it's friday night in america, so we are getting in the car, hungry, at around 9:20 to take off for an epic trip to fred meyer's, attempting to plan our attack so we make it back in time to watch law & order with some tasty snacks. we get in the car, which is parked in se portland facing north, across powell from the train yard/omsi-related construction site. we see a bright flash of blue, almost turqoise light coming from around where water st. is.
"aliens! superheroes! i think all the streetlights are out!" (me)
"what streetlights?" (jake)
"oh . . . i guess just that one." (me)
lights are on in houses, there's no power outage or anything. but i am thinking, aliens, superheroes, zombies, could be anything. what follows is a drive to freddy's, with me pleading with jake to just believe in those things for like five minutes. if he took me seriously, he could become a famous journalist overnight! after that i just forgot about it.
UNTIL we got home and the clock was flashing. there was indeed a power outage, probably only seconds long because i was observant and on top of it. this led me to search for "blue flash of light portland or," which led me to this website.
whoa.
Friday
Monday
whoa
news on the mouse in the house problem: there is a dead mouse under an overturned trap under the sink. i know someone saw it, because i had closed the under-the-sink doors with a big spoon (you know, through the handles, which would never fool a three-year-old but which would definitely fool my cat, preventing a different sort of problem altogether). this person opened the doors, saw the mouse, and just left it. god, i hate them so much. i have never felt such pure hatred for another person, except for other people i have lived with. just some of them, maybe one in particular. i left it because i don't want to deal with it by myself because i'll cry and be overcome by the urge to light a candle and have a small procession for this tiny animal whose back i broke because of my desire to not die of the huntavirus. i mean, sometimes you have to be practical. you can't live your life like every day is an episode of pete & pete. also, this person, either before or after the mouse's tragic death, i'm not sure, took the rest of the traps that jake and i had 1. bought 2. baited 3. set up strategically and scattered them around the house. what a retarded thing to do. someone is going to step on them. god, i hate them so much.
Saturday
the important thing is, i survived
yesterday i heard on the radio that there is a man in Finland who ran thirteen miles over the ice barefoot, and now he plans to climb mt. everest in only boots, shorts, and a baseball cap. he claims to have an extreme tolerance for cold and pain. my first thought was that finally superheroes are showing up. then, i realized that he probably just has chronic insensitivity to pain, and has a dozen broken bones and frostbite and doesn't even know it.
aside from this possibly thrilling news about superheroes, yesterday could have been a pretty bad day. i ate my bagel in the morning and found that there is a large chunk missing from one of my back teeth. i have no idea how or when this happened, but i can tell you the exact size and shape of this missing chunk because i just cannot leave it alone. it doesn't hurt because i think i had a root canal on that tooth a couple years ago, but i'm paranoid that it will start hurting so anytime i feel anything i start to panic about being in pain and then suddenly i am in pain, at least until i realize i'm imagining it. i went home and made an appointment at the dentist for 7:00 on monday morning and then went to take a nap, because anytime anything happens that i don't like, that is what i do. napping is my coping/hiding mechanism.
when i woke up from the nap, the first thing i saw was a mouse running across the floor. i knew there was a mouse downstairs, in the living room and occasionally kitchen, and have been a little mad about that for a while because the reason the mouse is down there is because my roommates are incapable of cleaning up after themselves. but i live on the 3rd floor - how was a mouse going to get up there, i thought. well, probably through the walls, is the answer. the true horror, however, is yet to come. we only have one mattress. previously, i liked this mattress. it is a chiropractic matress and pretty comfortable. but, it is only one mattress, and therefore pretty close to the ground. like, a mouse could jump from the floor onto this mattress. i saw the mouse run right by the bed, inches from it, and i pretty much went into hysterics. not crying, but a little hyperventilating and also some hyperbole about how much i hate my roommates. jake came upstairs and i pointed out where the mouse was hiding, and we discussed our options while i was standing on the bed, pillows around me like a shield-fort, the cat cowering behind me, completely oblivious to what was happening but catching on to the fact that it was scary. then the mouse ran behind the bed. the cat took one look at the mouse and fled, and i screamed a little bit but just for a couple seconds.
