December 5, 2009

[Taken November 28]

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December 4, 2009

[Taken November 28]

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-- MDCXXIV --

Last night I went to Central Cinema with Barbara to watch the Found Footage Festival, which comes every year to present findings from ridiculous VHS videos these two guys find in Salvation Armies, other thrift stores, and other random places around the country. And it was hilarious. You haven't lived until you've seen screaming shirtless heavy metal fans, a demonstration of a male masturbation device, and Milton Burl dressed as Richard Simmons, all in the same evening.

This was my first time to Central Cinema since Barbara quit. Barbara told me she's been back a few times, both to say hi to people working there and at least once to see a movie that was playing. When the waitress came to take our order, I ordered their delicious Firenze pizza (it has sliced potatoes ad oil-infused olives, both of which make it delicious), but Barbara didn't order anything. She even said to the waitress (whose name I forget), "You know me, I'm broke."

The waitress, who has a history of comping both of us items we ordered when Barbara and I would see movies there while Barbara still worked there, said to her, "Are you hungry?" It was clear what this meant, but Barbara told her, "I have food at home." She did order popcorn, though, and both that and the tea I ordered were comped. I only had to pay for the pizza and the surprisingly tasteless marionberry tart (which Barbara even warned me wasn't very good, but I guess I didn't take her seriously enough). It was a little better with the ice cream on it.

I had her bring two spoons, so I could share the dessert with Barbara, but Barbara probably only ate about a quarter of it, and I ate the rest. In the past, I usually ate the entire pizza, but I gave the final two slices to Barbara. The dessert is probably why I was nearly a pound heavier this morning than I was yesterday morning.

I took the bus home so I could feed the cats, but had to leave for the theatre within just a few minutes; I knew the event would likely be sold out (this was the first time I'd managed to get tickets, because I always tried too late in the past) and I wanted to get a decent seat. We got to the theatre shortly after 6:00 and there were already about ten people waiting in line for the building to open.

After the movie, I walked home, and although I intended to try and get into bed at least by 11:00, after not getting to bed until 11:30 every night this week -- I ended up staying up until midnight! This is mostly because of an 11th-hour (so to speak) recollection of the fact that Tori Amos released a holiday album, and naturally I had to buy it.

This is not only the second album Tori Amos has released this year alone, but it's the twenty-seventh album I've purchased this year (counting the five Disney soundtracks Andrea made me copies of, I got 32 new -- to me -- albums total this year . . . so far). This will be the first time ever that my top 20 at the end of the year is not even capable of including all the new albums I got.

I don't know that this Tori Amos holiday album will make it onto the list, though. Even after her albums of recent years failing to deliver the way earlier albums had, it still didn't quite meet my expectations. I mean, I like it, and I'm particularly fond of the first couple of tracks, but really, I still haven't even exhausted how much I want to keep listening to my previous three purchased albums (Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster; Rihanna's Rated R; and Adam Lambert's For Your Entertainment, which has really grown on me).

I'm listening to Midwinter Graces right now, though, and it's perfectly pleasant.

The album on iTunes included a 31-minute video interview, which I haven't yet watched, but which took forever to download properly. It was because of that as much as anything that I was up so late. Okay, that and other things online that were distracting me, I admit it!

-- MDCXXIV --

I sure wish more conservatives were like this.

-- MDCXXIV --

So here's this list of the ten most-watched TV shows of the decade. I find it telling that only three of them are from the second half of the decade, and only one of those three -- the sixth-season premiere of American Idol in January 2007 -- is in the top five.

Clearly, television is no longer the unifying force of American entertainment it was, even ten years ago. I really think the Internet will be to the 21st Century what television was to the 20th.

-- MDCXXIV --



-- MDCXXIV --

Say, did I mention that when I fly to Spokane next Friday, I'll be flying Southwest? And, assuming the experience is pleasant enough -- and I don't see why it wouldn't be -- I will likely stick with them from now on, and never fly with those Alaska Airlines bastards again.

Southwest had never occurred to me until Danielle suggested it when I was on the phone with her on Sunday. Back when I had first considered flying Becca or Tristen over in the summer on some airline besides Alaska, I had foolishly looked only on sites like Orbitz, which showed only Alaska and Horizon as options between Spokane and Seattle. (This is a good example of what Danielle likes to call "Matthew Vision" -- "there's tunnel vision, and then there's Matthew Vision," she likes to say.) I can only presume Southwest does not show up on those travel sites because they don't pay the associated fees to be included -- which, again presumably, would be how they keep their costs down so they don't have to over-charge their customers.

So I went to the Southwest Airlines website, and was somewhat disappointed to learn that their flights to Spokane next weekend were only $10 cheaper than Alaska's. "Hey, ten bucks is ten bucks," Danielle said. But then I considered something else: I can't take my bag as a carry-on, because I need to be able to bring my hair product and toiletries, many of which are far larger than 2 oz. I'm going to have to check a bag, which Alaska would charge me $15 for each way. Guess what? Southwest has no bag fees for up to two bags! So really, I wouldn't be saving just ten bucks -- I'd be saving $40.

That settled it. Fuck Alaska. I had my flight booked within the next couple of hours.

But then yesterday I got curious, and I looked up Southwest's unaccompanied minors policy, and I found some great information. Indeed, they do charge a fee for unaccompanied minors below the age of 12 -- but with them, it's $25 each way. Currently at Alaska, that's $75 each way. Paying a total of $50 is a hell of a lot better than $150 (which is nearly the price of the ticket itself)! And I'm going to have to deal with this again when Tristen comes for the first time next summer.

Also, on Southwest the age is under 12; on Alaska it's under 13, which means one less year to be forced into paying the fees.

Unless Southwest does something to really piss me off, I'm pretty dedicated now to flying Christopher's kids over on Southwest from now on. If avoiding Alaska completely becomes an option for me, then I'm going to take it.

-- MDCXXIV --

I find this really interesting. Twitter creator Jack Dorsey keeps tweeting about a new business venture he's partnering in, called Square, and I finally went to the product's website to figure out what the hell it is. Apparently it's a device that plus into your smart phone, and can be used to scan credit and debit cards so you can take payment from people electronically via the phone. This seems like a really smart idea and I'm kind of surprised it hasn't been done already.

In terms of secure transactions, one feature that's shown in a photo on the site seems pretty cool: a picture of the card user comes up on the phone and asks for verification that it's the right person using the card. Very cool.

I'm really not afraid of living in a cashless society, even though my mom always regarded it as a harbinger of the apocalypse -- the antichrist and all that. (Because a prevailing theory is that the number 666 will be used on bar codes, perhaps on chips embedded in people's skin, which would thus mean bearing the "mark of the beast.") I love things like this, actually, that make commerce a lot easier. What's not to like?

I'm sure someone could find all sorts of things to tell me not to like about it, and whether or not I would find the arguments convincing remains to be seen. For now, I think it's a great idea.

