There's blood in the butter

I haven't died

It's been a little while. I was on vacation for the last week and decided that in addition to abstaining from work I'd abstain from blogging as well. It was strange to be honest. There were a couple of things I really wanted to post over the last week so if there is a post that seems poorly timed in the next week or so it's because it's just delayed. Now what did I do for the last 9 days?...

It all started back on the 20th. I was with PMRob and my girl AK. We went to a hip hop show in Fremont. It was aight. A bit crowded for my taste. The older I get the less I want to spend an evening packed in a sweaty club. So we checked the scene for a little while and then bailed. Trotted over to the Red Door. I'll never make that mistake again. I'm going to make this very clear: The Red Door is a cesspool of confused and angry hormones emitted from post fraternity STDs. It's a horrid place. So we left. Ran into an old friend as we were leaving. Went back to the show at Nectar. Saw the group that we paid the cover to see. Left that scene. Walked up the long hill back to PMRob's. Dude we saw at Red Door came over. Insanity ensued. We were up till 5am in some sort of pissing contest about who could drink the most and still burn the late night oil (or early morning). All in all good times...

The weekend was fairly low key. Just lounged about...

Monday I woke up got some work done on Metro, bought a turkey, and then went to visit a friend. Checked out their new house and then hit up the Hop Vine for an afternoon ale. Then I hit up the downtown and met NESF for a bit of lolligaggin'. We went over to his place and played yahtzee and made a pizza. I feel like there were other things we did, but in the end the exact details didn't matter. Another great day down...

Tuesday was the first of many meals involving turkey. My dad and I went to SU to meet up with my sister for a campus Thanksgiving. The food was decent. Company was great. After that we went to the library in Ballard because my dad wanted to get a library card. When we were checking the database realized that I was no longer in there so I got one too. Not really sure how much I'll use it, but it's a good thing to have...

Wednesday was not terribly memorable, which is to say I can't remember...

Thursday the Hart Foundation came over for Thanksgiving. The three of us cooked up the turkey. We also had mash potatoes, stuffing, green beans, Thanksgiving. Watched football. They took off around 7 and I fell into a food coma immediately. Then I woke up at 2am feeling well rested and couldn't get back to sleep. Dinked around a bit and finally got to sleep again around 5am...

Friday was the family holiday. I went to my sisters. She went all out. She's a great holiday host. We played a bunch of Settlers and ate and ate and ate. I also got to see my niece which is a rare thing, so that was nice...

Saturday I entertained a small group of people throughout the afternoon and evening. We played games for the most part. Just takin' 'er real easy. NESF brought the fixin's to finish up a turkey soup. It turned out amazing. I've still got a bunch of it at my house. I think I'll be diggin' on it for a week...

Sunday might actually have been my favorite day of the vacation. I woke up and NESF demanded brunch. We hit up Wingmasters. Decent food. Played a round of BBH. Went back to his place and tossed the dice around a bit more and talked about a project he's had stewing in his mind for a while. The PMRob swooped me up and we went on our third excursion to get him a new phone and glasses. Something always goes wrong. I was completely off guard for what happened though. He was able to successfully purchase both things. I'd convinced myself that no one wanted his money no matter how hard he tried. In the end I guess it just took the holiday frenzy for it to happen. After that I vacuumed my apt (it really needed it) and we went back to his place and made some lasagna and watched cartoons on FOX...

So if you actually took the time to read all of this you'll see that my vacation wasn't terribly exciting. However it was exactly what I wanted...

Friday night

C'mon do you know where that things been?

Yeah, I stole it

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

FML

I don't know why I expect anyone else to understand.

New Animal Collective

It's pretty good. I didn't fall over in ecstasy, but it pleased me.

In its eyes you see

This is a great version of this song. I almost like it more than the album version.

