I am the Sunshine Queen

On Monday after work we went to a friend's house on Lake Washington and soaked up some rays, swam a little bit, and even kayaked. It was tres awesome.

I am however, still as pale as the morning snows, as alabaster as, uh, alabaster. I think I have some mutant power that makes me impervious to the rays of the sun.

When I got home from work yesterday, there was again a boating contingent, but I opted out, so as to take a rest from the glaring rays of the summer sun.

I have to say that I've been enjoying this weather very very much, though I know some of my dear friends wilt at the thought of an ambient temperature over 70 degrees. Ah, bring it on!

There's seriously something wrong with me.

I feel much more alive and wonderful this morning than I really have any right to for:

1) It being this early.

and

2) Drinking so much last night. In fact, my complete lack of a hangover is sort of baffling.

We went out and got tacos at Jalisco last night, which is not unusual in and of itself. We also got a jumbo margarita apiece, which is also completely normal. What is not normal is that the guys decided they were done with theirs when they were half gone, and I finished them before we came home. I don't usually drink that much, but if you recall, I was super tired and my brain's judgement center was somewhat lacking.

Jalisco has three sizes of margaritas that they offer. They have the regular, which is, you know, a regular margarita. They have the grande, which is like two regulars in a larger glass. And then they have the jumbo, which is just fucking huge. It comes in what appears to be a large fishbowl converted into stemware through some magical process and is easily three (and quite possibly four) regular margaritas worth of drink.

So, if we do the math, I had six (or even probably eight) margaritas in a two hour span.

Oh, plus the two beers I'd had at home before the guys decided and announced we were going out. So you can easily see how this became an issue.

Indeed, I was so toasted that Lucas, of all people, the man who is always trying to get people to drink, was like, "Hey, you should drink this glass of water or you are going to be sick."

I think I had half of it.

Maybe.

And then I went to sleep.

Man, that was quality sleep too.

In fact, if I think about it (and I don't like to), at no time in the last few months have I gotten drunk and woken up hungover. I have simply felt amazing. Which is weird, right?

That's really not normal.

Does that mean if I have something big and important to do early the next day, I should just get trashed the night before? that doesn't make any sort of logical sense, and I should probably not think about it.

. . .

I just realized that I have lost a lot of things in computer migrations and OS installs in the last five years or so — pictures, that novel I wrote, e-mails, archives of old web sites, and just tons and tons of stuff. It's not something I brood about, obviously, and I don't like getting attached to things, but it's something to consider.

So come dance this silence down through the morning

Last night I got to get out of the house and head on down the White River Amphitheatre for a nice night of music and awesome hanging out. The GooGoo Dolls and Counting Crows were playing and CC is one of my (and the PBG's) favorite bands.

We grew up on it, you know?

And it's like Adam Duritz is singing directly into your heart, you know?

Such a girl thing to say, I know, but it's true.

So we headed down to the venue, where these cool cats I know work, and we got the Homie Hook-up, which (can I just say?) rocks.

We were originally ushered in and seated in the second closest section to the stage, a bit off to the side for the GooGoo Dolls set, but when Counting Crows came on, the Homie Hook-up went into full effect and we got to get right down in that awesome part of the concert seating reserved for those weirdos that win tickets on radio shows and hooked-up homies. And it was almost dead center. Great great seats.

I wish I could say more about the concert except that we had a great time, but honestly, I was dead tired by the end of the night, got less than minimal hours of sleep, went to work, came home, and now am still dead tired, so I just can't think of words to say, since the language center ceased doing any significant sort of processing several hours ago.

Now I just want to take a nap, but I since I was aided in getting through my work day by more than 60 oz. of caffeinated beverages, I'm mostly dead tired and a little bit jittery.

But not the least bit sleepy, nope!

Yeah, that's not so much working out for me.

Viva la weekend of sleep to come!

Anatomy of an evening

I got home early from work today, completely exhausted.

I decide to take a nap and here's how it goes:

5:13 p.m. Go downstairs to nap. I decide that it would be a great idea to put the bed together so I can sleep on a real actual bed instead of a mattress on a box spring on a floor. The instructions read:

1) Insert wheels in bedframe (this is actually very detailed and not helpful, as it is perfectly obvious how the wheels just snap in.

2) Slide rails and side into place. (this is the entirely of this step. There are no DIAGRAMS or further hints, and since it's for a queen size bed, the rails and sides are pretty much the same fucking length. There is really no way to tell how this actually works. I trail and error it for a long while before I get it right)

3) Put bed on.

5:54 p.m. The bed is just together and the mattress is just right when I hear a noise upstairs. I investigate and it is Corwin, who is staying with us for a few days, I think, but I am not sure.

"Hey, where's everyone else?" I query.

"They're at Zoka," he says.

