You're Doing It Wrong

Bob gave me a bottlecap so I could get a free song from the Apple music store. There’s this song I heard on the radio a couple times several months ago and I never got what it’s called but I thought it might be by Good Charlotte so I listened to all the samples and that wasn’t it so I listened to samples by a bunch of bands that sound like Good Charlotte (and turns out there are a lot of them) and I couldn’t find my song. I’ve been looking for it for awhile. I gave up on that and looked at the top 100 lists in alternative, rock and pop to see if there was anything else that caught my eye. Number 12 on the rock list was Eye of the Tiger, Survivor. I remember that song from high school. How can that be number 12 now? That’s not the song I got. I picked “Clocks” by Coldplay.

Everybody looks stupid in a backwards baseball cap. It makes even the smartest person look 25% stupider. The other day when I was on the marathon drive home from hell this kid in the car behind me very carefully put on his backwards baseball cap, adjusting it and readjusting it as if a backwards baseball cap requires a thoughtful angle or something. Periodically he’d look in the mirror and check it and then give it another tweak.

Last night I watched Kingdom Hospital, which isn’t as great as I hoped, but I haven’t missed an episode yet. They have these ads for anti-depressants and it’s like watching SNL joke ads. You have a politically correct diverse group of adults doing things like climbing out of their minivans with their two kids, boy and girl, and their dog, purebred lab, OR a lady arranging flowers in her immaculate kitchen OR a man with little wire glasses in a slacks, shirt, and tie in a huge corner office with windows, talking about how great this drug is for their depression and meanwhile the voiceover reels off this endless list of warnings and side-effects: “don’t use if you have kidney, stomach, spleen or lung problems, don’t take if you’ve ever had an eating disorder, headaches or backaches, may cause itchy feet, bad breath, nose-bleeds or flatulence, might cause dry mouth, and insomnia, you might not have bowel movements for weeks.” And then you have this person look at the camera and tell you with complete sincerity how much better they feel on this drug.

This weekend I’m doing an extended yoga workshop with David Magone who is one of my former classmates and fantastic teacher although I don’t think he gets enough junk food or something because he’s developed some crazy ideas and has managed to find variations on even the simplest poses to turn them into agonizing marathon holds and painful pretzel variations. Truthfully, it’s incredibly fun although there were moments in both sessions yesterday where I wasn’t sure I liked him anymore.

One session was in the morning and the other in the evening and there didn’t seem any reason to go all the way home so at first I intended to go to the office between sessions. But then I decided to take MAX to Lloyd Center to use my Ann Taylor gift certificate. I hardly ever use public transportation and both outgoing and returning I had to help other people figure out what they were doing. Same thing when I used BART in SF. Good thing I’ve had all this practice in cities where I don’t even speak the language. The train was packed due to something at the convention center. Lots of professional looking people with bright green cords for their badges and dragging around big bags. We also had a “colorful personality” – some guy who looked like Ted Nugent who felt it was important to warn us something about the military following us. Unfortunately I had to exit the train before I got all the details.

Struck out at the mall. Nothing fit. I tried various sizes petite and not and none of it worked. I did run into Mark from my writing class and caught up with him so it wasn’t a total waste. When I got back to the office I ended up taking a nap because the yoga workshop almost killed me and also I went to bed late because we saw Ian McEwan at Arts & Lectures. McEwan was detained at the border and told us we should be pleased that homeland security was protecting us from British novelists.

Last night on the way home from the second yoga session I stopped to buy gas. I haven’t been to the gas station on a friday night at 9pm in eons and it was the happening spot with a group of kids that looked like A.J. Soprano and pals standing around and a lot of small beat-up old cars squealing out of the parking lot.

How do you like my new glasses? I’ve been going nuts with the pictures the past few days. Last night I had a dream that I was putting pictures online for the Sopranos. I think I’m going to cut way back on the computer for a few days.

The San Francisco to Logan trip pictures are up.

I finally have photos of the Germany trip up. (Yes, I know, three months later …)

I also put a couple more winter storm pictures up.

I’m still working on the Logan trip and Bob’s birthday, not to mention several other projects. I took a couple of days off last week to coincide with Bob’s spring break. We figured out that March 25 was ten years from the day we met. We celebrated with King Ludwig champagne (thanks Neuners) and Bob carrot birthday cake (thanks Priscilla).

I remember when I was in college and a woman I worked with at the library, it was her real job, not like a student job, took a week vacation and stayed home and I thought it was appalling. Now I get it. It’s nice to goof around at home. We slept in and watched movies (Pieces of April – excellent!; Intolerable Cruelty – very Coen brothers; and I-Spy – sometimes funny but mostly stupid) and did errands and read papers and magazines and did a little yard work. And Bob worked on his school stuff and I worked on writing stuff. My attitude needed adjusting and this did the trick.

Got Erin moved in this weekend. Lots of stories to tell and pictures to show but as usual you are at the mercy of the time and energy I want to put into this project. Possibly this week as I am taking a couple days off to hang out with Bob for Spring Break. Erin moved in with a woman named Susanna and Bob asked me if I looked at her CDs because he said that’s how you can tell about a person. I said I never had time to look at her CDs but I did see the DVD of Wilco’s I am Trying to Break your Heart and he said then we know she’s okay.

I actually had another story where I knew she and Erin would get along just fine. Susanna and her sister have 3 cats and Erin asked how they got so many and Susanna said that their next door neighbors were struggling and the daughter was having a baby and children’s services said they couldn’t have so many cats (a momma and kittens) so the neighbors asked Susanna if she wanted the cats and Susanna paid them $25 for the cats. The momma was friendly and the orange one rubbed up against me but the calico was shy and I never got close to it. I told Erin to report how long it took the shy one to glom onto her and she said she watched Alias that night with the calico in her lap.

Tonight I’m flying to San Francisco (actually Oakland) to meet Erin and tomorrow we take off on our big adventure. Erin got a job in Logan, Utah. We’re going to do most of the driving tomorrow. I’ve never driven through Nevada or even been to Utah. We expect to arrive in Logan on Saturday. Sunday we return the truck in Salt Lake and I’m coming back home. I’m bringing the camera so I should have a good report next week.

Last night I watched Angel episode 7 & 8 from the first season. Eight is the one where Buffy comes to LA and Angel gets turned into a human again but of course it doesn’t end well because that would ruin the series. It was SO SAD. Get your heart broken and you never forget it.