i immediately put shoes on, my first thought being, as it always is, rabies, and my second a host of other possible illnesses. then we picked up the mattress to try and find the hole, and found that on the side closest to the wall, the mattress had been stripped of its covering and a lot of its stuffing, a perfect place for a mouse to hide, right underneath us as we slept or napped or read comic books or held hands and watched the simpsons. that is the true horror. well, i had already decided that i wasn't going to sleep upstairs until we knew the mouse was gone, especially on a mattress so close to the floor, but at that point i was infuriated. i almost threw it out the window, but then i fell under the weight of it and screamed because the mouse might still have been in there. after jake lifted it off of me, we moved a few essentials of our own and the cat's (damned if i was going to abandon him up there, he was more terrified than i was, and also rabies) and moved into the previously-mentioned, still-empty room that my roommate is too spoiled to rent out to someone he doesn't know, although everyone he does know has too much self-respect to move into the shithole he and stephen have created. the room is ok. a little small for the cat, but there are two mattresses that, if we catch the mouse, we're going to move upstairs. i've been told i can burn the other one if i can find a safe way to do it.
catching the mouse, though. how to do it? we went to fred meyer's, jake for some aspirin without gelatin and me for some mouse traps. secretly in my heart, i hoped that they would have tiny versions of the humane traps we had when one of our cats ran away - ones you put food in, and when the animal goes in it triggers the door so they're trapped. we never caught our cat in one, but we caught the neighbor's a few times and a skunk probably three times. but when i got to the pest control section, i realized, of course they don't make those. people talk a lot about animal rights and make noise about boycotting companies who participate in animal testing, but those are for animals like monkeys or rabbits. when it comes to an animal that comes into your house, they want it killed. we opted out of the glue traps, because what happens then is the mouse struggles to get out until all its legs are broken and then either you smash it or it dies of starvation, and also out of poison because of the cat/state of retardation that is apparently popular in the kitchen. i mean, who does not empty a dishwasher before putting dirty dishes in it, or leaves leftovers on the counter for two days and thinks they are still good? people who might eat poison, that's who.
so it could have been a terrible day, but it wasn't, really. the tooth doesn't hurt and it's going to get fixed soon, and jake and i managed to squeeze a few laughs out of the whole mouse thing. also, two other possible solutions to the mouse problem, both of which i like:
get another cat who is braver and less useless
move out
if it doesn't get resolved with the traps in a certain number of days, i may implement one of these. yes.
also, i am pretty happy that my cat was just as scared as i was of the mouse. i once read a short story where a woman saw her cat kill a mouse. i mean, they play with them. they are cruel. it's like the avada kedavra, mean and painful. she never felt the same way about her cat again. also, i have this impression of my cat as a huge wimp, and it was reassuring to see him act in a manner consistent with that impression.
aside from this possibly thrilling news about superheroes, yesterday could have been a pretty bad day. i ate my bagel in the morning and found that there is a large chunk missing from one of my back teeth. i have no idea how or when this happened, but i can tell you the exact size and shape of this missing chunk because i just cannot leave it alone. it doesn't hurt because i think i had a root canal on that tooth a couple years ago, but i'm paranoid that it will start hurting so anytime i feel anything i start to panic about being in pain and then suddenly i am in pain, at least until i realize i'm imagining it. i went home and made an appointment at the dentist for 7:00 on monday morning and then went to take a nap, because anytime anything happens that i don't like, that is what i do. napping is my coping/hiding mechanism.
when i woke up from the nap, the first thing i saw was a mouse running across the floor. i knew there was a mouse downstairs, in the living room and occasionally kitchen, and have been a little mad about that for a while because the reason the mouse is down there is because my roommates are incapable of cleaning up after themselves. but i live on the 3rd floor - how was a mouse going to get up there, i thought. well, probably through the walls, is the answer. the true horror, however, is yet to come. we only have one mattress. previously, i liked this mattress. it is a chiropractic matress and pretty comfortable. but, it is only one mattress, and therefore pretty close to the ground. like, a mouse could jump from the floor onto this mattress. i saw the mouse run right by the bed, inches from it, and i pretty much went into hysterics. not crying, but a little hyperventilating and also some hyperbole about how much i hate my roommates. jake came upstairs and i pointed out where the mouse was hiding, and we discussed our options while i was standing on the bed, pillows around me like a shield-fort, the cat cowering behind me, completely oblivious to what was happening but catching on to the fact that it was scary. then the mouse ran behind the bed. the cat took one look at the mouse and fled, and i screamed a little bit but just for a couple seconds.
