recap central: cross-country kamut road trip, day six: lincoln, omaha.

ACTUAL DATE OF TRAVEL: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH, 2011.
SMALL PICTURES WERE TAKEN BY ROSE ON HER IPHONE; LARGE PICTURES ARE MINE.
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LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

Woke up too late for church – which I was bummed about because, well, as I always say, “Sleep when I die, bitches!” – but went with the CS boys to Virginia’s Traveler’s Café (3820 Cornhusker Highway) – a place that apparently the locals like to go to. Make no mistake! The locals are chubbbbbbbskiiiiiinnnnns indeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed. And, as Rose noted, people fucking LOVE to wear SWEATPANTS!!!

Ostensibly, our young and agile and liberal CS hosts did not seem like the others… until… they… started… eating… Philly cheesesteaks and drinking sodas for breakfast… and that was like… whaaaat. Meanwhile, Rose had the sweetest fake strawberry-topped waffle… and I had oatmeal, with raisins, and also mixed in some peanut butter… wOooOOooOo! Different strokes!!!!!!!!! Different folks!!! Fuck American breakfast!!!! But yeah, seriously. Lots of sweatpants.

Jesse and Michael…

Funny post-meal photo of the boys… this is one of Rose’s iPhone pics, but there is a better one that she took with her film camera where they’re looking super Backstreet Boys-like.

Oh yeah, it’s worth noting that when we first got up, Rose was super tired and had no brain, and I was trying to discuss with her changing our upcoming CouchSurfing plans because she really wanted to meet the Saddle Creek people in Omaha and that would’ve only been possible if we stayed another day in Omaha. Well, ultimately, it was kind of shitty to have spent the extra day in Omaha as opposed to the infinitely more awesome Chicago, buttttttttttttt. Whatever. I was cranky about that at first, definitely, but got over it… or whatever… arghhhhh. But uh, yeah. I was being rather short with her because she seriously had NO morning brain! And I guess that’s not her fault but it was just so frustrating, haha.

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OMAHA, NEBRASKA

Anyway, the drive to Omaha is only an hour away, so we didn’t really do anything or stop anywhere. I slept the whole time. Went immediately to a coffee shop in downtown Omaha (which Rose had originally thought was a place that Delphine had suggested – only it turned out that Delphine was from LINCOLN not OMAHA, and had suggested places in Lincoln, only well, we blew it)… and worked for a couple hours. Which felt really good because it was my first time doing any work and it was long, long overdue. I was rather stressed for the majority of this trip because I really had stuff to do for the ladies at UW and no time to do it, or no internet access, and didn’t want to be the person who was constantly caught up with doing work and what not. But shit just fucking needs to be done, and sometimes it’s hard to not be given the opportunity to do the shit that needs to be done. Often I think that just because I make my own schedule or whatever it’s hard for people to understand when I do need to work because they think I’m just being like, a workaholic… but it’s not like that at all! (Though I’m not necessarily NOT a workaholic…)

ANYWAY. The coffee shop we ended up at was pretty neat. It’s called Aromas (1033 Jones St.), but I was most interested in the beans they roasted there. There one that was infused with chili pepper and dark chocolate or something? Or was it more complicated than that? In any case, it sounded good, and the espresso was REALLY fucking good, though the barista was not the most jolly dude ever.

After that, went to our CS host Bill’s house. CUUUUTE little house with lovely painted walls – which had colors he picked out, apparently. His roommates were great, particularly this one gal Alley (didn’t talk to the other dude too much). Alley had wanted to make us dinner and stuff one night but had to work so much and study so much that she didn’t really have a chance to hang out too much, which I was pretty bummed on cause she just seems hella rad.

We were going to eat dinner at this hippie-ish café, but it was closed. So we went to Mother India Tandoori Cuisine (3572 Leavenworth St.) pretty close to his house. It’s a teeny-tiny place run by a couple and really like, ghetto foreign supermarket status inside in terms of décor, though they did really love up on a good plant or two. They had plants everywhere, be it on metal exposed piping or in their crazy ass outside patio that looked pretty unsightly. But the food was amazing, and cheap, and actually came with rice included in the price! Outrageous for Indian food! Oh man, that shit was so good.

After dinner, Bill drove us downtown and we checked out this crazy vintage shop / candy shop called Fairmont. Place also has a freaking movie theatre that plays old movies for free all day which is soooo fucking rad. It has a lot of shit going on. Not really sure how much money it really makes, but I definitely bought some candy (mostly shitty peanut buttery kinds… man, I love a Chic-O-Stick), including some chocolate-covered jelly beans and some caramel apple and chocolate caramel caramel corn. FUCK, I LUBS CARAMEL CORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My sweet tooth was kiiiiiinda out of control during this trip. Not gonna lie. Anyway, the Fairmont has a pretty interesting history, which you can read about here. (SIDE NOTE: I’m at a 24-hour diner writing this right now, and they’re playing the radio with Deliliah’s show, and that shit fucking rullllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllles. I’m so tired of music lately that this is music that works. Man, it’s sad. I dunno why but this road trip kinda fucked up my mental state a LOT.)

