Life

I didn’t take much notice of her when she sat down next to me on the bus. It was a busy morning, there were only so many open seats available, so a sudden seatmate wasn’t really that much of a surprise.

I was a bit taken aback when she poked my arm to get my attention, though. I put my iPod on pause and popped out the headphones to see what she’s said. Unfortuantely, I couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was saying. I did rather quickly manage to pick up one very pertinent piece of information, though.

This girl was stoned out of her mind. Absolutely blitzed. And whatever she was on, I’m pretty sure it was a lot stronger than anything I ever tried in my more adventuresome days.

For the rest of the trip, she sat next to me, talking to herself (and occasionally to me, though very rarely did I actually catch any intelligible words), inflection bouncing up and down the scale as she asked and then answered her own questions, and occasionally bursting into a sudden fit of giggles.

At one point, after examining the cigarette she was holding in one hand, she dug into her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Opening the pack, she slid the one she’d been waving around into the pack, and pulled out a fresh one. Replacing the pack, she then opened a side pocket on her purse, and pulled out a small brown glass bottle. She unscrewed the cap, extracted a small applicator stick, and proceeded to smear some rather foul-smelling substance along the length of the cigarette she’d just taken out. Once the cigarette was quite covered and soaked in whatever was in the bottle, she capped it, put it back in her purse, and resumed her private little monologue.

I haven’t really got a clue what was in the bottle, but I’m guessing that I’ve just had my first close encounter with “smokin’ stix“. Hopefully my last, too — that stuff smelled foul.

iTunes: “Your Very Own Tank” by Rollins, Henry from the album Talk is Cheap, Vol. 1 (2002, 17:42).

In something of a minor miracle, I’m actually managing to plan something three months in advance — rather amazing, considering I’m usually lucky if I plan something three hours in advance.

I received notice a few weeks ago that my friends Marc and Laura are going to be getting married this year, on Saturday, the 11th of September (apparently, when making reservations Laura was asked why they chose that particular date, and it was all she could do not to blurt out, “Because we’re a couple of SICK TWISTED FUCKS!!” — I do love my friends…). Seeing as how I’d actually like to be there for this event, if for no other reason to see whether the earth cracks open and swallows them both whole for daring to upset the order of nature in such a way, it seemed like it would be a good time to look into planning a vacation.

Plus, there are a couple of other important dates in that general area — specifically, my friend Erika’s birthday is the 12th, and my dad‘s birthday is the 15th.

So, I’ve requested and been approved for a week off of work (paid, even, hooray for vacation time!). I don’t have actual airline tickets yet, since this is rent week, but that will come as soon as possible (gotta take advantage of the cheap airfares, after all). The current (rough, but probably close to accurate) plan is as follows:

Friday, Sept. 10th: swap shifts at work to work 10am-6pm or so. Get off work, head straight to the airport, and catch a 9-ish flight up to Anchorage. Get picked up (I hope) by either family or friends, crash out somewhere for the night.

Saturday, Sept. 11th: see my friends get hitched. Harass Marc for ordering a kilt to wear at his wedding, but then chickening out and not wearing it properly (at least, that’s what Laura has told me the current plan is…).

Sunday, Sept. 12th: celebrate Erika’s birthday. Take her out somewhere, get her nicely toasty, try to take advantage of her, and get shot down in flames (all in fun, though).

Monday, Sept. 13th / Tuesday, Sept. 14th: bum around, see friends and family.

Wednesday, Sept. 15th: celebrate dad’s birthday. No drunken debauchery this time, though. That’s just icky.

Thursday, Sept. 16th – Saturday, Sept. 18th: bum around, see friends and family.

Sunday, Sept. 19th: fly back home and return to the day-to-day drudgery of normal, non-vacation life.

I am so looking forward to this. I haven’t had a real vacation in years — generally, my other visits have been rather hasty, fit-it-in-over-a-weekend deals with a lot of running around, but very little actual relaxing involved. This should be far, far better.

iTunes: “Let It All Come Out” by Giblin, John/Simple Minds from the album Street Fighting Years (1989, 4:56).

Earlier today, I linked to a breaking story about a fire on the Seattle Monorail — at the time, it was only an hour old — in my linklog.

Now that I’m home, I took some time to go through the various stories on the local news sites: KOMO’s story has been updated, plus KING5, an AP story printed verbatim in both the Seattle Times and the Seattle PI (I found it quite odd that the two competing local papers, rather than doing their own reporting, ran the identical AP story), plus one from CNN that Prairie pointed out.

Sounds like quite the freaky event, there — and, unfortunately, one certain to be hounded upon by the anti-monorail crowd in town, especially combined with two monorail stalls earlier in the year. (Ahem, and ahem.) Me, I’m somewhat amazed that there are as few problems as there are, considering how much mileage is put on those trains!

Amusingly enough, while talking with Prairie about the stories, where her reaction was to be a little freaked out and quite glad she wasn’t around, my first reaction was, “Well, no-one got hurt. Wish I’d been there with my camera!”

I’m such a boy sometimes.

iTunes: “Starsign” by Apoptygma Berzerk from the album Welcome to Earth (2000, 5:35).

Got to hang out with Rebecca and her husband Gary and their friends Karla and Jeremy at the Vogue tonight. Was great to see Rebecca again — we got to talking about it, and we figured that the last time I saw her she wasn’t even old enough to vote, let alone get into a bar! Too funny.

Bounced around and caught up with each other at the Vogue, then we all grabbed breakfast at IHOP, drove around for a bit chatting and listening to Plaid (a group that she wanted to introduce me to), and then it was off to our respective homes.

All in all, a good night.

iTunes: “Hothead (La Langue d’Amour)” by Anderson, Laurie from the album United States Live (1984, 4:47).

Or, rather, seven portraits.

I recently found a stack of old ID cards from my high school days in a drawer, a discovery that led to an interesting mix of amusement and horror as I flipped through them. My self-image has never been very good — it’s only been in the last few years that I’ve really started to be comfortable with the way I look — and flipping through these really reminded me of just how low my self-esteem was in those days. Pretty scary, actually.

So what do I do, but take them to work, scan them all in, and bring them back here to expose them to the world.

There’s something seriously, seriously wrong with me. ;)

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I did manage to spend a little time looking around the Seattle Library this Sunday with Prairie and Hope for their opening day festivities. I think this was the first, and quite likely only, time I’ve ever seen a line to get into a library!

Unfortunately, the downside to hitting it on opening day was that there were just so many people there that it soon became overwhelming, and we soon decided that it would be easier to explore on a later date when it wasn’t as crowded. We made it through the first few levels of the building and really enjoyed what we saw, but it was all just a bit too much to take the full tour. I’ll be heading back as soon as I have some time.

One last picture from the day before I go — me, reflected in one of the building’s overhangs.

iTunes: “Love U More (Band of Gypsies)” by Sunscreem from the album Love U More (1992, 6:13).