Madam, I need you to remain calm, and trust me, I'm a professional.
Last night's dreams involved a lot of sex. A lot of lesbian and gay sex.
The earliest bit I can remember is something that I think I've dreamed about before, but happened a bit differently. The dreams involve fighting off an attacking army of Japanese (it's WWII? *shrug*), and a whole bunch of people including my family and I are lined up behind a fence with a bunch of pillows stacked against it (for cover) with a bunch of big guns that you have to feed large pieces of wood into (it grinds them up and shoots out wooden bullets). Last time I dreamed it, whenever that was, the Japanese came in at this road on the other end of a field from us, and big gun battle commenced, and it took a long time and we all sustained injuries, but we win eventually. This time we were in a crappier location; we had less cover and our woodpile was really far away and had much less wood. And while some of us were fetching more wood we saw the Japanese coming up the road right past us, and we had to sprint back to our guns with whatever wood we could carry and try not to get shot, and as soon as I got there and climbed up behind my gun next to my brother, they had arrived and we had to hurry to turn on our guns and start fighting. And I was panicking and freaking out and couldn't remember how to turn on my gun at first. I managed to get it on, but on a less efficient setting, and I didn't have time to figure out how to fix it because I had to keep shooting. And we were getting our asses kicked and we all would've died if the Japanese hadn't surrendered just then. You know, out in the Pacific Ocean on that boat, where they signed the papers after we dropped the bomb? The dudes we were fighting got the message, and dropped their weapons and went through this whole surrender ritual that involved them kneeling in row after row along a riverbank and beating their fists against the ground, and the very front row was beating their fists on the water, and it looked and sounded real cool, all lit up in red (sunset? lanterns? I dunno, but it was definitely darkish out), and I wanted to take a picture with my digital camera, but I couldn't figure out how to turn off the flash, and I didn't want to disturb their ceremony. And then I had a lot of paperwork to do, which involved opening envelopes and putting the envelopes in one pile and the contents in another, and for some reason I was doing this in some oversized version of one of the Reynolds section bathrooms, and this girl came in, and we locked both of the doors (there were two? and you could lock them from the inside?) and we proceeded to have LESBIAN SEX in one of the stalls. And then a cop came in and we had to escape and I ran around the building naked for a bit, dodging students and staff and my own family, and eventually I met up with her in her room. And I had to go to sleep because I was graduating the next day and I still had a lot of stuff to pack, so we figured out when and where to meet up in the morning, and she lent me this graphic novel. It started out being Batman with a Renaissance twist, but by the end of it there was shapeshifter gay sex happening in a pool, and Chris was being all dubious about it based on the cover art, and I was assuring her that no, it was quite good and I thought she'd enjoy it. So then it was Graduation Day and I went looking for that girl, and I ran into her outside but my friend Caitlin from high school saw and greeted me (she kissed me on the lips), and she invited us to sit with her for lunch, and there was a whole bunch of people sitting at a big picnic table, most of whom I knew from high school and college. And then the girl I liked and was trying to have sex with again had some kind of therapy session she had to go with, so I went with her, and we climbed up into this big, open building, but we got distracted with someone's art project, which was a Sex Machine; it was all made of brass and like a million moving parts (steam powered?), and it could simulate all different kinds of sex (gay, lesbian, het). Stimulation would occur in one part of the machine, and when it had reached climax, in another part of the machine there would be a spooge of, like, shaving cream or something. So then my nameless girlfriend, who had turned into Lin the khepri from Perdido Street Station while I wasn't looking, was offering suggestions on how to improve the lesbian sex function with khepri head-scarab wings. ...And then my friend Crystal texted me and I woke up.
Wtf brain. ...Obviously my subconscious is very sexually frustrated. And gay.