-- MDCXXIV --


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Current Music: "Good King Wenceslas," Tori Amos

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December 3, 2009

[Taken November 28]

Tags: the daily shobhit

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-- MDCXXIII --

So November 30 through December 2 of this year was the ten-year anniversary of the WTO riots in Seattle, and the Capitol Hill Blog has been posting several entries commemorating it, including a post listing individual people's memories of it.

It's very appropriate for the Capitol Hill Blog -- as opposed to other neighborhood blogs -- to do this, because the police deliberately forced protesters from downtown up the hill. This was stupefyingly dimwitted on a number of levels, not the least of which is the fact that Capitol Hill is the most densely populated neighborhood in the city (as well as the entire state, I believe). But, apparently all the city cared about was getting the protesters away from the actual WTO conference.

I live on Capitol Hill now, but at that time, I lived in Belltown. But I worked on Capitol Hill. I feel like noting at this point, very close to pointlessly, that this is one of the very few instances where a Big Seattle Occurrence happened closer to me than it did to susandennis, who has the skinny on just about all things SoDo (including a photo history of the March 2000 implosion of the Kingdome; how cool is that? -- although unfortunately her two favorite links to other people's videos of it are now broken links. Bummer!). And even I have comparatively limited anecdotes to tell about WTO. But I'm going to tell them anyway.

First off, I worked for the Seattle Gay News at the time. It was my first full time job in Seattle (overworked and underpaid, naturally), and I had been there six months. Mike B was obsessed with getting "the gay angle" of every mainstream news occurrence that happened anywhere ever (something I never particularly agreed with, and still don't; I think "gay news" should be targeted to gay interest rather than making mainstream interests gay), and he knew very early on that WTO was going to be a big deal. Thus, he felt that we should both be down there and in the thick of things, reporting whatever news we could find. Because, you know, WTO is so gay.

Now, for the record, when the protesters were pushed onto Capitol Hill, the heart of Seattle's gay community, that's certainly when I felt the news became far more relevant to us. But my attitude at the time was that I lived right by all that shit going on downtown, and I had no interest in immersing myself in it for work as well, thereby living and breathing WTO bullshit day and night. Spokane like a true reporter, right? Ha! You can see how committed I was to pure, hard-news journalism. As in, pretty much not at all.

As it happened, I was never on Capitol Hill while the protesters got pushed up there, late at night. I was at home, where the action was being pushed away from me. One of my most vivid memories from that time, though, is walking up Pine Street to the Seattle Gay News offices the morning after all that happened, and seeing rubber bullets all over the sidewalk. I saw that right outside the building that houses the liquor store on the corner of 12th and Pike, as that's where the SGN is (and was) located -- a stretch of sidewalk I walk on almost daily now. It's been a while since I've thought about seeing those rubber bullets, though.

I also had a minor run-in with the tear gas the police used on protesters. I was no less than two blocks away from it, though, and the wind carried it toward me. I couldn't breathe from even that far away, and walked a further two blocks out of my way to avoid it, as I walked around all the action to get down to my dentist appointment at Key Tower (now the Seattle Municipal Building, the one that's also known as the Penis Building, because of course you give a shit). Again, these were my priorities: it was more important to me to go to the dentist that to insert myself into the thick of things. And trust me, breathing tear gas is not pleasant. I can't even fathom having been in the middle of the crowds at which it was being thrown.

The next day, of course, the National Guard was brought in. Another vivid memory: walking to work, turning a corner, and seeing a group of maybe twenty guys in fatigues and with guns sort of march-jogging in formation down the street toward me. It was like I was suddenly immersed into a war zone, or at the very least a state of martial law. Suffice it to say it was fucking creepy -- and I opted not to go down that street and I took a different route. I believe that was the same walk to work on which I saw the rubber bullets, roughly a mile away from where I'd seen the soldiers.

Some people likely remember that the actually very few unruly protesters broke several of the windows of the Bank of America branch on Fifth and Olive. I didn't see that happen -- I didn't see any of the vandalism while it occurred -- but the building did have a near-spooky look with all its boarded-over windows for several days afterward.

The point at which all the WTO crap affected me most directly was on the evening of December 1. I know the date because I remember I was returning home from attending a World AIDS Day prayer vigil event at a Capitol Hill church. I walked home from there, relatively late at night, which meant I had to cross a border of the so-called "curfew zone." This was the closest thing I ever experienced to the kind of check points imposed on Palestinians, and admittedly it was pretty far from that -- this had nothing to do with religious or ethnic differences, after all -- but I did have to show my ID to a solder positioned at Olive and Boren.

He had told me I couldn't go that way, and I told him I just wanted to go home. I had to prove I lived there by showing the address on my ID card. I remember this being quite a close call, as I had only just recently updated my ID card (which was just and ID; I didn't get my driver's license until the next year) to show my current address. I don’t know how they would have handled it if I'd still had my Pullman address on my ID.

For the first time, as I think about all that in retrospect, I realize that if it were happening now, I would be far more likely to happily get into the thick of things. I even kind of wish now that I had then. Why? Just think of all the extraordinary pictures I could have gotten! Of course most of them would have become property of the SGN, but still. I didn't have a digital camera then (I didn't get my first one of those until 2003), but if WTO were happening now, you can bet I'd be all over the place, getting all the great pictures I could.

My slap-happy interest in picture-taken has very much been borne of the prevalence of both digital cameras and websites like Flickr. In 1999, my picture taking was limited by both conventional film and hard copy photos, which were mostly seen only by myself. Now, I could take literally hundreds of photos, and then share them to the world (which of course I already do, monthly!).

To this day I have only the most threadbare understanding of the WTO as an organization, what crimes against humanity they commit, why the protesters were so significantly opposed to them, and how they attempted to shut the conference down. I really only know the ways it impacted me (yes! In so many ways, I'm a typical American!), which have all been detailed in the above paragraphs.

-- MDCXXIII --

After I complained on Twitter about my Skullcandy headphones suddenly going tits-up, susandennis recommended another brand that I thought sounded really cool. This "marshmallow" idea very much appeals to me, because it's so hard for me to find headphones that fit right and never work their way out of my ears. (Even the Skullcandies, which had been the best fit to date, eventually worked their way out of my ears, especially when I moved my mouth, either to chew food or to sing along.)

The most pressing problem I had, though, was that I needed replacements now. I also needed to go to the most quick and convenient place, which in this instance was the Everyday Music store on Pine and Broadway, which I took the #49 bus straight to after work yesterday, before hopping a conveniently timed #10 the rest of the way home on Pine. I only had a few minutes after that before I needed to go to Book Club.

If Everyday Music had any kind of "marshmallow" headphones, I likely would have tried them, regardless of brand. But they didn't; they had only Skullcandy and Sony headphones. And guess what? Beth just reiterated her recommendation that I get Sony headphones on Facebook yesterday. So, I paid the fifteen bucks -- cheaper than Skullcandy -- to get their Bud Style model.