I guess this is a Blues Brother. I’ve never actually seen that movie so I don’t have much to say about it. Bill hated the movie so he refused to take a picture with them, haha.

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Getting eaten by a hippo"]

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "I need these Omaha salt & pepper shakers" – girl was seriously obsessed with them.]

It should be noted that O! is seriously Omaha’s slogan…!!!!!!!!!!!!

Afterwards, we headed to the Homy Inn (1510 North Saddle Creek Rd.) which is honestly pretty fucking awesome. And a bunch of Bill’s friends came out and they were all really cool, though I must say that being in groups of strangers without a solid backbone friend to rely on – and by that I mean, one who socializes in a way that’s similar to how I socialize – I think I give off just the lamest first impression… because I have no interest in small talk, and would rather not talk, and therefore am quiet a lot in group settings. I also don’t talk about myself all that much, which makes it all the more difficult for starting conversations with people, particularly when the people aren’t the type to ask questions about you. I ask questions, but for the uninterested, my asking of questions can only be stretched so far. I dunno. It’s interesting. But these kinds of situations make me feel totally inferior and a bit suck, which is ultimately kind of lame.

Homy Inn has $1.00 peanuts, which they serve in dog bowls…

And so it ended. I talked to Troy outside on the phone for a long while which felt soooo great considering I was feeling sooooo weird — as well as drooled over how awesome this Saddle Creek Laundromat place looked (was totally bummed I didn’t have my camera). That evening, Rose and I shared this futon thing, even though we later discovered there was a spare bed upstairs, and I was totally bummed cause blankets kept getting stolen and Vivians kept getting pushed off. BUT WHUTEVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. SUCK IT, ME!!!!!!

recap central: cross-country kamut road trip, day five: lincoln.

ACTUAL DATE OF TRAVEL: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17TH, 2011.
SMALL PICTURES WERE TAKEN BY ROSE ON HER IPHONE; LARGE (AND NOT BLURRY) PICTURES ARE MINE.

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BETWEEN DENVER, COLORADO AND LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

I didn’t really care to take too many photos in Lincoln because the place was pretty much a wash… so these are mostly Rose’s. Say hello to Nebraska! I’ll start off by saying that Rose was HORRIBLY excited for Nebraska, as it is the land of Saddle Creek and Conor Oberst. I could really care less about these things, but for her, it was quite exciting, and she did most of the driving through Nebraska, blasting a shit ton of SC bands – and waayyyyyyyyyyy too much Bright Eyes – along the way… I should also state that Nebraskans are super prideful of being Nebraskan, and Rose made fun of this sign a lot (it is an extremely plain state-welcoming sign compared to some of the other ones) but that making fun of fell among deaf ears, or at least, ears that did not agree… I think the response Michael, our CS host in Lincoln, gave was, “But it is the good life…”

Along the way, there wasn’t much interesting stuff to eat, and I wanted some real food, so rather than getting like, a salad or whatever for the same-ish price, I just went to town on this buffet in this random gas station. I think the restaurant was called Grandma’s or some shit, and definitely the buffet was the best vegetarian option around. Buffets are, for me – master binger – just the monetarily-sound way to go. I can eat a huge buffet meal and pack it away and then I don’t have to eat dinner, and frankly, I feel better that way most of the time…

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Salad bar featuring pepperonis"]

Rose’s food – less spectacular if I do say so myself…
[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Grandma may not have veggie burgers but she's got smart balance" – apparently (I didn't hear it) lady was not stoked when Rose asked if they had veggie burgers...]

This is fucking grandma, dude, if you ever doubted her existence…

Funny picture for a burger challenge, which reads, “”Think climbing Mount Everest is a challenge Well, try this one on for size. Two pounds of ground beef on a large homemade bun topped with choice toppers. Four pounds total!!! Are you tough enough to try? If you can polish this baby off in less than an hour, we’ll give you a free shirt and hang your picture on the wall. Ya know what Andy Warhol said, “Everyone is famous for 15 minutes.” Well, here’s your chance.” YUMMMMMM! That reminds me of all the cow farms we passed on the way… I must say, though, there is a lot of grass-fed cow meat in Nebraska, or at least there is close to the highway, and it was actually getting slightly terrifying that I would be like, “MMMM! It smells good!” because the smell of grass would come wafting into the car, and then two seconds later we would pass a herd of cows, and I was just like, “Fuck!” It’s a little bit scary when cow shit apparently starts smelling really awesome…

Check out what’s considered “ethnic” food: Spaghetti & Meatballs and Nacho Supreme. Hahahahhahahahahahahah.

