May 23rd thru the 29th, 2004

Back home and it was minute of putter until D5V called and suggested a walk 'round Discovery Park. Of course I agreed. The weather was gorgeous and I got some photos. Here's two. Click on one to see a larger versions. The great thing about Discovery park is that you can get deep into it and feel like you're out in the middle of nowhere, and then walk for 10 minutes and be back in your car, 5 minutes from the highway and 15 minutes from home. There's the rainforesty part, and the grassy plain part, and the bluff with awesome views of the sound, too. Meditation through walking is possible here. Or have a picnic. Or run three miles. Or look at cool old moss-covered stumps.

Then it was home again and the grocery store, for I needed vittles before visitors alighted for some movie watching. Amongst my vittles I got Spam. Yes, Spam. THE Spam. I like it every now and again. You could sue me, but you would lose. Spam and Doritos and Pepsi. It's so Wichita. I also watched one of the better episodes of Season 2 Angel, called "Dead End." In it Lindsey gets a dead guy's hand to replace his fake one, and, of course, it's evil. But they don't do anything too cheesy with it. And his exit scene in the Wolfram & Hart was hilarious.

Guest came over, I cooked roast beef, they made the mashed potatoes and yorkies, gravy and asparagus. We watched In America, which was a real tear jerker, but a good little flick. One of my guests has actually met the director, in Ireland. How ya like that? The two little girls in it were absolutely adorable. Any ladies out there thinking to marry the Bukkhead and get some kids out of him better know that if the babies are not girls, they're going in the gunny sack and hitting the river. 'Nuff said.

Went to the airport AGAIN to pick up a pal who had been in New York for a few days, having parked her car at my abode. She was much fatigued, but I gave her a cup of tea and she was good to go. I think they're going to start charging me rent at the airport, I'm there so much. It's crackers.

Went for a walk at 5 with Scone 'round Greenlake. Yes, my second lap of the day. Gorgeous weather, and gorgeous people, and cute doggies! If I had a responsible roommate, I'd get a dog. Yes, that's damned selfish. I am bachelor. It's in our DNA. Bowling. We managed to lose all 4 points, but that's okay. The other team bowled WAY above their averages, and deserved it. Our team did not slack off, to be sure-- we all did bowled well. It was what bowling should be. I could NOT get stirkes to happen-- I would hit the pocket, on both sides, and get weird splits and 9s. So I finally figured out why, stopped throwing the ball so hard, and sure enough, it was strike strike spare. But too little too late. Oh well. After dat me and dude on the other team DDR'd. 'Twas fun.

Now I am home doing this, listening to Veruca Salt and trying to figure out what to do with my life. Today it occured to me that I have pretty darned good life, and I should be happy. I have had that thought before, you know, but this time, I realized, I AM happy, too. My friends alone are worth a thousand million smiles-- any one of them, and en masse and I am the luckiest man in the world. I have no room for complaining about anything I might feel I lack, and you know what, I don't really feel like my lacks actually lack me for much. Having typed all that, I'm going to have a glass of port and go about doing the code part of this update. Love to you all. You make me enjoy breathing.

Thought I had a cold, but now I think it might be allergies. But I don't know what I'm allergic to! I've never had allergies before. My eyes are itchy, and my nose is itchy too.

So I rose at 5:30 or so thanks to the sunlight flooding through the window, and decided to stay up-- off goes me to Seward Park for a 45 minute walk. It's nice, along the water's edge of Lake Washington, and there's some foresty trails to explore as well. Also there's a completely amazing view of Mt. Ranier, which I will go back and photograph the next sunny morning. (Weather.com says that will be next Monday).

All day long, I was home. So I decided to cancel my cable. This is, like, the fourth time I've tried to cancel it. And once again, they offered to lower the price. I return the digital box, they charge me 6 bucks a month for the basic cable, and I get 10 dollars off my internet access. So, for the next 6 months, I will have a live cable dangling from the wall, unattached to anything else (My TV is not cable-ready), just to get what amounts to a 4 dollar discount on internet. Comcast is weird.

Coffee thing. SBC. You know how it be. Only two other people, but that's okay-- we chatted about things. I had a short-bread cookie with orange frosting and a smiley face, and shared it with one of my fellow interlocutors. I said, when we eat this cookie, we think of paralegals in DC, he said why. I said because cookies and paralegals in DC go together like Thanksgiving and Turkey. He said I think you're the turkey. I pointed at the cookie and said gobble. He did. It was good.

Went home, started to eat mashed potatoes and to read through Seattle Weekly, but then a pal called, wanting to dine in a dive, so when she arrived twas a dive we sought, and though we fought with rain and bad drivers, the dive we found was closed, so, forlorn, we drove to another place in Wallingford, to chat about this and those other other things over benedictine eggs and barbecue beef at a little space I like to call the Rusty Pelican.

So endeth the day.

