Thailand in 2.5 Days!

My trip to Thailand is so close that I can start counting, accurately, in HALF days. Life is good.

There's just a few things I have to do before I leave, like, decide my entire academic future.

Dating Post! (Short and Non-Scandalous)

That's right. It's happening. And it's BORING, sorry.

Hi! I'm single. You may have noticed. Or maybe you haven't? I was dating AZ for a short time there, but I didn't really make a formal announcement, which saved me the trouble of making a formal announcement when we broke up. He's a great guy. (Hi, AZ!) But not for me.

Anyway. For those of you who read this blog mainly to catch up with my life and not for my witty commentary on Current Events, now you know what's up in my dating life. No, I'm not sitting at home alone o'nights. Yes, there's men in my life. Yes, I AM currently late for my next appointment, what makes you ask? Oh, you expected as much? Hmm. Eff you too then.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

It was daylight when Titan and I went into the Rite-Aid. Ten minutes later we stepped out into the pitch black of a murder mystery.

I ducked under the Chase awning to pull up my hood and arrange my coffee and plastic Rite Aid bag; Titan shook his head in a futile attempt to keep water from running into his eyes. The rain was going sideways, hard enough to drown out almost everything but the collective reaction of the hundreds of people on the street, all struck dumb by the sudden downpour. It was almost too late before I could aurally distinguish the thumpa-thumpa-thumpa of the Ferrari motor, the navy blue supercar just idling down the street, from the shouts and distinctive tap-tap-tap sound of the heavy rain, and just as I turned to look at the gorgeous rear end as it passed, a giant stab of lightning reached down from the heavens to illuminate the entire Hill.

It was like a strobe light times a thousand and it seemed to go on forever--everyone on the street frozen, cars in the middle of parallel parking, passers-by in the middle of shouting, mouths open, and then the night darkened again and the Ferrari engine growls were forcefully woven into the cracka-BOOM of the instantaneous thunder. Apparently the storm was right on top of us, as if that wasn't already apparent with the sideways rain. Titan and I braved it home, snot running down my face from my stuffy nose and me babying my cut finger and trying to ward off hacking coughing fits and Titan taking his sweet time sniffing things, me pulling at his leash, trying to get him to just HURRY IT UP ALREADY. All around us, lightning flashed and thunder boomed and car alarms went off. By comparison, contracting swine flu eight days before I have to leave for Southeast Asia seems kind of tame.

On Writing

I've been accused, often--maybe not so much "accused" as I have been "laughably charged", as no one's really mad--that I distort the truth in these blog posts of mine. Friends who are present for an episode and then read about the episode later are always bemused. "That's not exactly what happened," they sometimes say, or else they say, "That's not ONLY what happened."

Hey: I haven't taken any oaths to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing BUT the truth (although I swear I don't make things up) and if I did, I wouldn't be writing.

Because writing by its very nature is a lie.

Or at least, it has only a passing resemblance to the truth. To what actually happened.

It's impossible, at least by amateurs like me, to really capture the wholeness of any scene taking place in Real Life. For one thing, Real Life doesn't stop or start--it's always going, always, and hundreds of back stories, side stories, and hell, cover stories are bubbling away at all times, informing every participant in the scene but totally impossible to capture in the written word. Blog posts, or novels, or newspaper columns, or whatever, have to start somewhere and end somewhere, and they have to make some kind of point. They have to illuminate a lesson or sharpen a moral truth, take 1000 words and create an etching in your mind of Real Life. A good column or blog post is 3-D; if you turn the page sideways you can almost see the image that the writer is trying to convey crystallizing over the page. A good writer sees a scene and cuts away everything that is not, in fact, the point, allowing the dimly lit kernel, the basis of human interaction, glimmer darkly from the page of newsprint.

And that is impossible to do while trying to capture every angle of every conversation said during the half an hour conversation that the writer caught and wrote down.

The best way to capture Real Life is not, in fact, to record every second of it, but instead to pull at a glowing thread, tracing it backwards, following its twists and turns and recording every second of that journey. If Life is a tapestry, good writing is about three inches of embroidery thread. Trying to describe the whole tapestry in words does not invoke images of Real Life in your audience; instead, it makes them think you can't write. Character development in novels is the same: a real 3-D character is almost too much, seems too unrealistic. It's better instead to shine a spotlight on certain characteristics at certain times and leave out most characteristics altogether.

And keeping this in mind is helpful as I try to paint a picture of Capitol Hill on this very stormy night.

SWINED!

Hello. My muscles ache. Like, a lot, a lot. I have a fever. I am fatigued as hell. It tires me to go up and down the stairs. I voted anyway, even though it took a lot of damn energy to walk to the mailbox. Fortunately my friends are effing AMAZING and have already brought me care packages! Seriously, you guys. My friends ROCK.

Now I just need to: a) kick the virus before I leave for Thailand, as they might not let me into the country with an elevated temperature, and b) not develop pneumonia afterwards, as I hear from anecdotal evidence is common. Popping more vitamins now.

