Category: socializin'

January 13, 2006

friday night

tickets found:
2/24/89 - 1000 airplanes on the roof, Duke
2/16/89 - Al Green
4/4/90 - something at the Artscenter
7/1/?? - Royal Crescent Mob
1/24/91 - breaking away, duke bryan center
11/8/90 - in cold blood, bryan center with jonathan
11/?/90 - metropolitan, the varsity
1/5/91 - l'amie de mon amie, art museum
11/27/90 - 8 1/2 - duke
4/2/91 - cyrano de bergerac, varsity
3/24/91 - a room of one's own, lamb's theater, 130 w. 44th st, nyc
4/26/91 - morthiam drums of fire, the palace international, 117 w. parrish st, durham
3/3/91 - sleeping with the enemy
12/16/90 - edward scissorhands
6/20/90 - back to the future III
12/26/90 - godfather III
2/17/91 - la story
6/30/90 - betsy's wedding
5/10/90 - mountains of the moon

i could have gone out tonight, but i really didn't want to. i should have though, because tonight is the night my neighbors spend a couple of hours singing tunelessly to the slow jamz in their head, out on the side porch. good times.

don't ask me why, i just never feel like going out any more, except sometimes out to dinner.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:52 PM | Comments (2)

Category: socializin'

October 01, 2005

good times

no, really. i got seven whole, consecutive hours of sleep, did Stuff, then saw the 'Serenity' movie with s. and hip friends of her from work. the movie was great. i definitely want to see it again.

afterwards, my first trip to federal in some weeks. oh, how i missed thee federal. i'm going back on tuesday. i tried the ruben; i've never had one before. it didn't hold a candle to the sauerkraut-based sandwich i was developing at the long lost main st. cafe in downtown durham some years ago. this was back in my no-dead-animal-flesh days. it was: swiss, extremely thin, lengthwise slices of cucumber, mayo, and kraut. it was good. i probably got it on sourdough or rye. well, now i know what a ruben tastes like, sort of. i bet there are better rubens, though.

aaaanyway. like i said, good times.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)

Category: socializin'

September 29, 2005

A VERY HOT PLACE

Saturday, October 29th - Halloween party at the Charming English Cottage of Death.

Costumes optional. Zombies welcome. The music will be vastly improved over previous years. You might even want to dance to it.

You're invited. If I actually know you, you'll be getting an email. But even if you're a blurker, you're invited. Might want to let me know you're coming, though.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:46 AM | Comments (2)

Category: socializin'

August 25, 2005

loco-pool

it was beyond logical. it was inevitable. a styrofoam cooler, filled with loco-pops, floating in xta's pool.

i cursed the cool weather that made the pool less than completely habitable. me! curse cool weather!

nevertheless, now i feel very relaxed, the way i remember feeling after an afternoon swimming when i was a kid. kind of prune-ey in the fingertips, my hair kind of clumpy and damp.

i do honor the deliciously cool weather with the scent of cherries and cloves smeared on my wrists.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:23 PM | Comments (2)

Category: socializin'

July 10, 2005

grandma went to a rock show last night and boy does she feel old

yup yup yup. it was one of those "out of the woodwork" shows, wherein everyone comes out of the woodwork, and says, "hey, there's so and so."

and so, there was so and so. and him and her and that one. that was pretty fun.

upon reflection this morning, i realized that an old acquaintance of mine is totally annoying. he was too busy being mean to the cute guy i've seen all over friendster and nerve to introduce us. and he was really being mean, too! honestly.

after the always-entertaining wusses, i told pj that, although i enjoy this sort of thing, it makes me miss the days when i would go out to see totally fucked up shit. the kind of show where it was me and twelve guys and no one talked to each other because we were all a bunch of social misfits. the kind of show where i would have been ashamed to show up a nicely accessorized, flattering outfit. (no wonder i dressed the way i did back then.) and the music was really interesting.

and yeah, i know nightlight often has stuff like that. and i'm romanticizing the part about how everyone was a social misfit and no one talked to each other.

so anyway. it just made it clear that i need to go to more shows, things that are not already well-known to me. i have been lax in this regard.

:|:

i've been on a bit of a tvland kick lately. i started with the munsters, but although the theme song really cooks, and herman munster kind of looks like a half-dead version of my grandfather, really the addams family is entirely superior. the writing is actually funny, and morticia addams' fashion sense completely trumps that of lily munster.

green acres just makes me angry with its utter stupidity, but bewitched is ok on a sunday morning. except for all the God commercials.

:|:

BPAL snufflefest is tonight! yeaaaahhhh!

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Category: socializin'

May 10, 2005

it is so true

i have to go to work tomorrow.
i am sad.

i failed to get tires. i tried dammit! i tried in multiple places.
i failed to get sears to admit that my battery needs to be replaced.
i failed to get to goodwill with a load of stuff.

however, i was highly successful at buying 4 tops at the gap for $30 (even my most gap-experienced friend was impressed by this), and at actually eating at pizza palace. pizza palace was nearly derailed by loud live restaurant jazz, but we stuck it out.

i also successfully watched the final veronica mars episode.

i guess i am sleepy, too. sleepy and sad.

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Category: socializin'

January 23, 2005

weekend

friday night: party. people. lots. many bottles of wine brought. many bottles of booze consumed. photographic evidence courtesy of ms. pants.

saturday, l word marathon. party at rick!s.

sunday. chris hank of whig hill dispatch fame stands me a froufy coffee drink for my birthday. we discover startling similarities between the professions of history museum curator and user interface designer. later, dinner with the fam at five star, and decadent italian cream cake at home.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

December 21, 2004

i hold this truth to be self-evident to almost everyone but me

today i went to the char grill for lunch.

it was rather sparsely populated.

there was a woman waiting for her food. she was wearing this awesome winter-white coat that fit her slender yet gently curved body like a glove. all of her clothes and grooming were impeccable; her hair was jet back and neatly coiffed; her face was pretty and discreetly made up, as if by a professional. i spent a lot of time admiring her outfit.

she looked a little impatient. they called her number and her order. a grilled chicken sandwich. she had a conversation with the cashier about getting some condiment on the side. she walked away quickly, as if she was nervous that the folks back at the office would be mad at her for being gone so long.

me, i was dressed in about five sweaters and a slumpy brown coat. as always, i was waiting on a big ole charburger and fries. and i was in no hurry at all.

this inspired an IM conversation with jason that went approximately like this:

me: say you are with two girls.
j: i'm totally with two girls.
me: one of them is pretty in the face, nicely dressed and groomed, slim, and kind of anxious and uptight.
me: the other is a little plainer, dressed a little frumpier, and is totally relaxed.
me: which one do you pick?
(ok, maybe i didn't say pick.)
j: the second one. i'm so not into uptight.
me: see, i'm working this theory right now that being relaxed really helps you get laid.
j: well, duh. you didn't know that?
me: i didn't realize it until today. relaxed trumps a lot of things that women think are important, but aren't.

