Likes words, does pictures.

I have an announcement to make!

Spaghetti-all

I just walked downstairs, picked up a banana, carried it back up the stairs, sat down, ate the banana, and took the peel back down the stairs to the kitchen trash.

I just can't help thinking that this is something my simian ancestors would never have approved of.

So Atlanta, for those of you who are not in it, is (and I want to say this absolutely as delicately as possible) an ALL-DAY FUCKING STEAMBATH that kills puppies and destroys souls. Has it killed an actually puppy? I don't know. But time will tell.

I guess it's hot everywhere. But it is especially hot here. It has apparently made the front page of the paper. I can't say firsthand because I wake up too late to read the paper, and I am not particularly interested in waking up any earlier. There are precious few advantages to unemployment and I'm not about to forfeit the main one.

Other than the heat, and my car's reaction to the heat, I've been adjusting well to my new surroundings. I like living with John and his dad. I haven't been out as much as I'd like, because spending money is too, too tempting, and I'm attached to my last $60. I'm still optimistic about landing the right job, but it's becoming a labored optimism. I could work a little harder at job hunting, sure, but it's too hot to do anything but respond to ads. Car doesn't like it. And networking calls now have to wait, since I've got outstanding interviews. Yeah, that's more detail than you needed, but there is a certain internal obligation to appear as unlike a deadbeat as possible.

I'm trying to get us gallery-hopping here as gently as possible. We did a couple smalltown galleries on Friday night (okay, just one... the second one looked too scary so we drove by twice and went elsewhere for a beer and a burger instead) and we'll do Roswell's First Friday thing next Thursday. Then maybe the following Friday I'll feel ready for some downtown openings. I'm sure there's nothing worth working up to, but I'll feel more certain of that once I've worked up to it. Whoops! Tricky.

I'm gonna go out to an Aseda thing on Monday. Live band. Could be a good time to introduce myself. Or, I mean, I guess it could be a bad time. I can't give you anything definitive until, like, after Monday.

Atlanta is big. I like it for that. Atlanta also has all these totally polar little areas situated really close to one another. Right now, I don't feel like I can go anywhere new with even a broad idea of what to expect it to be like. Which is actually at the tail end of my list of concerns. The flagship concern, currently, is that I'll probably never get to whatever new place I'm heading for, because right now I get (to varying degrees) lost almost everywhere I go. I don't even want to think what it would be like with no GPS.

When I have paychecks again, I will go to more comedy clubs, and I will try more new restaurants. I will also get to see plays and concerts. These are the reasons I am pleased that all those trees outside the window are in Atlanta. When I finally do feel it's okay for me to leave the house, that's where I'll be, too.

Realtor, dont be scary.

media1.jpeg

Steve mill3r

media1.jpeg

Coach Fredericks* spat a pingpong ball at Diana tonight.

Making nice with Coach Fredericks, 5/3/07

He's not usually this sweaty. And he works very hard. Thank you and good night.

*Tom Wilson **

**Biff Tannen

An important update:

Something in the building is leaking, soaking the wall and the carpet all around my desk. Stinks. Ew. Much worse today.

(my day off)

(I came in anyway)

(someone called in sick and I was having a lousy day so I decided I might as well)

(might as well come sit at my stinky desk)

(not sure what I was thinking there)

Today: I spend the entirety of my morning wondering why I smell so awful and hoping no one finds out. What's the word for when you leave your laundry in the washer too long and it goes off? Sour? I have always wondered what that smelled like, and today when I smell this smell I am instantly certain that that's what it is. And I think that's really odd, since (and this isn't going to help me sound less dirty) the pants and top I'm wearing are ones I've worn already since they were washed. Seems odd that I'd think it's odd, since I'm assuming it's a smell I've never smelled and I couldn't possibly be sure, but I am sure... it must be sour laundry, because it smells like that smell sounds like it should smell. Even though my laundry didn't have a chance to sour. But there's no denying it, I think. I stink.

Of course, every time I get up to do something somewhere else in the building, I stop stinking. I figure it must just be because there's no breeze in the area by my desk and I'm left alone with my hideous stench. I figure it's for the best; I figure it'll teach me not to be so careless and to start smelling better.

I go to lunch. Outside of the building, I don't smell. I come back from lunch and return to my desk and there is the smell again.

So it sounds like I'm really stupid, and of course I should've assumed from the beginning that the smell was coming from somewhere in my office, but honestly, there's nothing on my desk that should smell. And there's nothing on my desk that wasn't here yesterday. And there's no food in the trash cans or anything. But it's not me. I do not stink.

Let me say that again, so the world can hear:

I DO NOT STINK!

...but I don't know what does.

