid said something which I forget. He opened the door to go inside the shop, but he didn’t hold the door for me, and had the dude who was coming out of the shop not caught it for me, evidently it would have slammed into my face! The black lady working in the chocolate shop was none too fond of this, and when Josh said the “password” to her, she was like, “What the fuck?” because to anyone who had not heard his conversation with the Asian kid, it wouldn’t have made any sense. She then continued to rebuke him for not holding the door open for me (I’m not sure if it was because I am a woman or because people should just hold doors open for one another, but I assume the former). He didn’t understand the argument, though, and proceeded to talk to her about how he thought that the door was a good door and that it seemed like the type that would stay open on its hinge rather than the type that would close immediately. He in fact said, “good door,” in those exact words, I believe. The lady then told me I should move to Seattle, where people, I assume, are gentlemen. I said, “Fancy that, I live in Seattle!” Well, maybe I didn’t say, “Fancy that,” but if I didn’t, I should have. But after being rebuked, we talked about the awesome wallpaper the place had, that the lady pointed out wasn’t actually wallpaper, but paint with sand blasted vintage Victorian designs. The wall was original, from the 1930s, and evidently the place had originally been a ice cream parlor. A confectionery, for all these years! Fantasmic! That being said, I can’t remember for the life of me the name of the place, and with those free places, it’s always scary because you feel bad for not buying anything even though you’re taking their candy… especially when you know the place is just a small mom and pop shop, or something similar to that… :[

On a side note, I am feeling quite humorous and I quite enjoy this current rambling style. D:

TALKING TO RANDOM HUMAN BEINGS AT THE ENTRANCE OF UC BERKELEY!
Last time I did "Talk To Us" in Berkeley, I was with Mr. Aaron Bruner, and a lot of the questions we got were, "How do you know each other?" We did not get it this time. In fact, this time was quite unlike any other time I've done "Talk To Us," I think primarily because Josh himself talks a lot and therefore the people we talked to talked LESS. I don't know. It was interesting because usually there's an equal amount of give and take, it seems, but not this time. Usually there is also at least a couple really interesting folk, but this time there was maybe one that was more interesting, but everyone else was... I wouldn't say run-of-the-mill but certainly not SUPER interesting. :/ But more about the "Talk To Us" session in a later post. I need to put up my social experimentation website ASA-FUCKING-P! I am slacking on writing up my "Talk To Us" sessions. Writing just seems to take too much time lately, even though I type tons of words per minute. Godamnit.

MEETING UP WITH NICK AND GRETA AND JESSE!
So Nick, Greta, and Jesse went to breakfast/lunch that morning and then went to Amoeba records, where Nick and Greta purchased probably a million records. Then they met up with us at the entrance of the UC Berkeley Campus and hung out for a wee bit, but then they had to move on to bigger and maybe better things, like unloading band equipment at a coffee shop, yay?!

EATING REALLY CHEAP INDIAN FOOD THAT WAS PRETTY DELICIOUS!
Josh suggested we eat at this one Indian restaurant that was on Telegraph not too far away. We walked there and he walked his moped on the sidewalk, receiving a couple of weird glances from jackasses, but for the most part, it was a-OK. By the time we got there, Jesse, who was the only one meeting us for dinner, had not yet finished unloading. He stopped by, picked us up, and brought us to the coffee shop where his bandmate Mike worked and where they practiced. They practiced in a grungy old basement with mold spores, yay! Making rock n' roll HAPPEN, sons! Mike knew my name for some reason. He was like, "Vi... vian...?" and I was like, "M... att? Wait... Mike?" Oops! Not like I'd met him, though. Helped unload equipment and then we went off to get Indian food! I ordered some Palak Paneer, mmm! For $4.99!!! So cheaps! Although the naan to go with it was $1.00 or something. But still a good godamn deal.

PLAYING TABOO WITH A RANDOM STRANGER!
As we were eating, I asked Josh if he'd brought Taboo like he said he would the previous night, because he likes challenging random people to play Taboo. He said, "I did!" and proceeded to bust it out, and we saw this girl on the table behind me / across from Jesse and Josh, and invited her over to our table, yarr. She was eating by herself. Her name was... Lisa? Crap, I forget. She was youngish, I think a Sophomore in college, religious but not religious. She had a class ring from her Catholic high school which looked dope, it was this Victorian looking ring of the purple sacred heart or whatever. Much better looking than those godamn ugly ass football ring type shits. She said she wanted to move to some Mennonite community at some point or something? She currently lives on a hippie farm? Interesting. She didn't come off as a hippie whatsoever, but she wanted to live in yurts and things in case of an apocalypse. Interesting. It's funny, cause everyone kept talking about themselves, and they would say what they did for a living, and I'd say what I did for a living, and I'd always forget to bring up REDEFINE, and Jesse and Josh would always be like, "What about REDEFINE? That's the most interesting first impression type thing you could say," and I'm like. Hmm, good point, why have I not thought of this?!