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

December 12, 2004

social anxiety

so i don't really know how people perceive my shyness level right now; i'm guessing the people who have known me longer may see me as more shy, in part because they've had more opportunity to see me have shyness moments or social anxiety freakouts, and in part because i probably was more shy in general when i met them. someone who has known me for about a month was telling me recently that he can't believe i was once "painfully shy"... but it's true. i was:

i remember once as a small child flying or taking the train somewhere with my mom. we couldn't get seats next to each other-- i had to sit across the aisle from her. it was all i could do to tolerate this situation. i think there were a lot of tears. i remember pressing myself against the side of the seat that was closest to her and furthest away from the strange man i was forced to sit next to. my poor mom... how she put up with this crap i don't know, and to be sure she lost patience and told me not to be so clingy plenty of times.

obviously, i'm a lot better now, but it still crops up, often unexpectedly.

today i went to a party thrown by some friends in the neighborhood. at one time we were pretty tight, i even went to their wedding which was a weekend event at the beach. i managed to have a huge social anxiety freakout during the wedding and left a little early. i tried to hide it as much as possible, but with all the emotions flying around (i always find weddings to be very intense) and the guests being comprised of almost nothing but couples, i was feeling very alone and very much the squarest of square pegs.

i also realized during that weekend that although i know a lot of the people that are in their social circle... i'm not really friends with any of them... and i didn't manage to change that during the weekend. i know for some people it would have been a great social opportunity and they would have come away with a dozen new friends. i'm not some people. i couldn't do it.

so today i went to this party and as soon as i walked in i knew it was gonna be kind of the same way. and there i was in my shell again. i left pretty early, feeling rude and bad about it. but why put myself through the torture?

i don't like this side of myself, in fact i am ashamed of it. i don't like that it's often unexpected and that i can't always defeat it. now admittedly, today i gave up without giving it much of a shot. when i really, really put my mind to it i can do a little better. but it can be a strain.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:58 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

December 03, 2004

this is a weird fence to be sitting on

ok so i read the nerve personals blogs a lot and a discussion of fuck buddies has broken out across a couple of the blogs and in the comments. it is definitely interesting to get a little insight into the minds of people when it comes to this kind of thing. i know people who can't imagine having casual sex, and indeed not all of them have had the luxury of being in relationships throughout most of their adult lives. a few of them figured out that it wasn't going to work for them and pretty much stuck with it through hell or high water.

now oddly most of my sex partners have been casual but in all honesty, i do not really think i am a casual sex person. but i would like to be. gosh it would make things a lot easier, you know?

but i realized that i was shocked when one guy said that he has been sleeping with his FWBs (that's Friend With Benefits for the uninitiated) since March. wow. there are actually two people in the world, somewhere (France, actually, though neither of them are French) who can pull something like that off for almost a year?

for a while last year i read this book of essays about Buffy and in one of them, discussing her brief relationship with yucky Parker (i can't tell you how many Parkers i have encountered in my life) the writer comments that Buffy has the classic problem that all girls with absentee fathers have, which is that they cannot tell the difference between sex and intimacy.

so i guess the people who can pull off casual sex for extended periods are people who can distinguish those two things... but is that entirely a good thing? can sex be any good without any intimacy? how clear are the gender lines on these things?

but here is what i come back to time and again, which is that i wonder, if i have been dating for twenty years and have spent only three of those in actual relationships, perhaps i am not what is called a "relationship person". perhaps if i were of the coupling inclanation i'd be coupled. but if i am not a couple person, i am kind of left with casual sex and no intimacy, right? and that doesn't seem right. i mean, something makes me misreable when i'm single.

aw jeez. anyway, i am curious to hear what all of y'all have to say on this one.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:16 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

November 13, 2004

damn.

man, i have been tired all day. tired.

also, i could swear there's a song lyric that contains the phrase, "endless cups of tea" but i can't place it and neither can google. squeeze maybe? something british surely.

i seriously tapped myself out this week. yet i am still missing out on things... hanging out with my new pal j. last night, also sharon jones at kings last night, shark qwest at ooh la tonight and while it looks as if i will make a brief appearance at the evil genius shindig occuring nearby, i think the key word there will be brief.

my hope for tomorrow is that i will have the energy to take in a matinee. possibly, i might clean up a week's worth of crap in the kitchen if i feel really energized. oh, and the starlite people are clamoring for an update to the site, which is only reasonable.

i did go out for a bit today, some reading at ooh la (coffee boy was not wearing his hat! a fact on which i felt the need to comment.) and got into a brief conversation about dionne warwick and walker texas ranger with coffee boy and a guy sitting at the coffee bar, drinking a pbr. that place is one weird scene and i love it. bought sox at target and a huge, heavy loaf of bread at great harvest, which i've not done in years. yum.

otherwise i have been one with the sofa, either napping or watching movies, including the original 'alfie' with michael caine. one of the good caine movies of the 60's, it's got a surprisingly frank section about abortion in it, and i can't say that it comes out clearly on the side of either pro-choice or pro-life. what do you know-- a gray area. a concept we don't understand in this country. i guess because then, it would be difficult to legislate every aspect of people's behavior and we'd just have to trust them to use their judgement.

ok, all of this typing has exhausted me and i have to rest up for my big evening out.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:23 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

November 11, 2004

that's better-ish...

so it turns out that getting drunk with jason and having an explicit, detailed sex conversation with sylvia in the studio while poor jason tried to do his radio show was apparently what i needed to lift my spirits. go figure.

of course, physically i feel like crap now, but emotionally, i feel slightly better.

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Category: socializin'

October 31, 2004

let me see if i can pencil you in....

"I cannot stress enough how much I don't have plans." -xander harris, buffy the vampire slayer, 'the wish'

ok, so except for a little trip to asheville next friday to see interpol, i'm what you might call "socially available" for the forseeable future. no deadlines, no obligations (aside from the usual thanksgiving stuff).

yippee!

