I far prefer mustard to catch-up
Yeah, no, I'm not going to be able to distill the last two or more weeks of my life onto this poor, neglected blog. Not at any length ... but I've got to at least get it in here so I can move on. Why? I don't know. To let my friends know what's been going on in my life? To get advice? To receive kudos or sympathy? Maybe, maybe, maybe. But also, definitely, because I need to pave over a few holes before I can ride smoothly again.
For convenience's sake, I'll skip over the stuff before I went to Tampa, because it basically amounted to this: My home life sucks. Two Cabs and I are at each other's throats, Tammie and I are thawing but still not comfortable, and our new housemate is only staying till the end of March. I don't have a doorknob on my door (I got locked in my bedroom at 1:30 a.m. a few weeks ago, and had to take the whole thing off with a screwdriver just to go pee). I really needed to get out of town.
So out I went, back to my adopted hometown, where the weather, freakishly, was exactly the same as it was in Oakland when I left, and where twelve years of my life was busy coalescing into a busy rock weekend. TexAnn picked me up with her dear, dear son, who is now 11 (he was 7 or 8 when the three of us lived together). He is currently rocking a long blond shag, and, once I freaked out over his playing "Here Comes Your Man" on the bass, he spent the weekend picking it up at regular intervals and running through it over and over and over. TexAnn is the coolest mom ever -- when we lived together, I used to call her "Harper Valley PTA," because she'd go pick up her son from his tony Montessori school in pistachio-green capris, three-inch-high-heel sandals, elaborate two-tone red bouffant and Lancome sticky lip gloss, blasting the Who from her Jeep Cherokee.
So she picked me up, we dropped her son off at school, and she deposited me at her house for a nap while she headed to work (wearing a conservative black suit and heels, as she's now a large-group coordinator at a schmancy hotel -- but still with the long red bouffant that most people find hard to believe isn't a wig). When they came home, we headed to dinner, meeting up with dear ol'Mr. Pockets, eventually joined by Eddie, my former managing editor (now ed-in-chief of a porn mag for women, and recently in town for the IPA conference, bless her heart), and Celeste, my college best friend.
Celeste and I proceeding to tear the town a new one, spending the first quality, tearful-processing-free time we've had together in over five years, ever since she and I fell out over Mr. Pockets. In fact, we began that very night -- heading to the bar in her rented SUV, rocking the Black Keys and dressed mostly alike. We went to one bar, then another, then off to our favorite vintage store, Tampa's biggest, oldest, and finest, still open at 9 p.m. on a Friday (it's right on the strip), and offering up the attic your coolest grandma would have had. After an hour of drunken shopping, I scored a shocking magenta silk peasant blouse, and we chipped in on a western shirt for Pockets, whose dad just died the week before. Then we headed to the bar where he works, where we later presented it to him ... nothing like your two exes giving you a gift while giggling uncontrollably at 3 a.m. to make you feel better, huh?
But before that ... we had to run a gauntlet of Tampa's new "hipster pupae," as Celeste termed them, malingering all emotastic outside of the just-let-out Bright Eyes show next door. Mr. Oberst would remain a topic of conversation throughout the weekend, with one discussion, in the wee hours of Sunday morning, ending with one friend beseeching, "Why can't everyone just leave him alone?" This from a terminally pretty musician who once played a teenage drug addict on "Miami Vice." He was offed by his mentor, played by Keith Gordon. True story.
Man, am I ever getting ahead of myself. And behind. Perhaps we should just go to the highlight reel:
I got face time with everyone I needed to (with the exception of one girlfriend, who was mysteriously MIA), suffered minimal damage from run-ins with emotional messes (even Pockets' thrilling new tendency to get belligerent while drunk, which I'd heard about recently and then came up against, via cell phone, at 7 a.m. Sunday), ate Cuban food, and even got to do some real thrifting. Saturday night I lost my voice from screaming, and lost my gumbo in the front row while band after amazing band played. Sunday I ate enough cheap seafood to make me incapable of doing anything but watch the dumb Super Bowl. Saw my friends' new baby that evening -- the third product of my most successful love match. Everyone's happy there, their kids are all breathtaking, and no one is roiling with homicidal resentment, near as I can tell -- so it would appear as if I have done some good on this Earth.
So, in summary ... um ...
I got drunk. Every night. I got laid. Twice, same person; once in the back seat of a car and once at TexAnn's house in the afternoon before I left. Now THAT was funny -- he had to borrow his mom's car so we could "hang out." Very junior high/high school; of course, not MY adolescence, but how you see it in the movies, with the long-haired guy wearing pukka shells around his neck and not much else in the afternoon sunlight.
And that's about the size of it. Came home. Got depressed. Gotta get outta my house, outta my job, into grad school. SIO will be back some time after March 9 (when his last gig in NZ is scheduled), and he and I will take a three-week cross-country trip in mid-to-late April. After that, he doesn't know what he's doing, so I am forced not to care -- I'm forced to take the reins, heaven help me. Anyone know a guidance counselor? Or a fairy godpatron?
