Where's the Parade?

the band is practicing in the basement. i woke up this morning to the sound of Justin's amp breaking. in case you were wondering, no - that's not a good sound. something close to an air raid siren. so, i dragged my ass down stairs and made myself a fancy coffee. i'm not generally this ambitious - but it's sunday and i ain't got shit to do. Night inherited an espresso machine. it's sexual. i love it. but making the milk all foamy isn't as easy as the teenaged baristas make it look, i'll tell you what. needless to say, i burned myself twice before giving up. it may not be foamy, but at least i got bubbles. regular coffee does not have bubbles! totally worth the scalding.

on the big news front: my mom's moving back to New York. very exciting stuff. so, i'll be spending spring break driving back across the country with her in her little red saturn. cross-country trips with parents. people generally cringe when i tell them. truth is - it will be great. she and i had a blast last time. we travel well together - kind of like me & james. we're thinking of taking a more southern route than the one we took last time. the rockies will be harder up north. hopefully i'll get some writing done on the trip as well.

in other news: the pink eye outbreak has been contained. james' glamorous new job at the call center sent him home with the pink eye last week. he's on the mend & my eyes seem ok. he's got drops for them. they're less gooey now.

oh christ. Ryan's broken out the glockenspeil. what band do you know uses a fucking glockenspeil? are you even allowed to operate one without standard issue marching band attire? i give up.

Matty Likes Pancakes

last night james and i ventured downtown. we met up with Roy, Scott and some random dude with shitty finger tattoos at The Brotherhood. we sit down with our beers and next thing i know Scott's ranting about gay men getting stuck in middle management. first off, i can count the number of gay men Scott knows even remotely well on one finger. and said gay man was sitting on the other side of me for this particularly endearing rant.

"You're out of your element Donny"

god love the goofy son of a bitch, but he's got no frame of reference for any of his ridiculous claims. this is why we love Scott. he's simple. and endlessly entertaining. he just broke up with his girlfriend. he's living in our friends' garage with no heat and spiders. he's drunk.

by my next beer the conversation turns, as it is wont to do when james and i are involved, to sex. before we got there Roy, Scott and Tattoo-fingers-McGee had been engaged in serious science-based discourse. personally, i think they're suspect. then again, they are science guys... *shudder* Roy attributed the "degeneration" of topics to us. we're totally okay with that. next thing i know Scott's carrying on about anal sex and Tattoo-fingers-McGee imparts a glimmering gem of wisdom which i will carry with me all my days: "You never have anal sex with a girl for the first time. If you do it a second time, you'll know." brilliant. i love this sentiment, not because it's true, but because it was a concept the Scott could not get his mind around.

anyhow, we finish our beers and head down 4th ave to The China Clipper, aka The Crippler. why? cause it's dark, shady and they've got Jaeger on tap. outstanding. we grab a table, i get a beer. james switches to whiskey. whitesnake comes over the speakers. white fucking snake.

Here I go again on my own, going down the only road I've ever known. Like a drifter, I was born to walk alone. And I made up my mind. I aint wastin' no more time. So here I go again.

and for some reason, unbeknownst to those capable of rational thought - this pitches Scott into a rant about cats. i shit you not. and when i say rant, i mean, pounding his fist on the table in utter outrage whilst yelling about the importance of spaying/neutering cats. he has officially caused a scene. Tattoo-fingers-McGee bolts, never to be heard from again. a guy from our room mate Ryan's band is at the next table, a table full of people staring at Scott. james, Roy and i tip our drinks to them and i lean in behind Scott, point at him and call over "Cats. He's yelling about cats." priceless. it was around then that The Rule was instituted: Scott was to drink only water and not puke anywhere in the bar. strange rule? out of the 7 bars downtown, Scott has puked in 5 of them. and not in the bathroom.

so, the whole reason we're at The Crippler is that The Blow is playing. i've got one of her CDs. i like it enough. so why not? the guy who opens... there are no words. let me say that seeing him on stage made me realize that i have a social obligation to start a shitty punk band. today. he made noises. he geeked out. one might say, he was in fact, a spaz. it involved a computer. it made me hurt. there was an addendum to The Rule; Scott could puke... but only on that guy.