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

a gentle gathering

the party came off nicely last night/this morning. it was never large, which was a bit of a relief. i always worry that a party seems lame when it's small, but i guess if the conversation is flowing, small is fine. and no one gets left out, in general.

at one point the conversations turned to politics and genentics which was more than i could handle, so i convinced joe to go hang out in the van with me. eventually, more people joined us and no talk of politics was allowed while in the van. it was a lot of fun! the van is a great place to hang out.

it is important to note that disgusting recipe cards are not what one wants to see when waking up the next morning, somewhat hung over. no creamed eggs over fried noodles, thank you very much.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:34 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

August 21, 2004

crazy hair makeover!

here are my pictures from christa's hair makeover.

it was exactly like a party, except that someone got a really great haircut. and nice color, too!

afterwards some of us went to the wine bar, and then we were all starving so we walked all the way to hectors for greek grilled cheese and tater tots. actually, i was the only one who had tater tots, and everyone was jealous. but i had more than i could eat so i shared my tots with everyone who wanted them.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

Category: socializin'

August 07, 2004

the past

i had fun tonight at chicks rock, talking with folks, meeting a few new xdu folks, talking for a little while with an old xdu folk who i encouraged to come back...

but then there was some sadness, i ran into an old friend from college, nikos, and he started catching me up on all the people that we used to know. a lot of stories of people having sad lives, going crazy, developing a lot of agoraphobia (was it all the drugs? do potheads become agoraphobic later in life?)

he talked about chuck, who is one of my favorite people ever, when the bookstore where they all worked closed chuck didn't have a job for two years, he just kind of didn't know how to cope. nikos says his show on wqfs is incredible though, of which i have no doubt, and i've been wishing they'd put in a damn web stream for years just so i can listen to chuck again.

he talked about george, my old housemate, a brilliant mathematician and musician who never leaves his house now, just lives off of money from renting a shack on his property, and does some programming but only stuff he can do without ever meeting or talking to other people. nikos said he once had to go into an office to discuss a database or something, and broke out in a cold sweat and had a panic attack. i assure you that this is not the george i knew back in school. jesus, he was amazing back then, like a force of nature.

he talked about carol, george's girlfriend back when george and i were housemates. carol's sister donna was one of my closest friends at guilford, although we lost touch. i remember carol as this amazing bright girl with perfect, smooth blonde hair down to her waist. she and donna were the brains of the family; i once stayed at their house in elizabeth, nj, and the conversation over dinner was astounding, with the two of them and their father pushing each other, constantly challenging, me and their younger sister darla shyly standing to the sides.

anyway, he told me that carol had died; she was married and living in new york, working as a russian interpreter, then got lymphoma and died. donna was devastated.

i'm not really sure how to get my head around that... i think tomorrow or sunday i'll try to find her picture in my yearbook. i don't feel like crying, but i feel like i want to feel like crying... i guess that's how i can best put this feeling. but mostly i feel like i can't quite get my head around that.

anyway, nikos' own story is also a little sad, his dad died of cancer a few months ago, so he moved to durham to be with his mom and help her out, and to help himself out because things weren't going well in greensboro. he plays in some bands, and music is definitely still a huge thing for him; i'm a little intimidated that he'll probably listen to my radio show, but i shouldn't be. hell, i should try to recruit him as a dj.

he says he goes to the yoga spot a lot and would actually like to be a yoga instructor. what can i say? we went to a hippie college. nikos as yoga instructor is surprising, but he's always been a really physical guy, now that i think about it, so it does make sense.

it's hard to get this big chunk of brutal, negative stuff about one's old friends, and i know it's partly that it's filtered through nikos' lens, which has never been a particularly rosy one; and the thing about carol, well, i'll be trying to wrap my head around that one for a while i think. i might think about trying to find donna again...

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:32 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

August 06, 2004

geargh.

it's dawning on me slowly this morning that i may not be physically up for going out tonight, which annoys me to no small end.

i've got some serious sleep deprivation going on-- that's the main problem. i'm also still feeling some ill effects from all the sugar i ate wednesday night.

i'm so hyped and obsessed with the westy right now that i'm basically wearing myself out just sitting here thinking about it. i anxiously await mark's call. and i realize that's something i'm doing to myself but can't seem to stop myself either.

i seriously considered staying home today but decided not to. not sure if i made the right call on that or not.

anyway.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:08 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

August 05, 2004

the much blogged party

you may have heard that georg had a party!

i ate cake. oh man did i eat cake! a huge towering piece of it. i made three passes at it over the course of the evening and still didn't finish. in the words of jeff, a professional baker, "In my professional opinion, this cake is really damn good!!"

lisa b. rockmeier pointed out that i am intimidating. i agreed with her. i missed the conversation about adorable clothes to be worn friday, but i did get to talk with christine, an xdu dj i'd never met before, so i'll chalk that up in the win column.

also, ray told me about this guy he knows who lives in a castle in rougemont at the top of red mountain and who only dates the tallest, skinniest, and most beautiful of women. the dude happened to be hanging out with a tall skinny long haired woman wearing tight jeans and tiny little strappy heels, at ooh la latte last night.

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Category: socializin'

July 22, 2004

Mark those calendars!

I'm having a Halloween party on Saturday, October 30th and you are all invited!

Last year I did bat around the idea of having a "come as your favorite Willow" theme. Now, as always, that would be optional... but if you're a Buffy fan, and would come to my party, why don't you weigh in on this idea?

In case you don't recall, this would mean coming as some version of Willow, like "frightened opera singer willow", or "evil vampire willow from an alternate universe". me, i was planning to come as "black willow who tried to end the world".. and of course, someone could also come as "white willow who saved the world".

lemme know what you think.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:55 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

June 27, 2004

introversion revenge

so after 2 weeks of being with people 24-7, it turns out i needed a little alone time. three days of it so far, and to be honest, i'm not looking forward to talking to much of anyone at work tomorrow either.

i've become so much more of an extrovert over the years that when i want time alone, i don't even know what the heck is wrong with me. it wasn't until about 8pm tonight that i realized that there's nothing at all wrong with me. i don't suddenly hate my friends, probably, nor doing the sort of things i used to like to do before two weeks ago.

anyway. see you when i see you.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

June 12, 2004

and now i realize i'm sleepy...

funny how a party can energize... i came home tonight ready to see what the video camera had brought me from the past... tapes found tonight from the first year in roswell, stuff i never put on the web and had not watched in years. i'm surprised at the quality of the footage. it's good stuff.

there's still one interview i can't find... i think i'm going to have to comb back through those tapes. thought i was done with the video but i guess not.

still much left to do but it was good to take a break tonight. i didn't drink; it seemed like a bad move nutritionally, but also sometimes i don't like the irresponsible stuff i do and say when i'm drinking, and i knew it would slow me down tomorrow which i can't afford.

talked to mr. pinky for a long time about cars. that was good. and talked with my old buddy captain saturn for a while as well. interesting to find a man who can talk intelligently about body image issues. he and i always wind up talking about food... not sure why that is.

Posted by spacegrrl at 02:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

May 07, 2004

lunch date

so, my first boyfriend jason wrote to me today, kind of out of the blue. he sent me that vw bus ball that's been making the rounds of the 'net the last couplea days. and then he asked if i wanted to have lunch.

now keep in mind-- i haven't seen him in close to 20 years, i guess. we've exchanged like four emails over the course of the last year.

anyway, i agreed. what the hell? should be interesting.

he promises not to be "too weird".