Now, theoretically I could go to take a nap, but really, I can't because there is now a man upstairs who I have met exactly twice before and that's just uncomfortable enough for me that I know I won't sleep. Plus, I am thinking about spiders for some reason and that makes me jumpy.

So I say, "Hey Corwin, how would you like some blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream?"

"That would be great!" says he. "You have that?"

I say, "No, get up, we're going to the store."

Shockingly, egged on by the thought of warm pie and cold ice cream, he complie and we drive to the store.

6:04 p.m. We are at the store. They have lots of pies, but no blueberry. We decide to work it from scratch. Surprisingly, he is very into this idea. We collect the ingredients we need (we almost get the workings for scratch ice cream, but we do not have an ice cream maker, so it's a no go) and pick up some half and half while we're at it, since I think it would be good for making fresh caramel sauce, and he reasons that if that doesn't work out, we can make White Russians. It's cool. We buy $25 worth of organic blueberries because a) we really have no fucking idea how much blueberry we need for this pie and b) they only have organic blueberries and they're expensive as all ass.

6:30 p.m. We make pie. I work the crust, he makes the fill.

7:02 p.m. The pie goes in the oven. At this point, I discover I do not actually know how to make caramel sauce and cannot find the recipe I thought I had. We decide White Russians are a good idea. He decides that we won't need an actual recipe, we'll flip chapters in The Big Lebowski so we can watch Lebowski make one and copy it. This is OK with me and it is done.

Those White Russians are hella strong.

7:47 p.m. The pie is almost done and Mike and Wil come home. Lucas is to follow with dinner fixings, as apparently he is making dinner tonight.

7:57 p.m. The pie is done and pulled.

8:30 p.m. Dinner is served. Some chicas are also over.

9:30 p.m. The pie is served with ice cream. It is still warm (so good!) and I collect compliments on my flaky and moist crust.

9:54 p.m. It is decided that everyone is going to Golden Gardens for a bonfire. I demur, as I must work tomorrow, and it's already my bedtime.

9:56 p.m. I clean up and put away dishes.

10:02 p.m. I blog.

10:17 p.m. I am definitely going to sleep right the fuck now.

Never judge us: We're all damned.

June's been a fairly dressy sort of a month so far. I've worn 4 (count 'em!) dresses in the past two weeks — Morgann said to me on Tuesday night that I was the Queen of the Pretty Dresses.

It's funny, because I don't think anyone would have said something like that non-sarcastically to me a year ago. Six months ago, even. Weird to think about, but true. It's not that I'm not the same snappy, horrifyingly judgemental, vaguely tomboyish Sarcasmo of a person I've always been — because I totally am that person — it's that I just have more occasions for the pretty now.

Which is fun.

But please stab me if I start wearing make-up or some crap like that every day. It means aliens have taken over my brain, and I just can't abide by that.

. . .

Two fascinating links:

Escher for Real: I've been obsessed with M.C. Escher ever since I was a little girl. My parents, of course, obliged me by stocking my shelves with fat hardbound editions of everything the man ever etched and buying me t-shirts from wacky catalogues that depicted The Bond of Union, among other things.

So it should go without saying that it makes my black little heart skip a tiny beat to see these 3D depictions that someone went to all that trouble of modeling and making. Awesome and even better than the Escher sliding puzzles I used to play with on the bus.

Mathematical LEGO® Sculptures: I don't remember where I first saw this linked a few months ago, but suffice it to say that I thought it was pretty rad. As the author states on the page:

There is a very obvious contrast between the medium and the content in these models. The fun is in producing something that lets the eye shift back and forth between seeing something angular and bricky, and seeing something smooth."

JPod

Today I picked up what's been called Microserfs 2.0 from the library and took it down to the Hiram M. Chittendon Locks for a sunny afternoon read. That was about seven hours ago, and I just finished JPod about 1/2 an hour ago.

To start, I felt a bit cheated by the ending — it was vaguely satisfying and non-depressing, but in a way, it felt a little hollow and like Coupland just hit the point where he was done with the novel and pencilled in the last chapter. That aside, I really did enjoy the bulk of JPod.

I was a little worried about it making me sad — Eleanor Rigby made me incredibly dispirited for a week, but after the first few pages, it was pretty obvious that wouldn't be the case here. It also became pretty obvious that while there were a few things it had in common with Microserfs, it was more different than it was similar.

Without getting too much into all the small things that made it good and spoiling the little moments that are really the best, there are a lot of small things that are fucked up in so many various ways, but the characters just roll with it — not even shrugging and saying, "Hey, that's life, eh?" — but just going with it.

And then you end up just rolling with it too, and not questioning it. Ballroom dancing, Coke, forced heroin addiction, people smuggling, killing, your mom's grow-op, Ronald McDonald as a psycho killer running amok trapped in video games — these I'm all OK with. They totally make sense in the context presented.

