The Wrens

This is getting absurd, really. Moving on...

Thursday, 8/22 brought the first concert in months about which I was truly excited.

I don't think I had heard of the Wrens until Pitchfork gave them a glowing review in fall of 2003. I was on one of my nightly phone calls with Rachal when Bryan let me know that he had downloaded the album and was passing it along to me. I slipped it on, not even quite half listening while I was enjoying my phone time, but out of the corner of my ear, I heard bits and pieces and thought, "This sounds really good."

Skip ahead about two months. The weekend after Thanksgiving. Rachal had broken up with me less than a month before. I had gone with my family to New Orleans (the last time I was there, incidentally) to celebrate our family's friend Ted's birthday. Although there was no conceivable situation in which Rachal wouldn't have been on my mind at that point, it was worse than usual as our travels to New Orleans took us over the same route I traversed to visit Racha,l and through her hometown of Lake Charles—combined with the fact that this was a trip I had originally planned to take with her.

That should tell you my mental state at that point. I was in New Orleans for the first time since I had reached legal drinking age, I was aboslutely miserable, and I was flipping through CDs in the Virgin Megastore in the French Quarter, looking for something to purchase, when I came across The Meadowlands. It was the only thing I saw that I wanted to buy, so I picked it up. When I was back at Sue and Ted's later that evening, in the little loft that was my quarteres, I opened it up and took out the lyrics sheet and began to read.

It brought me as close to tears as I ever was during that part of my life. Here were four middle-aged men, lamenting their various failures professional and personal—but chiefly romantic. That was what hit me, then; in particular, two songs about being used and cast aside and resolving to move on: "Happy" and "Hopeless" which, taken together, progress from depression and despair to anger to stoic bitterness. The fit was almost perfect. Those two songs meant a lot to me over the next few months.

I had to wait almost two years to get to see the band live, during which time Thomas caught them in New York and Bryan caught them in Ohio, both giving their live show glowing reviews. Everything I had read commented on how these middle-aged, beaten-down guys with soul-killing day jobs came on stage and funnelled impossible amounts of energy into their music.

So on Thursday at Mary Jane's, there I was, finally, watching them (they hadn't made it to Houston previously), hearing one of the singers scream out the most vitriolic parts of my two favorite songs, and me yelling along with him. It was cathartic. It reminded me how far I'd come. Emotional connections aside, it was a great show—with the exception of the two gigantic men in front of me (one 6'7"; the other 6'4" or so) who were hard to see around. The boys in the Wrens passed out drum sticks to various memebers of the audience so that they could play auxillary percussion on the edge of the stage. They jumped around. The screamed. They played really, really loud.

As I expected, it was one of the best shows I'd seen in some time. I enthusiastically bought up the rest of their back catalog, sold on CD-R, as label politics resulted in them not owning the rights to those particular albums. It looks like they'll be rereleased after they push out their next album, but, hey, these will be collector's items, right?

Cecil's (last week)

Monday brought another night at Cecil's.

Once again, I had the best of intentions about getting the Jessica thing taken care of; once again I was stymied. Jess, being a native, knows a lot of people, with whom I seem to end up competing for her attention. But I did get to spend some time with her. The time, however, was just never right.

I love dollar night at Cecil's; I really do. But they need some competition. The place is getting just too fucking crowded. As I got drunker, I got more annoyed. In particular, one guy came over to talk to Kristin, Jess and I (possibly to hit on Jessica with the tired "don't I know you?" line). When he found out what I did, he tried to get me involved in a conversation about neuroscience and drugs that I, at that point in the evening, had no patience for. Kristin, willingly or not, got sucked in and took over for me, thankfully. Jess and I would later commiserate about exactly how annoying that man was.

Dan and Kristin took off (but ended up in the gravitational pull of Beba's across the street for some food). I stuck around, trying to work up the will power to ask Jess out, but then all of the sudden it was closing time, and everybody was being swept inside, and, having stayed much later than I should have (though in the name of a good cause) I was ready to leave. I said my goodbyes, made my exit (stopping briefly to say bye to Dan and Kristin across the street) and went home.