—————————————line!—————————————

What else, what else... I had Bagel Bagel for lunch today and I liked it. My sandwich was not bagel-based, which was essential to my enjoyment. What a relief! I am so strongly opposed to making sandwiches on bagels. It is counterintuitive and disrespectful of the dynamic of sandwiches. Bagels are thick. Bagels are chewy. You have to hold a bagel firmly and tear it with your teeth. When you put a condiment on a bagel and then stick meat in between, when you hold that bagel firmly, all the meat squishes out. And when you tear it with your teeth, you create a counteraction where you throw the meat more. Bad. Wrong.

The following sandwiches are acceptable bagel fodder:

Cream cheese and jam.
Bacon, egg and cheese.
Peanut butter and jelly.

That is all. No soft meat should be placed on a bagel ever, and if any solid food item is included, it should be firmly embedded into a soft, sticky food like melted cheese. Otherwise, you've ruined your sandwich and your bagel. Be smart.

Also, is anyone sure of the difference between Thousand Island and Russian dressing?

Yes, I could just Wikipedia it, and it would be faster to type ("wikipedia," "thousand island," "russian dressing," enter) and exponentially quicker to receive a response. But I long for the lost art of conversation. Let's discuss the difference between these dressings. It is so much more humanistic.

As you were.

I got tagged with a thing.

Krissy did it. So if you're glad I'm writing an entry (and it's not whining about my Professional Life), you have her to thank.

It doesn't say how many I'm supposed to do, so I'll do five of each. Seems like they're more for my records than for your interest, like I can come back here later and compare my progress against the original goals. So we'll see. Maybe I'll update in a year on how I've been doing at them. Maybe I won't.

Personal Goals:

Business/Financial

• Continue chucking 20% of my paycheck into savings.
  
• Take over my long suffering credit card payments and my cell phone bills (this is kind of embarrassing).
  
• Use a money management program for real. (This is not an attainable goal.)
• Give art-business enough time and attention to learn how to turn at least a small profit on a monthly basis. There is a way. I just have to find it, and 7 p.m. on weeknights is not the time to look.
• Get everything balanced so I can save a little money and still keep enough on hand that I don't have to sit down and think about whether I can go out for the evening with friends. I'm doing this better now than I ever have, but I hate working these long hours, so I'll have to figure it out all over again once I get the new goals worked through.
  

Tagging Five

I hereby tag:

Jess, Njicki, Mason, Paul and Ron.

I'm writing this Wednesday afternoon (morning where we are) because Day Six was a long day and we had to go to bed early because our ride to the airport was due at 3 a.m. So, without further ado...

Seattle, Day Six (Tuesday): Today is Nature Day. We've got our rental car parked down the block and we're gonna drive out to the mountains and Olympic National Park and the Hoh Rainforest. We have every intention of getting up early, but not such strong intentions as to actually do it. We get up around seven and laze around with breakfast and trip research and the bottom line is we hit the road at nearly nine. This will be important later, but right now it seems like no problem to us. There's some traffic on the way out of the city but it's all in the opposite direction, which is excellent. For us. Kind of crappy for the northbounders, but that's not our problem.

Now, we've asked just about everyone we've come in contact with this week if they've ever been to the rainforest, and nobody has. Nobody can tell us how far it is, how long the drive might be, or if the parks are open — not even the people at the parks department, who should be answering phones and aren't. So we take our little Seattle tourist map, which has the parks marked vaguely on the far left side with a few notated highways, and we measure with our fingers (based on the distance between our hotel and the airport, which we know to be about 20 minutes' drive) how far it must be. We estimate that it is two hours away.

It is in fact five hours away. But we don't know that now — and we won't be willing to admit that until we get there five hours later. For now, we're just coasting along, enjoying all the breathtaking mountain views and tall, tall trees. About 90 minutes in, we turn off down a road with a sign that says "CHEVRON --->" but we drive and drive and it's all winding foothill roads and deep forests and tiny bridges and huge dropoffs with signs that say, "Low shoulder!" We're about to turn around, figuring we're being drawn into some crazy shotgun-wielding mountain people's trap for tasty city folks, when lo and behold, we're looking right at a Chevron. It's pretty modern, considering it's nestled between enormous cedars and overlooks a lake and a little farm. It even has pay-at-the-pump. A kindly little old man in a flannel shirt, piloting a truck with more wheels than he has teeth, comes out to ask John if they've met before. John assures him that they have not.

On the way back to the real road we pass a sign for "Quinault Rain Forest Trail --->" and we laugh derisively. What kind of lame-ass rainforest is that? we cackle. Who wants to go to some rinky-dink 'Quinault' when there's a Hoh just a few miles up the road? We all but spit on the sign as we whiz by in our hot rented white Cobalt.