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Category: socializin'

April 30, 2004

happy night at the palais

so i went tonight to the palace with charo and tom for beer and pizza. sarah, georg and rob came in while we were eating and sat next to us. someone who i recognized as being from the station, though i didn't know him exactly, also came in and sat adjacent to us.

i started telling tom about roswell and the van and stuff, and the dude from xdu turned around and asked if we were talking about vw's. he said he had a '66 microbus out in the parking lot that i should go check out. turns out he is an xdu jock, he does a sunday morning twangy show that charo and tom like a lot.

it's nice to go somewhere and see people ya know and meet people ya don't already know.

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Category: socializin'

April 22, 2004

ooh la latte!

sarah and i met at ooh la latte this evening so a) we could check it out! b) i could give her my web cams for use during her big trip to the houston art car parade that's coming up soon and c) so she could do a live test of uploading cam pics over her new cellphone.

a) yay! it's great! ok, my iced latte wasn't the best i've ever had, but it was pleasant-- not like that wicked undrinkable mess from francescas. the guys who work there are very sweet, one of them even came over and talked to us about our laptops. it's comfy and the lighting is bright enough but not too bright, and the wireless internet is free and plentiful. we didn't have a power outlet near us (the yellow sofa next to the entrance to the untidy museum) but a woman at a sofa opposite us said she had one.

the structure in the front is definitely a stage-- there's monitors on it now. there's a free (?) rock show there tomorrow night. i'm a little worried about the sound-- there's a glass wall behind the band and the floor is plain concrete-- but the space is at least well populated with soft furniture and other objects. it's just so unbelievably great that this place exists.

b) the web cams worked right away and were looking great! there's a mechanical problem with them though-- the tiny pins that hold them onto their stands are tending to shear off. ollie fixed one during the caravan with epoxy and a small metal pin, but it doesn't always hold well. now both of the pins have sheared off of another cam. georg's very handy brother rob will be visiting before they leave for the parade; sarah may ask him to try and fix it. or i can attempt to reproduce ollie's fix once i get the cams back.

c) looks like her cell connection is working well! i really need to test mine with my new laptop. as i recall it was exceedingly simple on my ibook.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:03 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1)

Category: socializin'

April 10, 2004

getting out of the house!

sunday... pedicure with christa (which included a sojourn to blue coffee, and a trip to home depot to look at tile. of course! and then searching all over creation for a nail shop open on sundays... finally wound up at southpoint.)

monday.. hm, i could swear my evening was in some way occupied, but i just can't remember how. weird.

tuesday... radio show! that counts, cause i hang out with walt before my show, and i rarely see walt. also, not at home.

wednesday.. ok, i mostly stayed home, but i did yard work which gets it's own kind of gold star.

thursday... dinner at dalat w/ jason. failed to go to the ugly americans show, though.

friday... walking with phil, then loteria! ok, i have to admit that it was difficult to be social at the party, because i spent the intervening time working on the allpods site, and i seem to have slipped into the mode where i'm super-focused on the site which makes me an astoudingly boring conversationalist a lot of the time. unless you want to hear about the site, in which case i'm probably even more boring. i left the party kinda early and stayed up til 2 working on the site. which, btw, i am increasingly please with.

saturday... tiling with christa, and soon i'm going to the coffeehouse for the xdu show.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

April 05, 2004

ooh la latte

ooh la latte web site

official opening: sunday, april 18th.

the hours look good-- bright and early, 7:30am on weekdays, and open til 10 most nights, til midnight on friday and saturday. i hope they get enough business to keep those nice long hours!

nothing on the site about wireless internet. if they don't have it at opening, i am sure sarah and i will bug her about it until she adds it :)

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Category: socializin'

April 03, 2004

weekly report

just as i file weekly reports with my manager on the week's accomplishments, here i shall file a report on the week's getting-out-of-the-house-related accomplishments.

sunday, dinner and 'peking opera blues' with sarah and georg. i should really introduce myself to hank, the guy who runs screen/society. we corresponded a few years ago about the asian/american film fest that i was working on with sarah and christa, i think he'd remember me.

monday and tuesday.. i think i went on a fruitless shopping trip one of those evenings.

wednesday- the harder they come.
thursday- eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.

friday- charo called me and asked if i wanted to have dinner. a no-brainer! we went to dales, then for a drink at the tapas bar, which appears to be slowly dying. makes for a nice quit bar to talk in. we did run into a couple of people we knew. then we nabbed christa, met up with mary, and headed over to the monster road party. where i saw karen cirillo! i was so excited! she'd never seen my email-- apparently her old email address is so spammy that she doesn't really pay much attention to it. but she got a big laugh out of the story and seemed happy to see me, too. of course, she's staying on my block, with jim and joyce, but i probably would never have seen her had i not gone to that party.

saturday- went thrifting with sarah, then to lunch. we went to the untidy museum, where they are letting folks wander into ooh la latte even though it's not open yet. a sign says open in two weeks. and it's totally fabulous! sarah and i were dying, if they have wireless internet, i swear we're going to be there all the time. even if they don't! and it looks like there's something stage-like happening in the front... we can only hope... as we were walking out we were discussing where to go to lunch and a guy who was also walking out started helping us with suggestions. we finally decided on the q shack, which definitely hit the old spot. i'd never had the cobb salad there before, and it's great. a nice way to have salad but also have decadent bbq meat.

now i am hacking away at the allpods web site design, and debating whether i can take being out any more. i got invited to a party tonight, and karen will almost certainly be there... i'd really like to talk to her some more. so i should go.

