Blog needs some PICTURES!

Calling all halves! Now accepting photo submissions! Find below: "Guinness, Staircase, & Soccer" as well as "Nate at The Local"




Surreptitious Shot of Soccer fans and bartender. I wish I had a better photo of this guy--he ran out at one point and took Nate's drink saying, "This beer has WAY too much head. I apologize. Let me fix this for you." Wow.

Hey, I can HEAR you snorting 'loser', y'know!

I do not like this thought upon waking: "Wow. I should definitely have SHUT UP way way sooner than I did last night." I am not sure if that feeling is made better or worse in instances where I went to bed already thinking, "Wow. I should really have shut up." I would like to say that I am a person with patience, someone who has a sense of decorum, someone you might describe as graceful. I would like to be charismatic and energetic enough to win people over to my way of thinking. I would like to be described as effective.

Instead, I sat at a birthday party for my friend last night, drinking too much beer, eating food that I didn't want, yelling about the failure-to-workings of my office. Saying things like, "I'm glad to be leaving," when I really meant, "I'm still frustrated that I haven't done all I could to MAKE it work." The faces of the people I was talking to SHOULD have shut me up. They were reflecting an impatient, imprudent, impudent, cad. A complainer. A psycho. Though I had no choice, it was a real act of bravery for me to rise from bed this morning. It was made no easier by the fact that I was lucky enough to be perfectly spooned against ncd's back and drooling all over his freckles.

I was so happy sleeping. Sleeping transformed a guy who was one of my main stressors yesterday back into the beloved. After all, if her were not so near and dear to my heart, he would not have the ability to be such a pressing source of anxiety, right? Gosh, makes you want to write a love song, right? Something along the lines of "you put my sanity and self image in a garbage compressor just to test it's metal..." I know--pure genius.

So that was Tuesday. Tuesday is normally quite calming what with its being yoga day and all, but when that is what happens when you ditch yoga for drinks.

Have abandoned this post, but thought I should post what I have and then I'll start afresh this week. I think that should be the theme of this week: start afresh...again and again and again if necessary (and it will be).

7pm tonight I'm supposed to meet "the Crew" people at Boca Chica in STP because Sarah Perry is in town. Was in an organizational mood and ready to keep up the 3-week tradition of listening to a stack of records and seeing what it produces, but I'll gladly ditch that for a margarita and SPerry.

ncd is at the MOA with his class today. b went with. I really wish I could see that. Just before his birthday, one of ncd's students asked him if he was going to bring cupcakes and he said he didn't think so, but anything was possible. Said student then went to ncd and said, "Your brother's bringing us cupcakes for his bday." So amused was b that he did, in fact, bring in cupcakes later that week. Ha-sucka!

And for now I'll leave you with this image: last night, I didn't go to sleep until just after 1 am when I finally put down my book, Crispin, after finishing the last of the beer I was drinking. Is that wrong? It felt grrreat!

Found out yesterday that Michael went with my misunderstanding. When I originally wrote him the note telling him we'd probably have to move out (this was at the beg. of May), I stated that we'd be leaving at the end of July. ncd informed me that our lease is up at the end of June, but when we talked to Michael yesterday, he said he was counting on the end of July. This is good in many ways (buys us all some time, for example), but makes the end of July/beginning of August ridiculously busy.

Happy Monday. I cannot believe it is only the time it is.

The Truth About Cats & Dogs

So, I just had a walk through the twilight of my adolescence. 

Janeane Garafalo versus Uma for the adorableness incarnate that is Ben Chaplain.

Sigh!

What's funny is how I couldn't turn it off. I must've seen this film like seven times at the 99 cent theater in Dale City. That and French Kiss. But unlike Cats & Dogs, French Kiss didn't give me that feeling in the back of my throat like my tongue was actually a rope that slid down my esophagus, so that every time I swallowed I felt a yank on the knot that tied it to my stomach. The scene where they decide to get shitfaced and see what happens, both of them vying for his affections? I'd be a different person if my early HS years weren't characterized by that peculiar sensation that comes when you realize someone is indifferent toward you because you're not...you know, someone else.  

Josh always says he would love to go back to seventh grade, armed with the knowledge he has now. You know, to show those bastards what he's made of. To fuck with them a little here and a little there. I fundamentally disagree. If I awoke in the hell that was my seventh grade, I might actually just hitch-hike to Seattle and find Nirvana. Just to say I saw a show. I'd follow the Dead for awhile before Garcia died. If anyone asked why, I'd say "Just because I can". I might convince my parents to buy stock in Microsoft for ten years, then sell it to buy stock in Apple. But I damn sure wouldn't be concerned with the girls who pulled my hair, calling it weave. Or the boys who called me names. The teachers who hated my potential because they figured I'd never live up can kiss my ass. Just like the ones who gave me the wink-and-nod to go forth into greatness deserve my undying respect and affection. But never do I dwell on such stale trauma. Perhaps Josh hasn't had anything major to throw him into existential crisis lately. Perhaps his last point of such crisis was adolescence, and so it's where his story fodder lies. Whatever the case, I find it amusing that he craves to thumb his nose at his pubescent aggressors. While I would much rather fall to my knees in humble prayer, thanking the good Lord that I made it through, limbs intact.