i immediately put shoes on, my first thought being, as it always is, rabies, and my second a host of other possible illnesses. then we picked up the mattress to try and find the hole, and found that on the side closest to the wall, the mattress had been stripped of its covering and a lot of its stuffing, a perfect place for a mouse to hide, right underneath us as we slept or napped or read comic books or held hands and watched the simpsons. that is the true horror. well, i had already decided that i wasn't going to sleep upstairs until we knew the mouse was gone, especially on a mattress so close to the floor, but at that point i was infuriated. i almost threw it out the window, but then i fell under the weight of it and screamed because the mouse might still have been in there. after jake lifted it off of me, we moved a few essentials of our own and the cat's (damned if i was going to abandon him up there, he was more terrified than i was, and also rabies) and moved into the previously-mentioned, still-empty room that my roommate is too spoiled to rent out to someone he doesn't know, although everyone he does know has too much self-respect to move into the shithole he and stephen have created. the room is ok. a little small for the cat, but there are two mattresses that, if we catch the mouse, we're going to move upstairs. i've been told i can burn the other one if i can find a safe way to do it.
catching the mouse, though. how to do it? we went to fred meyer's, jake for some aspirin without gelatin and me for some mouse traps. secretly in my heart, i hoped that they would have tiny versions of the humane traps we had when one of our cats ran away - ones you put food in, and when the animal goes in it triggers the door so they're trapped. we never caught our cat in one, but we caught the neighbor's a few times and a skunk probably three times. but when i got to the pest control section, i realized, of course they don't make those. people talk a lot about animal rights and make noise about boycotting companies who participate in animal testing, but those are for animals like monkeys or rabbits. when it comes to an animal that comes into your house, they want it killed. we opted out of the glue traps, because what happens then is the mouse struggles to get out until all its legs are broken and then either you smash it or it dies of starvation, and also out of poison because of the cat/state of retardation that is apparently popular in the kitchen. i mean, who does not empty a dishwasher before putting dirty dishes in it, or leaves leftovers on the counter for two days and thinks they are still good? people who might eat poison, that's who.
so it could have been a terrible day, but it wasn't, really. the tooth doesn't hurt and it's going to get fixed soon, and jake and i managed to squeeze a few laughs out of the whole mouse thing. also, two other possible solutions to the mouse problem, both of which i like:
get another cat who is braver and less useless
move out
if it doesn't get resolved with the traps in a certain number of days, i may implement one of these. yes.
also, i am pretty happy that my cat was just as scared as i was of the mouse. i once read a short story where a woman saw her cat kill a mouse. i mean, they play with them. they are cruel. it's like the avada kedavra, mean and painful. she never felt the same way about her cat again. also, i have this impression of my cat as a huge wimp, and it was reassuring to see him act in a manner consistent with that impression.
Thursday
Stan Lee Fan Letter Project
As you may know, Stan Lee is the force behind Marvel Comics and the contended "father of the modern superhero." Were I Harold Bloom, I might argue that he had invented the modern individual's sense of morality, but I think Harold Bloom is crazy and fat, so there you go. Stan Lee will also be 85 this year, so I feel that if you know who he is, and have enjoyed his comics or any of the other forms of media that have sprung from them, now is the right time to send him a fan letter.
As a pretty big nerd and fan of Stan Lee myself, I have decided to take on the Stan Lee Fan Letter Project as a way of making this easier for you. Here is my vision for the Project: I will collect hopefully a couple dozen fan letters for Mr. Lee and send them in a package with an introduction from myself, approved by those who have written the enclosed letters. I know that these letters will encompass only a fraction of the letters Mr. Lee must receive on a regular basis, but I feel that by sending them together we can provide an example of the web (ha!) of lives his comics have informed and the kind of community that they can create. If you think that sounds corny, well, on one hand, you're right, and on the other, you don't know Mr. Lee's comics well enough to be familiar with that certain brand of earnestness that is corny and compelling at the same time.
If you want to participate, there are a number of ways to do this. You can:
write a fan letter as a word document and email it to my email address (if you know it, great for you - if not just send me a message through the blog or something. can you do that?)
handwrite a fan letter, scan it and send it
handwrite or type a fan letter, physically sign it (which i think is a nice touch, especially if it's in a different color so it's obvious that you signed it) and send it to my address (same deal as the email)
or, if you live near me or work with me, you can just hand it to me.
Ultimately, I'd like to have this done by the end of next week, but if you tell me you want to send a letter I will wait for yours.
As a pretty big nerd and fan of Stan Lee myself, I have decided to take on the Stan Lee Fan Letter Project as a way of making this easier for you. Here is my vision for the Project: I will collect hopefully a couple dozen fan letters for Mr. Lee and send them in a package with an introduction from myself, approved by those who have written the enclosed letters. I know that these letters will encompass only a fraction of the letters Mr. Lee must receive on a regular basis, but I feel that by sending them together we can provide an example of the web (ha!) of lives his comics have informed and the kind of community that they can create. If you think that sounds corny, well, on one hand, you're right, and on the other, you don't know Mr. Lee's comics well enough to be familiar with that certain brand of earnestness that is corny and compelling at the same time.
