January 11, 2010
Weekend: Check
Nothing better than a weekend well-done. Jocelyn is back from Ecuador and studying for the Oregon bar. She came to visit for the weekend and she and Rian and I went to I am Snowboarding at Nemo and then to the Holocene for a dance party featuring Reporter. Rad. There are apparently multiple bands named Reporter but this is the three-piece Portland band formerly known as Wet Confetti. I am officially a fan. Lots of synth and distorted guitar and Metropolis beats and at one point we found ourselves creating a complex dancing machine with robot arms and punch kicks. You would have had to be there. Late night follow-up pasta dinner and chorizo breakfast burritos in the morning and an extensive errand checklist. We witnessed a car accident and the man not at fault was missing a foot and disoriented by his airbag. We went to that shopping village off I-5 which was kind of horrifying. Biwa for dinner (how have I not been there? The only thing they are missing is miso ramen, but they have high-end shochu and karaage and hot towels and it is probably as izakaya as you will get in Oregon). This was followed up with Christina's birthday party with crazy socks and cake and dancing and cops and then breakfast at Liz and Jesse's in the morning. They should probably just open up a bootleg breakfast place. I would go every day.
January 8, 2010
January 7, 2010
James Cameron is Ruining My Life
So, at this point the score is:
James Cameron: 2
Liz and Rachel: 0
We tried, yet again, to go see Avatar. I went by the theater on the way home from work and bought tickets well in advance, then met Liz and we ran back to the theater and went in with our hope and our stupid 3-D glasses to find the only empty seats were in the absolute front row right up against the wall in the corner. It was total shit. I tried to be positive and Liz sat there squirming and muttering, no, no, and finally we cracked and ran out and got our money back.
So we were faced with a decision. I was throwing out things like miniature golf and OMSI and Liz suggested drinking a beverage or playing pool or boardgames and we agreed we couldn't watch the ice skaters again and she called our movie-expert friend Gabe who directed us to an 8:00 showing out on 82nd and Powell which just wasn't cutting it and in the end I suggested walking around which evolved to walking around Irving Park which evolved to playing basketball on the lit-up court at Irving Park.
But first. We went to my house and put on warmer clothes and then I showed Liz my accordion and played it for her and apparently I have now filled my quota for playing the accordion in front of Liz until I'm an expert. And then we put on Hot Chip and began to sing improv songs over the beats, with an emphasis on harmonizing dueling verses and chanting. Our subject matter varied from James Cameron to Jesse's beard to outer space to Sigourney Weaver to the impossibility of saying no to magic. It was practically spiritual. The mix tape will be dropping in 2011.
And then we went and played basketball (I found this basketball last summer when I was walking home from a party at Liz and Alexa's, it is white and not full size and I found it in the gutter and dribbled it like a soccer ball all the way home). And we played a modified version of Horse in which you get five chances to make a shot from a certain vantage point and if you miss you either have to remove a piece of clothing (not racy, considering it was cold and windy and we had gloves and hats and scarves and down jackets on) or else a body part (close an eye, one-armed shooting etc). And I'm not sure who lost. It might have been me. But it was for sure not James Cameron.
January 5, 2010
Music Mix 2010
On December 31st I made this fantastic on-the-go mix on my ipod which was marred only by the entirety of the Holy Diver album somehow ending up in the middle of it. Oh Dio. The idea is that it will be the soundtrack for the myriad successes of the upcoming year, which really, is off to a pretty good start (flowers, pirate ship alarm clocks, Big Trouble in Little China). I'm not big on resolutions, not sure that I've made one in the past few years. In high school I probably decided something like, lose fifteen pounds (and therefore die), but I can't recall writing any down. I have a friend who decided to be more animated this year. Another resolved to be more physically fit. Yet another told me: I am going to be nicer to my brother's girlfriends even if they are what some may consider idiotic tramps; this ties into trying to be nicer in general. I'm sticking with the resolution that I made upon return from Italy this past summer, and that was to be less vocally negative. This was mostly inspired by one of Yoko Ono's "paintings" that I saw at the Biennale, the gist of which was, try not saying anything bad about anyone for a day, and then for a week and then for a month and see what happens to your life.
January 4, 2010
Why I haven't Called
Horrible at dating. My track record is actually pretty hilarious when you really analyze it in retrospect which is not something I want to get into here. This all comes up due to an encounter with someone who I liked and I thought liked me and then there was the long slow suffering of the non-call which, really, takes a while to sink in because you keep thinking that they will call eventually with some fabulous and endearing excuse and things will just pick up from there. Here are some of the possible explanations Liz and I came up with the other night:
1. He is not alive anymore.
2. He suffered a horrible crushing injury to his larynx rendering any communication via telephone impossible, also, he broke his thumbs making a conciliatory text impossible.
3. Has amnesia, has no idea where, who or what he is and is living like a feral badger in a 24-hour Wal-Mart.
4. He was an avid non-movie watcher and I convinced him to watch a movie with me (this is true and not speculation). This resulted in a spiraling, crippling addiction to motion picture feature films which will take him years upon haggard years to recover from and I have ruined his life and at times, in strange moments of clarity, he curses my name (this is speculation).
5. He is dealing with the loss of a fish or a friend or something tragic of that nature.
6. He won the lottery and now is in Las Vegas covered with strippers and cocaine and Little People dressed like the members of Kiss.
