I downloaded and watched The Aristocrats this morning. I loved it, as I suspected I would, and it's always nice to be reminded that Emo Philips is still alive.

As though a testament to the joy of banality, I did a lot of erranding today including a Serramonte run. The scary thing is, I did it all in my car. All told, I drove about twenty miles. Never stalled once. Wouldn't want to try my luck on a freeway or out of town any farther than Daly City, but I think the damn thing's in better shape than I'd realized. It's probably even healthy enough to drive to work, but I'm not going to. (Honest.) The Pirate Cat Radio meeting tomorrow morning, on the other hand...

Though chilly, the trip home was quite lovely. Maybe it's just the sense of relief after all the rain, but the stars have been especially beautiful these past few nights. The best was New Year's Eve, the night after the new moon, a serendipitous break in the weather for all involved. Vash and I ventured outside the apartment to look at the stars as the acid was kicking in, and decided to continue on to the beach. People ask me if I visit the ocean a lot, living as close as I do, and I tell them that I only really go there if I have a visitor who wants to see it, or I'm on acid. Indeed, the morning after the first night she stayed over, Vash wanted to see it. Now we were fulfilling the other obligation.

My upstairs neighbors have recently acquired a dog named Bacon, a small black french bulldog that makes The Dark Room's dog Maggie look like a St. Bernard in comparison. They've been doing a lot of Bacon's housetraining in the entryway, training her to use what looks like the dog equivalent of a litterbox (french bulldogs are fairly catlike anyway) (this dog is catlike), and such a training session was occuring when Vash and I headed out. I'm fairly certain my neighbor didn't pick up on the fact that we were tripping, nor do I suspect she would have especially cared if she did. Certainly both of us have had more than enough experience with this sort of thing; I've been in public (or peoples' homes) while frying more than once, and I don't believe anyone's ever picked up on it.

Sometimes the timing is tricky, though. During that first month or so The Ex and I were together in the Summer of '90, before she broke up with me and when acid was a lot more readily available than it is now, I dropped at her house but didn't tell anyone. Her and I had never done it together (neither acid nor the other "it"), and I was expecting to be getting a lift home very shortly thereafter. I ended up staying for a couple hours longer, mostly just sitting in the kitchen with The Ex and her mother. I was surely tripping harder then than I would now, since I'd been doing it for barely a year and my brain wasn't as used to it as it is now. I probably didn't talk much, and if that struck either of them as weird, they didn't mention it, any more than they commented on how I seemed to be studying the wood grain pattern of the kitcken table more than usual. One of these days, though, I really need to track down that one Bonnie Raitt video that came on VH-1. Just to see what it looks like now.

4:22pm

If I'm ever able to leave the country (or, more importantly, can be certain that I'll get back in), I know where I'm going: Halberstadt, Germany to see and hear the John Cage Organ, which makes the twenty-four hour Beethoven drone seem rushed. In the meantime, there's still La Monte Young's Dream House in New York.

What I'd really like to hear is the John Cage Organ through the Silophone.

Below, I'm wearing fairly tight plaid pants which would be bondage pants if they actually had any hooks for straps or chains, which they don't. Above, I'm wearing a black shirt with the Lexington tank top underneath. I also have both my Rainbow Brite thermal undershirt and gray sweater for commuting, both of which are in my bag. When I have them all on plus my scarf and beret, the weird looks I'm constantly getting seem perfectly reasonable.

I am not so much stretchy as bulgy.

12:25pm

And sometimes I come across something just patently offensive. That frackin' tagline. Because, you know, they're black men in Harlem, so they're going to rob with you with something, right? Gah.

Super-busy month coming up, with both BAVC classes the Queer Open Mic on the second and fourth weekends, as well as Bad Movie Night, the Cotillion, and probably other things I'm not remembering.

8:36am

Most of the article is over my head, but the headline is reassuring: Judge Rules in Favor of Industry On 2257 Case. I think the gist is that secondary producers like us won't have to keep such exacting records of performers. Thankfully, my continued employment here no longer relies on it.

8:52am

Aw, man! The blacklight bulb on my desk is dead. Considering it's been burning for six to eight hours five days a week for the last nine months or so, it held up pretty well. I wonder if there's a head shop in SBC Park.

12:09pm

To Ali, wherever she may be:

my phone has tetris!!!

That is all.

3:06pm

The story Ron Howard told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show in 1992 went something like this: during the filming of a lush, mega-budgeted historical epic, Ron noticed that his grossly overpaid stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman kept giggling to each other between takes. Finally he went over and asked what the deal was, and Cruise said they were talking about the episode of Happy Days where Richie and Potsie dressed up like girls. Leno cracked up, of course, as did the studio audience. And why not? Even when it's a distant memory of a teevee show you haven't seen in years, if ever, the thought of a boy wearing a dress is still funny.

11:10pm

Oh. My. GOD. I think I've found the tastiest thing ever: raw brown or white mushrooms (especially the fancy-shmancy kind provided by my organic produce pusher Vash) dipped in Ginger Wasabi Slathering & Dipping Sauce by The Ginger People. It is sooo good, and has a nice mild bitchslap. I got the sauce on clearance at Other Avenues, and I get the distinct impression from their website that they're discontinuing the product. Get it while you can—though you may have difficulty finding it at Other Avenues, since someone did a bit of, um, hoarding earlier this evening...

Work of the variety I get paid for, that is. I've been working on piece for this year's TGSF Cotillion. I'll get all of three (3) minutes onstage, and I'm not listed amongst the performers in the promo materials. Good thing my piece is already going to be angry. The theme of the show is "Hooray for Hollywood," and the name of my piece is "Burn Hollywood Burn." Fuck shit up!