If you want to participate, there are a number of ways to do this. You can:
write a fan letter as a word document and email it to my email address (if you know it, great for you - if not just send me a message through the blog or something. can you do that?)
handwrite a fan letter, scan it and send it
handwrite or type a fan letter, physically sign it (which i think is a nice touch, especially if it's in a different color so it's obvious that you signed it) and send it to my address (same deal as the email)
or, if you live near me or work with me, you can just hand it to me.
Ultimately, I'd like to have this done by the end of next week, but if you tell me you want to send a letter I will wait for yours.
Saturday
dear reptilian civilian
i see you saw that i'm not that into you guys. that's fine. i'm not. i'm pretty sure you don't give a damn about my opinion anyway. i am a little sorry i called you "local retards," but remember, that's only one person's opinion, one that you don't care about. and the frontman does kind of look like a retard when he takes his shirt off. i mean, you've all got to know that already, so it's not that big a deal to say it. on the plus side, you guys have some really great hookups in terms of the shows you play. that must be really fun for you. see you around the bear paw.
in other neews, i'm now an intern at tin house magazine.
in other neews, i'm now an intern at tin house magazine.
Friday
Thursday
dear tiny readership
here is the wikipedia article on just war. it's interesting that it was developed and then polished by people of faith, yet our president who claims his own faith as a value has so blatantly ignored it. last resort? right.
i've been having a lot of debates about faith lately. it's difficult because i'm not all that sure where my own opinion comes out, so talking about it to someone who thinks religion shouldn't exist at all, i feel a little picked on. i understand that there are zealots going out of control, and that sadists claiming to perform the will of or do things in the name of god, a god, or gods have been the driving force behind the majority of human catastrophe. but i also feel that faith can be a uniting force, and that any system of belief that encourages people to act kindly towards each other can never be a bad thing whether it turns out to be true or no. the argument on the opposite side is that the everyday people who are just trying to lead good lives don't do enough good to balance out the crazies in powerful positions, and so religion should be eradicated altogether, by way of a public interrogation of religious figures culminating in a. their humiliation b. a lack of proof that god exists, therefore proof that he doesn't and the simulaneous rejection of faith by people all over the world. of course, this will never happen, so why do i always get up in arms? because i think it's a terrible thing to believe. so there.
i've been having a lot of debates about faith lately. it's difficult because i'm not all that sure where my own opinion comes out, so talking about it to someone who thinks religion shouldn't exist at all, i feel a little picked on. i understand that there are zealots going out of control, and that sadists claiming to perform the will of or do things in the name of god, a god, or gods have been the driving force behind the majority of human catastrophe. but i also feel that faith can be a uniting force, and that any system of belief that encourages people to act kindly towards each other can never be a bad thing whether it turns out to be true or no. the argument on the opposite side is that the everyday people who are just trying to lead good lives don't do enough good to balance out the crazies in powerful positions, and so religion should be eradicated altogether, by way of a public interrogation of religious figures culminating in a. their humiliation b. a lack of proof that god exists, therefore proof that he doesn't and the simulaneous rejection of faith by people all over the world. of course, this will never happen, so why do i always get up in arms? because i think it's a terrible thing to believe. so there.
Monday
Sunday
get it together, movies
so i went to another movie by myself today. again, totally awesome. i laughed any time i wanted to without worrying about whether the person i was with thought i was a nerd. as it happened, the nerd next to me and i laughed at all the same times. i saw omega man, which was great. i am way into that post-apocalyptic stuff. i like to think of them as training films, with a plot. each one is another possible eventuality i have to prepare for, at least emotionally. charlton heston was killer and there were lots of interracial makeouts with one of those 70's afro women.
two things, though. i am pretty tired of visual cruxifiction references. i am also tired of every movie happening in new york. what has happened in san francisco that didn't suck? it's a pretty short list: the graduate, mrs. doubtfire, the rock. a lot of movies happen in fantasy places (hook, labyrinth), some in foreign lands (mad max, road warrior, beyond thunderdome, ninja turtles III) and a few in london (human traffic, 28 days later). a very few happen in the wildnerness (homeward bound) and a couple in suburbia (bill and ted, donnie darko), but other than that pretty much every movie takes place in new york (ninja turtles I and II, spiderman I, II, and more than likely III, pretty much everything else). why is that? if most movies are made in la, why do they take place in new york? life happens plenty of other places too.