I wasn't entirely sure about these ones, because they clearly wouldn't fit the way my previous ear buds had -- as in, stuck into the holes of my ears, effectively plugging them as a means for being "noise canceling." These Sony ear buds don't plug the ear so much as fit snug into the wider space just outside the hole, effectively covering the ear without doing any plugging.

I couldn't see how these would be noise-canceling, and they aren't, per se -- but, as it turns out, so far anyway, they work far better than the other ear buds I've used, which often have to be pressed so far into my ear so they don't fall out that they weirdly distort the sound coming into my head. That never happens with these. And although I can hear outside noise perfectly well when no music is playing, when music is playing, the music is pretty much all I hear -- even when I'm walking outside next to traffic.

So I have to say, so far at least, Sony's the favorite. The real test will be durability -- we'll see how long the wire lasts -- but I do have high hopes, because every Sony product I've ever had was solid and surprisingly resilient. (The CD walkman I used to have was by Sony, and it continued to work even after I once accidentally dropped it in the toilet. My first laptop was also Sony, and it worked perfectly well until someone stole it; it remains the only computer I've ever had that never gave me any problems -- and that includes my current Mac.)

I think I can safely say I'm done with Skullcandy. I liked the sound, until the wire went haywire. Yesterday I had to position it just right from right next to where it plugged into my iPhone, in order to get it to come through the left speaker. And listening to headphones through only one speaker is irritating as shit. And this happened merely hours after a totally separate issue: I went to take off the left ear bud cushion so I could scrape out some ear crumbs that had fell in there (I do wash my ears; it still happens!), and even though I was perfectly gentle with it, the plastic part of the base of the ear bud snapped right off, exposing the wires. Most annoying.

I've only had the Sony ear buds for 16 hours so far, but I sure enjoyed listening to them on my way to the bus stop this morning. I really, really hope these ones actually last. Given my track record with any and all headphones, I kind of doubt they'll last much more than a few months, but we'll see.

-- MDCXXIII --



-- MDCXXIII --

It amazes me how many customers email us with a grievance about their one single product they have a problem with, and how their unhappiness is forcing them to shop elsewhere. I'd never be able to count the number of messages that included the functional equivalent of, "That's it! You leave me no choice but to start shopping at Whole Foods!"

Fine, be my guest! I don't believe for a second that Whole Foods is a better company, but when it comes to the shopping experience, I can't honestly say I think it's much worse. They sell a lot of the same products we do. By and large the quality of their stuff is the same. Am I supposed to be crushed that you're going to shop there and not here? Evidently a lot of people think so. Maybe I should ask for their address so I can send them my unused box of Kleenex and ask them for find a better use for it than I seem to be able to manage.

Well, except that I don't have a box of Kleenex. Drat!

I could probably use one, actually. My nose has been running so much the past several days, I keep having to wipe and blow it with the only thing I have available: paper towels. Those aren't the softest things in the world, actually.

-- MDCXXIII --

My productivity at work this week has been less than optimal. This is what happens when my most pressing deadlines are not until next week. If I worked somewhere else, I'd be more cautious about stating something like that publicly.

Nevertheless, I've been feeling pretty busy this week, mostly due to social activity. Both last night and the night before, I went straight to some other engagement right after getting home from work, and then was in bed not long after getting home again. The same will repeat tonight. As is so often the case, tomorrow is Friday and the evening will be my least busy. And guess what? I'll have several shows to catch up on, on TiVo!

I do wonder, though, how soon I'd have calendars in hand if I finished a couple of them and made my order by the end of the night tomorrow. Would they arrive in the mail by Thursday next week? It seems unlikely. But it sure would be great if I could just hand deliver the calendars I make for Mom and Christopher. I should still get them done as soon as I can and try; if they don't arrive in time, then it's no biggie; I'll just mail them as originally planned.

I just found a web page that says shipping takes seven to ten business days. Well, that diminishes my hopes, doesn't it? I think I might try anyway. I needed to get these calendars done while Shobhit's gone anyway, and my schedule is ridiculous the next two weeks -- especially now that I'm flying to Spokane on the 11th, and I also plan now on going down to Olympia to spend the night this Saturday.

There's so much to do! This always happens in December. Damn you, December!

-- MDCXXIII --

I think maybe I've overcompensated for all the time I spent neglecting that Christmas Tree.

I poured half the water bottle's water directly down the stem of the tree before leaving for Book Club last night, and I kind of misjudged how much water the pot could take. When I got home again four hours later, the paper towels on which the tree sits were all soaked through, because the saucer had overflowed. Well! I guess I should cut back on the watering. I still sprayed all the branches with the bottle before bed, though. I really think that's helping.

Thankfully, the towels were dry this morning, so the saucer is no longer overflowing. It's hard even to think of it as a "saucer," since it's a base the main pot barely fits inside. And the water in it, while no longer overflowing, is was still right up to the lip -- so full that, with one drop more, it likely would have overflowed again. I sprayed all the branches again this morning, but I figure with only spraying, the soil and the tree itself will absorb that extra water before it adds to what's in the saucer.

I'm kind of thinking of this Christmas Tree as a test. If it looks healthier at the end of the month than it did at the beginning, I will consider it a success. And I will then have conditioned myself -- finally -- to care regularly for a plant, and therefore might consider getting more. I actually do like the idea of living in a home with a lot more plants; the only reason I never got more was because any plant I ever had always died.

And of course we'd be living in a better world if I stopped killing plants.

-- MDCXXIII --

As for Book Club, I left home at 6:15, figure that would give me just enough time to drive to the Fremont PCC, pick up something to bring to the potluck, and make it to Karen's place on Magnolia by 7:00. And I was right -- it must have been about 7:02 or so when I rang her doorbell.

She acted kind of surprised that I had come to the front door, as if I had ever not come to the front door. She said, "You're like family, you can come to the back door!" How nice is that? Maybe I will next time. Although it never hurts me to go up a few extra steps.

Diane, Karen's other "little person" friend, came to the back door, but I don't think anyone else did. Karen had said she scheduled Book Club for December 2 because that was when everyone was going to be able to come -- but Denise sent an email earlier in the evening saying she wasn't going to make it after all; and Rukshana never said anything and didn't show up. Maybe she's traveling abroad, I don't know.

So last night we had Karen, Carol, Jan, Janette, Holly, Joyce, Diane, and myself. It seems like there were other people missing besides just Denise and Rukshana, but I can't think of any other names.

I brought buttermilk vanilla mini cupcakes, which everyone liked quite a bit more than I was expecting, given they weren't homemade. Joyce brought some of the seven batches of chocolate fudge she apparently makes every year around Christmas. Diane, famous for her desserts, brought a cake that she admitted she made from a box mix but added white chocolate chips to. It was easily my favorite of the three desserts.