Shifting focus

Well it appears that Buried West is going to stay underground for a little longer. I got home tonight and took the advice I got from NESF to just work on whatever I felt at the time I should be working on. So I started to hammer out some solid details about Metro and made some good headway. I've decided that the routes I'm going to include are 54, 7, 43, 358, 72, 18 and 7 (revisited). I've worked out the themes that I want to address in each section and which previous short stories I'm going to use in the piece. Some of you probably remember the Route 43 story. Well its back on the table and getting reworked, along with a piece I did about the 54. They were actually the inspiration for the larger piece. Somehow I got really productive when I got home and got through the revisions of 54 I planned out to adapt it. Mostly just additions. I guess we'll see where this goes.

If it were only a fear of clowns

I've had trouble falling asleep lately. Last night I laid down at 11:30 like I do pretty much every work night. I felt tired but as soon as I was in bed I couldn't sleep. I laid there for two hours that I remember with a million different thoughts rushing through my head. What is exactly is Hayden teaching in the first chapter? Did I turn off the oven? Is it there something that can be done to make things better or is time the only answer? Should I work on Buried West on my week off or try to finish Metro? What really lies at the deepest parts of the ocean, Atlantis? When I die who do I want to give my eulogy? What if he wasn't really teaching anything and instead they were just painting or sculpting or something? Why can't I just fall asleep. It's been like that for the past two nights. Hopefully tonight will be different, but I don't have any real reason to think that it will be. I just wish that when I can't sleep at least I could come up with some answers.

I think we're dead

Hilarious!

Welcome to November 16th 2009

The Pixies show was awesome! They started off with all the B-Sides and then busted into Doolittle. I was a little skeptical, but that was completely unwarranted. They were amazing. My personal highlights were "I Bleed", "Gouge Away", and "Where is my mind". I didn't expect to hear the last one. They'd already done a couple of tracks for the encore and for some reason some of the theater lights had already been turned on. Then I heard the unmistakable "STOP". The entire venue erupted. It was a great end. Thanks again P...

We're expecting our first serious storm here in Seattle today. Well more tonight. Hopefully I don't lose power. When I get home I might have to dig out the candles just to stay ready. You know, losing power wouldn't be so bad. I'd probably just read Ulysses's by candle light or work more on Buried West. I've been trying to avoid the television more anyway and I think I could get by without my computer. Maybe...

I had a very strange dream last night. It started with me going to my "second" apartment. Somehow in this reality I rented not one but two apartments recently, the one that I live in IRL and then another in Belltown. I reached the building and took the elevator up to the unit. It was huge. The ceilings must have been 14 feet tall at least. I remember a strange array of things. There was a large washer and dryer which I was obsessed with. "Why am choosing the other place when this one has laundry!?" In the kitchen there was a dining room table. It was a large oak table with beautifully hand carved designs on the legs. It was large enough to accommodate 4 chairs on each side with one on either end. The only other piece of furniture in the whole place was a bed. It was immense. The head and foot boards were made of cherry, with the head board standing over six feet tall. The dark red bedding equaled the frame in elegance. The bed was position before three large windows that looked over the Seattle skyline. I don't recall who was there with me but I do remember having a conversation. I pondered why I wasn't going to live here and they reminded me "Steve Rabble is only gone for six month and then you'd have to find another place." This confused me. How did Steve Raible get involved? I don't even watch KIRO news. However we discussed the situation at length while I finished doing my laundry. I took one more walk about the place and left. I was stepping out onto the sidewalk as my alarm went off...

I snoozed for a few more minutes and dreamed again. I sat down on the banks of a river. I was surrounded with various creatures all very small. I turned to my right and spoke to one of them, "What are you supposed to be?" The creature just smiled and put on a pointed red hat. "He's a gnome," a voice said behind me. I turned around to find him smoking a pipe. "And what does that make you?" "Me oh I'm a dwarf. What else would I be?" There was another creature beside him. I pointed in his direction, "So are you a dwarf too?" He looked at me with complete disgust. "Do I look like a dwarf." The half smile on my face told him that I thought so. "Well I'm a Merrman. Not to be confused with Mermaid's because as you can see I'm not a fish." The alarm went off again...