7. His family has a blood feud against my family and when they realized what was going on he was forbidden to see me and is, at this very moment, lying in a tomb somewhere drugged to the point of near death waiting for me to come and stab myself in the heart over his not-really-dead body.
8. He was blinded in a senseless accident in his laboratory and is groping at the walls without reference and getting dangerously close to the proton radial particle accelerator device which happens to be turned on and a mouse happens to be sneaking through the lab and is attracted to the tiny chunks of cheese that are being radially accelerated (do you see where this is going? Mouse Man!)
9. He is actually a gypsy and when I go home tonight all of my belongings will be missing, as well as my car and my roommates and my house.
10. He’s actually a seal (selkie) and over the holidays he found his seal skin locked in a magical chest and he put it on and went straight out to Cannon Beach to reconvene with his brethren and seals don’t use cell phones so there you go.
11. He was actually a ghost who was granted one wish, kind of like Devon Sawa in Casper when he goes down the stairs all slow and romantic and starts slow-dancing with Christina Ricci.
12. We just found a trail of three fortunes scattered mysteriously on the office floor. I picked up one. It said: An admirer is too shy to greet you at the moment. I’m not even joking about this.
13. He was converted by a wandering Jehovah’s Witness and is now cutting off all ties with his former friends and acquaintances all of whom are mired in the depths of Satan’s sway.
14. He sensed that I am totally batshit crazy and would end up writing weird stories about him and posting them on the World Wide Web.
15. Witness Protection Program.
16. Jury duty. He is in the middle of a hot case (something very OJ Simpson-like) and he is not allowed to have any contact with civilians because they could taint his opinions or try to sway them and so he is sitting in a Motel 6 with the television shut off reading one of those Bourne Identity books (because that’s all they gave him which is really unfortunate because those books are among the worst ever written).
17. Oh man. He is probably a vampire.
18. Or he is in the sort of cult that would feature prominently in a Japanese movie in which the members have a secret pact to ruin people by breaking their hearts and crushing their spirits and this has all been a malicious game that will be revealed in a very climactic scene involving dripping candles and ravens and ritual sacrifice.
19. I just bought a new accordion (not speculation but fact). He is avoiding me because the torture of hearing someone who does not know how to play the accordion but attempts to anyway is far too painful to bear.
20. He has full-blown AIDS.
1. He is not alive anymore.
2. He suffered a horrible crushing injury to his larynx rendering any communication via telephone impossible, also, he broke his thumbs making a conciliatory text impossible.
3. Has amnesia, has no idea where, who or what he is and is living like a feral badger in a 24-hour Wal-Mart.
4. He was an avid non-movie watcher and I convinced him to watch a movie with me (this is true and not speculation). This resulted in a spiraling, crippling addiction to motion picture feature films which will take him years upon haggard years to recover from and I have ruined his life and at times, in strange moments of clarity, he curses my name (this is speculation).
5. He is dealing with the loss of a fish or a friend or something tragic of that nature.
6. He won the lottery and now is in Las Vegas covered with strippers and cocaine and Little People dressed like the members of Kiss.
7. His family has a blood feud against my family and when they realized what was going on he was forbidden to see me and is, at this very moment, lying in a tomb somewhere drugged to the point of near death waiting for me to come and stab myself in the heart over his not-really-dead body.
8. He was blinded in a senseless accident in his laboratory and is groping at the walls without reference and getting dangerously close to the proton radial particle accelerator device which happens to be turned on and a mouse happens to be sneaking through the lab and is attracted to the tiny chunks of cheese that are being radially accelerated (do you see where this is going? Mouse Man!)
9. He is actually a gypsy and when I go home tonight all of my belongings will be missing, as well as my car and my roommates and my house.
10. He’s actually a seal (selkie) and over the holidays he found his seal skin locked in a magical chest and he put it on and went straight out to Cannon Beach to reconvene with his brethren and seals don’t use cell phones so there you go.
11. He was actually a ghost who was granted one wish, kind of like Devon Sawa in Casper when he goes down the stairs all slow and romantic and starts slow-dancing with Christina Ricci.
12. We just found a trail of three fortunes scattered mysteriously on the office floor. I picked up one. It said: An admirer is too shy to greet you at the moment. I’m not even joking about this.
13. He was converted by a wandering Jehovah’s Witness and is now cutting off all ties with his former friends and acquaintances all of whom are mired in the depths of Satan’s sway.
14. He sensed that I am totally batshit crazy and would end up writing weird stories about him and posting them on the World Wide Web.
15. Witness Protection Program.
16. Jury duty. He is in the middle of a hot case (something very OJ Simpson-like) and he is not allowed to have any contact with civilians because they could taint his opinions or try to sway them and so he is sitting in a Motel 6 with the television shut off reading one of those Bourne Identity books (because that’s all they gave him which is really unfortunate because those books are among the worst ever written).
17. Oh man. He is probably a vampire.
18. Or he is in the sort of cult that would feature prominently in a Japanese movie in which the members have a secret pact to ruin people by breaking their hearts and crushing their spirits and this has all been a malicious game that will be revealed in a very climactic scene involving dripping candles and ravens and ritual sacrifice.
19. I just bought a new accordion (not speculation but fact). He is avoiding me because the torture of hearing someone who does not know how to play the accordion but attempts to anyway is far too painful to bear.
20. He has full-blown AIDS.
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