I must have done okay with the eating, though -- reasonable portions of the entrees; and for dessert I had one mini cupcake, one slice of Diane's bread, and okay, I had three of the small squares of Joyce's fudge. But when I weighed myself this morning, I was still 0.1 lbs lighter than I was yesterday morning -- which I consider progress!

Janette was kind of odd, though. She made this enchilada dish, and when I asked her if there was any meat in it, she said she didn't think so. She wasn't entirely sure, because she hadn't really "paid attention" while she was cooking. The hell? How do you cook something and not remember if there's meat in it?

I took some. I don't think there was meat in it. I didn't taste any, anyway. Sometimes that's actually kind of hard to tell.

Discussion of the book, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, was unusually lively. It was also amazing that everyone took care not to give spoilers for those of us who had not finished it -- I was only on page 44, but I am enjoying it enough that I do intend to finish it. (Apparently Karen can speed read and she skimmed to the end the night before herself, just to find out what happens.) Almost everyone loved it.

I left at about 10:15, and with so much less traffic on the roads, I made it home in little more than 15 minutes. Still, yet again, I was up until 11:30. Why do I keep doing that? Because I've been having so little time at home and so much to do, I guess!

And much of today will be the same. Wash, rinse, repeat.

-- MDCXXIII --


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Tags: twitter digest

December 2, 2009

[Taken November 28]

Tags: the daily shobhit

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-- MDCXXII --

Well, I certainly didn't see that one coming.

I was catching up online last night, sometime around maybe 9:00 or so, and I had just gotten up to pour myself a cup of tea. When I came back to the computer desk, there was a voice mail on my phone. It said it was from Mom.

Well, it was actually from Holly, Mom's care provider. She's actually one of at least three people, maybe more, who provide help from Mom and Bill in various ways, but she's the one Mom talks about the most. She'd used Mom's phone to call -- and to invite me to their Christmas party.

That's right. Mom and Bill are having a Christmas party. To say that is out of the ordinary would be the understatement of the year. They've never had one!

It came immediately apparent that Holly was the one basically hosting the party, although it's happening at Mom and Bill's. And it's happening two weekend from now, on Saturday, December 12. For me, the uber-planner, that's actually relatively short notice. But I was immediately trying to think of ways to make it work.

Right after listening to the voice mail, which gave me Holly's phone number -- which I'm thrilled to have, as it gives me an emergency contact should anything ever happen to Mom and Nill -- I called her back. This was the first time I ever spoke to Holly, and she seems really nice. She kept saying she was sorry she never got to meet me on the Fourth of July (actually we were over there Memorial Day weekend), and in her voice mail she even said she really wanted to meet me because "they speak so highly of you." Really?

My first response was to tell her I honestly do really want to come, but I couldn't say just yet. There are just so many mitigating factors. Why don't I just list them all for you right now?

1. Getting there. My initial thought was driving, and the thought of driving by myself over Snoqualmie Pass certainly gives me pause. I've never done that on my own before. (I told Holly this and she said, "How old are you?" Clearly she had no idea what little driving experience I have. Hell, I just scraped Shobhit's car door fairly badly on a concrete wall in our garage the other day, and I haven't told Shobhit about it yet because I haven’t had the chance.)

2. Having a place to stay. I was fairly confident that I could stay with Gail, but you never know, and I'd prefer not to have to pay for a hotel.

3. Cost. And not just cost, but unexpected cost at short notice -- during the holidays, when we're all already having to spend more than usual to begin with.

Holly was very persuasive, though. She even went so far as to say to me, "I know that there would be no greater Christmas present for your mom than your presence." Guilt trip much? "I know what you're doing there!" I said, though I was being good natured about it.

Holly suggested I fly instead of driving, which should have occurred to me but I hadn't thought of it until she mentioned it. Mostly this is because flying to Spokane generally feels like a waste of time, as the time it takes to do everything involved -- get to the airport, which has to be done early; get boarded; fly there; get from that airport to wherever I'm going -- inevitably takes at least as long as it usually takes to drive. But that's under the best of circumstances; under the worst, especially during winter, there could be massive traffic delays at the pass, which airplanes just fly right over.

Holly also said flights can often be found "for about a hundred bucks." Well, so much for that: the best deal I could find was Southwest Airlines (an airline Danielle suggested and which I never considered before -- they don't come up in Orbitz searches), for $190. Alaska Airlines was $10 more, but they'd charge me $15 each way for my checked bag, and Southwest apparently doesn't charge fees for up to two checked bags (! -- I think Southwest is my new favorite airline), so I actually saved myself about $40 there. I also think I might switch to Southwest from now on for flying my nieces and nephews over for their summer weekend visits.

Still, I'm not exceedingly thrilled to have to spend an unexpected two hundred bucks, especially when it only costs a hundred more to fly ten times as far away (don't know who's doing the fuzzy math behind the scenes there), but I feel like this is something important that I should really be at.

I talked to Danielle a little on the phone, and she gave me Gail's work phone number, so I called Gail at work and she said my staying the night on December 11 and December 12. "As long as it's next weekend and not this weekend," she said. Today's her birthday and she doesn't want to have to clean house for an expected guest just yet.

Gail even expressed interest in coming to the Christmas party. I thought that could actually be a good idea, because even though Holly amazingly offered to drive all the way into Spokane from Idaho to get me and bring me to the party -- it's that important to her that I be there -- if Gail comes, then Gail can drive me and save Holly the trouble. I asked Mom about this, and Mom was personally fine with it but reticent given that Dawn will be there.

Oh yes -- Dawn! I don't think I've seen Dawn (this is Katina's mom, my brother's mother-in-law) in ten years. It'll probably be a trip and a half to see her. She'll probably look surprisingly old to me, since my most recent memories are of her ten years younger. I'd love to see her again, though. It's been too long.

But Mom's memory is clearly a little screwy these days, as she said she thought Dawn might have a problem with Gail being there. For some reason Mom remembers the drama from 1991 (the year of Reg and Gail's divorce and severe animosity between Gail and Dawn, shortly before Dawn and Reg were together for a little while) better than she remembers the late-nineties era of Gail's sobriety and her process of making amends. My final memory of Dawn and Gail's association with each other is from when Gabe and Suzy and I went up to Spokane from Pullman in the late nineties, and Gail and Dawn were both sitting and visiting in Mom's living room. I told Mom I remembered this because Gabe and Suzy couldn't handle how thick the room was with cigarette smoke -- all three of them were smoking. Mom didn't seem to remember that. In any event, Mom wants to run the idea of Gail coming by Dawn, and if Dawn is okay with it, then we'll see if Gail still wants to come (Gail's final thought about it was; "Let's think about it").

In any case, I've got one of two ways to get to the party, without even having a car of my own while I'm over there.