Everything ends

Dan requested my help putting together some IKEA furniture on Sunday (meaning Sunday a week ago—I'm still behind here), which is something that I find sort of fun in an odd way—maybe it's the sense of accomplishment that comes so easily. Kristin and I picked up some stuff from Whole Foods to eat while we watched the finale of HBO's "Six Feet Under".

Win and Thomas got me started on Six Feet Under shortly before I left Waco, watching selections from the first season on DVD. I picked it back up a few months later, after I had settled here, and then downloaded the next two seasons and consumed them voraciously. The following summer, I had to mooch HBO, first from Lisa and later from Dan and Kristin, in order to catch season four. Season five has continued like that, with me invading Dan and Kristin's home on a semi-weekly basis and resorting to Bit Torrent to fill in the gaps.

Nothing ever quite lived up to the first season. The characters were more believable, and the show was funnier. As the tragedies and neuroses built while the later seasons proceeded, the characters were harder to believe and relate to, and the humor seemed to be lost from the situations. It wasn't exactly bad, but the moments of brilliance were fewer and farther between. They were still there, though, and I cared enough about the characters to see it through to the end.

So then, there we were for the last episode. Jessica and Dacia joined the three of us. Two episodes earlier, a major character died, and everybody's lives had fallen apart. In the last episode, we see them start to pick up the pieces, and then we get to flip to the back of the book to read their endings—pieces mostly picked up and glued back together, lives full, but, ultimately, over, and we bear witness to those endings. The last ten or so minutes were very touching (at least the first time through) and both that sequence and the entire episode were an apropriate—if not adventurous and surprising—way to end the episode.

We were all a bit choked up at the end (some more than others), though I'm sure that wine and beer exacerbated that a bit. I accompanied everybody while they took a smoke break, and then we all hung out for a while. We talked about family (particularly crazy family). I trotted out what black sheep (relatively speaking) I had to offer. "That guy was your cousin?" Jessica said referring to Cousin Jer. Yep. "Why did you even invite him?" Hindsight, baby. Hindsight.

Anyway, a nice evening of sharing a cultural event (relatively speaking) and good conversation with friends. I was thinking maybe I could get the Jessica thing taken care of, maybe when we both walked out, but I couldn't get her alone. Can't win them all...

Matt Tuesday, the recovery

So yeah. I haven't been that good about the whole posting thing lately. Given the choice of blogging about going out or actually going out, well, there's no real choice there. And considering that the evenings are prime blogging time, and prime going out time, the issue has come up often.

So anyway. Monday and Tuesday, post-Matt Tuesday, were spent recovering—well spent, at that. Wednesday, Dan was DJing at Clark's again, and I headed up there, Jeff in tow (or vice versa, as he was driving). I relished the $2 Lone Stars, the good company, the good music, and the chance to chat with Jessica more. I had hoped to finally get around to asking her out, but as I'm apparently still a very insecure son of a bitch, and there were plenty of others around, I didn't get around to it. And just to make sure to not keep you in suspense, I still haven't. Because I'm still, apparently, an insecure son of a bitch.

We'll skip ahead to Friday. I went with Will and crew to see The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and despite my lack of true enthusiasm for the film (though I was encouraged by positive reviews), and our horrible floor-level seats, I found it plenty o' enjoyable. I can definitely recommend it if you're seeking stupid but sweet fun. Maybe one day I can be a forty-year-old virgin...

Dan and Kristin were headed up to Super Happy Fun Land, way the hell up on the north side of the loop, to see Head of Femur play their hyper prog (cf. the Fiery Furnaces; Architecture in Helsinki). The band was enjoyable, though the set was short. The venue was a very nice change of pace. It's sort of an artists' commune/performance space, housed in what used to be a church, with the feel of a community center and the aging furniture of a youth group room. Plus, it was BYOB. Next time there's a show there, I'm totally bringing a cooler. And a flask (more on that later).