...So! Stuff that has occurred since my last post! Starting with... THE DECEMBERISTS CONCERT!!! I got my bosses to let me work an early shift (told them I had a doctor's appointment, lol) so Dar and Lisa came to pick me up at 4:30. So of course I got a call at 4:28 from DOUCHEY DOUCHEBAG MCDOUCHEFACE, and I had to talk to him for like twenty minutes, and then when I got off the phone I had to send like three emails to my superiors and I was trying to use Claims Matrix to log his call and get info off his file but Claims Matrix was being douchey and BROKEN so it took like FIVE MINUTES to load each page, and Dar kept calling and texting me and I was like I KNOW ALRIGHT I'M WORKING AS FAST AS I CAN STFU, and so when I get out of the building at 5 I'm ANNOYED AS FUCK and HUNGRY and now I have to drive two hours to Eugene. And post-work Portland rush hour traffic didn't help, but eventually the act of driving relaxed me, and I was eating pretzels, and Lisa played soothing Indie rock on the iPod, and I was DRIVING TO A DECEMBERISTS CONCERT, and everything became okay. So I managed to get us only a little bit lost in Eugene, and we got to Chris' house at around 7, and her dad was like wtf why are all you people here and in my house? Because Chris is fail and didn't tell him we were coming. So we raped their kitchen for food and made paninis, which we inhaled, and then we gathered the family around and enjoyed the awesome checkerboard cake that Dar made as Chris' You're Leaving Us And Going To Law School In Michigan Baaaaaawwwww present. It was delicious. And then we dressed up all pretty and Chris drove us to the venue. There was already a big crowd assembled in front of the stage, so we wormed our way in as far as we could go and set up camp, about three or four people-layers from the front. It was deadly warm in the crowd, and a lot of people were major douchebags and continued to be so for the whole concert, which was lame. I think Dar and Lisa caught the worst, and I was drowning in rapture too much to care. Anyway, the opening band Other Lives is DELICIOUS and I adore them. Their songs are epic and pretty and contain cello. We enjoyed them immensely, but not nearly as much as Guy On Shrooms did. It was pretty clear he could feel the music. Like, he was using his fingers to stroke the music as it hovered in the air. Fucking HILARIOUS. Anyway, Other Lives finished and the stage monkeys arsed around with wires and instruments onstage for a really long time, and then finally Jenny came on, sat at her organ, and started in on The Prelude, to hysterical cheering from the crowd. But not as hysterical as when Colin Meloy stepped on the stage and strapped on his guitar. So then the band went into The Hazards of Love IN ITS ENTIRETY, the live experience of which I cannot properly describe to you in words except that it was FREAKING EPIC. And Colin is damn sexy in person, with a side of freaking adorable (he has dimples!). And it was so fun to watch, because they didn't actually act it out like a stage play, and yet somehow they were all in character with the clothes they wore and the passion they put into their singing and the chemistry between Colin and Becky, and the lighting changes evoked the scenes and characters so wonderfully... gah, it was amazing. And then when they finished the album they took a break, and then they came back and played A WHOLE BUNCH MORE SONGS. And this was where we got to experience the true awesomeosity of a Decemberists concert, because of all the dorky ways they play around. Like Colin telling us about this building he used to live in in Eugene, and he commanded us to leave after the concert and all go there, and this dude who was standing near me would let us in, and we were to occupy the building and make political demands. And in they stopped in the middle of Chimbley Sweep, and Colin went to the back of the stage and stole the drums from John, and John went to the front and played his guitar, and Chris Fucking Funk (his middle name really is Fucking, dontcha know~) went over and stole Nate's upright bass, and Nate played Chris' guitar (with a bow), and Jenny just backed away slowly hugging her accordion. So they went into a jazz number for a bit all playing each others' instruments, and Colin had this silly grin on his face tapping away at the drums, and John was dancing around like an idiot, and then he's like, "I wanna finish the song we were playing before! ...But I don't know the words!" So it proceeded kind of like this- Jenny: "O lonely urchin!", John: "The widow cried!", Jenny: "I've not been swept since the day my husband died!", John: ".......La la la la la, la la la la!" ...It was awesome. And Colin expressed his theory that bands shouldn't play all of their best songs at concerts; they should remember to play some of their worst so that the good songs seem better in contrast; so he played this hilarious song about Dracula's daughter, and segued directly into O, Valencia! It was EPIC. And he sang Yankee Bayonet with Shara (who is awesomer and sexier in person, btw), and when she flubbed the lyrics he giggled. He got the entire audience to sing along at the end of Sons and Daughters. And then at the very end, the last song of the encore, they played A Cautionary Tale... and halfway through they paused, and Chris Fucking Funk and Becky and Shara and... I can't remember if it was Nate or John... came through the audience beating drums, and we followed them, and then they started reenacting the story of the Oregon Trail, with Colin narrating from the stage. They were two competing pioneer families, trying to be the first to reach Astoria, and they grabbed dudes from the audience to be their oxen. Dar put her cowboy hat on Chris Fucking Funk. And Colin had part of the audience be the Rocky Mountains, and