making the world better for everyone

what an interesting weekend — a lot of difficulty in the midst of a lot of enjoyment.
i had made plans to hang out with mrs. potts at some point, as jack and the boys were gone to the northeast and sue’s brother was coming down to pick up her mom and the girls to take them to louisiana. that meant sue was flying solo for a couple of days, so she wanted to take the opportunity to go out on the town a bit. (and what am i, if not a trend-making social butterfly?)
she ended up being tired after getting off work late friday, and she suggested we do things saturday afternoon/evening. so i met up with jamie at empire for supper, then we went over to coffee groundz for a few hours. the conversation delved into pretty complex matters about life, relationships, dating, past experiences, the present, and the future. (i’ve actually been having a lot of intense conversations about that sort of stuff lately.) i left there around 2:30am and headed home.
saturday i got up around 11am and got a text from brad pitching a crawfish boil and bbq fundraiser for sending kids in his group to camp this summer. he texted again not much later saying jason suggested we all meet and ride there. i hadn’t ridden with them in some time (especially jason), and i’d thought i’d go anyway, so i told him i’d meet up with them. we met at the vineyard in the heights and then rode to a place off of allen parkway toward downtown. it was only a few miles’ ride, but we had one car pull out right in front of us and another pair of cars both cut us off and almost slam into each other — a lot of excitement for such a short run. after eating there, we decided to get something cold, so i suggested the gelato at coffee groundz. from there, jason, brad, and i decided to go riding. we ended up going down 610 south to alt-90 west out to grand parkway, then on westheimer to county line ice house. sue eventually called me — turned out she’d slept until like 3:30pm. (no kids to wake her up, see?) we headed up grand parkway to i-10, then i went back to my house.
sue called not much later, and was soon at my house. we got a late start on the day (it was about 8pm), so we went in her car to rice village to the yankee candle store. it’d been months since i’d been in one. for some reason they stopped sending me email a long time ago, so i stopped knowing when sales were, new items, etc. there were no exciting sales going on and no new scents i needed so badly as to pay full price, so i ended up buying nothing. sue, on the other hand…haha. i asked them about their mailing list, and they suggested i register again online. (which i did later.) from there we headed back to my house.
we switched to the motorcycle and i took her to cedar creek (over between 19th and 20th a few blocks west of shepherd). we sat outside and had some food there, and — oddly enough — talked about a lot of really complex issues regarding relationships, marriage, the past, possible futures, etc.
around midnight we hopped back on the bike and headed to poison girl. sue had never been there, and i thought she might like the place. we were there for a bit when who should come walking out to us but jason (the one i rode with earlier in the day). before he showed up, i had noticed this girl that looked so much like the hrc it was rather weird. i felt compelled to ask her if she was russian. for a long time she was busy talking to people, several of them being guys hitting on her, but eventually she was walking by us so i stopped her and asked her if she was russian or georgian (i hedged my bets, since i knew the hrc had some georgian background). she seemed annoyed about being asked if she was georgian, but she then affirmed she was russian. she said it was weird i would think that since she didn’t look like 99% of russians. but she said she was from moscow. she then went to lecture me on all kinds of facts about russia — how it’s so big, so diverse, etc. i felt like i was being lectured to by a living travel brochure. she asked if sue and i were artists, then said she was a painter. then she left. it was really weird how similar she looked, acted, dressed, etc. like the hrc. jason and sue and i then went on to have conversations about some fairly deep stuff related to relationships (as well as our own past, present, and future). around 2am we took off and sue and i headed back to my house. she crashed on my couch, and was gone when i woke up.
of course, my mind wasn’t satisfied by all of the deep conversations i’d been having. it went ahead and concocted some dream scenarios for me, which left me waking up around 7:00am panicked and troubled. i couldn’t get back to sleep for an hour or two, even though i was really tired. eventually i got back to sleep though.
sunday sue texted me about going to aaron brothers. i was waiting for their sale to pick up some frames, and it was happening so i took my motorcycle and she met me there. i bought some frames and we put them in her car. then we headed over to Texas art supply to pick up some mats and foamboard and tacky glue for mounting prints. from there we went to pronto and ate. yes, more conversation about complex/deep topics. we went back to my house and helped her get a picture framed for calista’s room (mostly i cut a mat and helped center stuff). after that she took off.
a couple of hours later i decided i’d get some fast food from taco bell and watch a movie by myself. i got to taco bell and went to check the time on my phone to see if their lobby was still open and i noticed i just missed a call. jason (yes, the same one) was at the pappasito’s at the corner of richmond and kirby and had seen me drive by and was calling to see if i wanted to join him. so instead of taco bell i went and ate with jason and his friend isiah (whom sue and i had met shortly at poison girl the night before, although i’d met him once before then…a few months ago at poison girl, i think). we ate, then they decided to go to poison girl again, so i went ahead and joined them. we were there awhile, then they decided to go to dark horse tavern. i decided to call it a day, as it was almost midnight.
and here’s some tolstoy to close it out…
“[…] levin felt that the confusion was beginning to clear away and his shame and self-dissatisfaction to pass. […] he saw what had befallen him in quite a different light. he felt that he was himself and did not wish to be anyone else. he only wished now to be better than he had been formerly. first of all he decided that he would no longer hope for the exceptional happiness which marriage was to have given him, and consequently he would not underrate the present as he had done. secondly, he would never again allow himself to be carried away by passion, the repulsive memory of which had so tormented him when he was making up his mind to propose. […]”
–tolstoy, anna karenina (part 1 chapter 26)
“when levin first returned to moscow, and while he still started and blushed every time he remembered the disgrace of the refusal, he had said to himself, ‘i blushed and started like this when i was ploughed in physics, and had to remain in the second class; and in the same way i felt myself lost when i made a mess of my sister’s affair that had been entrusted to me. and what happened? now that years have passed, when i remember it, i am surprised that it could have grieved me so much. so it will be with this grief. time will pass, and i shall become indifferent.’
but three months passed and he had not become indifferent to it, and to think of it still hurt him as it had done in the first days. he could not find peace, because he had so long dreamed of a family life and felt so ripe for it, but was still unmarried and further than ever from marriage.”
–tolstoy, anna karenina (part 2, chapter 11)