You can betchur buns these locals had the buffet! As I was finishing up my pretty healthy meal and getting a shit ton of brownies and ice cream for dessert, the guy behind us was like, “Ah, and here I was thinking she would be eating healthy!” He was a truck driver who was on his way back to Indiana after taking a trip to San Francisco. Guess dude does that every other week or something. He highly recommended the potato chowder, but I didn’t eat it because mmmmmehhhh. It probably had bacon in it. And I just wasn’t feeling it, in general. But nice to talk to you, dude!

Anyway… first round of foods and then the aftermath (see the brownie and ice cream action?!!!)…

Above: Love a good truck stop, dude; below: Rose taking a self-portrait because she was tired of my suck-at-posing-for-pictures ways.

Like I was saying…

I’m sure that is soooo what they want. Really, though, I don’t even think this offer is valid anymore. I think that shit be advertising for false.

Grandma’s parking lot capture which I really enjoy…

Being sad about balloons.

Oh, before we left, though… WE TOTALLY FOUND ANOTHER SINCLAIR DINOSAUR! Rose was hunting around for a person to take a photograph for us, and I wanted her to ask this dude who looked friendly and gave me a friendly smile; instead she found this dude simply because he had a nice car and he was the creepiest mofo. She was assuming her position on the dinosaur’s back, and he seriously said, “Yeah, tart it up, honey, tart it up.” UH-HUH. GOOD JOB.

I was trying to keep that broccoli stalk for a while because I’m gross. That’s about as dried out and interesting as it got. I actually really wanted to turn it into a sculptural work but it flew around the car and I forgot about it until way later on, when it changed shapes and stopped being uhhh something I really wanted to touch so much.

Anyway, there was a sign for this one place from far, far away, and like Little America, we just kept being excited to go to it. Finally, we made it… but it had closed the previous hour. FUCK. And unlike Little America, this place actually looked really fucking awesome… it was a museum of old shit that was “showing man’s progress” through the years. I mean, come on. How sick.

Anyway, along the way, we pulled down this random road to stop by a lake because the sun was coming down and Rose wanted to take some photos of some cows… On the way there, she pulled over and a truck with two dudes was coming from the opposite direction. She put on her hazards. They of course stopped to see if she needed any help. Of course she made it seem even more like we didn’t know what we were doing or where we were going by asking where the lake was though it was clearly the way we were headed. They eventually left after making small talk with her. We went to this lake that was in the middle of tons and tons of corn fields, but I got the grossest vibe from the place. Usually I don’t really get weirded out by being places, but the interaction, the isolation, the fact that we were two “ethnic” girls in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska (not even off a major freeway, but a farm thoroughfare freeway) just made me really paranoid and we only walked a little distance before I mentioned that we should just go. Snapped a couple shots (below) but mostly just ducked out of there. It just reminded me too much of when Lenny and I were in Montana and Native Americans almost ran us over with their truck.

Rose is kinda eternally hungry or at least needs to snack a lot more than I do, and we stopped by this AMAZING Mexican restaurant in po-dunk nowhere (Hastings, Nebraska). The restaurant chain is called El Puerto, and it was fucking delicious, and the service was top-notch… maybe even above-and-beyond x 10,000 with younger, fairly good-looking Mexican waiters… yeeeaaah, it was interesting. Guess they have restaurants in Kansas, too.

—

LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

Finally arrived at our host’s house in Lincoln that evening, where they had been drinking ALL DAY. It was three dudes who lived together who had a really hilarious mega-gay dynamic (a big no-no in Lincoln), and they were nice, but I was sure that they were going to drink/party, and I was going to be whatevers about it all. And that turned out to be true, of course. This particular Saturday the Huskers football team had had a game, and especially in Lincoln, everyone is SUPER into football. I asked Michael about the people in town who didn’t like football, and he said that in Lincoln, “Even the people who don’t like football like football.” Which is funny. Apparently the Huskers’ season tickets have a waitlist of FORTY YEARS – longest season ticket sell-out ever — because people don’t give up their tickets if they already have them; you just keep having them through as many seasons as you want them. Fucking bizarre.

But we went to a dubstep show at The Bourbon Theatre, and I was really excited for the prospect, though less than excited that it was $15.00 – but I thought hey, why not? How bad could it really be! Turns out it can be really bad, and I should have known this from past experiences that going to random dubstep shows is not necessarily a good thing. What’s worse… asides from the CS host Michael himself, who very obviously liked dubstep and was into dancing, his girlfriend and his two roommates coughed up the dolla bills but were seriously not into it or dancing at all. So it was just kinda bad music and then all the more weird-vibed. The other two dudes left early and we hung out with gf and Michael for a little bit but eventually left soon thereafter. So… whatever.

Went to a bunch of bars. Had minimal conversation. There was one fun interaction in a pizza place where some guy from Austin saw me standing near the gumball machine, where I had just purchased a gumball, and asked me if I had change for $1.00; I said I did not, and he said I wasn’t allowed to stand by gumball machine if I didn’t have change! I suppose he maybe had a point, but I was just waiting for the bathroom, man!

