the clean act

I am now taking applications for a new filthy assistant to accompany me to the Adams Morgan Street Festival on Sunday. Tonto is currently off in the far north doing strange things with his horses, and won’t be back in time. There will be loud music, crazy people, and bad food. Cheap crap will be sold at immense prices from behind a card table in the middle of the street. Can you think of a better way to finish a day with sore feet that smell like charcoal smoke?
I finally broke down today and uncrated the last of my items from NY. My sculpture made it through unscathed, thanks no doubt to the many hours of newspaper-scrunching, done by my mother and I.
I love getting stuff in the mail. So it’s not that I am simply lazy, that I avoided unpacking. I have many involved reasons for being too lazy to unpack. My apartment generally exists just slightly to the losing side of homeostasis. Everything has its place, so long as I go through once or twice a month and repair collapsing shelves and unbury the chairs from piles of jackets. But this means bringing in 3 large boxes of childhood memories and college detritus can completely throw off the balance.
My closet is a little scary on a good day. Bring in an additional 22 years of memories, and we have a problem, Houston. God I didn’t wanna have to clean out my closet. I just got it to the point were it was so full, things couldn’t fall over anymore. What more could I want?!
I would say it is pretty much impossible to clean out your apartment in order to find space for all your childhood tchatchkes, without getting philosophical about the implications. Making yourself whole… a unified vision of yourself… coming to terms with your past and present… crap like that. I’m really trying to avoid it, though. As far as I can tell, I don’t have a whole lot of unresolved childhood issues. I’d like to keep it that way. Fuck… just using the term “childhood issues” makes me cringe.
I’ll tell ya, what did make me ponderous is the sheer amount of stuff I had in storage “just in case” and for “future use at some unknown time”. You know… boxes, and picture frames and crutches and… Good god. I have this vision of myself living a very clean, uncomplicated life. I want to be that person in the story who has exactly what they need, and nothing more. Somehow, I don’t think that involves hoarding “maybe” stuff. A little more stable than just Bohemian… but not quite “comfortable”.
Gawd, this place looks like hell. And I’ve already taken the larger stuff to the trash room. At least Pixel is happy. There’s nothing better to her than a pile of garbage to sleep on.
Anyone want some crutches?

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

How to catch a taxi, influence friends, and pick up a hooker

Juuuuuust when I thought I was out… They draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag me back in. After finally having ripped all my cassette tapes to MP3, Autumn goes and gives me a new stack of tapes. These however, I may be able to finish in 1 or 2 nights.
Note to anyone coming to the District: Do not lean through a window and talk to cab drivers. Get in the fucking car. If it turns out you don’t have enough money, you can always get out again. But once you’re in the vehicle, they’re required by law to take you wherever you wish to go, within the Metro area. There is no need to question them from the curb as to wether they will take you somewhere. And if they do simply roll down the window and ask you where you wish to go, you’re better off telling them to piss off. Besides coming damn close to being illegal, it means they’re looking for a passenger going one specific route. The likelihood that you’re going that route is pretty bad. So shut up get in the fucking cab. I’ll thank you, and they 15 cars backed up behind the taxi will thank you.
We now return you to you’re regularly scheduled Sunday night stupor.
So I went out with friends to various places Friday night. (Pictures now available from your local gift shop or in the snapshots section of this very website.) When we started out at The Black Cat, I was depressed to find out that Rainer Maria will be playing there this coming Friday. Depressed, because I will be in East Bumpafuck at the time, watching the utility truck bucket rides. But if you’re luckier than me, go see them. The few songs I have of theirs are great. Sort of a female-fronted, intelligent, hard rock band.
You know… as Kier would say, any night not spent in front of the TV alone is a good night. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t wish to cause serious bodily injury to one of my friends before the night is through. It would be all fine and well, but for … well… a complete lack of knowing what we were doing. I’m all for spontaneity. But to me, that’s the ability to make quick decisions with little or no supporting facts or information. What we had was a complete lack of decision making. We had 45-minute committee discussions followed inevitably by the least successful of all possible outcomes. The cutest moment of the night did come, though, from Autumn’s boyfriend, (a seemingly nice guy), somehow deciding he had enough testosterone–despite his metallic, zebra-pattern, club shirt–to order 7 people–3 of whom are over 6 ft. tall–into a sports car, so we could go to Adams Morgan. (A place you really must experience at 3 in the morning on a Saturday to appreciate sobriety and good footware).
It’s been a while since I got home at 4 AM.
Did I mention the call-girls have been evicted? Right. The day after they had one man in their bed, another waiting in the hallway, another downstairs trying to remember their apartment number, and one more show up just in time to see them all locked out of the apartment when she forgot her keys. This is the point where we find out her pimp had the doorlock changed without telling the rental office. After a brief interlude with the last contestant on The Price is Always Right in the laundry room, everyone was seen leaving the scene in a yellow taxi cab.
And I bet they didn’t ask the driver if he was going their way.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!