part of the audience be the Columbia River. And then, for some reason, one of the parties had to abandon their wagon and ride their oxen, so Chris Fucking Funk climbed up onto one of the dude's backs and he carried him around. And then they were attacked by a band of gypsy raiders on camels, so I climbed on Dar and we chased them around while I twirled my fist and did a Xena yell. Then they went back onstage and finished the song, and we wormed up to the front, and Dar managed to get her hat back despite the douchebag at stage left who tried to poach it. So then we bought awesome awesome t-shirts and the Other Lives cd and tanked some water and went to wait outside, and this drugged-up happy concert-goer chatted us up and I gave him a high-five, and then Chris picked us up. So we went back to her place, and she sobbed on us for a while, and then we DROVE HOME and I managed not to pass out behind the wheel and I snuck in almost four hours of sleep before I had to go to work. :DDDD
So then on Saturday morning last weekend, Melissa's mom Gerri came to pick me up for my last-minute, hastily-thrown-together trip to Walla Walla for Whitman College graduation. She spent the whole trip listening to me babble about my career plans, my internship experiences, my family, pros and cons of and developments in different renewable energy resources, and Native American and Native Hawaiian issues and history. Which apparently she enjoyed. So then we got to Melissa's apartment and helped her move her stuff to the apartment on the other side of the building, and then we walked to campus for the bbq on the Reid sidelawn and the faculty rock band was playing and they were serving WALLA WALLA SWEET ONION SAUSAGES and it was AWESOME. And I saw Chelsea and Fluffy and Peter Griffin, and we went down to the bookstore and I preached about the awesomeness of The Umbrella Academy to anyone who would listen. Then Melissa's dad wanted a beer so we went to the Mill Creek Brew Pub and I had a tasty hard cider and we chatted some more. Then I walked to the Caton's and played the Battlestar Galactica board game with Fluffy and Alex and Dave Mathews, and Roman and Lizzie showed up. The BSG game is freaking AWESOME even though it's kind of broken and it's almost impossible for the humans to win, although maybe that's the point. I played as Gaius Baltar (Baltus Gaiar) because he's awesome and I luuuuuurve him~! He has a doubled probability of being a Cylon, hee hee. But I managed to be a human anyway. And the Cylons KICKED OUR ASSES in an unprecedented way, so the game ended really quickly and we all died in a horrible space battle. So then Fluffy and I lay around and played with Tristan and Satsuki, the Caton's cats, and then we walked to Aloha Sushi to join Melissa & Co. and Maile and Nick Davis (who she's apparently sort-of dating, again). I re-impressed everyone with the completely unbelievable amount of food I am capable of eating, and actually managed to order and devour an Aloha Pie this time. Oh man it was delicious. And then, because my Time Lord-technology interior was still not full, Fluffy, Maile, Nick, and I went to The Patisserie. I bought goodies for Dar and Lisa and a chocolate hazelnut thing and a chai for myself, and we sat outside and chatted. And I am deeply pleased because Maile hasn't changed A BIT ("those paintings look like blood~! <3 <3 ^_^"). So then we decided to go see Terminator, so we walked to Prentiss where Nick is staying with Phil, the RD, and I dumped my goodies in his fridge, and we grabbed Nick's car and went to the movies. So yeah, okay, it's kind of a dumb action movie at times, but I enjoyed it quite a bit, actually. And Anton Yelchin is still the most adorable creature I have EVER SEEN omg. So then we grabbed my pastries and Nick dropped me and Fluffy at the Caton's and I passed out on the couch. I set my alarm for 8:15, and I woke up to Nick and Julie's 6-year-old daughter Kaeldra admonishing me for "sleeping in". I stuffed some breakfast in my face and got dressed, and said hello briefly to Gab (who looks fantastic) and the Caton's before they all went off to their various churches. Around 9:40 Fluffy and I show up on the lawn by Mem, where Melissa's family has been camped in a primo spot since 9:02, and we pull up an extra chair for Gab and settle down to wait for the ceremony to start. ...Their speakers weren't anywhere near as good as ours, but I enjoyed sitting IN THE SHADE omg, and I didn't fall asleep this time because I'd had a reasonable amount of sleep. Gab joined us and she and I cheered and clapped for all the people we knew ("holy crap I forgot So-And-So was graduating!"), and speculated over the special gift George Bridges was giving everyone in the Class, since they came to Whitman the same year he did (lol, it was a pin shaped like a bow tie, of course). Then it was all over and Melissa found us and we all gave her hugs, and Maile and Nick appeared, and we wandered around congratulating people. I managed to find Kevin Moore and Willie and Michelle Kwan and Roman, and ran into Mary as well, and Deb. And the picnic spread was really tasty this year; triangles of pita with curry chicken, hummus, and olive spread, the usual grapes and strawberries and brownies and toxic lemonade, and fresh asparagus with dip. We sat on the grass under the willow by the Carriage Door spiral statue and had lunch. Gab found me again at some point and told me about a party Alex and Peter were having, but I had to go to the Caton's first (feminine problems *cough*) so I said I'd meet them there. Before I got very far, though, I got a call from Maile, who was hanging with Phil; she told me there was a box with my name on it in Prentiss storage and I needed to come get it. And I was like "WTF, are you shitting me?!" But I snuck my way into