Also went to this hella dance club crap with a buncha frat kids and got bought two drinks. Got a little drunk. It was whatevers, man. This picture would show an example of what the streets looked like, though. It was an early game so there were a lot of people out, but not nearly as many as there would have been had it been a late game; I guess the Huskers campus is a dry campus so people can’t actually drink on-campus so they hella wile out after the games are over.

Group pic later that evening. Blah, blah, who cares, blah, blah.

i do declare…

i might be done trying to understand human beings. it’s pretty much impossible, and doesn’t really get you anywhere anyway. may as well just take things as they come. i’ve been assuming all along that human beings are good and honorable in almost all ways. not a great thing to do. but the flipside is just as horrible.

so, i suppose. the assumption needs to come about naturally. i will not assume anyone will do anything! instead, i will hope that they will be willing to talk about their ridiculousnesses, because we’re all fucking ridiculous. this plan won’t work so well for the people who can’t talk about themselves at all, unfortunately, so we’ll see about those people… but for those willing to communicate, anyway…

the only filter we have with which we can try and figure out what people are about is our own. and our filters stem from our experiences, which are so different from everyone else’s… try as we may, we are only interpreting using what we know, and it’s sooooooo limited. i feel that i have lived a lot of life and observed a lot of people, yet the things that happen and people who exist and the behaviors they exhibit are so far beyond my predictability that it is ultimately pointless to even attempt such. so, if possible, i am going to quit it!!!!

also feels really awesome to leave my phone behind and just be freeeeeeeeeee. free to write and make art.

yesterday was a most interesting day. most of it is lived in moments in time and hard to describe in a way that is actually beneficial for recollection. however…

started off jolly go happy lucky woot woot feeling alright. went to sound grounds to work, as usual.

gina met up with me. we had a massive giggle fest about who knows what. lots of funny t-shirts and synchronicities surrounding us, in the form of a joseph campbell book, a jason webley t-shirt, nietzsche shirt, etc.

followed that up with a meditation session with cole and austin which got interrupted a couple times. which is a bummer. the first couple times i was going to really awesome visual headspace. the third time was like… what the fuck is going on? i have no idea what the fuck is going on. the last image in my head was of a key, and who knows. pointless, really, i have no idea…

hung out for a while and then abe picked me up. we were going to go to east bar downtown to do our newest social experiment in people-watching! unfortunately, east is closed on sunday and monday nights. instead we went to 21st street, since i had to meet blake near there, and we went to muu-muu’s (though apparently there are a ton of bars on that street we need to hit up, including one called gypsy’s which seems fairly incredible). twas pretty fucking interesting. will scan notes in later… but we had a jolly good time. i ordered one moroccan coffee drink and got fucking WASTED pretty much, i think because i didn’t eat dinner. it was actually kind of amusing… the waitress was an interesting one. she was really awesome and nice when we got there, and then we asked her ONE question about her job and then she took off her glasses (abe said that was when the transformation happened) and suddenly kind of became a raging bitch. so bizarre. not sure what happened. ultimately, though, she gave us a free drink {?} and it was way confusing. good times.

at 1:15am i met up with blake on his lunch break and we shot the shit at a subway, where there were tons of people passing out. and i was really drunk. it’s so weird that he goes there everyday on his lunch break because that place is trippy as fuckkk. i dunno though, talking about mathematics governing the universe in a subway? what’s not to like.

anyhoot.

people are way more unpredictable than i would have thought in terms of their sexual liberties. haha. and i am surprisingly tolerant conceptually of this. i may or may not be a swinger in my idealized brain. haha. damn you equal parts emotional brain and equal parts logic brain! i don’t know who i am ever! but i do know that man, i can pretty much handle all things — all quirks of humans, cut and dry — if they are presented up-front and in a real ass way. it’s whatever, beyond that. honesty is pretty much the only thing that really matters. i am not the only one who feels this way. why is it that not so many people actually practice such a motto?

driving around that whole night / day — but especially night — tripped me out immensely because i never drive around portland at nighttime and it just felt soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo strange. i don’t know what it was. i had an hour-long walk home. it was fairly amusing. storefront windows are fragging weird.

GOT SCHEMEZ, YO.

sometimes i feel really silly playing “mom” in situations with groups of friends, because i don’t want to always be the responsible one. in those cases, i’ll just kind of suppress the urge and let things go how they will. but then i’m constantly reminded that someone -should- play mom because when no one does, shit always gets all freaking whacky! i just hate always being the responsible one!!!

one time there was a huge party at aaron’s and everyone was gonna go outside to hit this pinata that luz had bought. the bathtub they have installed in their backyard was turned on, cause we were gonna use it, but then the pinata thing happened. it crossed my mind that perhaps i should make a note that the water was running, but everyone was all caught up in the moment and i didn’t want to spoil it, so i let it go. after pinata-ing, aaron was like, “shit! i think the water is still on!” and i was like, “yeah, i thought about that but i didn’t wanna play mom,” and everyone was like, “but you have to play mom in this situation!” and it’s just like, dammit, guess i do, cause no one else ever does.

anyway, i am back in portland. not that i really honestly wanna socialize with anyone at all. i want to socialize with no one. haha. i did circumstantially have to leave the house yesterday because errors were in town with mogwai, but today, i pretty much did not at all. only left to go outside for five minutes to turn on my car cause i haven’t turned it on in ages. feels good. only thing is i’ve left my bike in front of wonder ballroom for two nights now… sincerely hoping it doesn’t get stolen ;x

i also drank like, half a hot toddy yesterday and two sips of beer and got pretty drunk. sooo ridiculous. and soooo pointless cause i was drunk for like 30 minutes tops and instantly passed out as soon as i got home.