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

Category: socializin'

April 02, 2004

i'll get bored with you, and feel trapped.

saw spotless mind tonight, found it stimulating. good. i am sure many women see themselves in clementine, i'm no exception.

also thinking about connecting with people. looking at the thread on christa's blog, what joe said about connecting with every person he speaks with. make eye contact, listen, don't talk at. i don't do this. i'm often conscious of not doing it. the eye contact thing. i find myself compelled to look away. i can't tolerate the gaze of some people. there are leading questions i think of asking, and don't. i'm terrified of where the conversation may lead. it might become too intimate. i might be exposed. i will relive the moment when a boy said to me, "i didn't know you were so serious about us", that tingling feeling that comes up my back, prickles my neck and makes me sweat and feel as if i am not attached to the ground. like when i called my dad to ask when i was going to see him and he said, no, not this summer.

thinking about outsiders and insiders. my father is the ultimate outsider. he wraps himself away from the world. he finds a wife, and they create a shell around them into which no one can penetrate. his second wife didn't want him to have contact with anyone else in the family. his third wife pulled him around her like a blanket and retreated deep into shyness the first time she came to grandma's house while i was there. when the priest said, "forsaking all others" at their wedding, that was the moment i couldn't tolerate.

i often choose to be with people who are outsiders. people who have few or no friends, little connection to the world of people. people with lots of friends, who seem to be facile with human relations, intimidate me. i feel like i'm out of their league, like we speak different languages. the ones i'm close to constantly have to answer my questions of, how does this work? this people thing?

and yet.. ultimately, i get bored if i spend all my time with people who are most comfortable in their own company. and if it's a boyfriend, like clemetine, i feel trapped, like the ruts and comfort-seeking habits make it into a Dead Thing, and when it's over i feel a huge sense of relief. like i can be myself again.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:24 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

March 28, 2004

getting out of the house

so my campaign to get out of the house has been going fairly well lately, and involved shopping, a play, and a movie. which doesn't sound very impressive when i list it all out-- maybe that explains my lingering feeling of restlessness tonight.

but i awoke saturday and immediately realized that i leave for roswell in just over two months, which means that it's serious crunch time. i don't want to skimp my way through doing the web site for the last time. how to lead a balanced life and still get everything done? how to work up the level of motivation and enthusiasm that i need for this project? i don't know. i really don't. it's spring, and i want nothing more than to be hanging out with my friends, making new ones, and chasing boys. but that's what i did last spring, and i feel that the site suffered.

the task at hand is a three column layout with header and footer, done all in standards-compliant code-- no tables for layout. i have to do the exact same thing for work this week, so that meshes nicely. but it's damned tricky, and i'm actually trying to work my way through relevant sections of the CSS2 spec. ugh.

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Category: socializin'

March 09, 2004

sneaking out

phil says:


"Sneaking out -- did you listen to the This American Life feature about the girl who made up a family that she "babysat" for, so she could get out of the house?"

i'm interested in other people's teenaged sneaking-out experiences. i did it constantly my junior and senior years in high school. sometimes i'd just go for long walks by myself, though usually i had some social agenda. my friend marsh lived in what was meant to be a separate apartment attached to his father's house, so it was very easy to go in and out of his room as we pleased. his father also seemed to be deaf or a heavy sleeper, because we could have a dozen people in that room and music at close to normal volume and he never seemed to notice.

so tell me about yours-- how often? why? were you ever caught?

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Category: socializin'

March 07, 2004

alone

there was a time in my life when i craved a lot of solitude. or at least, i got a lot of solitude, and i got something out of it sometimes that was very fulfilling. not always though. i was actually lonely a lot of the time, and craving human companionship. unfortunately, i wasn't very skilled at getting it.

living in town, not out in the woods, helps. living in the same place for a long time also helps. as the years go by, i accumulate more contacts and friends. i get a little better at conducting some kind of a social life.

still, i wind up with weekends like this, where i don't have a conversation for two days. it makes me jumpy and restless. i find myself stalking around the house with no purpose. stalking around the neighborhood for a while at least makes it possible to sit down for a minute and write something or do something focused, but a need unfulfilled has a way of coming to the forefront and getting in the way of other things.

when i had a boyfriend, i used him as a convenient cushion against unwanted solitude, but that had drawbacks. the first fine weekend after we broke up, i worked in the garden for hours, longer than i had probably in a year. i realized that i let him take up energy that i should have been using for other things-- that i let my life get out of balance. maybe that should have been a clue that things were not right with the two of us.

for some reason i look forward to nightfall. i feel more comfortable in the dark. last night i took a walk because there was a full moon that i wanted to look at, and some good clouds. stuff like that does make me miss the cabin because the buildings get in the way of the moon.

anyway.

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Category: socializin'

March 02, 2004

some people just like being married

clearly, i'm not one of them.

i have a friend named val who i know through volkswagen stuff. steph and i visited her in austin after roswell last year, because she wasn't able to make it to the car show and we wanted to see her. she'd just moved back home after divorcing her husband.

while we were visiting, of course we wound up discussing boys and girls and dating in general. val showed us the personal ad of one guy that she was interested in, but shy about contacting.

well, we kinda talked her into writing to him.

and now they're getting married.

i used to be quite judgemental of people who wanted to get married; perhaps as a result of my family history, i had a rather jaundiced view of marriage. it seemed at best unnecessary; at worst, a trap that kills the soul of the participants.

i've mellowed out a lot over the years on the subject. oddly, i think i got a lot out of watching 'mad about you', which is essentially the inspection of a marriage. it's fascinating to me that two deeply flawed people-- as all people are deeply flawed-- might choose to stay together, not because they cannot survive on their own, but because they simply wish to.

that's the modern face of marriage, of course. women can be completely independent for their entire adult lives if they so choose-- they don't need a man to support them. men don't need a servant at home to run the household. we have our urban families to keep us company. and yet, people continue to choose married life. and some people even thrive within it.

anyway, congratulations to val and her fiance. hopefully i'll get to meet him in june.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

February 24, 2004

i can still taste the garlic

since ray was at rehersal all night, christa asked mary charo and i to hang out with her on her birthday. charo couldn't make it, but mary and i happily stepped up to the plate.

we decided to go to the palais de pizza, seeing as it's christa's favorite place and all. i, too, am a huge fan though rarely get to enjoy a big, doughy calzone these days. birthdays are definitely times to make exceptions, however, so it was a couple of pitchers of beer between us and a big fat calzone for each of us, plus a very cute and friendly waiter.

oddly, the very person who introduced me to the pizza palace showed up while we were there; dave tilley, who is also the person who introduced me to wxdu. wonder if he is back to living in durham again.

afterward, we went back to christa's house to watch her favorite movie, joe vs. the volcano. i have seen it many times, as has christa, but mary and ray had never seen it. it's a sort of modern day fairy tale; at one point christa had to say, "suspension of disbelief people! come on!"

my favorite part is the trunks, both the part where he buys them and the role they play later in the movie. i guess i just love a good, useful gadget.

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Category: socializin'

February 21, 2004

it's fun to watch lisa buy meat products

(comment from mary as we shopped with christa at costco tonight.)

yes, i have seen (and helped select) the party food, and let me tell you... yum! not to give too much away, but there's everything from goldfish to little pastry thingies. and lollipops.

