4 am weekend goodness

it has been one long insane freakend, as christopher bate would say.

friday

anthony's band, red room cinema, has a show at crowbar in ybor. quite a good turnout and 5 bands playing. they are supposed to go on at 12:30 am. everyone runs late and they play at 2 am. the crowd has thinned, but there's a surprising number of people still hanging out. they end up playing a really really great show and by the time they pack up and i retrieve the car with jen's help, it's 3:20 am. after much traffic, we crash at 4 am like silent logs into our pillow-top bed. our cats keep sleepy watch while we slumber.

officially, ybor on 7th avenue blows large un-fragrant chunks. especially when it's 3 am and the drunken week-old leftovers of the night make their way into the street. the road is swarming with overbearing name-brand testosterone and skantily-skankily dressed women masquerading as whores and living, breathing bratz dolls. it's really incredible what one street over can do.
8th ave? nice. relaxed. un-skanked.
7th ave? meatmarket. hellhole. swill of the earth.

upon leaving, i had to get cash from the atm. a 30 yr old trying to relive his glory days grabs jen's butt, walks off 5 paces and says how she needs to "watch out, blah blah, blah, something unintelligible."
i point in the other direction and say, "you need to walk the fuck away. do NOT talk to us. get the fuck away."
really, i was rather calm and it was highly satisfying to be the brazen yotch.
he retorts, "oh, me so sorry" in an "asian" accent and stumbles off.
he is very lucky he was not closer -- jen and i were in no mood to play nice and share with others. we were running with scissors the entire walk to the parking garage.

thankfully, that was the only bad 10 minutes of the evening.

saturday

unable to sleep in because of a 9:30 am appointment, anthony and i drop my car off to be fixed. ($513!!) stupid cracked radiator. anthony blames saturn and my plastic car. then at 10:30 we have a meeting to tour the davis island garden club as a potential ceremony/reception site. it's looking pretty decided. breakfast at delicious greasy pach's place and 3 cups of coffee each. then birthday present shopping for MAt while going through the throes of realizing a) we did NOT get enough sleep, b) we are really tired, and c) we have had way too much coffee. once home, we play the wii a half-hour (oh, yes, we got a wii and wee love it! my arm is sore today from tennis) until i have to pick up my car.

nap from 3-5.30.

dinner is at 6, but due to circumstances beyond our control, it is pushed back til 7. yen and mike come up from sarasota and eat with me, ant, jen, rachel & lawrence. dessert is at the henry waugh dessert room at the twin-peaks-esque bern's. i was excited by my dessert choice -- s'mores stack! yes, i got a marshmallow dessert at bern's. and it. was. disgusting. who the hell makes a s'more with a peanut butter cookie and drizzles it with peanut butter sauce the consistency of baby poo? NO ONE. very disconcerting and disappointing. it was duly returned for "chocolate chocolate chocolate." jen returned hers for delicious bread pudding. and really, no mention of peanut butter on their menu at all! plus, on another dessert, they spelled "avocado" incorrectly. i hate that.

from dictionary.reference.com:
Word History: The history of avocado takes us back to the Aztecs and their language, Nahuatl, which contained the word ahuacatl meaning both "fruit of the avocado tree" and "testicle."

yen and i regaled the table with stories of our asian upbringing -- parents who cleaned our ears with ear scoops with furry ends, dads who ate eggs which contained unborn baby ducklings and uncles who ate baby mice/rats alive gently enfolded in lettuce leaves.

a late dinner made us unfortunately late for MAt's birthday party. :( we had a great time, though, until 4 am eating pretzels and funnel cake. dave introduced me to bordeaux wine. we lamented over the humidity, which caused the cotton candy to sink and implode upon itself in a sticky, crunchy mess of spun sugar. amy told me of the pain of 3rd degree burns caused by molten sugar. dug did his very special monkey dance, which is like a siren's song, but for females. and jess & sean scared me off of having a baby anytime soon by telling us how much sleep they get.

i can't believe i stayed up until 4 am two nights in a row! insanity. truly.

part I - chicago? may i have some more?

anthony graded me on my steely resolve against the bitter chicago cold: D-

a D fucking minus?! that's failing! i never fail! ... the chicago cold has broken me and i weep.

despite the failing grade and bitter cold, our trip was really awesome and really not long enough.

pre-trip. we go to bed around 2 or 3 on wednesday night, cleaning and packing.

thursday morning we have no water with which to brush our teeth or shower. !!
run errands with dead-rat-breath mouths.
end up showing at bekah and eric's doorstep, stinky, carrying towels and bath products, wearing mis-matched pajamas and begging for mercy.

oh. thank. god.

pack frantically, forgetting a warm pajama top, but remembering to bring 2 pajama bottoms.

on the plane, i manage to spill ginger ale directly into my crotch-al area. not on the side, not sorta-near, but directly on my crotch. luckily, my pants dry quickly and i am spared the embarrassment of meeting new people with an uncommonly wet hoo-ha.