4:50AM!!!

THE SUN RISES AGAIN ANOTHER EVENING-MORNING.

I actually came home from a bar an hour early this evening to play videogames. How nerdy. But WHAT IN THE FUCK EVER! Counterstrike 4 lyfe? ~__~

I was supposed to go to an art show at Evogear tonight with Rachel but she flaked, so instead I went with Graham and his friend Irish Dave, this forty year-old dude he fishes with, who was nothing like I’d imagined, to the Bit Saloon in Ballard. I’d imagined this super scruffy dude after Graham was talking about how he’d been holed up on a boat in Alaska for all of winter, but no, he was totally like clean-cut and reminded me of… someone… but I don’t know who. Anyhow. Pretty entertaining.

At one point Graham got into a conversation with one of Irish Dave’s friends about the troubles Irish immigrants went through when immigrating to the United States, and I was just sitting on this bar thing (like… metal bar, metal railing bar, not bar inside a bar, bar) and listening to them talk… and it was the most painful thing ever. Irish Dave’s friend was drunk as FUCK and barely understood anything Graham was trying to say, or he would try to say stuff and then get embarrassed and be like, “Oh, man, I’m really kind of buzzed,” when in fact “buzzed” was not the correct vernacular for him to be using, at all. And Graham was really set upon the concept that it was the fact that Irish people were Catholic and America was largely settled by Protestants as the primary reason for the Irish being shunned… and while it was a large reason, Irish Dave’s friend was drunkenly trying to say that the sheer number of people immigrating from Ireland to the United States also played a large role, and that poverty was also a huge role. Graham listened to these reasonings kind of, but was still set upon the schism between Catholicism and Protestantism overwhelming all other reasons. I don’t know if that’s true or not (it may very well be since religion is the bane of all existence), but his insistence was interesting. But yeah, Irish Dave’s friend and Graham were totally misunderstanding one another and clashing heads until Irish Dave’s friend mentioned that he was an Aquarius, and Graham said he was too, and soon they became all chum-chummy and gave each other a long ass hug. It was bizarre, the switch of feelings at the drop of the dime. LOL. Irish Dave’s friend also works helping developmentally-disabled adults… and Graham was like, “I’m part Irish; I’m proud of it!” and Irish Dave’s friend got into this thing about how one should only be proud of being a man and for one’s actions, and not for borders or births or (and he couldn’t come up with the word for this concept beyond the word “social”, so I’m going to fill in the blank or him) socially-constructed ideas. It was cute, and true… but you rarely hear people say stuff like that. Idealistic? Perhaaaaps.

Also ran into a friend of some guys from The Accused, and I mentioned that the lead singer of The Accused is my hairdresser! And the dude was like, “Wow! That’s cool, because girls don’t usually go to Rudy’s Barbershop!” and it’s like… REALLY?!!!

There were some other interesting tidbits of knowledge I gleaned from talking to Graham and Irish Dave, mostly of the random fishing fact variety, or like funny anecdotes from their fishing days, and things. It was enjoyable. And I actually had to drink a nasty ass shot because I wasn’t actually going to go in because there was a $5 cover, but Irish Dave insisted, and then insisted on buying drinks for everyone, so I felt obligated to.

Irish Dave also had this big thing about Americans calling him “dude”, and Graham was laying on the usage of “dude” mega-thick. Almost ridiculously thick.

Actually, on a side note… from hanging out with these fisherman humans, I’ve learned some things about barring I never knew… there are probably others but a couple I remember off the top of my head include that Irish people in Ireland used to not really drink hard alcohol and generally would only sip on beer… and it’s still a lot of the case with real Irish people today… so that they’d be drunk but not American drunk. Another thing is… WHAT THE FUCK! BARS SERVE COFFEE?!!!! WHY HAVE I NEVER KNOWN THIS?!!!

This past year, between the month I’d spent in Portland, going to bars with these guys, and the very, very rare occasional bar outing, I’ve been to more bars than I’ve been like, all the rest of my post-21 days combined. Haha. But I don’t know, I’m feeling more and more comfortable with my state of non-drinking these days that I really don’t give a fuck about waltzing into a bar and not drinking at all. So it’s not so bad.

