David and I went to Evergreen for lunch today. It was good but I was not so impressed. My noodles were bland.
We got our fortune cookies and our fortunes seemed to come from the Absurdity Collection. Mine read “It’s not about you. It’s better that way.” hmmm okay. Probably good advice, not necessarily what you would expect in a fortune cookie. David’s was more bizarre, “Sing a song every day. Sing the same song if it is a good song”. I honestly don’t know. Again, seems like good advice, but the chinese restaurant is throwing me into some sort of bizarro-themed advice quandary.
I don’t know how to feel about these bits at all.
So, as I’ve mentioned I’ve been sick. last night I went home, took a nice long bath/shower, got my hair washed by the boy (so nice) and went to bed at 7:30. Slept all night and got up for work 12 hours later. Still tired, still sick, but it was great to shut down for 12 hours.
While sleeping I had my crazy dreams that i have when i am sick. One involved going to visit my mother in prison. It was a lovely prison, set up like a really beautiful apartment complex with landscaping and outdoor walkways. I’d love to rent a place like this. I went to my mother’s apartment and her roommate, Ossie Davis greeted me at the door. He was cleaning the kitchen, sort of a crusty old man type. It was an amusingly detailed dream, I could spend hours describing the apartment. Probably a little more ivy, floral, darkwood for my tastes, but you can’t really complain about such things in a prison. Why was my mom in a prison in my dreams? No clue. Sorry mom.
After I tried to visit my mom (she was napping and I did not want to bother her) I went to the zoo. I hung out in the shade by the camels. The camels were seal-like in their entertaining of the crowd. They jumped around, they bounced balls, they were real crowd pleasers. As I sat in the shade I was writing in a notebook. I was writing some sort of political manifesto. I was going to change the world. Essentially, I was trying to end excess spending, keep people happy and maintain a safety net for everyone. I was really proud of myself. I didn’t get beyond writing about what should be fixed. I never really got to how I was going to do it because David called me on my cell phone to tell me he was by the elephants and I should go meet him. In my dream I had an incredibly detailed map of the park, and I would have been able to find the elephants but the alarm went off and sadly i could not continue my zoo journey.
So, what is today? Well, there was “Science Friday” on NPR. I do like Science Friday, today they were talking about theoretical physics and multiple dimensions and all that. I get very frustrated with these things because there is a real feeling of “you just made this up, didn’t you??!!”. Ira Flatow asked the guest about these extra dimensions, why can’t we see them or comprehend them and what were they all about. She told him we were not designed to comprehend these dimensions, we could only see our 3 (or 4 if you count time). I feel like such a curmudgeon when I listen to this stuff because I want to shout at the radio “if you can’t prove it exists, if i can’t see it then I don’t believe you!”. Microscopic things i believe, I can see tangible evidence of dinosaurs (but often will explain to people that the new popular color dinosaurs are just theory, we don’t know what color they were), I always talk about black holes in terms of theory. I love science, i love reading about new things and learning about them but you start talking about quantum mechanics and stuff like that and I want a goddamned picture. I want actual evidence. I don’t want to feel like you’re just some guy making shit up. There’s a lot of real, physical stuff that has not been discovered or explained and I want you to focus your energy on that.
Heather: Scientific Curmudgeon.
(don’t get me started on calculus, i got me some real brain problems with that).
I never thought I would ever find an art exhibit I would hate more than the looping videos that undergrads make and display in the gallery outside my office, but I have. A man saw fit to create the world’s largest and loudest rain stick. It’s a big contraption with levers and pulleys and loud noises (it’s not nearly as large as I make it sound, but it is large). It’s an interactive piece to be used with the world’s largest piece of suspended sheet metal to be shaken for simulated thunder. It is so…LOUD…and people LOVE to play with this stuff all the time (ironically the person with both the world’s loudest voice and world’s loudest laugh is standing out there with them. How perfect). I believe this exhibit will be up for 6 or 8 weeks. Please, stop by and cause noise and make me hate you.
and lastly, we need to emphasize with the lovely lily that while all manner of crazy and insane people would be welcome to visit while she comes to visit me, we do very much need to keep the exception on ‘batshit crazy’. This is so important, chica, so very very important. no batshit crazy people.
Photo to be updated soon, i missed last night for being asleep and dreaming wonderful dreams.
Monthly Archives: September 2005
1.2.3.4.5.
1. Big news about Lily!! Lily has made a big, foolish, impulse purchase!! Dang, girl! I think that’s the sweetest impulse purchase I’ve ever had the honour of being part of. So, weekend of the 14th, if you have nothing better to do and you would like to ride the rollercoaster at the mall or eat rack of lamb or go to Cupcake (is Cupcake the ‘it’ place for me to take out of towners? I think so) or chill with the chica, stop on by (provided you’re not batshit crazy or allergic to lamb).
2. Spent a couple days wondering if I was suffering from heat sickness and excess dust inhalation or if I was truly sick. Vote goes to sick, I think we’re at ‘cold’ not ‘flu’ which usually bodes better for me, the queen of walking pneumonia.
3. So the boy makes me a cheese/salsa/chocolate chip quesadilla thingy the other day and most people would say ‘eeeeeuw’ and I’ve got just enough problems in my head to go ‘damn! good! more!’ (apparently, stuff like this makes me caveman-like). Now I want them all the time. I’ve got problems.
4. I am the last person on the planet to see ‘The Office’. I am just now catching up on this pop-culture phenomenon. I got it off netflix and loved it, bought the series and the special. Just finished watching the special, and I know I must be pms-ing because I totally wanted to cry when Dawn came back to the party for Tim. I did not cry, but I did pet the dog. Petting the dog is a culturally accepted alternative to crying at the television. True.