Afterwards we went to Poison Girl and found Dacia and Jessica there. The girls ended up keeping to themselves for most of the evening, so Dan and I had a nice, semi-drunken chat. And, once again, mission not accomplished. There were goldfish, though. God bless those wonderful little crackers and the bar that's willing to give me them while I'm dropping bills on $2 Lone Stars.

I'll wrap this one up for now. Up next: Six Feet Under, the finale; another night at Cecil's; the Wrens; a glimpse into Sabrina's new world; more of DJ Jazzy Dan; Sunday at Cecil's with hurricane refugees, and whatever the hell goes on tonight. Perhaps next entry I'll get caught up, so I can, you know, chill out for a while and get behind again.

Matt Tuesday, day 3

I was seriously not doing well come Sunday morning. Frankly, I blame Bryan for not remembering to make me take my B complex vitamin the way Sabrina told him to. And Shawn for giving me Jager.

After vomiting again in the shower, I dealt as best I could for the family celebration of Matt Tuesday at the Torrance household, but my appetite was poor. Still, it was great to be surrounded by friends and family. The cake was good, too.

After a somewhat complicated round of getting people to their respective cars, and getting Bryan on the road, Becca and I hit up the Galleria in search of a new pair of tennis shoes for me. I wanted something like my Pumas, but to change brands to keep things fresh. But in the end, all I liked were the Pumas, so I bought pair number 2 (albeit in a different color). They came from Nordstrom's, which was kind of fun.

Once I got Becca on the road, I headed over to Sabrina's to get laundry taken care of. We watched Nip/Tuck and had Whataburger. I left, fully intending to grab a birthday beer, called Dan and Kristin, got turned down, and took it as a sign. I picked up Bryan's delinquent credit card from Poison girl, and called it a night.

Holly called to wish me a happy birthday, and didn't say anything about her sins of the previous night (though I'm pretty sure I had at least lodged one complaint about her choice of company). Considering she was almost in Indiana, though, I saw no point in making a big deal of it and promptly let it go. She's gone, she missed out, and it's over for good.

Matt Tuesday 2K5, as well, was officially over (though the spirit and hopefully some of the free alcohol that people didn't have the opportunity to buy me, still linger). Here's to the best birthday ever. Two years ago, for my birthday, I woke up with a girl I was totally in love with in my arms; this year I was surrounded by dozens of my closest friends. If I only got to keep one experience, the choice would be obvious. Here's to my life in Houston and the wonderful people I've managed to surround myself with.

Matt Tuesday, day 2

Bryan and I arose around 11:00. Sleeping later would have been nice, but we heeded the call of Niko Niko's. We met the XanderNeffs and Rebecca for some hot, hot Greek action, including Rebbeca and my partaking in the best baklava I think I've ever had (sorry Bryan).

Satisfied, we left and headed for the western edge of Houston so that Rebecca could go explore the Great Indoors. I gave up before checking out the entirety of the vast, cavernous store. Toward the end of our shopping experience, dad called to inform me that we due for an unexpected dinner at Susan and Jerry's within the space of an hour, so we made a quick exit, got Bryan, Shawn and Sabrina set up with the necessary food for my party, and Rebecca and I took off for the suburban wilds of northwest Houston.

When we returned, Cousin Jer in tow, we made a brief stop off at Ward's Palace of Love before heading off to the Main Event. Once I had accomplished (roughly speaking) the feat of parallel parking, we entered Poison Girl. Dan and Kristin had done an excellent job of marking our territory, and the balloons, candles, and other gilding combined to make me feel very loved. We set up the food spread, Jer bought me the first beer of the evening, Bryan, Sabrina, Shawn, and Becca arrived, and festivities were eventually underway.

Neuroscience David showed up first, along with Cindy, whom I had previously met at Dave's birthday party but hadn't really spoken to until the Binz party the previous weekend when she mentioned something about having seen me at shows, so I had instructed Dave to bring her along—it's always good to have more concert-going friends. They had other plans and didn't stick around long, but they made an impression by buying me a four horsemen shot, which was the first of many mistakes that evening.

