Easy like Sunday morning...and Sunday afternoon...and Sunday evening

A full day of Sunday relaxing? There's nothing better. Just what the doctor ordered. OK, I did not do the french toast (because I had some on Saturday), but everything else was spot on. Woke up, had a bowl of cereal, did some reading, watched an episode of Carnivale, promptly followed by a short nap on the couch. Then I watched The Magdalene Sisters, a cheerful little film (apparently based on real events) about women in Ireland the 60s that were committed to a convent/asylum because of (perceived) sexual misconduct. OK, perhaps a little heavy for a relaxing Sunday, but good nonetheless. Followed that up with some quality time with the XBox 360 and Dead Rising; killed a number of zombies and one crazy, chainsaw wielding clown. Followed that up with dinner (beef stew, toast, salad) and drinks (gin & soda, Old Fashioned, wine) over at Krista and Joe's. Then back home for a little more reading and then battening down into a nice flannel sheet fort in bed.

Now that's a good damn day.
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Obviously I missed the Oscars in all this. No biggie, but I am of course annoyed at Best Picture again this year. The Departed was not really that good. Although, conversely, I am glad that Scorsese did finally get Best Director. Much like Peter Jackson got Best Director for Return of the King, when in fact it really was for the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, I'm cool with the idea of a director perhaps winning if not for his best film, at least to recognize a career of good work.
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So the rest of the weekend? Started off with a bang. Literally. I was in my room Friday evening when I heard a loud thump outside my house. A car accident. You know what they sound like. Well, my first thought was, "My car! I hope someone didn't just hit it." So I go out on to the porch to look, and nope my car is fine. However, my roommate's car? Not so much. Someone had (probably) run the stop sign and smashed right into the back of her parked car. I say probably, because thinking back on what I heard it sounded like the car was going pretty fast and the thump sounded pretty loud; considering where my roommate was parked (just on the far side of the stop sign), and considering the amount of damage I was about to see, it seemed unlikely that the other car was accelerating from a stop.

So I go outside and it looks bad. The back of her car is trashed. The bumper is gone, the back panels crumpled in, the trunk obviously is popped open and will not close. Being that roommate is not home I deal with the other car, getting their information, giving them what I have of my roommate's info. It was a couple in the other car, and there was a little bit of sketchiness going on. She was driving, but I spoke largely with him. He did the talking. When they weren't arguing with each other in another language. He did offer to either pay for the repairs (duh!) or even buy a new car, judging the worth of my roommate's car at 3-4 thousand. What? He mentioned offhand that going through insurance would raise his rates a lot (duh!). I told him that he'd really have to talk options with my roommate. After all this I get her info, as the driver, which was just her name, address, and phone number. "Do you have any insurance information?" I ask. She shakes her head no. This is feeling a bit weird to me, so just to be safe I write down the license plate number. After all this is done, I then start to move all the stuff from the car's wide open trunk into the house. Then I help in pushing the other couple's car off the ice it's stuck on so they can leave.

During all this, I also had tried calling my roommate, but her phone was off and her mailbox full. I then sent her an email and left a message on her boyfriend's phone. They did call back while some of the above was still going on and said they were on their way. By the time they had gotten home, the other couple was gone. They called the police to report the accident (which I suppose, in retrospect, I should have done), and an officer came out and took a statement and such. Now here's part two of the sketchy. I gave him the license plate number and he ran it, and asked me to verify the woman on his screen. I did and it was her. He then told my roommate that the woman did indeed have insurance. Oops.

Anyway, that's where I leave this story. The car's still out front. My roommate hasn't had it towed yet.
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After all that, I headed off to rehearsal. Did a solid three hours. Missed Chris Taylor's cover band's show because we didn't get done until about 10:30 and I didn't feel like driving up to Haverhill that late. So, I went with Kevin and Jon over to Great Scott to see a band (kind of blah) and then left Jon there, met up with Matt, and headed over to a house party that Kevin knew of. Now that we have a college age guy in the band, I can be the skeezy older guy that hangs out at college parties. Sweet!

Saturday was spent doing more woodshedding of the tunes I would be playing with Matt at the Mystic that night. That went well. The place was jam packed, so you couldn't hear the electric guitar as well as I probably would have liked, (judging by what I was hearing when Dave was playing), but the performances were good. Dave sounded good on his tunes, and I thought I played pretty well on mine. And it felt good getting up there to play a few tunes, even if no one was paying attention.

Anyway, that was my weekend.