And speaking of "too long," there's another significant motivating factor for me: Christopher. I asked Holly if she had Spokane to my brother, and she said no, but she would. She said she wanted the party to be an adults-only kind of thing, which would mean leaving the kids at home (Mom told her they should suggest Nikki and Becca babysit the younger kids, which they probably do regularly already). Either way, I really, really hope Christopher can be persuaded to make it -- because if he comes, then I'm fairly certain it will be the first time Mom, Christopher and I were all three of us together since Christmas 1999.

Oh! Wait, I take that back -- it's been since August 2000 (that picture was taken at Christopher and Katina's house). So it's been nine years rather than ten. But still: close enough! Even nine years is too long.

When I last spoke to Mom, after I had booked the flight and told her I'm definitely coming (I'll fly over Friday evening December 11, go to the party on Saturday, and fly home late Sunday morning), she had a plan. First, she'll call him; then she'll have Holly -- the ever-persuasive one -- call him; and if he's still hemming and hawing, then she'll have me call him. Mom meant to say we'll gang up on him and almost said "It'll be a gang bang!" -- but, no, that's not quite what it'll be.

My most persistent worry now is if it's snowy over there that weekend, and what driving conditions will be like on I-90 through the mountains of the Idaho Panhandle. Gail sounded like it could be an issue for her if the weather is bad, but if Holly comes to get me, Mom has no worries at all. It sounds like Holly is a seasoned snowy-weather driver and gets around quite well through the winter. This would make sense, as she works as a car provider the whole year and therefore has to get around.

I told Holly I was excited to meet her, and told her how awesome it was and how much I appreciated what a difference she's made in Mom and Bill's lives. This Christmas party will include all their care providers, apparently, so for once I'll get to meet them all, which will be pretty cool in and of itself. This party was clearly her idea; I don't think it ever would have even occurred to Mom, and she and Bill would never have the strength or the resources to put something like that together on their own.

Holly sounds like a great person. I'm really looking forward to meeting her. And I really, really hope my brother can make it. Either way, it looks like I'll definitely be there!

-- MDCXXII --




-- MDCXXII --

Once again I was up until 11:30 last night -- I've got to stop doing that! -- mostly because I had so little time at home before bed, and so much of that got sucked up talking on the phone and considering whether or not I should go to Wallace on the weekend of the 12th.

I did indeed leave work at 4:35 yesterday, and by all indications today, no one even noticed. I got to the Neptune just in time to see Red Cliff, at which Barbara actually joined me. I had thought she wasn't that interested in this movie (and in the end I only found it barely worth seeing), but maybe she felt she could afford it since she got paid from us yesterday for cleaning.

(She actually called me to see if I'd left the money there when she came over to do her ironing yesterday. I had forgotten to take it out of the desk drawer and set it out for her, mostly because for some reason my Entourage [Mac version of Outlook] reminder keeps popping up an hour later than I want it to. I need to fix that.)

I had thought I might make some headway on the book club book that we're to be discussing tonight, but I couldn't read on the bus home because Barbara was with me. We had a good time though, and laughed a lot on that bus ride. The #43 is the Fun Bus, after all! At least it is for us, we decided, ever since we laughed so hard during a ride on that bus about, oh I don't know, five years ago? Six? Eight?

And then of course most of the rest of the evening was devoted to figuring out the logistics of getting to Wallace.

-- MDCXXII --

I can't remember if I ever mentioned this before -- I think so, but I can't tell for sure because LiveJournal's supposedly fantastic new search engine still won't work properly on my journal -- but I am referenced and quote twice, and even pictured once, in this new book, called We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion</a>. The book was officially released yesterday, and I just got an email yesterday confirming that all people included in the book will be shipped a free copy of it, so I should probably have it sometime within the next couple of weeks.

It may be that I haven't mentioned it here until now (although I really can't imagine that to be the case), because after I was sent screen shots of the pages I'm on back in May, I uploaded them to Flickr, but only made them viewable to "friends and family" contacts. Now that the book is released and therefore public, I have made both pages on my Flickr page totally public.

The book is basically a compilation of emotions expressed by bloggers from around the world, between 2006 and 2009. At least that's what it's borne from; the whole project started as this website (click on "interactive version" and you'll see how it used to be by default), which gives more of a real-time view of how people are feeling -- or at least, how people are expressing their emotions.

If you want to see a detail of my section of the two pages I appear on in the book version, you can see cropped images here and here. The most interesting thing about the quotes of mine that are superimposed over images I took is how they are re-contextualized by the images, neither of which actually appeared in the entries the respective quotes are from. I just got this email from these We Feel Fine people way back when -- June of 2008, actually -- explaining the project and asking for permission to use the photos. They originally asked for four or five photos, and ended up just using these two.

I get asked for permission to use my photos for various reasons fairly often, and I almost always say yes. I don't necessarily think any of the projects are going to amount to much. Thus, when I very first heard from these people, even though I checked out their kind of cool website, it never occurred to me that a book would actually get published, and then garner a fair amount of media attention.

Indeed, the Huffington Post just posted an article about the book today. I only know this because I follow We Feel Fine on Twitter and they posted the link.

The article is very interesting, as it gets into the data regarding emotions expressed based on specific demographic criteria (nationality, geography, gender, age, etc). The article includes a Q&A with one of the book's co-authors, and I was especially struck by this answer to what was the most surprising finding of the book:

Americans express their feelings about sex less than any other English-speaking country. And Americans express their feelings about God more than any other English-speaking country.

As obvious as it might be to some, it just seems especially sad and even kind of ridiculous to me. What is it with Americans and their persistent Puritanism?

In any case, I'm really looking forward to getting a copy of the book, which I think sounds like it would be interesting even if I weren't in it!

-- MDCXXII --


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December 1, 2009

[Taken November 28]

Tags: the daily shobhit

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But he's been pretty much yellow
And I've been kinda blue
But all I can see is
Red, red, red, red, red now
What am I gonna do

-- Fiona Apple



-- MDCXXI --



Hey, check it out! I made a spreadsheet of all the early holiday closures of the PCC office that I have on record since I started working here in 2002.

Working on it intermittently since last week, I scoured both my LiveJournal archives for mentions of when the office closed, as well as searching through my work email archives. And now that I have this grid to keep maintained, I won't ever have cells saying "no record from here on out," as I won't have to keep relying on my journal archives and just hoping I happened to mention it. Now all I'll have to do is check the spreadsheet!

This came up last week on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, when Kibby emailed me, CCing Jared, asking what time the office had closed the day before Thanksgiving in years past. So, naturally, that was the history I looked up first: the day before Thanksgiving. As it happens, as of this year, that's the one day of consistent early closures that I have the most comprehensive history of. I have no record only for the years 2003 (when I took the entire week off to visit Spokane with Danielle) and 2008 (when I have no clue why I never made a note of it).

Looking at the grid, you can see some clear trends -- most notably that, really regardless of the holiday, the office can fairly reliably be closed at either 2:00 or 3:00. Closing at 1:00 is obviously not unheard of, but rare, and typically reserved for the most significant holidays (like Christmas -- although I have a lot of Christmas Eve records missing because for the past several years I haven't worked at all on Christmas Eve).

