For Joe

I found out this morning that my old friend Joe died on Saturday morning. He was 35, and I've known him since 1990, when I was a freshman at Wesleyan. One of the funniest people I've ever known, Joe was the inventor of "tie dancing", which he performed with utter perfection at every Wesleyan date event from 1990 until 1994. He also drove a car that had the most, um, interesting interior I've ever seen. And by interesting interior,I mean that on any given day, in the backseat was a couple or three half empty Dominoes pizza boxes (he worked as a pizza guy all through school), some Co-cola cans (half empty as well), and often dirty underwear and socks. His girlfriend at the time (still my best friend) would often refuse to ride in the Escort, preferring my truck or her Mitsubishi to The Rolling Trashcan.

Joe's idea of a joke was wearing a Green Bay Packers hat backwards. We're still not really sure what it meant, but was exceedingly funny at the time. I called him Toe Sucker and he called me his little Toe Ho. I think I still have emails in my inbox that contain nothing but the text "Did you get a pedicure this week?"

Good bye my little Toe Sucker. You will be missed.

I've got me a fearless heart..

...strong enough to get you through the scary part. Back in the 80's, Steve Earle wrote those words and my Daddy sung them to me. That's what I want. A fearless heart. Strong enough to get someone else through the terrifying part...maybe one day I'll get there.

Three day weekend!

Unexpectedly, I've found myself with a three day weekend. If you know my schedule, that almost never happens. So here I am on a Saturday morning, wandering around the hobbit hole, fretting over how to spend my time. Most of my comrades are working all weekend, so I have a short list of partners in crime to choose from. I considered going to visit my mom, but just couldn't quite bring myself to haul my ass all the way over to Alabama, not to mention the fact that it's still fairly hot down there, making tattoos a little more difficult to hide. T-baby and I have been talking about getting together, so we're gonna check in with each other later in the day and see how each other is feeling. She's had a hell of a week, what with being sued by a crazy-insane ex-employer and all, and I think it's taken a toll on her energy and sanity. So there's a chance I may drive down to Macon later on and hang with her for bit.

Drive Invasion is this weekend here in the Dirty Dirty, and is always more fun than you can shake a twelve pack of PBR at, but damn! It's gotten expensive! $25 a day! But the movie selection is stellar as always, as are the bands. Plus the Starlite Drive in is definitely a must do destination for the new ride.

Looking around the hobbit hole here, I'm realizing that it resembles the aftermath of an atomic dirty laundry bomb, complete with little urban tumbleweeds made of Lulu cat hair lazily blowing in the breeze. I'm also realizing that I have ZERO inclination for cleaning.

I also need to figure out what I'm going to do with Ding Ding Here Comes the Shit Mobile. The whole point of a new car was so that I could get rid of the 1993 Mitsucrappi that I've been driving for 10 years now. That thing made a new and exciting sound every day. And I don't mean in a good way. I suppose I could sell it to some poor, unsuspecting soul, but I think my karma would seriously suffer. And I really can't have that. I think I'll spend some time today researching donating it to Cars for Kids or something like that. I don't think it would even garner me $500 in scrap. Any ideas? If any of you guys have ever donated your old car to a charity, how did it go? How does it work?

Also Dragon*Con is here this weekend. I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but spending Labor Day weekend with a bunch of folks who think that dressing up like Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and Captain Sulu is EVER a good idea just doesn't seem all that appealing to me. I'm skipping the parade because I'm fairly sure that witnessing 50 Wonder Women strolling down Peachtree just may do something unsavory for my psyche.

I'll leave you guys with that little mental image.

Where have I been?

I know, I know...I've been absent for about a minute. I still need to get up some posts about Turkey, and I will, but I've sorta been busy just living life and letting it get stupid complicated on me.

Just damn if dudes can't make a grrl crazy. Up until about 48 hours ago, I was fairly content, loving the fact that "mundane" and "ordinary" were adjectives I could use to describe how I lived. Then I had to go and just complicate things, but really only in my head. Things were rocking along just fine, then a little comment like "I don't really miss people when I'm away" had to jump up in my tiny pea brain and back me into a corner where I start second guessing everything. Overnight, I've turned into one of those stupid chicks who sits around and asks herself "What did he mean by that?" Well Holly, he probably meant what he said. I'm just kind of sucking tonight.

Did I mention that I am SOOO ready for a road trip? Perhaps that's because I just bought a brand new Charger, complete with a v8, 5.7l Hemi engine. So on top of all the weirdness, I'm kinda feeling like an awesome badass. Yes, I will be taking it to Drive Invasion over the weekend. We won't even begin to discuss the the gas mileage on the car. I just call it the visible evidence that supports the idea that I make bad decisions.

Okay, gotta go. M.A.S.H. reruns are on.

Keep it 'tween the ditches, y'all.
H

Three Flights in 36 Hours! Let's do that!

After 3 flights in 36 hours (one on what should have been called Borat Air), I'm home! We landed around 2.30 on Saturday morning, exhausted, filthy, and just plain stressed out. I'm fairly sure that within those 36 hours, I went thought some sort of security checkpoint at least 12 times. Let me say, the Turks got this airport security thing down. To tell the truth, I never found it inconvenient or annoying like the TSA in the States, but instead, oddly comforting. They don't seem to be afraid to profile and have no interest in annoying people who are OBVIOUSLY harmless tourists armed with nothing more than excessive photos and a deadly amount of Turkish Delight packed away in their checked luggage.

I had every intention of updating the blog while away, but getting to a working computer with actual REAL internet service was much more difficult that I imagined, and when I DID find one, it was fairly cost prohibitive. About 4 dollars for 15 minutes. I just can't have that sort of thing, seeing as I needed all my spare lira for trinkets such as blue evil eyes, genuine fake watched and that sort of junk. I even toted home a bottle of Raki.

Turkey is an interesting country. For now, I'll leave it at that. I'm not saying we didn't have a good time, we most certainly did. But the unfamiliarity of the culture is way too complicated to even begin to explain right now. I have forty-eleven million pictures that I will upload to Shutterfly at some point, probably some today.

For now, I'm going to enjoy watching uncensored CNN, coffee with chicory, and real, genuine toilets.

Updates later.

I'm packing..

..well, finishing packing. I'm sort of frantic. I'll be okay.

Who's the world's biggest asshole..

..that would be me! In absence of a musical director, considering that I'm the mixing "sound designer"...that means that when things are askew with the orchestra/band, I'm the one giving the notes. It all was nothing but a hot mess for the past two nights. Seriously...you can't play the Danny Elfman "Simspsons" theme at the finish of the very defining ballad...really? Now I'm the bad guy since there was a "coming to jesus" moment at my behest..and everyone knew it was at the mixer's request...

sigh...I just don't need this shit as I am currently trying to teach someone else the show since I'll be leaving for Turkey after the Thursday night show...

Kisses,
H