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Category: socializin'

February 17, 2004

can you hear me calling you?

arrived in my physical mailbox today:
power, corruption & lies
flashing echo: trojan in dub 1970 - 1980

arrived in my 01 mailbox today: a friendster invite from my old friend marsh, who is in fact the person who introduced me to new order. how very odd that i never owned a single new order record before today, and that he should contact me today. i probably had my first blissful listen to this very record in marsh's room at age 16 at some impossible volume.

as usual, i couldn't get logged into friendster, so i mailed marsh and asked if he'd like to join orkut.

i suck at maintaining long-distance friendships; marsh is a little better, he updates me whenever he has a kid so i get updates every couple of years. well i guess that will end eventually but maybe FOAF will fill in the gap. i wonder if i should be adventuresome, try to get some of the old, out of touch people to join up? well, why not?

which makes me think of jonathan, i spoke with him the other day; he thought he needed my help creating a logo for fixing radio a conference he and susan are running. he wanted it to look like the logo i did for the xdu site. i called him back too late to be of help but was quite interested to find out that the Seattle IMC, which is the original IMC, the source and beginning of it all during the WTC protests, has shut down all operations for a period of three months. he didn't have time to tell me the story but i will have to pry it out of him eventually.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

February 09, 2004

salad days

this weekend sarah and i made the odd discovery that we may have gone to pre-school together in delaware.

when i was 6 months old, we moved from DC to delaware; we lived there until i was in second grade, at which point we moved to NC.

although we lived in newark, i went to a montessori pre-school and kindergarden in wilmington-- which is where sarah grew up. she happened to mention to me this weekend that she also went to a montessori pre-school, and since we're the exact same age, it seems likely that we may have coincided.

she was able to pinpoint which school she went to. unfortunately, my mom couldn't remember any details about mine, but i think there's a class photo somewhere from that school. i'll have to try and dig it up the next time i'm at mom's house.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

Category: socializin'

February 08, 2004

paint queen

the paint queen of old north durham rides again... this time a few blocks down the street, she deigns to dip her toes into fancy ol' duke park to help out a friend. three rooms in two days, deep golden tan and even deeper cinnamon red. quite handsome. some of our best work to date.

also managed to work in a firefly sesh with sarah and shayne; the pilot wasn't that great (we see now why the network wouldn't air it first) but by the end of the second ep i was starting to get engaged with the characters. i never quite watched it when it first came along; and when the ex dismissed it as joss "doing existentialism" (whatever the hell that means) it didn't do much to make me want to make more of an effort at the time. the premise seems to be novel to some folks, but the melding of western and sci-fi actually seems less than novel to me. maybe i read enough sci-fi to know that it's been melded with every possible metaphor and genre ever1. and the dirty, dusty, backwater colony moon was only fresh when khan was living on it.

more eating/blood sugar stability frustration today; ate a decent breakfast, worked hard. felt hunger pangs at an appropriate time but by the time we sat down to our meal i was crashing hard, tired, queasy. no sugar, just one cup of tea. xa says it's just because i was working hard for two days. maybe so. i hope so. my yearly checkup should be soon; i will have to discuss the possiblity of type 2 diabetes with them i think. feeling, oddly, as if i must be sure to eat enough in one day. feeling highly addicted to strawberries, now prominently displayed at wellspring, i think due to some holiday or something.

saw master and commander with xa, ray, pinky and mr. pinky, whom i was friends with a long time ago, via the station-- we are reconnected now through the magic of blogs, which is nice.

russel crowe is very hot, particularly when he lets his hair down.

1 it should be noted that sarah has probably read at least as much sci-fi as i have, so maybe that doesn't hold water...

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Category: socializin'

February 07, 2004

quirkyalone

not so sure how i feel about this concept: quirkyalone

but it would certainly seem that i am one. i scored 99 on the little quiz (out of how many, i am not sure. 100?) and they rate me "very quirkyalone". the additional diagnostic signs basically describe me to a "T".

whatever.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:45 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

January 31, 2004

happy birthday, sarah!

last night i went to sarah's birthday party. it was quite lovely, i think just the right number of people, and all very nice and interesting to talk to. sarah seemed to have a really nice time. i didn't order her present until yesterday, so it will be a few days before i can give it to her, but i gave her some thumb monsters to tide her over :)

sylvia actually brought me a belated birthday gift as well-- a very nice diana ross record from her collection that she'd decided she was ready to part with. i'm starting to realize that sylvia probably has a treasure trove of amazing vintage stuff at her place, and i think she gets it all at thrift stores-- not places that cull the thrift stores and yard sales and then mark everything up, like the untidy museum and beggars and choosers. i mean, i love those places, but if i had the flexible schedule and salary of an academic rather than those of a programmer, i'd probably take the time to do the thrifting myself.

although, you know, thrifting (which i used to do a lot of) really seemed to result in me owning a lot of stuff that i couldn't quite use. like that orange floor lamp that's terrific-- but not terrific in my house.

anyway, i think sarah had a good birthday, and i'm really looking forward to giving her her present when it gets here-- i think she will really like it.

Posted by spacegrrl at 05:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

January 12, 2004

but my horoscope SAID it...

according to my em & lo horoscope.

"If you'd stop feeling sorry for yourself for, like, five minutes, you'd notice that your friend is trying to set you up with someone. Who knows if this will lead to yet another dating disaster, but at least then you'll have a new story to whine about. Because frankly, we're bored of your current sob story."

i'm pretty sure i haven't been whining, but if someone is trying to fix me up with someone, just go ahead and hit me over the head with it. you know i'm dense that way.

oh, what's that you say? horoscopes are bullshit?

ok, whatever. nevermind.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

January 04, 2004

night

oh man, it is such a beautiful night.

i'd be ashamed to admit even to my closest friends just how much telly i've watched during the holiday (i go back to work tomorrow for the first time since the 24th). but the gorgeousness coming through the living room window right now has made tv and all other forms of noise seem quite tacky and unnecessary.

i also saw 'lost in translation' again tonight, on impulse. it just seemed like the sort of night for it. and a good way to salvage my last day of freedom. i happened to see rick, up in the booth as i was walking in. it's nice when someone you know is the projectionist. like they're showing the movie just for you.

this holiday hasn't slipped through my fingers like others have. i've gotten a lot done, and i've spent a lot of satisfying time alone. (perhaps a little too much.)

last night we went to mary's birthday party. phone cam pics are up here. worth noting is the rather amusing cake, on which mary's name is spelled wrong. (but it was delicious cake, and everyone found it quite funny.) Mary was serenaded by her gothy friend whose name i should know, but don't.

it was distressing at times to be one of only two single people at this fairly well populated party, and i fucked myself up pretty well by drinking wine, eating cake, and not much else during the time between 6:30pm and 2am. i woke with a bizarre sort of hunger hangover, but nothing a liter of water and a good breakfast couldn't fix.

