(no subject)

Hrm. It is late, and I'm in pretty low energy mode, so this probably won't be up to my usual rambling standards (and lo, there was a great sigh of relief in my friends list). Pretty much just updating because I know how prone I am to the ravages of inertia. If I don't update now, it'll be harder to update tomorrow, and so on and so forth, and eventually it'll be 5 months down the line, and I won't even remember my password. So, let's see, what did I do this weekend. It's hard to separate the days. I've been getting less and less sleep every night, and the sleep I have been getting is more troubled. Not sure if that's because of some psychic turmoil on a subconscious level that I don't want to deal with now, or if it's just because I've never been any good at sleeping in unfamiliar spaces, and I've been in unfamiliar spaces for months now (And just to prove how much my brain hates me, I've got Friends in Low Places stuck in my head. Sing it with me. Where the whiskey drowns, and the beer chases my blues away and I'll be okay...). Probably a little of column a and a little of column b. On the physical side couches aren't the coziest things, and on the mental/emotional side of things I'm painfully aware that though I have moments of utter clarity about things being wrong in my head, there's always spaces that I think around and avoid confronting also, sharks swimming beneath the surface, tracing wakes of unease across my psyche. Eventually I'll figure it all out, but I'm not even close to getting my conscious head sorted out without the trouble of going snark-hunting through my subconscious also. So, anyway, yeah, I've been having bad dreams. And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

So, Friday I woke up, fell out of bed, dragged the comb across my head. Found my way downstairs and drank a cup ... no wait, those are Beetles lyrics and not in fact what I did with my day. Hrm. Pretty accurate up until the drank a cup bit though. Anyway, told my friend Rockstar Josh that we would hang out today, so I called him up, and we decided to be big huge geeks and play Starcraft. So, I meandered over to Josh's house (It was definitely a meander and not a walk. When I walk, I walk with purpose, and today I took a rambly path because I was enjoying getting drizzled on) Josh has a very creepy staircase leading to his apartment. Like horror movie creepy. If I had to pick a suitcase to be murdered on, it would definitely be that staircase. Though, speaking of being murdered on staircases, I remember that Josh managed to split his scalp open nicely on my staircase back in Ukiah. It was really a vicious staircase. The top of the door at the bottom of the stairs was set quite low, so if you were just casually walking down the stairs you were fine, but if you were running, or so help you bouncing, you were in for a world of pain. But that's neither here nor there. What's here is that I'm doomed to die on this staircase. I'm sure of it. And what's there is, well, I'm not quite sure what's there, but it's screwing up the flow of this journal. On with my story.

So, Starcraft it is. With English Muffins. I love english muffins (they're delicious both capitalized and not!), and don't eat them nearly enough. These needed more butter though, because without butter they're probably healthy *shudder*. Josh and I decide to flaunt our sentience by teaming up on computer players. The computer decides to flaunt it's algorithms by pummeling us mercilessly about 80% of the games we played (As a pathetic attempt to redeem some geek pride, I haven't actively played Starcraft since it came out, which was errr, what, 3 or 4 years ago at this point?) I like hangingout with Josh. I should do it more often. Random memory: The first time I ever heard Skinny Puppy or watched Heathers was over at his house, back in Ukiah. Weird.

Anyway, post computer humiliation, I head back to HO13D and give My Eric a call. We decide to head down to Neutral Ground and proceed to engage in more dorkery. For those of you blissfully unaware of what Neutral Ground is, it's a game store, but where most game stores are about 90% product and 10% place to play games, neutral ground is just the opposite. This means that 1) It always smells 2) Females are feared and yet worshipped from afar and 3) It's a good place to geek out radically. Show up and see the usual crowd of malcontents, including my friend Dan Lazarus, who I haven't talked to in a while. Catch up with him while Eric goes and plays some miniatures game. Eventually manage to twist peoples arms into playing Tenjo with me. Am happy about this, as I've owned the damn game for about 6 months, and have up to this point completely failed to get the requisite number of people together. Don't actually finish a game, but now hopefully I've got enough people interested in it that it won't be pulling teeth to get them to set aside some time to play. Anyway, Neutral Ground closes so we all go to the greasy dive pizza place, and eat greasy dive pizza (well, quesadillas actually) and talk about greasy dive geekery and comic books, and well, I guess just different flavors of geekery. Drive back up to the city with Eric, hit HO13D and crash out. Sleep fitfully, and on to Saturday