What stands out the most to me currently, though, is not the history by holiday, but the history by year -- it appears that in 2009, for every holiday early closure for which I have a record, the office has reliably been closed around 2:00. That pretty much firms my expectation that the office will close at 2:00 on both Christmas Eve (though I won't be working that day) and New Year's Eve.

You may notice the years 2006 and 2008 for Independence Day, which is an unusual holiday in that the office is always open on the holiday, but often closes early the day before, and only occasionally closes early on the day itself. (By the way, PCC is closed company-wide only on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day every year, and only four stores are open on New Year's Day, while the office is not officially open on that day.) The "12-1:00ish" for Independence Day in 2006 is because it was my best guess; all I know is that my latest email sent from work that day was at 12:14 p.m. And the two times shown for Independence Day in 2008 are for July 3 (per Tracy) and July 4 (per Jennifer), respectively. The times shown for 2003 and 2009 were both for the Friday preceding the 4th falling on a weekend, and the time for 2007 is for July 3, and July 4 that year the office never closed early.

I've got all this stuff written in inserted notes, of course, which just can't be seen in the above image because it's a .jpg rather than an actual Excel file. I've lots of other explanatory notes spread throughout as well, of course.

So anyway . . . yeah. This is the kind of thing I spend my leisure time doing! And it genuinely makes me happy.

I emailed the file to Kibby and Jared, "for your information!" Jared quipped that it seems like there should be more early closures than he saw there. Will, there will be from now on, now that I'll be maintaining the complete history on the grid!

-- MDCXXI --

Nothing much of note for me to tell you about last night. I took the bus downtown to buy Barbara's and my tickets to the Kinsey Sicks show at the Triple Door Thursday next week, then bused the rest of the way home. I made poached eggs and toast for dinner, since I have two dozen eggs to burn through after using a BOGO coupon at PCC on Sunday. I ate it while watching Sunday night's episode of Brothers & Sisters, which was an especially good one, I thought.

Another great use for TiVo: I'm saying all the episodes of shows I know Shobhit will want to catch up when he gets back from India. It's so easy!

After that, I spent pretty much the entire rest of the evening catching up on my LiveJournal friends list, which took me hours, as I was some 160-odd entries behind. Turns out it's a lot easier to catch up when Shobhit's not around! Still, I was up until about 11:40 in order to catch up (plus watch a great 18-minute TEDIndia talk Karen emailed me a link to), which is kind of pushing it. Thankfully I seem to be doing okay today and not feeling too tired.

I think I might leave work a little early today so I can catch the 4:45 showing of Red Cliff at the Neptune. It's either that or wait until the 8 p.m. show, and at two and a half hours long, I'd much rather see the movie at the earlier time.

-- MDCXXI --



-- MDCXXI --

Today is World AIDS Day.

My experience with AIDS is really quite minimal, as I'm of perhaps the first generation to grow up post-protease inhibitors, so I was never a part of the era when people were dying left and right of the disease. I mean, I was alive when that was happening, but I was very young and hardly knowledgeable of it. I've really only experienced it vicariously (for which I'm grateful), hearing about the experience from those who did live through it.

When I worked at the Seattle Gay News, I did interviews with people who had been infected and living with HIV and AIDS for fifteen or sometimes even twenty years. The one thing I'll never forget is one person's response to the then-growing trend of young people not caring if they got infected, because they had the mistaken impression that it was a maintainable disease like diabetes and therefore had little to worry about. Speaking of the experience of living with it, and with the side effects of medications, the guy said to me, "I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy." And he was very sincere.

I have never personally known anyone who died of AIDS, unless you want to count Stan, the first boyfriend my mom had after divorcing my dad -- who later turned out to be bisexual, and died of AIDS in the early nineties. But by then, I had not seen him myself since I was five years old. My mom told me about seeing him one last time before he died, and her depiction of him as this emaciated man in a hospital bed (and Stan had been a very large, overweight guy) was frightening indeed. Mom told me he was so out of it, she didn't even know if he knew she was there. She asked him to squeeze her hand if he could hear her. And he didn't squeeze.

These are all just very minor elements of a worldwide pandemic that continues to be a huge issue. I remember hearing just a couple of years ago that it's such a big problem in Africa that it threatens to destabilize governments (well, the ones in Africa that are actually stable to begin with). This must still be the case, but you don't hear about it a lot anymore -- not because of any less threat, I imagine, but because AIDS has been around so long that people have long been complacent.

This is why I mention it now. Because I do believe it remains a critical issue that demands attention.

I remain very little affected directly by the disease. Among my family and circle of friends, there is only one person who has it, to my knowledge anyway. This makes me among the most prone to be complacent about it. I really need to make an effort to resist that.

World AIDS Day website

-- MDCXXI --

In other life-saving news, I think the Christmas Tree might actually be getting greener.

I'm not sure if it's just my imagination, but it sure looked that way while I was watering it this morning. I've been sticking to the several waterings a day -- I pour water down its trunk from the very top, and also spray the branches all around from top to bottom. I think it's actually making a difference. It's certainly not getting any worse.

Granted, it's only been inside for three days. I have no idea if that’s realistically long enough for any improvement to be noticeable.

If I can pull this off, I might finally get to a point of having the habits needed to keep plants living -- more than just the Christmas Tree. That would be nice. I can think of other plants I'd like to have, but have just never gotten because I could never keep plants alive. Maybe I can now.

-- MDCXXI --

I just got back from lunch with Karen. Lovely and pleasant as usual.

I came back to my desk and I'd been visited by the Cupcake Fairy! It's a damn good thing I only ate half the huge pasta dish I ordered for lunch.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to fill my face with chocolatey goodness.

-- MDCXXI --



Cause if you like it then you betta put a condom on it
If you like it then you betta put a condom on it
Don't be mad when s/he say that s/he want it
If you like it then you betta put a condom on it

Wha-oh-oh-oh-oh-ooh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Wha-oh-oh-oh-oh-ooh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh . . .

-- Beyoncé featuring Happy the Cock
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Current Music: "Grim, Grinning Ghosts," Disneyland Resort Official Album

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November 30, 2009

[Taken November 28]

Tags: the daily shobhit

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-- MDCXX --

I actually updated with unusual regularity for a weekend over the past few days -- right up to yesterday evening. So what does that leave me to tell you about today? Not much.

--But wait! I think I forgot to mention Karen's "Family Day" party on Saturday, which basically functioned as a housewarming for their completely renovated house (I've been calling it a Remodelwarming Party). Shobhit had done so well with packing early that he even came with me, although we only spent about an hour there.

Karen, being in a wheelchair, had her kitchen enlarged, and had three different counter heights put in. In the process, the living room and the master bedroom both were downsized. She also showed us the back hall, which is now wide enough for both Karen and Anita to mill about in their wheelchairs at the same time, as well as the master bathroom, which Karen was especially happy about.

