The Three Fates
At the end of last week I was feeling pretty stressed out. There was no single catalyzing event for this state of being, rather it was the accumulation of many of outrageous fortune's slings and arrows, bleeding me by degrees. Fortunately, I recognized what was happening and took steps to counter the festering ennui that had been building throughout the week.
Friday evening I rolled out to Echo Park to hang with Justin. His cat Elwood was around, and even though Elwood is a kindred spirit of Badtz Maru, he has much love for me and let me pet him and rub his belly. So that immediately made me feel better, in the way cuddling with cats can. Not quite as good as cuddling with a cute girl, but still a bit of all right. Had a good dinner and a good talk with Justin, basically venting about the various and sundry sources of stress in my life. He listened and broke it down for me in classic Justin style. Hashing things out didn't really make me feel better per se, but it did help me get a better handle on a lot of things, which helps move my thinking in a positive direction.
To cap off the evening we watched Ginger Snaps, which is perhaps the best werewolf movie made in the last decade. It's dark and morbid and melancholy, and best of all doesn't have a happy ending, so naturally, I loved it.
Saturday I had planned to sleep in and have a leisurely morning before going into town to take care of some errands. Restlessness and anxiety got the better of me, and I was out of bed before I'd logged more than 5 hours of much needed beauty rest. Still, I thought I could have a relaxing morning, or at least a distracting one. Well, I was half right. When I tried booting up my computer, it failed. POST ran fine, but when it was time to load Windows... grey screen of death. It's even more depressing than the infamous BSOD - it's dull, lifeless grey. Needless to say this did not bode well for the rest of the day. I tried a few tricks, but tricks are for kids. No dice.
I ran out, ran a couple of errands, returned home, and mysteriously, the computer worked upon rebooting. Not being inclined to look a gift-horse in the mouth, I let it hum and ran back out to finish the day's business. I was pleasantly surprised that Honda of Hollywood was able to replace my missing side-view mirror relatively cheaply and quickly. I passed the time imbibing caffeinated beverages at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and browsing book products at Borders.
Got home around 3:30 and the computer was still running, so I logged in to WoW and began questing. The Golden God was online and we got to chatting. I inquired as to what his evening plans were, and ended up being invited along for drinks with him and his girlfriend. This sounded like a pretty good way to spend a Saturday night, so I happily accepted.
Rolled up in South Pas around 10ish and met up with Matt and Ashleigh at DelMonico's. Matt gave me a pound and Ash gave me a big hug, and we all sat down at the bar. They bought me a strong gin and tonic, and playfully demanded that I relax and have fun, dammit! Well after two sips of that monster g+t, it wasn't hard to get into the spirit of things. The three of us had a really cool conversation about relationships and meeting new people, film and writing, truth and beauty, this and that. Satisfied that we had had a conversation of substance and that we were well inebriated, we adjourned to the Bodega Bar next door to sober up (Yes, it made sense at the time). Bodega was a pretty chill scene - they were playing Purple Rain on the projection TV, so that was cool. Matt observed that 8 Mile is basically a remake of Purple Rain, and I can only agree. This was a staggering insight at the time, but hey, we were tipsy. After a couple of hours Matt and I were sober enough to drive so we all decided to go back to Ash's place. On the way there we stopped at the Taco Truck on Fair Oaks, home of the most excellent tacos. We sat on the curb at 1AM eating flaming hot tacos, like a crew of juvenile deliquents. It was awesome.
We rolled back to Ash's place but ended up hanging out with her neighbors. They were some cool cats. And they had some cool cats, so once again I got some feline affection. We sat around, had a few more beers and shot the shite and generally had a good time. The night stretched on and it was getting late, but Ash wouldn't let me leave without first seeing her place and her demo reel. Ash is going to be a movie star, I'm convinced. She's promised to introduce me to all her model/actress girlfriends too, so that's definitely something to look forward to ;)
Sunday I hung out with my buddy Adam, once again under the auspices of trying to fix his ever-fux0red computer. We met with limited success, mostly due to my freakish power to dominate technology by will alone. It's a nice power to have, but it's frustrating when I have to resort to that rather than a rational, technical solution.