And you feel good to run with it, to partake in this world where people are accepting and non-judgemental about their fellow Podsters' fashion choices, sexual perversions, and messed up families.

It's really not as messed up as I just made it sound.

The one slightly off thing was when characters discussed Douglas Coupland, the author. And then Douglas Coupland, the author, becomes an asshole character in the book. It sort of pulls you back out of the book and breaks the suspension of disbelief, like when Stephen King pulled that stunt (more successfully, I think) towards the end of the Dark Tower series. It wasn't at all the literary crazy-type of thing that Jonathan Safran Foer did in Everything is Illuminated. That was something completely different and wonderful.

But yes, I was ok with it. And the crazy bits rolled in and were all good good stuff.

. . .

But to wander into other media and a contrasting example, I saw The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension yesterday and that was just crazy.

And I don't think I was completely ok with the crazy. I mean, the hero is a neurosurgeon and rocket scientist and rock star and comic book hero and action hero with his own team of junior agents?

That's just messed up.

And when the shit with Planet 10 and the 8th Dimension get rolled out, they just roll with it, like it makes perfect sense. And I'm all, "Wait, shouldn't there be some sort of set up involved here? Why isn't the President of the United States questioning this at all?"

I think it would have been a different story if Buckaroo had been played by an actor with the slightest bit of verve or charisma, but Peter Weller? The man is unattractive and about as exciting as a wet paper towel. He was in Naked Lunch so I'll give him credit for that, but ya know, . . . Jeff Goldblum would've done a much better job as Buckaroo, and yet he spends the movie as a second rate character from new Jersey who likes to dress up as a cowboy in wool chaps.

There are people out there who did and do enjoy this movie, so I'm not sure what exactly I'm missing here.

. . .

So why is the weird crazy rolling with it in Jpod ok, but not in Buckaroo?

It's not the sci-fi aspect of it, although that seems at first blush to be the biggest difference between the two. It's not the media they are presented on either.

It's the sheer flatness of the Buckaroo characters and that you just can't picture where they're coming from mentally. The characters in JPod? It's a lot more obvious where their mental cycles are going.

Although, this all probably says a lot more about me than the media creations themselves.

Omnia Romae venalia sunt.

Yesterday was a busy day for a Saturday.

I ran some errands (but was foiled again in picking up my sweet sweet laptop bag — more on that another time), came back to the house for dragons, and went over to Morgann's place for awesomely sweet coconut cake then down to Sushiland Marinopolis for afternoon sushi with Big Gay Keith. Morgann also came along, which was delightful.

After a couple hours of afternoon chilling, BGK was persuaded to accompany us to FWOMP at Jake's new digs. It was a small turnout, with a surprise appearance by Cap'n Jon, but it was good good poker.

To the shock and surprise of exactly no one, Dragons did not do very well. I however, totally won.

I know poker is one of those games that's half-chance and half-skill, and I'm not going to flatter myself and say I'm a good poker player at all. Lady luck was undoubtedly on my side last night. There's no other way to explain that I got pocket 5's no less than four times. See also: pocket kings.

All in all, there were three hands that were really just the best:

• After everyone else but he and I had folded on a hand and the flop was down, Dragons went all in. I supported that and we both flipped our cards to await the last two deals. He had a Jack and a Queen. I had a Jack and a King. The flop was a Jack and two numbered cards, so we each had a pair of jacks, but I was higher. The turn was a Queen, putting Mike up at two pair. But the river . . . The river was a King. Boo-ya, bitches!

• About halfway through the game, after we'd had two people go all in and end up all out, I was way up, it was my turn to deal, and I announced that I wasn't going to look at my cards this hand. I just called every bet, until most people had folded except Rob and I. He kept pushing the bet a little bit higher and I kept calling, not knowing what I had. Eventually, we were done, and when I flipped my cards over, I was the victor. Woot!

• Keith went all in before the flop on what was to be his last hand. I had a 10 and a 7, and said, "Hey, why the hell not?" The flop was a 4 and two sevens. Yes, three-of-a-kind! I pushed on the bet, creating a side bet with Rob, which he willingly engaged in. The turn was a 10. A full house, sevens and tens? That's fucking awesome. I pushed again, enlarging the side bet. And the river. The sweet sweet river was a motherfucking 7. Four-of-a-kind! Put that in your pipe and smoke it! I should have pushed the bet more, but I actually felt guilty for holding all the cards, so I only pushed it a little. It was a very awesome win.

After that there were only two of us and I had the vast majority of chips. Rather than sit all night and grind it out, Rob conceded and we both walked away from the table with more than we came with.

The End.

Don't you love a story with a happy ending?