Shobhit and I were both more than suitably impressed with the place. The living room and kitchen are only separated by half a wall (it goes mostly to the ceiling but only halfway across the width of the two rooms), which creates a wide open space from the front door to the sliding glass door in the dining room at the back, and makes the place feel much larger than it really is. Shobhit really loved the designs, and said so more than once.

Oh, and we also brought them a small potted plant from the plant store a block from where we live. Shobhit insisted we had to bring a gift; he's always hell-bent on not coming empty-handed to things like this. I figured, okay, fine. My half only cost me about ten bucks anyway. And, as it turned out, Karen was thrilled with it, and even emailed us later that she had lost many of her favorite plants in their move to the temporary apartment and back to the house, so she was happy to have new plants. (Several other people brought flowers, but I think our plant was the most useful in the long run.)

Anyway, we snacked on the crackers and chips that had been set out, but neither of us really knew anyone there besides Karen, Dave and Anita themselves, who were of course ridiculously busy hosting the shindig. So, after an hour, we left. We had a show to go to in the evening anyway, and that was just a couple of hours after we got back home.

-- MDCXX --



-- MDCXX --

I'm starting to think these two and a half weeks Shobhit will be gone will go by fairly quickly, I'm going to be so busy. Over the course of the next 16 days, there are only six days in which I do not have plans -- maybe five -- and I've also got to get my ass in gear with this year's calendars.

Shobhit gets back on the 16th, and then it's little more than a week before it's Christmas. This time of year always just flies by, and once again I'm feeling unprepared! I had been considering writing a short story as a gift for coworkers again, but I'm not sure I'll be able to make the time. I've got Book Club on Wednesday this week and I've only managed to read 5 pages of the book so far . . .

I also scheduled this year's Merchandising Department Holiday Potluck, for the afternoon of Friday, December 18. So I need to figure out what I'm going to make for that. I wonder if there will be a PCC Holiday Party this year? Last year they scrapped it and gave us all bonuses instead, as a bit of consolation for the state of the economy. I have no idea if they'll do the same this year, but I think I'd actually like it more if they did a party, as attractive as cash may be.

-- MDCXX --

As soon as got to work today and said good morning to Kibby, she said, "Sounds like you've got a cold!" I guess it's pretty obvious. Yes, and my nose won't stop fucking running! Having snot free-flowing out your nose is not fun. A couple nights over the weekend I actually woke up because my nose was leaking onto my pillow. Aren't you glad I told you that?

I'm relieved I don't have the flu, but as I said to Kibby, that doesn't exactly make a cold pleasant. I'm also relieved I don't have a cough (*knock wood*), but I'm more than ready for this shit to be over with. I can't even tell you how many times I've sneezed this past weekend. One of these days I'm going to spew mucus globules all over the place. And you'll be glad you weren't in range!

-- MDCXX --


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Current Music: "Splash Mountain Medley," Disneyland Official Album

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I did not have the best of luck today.

It started out okay, what with driving Shobhit to the airport to drop him off before he flew to Amsterdam on his way to India. (As I write this, he should be on his ninth -- and second from the last -- hour of that first flight.) We must have had an early Christmas miracle, because Shobhit, who is notorious for getting out the door later than planned, was showered, packed and ready to go early this morning.

He gave me money for parking, because he wanted me to help him take in his luggage (two large suitcases and his laptop bag), and he clearly also wanted to stay with me for as long as possible before leaving. Much of today's good-byes seemed a precursor to what we'll inevitably be dealing with next year if he goes forward with moving to New York. We're really going to miss each other, and as odd as this may sound, I think he's going to be feeling at least a fair majority of the missing. I mean, that's not to say I won't miss him dearly -- I will indeed -- but it's going to be especially hard on him. How could it not be, the way he behaved today, acting so sad that we'll be apart for two and a half weeks? He even gave me a long hug in the elevator as we went down to the garage in our building before leaving.

Anyway, I learned for the first time today that Delta bought out Northwest Airlines, which naturally caused a lot of confusion. Shobhit tried to check in at a kiosk, and even when an airport employee tried himself to get Shobhit's passport to scan, and it wouldn't work, he was sent to the end of the "Special Services" line. This was a long line, though longer than it really looked: it had to be broken in half, with the last leg of the line in a separate roped-off area across the walkway from the main line to the ticket counters. It actually didn't take us that long to get through the line, though.

Shobhit checked his two suitcases, which he methodically made sure would not exceed 50 lbs while we were still at home (I think one suitcase weighed 48 lbs and the other 47 lbs), and then I waited with him at the security check line. He gave me a big, earnest and sincere (yet slightly sloppy, blech) kiss good-bye, and we were separated. Until December 16.

In a way, it's sort of good that I've had to deal with these long trips of his on average about once a year since we've been together. If he does indeed move away next year, I'll already have had some experience dealing with his extended absences.

To be perfectly honest, skeptics be damned, I'm feeling more hopeful than ever about our relationship's chances of surviving long-distance. Shobhit and I talked a bit in the car on the way to the airport, and I ended up kind of giving him a pep-talk about how he needs to be persistent and persevere when he moves and attempts an acting career. He's going to be competing with literally thousands of other actors either as talented or even more talented as he, and no amount of acting classes is going to change the fact that by far the most important thing is to keep at it in the face of inevitable, seemingly endless rejection. This is how most actors ultimately prevail -- but suffering innumerable rejection, until they get a break. He needs to be strong, and not let the rejection get him down. Keep at it!

Shobhit was very responsive to this, and basically agreed with everything I said. In a way, I think we were both prepping ourselves for what's to come next year if and when he moves. At present we're looking at taking a trip to New York to scope it out together in March, which I'm really looking forward to and think will be fun. And when I again mentioned the idea of visiting him once a month there and him visiting me here once a month so we see each other at least every two weeks, he reiterated that he thought it was a good idea. Given how much he misses me when he's gone, that makes sense.

So here I am, home alone with Shobhit away, thinking I may have to get used to this. And that we just might be able to make it work in spite of the odds.

By the way, I discovered on Thursday that I know not two, but three couples who have survived long-distance relationships. Granted, none of them were permanent, but the duration certainly widely varied. Couple #1: Auntie Rose and Uncle Imre, who were apart completely for six months at a time for well over a decade, while Uncle Imre worked in Alaska. Couple #2: Andrea and Walt, who spent a year living in separate cities soon after getting married, and have lived separately several times in their relationship. And couple #3? I had never thought about it until Mom told me -- Mom and Bill! Before Bill got into his accident that prevented him from being able to drive anymore, he was a long-haul truck driver. Mom told here there were times he was gone more than a month. And of all the couples I know, Mom and Bill's relationship has been the most surprising in prevailing against all odds.