we sit through that. we watch girls wearing dresses over pants gyrate and "dance" to Atari sound effects. this is why oly sucks. don't think for yourself... no, no watch someone you deem cooler than yourself and just copy their reaction. they must be right. The Blow performs; i still like her well enough. the place basically clears out after that. the last band is from LA. they start to play. Roy leaves. Scott left sometime during Space Invaders-a-go-go. the last band... is good.

james and i are feeling it. we're up at the stage. no one else is moving, on account of they're dead inside and can't appreciate actual people holding actual instruments and playing them... well. after their set we go to say hi and explain why the crowd was so lame. turns out they're great guys & they have no place to stay. our house is huge.

we went out, got drunk and came home with a band.

it was a good night. those guys are Something for Rockets. people should check them out. they're good people.

james & i named our band today while questing for McDonald's to cure our hangovers. our new, pointedly shitty punk band shall be known as: Matty Likes Pancakes.
and our friend in Mind Your Pig, Latoya (great oly band) says we can open for them anytime. get ready world.

why Matty Likes Pancakes?
because he does.

the band packing up in front of our house. unusually sunny weather for oly. 

i'm against captions 

Give. Me. My. Shit.

you can't CANCEL hockey! you can not do it. it simply isn't done.

i'm a hardcore boston bruins fan. hockey isn't a sport, it's a facet of my personality. no, really. it's the reason i picture my self body-checking petition-weilding pseudo-hippies as i power past them silently on my way to class. it's the reason i envision reaching over someones head, grabbing the back of their jersey and pulling it over their face as i engage in heated intellectual discourse within the seminar environment. while i deal and cope and remain calm, even and professional - hockey is that part of me that's seated in the bleechers of my mind screaming a rash of poetic obscenities at a ref who needs to get his fuckin' eyes checked. while i'm busy being reasonable and elloquent, hockey's back there chanting "GOALIE...GOALIE...YOU SUCK!"

it's my fucking outlet, goddamn it and i need my shit! like a junkie needs the rock, i need hockey. i need to check the scores and see that boston's leading their division. i need to read the story telling me that while i was busy being polite and rational, my boys are in trouble again for spending more time in the penalty box than on the ice. and i can sleep at night because i know that if they're hitting hard, they're pissing off the other guy, which leads to power plays in boston's favor. they may not be as tight on the pp in recent years, but at least they've got the legacy of Neely and Bourque to carry them through and intimidate the shit out of the competition.

they cancelled the fucking season. CANCELLED it. have you any idea what this means for my baseline hostility level? hmmm? is it too much to ask to have the sport you love with a cold beer? now i have to wait until next fall? no games. no playoffs. no Stanley Cup.

no. Stanley. Cup. this hasn't happened since 1919.

sucks.

Red Sox finally break the curse and win the World Series. Pats take another Super Bowl. Bruins don't even get a crack at the cup this year.

The Vomit Bucket

last night james ordered a 5 year moratorium be placed on any writing i do that is in any way related to my ex girlfriend. as he puts it, when i write about her, i degenerate into trash-romance crap. and we both know that i don't want to end up a middle-aged, washed-up, would-be writer pissed that Harlequin never picked up her mediocre pulp fiction, waiting tables late-night at a Bickford's somewhere off route 495, getting slapped on the ass by young gay men who think it's funny. or old gay men, considering james would be there to taunt me.
so, he set up a document on my computer aptly titled "vomit bucket". this is the only place into which i shall purge myself of her and all things related to her. it has been decried. that boy maybe a smart-assed economic drain on me, but he knows shit.
of course, us talking about her had me dreaming all kinds of crazy, stressful crap last night. confirmation that i need to do what ever it takes to get her out of my system.
here's to better writing by way of the vomit bucket.

Puppy Vigil Ante

some fucking cracked-out, meth-head, tweeker, douchebag decided to use duct tape as a fucking muzzle on a puppy in my neighborhood. a tiny puppy. a sweet-faced australian shepherd puppy. james walked to the store while i was at class & saw this. he was going to call the police. someone else must have beat him to the punch because cops were there within 10 minutes. on his way home, james saw the puppy playing in the yard, this time without the tape on his snout. the cops were talking to the tweekers and the puppy galloped over to see james. as the puppy got to the fence, said tweeker fuck starts yelling at him to not bark. in front of the cop.

drugs. are. bad.

so, i get home to hear this story. next thing you know i'm crying... duct tape on a puppy? are you fucking kidding me? all i can think of now are ways to spring the little guy. Ryan runs by there every night. he'll be on the lookout for any more abuse. james thinks they took the puppy away, but who knows. that poor thing. this will not stand. all i'm saying is, i like animals better than people and i own a hockey stick. i'm not above ninja tactics.