SCBMB Matt showed up, which surprised me a bit. He ended up staying for at least a couple of hours, which surprised me even more. I hope he had fun. I couldn't tell if he was bored out of his mind, or happy to be out for a change.

Lauren and Chris arrived, and despite Lauren looking particularly nice, I'm pretty much past this one.

People kept shoving beers in front of me.

Brian (of the troika) showed up. As usual, people were shocked to later learn that he's not gay.

Jeff and Jim came bearing kick ass presents (theirs, and the presents of others, deserve a sepparate entry). Jim dressed me up in glowing plastic tubing; I was a rave of one for a while before I passed them around to share the love. Worlds continued to collide; Sabrina loved Jim; Becca loved Jeff & Jim. Jim brought me a gin and tonic.

Shawn brought me a shot of Jager. Asshole.

Somewhere in there, Melissa and Persistent Sarah showed up, along with a couple of first-years that they had rescued from the graduate school happy hour. Melissa bought me a vodka gimlet. Sarah later dropped a lemon drop off at my table, and was on surprisngly good behavior for the evening (contrasted with, say, the previous weekend).

While Melissa, Sabrina, Bryan and I were at the bar, we looked outside and saw an ambulence parked across the street. Jokes were made about how my birthday necessitated that an ambulance be present. Funny, that. More on that later.

Will's friends Shannon and Matt showed up briefly and wondered aloud where will might be. More on that later. Matt later told me that his roommate, of whom I have no knowledge, had told him that "it's some guy named Matt's birthday up at Poison Girl tonight."

The recently-engaged Graham and Kennedy showed up at some point, and I sent them to check on SCBMB Matt.

Stephanie came, too, a couple of her labmates in tow. She then spent more time in a bar than I think I've ever seen her spend. Sabrina officially confirmed her retroactive disapproval.

There was a small (five or so) bachelorette party there. Of course, Cousin Jer could not ignore such a target. I happened to be nearby when he introduced himself to the bride-to-be, whom he then introduced to me. She was wearing a veil which incorporated devil horns and condoms. "Are you wearing underwear?" she said. Yes. "Can I see them?" Good thing I had saved the sexy boxers for that night... She also had a plastic whistle hanging from her neck which was in the shape of a small penis. She took it out, blew it, started to put it back in her cleavage, mumbled something about lube, stopped, spit on it, and then put it back in her cleavage. You can't make this shit up...

Speaking of cousin Jer, Kristin later related to me how he tried to hit on some girl, only to have her walk away and yell after her, "Go back on weight watchers, bitch!" Apparently Jessica heard it to, and when it came up at a later date, I got the standard "That's your cousin?" response. He and Bailey also apparently met some girl who was wearing a periodic table t-shirt, and got her number, which he later used to text her the message (cleverly thought up by Bailey) "I'd like to Zn my Pb in you", which, roughly translated, says "I'd like to zinc my lead in you." Bryan unsuccessfully lobbied for a ;-) to punctuate it.

Dan had originally encouraged me to ask Jessica out "before I got too drunk", but by the time she got there, I was afraid that the opportunity to do so under the prescribed conditions had already passed. So, recognizing my lack of judgement, I asked Dan. "Abort, abort!" Good advice, Dan. I may or may not have said something to Dacia about her later in the evening (I seem to remember Dan saying afterwards that I had done something stupid), but if it made it back to Jess, she hasn't really shown it. Anyway, we talked some, and she bought me a beer (a shot too? probably not, but not sure) and I made an effort to get Sabrina to talk me up, but 'Brina didn't make it past the small talk, as Jess apparently didn't realize that the conversation was for her benefit. I apologized to Dacie for not having any lesbians around for her to play with. Not that I had any to offer at all, since Courtney's taken these days, but damn, Court, you missed out on this one.

I was still sitting next to Jess when Holly bounded up, kissed me on the lips, and then sat down on my lap. I was drunk and didn't really consider the ramifications of that, but I hadn't seen her in months and was happy to... until I realize that she brought that fucker, Unknown Quantity #1 with her. Christ, woman. That's just in poor taste. Bitch.

