more good news

I thought this was well put, from Katy.

Urgh. The only update I can muster right now only belongs in my Journal O' Depression. So I guess I won't update.

Oh, I can report some good news after all. I went rock climbing, and it was lovely weather. Some camera phone pictures have been uploaded.

And further good news, I will report this conversation I had with a girl I was climbing with on Monday. She had long hair, and was thin, and I wouldn't say beautiful right off to describe this girl, but she was. I thought she could maybe be in high school. But she had a really, really husky kind of voice, and a huge glasses. No one in high school would wear glasses that huge.

Anyway:

Me: My hands are still hurting from climbing. It's hard to grip anything.
Her: Yeah, I just can't get callouses.
Me: [not understanding that statement] Why? Have you tried before or something?
Her: No, I mean, I CAN'T get callouses [this stress, in light of her actual meaning, is confusing]
Me: Why?
Her: Because of my job.
Me: Oh, oh, I see. You need soft hands for something? Are you a masseuse?
Her: No.
Me: ahem. Okay. I'm out of guesses.
Her: I'm a dancer.
Me: A... dancer? Do you need soft hands to be a dancer?
Her: I mean.... an exotic dancer.
Me: [am I being naiive, is she talking about prostitution?] You need soft hands to be an exotic dancer? [I begin climbing on, in case she is talking about hand jobs, so she doesn't have to talk about hand jobs. Because, how grim!]

Belief in a Just World

Like Ginny, I've been struggling to find some way to conceive of Mia's family's tragedy. Lack of words, as Ginny points out there is, means lack of comprehension. Certainly at this point, there is none, and I don't know if there ever will be. My mind stumbles repeatedly today over the phrase "Belief in a Just World," which was a concept I read about in psychology last night. But I keep saying it to myself now, like a mantra, hoping it will become true, because in the face of Trina's death, it's the last thing that I can ever believe is true or right.

This entry is just to mark where I've been the last week, mentally. I've been with Mia, and with Ginny, and bewildered and sorrowful.

Dear old dismal Austin on a Saturday

The trees will bend
The cities wash away
The city on a river
There is a girl without a dream

Is it too willfully eccentric to sit in my back yard in a lawn chair wearing an LSU baseball cap reading economics while it's raining? Golly I hope my meds arrive soon. The online pharmacy left me a message to call them back, but I couldn't be bothered with writing down the number they left, or with saving the message.

Oh, man, snickerdoodle cookies are so much better than the description would have you believe! I'm so glad I live with a cook.

Now I hate MySpace. I am on it, and I got my brother on it, but I hate it. I'm thinking the only thing that will salvage the mission, for me anyway, is if I get a musician account myself and use it as inspiration to record 4 good songs: a girl and her accordion. Or, a girl and her 5 gummy guitar strings. Or, a girl and her snickerdoodles (this will be more of a John Cage-esque piece, which involves the sounds of crunching and dunking).

I was looking around MySpace earlier, and, like Friendster, I can't tell if I'm impressed or horrified by the people who have 200+ friends. Cause, impressive: that they even know 200 people. But unimpressive: the 200 people they know are on MySpace or Friendster. Okay, impressive, since if they know 200 people on these things, they must (hopefully) know even more people in the real world. But unimpressive: they must spend hours a week on MySpace or Friendster adding friends and writing comments like "UR kewl" to each other. But it was interesting to look up former classmates and things. I really didn't think it would be, but it kind of was.

• So. Central Rain (my favorite REM song, but I just found a cover by a favorite-ish band, Hem, too, and can't stop listening to it. It's my, siiigh, MySpace song if you'd like to hear.)

Pervy Holy Ghost

Sorry, my posts have been without great words lately. Oh no! So much for that theme. I'll get back into it. I'm just posting to make sure Ginny remembers one other detail about thrift shopping:

In St. Michael's thrift shop, in the dressing room, there was a wordy notice about how the Holy Ghost is always watching over us, and we should remember that when we could be stuffing lots of clothes in our pockets. That wasn't the wording. It was just the invocation of the Holy Spirit as a theft deterrent. Because people who believe in such an entity are probably less likely in the first place to steal from a Catholic shop.