Prentiss (all the buildings are locked 24 hours now, boooo, fuck you thieves D:) and sure enough, there was a shoebox with my name on it that, I realized a few seconds after opening it, did contain some clothes that I vaguely remembered having owned. So that box has been sitting in the Prentiss basement for four years. How the hell did I manage to do that?! So I got to the Caton's plus one shoebox of old clothes and minus my Nalgene (T_T ...oh well it's a Whitman tradition), then went to Alex and Peter's party. There was a whole bunch of old people on the porch who saw me peering quizzically at the numbers on the houses, and they asked, "Are you looking for Alex's party?" and I said I was and introduced myself, and found myself shaking hands with all of his grandparents and aunts and uncles, and then Fluffy called my cell and asked where I was, and I'm like, "I'm on the porch, I just met Alex's entire family, are you inside?" so that was kinda funny. So we hung out for a bit and chatted, and then Gab and Peter and Peter's friend and I all went to see Terminator again. Afters we went to Iceburg... gods, we seriously did a Best Hits of Walla Walla Eateries this weekend, oh man. I got myself a corn dog and some fries and a strawberry pineapple milkshake... mmmmmm... and we sat outside and chatted and ate, and Fluffy joined us. Fluffy, Gab, and I hopped into Fluffy's car and went back to the Caton's, and we told Julie how we'd come to the conclusion that Peter Griffin is a mass hallucination brought on by the same drugs in the water that make Whitman students the happiest students in the country, and she was like, "You mean Peter, who just walked by outside my window just now?" Which was the best timing EVER. Twit and Laura were over with Galadriel, who is three now and ADORABLE with brown skin and dark curls and oh gosh she's gotten so big. We played Pandemic, a board game which is just like the computer game with the same name, except you're CDC and you're trying to cure diseases instead of spread them, and Madagascar isn't part of the game at all. It was lots of fun, like playing Whack-a-Mole with diseases ("ARGH, I just CURED Washington!!"). And then Nick, Gab, Fluffy, Peter, and I played BSG again, and I was Baltar again because I luuuurves him. This game turned out really interesting... we had two Cylons, but both of us were sleepers for the first round (we all thought we were human). In the second round we drew more Alignment Cards, and I was one of the Cylons. Now, Baltar has this unique once-per-game ability to look at the Alignment Cards of the person my my choice. So we had a pow wow and they asked me to look at Fluffy's cards (he was playing Sharon, who also has a doubled probability of being a Cylon). I looked at his cards and, sure enough, Cylon. So I said, "He's clean," and gave him his cards back. So then he knew I was a Cylon, bwaha. We stayed undercover for a looooong time, and Nick was suspicious of us, but in being suspicious of us, made himself look suspicious, and Gab looked suspicious too (no one ever thought Peter could possibly be a Cylon), and in trying to prevent the two of them from having too much power, they completely missed the fact that Fluffy and I were EVIL and sabotaging their every move. We finally revealed ourselves and just barely managed to crush them before they could get to Earth. It was an excellent game. But then I took a shower and PASSED THE HELL OUT again. The next morning I woke at 9:30 (Kaeldra: "You REALLY slept in this time!"), ate, dressed, and packed, and spent the morning playing with Kaeldra and sampling the Caton's herb garden. Melissa came and got me and we drove back to Portland, and I infected her with the Hazards of Love, Other Lives, Margot, Menomena, etc.
So essentially that was everything I could've wanted from that trip. Visits to all my favorite places, especially food places, lots of board games at the Caton's, and hanging out with as many Whitties as possible. Yaaaaaay~!!
So while I was in Walla Walla, my roomies got a cat. ...It's okay, they called and asked me first. Her name is Madame Suzette, and she's GORGEOUS, all long soft black hair with white chest and paws and little specks on her nose, and green eyes, and very sweet and lovable. So that's been nice. And all this week we've had both Lauren and Melissa to hang with, and we got Lauren caught up with Dollhouse and Melissa infected with The Mighty Boosh, and I got ALL MY MUSIC THAT I LOST when Shiroi died back from Melissa. T_T It's so wonderful! I forgot I'd given her, like, my entire iTunes. And I gave her every cool Indie band ever. Lauren's headed back off into the woods, and Melissa's gone back to Walla Walla for her summertime farm job, but we're making plans to go visit Lauren next weekend on the coast, and for me and Melissa and Becca (yay!) to go to the Decemberists concert in Portland in July. Which I need to buy tickets for, like, now, before they get sold out or something. And Richard and I are thinking of going backpacking on the coast at the end of the month some weekend.
So that's most of what's been going on with me recently. The other exciting thing that I need to share, if you haven't seen it already (I've watched it sooo many times), is this: the Sherlock Holmes trailer, AT LAST!! It's been months since I'd heard anything new about it; I'd seen production photos and I knew RDJ was to be Holmes and Jude Law was to be Watson. Now, RDJ I wasn't worried about, because I fervently believe it is impossible for him to fuck up a role, but Jude Law... he's a fabulous actor, but I thought it was weird casting. But no. He looks fantastic with a little facial hair. OH MAN THIS IS GOING TO BE SO GOOD. I need to re-read the stories. And, as usual, I want to lick RDJ all over. Allllllll over. Oh man. I can't wait.