Oh now that I think about it… Irish Dave was also talking about how when he was younger, he NEVER met minorities, and it wasn’t until he was 14 that he met his first black person ever or Indian doctor because Ireland was so isolated at the time. He said that he was always cool with people of other races or whatever, but simply didn’t know how to interact with them (at least initially) when he finally met them regularly in Dublin or in London or in the United States… and that he would go out of his way to be introductory to them because it was just kind of a rare sight for him. He called it ignorance, and said it was bad, but that it was “cute ignorance.” And that one time, he’d met three Jamaicans in London and was going to take them back to Ireland, he made sure to call his mom beforehand and be like, “I’m bringing some friends over, by the way, three of them are black, just so you know,” because it was so not ingrained into the culture at the time he was growing up and it was almost necessary. Really interesting.

Now, I don’t know much about the history of Ireland, like at all… I just know that it was tumultuous or whatever. Definitely interested in learning more about it now, though…

In other news, I went with Lenny to Super Buffet this afternoon and it was fucking expensive, yo!!!! It was nearly $20 per person after tip, and considering I can’t eat much at buffets anymore, it was totally not worth it. Every time I go there, I think of this fact, but I always fucking forget when I decide to go there. Oh well. Afterwards, we swirled around Northgate Mall for a brief about of time, and I bought a new pair of Vans’ Prison Issue shoes… my favorite shoes… which I’ve had since I worked at Snowboard Connection, which is like, two or three years ago, by now. I hadn’t realized how dirty my current pair of Prison Issues are despite people like my parents and Lenny commenting on just how dirty they are, but man, they’re dirty as fuck. I compared the old ones to the nice, crisp, new ones, where the whites are white and the blacks are black, and the old one’s whites are brown and the blacks are grey brown. Haha.

an epiphany of blue collar white collar proportions.

Last evening I went with Jody and Graham, the temporary roommates of the house, to Little Red Hen to do some COUNTREH dancing! COUNTREH!!!

Also in the mix were Nine (Chris’ sister), Finch, Elias, Krystal, and… for a brief amount of time… Jake (who I swear I have met before, but I don’t know if that’s actually true or not).

Anyway, Jody, Graham, Nine, and I walked to the Little Red Hen at about… 7:45pm. We had intended to leave a while before that, but we were waiting for Nine and Chris’ mom to come before we could leave. Dance lessons started at 8:00pm, and unfortunately, we missed the start of them. Yarr. Which put us at a disadvantage of sorts, particularly cause it was both Graham and I’s first tmes. Jody has gone a bit cause he grew up in Texas, and Nine has gone a bit but is primarily a follower. Out of the people who later showed up… Jake didn’t dance really, Krystal had never been before, Elias went fairly often, and Finch knew what he was doing as well. It was kind of confusing on my end because I didn’t really know them, and well, some were girls who wanted to be boys, and therefore I referred to them as “her” when in fact they wanted to be referred to as “him”.

Whatever.

So we got there, and Graham and I were partners initially… which is fucking hilarious because he’s tall as fuck. I mean, I come up to his fucking armpits. WTF. Again, as we stumbled in halfway through the lesson, we were like WTF!!! And gave up after a short while of utter confusion. Dancing hard, particularly when the teacher is like… in the middle, and not necessarily facing your direction, yet you have to figure it out! ZOMG! SO HAAAAAAAARRRRRRD.

Sat down for a while while other people showed up… I was definitely the odd one out since everyone else pretty much knew one another and I only knew Jody and Graham. Actually, Jake was kind of odd one out, too, but he left shortly after he arrived. We all stayed from like 8:15pm to 2:00am (or later), when the bar closed. The bar lady actually fucking carded me while I was ASKING FOR WATER. Owned. So hard. And then she said, “Why, you’re just the cutest little thing, is why,” DAMMIT!!!!! NOOOOO! NOT WHAT I WANT TO HEAR, DANGITTTTT!!!

Anyhow, I am now finishing this post long after this date, and I just wanted to say… the meaning of this title. It came about when I was thinking about how most people I meet who share my musical or artistic interests are decidedly blue collar workers… people who don’t really care about what kinda job they work in the service industry or whatever, because they have their other interests to pursue on the side. I feel like I’m stuck between the blue collar world, where my interests more closely lie, and the white collar world, where all my skills lie. My style of living, I feel, is somewhat in-between. It’s hard to explain, kind of, but it’s hard to meet another person who shares my mindset and way of living as well.

shOobeh dOobeh dOo.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO… “Exhale”, “I Have Nothing” by Whitney Houston, “Silly” by Denise Williams.

So I just got back from the Jason Mraz concert tonight, which was excellent since Jason Mraz is like the sexiest man alive. Even his last name is awesome!!! Lenny had bought us tickets for our three year anniversary back in August. We broke up in September? But he still let me go with him which was cool… it was a very enjoyable show…!!! He also covered “Build Me Up Buttercup” and “Mary Jane” — both were very awesome. Lots of crowd participation, unpredictability, and what seemed to be funny cute nearly stand-up stuff. The show got me all pumped up afterwards and I could not wait to go home and to write and to sing. So I cut my nails while singing with Alex sitting right next to me, playing videogames with HsuKen… they both had to put up with my singing. WAHAHA. Alex went to bed, though, so now is writing time!