Anyway, we ate dinner and shot the shit and then decided to finally play Taboo. Josh and Lisa? were on the same team and Jesse and I were on the same team. It's funny, playing Taboo, cause it really gives you a good idea of how people's brains work. Well I mean, at least a little. People just describe things so differently. Jesse and I worked together pretty well I think, and towards the end we would average 4-5 points per round consistently, I think, even though initial rounds were kinda mediocre. I think I am quite pro at Taboo actually, or at least I was that evening... at least for the describing part, not for the guessing part. I suck at that. Josh and Lisa? were interesting because they would describe things in such a roundabout fashion. Guess brains just have to sync up or something. I don't know. I was looking at Lisa?'s cards and some of them I could come up with ways to describe stuff really easily and she would use words and thought directions that I'd never even thought of, or she'd be at a loss for words. QUE INTERESANTE. Anyway. I'm rambling.

Josh then received a phone call from some friends who wanted to play some game where you have blank New Yorker cartoons and you have to fill in the captions and a judge judges who came up with the best captions. He and Lisa? went. On his moped. Without his license. Without his insurance. At least there were helmets (turns out the one I wore was found... somewhere).

BEING DRIVEN HOME BY JESSE AND CHECKING OUT HIS PAD!
Mr. Jesse offered to drive me home and I did not refuse because otherwise it woulda been a bitch anyway. There was Poker Night going on at my brother's house and I was carless, so someone -- my brother or Roxanne -- woulda have had to pick me up anyway. I stopped by his place because he had to pick up some stuff before we headed back. He has a NICE ass apartment. I was extremely impressed. He lives by himself and there's a million things to look at and it's spotless and every room has "alternative lighting" which he just rigged up... either you can use the regular lighting or use like, red lights, or blue lights... he has a basketweave Victorian kissing chair, which is kinda shaped like an S, where the two seats face opposite directions so both people can turn to their lefts and kiss each other. Also a buncha interesting posters and a fancy office space and fancy bedroom with red velvet curtain things. Wow, what a home. Jealous! It's like $1,200 a month or something, though. Holy crap. He also pulled out some mixtapes from really old when he pretended to be a radio DJ and spoke in between every song hahaha. Unfortunately, I didn't get to listen to them, but it sounds amazing.

Anyway, Jesse and I talked about a lotta crap on the way back, largely related to music. It's funny cause the other night Isabel and him found out they have the same taste in music and like the same bands and she was quite quite stoked on that shit! Jesse and I have quite divergent tastes I believe so we will be mailing each other care packages with music and seeing how the shit matches up. I'm interested in seeing. Haha. I think we will hate each other's music. Or at least just find it mediocre. Oh well. Nice of him to drive me, though. I also found out he does part-time promotions for Live 105.5 -- WHAT DA FECK? And that he's met all these famous people like Franz Ferdinand dudes and Nada Surf dudes and a buncha other dudes... and that he drove Moby around for a day. Da feck? Good times. My writers or bust.

PWNING NOOBS AT POKER!
So there were 10 people at my brother's for Poker Night, and I hadn't realized it, but they had totally been waiting for me to start and I was an hour+ late! Oh wells!!! Whatever! It was long long long games and not that humorous asides from the hands themselves. But there were allowed two buy-ins, with third place getting their money back, second place getting 20% of the remaining pot, and first place getting 80% of the remaining pot. I made it to the last three godamnit, but got in third place. SADFACE. But better than other things. At least there were no bigot ass dudes this time who got mad cause a girl was beating them (like happened at Lewis' apartment one time). I would have liked to win some money, though, but at least I didn't lose any money, I guess, and I didn't buy in either! I got some lucky breaks, but man. There was one hand I folded on when I should have played because I would have gotten a Full House, but I folded because I was playing conservative even though I was chip leader. After I lost that hand, I felt my luck shift, and I was thinking, "I fucked it up. I'm not going to win another hand." And I was right. I don't think I won another hand and from there I got into third. BOO URNS. By then it was much too long anyway. I don't even want to play the last three places. It was me, Robert, and some other dude who looked Viet but turned out to be Chinese. I beat his Chinese girlfriend to get into the top three. HOLLAR! Everyone else was talking mad shite the whole time, primarily to Robert, but they lost way early. Haha. Noobs.