The earliest bit I can remember is something that I think I've dreamed about before, but happened a bit differently. The dreams involve fighting off an attacking army of Japanese (it's WWII? *shrug*), and a whole bunch of people including my family and I are lined up behind a fence with a bunch of pillows stacked against it (for cover) with a bunch of big guns that you have to feed large pieces of wood into (it grinds them up and shoots out wooden bullets). Last time I dreamed it, whenever that was, the Japanese came in at this road on the other end of a field from us, and big gun battle commenced, and it took a long time and we all sustained injuries, but we win eventually. This time we were in a crappier location; we had less cover and our woodpile was really far away and had much less wood. And while some of us were fetching more wood we saw the Japanese coming up the road right past us, and we had to sprint back to our guns with whatever wood we could carry and try not to get shot, and as soon as I got there and climbed up behind my gun next to my brother, they had arrived and we had to hurry to turn on our guns and start fighting. And I was panicking and freaking out and couldn't remember how to turn on my gun at first. I managed to get it on, but on a less efficient setting, and I didn't have time to figure out how to fix it because I had to keep shooting. And we were getting our asses kicked and we all would've died if the Japanese hadn't surrendered just then. You know, out in the Pacific Ocean on that boat, where they signed the papers after we dropped the bomb? The dudes we were fighting got the message, and dropped their weapons and went through this whole surrender ritual that involved them kneeling in row after row along a riverbank and beating their fists against the ground, and the very front row was beating their fists on the water, and it looked and sounded real cool, all lit up in red (sunset? lanterns? I dunno, but it was definitely darkish out), and I wanted to take a picture with my digital camera, but I couldn't figure out how to turn off the flash, and I didn't want to disturb their ceremony. And then I had a lot of paperwork to do, which involved opening envelopes and putting the envelopes in one pile and the contents in another, and for some reason I was doing this in some oversized version of one of the Reynolds section bathrooms, and this girl came in, and we locked both of the doors (there were two? and you could lock them from the inside?) and we proceeded to have LESBIAN SEX in one of the stalls. And then a cop came in and we had to escape and I ran around the building naked for a bit, dodging students and staff and my own family, and eventually I met up with her in her room. And I had to go to sleep because I was graduating the next day and I still had a lot of stuff to pack, so we figured out when and where to meet up in the morning, and she lent me this graphic novel. It started out being Batman with a Renaissance twist, but by the end of it there was shapeshifter gay sex happening in a pool, and Chris was being all dubious about it based on the cover art, and I was assuring her that no, it was quite good and I thought she'd enjoy it. So then it was Graduation Day and I went looking for that girl, and I ran into her outside but my friend Caitlin from high school saw and greeted me (she kissed me on the lips), and she invited us to sit with her for lunch, and there was a whole bunch of people sitting at a big picnic table, most of whom I knew from high school and college. And then the girl I liked and was trying to have sex with again had some kind of therapy session she had to go with, so I went with her, and we climbed up into this big, open building, but we got distracted with someone's art project, which was a Sex Machine; it was all made of brass and like a million moving parts (steam powered?), and it could simulate all different kinds of sex (gay, lesbian, het). Stimulation would occur in one part of the machine, and when it had reached climax, in another part of the machine there would be a spooge of, like, shaving cream or something. So then my nameless girlfriend, who had turned into Lin the khepri from Perdido Street Station while I wasn't looking, was offering suggestions on how to improve the lesbian sex function with khepri head-scarab wings. ...And then my friend Crystal texted me and I woke up.
Wtf brain. ...Obviously my subconscious is very sexually frustrated. And gay.