Speaking of Catholic, have I mentioned I've given stuff up for Lent this year? Yep. Just to have a reason to give stuff up I'd been meaning to for a while anyway, really. But it's hard to do it all at once. I've given up coffee, sodas, fast food, and fish. In recent years, I've become more and more ichthyophagous (ah HA! That's as good as word as you'll get this update), so no fish at all for six weeks, and if that's hard, then I'll know it has become not so much a "special exception" as a "reasonable alternative." Do people usually give up food related stuff? Because I just realized all my things are food. I'm also giving up not smoking, then, just for variety.

Oh, okay, I thought of another word I can slip into the "Gargalesis" update, which might make up for this morning's update having no good words. It will be a seemless transplant. See if you can spot it!

Good Saturday! I got so much done. And I didn't even wake up till 1:30! It's probably as a result of going to sleep at.... well, not yet. And it's Sunday now. Here is a list. I will feel good about it:

[skip this part, it is boring]

• Looked for $100 sunglasses that I lost 3 days after buying them (took time at places I was rechecking to get breakfast* and do a quick check for good Naot shoe deals).
• Found my old pair of sunglasses in Steinmart lost and found! Not finding the others is made okay because even though these are not polarized, they are cooler.
• Dropped off payment for an old dentist's visit*
• Bought supplies (groceries*, cat litter, candles, you know the basics)
• Did laundry (lots)
• Swiffered (EVERYTHING)
• Cleaned and disinfected Xander's litterbox
• Medical transcriptions for 5 hours
• Cleaned out car
• Did a week's worth economics homework (maybe will make up for last week; sometimes this stuff is interesting, but when do we get to the high drama of economics? When do we get to the tontines and the Enrons? Will that come? Or will it all be calculating total market value and elasticity forever?)
• Read 1/2 chapter in Social Psychology
• Made 15 CDs for friends; wrote two letters to accompany CDs
• Alphabetized new DVD acquisitions
• Put Xander's cat food in airtight container
• Played a rousing game of tag with Xander
• Watched first episodes of Lost and Extras

[end skipable part. everything else is FASCINATING]

Friday night I did lots, too, but most importantly, I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which I liked MUCH more than I had anticipated. Despite occasional confusion as to why Johnny Depp chose to play Willy Wonka as a cross between Dr. Evil and Michael Jackson, there were plenty of funny parts. Why were there no nominations for JD or that little kid? Not so much for that movie, but for Finding Neverland, at least!

*interspersed meaningful personal reaction:

[getting yerba mate at Pacha with credit card]
cashiere: Oh, sorry, there's a $5 minimum for credit cards.
me: Hmmm. [looking around] How much is this banana? Is it $3?
cashiere: No, it is 50 cents.
me: Hmmmm. Is this other banana also 50 cents?
cashiere: Yes.
me: Hmmmmmmmm. I'll take this cookie. What am I up to?
cashiere: You'll be fine if you add this bottle of water.
me: Perfect.

[at dentist's office, I was lucky to find the office itself open on a Saturday. There was some kind of painting going on, and everything was in disarray, but I couldn't find anyone who might take my check. I hopped over several articles and made my way back around to the front desk, but as I re-emerged, I saw a man waiting at the front door. I looked at him for a long time before:]
me: Ummm.... I don't work here.
him: I know. [offers no more information]
me: Do you?
him: Yes.
me: [long awkward silence.] I brought money for you. [brandish check]
him: That was nice of you.
[the money exchange happens, with our positions reversed]

[at Wheatsville, where today was 10% for Member's Apprecation]
me: has it been crazy today? It seems pretty tame compared to most Member Appreciation days.
cashiere: yeah, it is NOW, but we were slammed all day.
me: oh, well. I hope the rest of your shift goes okay.
cashiere: I'm off in 10 minutes.
me: that's good! [but in my head, I was confused, because standard cinema training has taught me that I'm supposed to say "hey, listen... do you wanna grab a cup of coffee or something? I have some time right now..." because I kind of thought she was cute, but the problem was that I am not an attractive man, nor did I have any time in my day for unscheduled human interaction] [also, even in a movie, we probably would have needed a little bit more lead-up for me to ask her to coffee-or-something without seeming creepy, were I a man.]

