beautiful, funny, sad & true

J: Are you at a zoo, surrounded by chimpanzees?

me: No, I’m at Lloyd Center [mall in NE Portland], and there are a bunch of screaming kids everywhere. It’s pretty much the same thing.

J: (laughs) That’s hilarious. You should put it in your blog.

You have to love cell phones.

One time I was hiking in the Columbia river gorge, along a dirt road that was covered with leaves. I called my brother to say hello. A couple of minutes into the conversation, my brother asked me, “What are you doing? Are you crunching potato chips right into the phone?”

“No, why?”

“Because it sounds like you’re doing that.”

“No, I’m hiking. Those are leaves.”

“Oh man, that was so loud I couldn’t even hear what you were saying.”

The moral of the story is that I’m not going to buy another Motorola phone. Mine isn’t even a cheap one, but the sound quality is terrible. I don’t recommend them; in fact, I recommend against them. They also make this buzzing sound that never goes away. Almost every single conversation I have goes like this, at some point:

them: “Hey, do you hear that noise?”

me: “Yeah, it’s my phone.”

them: “It’s really annoying. And loud.”

me: “Yeah, I know; everybody tells me that. I hear it too.”

them: “It’s kind of a buzzing sound.”

me: “Yeah, I know. It’s my phone.”

them: “Man, that’s loud. You should go get a new one.”

me: “I know. This one sucks. It was expensive, but it still sucks.”

them: “Wow, that’s really lou–”

me: “Yeah, I know. Can we talk about something else now?”

This week has been very strange and emotional. Been to visit MostRecentExGirlfriend in the hospital a couple of times, and I’m planning to go again today. Suffice it to say that I feel very churned up by all of this. She’ll be out in another day or two, and we’ll see how she fares. I have all my fingers crossed, my legs crossed, even my eyes are crossed hoping that she’ll be okay once she’s out and on her own again.

In other and better news, TossedIn and I did more geocaching yesterday afternoon. There are lots of good pictures to come. Mine are ready, but T also took a bunch, and I want to be able to include them too. Well, okay, here’s one:

Portland has a whole bunch of water storage reservoirs scattered throughout the parks in the city. There are two or three in Mount Tabor Park, and then there are others in Washington Park too. This one is in Washington Park, and it’s empty. I’ve lived here for twelve years, and this was the first time I’ve ever seen one empty. I don’t know if that means we’re having some sort of water shortage, or if the tank is just being cleaned or something. The angles and shading caught my eye, so I took a bunch of similar shots.

Came home, ate dinner and laid low for a while, then T and I met up again to go see the movie The King of Kong. Totally brilliant and hilarious; I recommend it whole-heartedly. You don’t even have to be a video-game geek to enjoy it, but it will certainly help if you are one. It’s more about the nature of competition, and the sacrifices people make, and the lengths to which they will go to be on top. Classic line, that won’t ruin it for you: “Some people waste their whole life trying to get in [to the Guinness Book of World Records].” Yup, great movie. Loved it.

Gotta clean up and make another hospital visit now.

The more I think about all of this, the angrier I get.

Here’s what my anonymous stalker wrote, the first time he wrote to me:

I swear to god, dude. You should have an MP3 of Depeche Mode’s “Somebody” playing on a loop in the background whenever someone visits your blog. Clearly, that’s the theme song to your life. In other words: You’re pathetic.

Okay, fine, that’s nice. I deleted that and didn’t think twice about it. He responded by re-posting the same thing right away, and I deleted it again. He posted it a third time, apparently to make sure I wouldn’t miss his point, with a couple of new paragraphs added:

You might believe that your “sensitive lonely whiner” routine will get you laid by women who feel sorry for you, but it won’t. Instead, it pretty much guarantees that you will spend the rest of your life alone. “I want someone to spoon with at night.” *wretch*

Since then, it hasn’t gotten any better. He spent the entire weekend reading through as much of my blog as possible, making snide comments everywhere he went–you can see most of them for yourself (although I did delete some because they’re not worth repeating)–and he even went so far as to create a Blogger profile impersonating mine, which at my request he did take down, although he threatened to put it back up if I continued to moderate my comments. Well, whatever. It’s my blog, so we’re going to play by my rules.

I hope that he’s a teenage kid or something; if he is, I can forgive this type of behavior. If he’s an adult who clearly should know better, then I find this utterly reprehensible. (Although he does know that Depeche Mode song–I do not–so that makes me think he’s an adult, quite possibly near my own age.) All this being said, here are the rules for this blog.

* * * *

1) I’m now moderating all comments. I hate to do it, but it’s become necessary.

2) If someone wants to post something–positive or negative–I’m going to read it and THEN decide what to do with it. I am fair. If I feel that a negative comment has value, even if I don’t like it, I’ll usually approve it. If I feel that it’s just a shitty little ad hominem attack against me, then it ain’t gonna make the cut.

3) As the name implies, this blog is about beauty, humor, occasional melancholy, and above all, honesty. Those are my favorite characteristics in people, in stories, in music, in art, in life…in everything. These are the things that this blog was based upon. People who are generally hostile to these concepts will not enjoy BFS&T very much. Heck, even people who espouse these concepts may not enjoy BFS&T very much. And y’know what? I’m okay with that.

4) I don’t write about politics or current events. I don’t write about religion or ethics. I usually don’t write about economic or sexual or social or racial issues, but sometimes I do. It’s not that I don’t care about these things–on the contrary–it’s just that there are thousands of people who can do that much more eloquently than I ever will, and I choose to read them instead. What I do write about is life, and the struggles and successes I and the people I care about face and deal with along the way. And, of course, a little bit of inspiration for good measure. Oh yeah, and I guess I do write about guitars and cellos and stuff a lot too.