And in closing ... my next entry will make more sense.
For convenience's sake, I'll skip over the stuff before I went to Tampa, because it basically amounted to this: My home life sucks. Two Cabs and I are at each other's throats, Tammie and I are thawing but still not comfortable, and our new housemate is only staying till the end of March. I don't have a doorknob on my door (I got locked in my bedroom at 1:30 a.m. a few weeks ago, and had to take the whole thing off with a screwdriver just to go pee). I really needed to get out of town.
So out I went, back to my adopted hometown, where the weather, freakishly, was exactly the same as it was in Oakland when I left, and where twelve years of my life was busy coalescing into a busy rock weekend. TexAnn picked me up with her dear, dear son, who is now 11 (he was 7 or 8 when the three of us lived together). He is currently rocking a long blond shag, and, once I freaked out over his playing "Here Comes Your Man" on the bass, he spent the weekend picking it up at regular intervals and running through it over and over and over. TexAnn is the coolest mom ever -- when we lived together, I used to call her "Harper Valley PTA," because she'd go pick up her son from his tony Montessori school in pistachio-green capris, three-inch-high-heel sandals, elaborate two-tone red bouffant and Lancome sticky lip gloss, blasting the Who from her Jeep Cherokee.
So she picked me up, we dropped her son off at school, and she deposited me at her house for a nap while she headed to work (wearing a conservative black suit and heels, as she's now a large-group coordinator at a schmancy hotel -- but still with the long red bouffant that most people find hard to believe isn't a wig). When they came home, we headed to dinner, meeting up with dear ol'Mr. Pockets, eventually joined by Eddie, my former managing editor (now ed-in-chief of a porn mag for women, and recently in town for the IPA conference, bless her heart), and Celeste, my college best friend.
Celeste and I proceeding to tear the town a new one, spending the first quality, tearful-processing-free time we've had together in over five years, ever since she and I fell out over Mr. Pockets. In fact, we began that very night -- heading to the bar in her rented SUV, rocking the Black Keys and dressed mostly alike. We went to one bar, then another, then off to our favorite vintage store, Tampa's biggest, oldest, and finest, still open at 9 p.m. on a Friday (it's right on the strip), and offering up the attic your coolest grandma would have had. After an hour of drunken shopping, I scored a shocking magenta silk peasant blouse, and we chipped in on a western shirt for Pockets, whose dad just died the week before. Then we headed to the bar where he works, where we later presented it to him ... nothing like your two exes giving you a gift while giggling uncontrollably at 3 a.m. to make you feel better, huh?
But before that ... we had to run a gauntlet of Tampa's new "hipster pupae," as Celeste termed them, malingering all emotastic outside of the just-let-out Bright Eyes show next door. Mr. Oberst would remain a topic of conversation throughout the weekend, with one discussion, in the wee hours of Sunday morning, ending with one friend beseeching, "Why can't everyone just leave him alone?" This from a terminally pretty musician who once played a teenage drug addict on "Miami Vice." He was offed by his mentor, played by Keith Gordon. True story.
Man, am I ever getting ahead of myself. And behind. Perhaps we should just go to the highlight reel:
I got face time with everyone I needed to (with the exception of one girlfriend, who was mysteriously MIA), suffered minimal damage from run-ins with emotional messes (even Pockets' thrilling new tendency to get belligerent while drunk, which I'd heard about recently and then came up against, via cell phone, at 7 a.m. Sunday), ate Cuban food, and even got to do some real thrifting. Saturday night I lost my voice from screaming, and lost my gumbo in the front row while band after amazing band played. Sunday I ate enough cheap seafood to make me incapable of doing anything but watch the dumb Super Bowl. Saw my friends' new baby that evening -- the third product of my most successful love match. Everyone's happy there, their kids are all breathtaking, and no one is roiling with homicidal resentment, near as I can tell -- so it would appear as if I have done some good on this Earth.
So, in summary ... um ...
I got drunk. Every night. I got laid. Twice, same person; once in the back seat of a car and once at TexAnn's house in the afternoon before I left. Now THAT was funny -- he had to borrow his mom's car so we could "hang out." Very junior high/high school; of course, not MY adolescence, but how you see it in the movies, with the long-haired guy wearing pukka shells around his neck and not much else in the afternoon sunlight.
And that's about the size of it. Came home. Got depressed. Gotta get outta my house, outta my job, into grad school. SIO will be back some time after March 9 (when his last gig in NZ is scheduled), and he and I will take a three-week cross-country trip in mid-to-late April. After that, he doesn't know what he's doing, so I am forced not to care -- I'm forced to take the reins, heaven help me. Anyone know a guidance counselor? Or a fairy godpatron?
And in closing ... my next entry will make more sense.