Gargalesis Expert

So, Ginny came for what I had thought would be a good long visit, but it seemed short anyway. We did do lots of things, while leaving her during the day to read exciting Gothic (or non-Gothic) novels. We went rock climbing on Monday, and although I'm STILL sore from that, I'm thinking of joining the gym.

Hopefully Ginny will update with her picture of us looking fabulous at the Oscars 'red carpet event,' that we went to. I don't think she got any pictures of the party Saturday, which was at a completely cool apartment building, and which, for me, featured talking to one crazy dude all night. When he wasn't talking about tickling, and how much money his friend makes doing it professionally, he was guessing our birthdays SPOT ON! It was spooky. Anyway, this experience makes me feel ambivalent about my awesome black velvet boots. It was the first time I wore them, and while they did please someone who offered to write me a recommendation for business school 10 minutes after I met him, it also got the attention of Crazy Tickle Man (who, I can only assume completely independent of the knee-high boots, thought I was a dead-ringer for Mallory from Family Ties; him: "that's who it is!! The girl from Family Ties! You know, what's her name! Am I right? Am I right?" others: "No. That's not accurate.").

We went to a quiz night, and we did only passably. Some people are wildly perfect at trivia. It's like that Aqua Teen episode--I was like Frylock, and left determined to learn every bit of trivia I could in order to win some day. Why does every person I know except the 5 of us on the team know that Utah is the Beehive State? As Ginny said "Carmen Sandiego! You let us down!" But later, the Carmen-influenced vexillology of youth did help us to know which state's flag has a bear on it (California).

For the sake of Ginny, if she tries to remember names of places we went, here are some that I can remember: The Draught House (for about 5 minutes); Austin Playhouse (Richard III; the only reason she might not remember this is from forcable forgetting); Kelly's party (Jenny and Deborah and pretty much everyone there were the beautiful ones); St. Michael's Thrift Shop; The Top Drawer (Oscars dress for $10!); Bark 'n' Purr (that's where my *new* boyfriend works); Pacha; Savers; Karavel Shoe Warehouse; Star of India; Wheatsville; Metropolis/'Club Met' (apartment complex, Stephanie's party starring Bad Nick, Tickler Dan, LT, that girl in the bikini, that girl from Virginia, and those two tiny dogs); Bookpeople; Whole Foods Flagship building; Cheapo Discs; Waterloo Records; Alamo Drafthouse Downtown; The Whiskey Bar; Jalisco (? with George); Austin Rock Gym; Veggie Heaven; Sasha's Russian Cafe; Mother Egan's; San Jose Hotel; [can't think of breakfast taco place]; Flightpath Coffee; [can't think of place next door with Threadless shirts]; The Austin-Bergstrom Airport, which is where:

I finally got pulled over. I've been driving without a license for almost a year now, scrupulously following every traffic law. But it turns out that was all for nothing because my registration expired two years ago. So I was pulled over and cited for the following

• no driver's license
• car registration expired in 2004
• brake light out
• car registered in Louisiana when insurance is in Texas
• talking on cell phone

The grand total for all this was: one warning. How did I do it? I do not flirt. I can only imagine that because I may have appeared to be at death's door when I pulled over, they took pity on me. Anyway. I guess it's time I get a license. And my tail light fixed. And all that other stuff that makes me a real Texan.

From now on I am a tireless polymath

Learned a lot about the company dough
Learned less about receiving it though

Note to self: Listening to the Hives' "Supply and Demand" on repeat is not an acceptable substitute for studying for your economics exam.

It's time I bought a textbook.

• The Hives, Supply and Demand