so we get in on thursday and are picked up by andy, guitarist and avant garde audio consultant (truly). he took us to los nopales where we dined on insanely good mexican food. did i mention that it was insanely good? i'm back to work today and am dreaming longingly of delicious lime tilapia and nopales salad. eff. i am so hungry. no breakfast. :(

i also saw my first rat this evening.

kim: "was that a possom?! you have possums in the city??! abnormally large squirrels?!"
andy: "uh, that was a rat. yea, they get big here. cat-size."

awesome! city rats!

total kim + anthony chicago rat count: 4
total cities in which i've seen large rats: 2 (chicago and firenze, italia)

then out to a bar for a few alcoholic beverages. (this became a relaxing theme of the vacation.)

friday and saturday the boys pretty much stayed indoors all day mixing their CD under the tutelage of andy.

i.e. they were warm whilst kim braved the cold to venture into the city (not sure what's up w/ my use of third person today).

friday, i was able to see the art institute and it was almost emotional how incredible it was. i love museums and cities that love their museums. it was rather inspring. plus, some klee paintings! (i don't think anything will quite top the paul klee center in switzerland for klee paintings, though.) rachel actually used to live in chicago and i got to see the ando gallery (in the art institute), where she spent many a contemplative hour. so beautiful and peaceful.

saturday i met up with sleep goblin and ds in downtown chicago. we talked about their recent wedding and meeting boys online and had wild adventures in reaching the brookfield zoo. the crappy part was that we only had an hour at zoo, but we were able to see some swampy animals watch some river otters frolic. throw in a polar bear, some lions and tigers and some real animals (kids dressed up for halloween) and it was pretty cool.

ant and i are planning another trip to chicago in the spring, maybe i can see more of the zoo then.

and it was so beautiful! almost like a park with geese on the lawn.

bonus: i got to see ds mount a stone lion. unfortunately, my pics came out blurry - hopefully sg will be able to post some.

on the way back, we walked from the brookfield zoo to the metra station. it started to get dark. i almost called a cab on my cell phone, with ds' blessing.

good deed for the day: knocked on a stranger's door to inform them that a car light was left on. was invited in for a yuppie argyle party. declined, though later regretted not grabbing (what looked to be) a delicious party beverage. they got out a train schedule and were able to direct us to a metra station. hurrah! bliss! bi-pedal relaxation, 2 story trains and mood-color-change tickets.

i'm thinking it was the ashfield station, i'm not positive, but if it was, we walked 10 miles. (in addition to the 1.3 miles one-way i'd walk from the studio to the rail station each day.) i'll formulate a chart of how many miles i covered. i was literally limping the next night (sunday).

in florida, we make liberal use of our cars.

oh! and breakfasts! andy made the three of us breakfasts each morning. barefoot boys in the kitchen, ftw. i am very jealous of people who are able to frequent trader joe's.


... to be continued, i suppose i need to get some work done sometime....

i am rather lethargic this morning, for no good reason of which to speak.

i went to bed at 11, which is early by my standards on a normal work evening. and i'm on my second cup of tea.

perhaps it is the tea that is making my morning feel surreal. my tea drinking began in earnest yesterday morning. the entire 7 ounces of nescafe that i've voraciously consumed in the past month has taken its toll.

i feel jet lagged. everything smells differently with 2 mugs of oolong in your system. in the break room, i smelled incense, even though i'm sure it was just some strange spicy syrup pancake smell. maybe.

and just now i could have sworn i smelled siu mai, or some other such dim sum treats.

maybe it was the yellow bean (?) chinese breakfast pastry bun i had for breakfast as well.
-_-

• a summer wasting - belle & sebastian, the boy w/ the arab strap
• we should have never lived like skyscrapers - chin up chin up, we should have never lived like we were skyscrapers
• the girl is mine - michael jackson ("yep she's mine" ... haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa)
• streamside - the album leaf, in a safe place ♥
• benway - tortoise, standards
• last humans - seaweed, spanaway
• diazepam - karate, the is in the ocean
• sometimes i still feel the bruise - trembling blue stars, broken by whispers
• winter - audio learning center, friendships often fade away
• here comes your man - samiam, where is my mind (pixies tribute)
• arretu i sbarri - la musica de la mafia, omerta, onuri e sangu
• academic festival overture, op.80 - the london philharmonic/abrosian singers/wolfgang sawallisch, brahms symphony no.4 - shicksaslied
• the way you say good-night - the magnetic fields, 69 love songs vol 2
• shelly belly - pedro the lion, the new songs ep
• ferocious love - aloha, that's your fire
• you love to fall - the magnetic fields, distant plastic trees
• md11 - the swords project, entertainment is over if you want it
• otak - tristeza, 2005 japan tour cdr
• i'm tongue-tied - the magnetic fields, i
• dionysus burning - elliott, us songs
  