there was a guy there named steven who i used to know about eleven years ago. he dated one of my housemates for a few months, and i haven't seen him since. he actually moved away a year or so after that, and only recently moved back to the area. he's now married to one of mary's old college friends. it was interesting to catch him up on what's happened to those people since then, and to recall certain very specific memories i have of him, both of which actually involve me feeling embarassed. as is almost always the case, when i told him where i worked, he said he had a friend who works there too. however, it almost never happens that the friend works in my department (as his does). so that was odd.

i don't think i've ever seen christa and ray stay to be the last people at a party. i kept waiting to get the sign that they were ready to go, and it wasn't until well after all the other guests had left that ray came over to say they were ready. at some point scott had moved the coffee table out of the living room, and started with the dancing. when was the last time i've seen christa dance? jeez, i don't know. we all were. and ray and scott bonded over kiss, yelling the lyrics, waving fists, and air guitaring furiously.

it was nice, in a way, that in the end it was just us. me and ray and christa and scott and mary. well, scott's roommate sean and his girlfriend were there too but you know what i mean. like, just the core scoobies :)

(and btw, ray is so totally hooked on buffy now. i've told him to pace himself, though, since the season six dvd's won't be out til july. he's about to start season three. i think once he gets to four, sarah and i will want to watch 'hush' with him. and we'll definitely want to watch 'once more, with feeling' when that rolls around.)

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

December 07, 2003

unexpected mail

cute personals guy wrote back-- he says the system didn't notify him of my message so he only just saw it today.

pros: he's cute, and apparently has a cat named moses, too. how very odd. also listens to all the college radio stations.

cons: i think he might be a wiccan. he signed his message "merry meet", and referred me to a url which i think is going to be wiccan stuff. uuuggghhhh.

jeez, a wiccan.

Posted by spacegrrl at 05:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

another painful and satisfying evening at wheels family fun park

more painful than i thought, actually-- i really f'd up my left hand. i'm happy to discover that i can pretty much type.

well it was really killing me that i'd missed thursday and friday of the great cover up at kings; in particular, i regret missing kraftwerk and the smiths with viva as morrissey. so i decided to drag my introverted ass out-- alone, even-- all the way to raleigh to catch the saturday night show.

except that i got partway down the road and realized that i really wanted to hang out with friends, and wasn't sure if the people i wanted to see would be there. so i decided to go to the xdu/xyc skate party with christa and charlotte instead.

i didn't think i was in the mood to actually skate, but of course once i saw people out on the rink having fun, i had to grab some skates and get out there. the old knowlege came back pretty quickly and i made many rounds doing really well.

unfortunately, christa wiped out pretty badly and hurt one of her knees :( charo set her up with an ice pack and she patiently waited the rest of the night out.

and then i wiped out and landed on my ass and my hands. i actually didn't skate any more after that; guess all my bravado evaporated. i discovered afterward that all but one of the wheels on my left skate were not turning freely, which probably contributed to the fall. note to self: check all wheels before skating.

sadly, there wasn't much of an xdu turnout-- pretty much me, christa, julie humprey and jeff herrick. but the rink was crowded with xyc hip kids. the chicks were all wearing super tight new-looking jeans with deep cuffs. grunge has definitely been weeded out of the style vocab of the younger chapel hill hipsters i guess.

when the cat woke me up early this morning to be fed, my left hand was really hurting. specifically, the joint at the base of my thumb. it's difficult to grasp things. i'm a little worried that i won't be able to drive very well.

however, i feel that a peppermint mocha will definitely make my hand feel better, and i'll have to drive to go get it, so that'll be the test :)

pictures christa took

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Category: socializin'

November 27, 2003

documentation and food

today at thanksgiving dinner we somehow got onto the subject of strange things the men of the previous generation would document.

my grandfather kept documentation about squirrels he captured in his yard and released in other counties. he'd write the county name down on his calendar.

wayne's father would write down every time he mowed the grass, on a piece of old cardboard that wayne found in the shed years later.

we don't know why they wrote these things down, but it gives me some clue as to why i sometimes feel the need to document things. maybe it's just a compulsion that's passed down genetically.

so, in the spirit of documentation, i will now document the most thorough and yummy thanksgiving dinner that my family has enjoyed in many years.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

November 24, 2003

2 for 2

so i did write again to that personals guy that i'd written to before who didn't respond the first time.

it's been a few days; he's logged into the system. he's not going to respond.

the cute guy hasn't written back, but he also hasn't logged into the system, so there's still a ray of hope.

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

November 20, 2003

three beers for freedom

so a couple of co-workers and i went out for beers after work today. mostly because we're happy that we're not working for our old boss anymore.

that's pretty much all i've got that's fit to print here.

oh, and i wrote to that guy on the personals. we'll see. i'm working on another one, too, but it's difficult because i wrote to him once before and he didn't write back. i think it's worth a second try though.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

November 18, 2003

hmmm...

there's a guy on the personals that i'm considering writing to.

he's a computer geek, but that's not why.

he does list some music that i also like in his music stuff, but that's not why.

it's really just because i think he's cute. i mean, he seems nice and funny and all. we almost have stuff in common. enough that we could have a conversation. but my gut tells me that it's not really enough. (not that people aren't often surprising in that way.)

so.. i don't know. do i just come right out and say, hey, i think you're cute and that's a lot of why i'm writing?

or not write?

or attempt to cobble together some kind of note based on possibly having common interests or whatever?

advice from the field is definitely welcome on this one.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:14 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

the mystery that is dreadlocks boy

ok so people sometimes mystify me. boys, especially. dreadlocks boy in particular right now.

our endless email correspondence continues. i let it drop for a couple of weeks; frankly, it's a little boring. but i decided to get back to it last night.

as always, his reply is instant. in fact, it had arrived before i even rolled out of bed (admittedly, rather late).

and it's a nice banal reply. cars, i'm sorry you were sick, blah blah blah.

and then for some reason, he decides to tell me about a plumbing problem in his house. apparently, his upstairs bathtub is clogged so badly that plunging and draino just made it worse. and he'll have to wait for it to clear before he can snake it.

i mean, keep in mind, my relationship with this guy consists of one date and about four and a half months worth of email. i'm not his wife; i'm not his girlfriend. i'm not someone he hangs out with. we're not housemates. we're barely even friends. why do i want to hear about his clogged drain?

i guess it was just on his mind.

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Category: socializin'

November 17, 2003

van guy redux

turns out van guy never left town sunday; we met up at the broadcast show and a nice time was had by all.

it's good when the personals actually work out well, which isn't always the case.

i got a picture of his van. it's diesel!.