5. The dogs will NOT settle down. I do not know what the deal is but my head hurts, my body hurts, my nose hurts and they won’t stop moving.
[H]
Sometimes the nicest gift you can get is the word ‘HIPPO’ incorporated into a piece of art work. Ethan gave me a piece of art that he created, it’s a wonderful, beautiful piece. His work is so detailed, so full of tiny surprises. I get it home and start staring at it, looking for all the neat little messages, and there it is. ‘HIPPO’ on the fridge. You’ll be able to see it in November.
Thank you, Ethan.
Also, thank you for an incredible, wonderful weekend.
First off, Rita was so scared of my hurricane ass-kicking technique that the could not even be bothered to show up in Austin. Most I got were a few bands of curved clouds, the very outer edge of the hurricane. Not enough to provide any relief from the sun, just enough to remind us that it exists.
Austin is insanely hot. Upper 90’s over the weekend, 106 on Monday. It was like an oven. And so dry and dusty…I’m still coughing up mudballs.
But the shows!
Saturday:
* Death Cab for Cutie: Rocked in their seattle emo-nerd way.
* The Fiery Furnaces: Eh, not bad, but then I was passing out in the shade by the Starbucks stand. Man I never drink Frappuccinos but I totally had one then.
* Jet: Pointlessly fun. Completely forgettable but definitely a good time while you’re there.
* Bloc Party: I was not convinced, people kept telling me to see them. Ethan brought me to see them. I was then convinced. I’m sorry I had not checked them out before.
* Oasis: Okay, seriously, why the fuck are these guys even alive? I am positive there is SOMETHING in the Geneva Accords about them. I have to disagree with Ethan here, they are not even a fun-to-watch-trainwreck kind of thing. Hey, Noel, why don’t you shit another powerchord onto the stage because there obviously isn’t enough crap festering at your feet with those lyrics you write. God, I really hate Oasis. Live Forever? Fuck you, just die. (yeah, that feels better)
Sunday:
* Arcade Fire: mmmmm French Canadian pop! Fun to listen to, moderately rock-outable, chief lyric is “woooooo-ooooooo-ooooo”. I didn’t know much going in, I’m not unimpressed, I’ll probably catch more of them later.
* The Decemberists: For my money, the best goddamned show I saw. Period. I loved them anyway, then they get up there and make us squat down silently and later make us scream like we’re being eaten by a whale!! Could you love them any more? NO! GOD, I LOVE NERD-ROCK MORE AND MORE EVERY DAY.
* Franz Ferdinand: Again, great fun! We watched them through a thick thick haze of Austin dust! I will forever equate them with bbq brisket sandwiches and my 8 millionth beer. Sorry guys, I was hungry and inhaling my food at the time.
* The Black Keys: We caught about half their set. Not bad, worth checking out again. The intense heat made it hard to hang out for long. We were exhausted. This leads us to…
* Tortoise: Don’t know who they are, don’t really care. They seemed to be some sort of chill percussion thing. Don’t care. What I do care about is that I got to grab a lawn chair at ‘The Beach’ and completely pass out for a half hour. God, that was so nice. After 2 days, many hours in the intense heat and sun it was so nice to find relief after sunset. We relaxed, pulled it together, got some Ben and Jerry’s and headed over to…
* Coldplay: I’m not a fan (sorry, Lily). Ethan determined they were U2 without the politics and Radiohead without the pain. Just not a fan. We caught a few songs and I will say this, I may not care for Coldplay but at least I could rock a little to the music. I could not even do that with Oasis. I couldn’t do it with Oasis because they sucked so very very hard.
We got out of there, headed home to the AC and cool showers and relaxation.
Let’s see, good food all weekend, good company, falling in love with Simon Pegg’s hair in “Spaced”, Katamari Damacy, Sonic, lots of coffee. And let me give a shout out to the inventors of the AeroBed!
WOOOOO
Tomorrow, big news about Lily!
Why thank you
yes, i have returned. I have not had time to call anyone or return emails. This is my blanket “I’m home!”
I had a wonderful time, I saw many many great shows, drank many many beers and got to see ethan.
I’ll write more in detail later. Right now I am eating the chocolate/cheese/spicy quesadilla that Davidu-san has made for me. I missed him.
I will tell you this…when you do bad things your karma punishes you in terrible terrible ways. Not only will you miss Mike Doughty, but you will also have to endure Oasis. It’s like a one-two punch to the gut. You take this lesson and you learn from it.
Later chochos
RE: your calls and letters
Thank you for your calls and emails. Yes, I am actually going to Texas during a Hurricane. Texas is a big state full of gun wielding maniacs who drive big trucks and drink a lot of beer. That hurricane does not stand a chance.
Well, except Texas isn’t really like that and I’ll be in Austin which isn’t really Texas anyway. I will be far enough west of the storm that the most we will get is some rain.
last night David and I went out to dinner. When did they remodel Me Gusta? It used to be 2 degrees better than a dive and it was not uncommon to find a cockroach on the all. Now the place is beautiful. They’ve expanded it, turned it into a plaza with little shops around it. Of course my favorite shop is the “Frida Beauty Shop” prominently featuring Frida Kahlo. aaah irony, blow a gentle wind my way.
Okay, I need to finish packing, I need to get some coffee into this poor battered body, I need to get on my plane and go. I wil try to update as I can, but if I don’t I will see you chochobos next week.
out