slim love

i picked up my copy of the book last night. it's only an advance copy - the rest are coming by ship from asia, and will be here around the first week of september.

but it's mine, it's heavy and shiny and is number 2 (the sale books will be paper, but they printed 500 numbered limited edition hardcovers, and i got number 2).

that is all. i'll probably send out an email or something when they're really, legitimately released. although i think you can pre-order on amazon.

so apparently i forgot to mention that lyn and i ate cool whip straight out of the carton! i know, our decadent hedonism is hardly believable.

also, somehow i managed to forget that i saw sandman the other night, and it was awesome as usual. i bought an authentic north dakota cowboy hat.

well, it seems i haven't posted anything of substance in like 2 months. let's see if i can recount everything that happened:

thanksgiving with part of my family in fresno. succeeded in not killing my grandmother.

weekend in davis, which included a haircut and drunken simpsons clue, althought thankfully not at the same time. also cookies. lots of cookies.

numerous holiday parties - the fancy work dinner (good wine, hilarious karaoke), the annual heyday bash, a couple others. fudge-making generally successful, although the orange one really didn't work.

weekend at home with my mom, helping to pack up her storage room as she prepared to move to south carolina for good. younger brother being total ass. older brother being amazingly helpful and reasonable, all things considered. found huge amount of previously forgotten crap. hauled an entire carload up here, then had to make room for it. still have some furniture down south.

xmas with the bay area "family." christmas eve baking and moving furniture with aaron. christmas day roaming the city, eating bagels and chinese food with aaron and sandy. dinner later with the boys and sandy, then chilling at home. spent the next day cleaning, then had a flat on the way to target. in the rain. and the growing dark. i called a towtruck to come change the flat for me. 

then lyn was here! we had a slumber party, complete with terrible, terrible movies (teen witch, center stage), vodka-based drinks, pumpkin pie, kraft dinner, makeup and nailpolish, and gossip about boys. as the weekend progressed, there was more movies, more drinking, hanging out with the new neighbor boys (chad's old neighbor boys), waffles, and some serious new year's eve partying. 

then there was the serious new year's day recovery.

and now things are back to normal: work, stress about bills, work, attempting to find cheap amusements.

and now you know everything.

rstevens over at dieselsweeties.com has come up with this idea. you can go read about it yourself if you want. but basically, i say something nice enough or naughty enough, i could win a prize! 

and i like prizes.

but even more, i like the dumbrella crew, and it's nice to be able to sing their praises without that whole "randomly emailing and seeming like a complete freak/staulker/creepy noun of choice" feeling.  and that might be BETTER than a prize.

of all the dumbrella boys, i am most fond of rstevens and jeff rowland, mostly because i am most fond of their comics, and the people who come up with that stuff cannot possibly be bad. who among us has NOT had a day when staying in bed and watching Homicide: Life on the Street has seemed like the wisest course of action? who among us has not lusted after the newest colors and styles of sharpies? who has not made jokes about sex and tetris (ps - i assume you're familiar with the game "sextris"?). who doesn't think canadians and polish people are awesome? 

but wait! there's more: yarn core! red robots! robots dating porn stars! robots dating goth girls! zoidberg tattoos! metal steve! hell, i have a whole playlist of indie music called "indie rock pete." i have known several people alarmingly similar to weedmaster p.

so, i guess that whole "not seeming like a freak" thing has just been blown out of the water. i'll admit it: i think northampton, mass might just be the coolest place around. don't start researching restraining orders though; no way am i moving somewhere with that much snow. 

to sum up: thanks, guys, for being awesome. my zany (but charming, no?) enthusiasm aside, i genuinely love your comics.

it's raining here. i forgot my umbrella (as well as my glasses and my nice shoes) today, so i walked a mile home from the bart station in the rain. first drenching of the season, hooray! 

we're still at that stage of late fall/early winter where i feel very holiday-centric, and i think that the dark and the cold and the damp and the pretty lights are very lovely and urban in a sort of 1940s kind of way. like everyone should be taking the trolley to the department store and picking out christmas presents. this will last through christmas. by january, i'll think it's very gloomy and depressing.

in other news, the downpour convinced me to actually go ask the manager how to turn on my heater. turns out i'm not crazy, there really isn't a thermostat. you have to open the little door on the front of the heater and manually turn it on. tres strange. i need a space heater for the bedroom.

in other other news, i spent the weekend down south, enjoying the company of one lmp. there was also a brief side trip to lompoc, where i saw some people i hadn't seen in forever and a day. 

i am possessed by the desire to buy lots of cheap, cheesy xmas decorations at walgreens.

oh, my dear friends, i don't even remember the last time i posted or what it was about, and i'm too lazy to go find out. so here's a breakdown of the past two weeks, which have been pretty damned eventful.

first, last last weekend!
friday: get miserably turned around during the drive to the bart station and squander my head start. realize i don't have enough cash for parking; it turns out i can pay afterward for an extra $1.50. work all day at my temp job that might be ok if it was permanent (and i've indicated i can be retained on a permanent basis). bart back to oakland and go home to check on the cat. bart back to the city to meet up with one LMP. indulge in booze, awesome birthday presents, sweet photography, and cool people. lyn shoved money in my cleavage. enough to cab downtown so i could bart home. 

saturday: fuck about all day. clean the house but manage to avoid actually getting my freelance work done. head to davis for robyn and lisa's party (last year it was robyn's and my party, if you recall it). get pleasantly drunk and stoned, and then get hit on by super drunk, amusingly creepy and annoying guy with a fiancee (me: "aren't you engaged?" him: "yes, well, these things happen.")  ewww.