Money + Boredom = Less Money

If you give me money and I'm bored, I will then spend that money. I got my tax return a week or so back. I dropped a decent amount on smething responsible: I paid off my car insurance for the year. But last Satruday I'm sitting around with little to do and so I talked myself (mentally) into going out and buying an XBox 360. Now, granted, I did feel much better once I put in Dead Rising and commenced with my civic duty of killing zombies. But in the future I should really keep my mind more occupied, get some hobbies or something.
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Well, my work Vegas trip looks like it's all set to go. I've got the hotel room, I'm registered for the conference, and just yesterday we booked our flights. Once again, can I just say, even though it's for work purposes and I do actually have to go to seminars and workshops and the like, that it's pretty damn cool to be going to Vegas on the company dime.
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With the exception of the above-mentioned Saturday afternoon, it's been a busy couple of weeks. There's been 1 date, 1 wake, 1 concert, 4 either band rehearsals or jams with band members, I' ve been learning somewhere in between 4-6 songs to jam with Matt at his gig on Saturday, and 1 rehearsal so far for that. And there's a few more days to go before things should start to slow down a bit. I have another rehearsal for the Matt gig tonight (I think), a band rehearsal tomorrow night, probably Chris Taylor's cover band show tomorrow night after rehearsal, and Matt's gig on Saturday. And then...nothing but relaxing and french toast on Sunday. Hopefully.

Right place, right time.

I was sitting at home on Saturday night with my dozen cats and an enormous sweater that was twice my size, being all spinsterish, and I flip on Tube. For those of you that don't know, Tube is a music video channel that actually plays music videos. Only music videos. No shows. No DJs. Very scant commercials. No format. Just whatever. In case you're wondering, it's channel 296 on Comcast.

So I throw on Tube and what's this? Hmm, sounds good. I'll check it out. Song ends, and I'm floored. Her name is Corinne Bailey Rae. I immediately run to the computer and hop on iTunes. Sweet! The album's only $8. I download it. It turns out to be a smooth, bluesy/jazzy R&B number with the very occasional hints of Bjork. Very nice. Don't ask me, I just hear it in certain spots. (Although it probably got into my head because I saw on iTunes that she also has another album/EP where she covers "Venus as a Boy".) And very little of that over-singing junk that passes as R&B these days. Sounds like a good album for romancing, if one were so inclined.

However, the whole experience made me think about the idea of being in the right place at the right time. Obviously this could extend to every facet of life, but I was thinking about specifically in terms of music. How you can catch something good by turning on a radio station or music video station at just the right time. And maybe you're just in the right frame of mind at that time to appreciate it. Something that you might have missed otherwise. Something you might never have heard otherwise. As it turns out, I've heard another of Corinne Bailey Rae's songs on the radio twice since Saturday, but it was a different song---"Go Put Your Records On" as opposed to "Like A Star", which was far more fitting for my mood that night---and maybe one that I wouldn't have paid as much attention to if I wasn't already pre-disposed to.

It makes me wonder how much stuff I would have never heard if I hadn't been in the right place at the right time. And how much stuff I've missed.

#3

OK, Craigslist date #3 was last night. In all honesty, as the day approached I could have taken it or left it. The only reason I ended up going through with it was because this girl had answered my initial ad and due to a busy schedule we just hadn't had a chance to get together until now. Far enough removed from when I placed the ad that by this point my manic personality had swung back to the ambivalent side of the scale. But since we had been consistently emailing back and forth I decided the least I could do was go through with it.

Now, don't get the impression this is to any way impugn upon her. She seemed nice enough, but... The but. Of the three people I ended up meeting, she fell sqaurely in between the first girl, who I felt we didn't really ahve anything in common (but also felt it would be, if nothing else, a good practice run) and the the second girl, who I felt I had a lot more in common with, and who's date was OK, but nothing that really grabbed me. So I didn't have the highest hopes for success, and found myself wondering during the day that if this date wasn't going that great would I be able to get home in time to meet up with my backup woman, Ms. Veronica Mars.

Well, I didn't make it home in time for Veronica. The date, quite pleasantly, went fairly well. My favorite of the three. Now I don't know if that means much aside from the fact that I'd definitely hang out with her again. That we'll just have to see, but we do have tenative plans to see who can drink who under the table some time.

Some notes on Indian food. 1) It's pretty good and I should have it more often, especially if 2) Indian places usually carry lamb. I love lamb and almost never have it and this place had a whole section of the menu dedicated to it. 3) Kingfisher beer from India? Well, it was pretty much a Budweiser with a different label.