Romantic Whatnot

she wrote me a poem. it's from last october, she emailed it to me yesterday. it's a scene of us saying goodbye one night.

that's good stuff.

maybe it's because i'm a writer who spends all her time writing other people. maybe that's why it's weird and great to be someone else's subject. either way... a girl could get used to a thing like that.

Night & Caryn are watching Garden State in the next room. I can hear The Shins. I saw that movie with the above mentioned "she" at Capitol Theater. we sat in the first row of the balcony. some random hippie sat directly next to me. in an un-crowded theater. personal space, people. honestly! and she offered to scoot down one. yep, she's a keeper. not only did she notice my rising neurotic anxiety, she diffused it... and only made fun of me a little. we put our feet up on the half wall & slouched down. she held my left hand with both of hers and put her head on my shoulder. it made my sleeve smell like baby powder. she always smells like baby powder.

The house is otherwise quiet. James & Ryan are asleep. Chris has disappeared to a house on central street. he can't sleep here - too loud. he tried the garage one night, but it was too cold. big surprise. James has work in the am! that's right. a job. i'm thrilled. i love him, but he's expensive. Ryan's band has officially gotten back together. hell yes. he & Justin played music tonight for the first time in months: Waxfire, resurrection.

james and i spent the weekend up on vashon island with his family. his little sister is 15. we got to meet her boyfriend. ah, to be 15 and hormonal. everytime i see her i remember just how much high school sucked. thank the fucking christ i never have to do that again. it's all bullshit and it all seems so important. every little thing is huge and intense. relationships are the end all, be all. if i had known about life after graduation, high school would have been so much more entertaining.

Valentine

i'm a self-admitted hopeless romantic. Valentine's Day maybe bullshit, for me it's an excuse to act the way i wish i could everday, without it being weird & totally overboard. funny, now that i think about it, i don't have a whole lot of good Valentine's memories. the best one's are amazing... maybe because they're rare - like really good birthdays. i think february's the time to drag out those stories, let them see some light & air out.

debating what to do for my "lady friend", as james says. we've been dating since september. successfully taking it slow. no room for fighting. sex is less important than it can be in long term relationships. i want to do something sweet, a little romantic, but nothing over the top. i'm at a loss.

my house is filled with singles, most fresh out of relationships of 3, 6 or 10 yrs. not sure what, if anything, that means for february around here. Night's dealing with the more important issue of the 1 yr marker of her father's death. that, and the reoccuring presence of her ex, the jackass with the pronounced adam's apple & one painfully stupid hat. he just upsets her. she's such a kind, tolerant person. she can't seem to tell him to fuck off. james and i are working on that with her. Caryn loves her ex. they're talking again, which is good, from what i can tell. he'll be out here soon. Ryan's carrying on with Chrish. she's clearly in love with him. he's clearly gay. speaking of which, there's james. that's a completely different story.

Denny's

So, the sun made an appearance today. Miracle of miracles. Unfortunately, I slept through most of that. I've taken to staying up way past reasonable and sleeping just as long.
Last night I went down to The Brotherhood with my roommate James. We had beers, talked about our impending futures, the relevance of Esquire and why people cheat. We were eventually joined by our friend Lloyd and her friend Doug. Doug was a strange olympia-hippie-type. Kind of slow, kind of smelly, definitely stoned, but nice enough. Lloyd professed her new-found love for a cat. Doug sat. We drank cheap beer.
After last call James and I headed over to the Westside Denny's for mediocre burgers amongst the latenight crowd. There are few things so enlightening and/or entertaining as the smoking section in that particular Denny's after last call. Gaunt junkies, old metal-heads, drunk off duty waitresses, us, and one homeless guy sitting in the corner reciting the histories of battles between the Cavalry and various Native tribes. I wanted to talk to that guy, but I don't want to upset or confuse him. He's obviously got enough going on with me interjecting.
Got a date tonight. I've been "dating" the same girl for five months now. We're keeping things casual. It's nice... No room for petty arguments or jealousy. I really like her and am surprisingly happy with the arrangement. Weird considering my history of serial long-term monogamy. It's good for me.
Sun's going down. The rain stopped & I feel like I missed it.