Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Deserving

Not too long ago--a matter of months, maybe--a bartender and I had an intelligent conversation about absinthe as I waited for Calsee to open her apartment door. The crowd at the bar was extremely mixed, as it always is, at the Zig-Zag; on my left sat a blond, large-framed drunk woman in business clothes, I think drinking a martini; on my right sat small-boned skater kid drinking whiskey and beer, his over-sized t-shirt showing off his closely-shaved dark hair and arm tattoos. I pulled up a stool and asked the bartender what kind of absinthe he served. He offered me tastes of two kinds, and I shared them with the drunk woman in business clothes and the skater kid, knowing that one serving of absinthe is about all I can carry, and even a sip or two over that limit can be too much. They tasted. The drunk woman, very talkative, had barely a sip of each and exclaimed much over them; the skater kid appreciated it more and accepted my gift of the rest of the tastes. (A man after my own heart--never turn down free booze.) I drank my chosen absinthe--I forget what it was, now--and made a little more small talk to my left and to my right, until I asked for the bill. The skater kid made a move for my number, and I turned him down, gently. Calsee called. I strolled out of the Zig Zag, carefully, feeling the affects of the absinthe. Ahead of me on the Pike Hill Climb, walking up to street level, was the drunk woman in business clothes, who had left the bar with a late-arriving date. "This girl sits down," she says to him, loudly, and I realize she's talking about me, "says she builds planes for a living, and orders ABSINTHE!"

I brushed a little imaginary dirt off my shoulder.

ANYWAY, this is not about me, and I can't collect a speck of dirt compared to that bartender. Because that bartender with the intelligent absinthe conversation was just crowned "best bartender in America". Congratulations, Mr. Stenson. Wonder how this compares to being featured in Playboy's A-List?

Friday, July 09, 2010

Never a Dull Moment

I've been putting off renting a truck for Sunday's move--yes! I am moving! On top of getting a new job!--and it turns out it's a good thing I did, because the new apartment building had a power outage and all the outlets in my new places BLEW OUT.

Yes, they did.

Now it turns out that I can't move in until the DAY that I have to MOVE OUT of my other place.

Even for someone as used to living on the edge as I am--and let me reassure you that I have made a damn career out of it--this is cutting it...a little close.

I'm not even sure what I'm going to do next.

And so I'll post a funny exchange from Facebook about LAST weekend:

Me, to T-Town: "After locking us out of your house--in the cold rain, in our pjs, without phones or wallets, getting into a fender-bender, driving like a maniac, and blowing out a tire--not to mention ziplining--Lilith Fair seemed pretty uneventful."

T-Town: "Two questions: 1. How is this different than a normal weekend for you? 2. Were you somehow under the impression the Lilith Fair would be interesting? But seriously, it was great to have you here and you still owe me 20 bucks."

Me: "Well, I don't normally go ziplining."

T-Town: "Good point."

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Where My Head's At Today

Here:



And here:



And here:

http://www.omniglot.com/blog/?p=2888

I got there because my boss and I are having a discussion about how to identify a language she overheard, not long ago, at the airport, that she couldn't identify on the spot. And since my boss is Irish, has an aunt who is Welsh, has traveled all over the world and spent a lot of time in Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Brazil, AND is a language nerd...let's just say that there's not many languages that she CAN'T identify on the spot. Lots of soft round sounds, and clicks, she said, spoken by three slender dark-haired girls with faintly olive skin. In this case, I think the gender identity of the girls is a red herring, so to speak. We've already ruled out everything on most continents, including Welsh, Basque, Catalan, and Icelandic. Nothing Cyrillic or Germanic, for sure. My boss' description makes it sound African. It's POSSIBLY Romanian or Finnish. Thoughts? (Celia? Rob?)

In any case, Omniglot looks fascinating. I may spend a lot of time there in the future.

And here:

Take me there, please.