"Mad World" Michael Andrews | "Such Great Heights" The Postal Service | "How Soon is Now?" The Smiths | "Rush" and "The Globe" Big Audio Dynamite | "The 1812" Bond | "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See" Busta Rhymes | "Blue Sun" Darling Violetta | "The Magic Number" De La Soul | "Thank You" Dido | "Selfishness" The Ethers | "Gorgeous" Girl Next Door

Had to go to Comcast to drop off the cable box and City Light to pay a bill anyway, so I decided to dine at Leilani Lanes and hit the lanes. I managed a 136, 125, 146 and 135, which I don't feel like complaining about too much. I had the grilled chicken. On the way back home, I stopped in at Blockbuster to see what I could see, but nothing appealed. Actually I didn't think anything would, but I tried anyway. Fer shizzle, just looking at the video game boxes made me queesy- my brain knows in advance that video gaming is making me shaky. A break for a while I think.

Sorta took a nap. Ate some mashed potatos. Talked on the phone. Watched some Angel. Did some laundry. Washed some dishes. Got picked up by my good friend The Locomotion and we went to Target (I bought a scale so I can quite lying about my weight) and Albertson's (I'm going to try and reduce my sodium intake just to see what happens). Loco let me rip her new Avril Lavigne CD. Hooray for me! Goodnight.

Blah blah blah work nap food phone. Oh but then night time came and off I go to Kozue to pick up a sushi order, and then D5V's for to eat it. Then we went to Chop Suey to see Rasputina! The opener was a Audio Learning Center, who I liked- a mixture of Chevelle and New Found Glory, a go-ahead heavy bass, ride 'em drum, lots of reverb on the guitar, and high whiny vocals. I'm no fan of the high whiny vocals things, but sometimes it works.

Rasputina themselves were brilliant. We were standing towrds the back, but Melora asked everyone if they wouldn't mind sitting and voila, I had the best view. A young thing was forced to remain standing right in front of me, as did I, and as we were next the traffic lane, the were was a lot of incidental contact. So imagine me experiencing the crush of a crowd with the view of no-crowd. Surreal. The played a bunch of favorites, and stuff from their new album, which I didn't know existed until I got home and checked. I'll be going out and picking that one up as soon as the stores open. I like listening to Rasputina for the musicality of it all ("Cellocore," the sub-sub-sub genre is called) but I like going to shows to watch Melora's amazing control over that lumbering beast of a cello. Also, seeing all the young goths is a treat. Hooray for striped socks!

No big long walk this morning, though I may go to a biking class. What else can I babble about. I am trying to reduce my sodium intake. Did I already say that a few days ago? So far it is going okay. I mean, I DID have sushi last night, which is not exactly sodium free, and even thought it was lite soy sauce, it was still pretty rich. But when I went to the grocery store on Wednesday, I made low-sodium choices, and outright refused to buy anything that was more than 200 mg per serving. Not that I have high cholestreol or anything, or high blood pressure, or any other illness. But I sometimes wonder if I don't get bloaty from water retention sometimes, and hwat am I supposed to do, drink less water? I think not! Getting more potassium would help the water thing too (for that's what potassium is for: getting water where it belongs) so bananas and such.

Puttered around, got damned drowsy, decided to shave my whole body. Off to Broadway Market to buy some body lotions and the Fred Meyer there to get one of those mini-shaver things. Back home again, and now I am hariless monkey. Okay that's all a lie but I did get a mino-shaver thing since my regular clippers were busted. Rusted. Later I went and did some bowling practice: 138, 145, 150, 138, so I am not too disapointed. My bowling scores aren't as high as there were but they are much more consistant which is all I ever wanted all along. I also DDR'd six songs, and they hurt my feet. Grrr.

Ploughshares came over and we chatted for a spell. I helped her scan and e-mail a dancing flyer. And then it was time to go see Mitch Hedberg at the Urban Comedy Cafe! Whooohooo! I drove over and picked up Beverage, and we drove to the club at 5th and Virginia. Suzanne and her fiancee were already there (I use her real name because she is a local stand-up comic and is the one who told me about Mitch's coming to Seattle). We got there at about 10:00 and the line waiting to get in was very long, even though we had all pre-bought tickets. The show was supposed to start at 10:30 And so we stood there in line until 11:30. It never moved. Eventually Maddy-Wa joined us, and so we all chatted until we finally found out that Mitch had cancelled the show. Apparently he had been very very drunk in the first show, and when he found out that people had paid as much as $45 per ticket, he was very angry, and said it was WAY too much to pay, and refused to go on. So that was that. No Mitch for us. Instead, Bev and Mad and I went over to Cafe Minnie's for cheeseburgers and blintzes, and then it was home at last.

Or maybe not. Still can't connect to the server... guess they're stll updating it?

Well, whatever. Hopped a plane with Fabu and we went to San Jose, where my mom picked us up, and we headed home. When we got there, dad announced that if we wanted, we could drive in to San Francisco early, and attend a Q&A session with Brian Regan. Score! So that we did. We got to Cobbs and, with about 15 other people, chit-chatted with Brian. It was pretty cool. After that we wandered off to have dinner at the Washington Bar and Grill, and back to Cobbs for the show at 8:00 (and the whole point of the trip).

Oh, man that dude is funny. If you get a chance to see him, go. You will not ever regret it.