CONNING ABEROO INTO DRIVING ME HOME!
My brother and Roxanne were feeling too lazy to drive me home even though I was stranded, so I told my brother to ask Abe if Abe would drive me home. He conceded and we chatted, yarr. Abe is my game-playing buddy even though I guess he is my brother's friend first and foremost. He is Diablo master. But now he's playing Lord of the Rings Online and I guess addicted to it. LAME!!! I like Abe... we just can't talk about anything exceedingly opinionated (at least as far as politics and ethics goes) because we differ quite a bit. But as far as regular conversation, we get along quite well. He is the only cop I really know, though! HOLLAR. Enuf.

***

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30th, 2008

MEETING JEANETTE, SHERRY, AND TIN-WIN FOR A JOLLY GOOD TIME!
We met up at Regal, of course, because we humans in the Tri-Valley area are lame as shite. Shot the shit. Went to Best Buy. Went to Barnes N Noble. Sherry, Tin-Win, and I had plans to meet Phil [N] for lunch, but Jeanette and Tin-Win were hungry, so we went to eat dim sum. Ran into Fontaine and Bonnie and her parents there. Fontaine’s mom thought I was there with my parents and was like, “Your mom didn’t go to church?” and I was like, “She did,” and she was like, “You didn’t go to church?” and I was like, “No,” and her dad was like, “Want to join us?” and I was like, “My friends are over there,” and then he said okay, and then I fleeeeeeeeeeeed. Continued to eat some dim sum, which I pretty much hate, but everyone else likes for some godforsaken reason. Then we went to Old Navy, and ran into Stephanie Gray. Last time I saw her, she was like… 4″ tall. Now she’s like. 6″ tall and beautiful and a woman. And it’s like. WTF. I FEEL OLD. WTF. YOU’RE GORGEOUS. Jeanette and I were like :0 (Sherry and Tin-Win see her sometimes).

TALKING TO PHIL [N] IS THE SAME OL SAME OL!
Then Phil [N] showed up and we decided to go to Fuddrucker’s because well, bitches didn’t want to eat a meal at a fancier place since we’d just eaten. I picked at Sherry’s salad the whole time and we also put some almonds into her fork towards the end of the meal so that all three of the holes between the prongs were filled halfway with almonds. IT WAS AWESOME!!!! Like, really awesome. Um, yeah. Phil [N] is the same ol awesomeness and his girlfriend sounds hilarious based off the stories he told about her. There were only three, but still. Twas nice to see him and to see that he is still the same good guy as before!

BEING SLIGHTED BY MY PARENTS!
So every time I go home, I try to eat meals at home as much as possible since that’s pretty much the only bonding time my parents and I share, pathetic as that sounds. But then they pull this shit. I came home at like 5:00pm and said I was going to nap FOR A LITTLE WHILE. And I wake up half an hour later and they’ve already eaten without me! WHAT THE FUCK! They always do that kinda shit. I’ll make a special effort to come home or say I’ll almost be home for dinner and they’ll have already eaten. Bastards.

And thus pretty much concludes me trip to the Bay Area. ZZZ!

an expensive SAM 75th anniversary outing (but free for us).

after work on friday, summer and i headed over to the olympic sculpture park. w00t w00t for one block walk. she’s into experimental music, so i said i’d try and get her in… under the premise that i thought i had a +1. wasn’t sure if i did. apparently i did? though? because it wasn’t a big deal at all. we just waltzed on in. no one really checked. pretty sure if you just walked in like you knew what you were doing, no one cared at all. lollercopters. they barely checked us upon walking in. some girl took a pic and gave summer a card where we could check out the pics online but i didn’t get one and i think she dropped hers T__T

ice carving of a gibson guitar!

waitress spilled some whino. made cool patterns.

free food. of the thai chicken variety. probably the best thing that was there. there were also mini veggie burgers… smoked salmon on cucumber… i would’ve liked more variety. oh well. it was free. who can complain. open bar, too, but i didn’t drink, so that is kind of a waste.

experimental orchestra with 50 local guitarists and bassists. interesting stuff. four parts. first was interesting but kinda boring and not very complicated and was more like droning with slight variations. third was the best, as it was the most experimental and had the most going on, with various sounds coming out of every nook and cranny. i thought it’d end at three but it ended on four, and by four, i don’t know if four was worse or if it just got boring by then, but four definitely did NOT hold my attention.

through all of this, though, was the awesomeness that was the conductor. totally awesome. by the way, the conductor showed up, like, ten minutes late, and everyone in the audience was sitting awkwardly, and the announcer lady who worked for SAM had no idea who he was, either… it seemed no one knew so they were kinda like, “UHHHHHHHHH… GO DRINK SOME MORE! YAY!”