Oliver took a break from working on his qualifying exam paper to come by and shoved a whiskey on the rocks in front of me.

I have a reasonably firm but still quite hazy memory of being sung "Happy Birthday" (did somebody pay the appropriate royalties?) at midnight. Apparently later a group of people whom I didn't know did the same thing, which I had completely forgotten until somebody mentioned it, and still only have the vaguest remembrance of.

Apparently I started hiccupping at some point, which happens when I've had too much to drink. That was another thing I managed to almost completely forget, but lots of others apparently remember it...

So it got closer to closing time. I went into the bathroom once intending to vomit but was unsuccessful. We stepped outside briefly and Bryan and Cousin Jer apparently proposed that we make our exit. Once again, I yield to the judgement of others. Since by that point I was completely fucked up, I left it up to them whether I should say a goodbye to Jessica, or if I was drunk and would make a fool of myself (they seemed to think I was concerned about throwing up on her, but that's not the way I remember it). Apparently, the answer should have been completely obvious to me, so I said my goodbyes and we took off.

I claimed the front seat on the way back, hoping to minimize nausea, but to no avail. I had the window down almost the entire ride home, and we made it to Brompton before I completely lost it out the side of my car window. John, upon later hearing the story, seemed to think I was driving at the time. Which would make for a funnier story, but no, thankfully.

After pouring a pitcher of water down the side of the car, I got ready to collapse in bed, only to have my phone ring. It was William. "What the fuck happened to you?" I asked. "I got hit by a car." "Oh. Well, can't blame you for that." I didn't get the full story until the next day, but apparently somebody had yelled something at him as he was jaywalking across Westheimer and he got clocked by somebody driving a good 35 miles per hour. Apparently Will's a tough motherfucker, because despite breaking a side mirror and cracking the girl's windshield, he more or less walked away from it, but went to the hospital to be on the safe side. Some asshole off-duty cop gave him a ticket for causing an accident. Fucker. Anyway, apparently my party was, in fact, so great that we did need an ambulance.

And yes, it was great. Great people, great turnout. I would have liked for a few more BCM people to have showed up, and I would have liked to have paced myself better on the drinking, but I recognize that was probably a lost cause. I think everybody had a great time, and Dan and Kristin did a kick ass job putting things together.

Best Birthday Ever. I'm pretty sure.

Official final estimate: 15 drinks, plus or minus 2. The flexibility is all in the Shiners.

So that's most of what I can remember (may add more later if it pops into my head). Pictures are available on 'Brina's blog, but if I can ever get them from her, I'll put them up over on the ol' homepage, too.

Matt Tuesday, day 1

Just like Sabrina's penchant for story telling, her dubbing of my multi-day birthday celebration as "Matt Tuesday" blithely neglects the truth (my birthday celebrations only occasionally encompass Tuesday) in favor of humor (the clever rhyme with "Fat Tuesday" and the consequent evocation of a multi-day festival of debauchery).

So Matt Tuesday continued to approach. I met Dan and Kristin on Wednesday night at Poison Girl to finalize plans—make sure Dan had everything set with the owner, establish who was bringing what and when, and so forth.

The Jessica/Brian/Dacia troika showed up, much to my pleasure. D&K took off for a show at Clark's (home of DJ Jazzy Dan), but I stuck around for obvious reasons. Things went well, I think. I worked on being less self-conscious and more charming, clever, and outgoing, and I think things went better.

Of course, I stayed later than I should. But I think that was justifiable.

I cleaned Thursday night. Bryan, that's how much I love you.

Friday. Friday was a fiasco. First of all, I probably spent a couple of hours, total, talking Stephanie through upgrading the Macs in her lab to the latest version of the OS, which was complicated by the fact that said OS comes on a DVD, and not all of those computers came with DVD drives. So, to begin with, I was getting these calls.