5) It is hereby the policy of this blog not to negotiate with terrorists.

* * * *

The problem, as I see it, is that this person and I are very similar; so much so as to completely repel each other. (Ever see the movie “I Heart Huckabees”?) His issues are very likely the same as my own, or maybe it’s that we’re two sides of the same coin. To give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he’s dealing with big stuff in his own life right now too–in which case I can certainly empathize because I’ve been there many times myself–but maybe he doesn’t have the creative outlets or the insightful friends that I do, so his feelings end up getting expressed by this inappropriate and ultimately impotent rage. I mean, come on. Making a mock-profile of me? That’s not something an adult human being with any kind of healthy self-respect would ever dream of doing. This person may say that he despises me, yet he also seems to want to be me somehow, simultaneously.

After having some time to think, I’ve decided that there are going to be two mottos that set the tone for this entry. One is the famous adage, ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,’ and the other is Oscar Wilde’s funny-and-true saying, ‘The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.’

And now I have bigger and better things to attend to, such as a hospitalized ex-girlfriend and a cello-and-xylophone recording session. And some genuine friends who I care about, and who care about me in return. And hopefully even a nice dinner tonight, too.

In short, I have a real life, of which–for the most part–I am proud.

This week has been a bit much.

Friday night was the marathon night; straight from work to Ratatouille, then to the Gypsy bar, then to the Flaming Lips listening party, then to the double-shot of gay bars.

Saturday was a big show–the second week of the Voices For Silent Disasters series–at the Mission Theater with both Susie (I played accordion) and Breanna (I played piano, believe it or not). Very fun.

Sunday was dinner with John, where the waiter thought we were a couple and told us to “keep taking care of each other.”

Monday was a well-deserved Crash and Do Laundry Day.

Tuesday was SarahC Night, which originally meant that she and I were going to see the movie “Darjeeling Limited”, but the theater didn’t take credit cards, which was all we had. So we ended up hanging out and talking at the Sapphire Hotel–where they gladly accept credit cards–for a few hours instead.

Wednesday was another of TossedIn’s play readings. The play this time was a not-for-the-faint-of-heart epic that was written by one of the members of the group. It was hilarious and over-the-top. The author had his head in his hands for much of the play, saying, “I’m sorry,” for the unimaginably X-rated language and situations involved. He even told us at one point about how his so-called friend had said, “Look buddy, I don’t think this play is really ready for reading, so I’m not going to make it to the reading tonight” and that he’d “see if I can give you some criticism that would help you out.” Isn’t that a horrible thing to say about a work-in-progress? Anyway, after that, T and I and a couple other people from the group went on a bit of a scavenger hunt. Apparently there’s a game that’s sweeping the world, and it involves using your GPS unit (assuming that you have a GPS unit) to find hidden trinkets and coins, and signing your name on a tiny paper scroll inside. It was a total blast. I still have one of the coins; I need to figure out what to do with it. Hopefully someone’s not going to show up on my doorstep with a GPS and start digging around my apartment building.

Last night was a Breanna gig. There were two other songwriters on the bill, and the show went from 9:00 until midnight. It was pretty grueling. Also, there were only about eight people in the audience for the entire show. Oh well; I’ve played for fewer people, and for far less attentive ones too. So it was a good show, but pretty exhausting. Thank gawd for cheap food and free drinks.

And that’s not even saying anything about work, which was extremely stressful this week, especially yesterday and today. It’s also not saying anything about the fact that J started seeing a new guy this week, which brought a heaviness to my heart because of the connection that she and I have, even despite (or maybe because of. . .?) everything we’ve been through, and as close as we still are. Incidentally, she’s had the same lump-in-the-throat feeling whenever I’ve met someone new, so it goes both ways. We both care about each other so much that it’s sometimes hard to believe that a romantic relationship between us would never work, but we both know it. The good news is that her new guy seems really great, and even from the little bit she’s told me about him, I give their relationship my full support. Can’t wait to meet him. But it’s still kinda bittersweet for me at the same time.

So after this crazy week, I really needed to do simple, relaxing stuff that’s good for me, and that I just enjoy doing. It’s the kind of night that if I was a girl, I’d rejuvenate myself by taking a bath and painting my toenails or something, but what does the trick for me is cooking. I always feel like I’m Taking Care of Myself if I make a nice dinner, because I love to cook, but I never take the time to do it anymore. So tonight I made this:

It’s pasta with Alfredo sauce, smoked salmon, green onions and whole peppercorns. I got the idea from a meal I had at a local restaurant, and then I added my own touches to it. I’m still trying to improve it but even so, it’s always excellent and super easy. Tonight was no exception.

So that was Part One for tonight. Part Two involves watching a DVD I just rented called Haibane Renmei, which was written by the same guy who wrote Serial Experiments: Lain, a very dark, strange, and beautiful anime series. It’s one of my favorites, and I’m very much looking forward to this newer one.

Well, this entry turned out to be quite the novel. I really appreciate you for sticking with it clear through to the end.

I’m not gonna lie; I’ve been feeling a little bit off today.

Not sure what it is, but something’s not right. I feel guilty, in a way, for saying I feel lonely, since I have plenty of things to do, and people I’ve been hanging out with, but I’m missing a romantic connection, that’s for sure. I’ve been feeling the void a lot lately.

Parenthetically speaking, is ‘feeling the void’ a mixed metaphor? I don’t know, but at the very least it’s good old-fashioned sloppy writing.

ANYWAY. Enough of this void business. I’m sure it’ll pass. And everything could all change for the better tomorrow.

I’m meeting Sarah Castro right now, and we’re going to see Darjeeling Limited. I love Wes Anderson’s other movies, particularly “Rushmore”, and I’m excited to see this one in the theater.