Earlier today, I woke up in the morning, hung out with Micah for some, and then got ready to take the MAX to the Greyhound station. Everyone was telling me about how Greyhound was super shady, and while it’s not as nice as the Amtrak, it’s not that bad — at least not in the Portland to Seattle leg!!! There was a ride array of humans, including some dirty people and some younger people. I pretty much slept the entire time, although I woke up pretty much at 15 to 30 minute intervals. That was kinda annoying, but I slept mostly zombie-like.

At one point, the bus turned into a stop and everyone woke up and looked around as the bus driver barreled towards the end of the bus, thinking he was doing something important. He was just taking a piss, but he definitely commanded our attention. I found it quite amusing.

The primary reason for that was: the night before was my last night in town and there was an attempt to get ahold of some druggular substances but that fell through, so instead Jack, Micah, and I got drunk. They drank big bottles of wine and I drank a little pathetic bottle of Arbor Mist, which is like a wine cooler. Wine coolers and those kindsa fruit shit combined with alcohol do NOT do me well. I’ve consistently found this to be true yet I continue to consume them, primarily because they actually taste tolerable. Tolerable is relative, though. So that little thing of Arbor Mist was, Jack said, equivalent to drinking a can of Pabst, AKA I-Am-Pathetic. I mean, I’m so pathetic that I drank it and felt buzzed but mostly fine, lying on the couch… but then I got up to go to the bathroom (the upstairs one, as the downstairs one is consistently running out of toilet paper… hell, the entire house is consistently running out of toilet paper), and then I got all light-headed after I got out of the bathroom and thought I was going to pass the fuck out. I had to sit on the stairs for a while, and then while the black-out feeling subsided, I started to get super cold… I finally convinced myself to move and when I finally sat down again on the couch it felt better, but it was weird. I really need to avoid these fruit alcohol type drinks. The last time I drank one of those was a couple years ago on a road trip to Oregon with Andy Crossett and Lenny… same type of drink I drank… and I literally had to lie down for a while because I was blacking out and unable to control my body. It was weird. And the times before that, I would drink like a Mike’s Hard Lemonade or something and get hives and feel sick. NO MORE DRINKING FRUITY ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. PERIOD!

Anyway. To add to that, since there was no drugginess, Jack wanted me to try some of his Dexedrine, which is a light speed used to treat ADHD. Each pill was 5 milligrams, I guess, which is really little, so he gave me two initially… it sobered me up and made me alert for a short time and gave me a minor bit of tunnel vision or something. But then Jack and Micah started talking about cars so I got bored and was dozing in and out of sleep, cause cars are boring and alcohol makes me tired, and Dexedrine is supposed to wake you up, but it wasn’t doing it’s job. When I finally did get up, though, the Dexedrine definitely sobered me up and I didn’t feel drunk anymore. But I didn’t feel like ANYTHING. I just felt like normal. So Jack gave me two more, for a total of 20 milligrams, and all in all, it didn’t feel like shit. We stayed up for like three more hours watching shitty music videos (and miscellaneous videos, such as “BANANA PHONE!!!!”) on YouTube, and when we finally went to bed at 5:30am, I thought I was ready for bed but boy was I not. I laid there for an hour and got up to use the computer for a bit… when I went to bed again, I continued to lie there and got I think 15 minutes of sleep the entire night. Fucking terlible!!!!! Strangely, though, I didn’t feel tired when I woke up at 8:00am or whatever. Weird. I don’t think I would do Dex again, though. For one, I’m against pharmaceuticals, and frankly, it just didn’t do anything to me really. Meh.

last saturday was a trip… TRIPPIEST. HOUSE. EVER.

i’m listening to… bangarang. (go dl their mp3s for free! they are buds.)

this is so old because i so don’t update this shit enough these days but um… last saturday was the biggest trip, ever. lewis invited us to go to this girl’s house and uh her house was trippy. wait, but before that……………………….. we drove to the 7-11 near our house and then drove to the trippy house… but when we got to the trippy house, we realized that… jesus, we live literally five blocks away. so we drove back home and walked back to the trippy house. got there with three cupcakes and a 12 pack of beer (both of which helped with easing us in considering we didn’t know anyone) and people were stoked on that (and actually DEVOURED the cupcakes even though they were kinda smushed).

and here goes the beginning of why this place was so fucking trippy:

1) instruments.
got to the living room and saw a couple people playing instruments like acoustic guitars and drums. look CLOSER and they have fucking every instrument known to man or something. including… A STAND-UP BASS. WTF. A WASHBOARD. A MELODICA (which i am going to buy as soon as i have money, even though it’s only like, $30). all sorts of hand drums. a mini keyboard. an electric guitar, of course. a cowbell. all sorts of fucking shit. INSANE. so i don’t even know if everyone knew each other — i don’t think so — but one person would start playing an instrument and someone else would join in and someone else would join in and before you knew it, there was a helluva jam session going on. and sometimes… it sounded fucking good. what trippy shit. everyone knew how to play an instrument. it was freaky and weird. but i didn’t know how to play an instrument (not really, anyway). and this asian girl was sitting next to me and she was weird and quiet and… weird. anyway. so that was point one where i was thinking, “fuck, i wish i was high.” AND THEY HAD A GODAMN VAPORIZOR. i wanted to use it really bad. but i didn’t know the people who lived there so i didn’t really want to ask :/

2) mouse.
meanwhile, in the kitchen, a mouse had scampered in from outside. it went under the fridge and people were trying to lure it out. evidently, hot drummer guy was trying to sing to it under the refrigerator. i didn’t see that. but that sounds funny.

3) snake.
snake… unrelated to the mouse, strange as that may seem (particularly strange since snake… who is named snakey… eats live mouse for dinner. but that one was not his meal… that one came in from outside). chelsea owned a snake. she put it in a basket. it was somehow amusing.

4) instruments.
i’m sorry, but the instruments were so trippy and cool they deserve TWO “trippiness” notices. by this point, hot drum guy who was really high i guess had gotten into a groove with the drums and wasn’t really caring what people were doing and not really caring that other people wanted to jam. he destroyethed the drums in a loud but quite impressive manner. i sat on the floor next to the loudass drums because i’m not sure why. because that’s where i had been sitting all night. went deaf. he apologized and introduced himself and thanked me for going over. lewis said he shouldn’t apologize because i had chosen to sit there. touche. and truth. nonetheless.

5) foursquare.
so…………………… i got up at some point to see what the foursquare commotion was about. in their fucking laundry room they had taped squares for foursquare. well, i never really actually played in elementary school. i sucked something awful. HAHA. but it was amusing nonetheless…

6) strobe.
… combine foursquare with strobe lights and you get the biggest clusterfuck of a foursquare game ever. good thing no one was epileptic cause that woulda been something awful. time #2 where i wished i was high. yeah, yeah. i voiced this concern. someone else agreed. immediately one of the guys who lived there hooked a sistaz up.

7) weed.
two fat bowls. four girls. one girl who did not know how to operate a pipe. fat rips. much high. but damn, i still wanted to try that vaporizor.

8) overstay.
considering we didn’t know the people who lived in the house it was a little strange that we were one of the last ones to leave, at like 2:30. oh well.

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. :{

some updates of sorts.

as mentioned previously i went to microsoft today to chat with some xbox guy. i MUST say. despite all of the talk of microsoft being a faceless corporation — this and that, that and this — out of everyone they have been the BEST about getting back to me. guitar hero and rock band and even record labels are taking their sweet ol’ time. so uh, go microsoft, in this regard. :0 i must say i am quite impressed. going to try and hit up ps3 and wii, so we’ll see how they go

so… a couple weeks ago, went to this seattle semi-pro (SSP) event at king cobra because a band, black eyes and neckties, was playing. it was quite entertaining, at least for the first half. ben and nick went, too. smoked out for the first time in forever, as it was 4/20 the next day, so that was most excellent. there was this cute little gay guy next to me… blonde with a little brown beard. haha. wearing a checkered or something flannel and then putting on another jacket on top of it that was a kind of plaid. ahahha. so cute. and really friendly. i forget his name. josh, i think. anyway, i guess it’s common policy to throw pabst cans at the wrestlers while they’re on stage. pabst was the only shit people really drank. yeah……… i think that’s about it.

quotes from SSP:

ON TRASH-TALKING, FROM THE SSP ANNOUNCERS:
“we’re not the earthquake. we’re SSP!”

ON THE SUPER BLONDE MASTERBLASTER BEING LEVELED INTO THE GROUND:
“masterblaster is like jared leto in fight club!”

some random quotes of nights in the past:

ON BITCHES, FROM SOME GUY STUPID BELLEVUE BAR, THE PARLOR
“he just jealous cuz bitches be comin’ up ta me.” (he was NOT the type of guy tons of girls would go up to, by the way!)

so yeah i went to the parlor room a couple? weeks ago. i think the day after ssp. aka getting drunk TWO DAYS IN A ROW. which is, for me, a fucking record. people there are way uppity and totally dressed up. not quite my bag of chips. did however see hsu-han, hsu-ken, and tammy vu thurr. was entertaining. posa‘s co-worker… who tammy knows… was very. very. amusing. and crazy. drunk. so we were sharing tables with this guy, and we ordered food and he ordered food. they never brought us a bill, so i told him a couple times to double-check that our stuff was not on his bill when he got his bill. he freaking straight-up thought i was crazy, i’m pretty sure. whatever though. that’s what i get for trying to be nice.

trendi.com is FINALLY launching!! MONDAY IS THE RELEASE OF OUR FIRST BETA. AMAZING. BOUT TIME.

anyway, more later, maybe.