...So! Stuff that has occurred since my last post! Starting with... THE DECEMBERISTS CONCERT!!! I got my bosses to let me work an early shift (told them I had a doctor's appointment, lol) so Dar and Lisa came to pick me up at 4:30. So of course I got a call at 4:28 from DOUCHEY DOUCHEBAG MCDOUCHEFACE, and I had to talk to him for like twenty minutes, and then when I got off the phone I had to send like three emails to my superiors and I was trying to use Claims Matrix to log his call and get info off his file but Claims Matrix was being douchey and BROKEN so it took like FIVE MINUTES to load each page, and Dar kept calling and texting me and I was like I KNOW ALRIGHT I'M WORKING AS FAST AS I CAN STFU, and so when I get out of the building at 5 I'm ANNOYED AS FUCK and HUNGRY and now I have to drive two hours to Eugene. And post-work Portland rush hour traffic didn't help, but eventually the act of driving relaxed me, and I was eating pretzels, and Lisa played soothing Indie rock on the iPod, and I was DRIVING TO A DECEMBERISTS CONCERT, and everything became okay. So I managed to get us only a little bit lost in Eugene, and we got to Chris' house at around 7, and her dad was like wtf why are all you people here and in my house? Because Chris is fail and didn't tell him we were coming. So we raped their kitchen for food and made paninis, which we inhaled, and then we gathered the family around and enjoyed the awesome checkerboard cake that Dar made as Chris' You're Leaving Us And Going To Law School In Michigan Baaaaaawwwww present. It was delicious. And then we dressed up all pretty and Chris drove us to the venue. There was already a big crowd assembled in front of the stage, so we wormed our way in as far as we could go and set up camp, about three or four people-layers from the front. It was deadly warm in the crowd, and a lot of people were major douchebags and continued to be so for the whole concert, which was lame. I think Dar and Lisa caught the worst, and I was drowning in rapture too much to care. Anyway, the opening band Other Lives is DELICIOUS and I adore them. Their songs are epic and pretty and contain cello. We enjoyed them immensely, but not nearly as much as Guy On Shrooms did. It was pretty clear he could feel the music. Like, he was using his fingers to stroke the music as it hovered in the air. Fucking HILARIOUS. Anyway, Other Lives finished and the stage monkeys arsed around with wires and instruments onstage for a really long time, and then finally Jenny came on, sat at her organ, and started in on The Prelude, to hysterical cheering from the crowd. But not as hysterical as when Colin Meloy stepped on the stage and strapped on his guitar. So then the band went into The Hazards of Love IN ITS ENTIRETY, the live experience of which I cannot properly describe to you in words except that it was FREAKING EPIC. And Colin is damn sexy in person, with a side of freaking adorable (he has dimples!). And it was so fun to watch, because they didn't actually act it out like a stage play, and yet somehow they were all in character with the clothes they wore and the passion they put into their singing and the chemistry between Colin and Becky, and the lighting changes evoked the scenes and characters so wonderfully... gah, it was amazing. And then when they finished the album they took a break, and then they came back and played A WHOLE BUNCH MORE SONGS. And this was where we got to experience the true awesomeosity of a Decemberists concert, because of all the dorky ways they play around. Like Colin telling us about this building he used to live in in Eugene, and he commanded us to leave after the concert and all go there, and this dude who was standing near me would let us in, and we were to occupy the building and make political demands. And in they stopped in the middle of Chimbley Sweep, and Colin went to the back of the stage and stole the drums from John, and John went to the front and played his guitar, and Chris Fucking Funk (his middle name really is Fucking, dontcha know~) went over and stole Nate's upright bass, and Nate played Chris' guitar (with a bow), and Jenny just backed away slowly hugging her accordion. So they went into a jazz number for a bit all playing each others' instruments, and Colin had this silly grin on his face tapping away at the drums, and John was dancing around like an idiot, and then he's like, "I wanna finish the song we were playing before! ...But I don't know the words!" So it proceeded kind of like this- Jenny: "O lonely urchin!", John: "The widow cried!", Jenny: "I've not been swept since the day my husband died!", John: ".......La la la la la, la la la la!" ...It was awesome. And Colin expressed his theory that bands shouldn't play all of their best songs at concerts; they should remember to play some of their worst so that the good songs seem better in contrast; so he played this hilarious song about Dracula's daughter, and segued directly into O, Valencia! It was EPIC. And he sang Yankee Bayonet with Shara (who is awesomer and sexier in person, btw), and when she flubbed the lyrics he giggled. He got the entire audience to sing along at the end of Sons and Daughters. And then at the very end, the last song of the encore, they played A Cautionary Tale... and halfway through they paused, and Chris Fucking Funk and Becky and Shara and... I can't remember if it was Nate or John... came through the audience beating drums, and we followed them, and then they started reenacting the story of the Oregon Trail, with Colin narrating from the stage. They were two competing pioneer families, trying to be the first to reach Astoria, and they grabbed dudes from the audience to be their oxen. Dar put her cowboy hat on Chris Fucking Funk. And Colin had part of the audience be the Rocky Mountains, and