7.28.01
freakish license plate of the day: “fat people are harder to kidnap”
location: parked in front of the gym
{28 July 2001}
Author Archives: admin
{25 July 2001}
7.25.01
a reader writes in to ask, “what does slithy tove mean?” oh my dear kitlens, how could this have escaped you? doesn’t your life feel incomplete? my gift to you this morning: jabberwocky, by lewis carroll. (read it out loud)
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
(original illustration by john tenniel)
{23 July 2001}
7.23.01 – 4:28 am
we creatures of the
night see more than you sleepers
will ever dream of
{21 July 2001}
7.21.01
to the detriment of my health, i went to see bella fleck and the flecktones play last night. for those not familiar with them (i wasn’t until recently), they’re a band that plays an interesting fusion of bluegrass and jazz, with a little inspiration from rock and reggae thrown in. i have to say that their parlor tricks were most impressive – bella fleck played the banjo with his nose, victor wooten could spin his bass all the way around his body, catch it and not miss a beat, and the horn player could play both saxophones at the same time. but the most interesting part was the drummer, whom they referred to only as “future man”. he wore this device that basically looked like he’d mated an accordion with an electric guitar, and then built it out of legos and duct tape. this in turn was connected to a full drum set, enabling him to stand up and play his drums with the freedom of motion one might have while playing a guitar. here, i found a picture of his weird-ass instrument. all in all, it was a good time. nick had offered me a ticket with a money-back guarantee, so i didn’t even have to pay him for the ticket until i admitted that i’d enjoyed the show.
next musical adventure: i must find someone to go see the monkee’s revival tour with me. any takers?
{}
7.20.01
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 14:31:28 -0500
To: [me]@[university]alumni.org
From: PK
In Swedish!
http://www.datadocktorn.nu/kortbyte.php
p.
{20 July 2001}
7.19.01
oh man, the world hates me. today the dsl connection is down, so i’m stuck using earthlink at $4.95/hour for internet access. and i just found out that my health insurance company canceled my plan on may 1st and didn’t bother to notify me until now.
this post must be short, since every letter i type costs be an additional .0002 cents or something (based on a calculation of 60 wds/minute typing speed, average word length 6 characters). i just want to set the record straight: a concerned reader, writing in to berate me for my inconsistent posts, mentions that we are in the same industry. his return address, however, was hewlett-packard. unless HP has begun putting on plays as some sort of team-building occupational therapy, there’s been some misunderstanding here. folks, i’m a stage manager who’s trying to become a stage director. any work i do involving web design or computer code is a strictly mercenary activity, designed to supplement my meager stage manager/intern/assistant director salaries. (if you can’t tell, i can be deeply sensitive about being mistaken for a dot-commer, particularly last year when i WAS working for a dot-com and living in SF where everyone either believes that dot-commers are the anti-christ, or they are one themselves. i tried to pierce my eyebrow just so that i’d look more edgy and less like the nouveau-riche bringing high rents and moral ruin to SF, but the girl at the piercing studio told me i didn’t have enough eyebrow. my life is so hard.)
{19 July 2001}
7.18.01
ah, the outdoors fucked with us again tonight. picture this:
6pm: sunny, warm, slight breeze.
8pm: sunny, warm, still. a perfect summer night for an outdoor play.
8:10pm: the wind begins gusting. we stop using the curtain.
9pm: the periaktoi (gigantic pieces of scenery on wheels big enough to kill someone) begin sailing around the stage in the gale-force wind. we send actors on to catch them. the audience laughs. we continue the show without the scenery or curtain.
10pm: it begins to sprinkle. actors wear ponchos over their costumes.
10:05pm: it begins to pour. we get the furniture under cover, plastic-bag the electronics, pause the show.
10:10pm: the rain stops. an army of stage and house crew squeegee, mop, and towel dry the stage under bright lights. the audience applauds our efforts.
10:15pm: the storm sails on by, wind dies down, we continue the show on a beautiful summer night.
11:10pm: the final scene approaches. jeff: “how’s the wind backstage?” me: “perfectly calm” jeff: “good, then let’s use the curtain for the final scene,” and then WHOOMP! a gust of wind just about knocks the theatre down at that very moment. it’s like we’ve angered the gods somehow.
oh, for the comforts of a climate-controlled black box. i’m exhausted.
{17 July 2001}
7.17.01
Q.
yeah, i was out of town again. go figure.
Q.
in whistler (2 hours north of vancouver, B.C.).
Q.
the occasion was my grandfather’s 85th birthday. every five years we have a family reunion on his birthday in some vacation spot of his choice.
Q.
well, according to my calculations, i spent 25 hours traveling in order to spend 40 hours actually in whistler.
Q.
no, i didn’t drive, i just have poor airline karma. there are no direct flights between boise and vancouver, so i had to go via seattle. everything was foggy and slow.