We watched the Lakers lose and then indulged in the crack habit that is The West Wing on DVD. Mmmm crack.
Overall, a pretty good weekend, and just what I needed.
Friday evening I rolled out to Echo Park to hang with Justin. His cat Elwood was around, and even though Elwood is a kindred spirit of Badtz Maru, he has much love for me and let me pet him and rub his belly. So that immediately made me feel better, in the way cuddling with cats can. Not quite as good as cuddling with a cute girl, but still a bit of all right. Had a good dinner and a good talk with Justin, basically venting about the various and sundry sources of stress in my life. He listened and broke it down for me in classic Justin style. Hashing things out didn't really make me feel better per se, but it did help me get a better handle on a lot of things, which helps move my thinking in a positive direction.
To cap off the evening we watched Ginger Snaps, which is perhaps the best werewolf movie made in the last decade. It's dark and morbid and melancholy, and best of all doesn't have a happy ending, so naturally, I loved it.
Saturday I had planned to sleep in and have a leisurely morning before going into town to take care of some errands. Restlessness and anxiety got the better of me, and I was out of bed before I'd logged more than 5 hours of much needed beauty rest. Still, I thought I could have a relaxing morning, or at least a distracting one. Well, I was half right. When I tried booting up my computer, it failed. POST ran fine, but when it was time to load Windows... grey screen of death. It's even more depressing than the infamous BSOD - it's dull, lifeless grey. Needless to say this did not bode well for the rest of the day. I tried a few tricks, but tricks are for kids. No dice.
I ran out, ran a couple of errands, returned home, and mysteriously, the computer worked upon rebooting. Not being inclined to look a gift-horse in the mouth, I let it hum and ran back out to finish the day's business. I was pleasantly surprised that Honda of Hollywood was able to replace my missing side-view mirror relatively cheaply and quickly. I passed the time imbibing caffeinated beverages at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and browsing book products at Borders.
Got home around 3:30 and the computer was still running, so I logged in to WoW and began questing. The Golden God was online and we got to chatting. I inquired as to what his evening plans were, and ended up being invited along for drinks with him and his girlfriend. This sounded like a pretty good way to spend a Saturday night, so I happily accepted.
Rolled up in South Pas around 10ish and met up with Matt and Ashleigh at DelMonico's. Matt gave me a pound and Ash gave me a big hug, and we all sat down at the bar. They bought me a strong gin and tonic, and playfully demanded that I relax and have fun, dammit! Well after two sips of that monster g+t, it wasn't hard to get into the spirit of things. The three of us had a really cool conversation about relationships and meeting new people, film and writing, truth and beauty, this and that. Satisfied that we had had a conversation of substance and that we were well inebriated, we adjourned to the Bodega Bar next door to sober up (Yes, it made sense at the time). Bodega was a pretty chill scene - they were playing Purple Rain on the projection TV, so that was cool. Matt observed that 8 Mile is basically a remake of Purple Rain, and I can only agree. This was a staggering insight at the time, but hey, we were tipsy. After a couple of hours Matt and I were sober enough to drive so we all decided to go back to Ash's place. On the way there we stopped at the Taco Truck on Fair Oaks, home of the most excellent tacos. We sat on the curb at 1AM eating flaming hot tacos, like a crew of juvenile deliquents. It was awesome.
We rolled back to Ash's place but ended up hanging out with her neighbors. They were some cool cats. And they had some cool cats, so once again I got some feline affection. We sat around, had a few more beers and shot the shite and generally had a good time. The night stretched on and it was getting late, but Ash wouldn't let me leave without first seeing her place and her demo reel. Ash is going to be a movie star, I'm convinced. She's promised to introduce me to all her model/actress girlfriends too, so that's definitely something to look forward to ;)
Sunday I hung out with my buddy Adam, once again under the auspices of trying to fix his ever-fux0red computer. We met with limited success, mostly due to my freakish power to dominate technology by will alone. It's a nice power to have, but it's frustrating when I have to resort to that rather than a rational, technical solution.
We watched the Lakers lose and then indulged in the crack habit that is The West Wing on DVD. Mmmm crack.
Overall, a pretty good weekend, and just what I needed.