Saturday is Zane's birthday party. She's 3 now. Weirdness and nostalgia, and yeah, stuff like that. Don't really want to go into everything I could say about that right now. Leery about going as a result of breakup fallout, but there's no way I'm going to miss Zane's birthday because of stupid drama. Besides I'm supposedly her godfather, and if I'm not there, who's going to ummm, do godfathery things for her (After doing some quick research, apparently as godfather I'm meant to instruct her in the faith, and in general set a good example for her. Does this amuse me? Yes, it does. I was hoping it meant I got to turn pumpkins into carriages, and cool jazz like that. No such luck.) Get picked up from HO13D by CJ_, end up at Hep's House That Doesn't Have A Catchy House Title, also known as HHTDHACHT (just because that sentence needed another acronym). Party guests are mainly small children and relatives, which is good. Zane comes running up to me and wishes me a happy birthday. Very hobbit of her. I give her many piggy back rides and am used as a sticker pad. These things happen. Zane gets a panda cake for her birthday. Lucky Zane. I love pandas. The world would be a better place with more pandas in it. Kick around HHTDHACHT for a while and then head back to HO13D.

Call up my seester and figure out if we're going to go to our mom's equinox party or not, but she's not home. Sit around and net for a while and have Oingo Boingo stuck in my head (And if you come to me, and if you touch my hand, I might just slip away, I might just dissapear, who am I? And if you think I'm worth it, and if you think it's not too late, we might start falling, if we don't try too hard, we might start falling in love) Nadja (That's my sister, for those of you who haven't been paying attention) calls back, and says that she's not really up for the drive down to Menlo Park. Can't really blame her. End up going semi-catatonic on the couch, and wake up to Maggie asking what the deal with Smoke and Mirrors is, as there's a bunch of people we know going. Hrm.

M&M decide to stay in for the night (they can get away with this sort of behaviour, being married and all), but tempted with promises of Aaron and Melissa and Veevi and other people I don't see out very often at all, I decide to head out. Walk merrily across the city to the tune of New Order's Confusion (You're hiding from feelings, searching for more. Sharing and hoping, untouched for so long. Our lives still change from the way that we were. And now I'll tell you something, I think you should know. You just can't believe me when I show you what you mean to me... You cause me confusion, you told me you cared. He's calling these changes that last till the end. Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies, the past is your present, your future is mine). Hrm, that was certainly an extended song break. Good song though. Anyway, see many people at Smoke and Mirrors. Rich, Aaron, Melissa, Veevi, Rachel, Xavier, Romi, Win, Kermit, Christine, Elizabeth, Jocelyn, Christy and special surprise guest, another old Ukiahan Chris. Dance to a couple of songs, sing goofily to a couple more (How can you not sing goofily to Temple of Love? And the temple of love will fall before this black wind calls my name to you no more Go ahead. Sing that at your most melodramatic. It's fun!) End up hopping out to diner with some of the crew and then decide to go to Meat, because you know, when you're dead tired, the first thing you should do is hit up two clubs in one night, right?

Right! Win is kind enough to give me a lift over there. Don't really stay very long. Basically just long enough to say hi to (ooh, look, another wave of name dropping coming up, wait for it) Fernando, Yen, Simon, Helena, Jamie (loooong time since I've seen Jamie out), John Adams, Loki, Rae and Christy (Again. Nice to know that I'm not the only social butterfly). Space is too crowded to dance, so I kind of bob along to Skinny Puppy and then we head out. Pretty much dead on my feet at this point anyway, so Yen drops Loki off waaaaay out in the Sunset and then me back at HO13D, where any intelligent person would grab as much sleep as humanly possible.

I on the other hand, sleep fitfully, jerk awake at least 12 times during the night, and then get up and head out to a CCG tournament in the east bay. Yes, I'm really a tragic geek, but I figure that my multi clubbing adventures have scored me enough cool points that I can trade some in. Not going to bore you with the details, but I end up coming in second. Go me. I always seem to come in second. Anyway, rendezvous with Numa-Dan, and end up playing a beeeg game of Settlers with the usual Naked Ninja House crowd, and Zippe, who plays surprisingly well for it being his first time and having a brain already devoured by Objective C. Numadan ends up crushing us all mercilessly. I will have my revenge. Anyway, play a quick game of Chez Geek and then back to HO13D I go. So, at this point, two days of horrible geekery versus one night of clubbing has pretty much exhausted my built up supply of "Get out of social stigmata free" cards. I clearly need to go to Death Guild tomorrow. Who's with me?

Ok, I was wrong, this was still a long journal entry. And boring to boot. I'll try to make the next one more fun. Maybe if I actually sleep between now and then. Yeah, right. But I am going to try. Night kids.

I use the words "So," and "Anyways," to start sentences too often. Accepting suggestions for replacement words.