my G-d…

last weekend (feb 29th – mar 2nd) was a pretty emotionally fscked up weekend. jack agreed to hang out with me sunday evening, so i went over to the loft and ended up helping him re-purpose some office chairs that were destined for a landfill. later, we went and ate at the house of pies. and we spent a few hours just hanging out and talking. that helped a lot.
comparatively, this weekend — while still not totally without internal drama — was much better. thank goodness. i prefer it when i’m not sitting around thinking maybe it’d just be best if i got my will in order.
at some point earlier last week i watched young adam. that was interesting. the story is pretty well told, and it keeps your interest even though the pace is fairly slow overall. but the characters and situations were kind of screwed up. it’s one of those things where it seems like everyone is mostly interested in what feels good and not too willing to consider the consequences. (or maybe even care.) a lot of the people were just doing screwed up stuff — like the main character. they were just sort of stumbling through life. i don’t think i’d recovered enough emotionally from the weekend to watch that kind of stuff and not be affected by it. so that was a bit of a setback for awhile.
thursday i was out sick. it was more of a mental health day than being physically sick, and i certainly used the day to work on my mental health. it was a wonderful diversion from the normal work schedule and drudgery of day-in/day-out life. in the late afternoon the ups guy delivered a couple of dickies two-tone work shirts i’d ordered. i hadn’t been sure of sizing or how much i’d like one of the color combos, so i bought two just to test the waters. as for size, i got xxl. the size appears to run pretty big. as for colors, i got a black/charcoal and a black/red. it’s a slightly dark red, but i’m not used to wearing red so it feels kind of weird. i’ve worn it a couple of times. i’m not sure if i’ll buy any more of the black/red or not. i wore the black/charcoal today, but i already knew i’d like it.
friday evening was the geek gathering. sue called me up in the afternoon and asked if i could take jackson and dietrich as they had a scheduling conflict and couldn’t use their normal sitters due to the short notice. dietrich is a bit of a hyper firecracker, so i wasn’t sure i’d be able to handle him at tropioca, but i said i could take jackson if necessary. she called me back and asked if she could drop him off at my work. when she showed up and he was getting out, dietrich was acting really dejected and sad. i felt bad for him, so after jackson shut the minivan door i quietly asked sue if dietrich wanted to go with me, and if he did it would be okay. she said he wanted to, so i leaned in and asked him if he wanted to go with me and jackson, he said yes, and i said it was okay if it was okay with his mom. she said it was okay, so he bounced up and got out. they hung out at work with me for an hour or something. i got them onto pbskids.org since that seems to completely occupy their attention easily. from there we went over to tropioca. the turnout this time around was okay. kd5 brought the olpc laptops again this time, so he let jackson and dietrich use them. i joked that he brought the olpcs and i brought the c’s. jack was supposed to pick them up at 9pm, but i hadn’t counted on that. so after a couple of hours at tropioca (they liked the smoothies, but not fans of the tapioca balls so much) they were chomping at the bit to move on. so i took them back to my house and we watched the empire strikes back (the original theatrical version, thank you very much). jack showed up to get them after midnight some time, and both of them had fallen asleep. i helped take them out to the car, then jack and i stood around and talked about things for awhile.
saturday i watched dark days. it’s a documentary shot in black and white about homeless people that were living in some underground areas of the amtrak subways in new york city. it was really interesting hearing their stories and seeing how they were living. it has a feel-good ending, which was actually somewhat surprising. the extras on the dvd are really good too — they backfill the story a lot and make you appreciate the film and who made it and what went into it.
a little later in the afternoon, i was at my computer when someone banged loudly on the screen door. i heard it open and saw the silhouette of a head coming into the patio and toward the door to the living room. i was thinking “who the hell is pounding on the screen and then just walking into the house?!” i got up and walked around the corner and saw that it was raj. i didn’t know exactly when he was going to be in town, but i knew it was early march. he hung out and talked to me for awhile, then he left.
not long after that i went to the dollar store to pick up some stuff. a little later i drove over to luling city market and picked up some brisket and sausage. i came home and got dressed up in boots, long sleeve western pearl snap shirt, western black leather jacket, and my dark grey fedora. why? chris and mary’s meat and martini party, of course! i was thinking it was possible i was going to have a date for it, but it didn’t pan out. it was still an enjoyable time. at the dollar store i’d bought two plastic barbie plates, a couple of big steak knives, and a plastic/ceramic cross with a psalm on it that ended in “have mercy.” i figured it was appropriate for all of the red meat about to be consumed. i also picked up a couple of bags of dinner mints, because i figured “hey, what is classier than a bowl of dinner mints?” i got to the party and sat up my meat display. i had a few drinks, smoked my pipe, and talked to a number of different people. red meat, alcohol, pipe, conversation — the only thing that would have made it better is having a date. 🙂 maybe next year.
sunday i ate lunch at onion creek with emily and the hartleys. i rode my motorcycle, but i didn’t take any kind of jacket and it was a bit chillier than i’d thought it was. a little later mark and adam showed up. i had a good time sitting there talking and joking with the people at the table. later in the afternoon i met emily at the angelika and we watched be kind, rewind. i really like gondry a lot. i don’t know that i think the movie was great, but it was funny and felt like gondry. i came home, and not too long after i showed up raj and kiera showed up. they got their mail i’d been saving and talked to me for a bit. later sunday night i watched operation: dreamland. it’s a documentary about a group of guys in the 82nd in the army that were stationed in fallujia in iraq during late 2004 or so. i thought it did a pretty good job of just showing what it’s probably like over there for the people, both the u.s. military guys and the iraqis they interact with.
monday when i got home there was an amazon order waiting for me. i’d bought some dvds a week or so ago, most of them were on sale. here’s what i got:

• * aliens collector’s edition (20th century fox)
• * american beauty awards edition (dreamworks)
• * barton fink (20th century fox)
• * desperado special edition (columbia)
• * the terminator (mgm)
• * uhf (mgm)
• * valley girl (mgm)

“my G-d. it’s full of stars…”
-dave bowman 2001: a space odyssey