A Good Reminder

Mom, by email, Friday afternoon: "I know you had a very exciting weekend, dear. But try to remember to take your phone charger HOME with you today."

Me: "Yes, ma'am."

And in spite of that I ALMOST FORGOT IT AGAIN--but I didn't! Thanks, mom. You rock.

In Which I Hose My Phone and Develop a Social Life Anyway

1. While playing snake pong, take out phone to text T and discover phone is dead. Continue to play snake pong. Move on to basketball. Arriving home at 2:30 am, neglect to attempt to plug in. (The attempt part is important.)
2. Saturday morning, wake up bright and early with dead phone. Only then do I realize--due to my inability to attempt this feat the night before--that my wall charger is at work.
3. Run out to Jeep, start Jeep, and plug phone, via car charger, into Jeep.
4. Not five minutes later, C comes to pick me up for full day of errands. Take car charger with me.
5. C's car plug-in no worky-worky.
6. Phone battery runs out immediately.
7. C drops me off from full day of errands. LEAVE CAR CHARGER WITH C ACCIDENTALLY.
8. Frantically email people about movie premiere plans for Saturday night, since I have no phone.
9. Drop by Neighbor's apartment to use HIS phone. Neighbor asks what my plans are and, hearing it's a ski porn movie premiere, immediately invites hisself. Sweet! Ride! Problem: There may not be any tickets left.
10. Arrive at the Hurricane for pre-funking. Realize I have left my ticket for movie premiere at home. Neighbor offers to go BACK to our collective apartment complex to get it. I tell him four places said ticket "might" be. He rolls his eyes.
11. I go to stand in line in the freezing cold to buy Neighbor a ticket.
12. I make friends with the people around me in line, one of whom lets me use his phone to call Neighbor. I am about to call Neighbor when he re-appears on the scene!
13. Neighbor found my ticket with only a medium effort and returned to the movie premiere on time!
14. Neighbor reassures me that super-mean attack Dawg barely stirred from his 13th nap of the day as Neighbor entered my apartment, rooted around in my stuff, and left again. Huh.
15. Neighbor buys an extra ticket from one of my new friends in line.
16. We even have time to get drinks and food at the Hurricane!
17. T, who was the whole reason I was there, is already there with the divine Miss D, surrounded by boys. One of the boys I already know from salsa. Obviously.
18. I also run into Miss A out on the town with her boy. Neighbor asks if I know everyone in this town. Um, No? Fine. Yes. So?
19. I save 13 spots for the entire crew against an increasingly hostile crowd at the King Cat.
20. Fall asleep on Neighbor's shoulder.
21. On to the next party! Half the gang, including T and Miss D, decide to go to Ozzie's. I am down 100%.
22. 2:30 am. Leaving Ozzie's.
23. Sunday morning: breakfast. And then major intense cleaning. After all, my mother's coming over later!
24. FINALLY, on Sunday afternoon at 4, C, bless her heart, drops off my car charger.
25. Run out to Jeep and plug in.
26. Mother arrives with finished pillow! And I have a clean apartment to show off!
27. Sunday at 6 PM: PHONE!
28. Sunday night: T calls. We chat briefly as we are both on our way to dates. Not with the same person.
29. Sunday at midnight: crash into bed.

Boa Constrictor

It's 9:00 pm on Friday night. C and I are outside Jazz Alley, black boots and trench coats on, swapping stories with a very opinionated lady from New Jersey. Spanish Harlem Orchestra has just rocked our minds for two hours. And then the Bat Signal illuminates the sky: BEER PONG AT ALLEY 24!

Dodging our way through the alley packed with the after show crowd, waving to salsa friends, the CRV carries us gently through the back streets of South Lake Union, following the signal. C makes sure we eat before we arrive on the penthouse level of Alley 24 to find beer pong games already in progress, the gentle rain not impeding either the speed of drinking OR the boa constrictor, who gets passed around like a heavy, moving necklace as we all want to hold her. She snuggles into our coats, trying to stay warm. Three hours later, we're shooting hoops in the park across the street and having the most fun I've had in some time, in spite of the fact that I can't dribble to save my life and S--who became my date after C left--totally shows me up.

The next day, C and I spend three hours jumping on mattresses before I accompanied her furniture shopping, with barely enough time to breathe in between shopping, dog-walking, and getting ready for a helluva party surrounding a much-hyped ski movie premiere. Movie: not great. I fall asleep on my neighbor's shoulder. Party: off the hook. There is much ridiculousness. Around all these events are many additional complications that my subconscious like to add just for fun, like: my phone died on Friday night at Spanish Harlem Orchestra and wasn't revived until the weekend was completely over. I forgot my original ticket for the movie premiere at home and had to send my neighbor to go get it while I held his spot in line, with no phone for last-minute coordination.

And then on Sunday I got to eat and breathe and to see my mother.

All in all, the weekend could not have been better. Plus I can now check "Play beer pong while wearing a snake" off my list of Life Goals.