Q.
well, i’ve seen a lot of the seattle airport. did you know that they have 24 hours starbucks there? and on the general airport navigation signs, in addition to the directions for restrooms, news, food, terminal D, etc, they have an entry for “espresso”, directing you to the starbucks stand nearest your gate. they’ve even created a little symbol for it on the maps, a tiny espresso cup in side a square.
Q.
the airport has replaced their standard public service announcements with kinder, gentler ones. for example, in place of the impersonal “there is no smoking inside the terminal” message, a perky, slightly effeminate sounding young man comes on the loudspeaker every 15 minutes to say, “Greetings, fellow smokers! the bad news is, smoking is not allowed anywhere in the terminal. if you’d like to smoke you have to go outside of the baggage claim area. the good news is, i’ll be right there with you!”
Q.
no, i didn’t really see much of whistler, or the mountain really, since only the bottom 1/3 of it’s 7000 ft peak was visible beneath the layer of summer fog.
Q.
i get along with my relatives pretty well, so it wasn’t too brutal, particularly considering i was there for less than two days. this particular reunion was marked by the addition of a fourth generation – my cousin’s first baby.
Q.
well, it was interesting, because it actually changed a lot of the family dynamics. suddenly my generation isn’t the grandKIDS any more, because we’re all adults, and my cousin has a baby of his own so he’s really an adult, but he’s not a real adult like my parents are, of course, and then again the aunts and uncles of my parents’ generation are now grandparents, but they’re not old grandparents like MY grandparents are…it’s all very complicated.
Q.
only 13. luckily i have a small family. i like diagrams, but html does not, so i’ll spare you the family tree.
watching my grandmother watch her whole family, all four generations, it suddenly occurred to me that for my grandparents, we are their lifelong accomplishment. they’ve spent eighty-five years building a family. i don’t have any amazing conclusions to draw from this, it was just a thought that really struck me.
Q.
since the drinking age is 19 in canada, i got to take my baby brother out for his first (legal) drink. we found this fabulous irish pub full of merry drunk people and a band that did vaguely-irish sounding covers of just everything that anyone can sing drunk – hey jude, american pie, etc. matt was crushed that nobody carded him all weekend long, except for the one time he forgot his id and so our mom had to vouch for his age.
Q.
i’m tired of traveling. i’m going to try and stick around boise for a few weeks here and just let my spirit catch up with my body’s physical location. i thought for a moment i’d really had enough traveling when, on the flight from boise to seattle, i saw the grim reaper get on the plane.
Q.
you know, it’s funny. he didn’t have a black cloak or a scythe or anything, but a deathly white face. see, i was sitting in my seat, looking at my book and glancing up at the people still boarding the plane when i caught a glimpse of this guy at the front of the plane with a perfectly white face. at first, i figured it was an albino person, and as not to be caught staring, i looked down at my book so that i could think of a way to subtly stare as he walked by. but when i glanced up again, the crowd at the front of the plane and shifted and he was gone. but then i realized that what i’d seen wasn’t actually a guy with pale skin, blond hair and blue eyes, but someone with a perfectly white face, like it was painted, and short dark hair and hollow, shadowed cheeks. it occurred to me then that maybe this would be a good time to get off the plane, but then i fell asleep, and when i woke up we were landing and nobody was dead.
Q.
no, i swear i was awake at the time. okay, so i was more than a little short on sleep that morning, having gotten off work at 1 and returning to the airport at 5 am. i might possibly have hallucinated it, but i’m sure i didn’t dream it.
Q.
yeah, i told you i’ve been traveling too much.
{11 July 2001}
7.11.01
today’s bit of wisdom comes from lauren:
“you don’t want to fuck around with pliers and metal and your abdominal wall if you can help it, no?”
she’s right. fortunately, i managed to get my navel ring put back together without disaster. although i admit i’m a little disappointed. for a while there i thought i was going to have an excuse to see the inside of a boise tattoo/piecing studio. there’s this super-seedy looking one down in garden city where only hell’s angels types seem to get tattoos that might have been fun to go to.
{}
7.10.01
how’s this for dork injuries? i skinned my knee on my computer last night. no really, it’s all red and scraped up. see, there was this loose screw that was rattling around inside, and i had to find it before it shorted something out, so i took off the side panels and tipped the box back and forth until hidden screw rolled out, like those little games you used to get as prizes at carnivals, where you have to get the ball bearings through the plane that runs diagonally across the cube. only, my computer is much heavier, and at some point i misjudged the distance and my knee and the box ended up occupying the same space until my the skin on my knee gave way. my life is so hard. why can’t i have exotic sex injuries to report instead?
i’m back to playing with toys on brunching shuttlecock. this time it’s the kevin bacon game. according to the program, i’m related to kevin bacon in the following manner:
[me]
owned a chain of fried chard restaurants secretly funded by
Penelope Klept
who who once sang a karaoke version of “Islands in the Stream” with
Kevin Bacon
who knew?