beautiful, funny, sad & true

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.

Like I wrote about the other day, there’s this new thing called geocaching. Okay, maybe it’s not that new, but it was new to me, at least. Todd was telling us on the way that people who don’t know about geocaching are called ‘muggles’, which I think is lame. Why can’t this game have its own separate lexicon of terms instead of borrowing from Harry Potter? I mean, I like HP and everything, but it seems kinda cheesy to trivialize this game by associating it with something that it has no need to associate with. But that’s neither here nor there.

The short description of the game is that it’s a scavenger hunt. You use the GPS to find the pre-arranged destinations that are posted on the web site. It’s easy to get kinda geeked out on the technology, but the best sites will take you to interesting and amazing places where you normally would never go, and you never know what they’re going to be like. All you know is the set of coordinates, and maybe a few hints from the web site, but that’s about it.

So on Sunday, Todd, Ben (another actor/theater director from the play-reading group) and I headed out. We met Hunt (yet another actor/theater director) and he joined us for a search too. He had his daughter with him, so he could only join us for one, and this was the one.

This is Ben, by the way. The panda thingy was hidden inside the rock wall you can see in the background. It’s actually a little box with a notebook inside, where you log your visit and then take a trinket from inside the box (leaving something in return, of course).

So we went from there to a couple others down in Lake Oswego. Really beautiful place, and there were several different ‘caches’ in the park. The first one was up the hill a bit, buried in some shrubbery. The newly-fallen leaves and pouring rain made this one particularly challenging.

After that, we followed the trail down into the main part of the park. I love this picture.

Todd said it reminds him of the end of the movie Being There, which I remember hearing about, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen.

From there, the game took us to a bridge (but the hint said ‘don’t cross the bridge’). So we found that one, and then headed over to the best and most challenging one of the day, by far.

This park apparently is the site of the oldest iron smelter in Oregon, and it’s now the oldest surviving one in the western United States. This particular ‘hunt’ required us to read the informational signs in order to work out the next clue. Todd’s classic comment of the day was, “Oh shit. . .we have to do math.” So we worked it all out, and it took us to this amazing place.

Left to right, is me, Todd, and Ben. I love our ‘vini vedi vici’ pose in this picture. We were thrilled to have succeeded after all that scrounging, and we were exhausted, freezing, and soaking wet, but with a bunch of great memories, excited to head out again very soon.

I know I’ll be going back to that particular park again sometime, just for fun, because it’s so beautiful and interesting.

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.

I woke up to find some very nasty–and anonymous–comments on a couple of my blog entries. Not my favorite way to start the day, but it’s dealt with now, and I’m over it.

The good news is that I just got back from having breakfast with my friend Jack, who I haven’t seen in fifteen years. He lives in Spokane now, and I obviously live here, but we both used to live in Yakima. He’s in town for the week, visiting a friend, so he called this morning to see if I wanted to meet for breakfast. I was just waking up, but I jumped at the chance to see him. We went to Milo’s, which is one of my favorite restaurants in town, and also happens to be right down the street from my place.
(Incidentally, today they had a special eggs benedict at Milo’s, with shrimp instead of ham–or smoked salmon, which is my favorite breakfast–and with Thai curry mixed into the hollendaise sauce. Jack and I both ordered it, and it was mind-blowingly good.)

Oh, right. . .Jack.

Here he was, back then:

and here he is now:

It was fun reminiscing about some of those old times. Former bands we were in, and what everybody’s doing now, all that kind of stuff. Seems that a lot of the musicians we knew have had difficult or tragic lives since then. One in particular has had quite a hard go of it. Many are still in Yakima. One of them–who I’ve actually been talking to also–is now in Seattle, making a decent living as a Professional Musician With A Day Job, like me. (Hi, Brandon!)

After we finished at Milo’s we walked back here and talked for another hour or so. We played each other some music we’ve worked on, and I gave him a Crystin Byrd CD. Jack’s a very intelligent, hilarious and genuinely good person, and I’m really glad he was able to make some free time and get together. It certainly won’t be another fifteen years, I’m sure of that.

Tonight is another gig. I’ll be playing cello, I think. I say ‘I think’ because one of the tuning pegs on my cello is slipping again, when it’s in a warm room. It doesn’t happen all the time, but often enough to be really annoying. I’ll take it into the shop this week. Luckily it’s a really cheap and easy fix.

Anyway, yeah. Should be a really good day and night.

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.