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Category: socializin'

November 16, 2003

van guy

i had spotted a guy on the personals recently who was traveling around the country, living in a diesel westy. on a whim last week i decided to write to him, though i didn't think much would come of it, given that he'd obviously be moving on soon and we didn't have much else in common besides an interest in diesel vw camper vans.

well it turned out that we actually did have stuff in common-- some music stuff, and some general lifestyle stuff-- in fact i think it kind of freaked him out a little. oh and it turns out he used to be a database programmer back in the early days of the web.

so anyway, last night i went to this art opening with georg and sarah, then we went to dinner. van guy wound up meeting us at the restaurant.

turned out the art opening was two doors down from the new location of the untidy museum , so we went down there for a bit after the show. i spotted this excellent twiggy-style cloche hat and got sarah to try it on ; it was so damn perfect for her. she says she's going to go back and get it.

so van guy showed up after we'd finished eating, but georg and sarah were good enough to stick around for a while, which was nice for me because meeting new people like that always makes me really nervous and anxious.

anyway, he and i stayed and talked for a long time after they left; in fact, we closed the place down, then went out to the van and talked til about 2am in the van, which is like a little studio apartment on wheels.

i'm going to get into some vw geek stuff here so just skip this next bit if that's not your thing :)

the van is an '82 diesel vanagon camper. he said that although vw claims to have imported diesel campers to the US in '83 and '84 as well, no one has ever seen one that isn't an '82. it's woefully underpowered-- they basically stuck the rabbit diesel engine into it. the engine is in the back, but of course being a diesel it needed a radiator which is in the front (i don't think there's such a thing as an aircooled diesel... anyone care to set me straight on that?).

in addition to being unique for being a diesel camper, it also has a little diesel powered heater which doesn't drain the battery (i assume), and he said that those are actually quite unusual.

the van as a whole is in excellent condition-- startlingly good condition, actually-- and he said he decided to not drive it over 55 since, well, a) most of the time he can't and b) it would kill the engine in a year or two most likely.

so i told him that if he ever sells it to let me know cause i would almost certainly buy it from him if it's still running :)

it was a great little place to hang out; there's a bench seat in the back that's like a little sofa; he'd put an mp3 cd player in as the stereo, which came with a remote, so he could play music without having to get up; the little diesel heater was actually quite effective, and he pulled a couple of beers out of the fridge (it's got a fridge, stove and sink).

stuff he added to it includes an extra battery under the front seat which charges off the engine, and runs the auxilliary stuff-- stove, lights, fridge, and a power inverter that he added so he can plug in his laptop and stuff.

anyway, it's too bad i didn't write to him sooner since he's at the end of his time in NC, but i guess it would just be frustrating anyway, since we seem to get along, and have stuff in common, and will probably never see each other again.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:44 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (1)

Category: socializin'

November 09, 2003

kill

saw 'kill bill' with georg and sarah last night. a lot of people die.

got home and christa had sent me a flash movie called "the meatrix" which is all about how horrible mass farming of animals for food is. because i was a vegetarian for a very long time, then about a year ago started eating meat again, things like this give me a serious case of angst.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

November 06, 2003

matrix

went and saw 'matrix revolutions' with a bunch of folks last night. it fucking rocked! ok, the first little bit was boring, talk talk talk plot plot plot "neo i LOOOVVVEEEE you" (trinity is so boring), but then the action started up and it was good from there on out. some good female warrior action to help make up for the boring helpless stand-by-her-man lameness that is trinity. way funner than the last one.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:54 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

November 02, 2003

and on the second day of halloween...

on saturday night, the 1st ("All souls day" as Ray informed us), i had some folks over to watch 'the nightmare before christmas'. i've always been a huge fan of this movie; i didn't know until quite recently that both Ray and Georg are fans of it as well. Sarah came as she is also fond of it, and Joe came-- turned out that he'd never seen it before. In fact, he said he'd never seen a Tim Burton movie before.

it was a nice time, i got to show off the new living room, and we ate gingerbread and pumpkin pie and drank cider.

today i am actually doing pretty much nothing. as i put it to jason recently, all of my time-dependent obligations are finished, until roswell.

of course, it being the fifth anniversary of roswell, and the last year for allpods, that's not going to be a small project. david is giving me a free booth on the vendor floor, we're going to team up with val to do some video stuff, and steph, bj and i are going to bring the trivia game to roswell since it was so popular at nbeast.

There's about a million other things that i *should* do today. but to hell with that. i'm doing nothin'.

Posted by spacegrrl at 04:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Category: socializin'

halloween

halloween is a big deal for me. christmas is nice, but i'm not a christian, and there was some stuff a while back that made it kind of suck for me for a while, so it's not the big deal it was for me when i was a kid. easter is kind of a joke to me; it amuses me to see christians participating wholeheartedly in a supposedly christian holiday that also includes bunnies and eggs, without questioning for a moment where these pagan fertility symbols fit into the resurrection of christ. I'm not particularly patriotic, so fourth of july doesn't do much for me. I'm not Jewish or Muslim or any other religion, so that eliminates a whole host of potential holidays. Thanksgiving is ok, but there's that whole decimation of Native Americans thing that kind of sticks in my craw and all.

So yeah. That pretty much leaves me with Halloween, which I adpoted as my official favorite holiday sometime in the mid 90's. Halloween is a holiday that I can make be however I want, and I don't have to politely tolerate other people's religious observances, I don't have to drive my grandmother anywhere, I can dress in all the black I want, and I can have ALL of my friends over for a big, fun party.

Except this year I didn't. I had taken on too much in the month before Halloween and I decided sometime in the beginning of October that it wasn't going to happen.

When the day came, I was kinda sad. Sad enough that I even started planning the party that I will have next year. It'll be on Saturday the 30th, and you're probably invited if you know about this blog. I'd like to get some outdoor elements happening, so I might finally research night blooming plants and the like. I have a whole year, so that definitely gives me time to plant a garden specifically for the party. seriously!

So on the night of, I made last-minute plans with sarah and georg. They brought over pulled chicken and brisket from the q shack (YUM!), i steamed up some green beans and drenched them in butter, and we fielded my trick-or-treaters until the candy ran out, at which point we went to a nearby block party and hung out at Joe's house for a while.

I finally had a chance to break out a couple of really choice vintage items that I've gotten in recent years; a black velvet half-cape that's in astounding condition except for the rather decrepit fur trim, and a black parasol that's in an advanced state of disrepair. paired with a long black skirt and pointy black shoes (fluevogs are the shoe of choice for halloween yet again!) it gave a nice victorian effect.

After Joe's place, we headed out to carrboro for a party thrown by someone we know from the radio station. it was truly the geekiest party i've ever been to. how geeky was it? well, there was a guy with a shirt that said, "There's no place like 127.0.0.1". how geeky am i? not only did i get it, i thought it was damned funny and complimented him on his shirt.

(for the non-geeky: 127.0.0.1 is the IP address for localhost-- ie, "home".)

Posted by spacegrrl at 04:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)