FIN! to part three, i believe.

summer really liked this guy’s sweet stache and beard combo.

so during this whole one our long symphony of guitars or whatever, people were watching from up on the street because they didn’t want to pay the $175 – $250 (which is a bit ridiculous, anyhow). it’s funny, though, that they just stood the whole time, watching through the fence. good thing for most of them — as they were tall — that the fence was short!

by the time it ended, the sun had gone down. finally. initially, it was burning into the retinas. these here are food tables.

by the way they had these uber trippy “royal port-o-potties” that were pretty much just like regular toilets…… had full-blown sink with like, a plastic countertop that was made to look like granite, a mirror, a nice toilet seat, a somewhat real flusher… FREAKISH. it was driven in on a little car type thing, with two women’s rooms and one men’s room for each of them. FREAKISH.

next to the restrooms, we saw some CAKES. they had pink paper boxes full of cake but wouldn’t tell us where we could get cake. we tried to follow them briefly to the magical land of cake, but failed miserably because they would not reveal their secrets… :[

follow the pink-haired maidens…

olympic sculpture park’s new giant traffic cones. more at artandmusic.wordpress.com!!

oh by the way, dj derek mazzoni of kexp was there (i don’t know how to spell his name and i care not to look it up). probably my favorite kexp dj, as i don’t really listen to kexp much. but he’s rad.

robosapiens? who belong to…

<img src=”http://lh3.ggpht.com/veez0ri/SDJyGfm_69I/AAAAAAAAGog/gb1Wj2-rkA8/DSC_0112.JPG?imgmax=512″
… this guy? who bangs on drums and plays in front of a strobe he’s one of those street musician types, with paint cans for drums. jea jea.

oo yea, night pics of ice sculpture!!

nothing like neon strings for bling, and oh yes, it is a gibson.

more to come, sucka. eventful weekend. although i must say, upon leaving the sculpture park that evening my weekend was very unpleasant. :{

infusium 23 killeth me slowly.

i bought infusium23 conditioner not *too* long ago. the smell in the bottle is good. the aftermath of shampooing and conditioning is good… i get compliments from people saying that my hair smells nice.

LET ME TELL YOU KIDS: NICE-SMELLING HAIR COMES AT A COST!!!

so, back when i was living at the old apartment on greenwood ave. it wasn’t really a big deal… i mean, i noticed some fumes from the infusium while i was showering but nothing overwhelming or major — i noticed it primarily AFTER stepping out of the shower and being in the bathroom brushing my teeth or whatever.

now that i moved into a house that has a shower half the size or whatever…………………….. i don’t know what it is but the fumes are killing me!! KILLETHING MEEE! KILLING MEEEEE.

starting from two weeks ago, my throat began aching. i would wake up in the morning with my throat just completely burning.

one day i didn’t take a shower because, i don’t know, sometimes i do that when i know that i’m not going to leave the house for a day or whatever (yeah yeah). i noticed the next morning that my throat didn’t hurt. thought it was a little weird, but went about taking my shower. again, the throataches resumed.

so a couple days ago, i decided to conduct an experiment. i didn’t wash my hair one day, and the next day, i stole one of my roommate’s shampoos. HAHAHAHAHA (hey, it’s in the name of saving my life… it’s okay).

magically, the day after the first day of dirtiness, my throat barely hurt. today, the second day of relative dirtiness, MY THROAT DOESN’T HURT AT ALL. not at all. not a smidgen.

the feeling infusium 23 gives me when i’m in the shower is akin to something like this… have you ever decided to wash a bathtub with bleach or some other cleaning product and then accidentally turned on the hot water???? (or maybe not so accidentally, because it gets the job done faster????) well, the fumes from that shit are pretty fucking intense, let me tell you. alex knows all about this. breathe in too much of that shit and it WILL leave your lungs and your throat feeling raw for the next couple days.

that’s what infusium feels like. IT’S BAD.

BOYCOTT INFUSIUM.

or maybe who knows. one of my roommates might just be pouring bleach into my shampoo every morning. dun dun dun. it did magically start when i got HERE… HMMMMMMMMMM. INDEEEEED.

anyway, alex, lenny, and i went on this park quest this past weekend. i must share delicious pics. my house in greenlake = surrounded by parks and natury goodness. and a zoo! albeit a shitty one. a very shitty one.

i need a bike.

alex… he is enjoying the baboon much too much… T__T

“gimee yer ears!”

“respect the cock! tame the cunt!” (they made me do it… quote from “magnolia”)

i’m a regular photographer. btw, his mouth is right where my penis just was.

doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

and now, for the coup de gras…

“yee-haw!”

and now, for the coup de gras-er… to be honest, i don’t even know what that term means…

the dr. seuss-style one-eyed tree!! HE IS GOING TO GET AN EYE A’PAINTED ON ‘IM!