Then there was the issue of my PowerBook. After depositing it the previous Thursday, waiting a day for it to sit in the Apple Store before being shipped off, sitting on some loading dock somewhere over the course of the weekend, finally arriving on Monday, sitting idle once again while parts were ordered (you'd think that the parts used in a machine that's less than a year old and shares most of its basic components with the shipping models wouldn't require the ordering of parts), and then, finally, receiving an e-mail saying that it was on its way back to me on Friday morning.

What I didn't realize was that it was much closer to me than I thought. So when I called Apple on Friday afternoon (in between calls from Stephanie) to get a tracking number, I was informed that one delivery attempt had already been made, a mere hour after I had caught the bus for school.

My baby was in Houston.

I called DHL to try to figure out if there were a way for me to get my computer back that day. No, they couldn't deliver to me again. No, I couldn't request a delivery time the following Monday. And hell no, they couldn't just give it to me if I drove all the way out to BFE to pick it up from them. That would require special permission from Apple.

I called Apple back, Customer Service Ward waiting to unleash his inner bitch if they balked at my request, but the rep I spoke with understood the situation quickly and told me he'd get it taken care of. So I got off the phone, gave it a few minutes, and checked with DHL to see if the request had gone through.

It hadn't. So, back with Apple. Oh, so it could take up to 48 business hours for the request to go through? It might be Tuesday before I could pick up my computer? But the DHL people said all they needed was a phone call or a fax from you guys... but apparently your dumbass contract forbids the direct approach.

I had resigned myself to my PowerBook-less fate for the weekend. I had plenty to distract myself, after all. Sabrina headed this way to go run some errands with me—Kristin had all but demanded I pick up mini-quiche from Sam's. And then the phone rang. DHL. The request had gone through. You have half an hour to pick up your PowerBook. As soon as Sabrina showed up, we took off, and I prayed for light traffic.

I was successful, thankfully. We found the place without too much trouble. There was almost a to-do over my license not showing my Houston address, and I loosened the leash on Customer Service Ward just a bit, emboldened by knowing that Customer Service Sabrina was there to back him up. But they quickly relented, and I was reunited (and it felt so good).

And there was still time to make it to Sam's! After dealing with North Houston's horrible lack of signage and finally getting on a major freeway, I ninja'ed my way to a nearby Sam's (from whence I obtained mini-quiche and restocked my Shiner) before heading over to meet my parents for dinner, fresh in town.

And, apparently, special guest Rebecca Ward, thanks to the machinations of Sabrina. What a great birthday present.

Dinner complete, we raced down to rescue a lonely, dejected Bryan from being locked out of my apartment, and a short time later approached the Volcano for a round of gourmet drinks.

The place was fucking packed. Like, "is somebody having a party here?" packed. I don't like having to fight my way to the bar. But there are priorities, and there's not much I wouldn't do for one of their strawberry basil margaritas. By the end of the round, however, we were ready for some relief from the crowd.

After discovering that Bryan had gotten a parking ticket for parking on a street that was "no parking" from 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM (that's right, some asshole got those signs put up specifically to prevent bar customers from parking there, but ended up simply providing an alternate revenue source to the city of Houston), we returned to my domicile, collected bathing suits, made a quick trip by Randall's to pick up the accoutrements for frozen screwdrivers, and had a nice night swim at the Casa de XanderNeff.

We got in late. Why bother trying to be rested at this point? Matt Tuesday had begun. It's easier if you don't fight it.

Second annual weekend of debauchery, pt. 2: Binz Street

I've previously blogged about the wonders of Viraj's Binz Street parties, and so of course I was thrilled to get to attend his birthday celebration, held, as tradition dictated, in the courtyard of his apartment complex and accompanied by a couple of kegs and a swimming pool full of iced-down beer.

I had asked Lauren and Chris to join me, and though Lauren was out of town for a conference, Chris put together a whole crew. Once he and I grabbed some beer, picked up Fluffy/Kitten/Catherine, dropped in on Colin and his friend for drinks (guilty) and pot (not guilty), swung by the XanderNeff complex to let them follow us, we arrived at the party.