part of the audience be the Columbia River. And then, for some reason, one of the parties had to abandon their wagon and ride their oxen, so Chris Fucking Funk climbed up onto one of the dude's backs and he carried him around. And then they were attacked by a band of gypsy raiders on camels, so I climbed on Dar and we chased them around while I twirled my fist and did a Xena yell. Then they went back onstage and finished the song, and we wormed up to the front, and Dar managed to get her hat back despite the douchebag at stage left who tried to poach it. So then we bought awesome awesome t-shirts and the Other Lives cd and tanked some water and went to wait outside, and this drugged-up happy concert-goer chatted us up and I gave him a high-five, and then Chris picked us up. So we went back to her place, and she sobbed on us for a while, and then we DROVE HOME and I managed not to pass out behind the wheel and I snuck in almost four hours of sleep before I had to go to work. :DDDD
So then on Saturday morning last weekend, Melissa's mom Gerri came to pick me up for my last-minute, hastily-thrown-together trip to Walla Walla for Whitman College graduation. She spent the whole trip listening to me babble about my career plans, my internship experiences, my family, pros and cons of and developments in different renewable energy resources, and Native American and Native Hawaiian issues and history. Which apparently she enjoyed. So then we got to Melissa's apartment and helped her move her stuff to the apartment on the other side of the building, and then we walked to campus for the bbq on the Reid sidelawn and the faculty rock band was playing and they were serving WALLA WALLA SWEET ONION SAUSAGES and it was AWESOME. And I saw Chelsea and Fluffy and Peter Griffin, and we went down to the bookstore and I preached about the awesomeness of The Umbrella Academy to anyone who would listen. Then Melissa's dad wanted a beer so we went to the Mill Creek Brew Pub and I had a tasty hard cider and we chatted some more. Then I walked to the Caton's and played the Battlestar Galactica board game with Fluffy and Alex and Dave Mathews, and Roman and Lizzie showed up. The BSG game is freaking AWESOME even though it's kind of broken and it's almost impossible for the humans to win, although maybe that's the point. I played as Gaius Baltar (Baltus Gaiar) because he's awesome and I luuuuuurve him~! He has a doubled probability of being a Cylon, hee hee. But I managed to be a human anyway. And the Cylons KICKED OUR ASSES in an unprecedented way, so the game ended really quickly and we all died in a horrible space battle. So then Fluffy and I lay around and played with Tristan and Satsuki, the Caton's cats, and then we walked to Aloha Sushi to join Melissa & Co. and Maile and Nick Davis (who she's apparently sort-of dating, again). I re-impressed everyone with the completely unbelievable amount of food I am capable of eating, and actually managed to order and devour an Aloha Pie this time. Oh man it was delicious. And then, because my Time Lord-technology interior was still not full, Fluffy, Maile, Nick, and I went to The Patisserie. I bought goodies for Dar and Lisa and a chocolate hazelnut thing and a chai for myself, and we sat outside and chatted. And I am deeply pleased because Maile hasn't changed A BIT ("those paintings look like blood~! <3 <3 ^_^"). So then we decided to go see Terminator, so we walked to Prentiss where Nick is staying with Phil, the RD, and I dumped my goodies in his fridge, and we grabbed Nick's car and went to the movies. So yeah, okay, it's kind of a dumb action movie at times, but I enjoyed it quite a bit, actually. And Anton Yelchin is still the most adorable creature I have EVER SEEN omg. So then we grabbed my pastries and Nick dropped me and Fluffy at the Caton's and I passed out on the couch. I set my alarm for 8:15, and I woke up to Nick and Julie's 6-year-old daughter Kaeldra admonishing me for "sleeping in". I stuffed some breakfast in my face and got dressed, and said hello briefly to Gab (who looks fantastic) and the Caton's before they all went off to their various churches. Around 9:40 Fluffy and I show up on the lawn by Mem, where Melissa's family has been camped in a primo spot since 9:02, and we pull up an extra chair for Gab and settle down to wait for the ceremony to start. ...Their speakers weren't anywhere near as good as ours, but I enjoyed sitting IN THE SHADE omg, and I didn't fall asleep this time because I'd had a reasonable amount of sleep. Gab joined us and she and I cheered and clapped for all the people we knew ("holy crap I forgot So-And-So was graduating!"), and speculated over the special gift George Bridges was giving everyone in the Class, since they came to Whitman the same year he did (lol, it was a pin shaped like a bow tie, of course). Then it was all over and Melissa found us and we all gave her hugs, and Maile and Nick appeared, and we wandered around congratulating people. I managed to find Kevin Moore and Willie and Michelle Kwan and Roman, and ran into Mary as well, and Deb. And the picnic spread was really tasty this year; triangles of pita with curry chicken, hummus, and olive spread, the usual grapes and strawberries and brownies and toxic lemonade, and fresh asparagus with dip. We sat on the grass under the willow by the Carriage Door spiral statue and had lunch. Gab found me again at some point and told me about a party Alex and Peter were having, but I had to go to the Caton's first (feminine problems *cough*) so I said I'd meet them there. Before I got very far, though, I got a call from Maile, who was hanging with Phil; she told me there was a box with my name on it in Prentiss storage and I needed to come get it. And I was like "WTF, are you shitting me?!" But I snuck my way into