beautiful, funny, sad & true

On Friday, a lady I work with came back after being sick for the previous three days. That was just enough time for me to be around her and catch what she had. I cancelled all my plans for this weekend and stayed inside. I was in bed for much of the day, reading “Catcher in the Rye” (for the first time in about fifteen years) and listening to the rain. When I finally got up, I cleaned my apartment and dinked around on the computer for a while. I downloaded the new Radiohead album (you can too!) and watched Jesus Camp.

I found “Jesus Camp” to be both fascinating and chilling. It would be interesting to turn this into a series–in the style of the Up Series, which amazingly enough is also online–and check in with some of these kids throughout their lives. I won’t give you any ‘spoiler’ info here, but there are two kids in particular that I’d like to see focused on; Levi, who is already quite capable of preaching, and Rachael, who will fearlessly walk up to strangers and ask them about their spiritual experiences. Interestingly, I kept feeling like I was watching the early stages of mental illness in her. Very well-done documentary. Ted Haggard also appears in the movie, which was almost, dare I say, prophetic (ha!) on the part of the filmmakers, all things considered.

Last night, thanks to one of my friends on MySpace, I watched The Bridge. (Incidentally, you can watch “The Bridge” here for free.) This is a very starkly beautiful and haunting film, the likes of which I’ve not seen before. I’m not giving anything away by telling you that there are many scenes in which people climb over the rail of the Golden Gate bridge and are shown jumping to their deaths. (I mean, jeez, they show that happen in the very first scene, even before the credits!) Many of the scenes even show the person’s descent and splash through the surface of the water. It didn’t make me depressed, but I would say that it’s not a movie for the faint of heart.

I haven’t taken a turn and gotten really sick, but my throat’s more scratchy than it was yesterday, and I feel a little more spacy and tired than I did. I was supposed to rehearse with Sarah Castro tonight, but I had to reschedule for later in the week. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow when it comes time to get up and go to work.

plus

equals

GOOD TIMES.

Here’s a video of the seagull that followed J and me all the way from the north end of Cannon Beach clear down to Haystack Rock. The white one wasn’t far behind him, either. When the brown one finally gave up on us and flew away, the white one stayed behind to make sure we weren’t holding out a secret food stash for him.

Ah, nature.

I may be a little scarce around these parts for the next couple of days, ’cause it’s my Big Birthday Blowout Bash weekend, and it’s chock-full of fun stuff.

Tonight, Shelby’s taking me out, and we’re going to see DrummerDrew (of Stephanie’s band) play over at Zaytoon, then it’s off to either Pi-Rem or Maiden in the Mist. I’m thinking probably Pi-Rem.

Tomorrow involves BoringFish, then S & W and either sushi or chocolate or both, and then DrummerAdam is coming all the way down from Yakima just to help celebrate my birthday (oh yeah. . .AND he has a gig at the White Eagle).

Sunday, J and I are going to the beach for the day; probably Cannon Beach and Oswald West State Park, but we may head up to Astoria also/instead.

I’ll try to remember to take some pictures and stuff. This promises to be a great weekend.

Today is Thursday, which means that it’s Donut Day at work. It’s a simple concept, if you’re not familiar with it. On a pre-determined day, donuts arrive at the office, as if by divine providence. When I first started working there, the donuts were late one day, and everyone was freaking out. I asked my friend, “What is up with this place? People freak out if the donuts are even a few minutes late.” Nowadays, I have to admit that I’m one of the restless natives. If I have to wait for my donut until the unacceptable hour of, say, nine o’clock, you’d better look out, because heads are gonna roll, et cetera. Thank gawd that didn’t happen today, but something else funny did happen.

There were a handful of people in the break room at the same time this morning, getting their donut fix. One was our head manager–who isn’t the most popular person in the place–and another was a really attractive woman in her mid-twenties. The manager saw the woman grabbing a donut and commented, “Hey [woman’s last name], I didn’t think you ate stuff like that,” because she’s really thin.

She replied curtly, “Yeah, well, they don’t do anything to me, so–” shrugged her shoulders, smiled a little, turned and walked out of the break room, ending the conversation. The manager stood and stared out the window with a funny, faraway look in his eyes, and I could see that he was daydreaming of the two of them sitting on a sofa somewhere, sharing a plate of donuts in front of the TV, then rolling over, putting the plate on the floor and settling in for another hand job.

Last night I went to another of Tossed In’s play readings. I have to be a little more secretive about this one, because it was comprised of plays that either haven’t been performed publicly before, or were works in progress that are still being written. But I think last night was my favorite night so far.

On my way over, I stopped at InexpensiveOrganicGroceryWhereHippiesShop. Just before I got out of the car, my friend Blaine called. He asked if I had time to talk. I said, ‘of course’, and we proceeded to talk for a few minutes until I went into the store. I bought what I needed and came back out, only to find that I’d left my keys in the locked car. Thpffft. So I called FamousInsuranceCompany and got their after-hours answering service. I told the girl I’d locked my keys in my car, so she started calling locksmiths in the greater Portland area. “Locksmiths?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “They can help get you a new key.”

“Did you already check for towing companies?”

“Oh. . .no, I didn’t. FamousInsuranceCompany doesn’t have any business partnerships with any towing companies, so you can use whichever one you want. You may have to pay a fee, though.” Grrrrr. So I gave her the name of one I had used before, and she found the number, saying, “Okay, they should be there in about thirty to sixty minutes.”

Ten minutes later, the guy showed up. He had my car open in about twenty seconds, took a look at my insurance card and found that I do indeed have roadside assistance, so this visit was free. “Oh yeah, FamousInsuranceCompany has a special deal with us; we do everything for them.”

“Really?” I asked. “That’s great! I was told that they don’t have any partnerships or anything, and that I’d have to pay you, and maybe I’d get reimbursed.”

He laughed. “Who the heck did you talk to?”

Long story short, it turned out to be really super easy, took a fraction of the time I was estimated, and didn’t even cost me anything. I was expecting to have to give the play reading a miss, but ended up going, just a half-hour late. And boy, was I glad I did. Besides the plays being great, Tossed In surprised me by bringing me a DVD full of Jon Brion music he’s been stockpiling. Some of it I already owned, but the majority of it was live recordings and home demos and all kinds of other cool stuff; a treasure trove, really.

Tonight may very well be Laundry Night. It was a little tricky finding clean things to wear this morning. I got up ridiculously late, but I still might have made it to work on time, except that I made the mistake of reading my e-mail first, and my friend had sent me a link to a hilarious video. Curses, FamousVideoSite! Why must you have everything imaginable?

I finally joined the frickin’ twenty-first century and signed up with OnlineDVDRentalCompany the other day, so I should be getting my first one today; “Who Killed The Electric Car?” The documentary section on there is gigantic. I’m very excited about that.

That’s a ten-four, good buddy. Put the hammer down.

Over and out.