So, you know, some of you may know either no couples for whom a long distance relationship has worked, or perhaps just one, but the more I talk to people, the more I feel like I'm surrounded by couples who found a way to make a long distance relationship work. And I said this to Mom and will keep repeating it until I'm blue in the face: "I don't presume to know it will work. I just know it can."

And Mom replied, "Oh, absolutely." That there is the kind of support that I need. And I'm so grateful to have it, and in abundance enough to overpower anyone else I might know who persists in having a defeatist attitude about it.

Besides, I still have my old standby -- the faith that everything will be fine. And everything, ultimately, has been just fine, which I remain convinced is specifically by virtue of my faith in it being so.

Anyway! I drove back from the airport, and I decided I didn't want my second November Member Bonus coupon at PCC to go to waste (I never got a November issue of the Sound Consumer, which had two coupons in it, so I got two replacement coupons from Angela at work -- but after our first grocery shopping trip of the month), so I decided to pick up a few things at the Seward Park PCC. I'm not sure I'd ever been there besides the one time Marianne took me on an all-store tour right after I was hired in 2002. I knew it was one of the smaller stores, but I also knew they would have everything I was looking for.

Of course I had to "check in" on Foursquare, so I was standing over by the milk in the chill case fiddling with my iPhone when a woman with long dirty blonde hair came up to me and said, "It's Matthew! Hi!"

I said hi. I knew I'd seen her before but even now I have no clue who she was. I want to say Jennifer H but I don't know. If so, I think she used to work at Greenlake. If it's not her, then I'm at a complete loss. I didn't want to tell her I had no idea who she was, though. I ended up in her line when I bought my groceries (25% off, combining my employee discount with the coupon, yay!), and she chatted me up about my holiday. And in the back of my mind I'm thinking, Damn it, who ARE you?

I drove the rest of the way home, and discovered for the first time how very close Laney actually lives to that store. Hopefully she shops there often!

I decided I wanted to see Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans at the Metro at 1:00, and I had just enough time to make it, or so it seemed. I called Barbara twice to see if she wanted to come with me -- she had previously expressed interest in email -- but she never answered, so, well, you snooze you lose, I guess (and in her case, you also save money while being unemployed).

I had gone back and forth with myself as to whether I should stick to my plan of seeing that movie, or if I should drive down to Olympia to see Dad and Sherri for a while -- Sherri told me I should come down sometime while he's gone, and I thought I could save gas doing it today after already having driven as far as Seatac. Shobhi suggested I wait a week, though, when I might be feeling more lonely in his absence than I am apt to right after he's left, and I thought he had a valid point. Besides, it could be a better alternative to, say, go down on a Saturday afternoon and stay the night. I like that idea.

So the movie it was! And, after I got home, unpacked the groceries, and determined that the only way I could make it to the 1:00 show on time was if I drove rather than bused, I go into the car at about 1:35,figuring that would get me there in plenty of time.

Shows what I know! This was where some of my worst luck started. I actually had the presence of mind to check the traffic online before leaving, and saw traffic jamming on the freeway, so I decided to go to the U District via Madison and then 23rd. But guess what? When I got to 23rd, there was a sign saying "expect delays on 24th" (which 23rd curves into), and suggesting we "use John st." Use John St. for what? That wasn't the direction I needed to be going!

I had no time for delays, so I turned left on Aloha, and drove over to 10th, figuring I could get to the U District over Capitol Hill. But guess what? Soon enough, I hit a STREET CLOSED sign, with a further suggestion of detouring to "I-5 South." What?

I had no choice but to follow the traffic being detoured, which took me back to 10th Avenue, going the wrong direction the same way I had come! I had no clue why the fuck so many streets were closed, and why not one, but two bridges across the canal were closed (that's two out of only three ways to cross the canal east of Lake Union, mind you) -- but now I certainly understood why traffic was so heavy on the freeway!

Once I hit Roy, I turned right, thinking I remembered an on-ramp onto the freeway in that direction. But guess what? I hit another STREET CLOSED sign, along with yet another detour! Jesus fucking Christ!

By now I was channeling Shobhit, swearing every chance I got while driving in this ridiculous mess of traffic.

Once again, I was being detoured more than a mile in the wrong way -- and I turned right onto Denny. By now it was past 1:00, and I was beginning to lose faith that I could actually make it across the canal and see my movie. I was motivated by two things, though: 1) I actually had at least 15 minutes to spare before the trailers would be through playing; and 2) I was on a mission, god dammit!

I nearly lost hope as I crossed the Denny Bridge over the freeway. I took one look and knew instantly that the freeway was not going to be an option.

I got down the hill and took a right, kind of blindly grasping at straws at this point -- maybe there will be a miracle! -- and, yet again, I was faced with a STREET CLOSED sign. What the fuck?

This time I just followed detoured traffic, and found myself taking a left on Eastlake, hoping against hope that there would be a passage through to the U District in that direction. And guess what! In spite of there being indeed another STREET CLOSED sign, traffic police were actually directing people through!

It was somewhat slow going at first, and this was when I finally figured out why all the streets had been closed. We were waiting for runners in some god damned marathon to pass by! Finally, it all made sense. Of course that didn't make it much less frustrating, but, whatever.

I finally got to the other side of the closed roads, and soon enough it was 1:15, and I was deciding that I didn't want all this effort to go to waste, and I'd just miss the first few minutes of the movie if I had to. I drove up 11th Avenue to 45th, took the next two lefts, and found street parking half a block from the Metro Cinema. I actually half-jogged to the ticket window, got my ticket, and went straight into the theatre.

And this was where I actually had amazing luck. I didn't miss a single moment of that movie! Even though I walked into the theatre at about 1:20, I walked in at precisely the moment that the movie studio and distributing company logos come on screen before the movie starts. In the end, I timed it perfectly!

Having to drive every which way was still pretty annoying, though. I even saved a version of my route so you can see the route I had to take to get there -- you can see it here. Be thankful you didn't have to drive it!

After the movie, I drove the regular route back home through Capitol Hill, and mercifully this time there were no delays. I went to the Bartell Drugs on Pike and Broadway, and I decided to buy some extra Christmas lights. I wanted something to put in one of my living room windows and also out on the balcony railing. I got home, turned on some Christmas music, and set about to putting up the new Christmas lights.

Except fully half of the lights on my colored-lights strand would not come on! I did everything I could think of to fix it, and couldn't get it done. The things were half done being hung, too. Dammit! Well, since I was too obsessed with getting this done tonight -- I went out yet again, and drove back to Bartell's,to exchange them for another box. I even had the lady plug in the new strand for me so I could see if the were all working -- and they were. Thankfully, they were once I got them home too.

So, the view you see in the shot at the top of this entry is that from the sidewalk across the street (using the zoom). I think it looks pretty nice, if I do say so myself.

Also: I have continued to water and spray the Christmas Tree several times over during the course of the day. I think I might just keep it up!

In fact, I'm going to go water it again right now.
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Current Music: "Soaked," Adam Lambert

November 29, 2009

[Taken November 28]

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