Some notes on Jamaica Plain. 1) It's not near any major road in the city and takes forever to get to. I'd forgotten this. 2) I'd also forgotten how busy Centre St. gets.
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Segue piece. One thing I've noticed in my brief recent history of Craigslist dating is that what translates on email doesn't necessarily translate in person. A sense of humor, a certain way of speaking. This isn't a surprise to me, just mentioning it because I've seen it in action. Think about it, who are a large percentage of your emails to? People you already know. People that when you read their reply, you can often realistically picture their tone and inflection behind the words. When you're emailing someone you've never met, you can't do that. You can make a joke on email, they can "LOL"...but in real life that same joke can fall flatter than soda that's been left open for a week. (Whoa, that's like the lamest ananlogy I think I've ever used. But I can't come up with anything better right now.) Because they're picturing you saying it a certain way that may not be exactly the way you're saying it. Sense of humor is something that I don't think translates over email to someone that you've never spoken to in real life.
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Segues into: I love my computer. Really I do. I can Google stalk people while downloading music and watching porn. What else is there to life really? But with email and the rising popularity of Myspaces and IMs and by extension PMs on the cell phone...well, these things are not necessarily good things for someone who tends to lean more to the introvert side, socially. I often have to make a conscious effort to be social in situations, most often where people I don't consider good friends are involved. The problem with these things is that while they give you a way to interact with people, you're not really interacting with people. Raise your hand if you've emailed/IMd/PMd?Myspaced something to someone that you probably might not have said, or might have said differently, face to face. Yep, my hand's up. Maybe in a more perfect world there would be no reason for this to happen, but thinking about it, these things are often like credit cards. There's "no consequences". How many times have you bought something with a credit card with the subconscious mindset that it's not real money because you're not actually opening your wallet, taking out cash, and handing it over. I know that's a alrge reason that I spent a lot of my late 20's paying off the debt of my early 20s. Well, you can type up an email, send a Myspace message, a PM, etc. sometimes with that same feeling of invulnerability. You know that whoever you're sending it to is eventually going to see it, but you're not face to face so it's not exactly real. Like a credit card payment isn't exactly real until you get the bill, this kind of communication isn't exactly real into you get a reply. (If you get one at all.) Beacuse let's face it, if you're anything like me, these things most likely come across a lot more awkwardly then I intended when I sent them. For my own protection, I should have a breathalizer attached to my computer.

But to get back to the point. It's mecahnisms like these that in a way hinder rather than help my level of social awkwardness. Beacuse I feel like I'm saying things I want to say, but in retrospect they're not coming out correctly. This Craigslist dating thing has been sort of a mix, but one thing it has helped with is that yes, it starts off in this safer electronic medium, but if it gets to the point where you actually meet up with someone, well then you have to deal with people as people, and not bytes on a computer screen. You have to get past that introversion, and in the scariest possible theater, one on one. And that's what I need more of. That's where I should be aiming my sights.

We certainly love our celebrities...especially when they're dead.

So this whole Anna Nicole Smith think got me thinking a little.

When is it enough?

I know all about our fascination with celebrities (as a culture). And I'll be honest, I'm not totally immune to it. I'm not at the level where I'm DVR-ing every episode of Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood, or watching the E! channel 24-7, or even remotely believing what the supermarket checkout line magazines are telling me about this person's eating disorder or that person's illegitimate child. But I do enjoy the occasional bit of gossip I might hear in the course of my day. I don't mind a little bit of water cooler discussion about some famous person's latest train wreck.

But to stay with that analogy, while seeing something smashed up real good in a train wreck holds some marginal interest, what I'm not interested in seeing are the bodies on the ground.

What I mean by that, is that shouldn't these people at least have some peace in death? Isn't that the time when we should maybe leave them alone? Obviously not, judging by the huge amount of coverage this story is getting.

Now I realize that we're dealing with a singular case here. I know only a handful of things about Anna Nicole Smith for certain. She was in Playboy. She gained a lot of weight and then lost some of it. She married a guy that was like 90 years old. Her son killed himself. That's about it. That's what I know. But I also know peripherally that apparently her life was extremely fucked up. Because I do see those supermarket checkout line magazine headlines. You have to read something while the woman in front of you is buying three dozen cans of cat food and a cup of yogurt. I do know the speculations that she married for money, the speculation that her newborn child was conceived by her and her son, the allegations of drug addiciton. I hear about these things, but they're past the threshold where I've stopped paying attention. I don't know them to be true, I don't know know them to be false, because I don't care at that point. There's only so much about a celebrity's life that I care to know. But these will probably be major stories or addendums to stories over the next few weeks as her death is being reported on.

I guess there's no reason to think that the vultures that circle the rich and famous are going to stop once they've died; vultures prefer dead meat. And to be fair, if we as a general public didn't care, than they would not "report" it. But you'd think, and I'd hope, that there's one place a person could find solace, and that would be in death. But obviously it's not the case.

I'm sure it probably has been said, but I've yet to hear it. And in case it gets lost in the shuffle of speculation and muck raking, hopefully someone will think to say: rest in peace.