The party which, it turned out, was a bit leaner than usual. Still, many of the important elements were there. David and Tiffany, for example. Tiffany's a big Ward booster, so I was excited to get to introduce her to Sabrina. Shawn wondered aloud why I wasn't tapping that, apparently oblivious to the engagement ring she wore prominently.

They also got to meet the ever-persistent Sarah (though not before I could warn them who she was), and spent some time talking to Colin (Sabrina was a fan), Fluffy (not realizing she was the Kitten), and Chris (whom Sabrina agreed it was hard to hate). I think Sabrina later told Chris, drunkenly, that she didn't like him quite as well as Lauren; there now seems to be some sort of contest building as to who will win the most of her affection.

It's nice to have friends that are so wonderful that they fight for each other's favor, I suppose, though I might prefer they fight for my favor.

Kitten frequently speaks of her quest for EBs (which aren't Electronics Botique franchises, Encyclopedia Britanica sets, or books by author E. B. White, but are instead Eligible Bachelors), so we had some discussion of whether she had any options available to her at the party.

She had, before, admitted to being extraordinarily picky about both looks (haven't figured those criteria out) and personality (must have "edge"; must not be "nice guy"). After checking to see how she felt about Neuroscience David ("I didn't see anybody out there in a white shirt that I found attractive") and U of H'er Jessie ("I don't like the way his jeans fall on his shoes", followed by slapping me when Tiffany mentioned that he was both a father and a divorcé), we moved on to the question of Nice Guys.

I find Fluffy morbidly interesting, and physically attractive in the way that you find women attractive whom you know you really shouldn't. So I enjoyed the chance to have a one-on-one with her and try to figure her out a little more. I think I eventually figured the "Nice Guy" thing out—she wants honesty, though I think she's confused about what that actually is and when it's really important. She also wants someone to "tell [her] when she's being a bitch", and she got very frustrated when I asked her how personal accountability fit into that.

Still, though, I fell like I made some kind of progress in that conversation.

I got a drunk dial from David and Thomas, who were hanging out at David's fiancé Megan's summer home on Long Island. Sabrina was sorry to have missed this call, and confiscated my phone to call them back, before proceeding to call Rebecca and Bryan (and she would have called Randa if I had her number).

At some point, Sabrina shamed a group of graduate students for writing equations on some passed out guy's head, and corrected them by drawing genitalia instead, thus setting off a whole crew of imitators. If only I had my camera. It's hard for me to believe anybody would be that out of it.

Eventually, my little crew got ready to leave the party. The XanderNeffs and I took off for Late Nite Pie (followed by Persistent Sarah and her roommate). We ran into Neuroscience David and his roommate there, had some pizza, and left.

When I got home, I discovered the new Death Cab album had finally leaked, and stayed up an additional hour to download it so that I could listen to it as I went to sleep. My first impression of it was that it was thoroughly mediocre, and I got a little teary with disappointment as I went to sleep.

Sabrina and I fell into the Gap on Sunday, as it was both tax-free and a freinds and family day, so I bought a kick ass corduroy jacket which I can't wait until I can wear without being painfully hot. We finished out the evening with an introduction for the XanderNeffs to Goode Company Barbecue.

On Monday night I joined the XanderNeffs for some swimming before meeting up with Dan and Kristin and co. for dollar night at Cecil's. Jessica was there, which pleased me to no end. I stayed later than I should have for that reason before heading home to another night of not getting enough sleep.

I got a call from Cousin Jer this morning alerting me that he would be in town this weekend, and I invited him to my party, though it's in many ways against my better judgement. I did tell him that he had to stay away from my women, and he told me I had to tell him which ones. I'll make sure to list off every one of them when Saturday night rolls around. Maybe I can sacrifice our administrator Wanda to him. I've given similar warnings about my ladies to Leroy and Char, who also seem to be capable of throwing off my game.

It doesn't really matter, though, as I've got Sabrina Neff, my secret weapon who somehow manages to make me capable of driving all the girls crazy. Plus, she (with Lauren, if necessary) can perform real-time screening for me. How can I not end up with a beautiful, single woman on my birthday night?