Seattle Day Six 021

Sure enough, just a few miles down the road is a sign that says, "Hoh Clearwater National Rain Forest --->" and we find ourselves careening down another dark, damp, windy mountain road with mile markers that jump suddenly from "4" to "25 1/2" and begin counting down. Twenty-five and a half miles seems like a long distance to travel, moving as we are at a cautious 30mph down the treacherous "Low shoulder!" roads. But we persevere. As our stamina is dwindling, we come across a complete set of flagmen (lumberjacks maybe?) stopping "traffic" so as to get their massive trucks out. I roll down the window as we pass one.

"Excuse me," say I, "but are we anywhere near the Hoh rainforest?"

"Hoh rainforest?" He looks perplexed, then turns to the other crew members behind him and repeats the question. They look equally perplexed. He turns back to me slowly and says, "You're in it."

"Oh. Well, good. Do... you know where the trail is?" He suggests we continue down this road to the 101, turn right, and we'll see it. The 101 is the road we turned off of to begin with. I thank him and crank the window up hastily as we drive on.

Encouraged, we continue. It has been about four hours since we left Seattle. The rainforest is only a few miles further. We turn off and find ourselves on yet another beautifully scenic, but seemingly endless, mountain road. Every now and then we pass a sign or marquee warning us that the park ahead is closed. We're determined to check it out anyway, until we come to a pretty area (many miles from the 101) and agree that we might as well just take some pictures here. I balance the camera on the car and run out over rocks and stumps to where John is standing, making it there just in time for the timer to go off. John moves to another spot and we do it again. As I'm running back to the car to see the picture, back on the road, away from the stumps and the rocks, mere feet from the car, I slip in the gravel and fall in the mud and get all dirty and scraped up. This (coupled with the lateness of the hour) drives our decision to get back into the car. When I review the contents of the camera, I find that I didn't run far enough out to be in the second picture anyway. I am both muddy and a little perturbed. John explains to me that I am only designed for inside.

But the drive is still nice, even in the other direction, so I get over it. And when we skip the road we had accidentally turned on before, we find out we had missed the entire Pacific Ocean! It's really big, that Pacific Ocean. And pretty. And far below the road and the "beach" trails. We get out and take pictures and I try to take it in. But it's a really big ocean. I'm happy to have seen it.

We get out in a few more particularly lovely spots and take some more quick pictures. We don't feel the least bit as though we've missed anything, which is odd considering we didn't wind up having an actual destination in our hours upon hours of driving. We've seen mountains and valleys and forests and rainforests and it's been sunny and breezy all day and I can't imagine that we would have seen anything more on some trail.

The car has to be back by 7 p.m. or the office will be closed and our rental will cost us an extra day, more insurance, and a drop fee at the airport... over a hundred smackers, total. And as we're approaching civilization, we're starting to get nervous about the time. Which is what makes all the wrong turns we're about to make that much more irritating.

We cross into Seattle at a quarter to six, so we stop worrying because we have plenty of time now. We just have to find the office on the map and drive there.

Here's something you may not know about the city of Seattle: when it was originally planned, there were multiple people who wanted to lay out the city's grids. Rather than hold a contest, or encourage a bidding war, or threaten to cut the city in half and force the more nurturing of the two engineers to reveal himself, whoever's in charge of cities allowed each designer to arrange the streets of half the city. Then they joined the two mashed-together grids all willy-nilly with weird little triangular streets. Come to think of it, that is a lot like cutting the city in half, only everybody missed the point. It's a good thing King Solomon wasn't from Washington. There'd be a lot of people raising little half-babies.

Long story short, we get lost. And while we're lost, we get stuck in one-way traffic, which is at a dead stop all around the highway we just got off of. We have essentially made a big circle around the city and learned that it looks nothing at all like our map, so we call Enterprise and get simple directions. Apparently, we were wrong to try to figure out a route to the office on our own. Apparently, there was no chance we'd ever find it, since it's in the middle of a triangular block of one-way streets, only one of which actually leads to the building. Apparently, we would've been out there so long we'd eventually have had to start eating pieces of the car to survive. Anyway, we get there with 30 minutes to spare and a van guy drives us to the hotel.

We pack up all our stuff and go to bed as early as we can, knowing that another van will be back for us at three in the morning. We snooze for a good five hours, get up, get dressed, put our bags by the door, open the curtains and stare out the window until the van pulls up. It is an uneventful trip to the airport, and uneventful line for boarding passes, and an uneventful trudge through security. I fall asleep on the plane before it takes off and I wake up in time for doughnuts. We watch a few episodes of Best Week Ever on my iPod. Plane lands in Denver, we get off, we look for a place to spend the next three hours. We sit down in some weird restaurant and order an appetizer that turns out to be French Fry Vomit Soup, but is unexpectedly tasty, even though we're too tired to be hungry and we still feel like it's 9 a.m. We can't force ourselves to have lunch yet. We sit down to charge stuff up and write our vox. By the time you read this, we'll be home. Ish.