two things, though. i am pretty tired of visual cruxifiction references. i am also tired of every movie happening in new york. what has happened in san francisco that didn't suck? it's a pretty short list: the graduate, mrs. doubtfire, the rock. a lot of movies happen in fantasy places (hook, labyrinth), some in foreign lands (mad max, road warrior, beyond thunderdome, ninja turtles III) and a few in london (human traffic, 28 days later). a very few happen in the wildnerness (homeward bound) and a couple in suburbia (bill and ted, donnie darko), but other than that pretty much every movie takes place in new york (ninja turtles I and II, spiderman I, II, and more than likely III, pretty much everything else). why is that? if most movies are made in la, why do they take place in new york? life happens plenty of other places too.
friday night was pretty much fine
it was fine, with very little eye contact and a lot of sweaty hands on my part but pretty fine. it was nice to see these people i've been scared of for almost two years now because they have changed too. they've gained weight and gotten balder, adopted makeup styles that make their eyes look small and piggish and grown small social awkwardnesses of their own. they're just people, after all.
jake and i have this friend. he knows every little band in this town. as a natural extension of his ability to schmooze and through schmoozing bring people together, he's starting to plan parties. last night jake and i went to a party he had planned. as it turned out, so did an entire high school. it was hilarious to fall back into an old habit of making fun of an entire room of people at once, but i just hope no one got in trouble.
jake and i have this friend. he knows every little band in this town. as a natural extension of his ability to schmooze and through schmoozing bring people together, he's starting to plan parties. last night jake and i went to a party he had planned. as it turned out, so did an entire high school. it was hilarious to fall back into an old habit of making fun of an entire room of people at once, but i just hope no one got in trouble.
Friday
i finally have something cool to do on friday night
the one problem is, i have burned a lot of bridges in this town. i just hope none of them show up. aw-kward.
Sunday
kotohiki
that is the name of a girl who was killed pretty late in battle royale, which was stuck in my head the whole time i was sick and kind of feverish (the last four days). today i felt better, so i cleaned the room a little bit and then took myself to see a movie. the only other time i have gone to a movie by myself, it was because of a misunderstanding - i think it is actually pretty common here in portland because we have the second-run three dollar movie theaters. you can weed out the movies that just have good previews from the movies you actually want to see, and if those are different from the movies the people you usually go to the movies want to see, no big deal because it's only $3 to go by yourself, pretty much the same as renting, and sometimes $2 if you go in the afternoon, better than some renting. well, i had a great time.
i saw stranger than fiction. my opinion is, i am no longer going to listen to lizzy acker's opinion about movies. she panned it, but it was totally fine. i completely enjoyed it and it was a fine use of a sunday afternoon. then again, if i had paid full price for it, i might feel differently.
i saw stranger than fiction. my opinion is, i am no longer going to listen to lizzy acker's opinion about movies. she panned it, but it was totally fine. i completely enjoyed it and it was a fine use of a sunday afternoon. then again, if i had paid full price for it, i might feel differently.
Thursday
Tuesday
my last impression was that i should get a real digital camera instead of relying on my phone
okay, so i will probably catch some flak for this one for a few reasons; having "feelings," being "crunchy," liking that song when i had it on cd from a cd that i had that you could order from commercials (i bought mine in a jewelry shop on cape cod, and then when it wore out i bought another copy at the mall) but which i don't remember the name of anymore. it was pretty crunchy, it had some enya on it and the theme songs from the exorcist and twin peaks, a lot of chimes and stuff, you know. i think the word "sounds" was in the title . . . man, what i would not give for another copy of that, as well as my copy of the 2nd spice girls album. my high school boyfriend's little sister gave it to me and we used to just ROCK OUT to it even though we knew it was totally silly. maybe i will look for those when i go home. anyway, i posted this video because at first it made me laugh and then it made me jealous of all the places that guy has been and then it made me think, what is the whole point of this blogging thing anyway? to get in touch with other people. the internet is a great way to downplay the negative effects of globalization and really concentrate on the possibility that you could have a penpal from another country, just like that internet commercial where everyone in the world watches a boy dancing in a video that someone, one can only assume a parent, took on their cell phone.
ps - this was my favorite song. i hated the enya one, and the exorcist one terrified me, and i can't remember any of the other ones, but i used to just listen to this on repeat. i had a lot of patience as a kid. not anymore.