sunday: roll my hungover ass off of robyn's couch, have breakfast with jeff and katie, and then drive home to oakland. meet up with lyn and chad and take them to the merritt cafe for chicken, waffles, kitsch, and politicians (that last part was unplanned but hilarious nonetheless. god bless elections). cruise through the east bay to the pub; drink and play trivial pursuit. lyn and chad went off to SF and i went to sleep for a while.

and now last weekend!
saturday: roll out of bed early in order to get to the post office and collect a package before meeting robyn, kallista, david, ryan, and tim at the bart station. we got there like 40 minutes before tim did. once in SF, spend 20 minutes trying to figure out the muni light rail and acquiring the proper change and tickets. ride the crowded train out to golden gate park. immediately run into alison and brian. then immediately witness a dog fight (no one was hurt, but one woman was screaming bloody murder). take in laurie lewin and then head over to catch the end of todd snider. david passed around the first round of olympia (some fine beer, that). hang out for the songwriter's circle with guy clark and steve earle. david passed around the second round. pick up fair food. run into alison and brian again. head over to another stage to catch gillian welch and then steve earle. david returns from a beer run with a 12 pack of pabst, which we finish off during steve earle's set, which was fucking fantabulous. he played all my favorites (ben mcculloch! the mountain! jerusalem! john walker's blues! until the day i die! dixieland!). david tells me to hit robyn; i demur. then robyn says i should hit her, so i punch her arm. except i kind of miss and end up punching her boob instead. david found this HILARIOUS and kept thanking me. eat some thai food on geary, then catch the 38 downtown. it was packed, and like an idiot i left my wallet in an outside pocket of my backpack. result: stolen wallet. FUN. i got to call around at 11pm to cancel all my cards. fortunately i still have my state ID, and i'm going to the DMV tomorrow for a new drivers licensce. sadly, i think my old berkeley ID card (from 1998!) was in my wallet. finally arrive home; tim and ryan depart for their respective homes. kallista passes out. david, robyn, and i drank more beer and played trivial pursuit. at one point, when robyn trapped herself in the bathroom (seriously!), we stole one of her pie pieces. she didn't notice for 30 minutes. i eventually won, although robyn probably should have. 

sunday: get up, futz around, have coffee and listen to music while everyone gets cleaned up and back on public transport for day 2. vanessa replaced tim. bart was packed because oakland was playing the 49ers, but only the usual number of sunday trains were running (lame!). finally get to the park. beautiful weather. drink more pbr. way more people on sunday than saturday. watch (hear) iris dement and part of alejandro escovedo and the end of freakwater. get really good seats for the drive-by truckers. they played a great set. wander off to go check the crowd for del mccoury, decide it's too much and head back for the north mississippi all-stars. pass half of the DBT on the road. robyn points them out; i stare (seriously, like 5 feet from us!!!). after they pass, i giggle (as i do), and david is further amused. i later debate trying to catch up to them and say something, but robyn wisely talks me out of it. decide we don't want to hang around for a jam band or battle the crowds anymore, so head back downtown. get home around 7, but then need to go beg some money off the boys, as i am broke until tuesday, when i can go to the bank (it being closed for columbus day. i must say, i have never hated that man more).

other interesting things of note: i work with a girl from paso robles, a girl who worked at blue heaven and owns a house in templeton, and an amusingly snarky guy who lives next door to where i used to live in berkeley.

or rather, i'm alive and posting. yay for me.

overheard at work: "that's like saying 'roll with it, sisyphus.'"

my cat just got her head stuck in an empty diet coke 12 pack case. it was hilarious. 

last night i went to the city and hung out with the lynner. she took some really amazingly awesome photos of me, which will hopefully be forthcoming. also, i received AWESOME presents from her, including a canadian ashtray and some random old photos. then i got really tired and went home, but i shall see her again tomorrow.

tonight is a party in davis! the 2nd annual back to school/birthday/first year orientation party at robyn's (formerly my) house. woohoo! i am excited. before then, i get to clean my house, do some laundry, and research. oooh. yay. 

temping sucks. that's all i have to say. 

i'm getting better at driving. i can parallel park my car now. also, i can go days without stalling. sometimes also without peeling out. it's a good thing.

and that's all the news that's fit to print.

you know what burns my ass?

birthday weekend update!

friday: hang with sandy, drink some wine, watch some movies. her friend waylon came over, and actually wanted to hear all about my research (weird!).

saturday: watch cal get their asses handed to them by tennessee. dinner at la rose with sandy and the boys. it was very good, one waiter was cute, one had muttonchops. hit smitty's with tim and kristine, was the recipient of several free drinks. got hit on by skeezy middle-aged black guy who asked me if i wanted to be appreciated. (fun side note: at a previous dive bar experience, a different skeezy middle-aged black guy told me i looked like i needed a little color in my life, causing me to flee in horror and hilarity.)

sunday: more wine with sandy. see *step up* with patrick (not as bad as you would think). head to the pub to hang with the (ex-)heyday crew. we watched rocky horror, which made everyone who came up to the bar either crack up or ask what the hell this was. had a drink and dessert at fonda, where michael dredged up a candle for my cake. 

other updates:
job: not yet (and yes, it's getting desperate). boy: so wie immer. car: coming along. family: still crazy.  

another little survey, since i know you guys love them so. do you have a favorite birthday?

mine, i think, was my 18th. i'd only been at berkeley a couple weeks, and i was the grand recipient of a snickers bar and a votive candle, and the fucking bunnies sang to me. and then we saw an indie film with parker posey that i still don't understand (i think it was called henry fool?). 

two days later, lindsley and lyn came down from humboldt, i got my navel pierced, and bella got her nose pierced.