• ♥ anthony's band, red room cinema was asked to open for the album leaf! except we'll be in chicago - me at the museum and he at the studio mixing their cd. oops!
  

strange burning aromas coming from the vicinity of my brain...

i found the neatest site while doing my assignment for my library class today (yes, it is due on monday).

check it out - internet resources arranged by topic! i love when finding information gets easier.


while writing my paper, i've realized how rusty i've become in trying to get my thoughts written down in a coherent manner. i took 2 courses 2 semesters ago, but those were science courses requiring memorization and not actual thought and idea cohesion. i can't wait until i'm back up to speed and don't have to stop and knit my brow in confusion when trying to find the right word to type.

also, thanks to sleep goblin, my internet girlfriend, for being my firstest etsy customer!

weekends truly pass by all too quickly. saturday was spent researching and hanging out w/ jen at borders. in the evening i went to red room cinema's show at the oliva cigar factory. i believe it is the last, if not one of the oldest, wooden cigar factories in ybor. we found it funny that a cigar factory would be made of wood.

and holy hell, was it hot. and humid. i would equate it with the appleseed cast/aloha/candybars show in temperature. what's up with venues in florida not having air conditioning? are they asking for me to pass out and sue them?

sarah, her brother and g/f, rosie and jesse braved the heat and came out to the show. ... who am i kidding? they had no idea it would be that hot. thanks so much for sticking it out! and truly, we were sticky. more ya ya sweat. (i actually dislike that word, i need to find a better cute nickname.) thankfully we were able to hang out near the non-existant air conditioner's intake for a while. it was the only place you could actually feel air move unless you were right in front of a fan. it was a heaven of swirling air. our crowded bodies must have caused it to short out, because it stopped completely by the time rrc went on. at one point at the end of the show i had to leave and go outside from dizziness.

and afterwards, new world brewery and then gyros! delicious, lamb-y, yogurt-y, onion-y, tomato & lettuce-y goodness. and garlic. oh lord, the garlic.

::tummy rumble::

and for real - some of the ladies walking the street in ybor are *skanks.*

me without glasses. i can see! i'll definitely be keeping my glasses around for the days when my eyeballs are oxygen-starved, but for now i'm kind of enjoying not having heavy glass rest on the (small) bridge of my nose.

the scarf in the pictures is my latest finished knitting project. it's red mohair w/ blue-ish beads knitted in.

mohair is kind of itchy. : (
and fritz said that cashmere comes from goat stomach! say it ain't so!

B-HAM

birmingham was a pleasure to visit. i stayed w/ my friend michelle and her fiance, scott. we worked it out and realized that i've known michie for about 14 years; we met before 9th grade in band camp. truly a friendship meant to be, despite her belonging to the woodwind camp and i to the brass. we brass just couldn't help being so good, so jealously was obviously understandable. ;)

to use a term madge uses in her blog, i took a few "analog" photographs. in fact, i only took my film camera. which means i have no photos up yet. the plan is to do my finances tonight and figure out how much i can get developed as soon as possible. i should probably start w/ my oldest rolls first, though...

damn, as much as i love my film camera, the convenience of digital is just so alluring and seductive! oh, please me now, instant gratification digital slr camera!
but i do love the heavy *chunk* sound of my nikon shutter. it's yummy.

we ate delicious food and played with her beautiful kittens and knitted and made many many tasteless bodily humor jokes and got me addicted to 'lost.' i'm going to have to get the dvds from the library and download them to satisfy my needs.

speaking of bodily humor jokes... scott introducted me to the "wonder" of ratemypoo.com. i'm not even going to link it. i thought i could handle it, but seriously, as funny as poop is, it's not funny in real life, in color, on your monitor. my gag reflex is rather superb.

thanks scott. no, really. thanks.

man. because, really? poop is GROSS.

i gag when i clean out the kitty litter - what am i going to do if i have kids?

here are some sketches i did whilst in selma; i got to listen to michie's sermon (she's "The Rev. Michelle Freeman," after all) and while she was in her presbytery meeting, i wandered around old alabama.





i wish i could have drawn more, but 1) it was super windy and my contacts were like a desert sand dune and 2) the pastor of the church freaked me out by telling me how a girl was abducted and repeatedly raped somewhat nearby. i ended up waiting for michie's meeting to finish by waiting in the selma library reading and dousing my eyes with visine. that stuff is like eye-crack. i heart me some eye-crack.


OTHER UPDATES

ant's band, red room cinema, got to play the big heatwave concert here in tampa on saturday night. it was crazy full of old hippies and strange drunk middle aged people. it was LOUD. an excellent show, except for that huge huge roach.

rachel got engaged!!

i'm hoping to participate w/ the rest of the girlfriend sweatshop in a little craft show at the sacred grounds coffee shop!

i've been a gardening fool. i tilled half my backyard in preparation for sowing me some grass seed.

and...

i saw the da vinci code.