you win, ana punye!
here is the rest of my story.
so we got to the shanghai tunnel, and as soon as we sat down he was again complaining about the dark and the smoke. i ordered a beer, he ordered a vodka cran (another red feminine drink), and we got some noodle dishes. i probably do not even need to say this, but he complained that his was too spicy. then when it was time to pay and walk to the movie theater, he offered me cash if i would pay with my card. i'm not really one to get my meals paid for by boys all the time, by which i mean i never expect it, but i'm also not really one to drive some dude across town to pick up a computer he had bought on a date. so it threw me for a loop when i took a closer look and the amount of cash he had handed me was way short of the cost of his dinner.
at this point, i had completely checked out of the entire thing. it may have been before dinner, when he spent the ten-minute walk between the first bar and the second complaining about smokers. not just smokers in general, but one or two friends he had who were smokers. he implied that by smoking socially, they were throwing their lives away, and appeared to come to the decision to burn those bridges while we were walking. i never suspected that he was trying to take me in any way - that he had needed a ride, and now he was paying for like half his dinner and getting a free movie and a ride home out of the deal. this guy was not slick, not even a little bit. i'd like to think that if he was slick enough to play the not slick role and get away with it, something i have encountered before, i would be able to tell. my grocery-store peek into his current lifestyle (overweight, fooling himself) is proof positive of this conclusion. had he actually been slick, i would have been extremely upset but playing the naive fool and plotting some volleys of my own. as it was, i couldn't wait for the whole thing to be over so i could ask jake to take me back because i had realized that other people are terrible and not for me.
so we walked to the movie theater, where we sat down to watch "kontroll," which was playing as part of the portland international film festival at the independent theater. it was the perfect date movie. a little spooky, a little magical, a little romantic - it's a great movie. i couldn't wait for it to come out on video. when you go to an independent film in portland, it's mostly an aging hippie crowd, and the entire theater is talking and really into it. it's sort of an experience, and you really can't be a codger about it. at first, when my date stopped shushing the people behind us, i thought he had just given up - actually, he had fallen asleep. when he woke up at the end of the movie, he said it had been "too dark." i dropped him off and never, ever talked to him again. and then i saw him in the grocery store yesterday and felt good that he was fat, and now i've completely ridiculed him on the internet.
so we got to the shanghai tunnel, and as soon as we sat down he was again complaining about the dark and the smoke. i ordered a beer, he ordered a vodka cran (another red feminine drink), and we got some noodle dishes. i probably do not even need to say this, but he complained that his was too spicy. then when it was time to pay and walk to the movie theater, he offered me cash if i would pay with my card. i'm not really one to get my meals paid for by boys all the time, by which i mean i never expect it, but i'm also not really one to drive some dude across town to pick up a computer he had bought on a date. so it threw me for a loop when i took a closer look and the amount of cash he had handed me was way short of the cost of his dinner.
at this point, i had completely checked out of the entire thing. it may have been before dinner, when he spent the ten-minute walk between the first bar and the second complaining about smokers. not just smokers in general, but one or two friends he had who were smokers. he implied that by smoking socially, they were throwing their lives away, and appeared to come to the decision to burn those bridges while we were walking. i never suspected that he was trying to take me in any way - that he had needed a ride, and now he was paying for like half his dinner and getting a free movie and a ride home out of the deal. this guy was not slick, not even a little bit. i'd like to think that if he was slick enough to play the not slick role and get away with it, something i have encountered before, i would be able to tell. my grocery-store peek into his current lifestyle (overweight, fooling himself) is proof positive of this conclusion. had he actually been slick, i would have been extremely upset but playing the naive fool and plotting some volleys of my own. as it was, i couldn't wait for the whole thing to be over so i could ask jake to take me back because i had realized that other people are terrible and not for me.
so we walked to the movie theater, where we sat down to watch "kontroll," which was playing as part of the portland international film festival at the independent theater. it was the perfect date movie. a little spooky, a little magical, a little romantic - it's a great movie. i couldn't wait for it to come out on video. when you go to an independent film in portland, it's mostly an aging hippie crowd, and the entire theater is talking and really into it. it's sort of an experience, and you really can't be a codger about it. at first, when my date stopped shushing the people behind us, i thought he had just given up - actually, he had fallen asleep. when he woke up at the end of the movie, he said it had been "too dark." i dropped him off and never, ever talked to him again. and then i saw him in the grocery store yesterday and felt good that he was fat, and now i've completely ridiculed him on the internet.
Monday
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