Prentiss (all the buildings are locked 24 hours now, boooo, fuck you thieves D:) and sure enough, there was a shoebox with my name on it that, I realized a few seconds after opening it, did contain some clothes that I vaguely remembered having owned. So that box has been sitting in the Prentiss basement for four years. How the hell did I manage to do that?! So I got to the Caton's plus one shoebox of old clothes and minus my Nalgene (T_T ...oh well it's a Whitman tradition), then went to Alex and Peter's party. There was a whole bunch of old people on the porch who saw me peering quizzically at the numbers on the houses, and they asked, "Are you looking for Alex's party?" and I said I was and introduced myself, and found myself shaking hands with all of his grandparents and aunts and uncles, and then Fluffy called my cell and asked where I was, and I'm like, "I'm on the porch, I just met Alex's entire family, are you inside?" so that was kinda funny. So we hung out for a bit and chatted, and then Gab and Peter and Peter's friend and I all went to see Terminator again. Afters we went to Iceburg... gods, we seriously did a Best Hits of Walla Walla Eateries this weekend, oh man. I got myself a corn dog and some fries and a strawberry pineapple milkshake... mmmmmm... and we sat outside and chatted and ate, and Fluffy joined us. Fluffy, Gab, and I hopped into Fluffy's car and went back to the Caton's, and we told Julie how we'd come to the conclusion that Peter Griffin is a mass hallucination brought on by the same drugs in the water that make Whitman students the happiest students in the country, and she was like, "You mean Peter, who just walked by outside my window just now?" Which was the best timing EVER. Twit and Laura were over with Galadriel, who is three now and ADORABLE with brown skin and dark curls and oh gosh she's gotten so big. We played Pandemic, a board game which is just like the computer game with the same name, except you're CDC and you're trying to cure diseases instead of spread them, and Madagascar isn't part of the game at all. It was lots of fun, like playing Whack-a-Mole with diseases ("ARGH, I just CURED Washington!!"). And then Nick, Gab, Fluffy, Peter, and I played BSG again, and I was Baltar again because I luuuurves him. This game turned out really interesting... we had two Cylons, but both of us were sleepers for the first round (we all thought we were human). In the second round we drew more Alignment Cards, and I was one of the Cylons. Now, Baltar has this unique once-per-game ability to look at the Alignment Cards of the person my my choice. So we had a pow wow and they asked me to look at Fluffy's cards (he was playing Sharon, who also has a doubled probability of being a Cylon). I looked at his cards and, sure enough, Cylon. So I said, "He's clean," and gave him his cards back. So then he knew I was a Cylon, bwaha. We stayed undercover for a looooong time, and Nick was suspicious of us, but in being suspicious of us, made himself look suspicious, and Gab looked suspicious too (no one ever thought Peter could possibly be a Cylon), and in trying to prevent the two of them from having too much power, they completely missed the fact that Fluffy and I were EVIL and sabotaging their every move. We finally revealed ourselves and just barely managed to crush them before they could get to Earth. It was an excellent game. But then I took a shower and PASSED THE HELL OUT again. The next morning I woke at 9:30 (Kaeldra: "You REALLY slept in this time!"), ate, dressed, and packed, and spent the morning playing with Kaeldra and sampling the Caton's herb garden. Melissa came and got me and we drove back to Portland, and I infected her with the Hazards of Love, Other Lives, Margot, Menomena, etc.
So essentially that was everything I could've wanted from that trip. Visits to all my favorite places, especially food places, lots of board games at the Caton's, and hanging out with as many Whitties as possible. Yaaaaaay~!!
So while I was in Walla Walla, my roomies got a cat. ...It's okay, they called and asked me first. Her name is Madame Suzette, and she's GORGEOUS, all long soft black hair with white chest and paws and little specks on her nose, and green eyes, and very sweet and lovable. So that's been nice. And all this week we've had both Lauren and Melissa to hang with, and we got Lauren caught up with Dollhouse and Melissa infected with The Mighty Boosh, and I got ALL MY MUSIC THAT I LOST when Shiroi died back from Melissa. T_T It's so wonderful! I forgot I'd given her, like, my entire iTunes. And I gave her every cool Indie band ever. Lauren's headed back off into the woods, and Melissa's gone back to Walla Walla for her summertime farm job, but we're making plans to go visit Lauren next weekend on the coast, and for me and Melissa and Becca (yay!) to go to the Decemberists concert in Portland in July. Which I need to buy tickets for, like, now, before they get sold out or something. And Richard and I are thinking of going backpacking on the coast at the end of the month some weekend.
So that's most of what's been going on with me recently. The other exciting thing that I need to share, if you haven't seen it already (I've watched it sooo many times), is this: the Sherlock Holmes trailer, AT LAST!! It's been months since I'd heard anything new about it; I'd seen production photos and I knew RDJ was to be Holmes and Jude Law was to be Watson. Now, RDJ I wasn't worried about, because I fervently believe it is impossible for him to fuck up a role, but Jude Law... he's a fabulous actor, but I thought it was weird casting. But no. He looks fantastic with a little facial hair. OH MAN THIS IS GOING TO BE SO GOOD. I need to re-read the stories. And, as usual, I want to lick RDJ all over. Allllllll over. Oh man. I can't wait.