But even if I don't, it should kick ass. The invitation went out to a good 45 people, and though some of those are out of towners, the invitation should make its way to 10 or 15 more. Here's to taking over Poison Girl.

It's time for a Rockin' Matt Tuesday (which has nothing to do with Tuesday, but has a nice ring to it anyway). Bryan's coming to chafeur me in his spiffy new Acura. The parents will be paying me a visit, hopefully with cake in tow. Sabrina may talk Randa into coming down. Can we just go ahead and get this shit declared a federal holiday?

Second annual weekend of debauchery, pt. 1: Valhalla

As usual, last Friday marked the Graduate Student Council's annual beginning of the academic year party at Valhalla. Rain conspired to keep a good many people away, but there was a decent turnout, and the people that didn't come simply increased the amount of beer available to the rest of us.

As always, it was nice to put some beer away (my official estimate for Valhalla is 8) and catch up with various of my peeps. Once the beer ran out, we rounded up a crew to transfer the party to Little Woodrow's for a while before calling it an evening.

Sadly, the evening didn't involve me meeting any new, attractive, single first-year ladies, though I did get a chance to speak with the Polish-Canadian Barb whom I had previously met at the Buffalo Wild Wings happy hour.

DJ Jazzy Dan

On our recent trip to Numbers, Dan managed to secure a gig in which to debut his DJ skills for last Wednesday night at Clark's downtown. Tired from moving, I eventually manged to drag my ass down there to support DJ Dan The Man.

Dan had, thankfully, clarified the question of the social web at the Margs! party that I had been too drunk to figure out the previous weekend. Turns out that, had I used Sabrina's screening method for women and asked Dacia if she liked dick, the answer would have been a resounding "no". At least I was right when I assumed that she wasn't there with one of the other guys.

An equally serious error was in assuming that Brian and Jessica were an item. Turns out that was wrong, and so I was very pleased to see Jessica turn up at Clark's.

She's, to recycle a description I've used for her several times, super cute. We ended up talking quite a bit for a while. She seemed very interested in my graduate career, what I did (in the general sense), my motivations, my goals, and so forth. I found out that she was an art/art history major finishing up school at U of H, and had spent some serious time in France, all of which gave me some good talking points, thanks to my wonderful sister's culturing of me. I was reminded, once again, that I really need to work on my art knowledge, as I didn't have a whole lot to say there, although I tend to blame booze and exhaustion too for limiting my conversational creativity. I hope I didn't ramble too much.

The bad news is that she's Peace Corps bound soon. We did have an interesting conversation about how that decision was born out of liberal white middle-class guilt.

Regardless of her impending exit from Houston, she's quite pleasant to talk to and look at, and if I get to do both of those things more over the next couple of months, I certainly won't complain.

Dan the Automator did a very nice job providing almost an hour's worth of music. He put together a good set list that flowed well, did some nice crossfades, and looked like he had a blast. Hopefully this won't be the last time I get to see this.

I made a relatively early exit once Dan was done spinning and my conversational abilities with Jessica had dried up for the time being. I did have the presence of mind to mention that she should come to my birthday party on my way out. I went home and slept hard.

Busy week

I did lots of going in late and leaving early last week. Dropped the car off Monday morning (and took the train in to work). The place where I get my car worked on is owned by a gentleman who has a very thick accent—my best guess is Italian (based on looks), but he could be Eastern European too. He and his wife know me by now, and we had a brief conversation about my beard when I went to give her the keys. I picked the car up Tuesday afternoon, bought the new gas cap, and then attempted to get another inspection, only to find that the inspector had left early. Got it inspected before work on Wednesday, and then left early to help Sabrina move.

Thursday morning I had to drop my poor PowerBook off to get some problems with the screen, keyboard, and power adapter fixed before my warranty was up. I was already resentful of the fact that I would be without my baby for a few days, and driving to the Galleria always puts me in a bad mood anyway. The "Mac Genius" was a bit of an asshole, too, accusing me of causing the damage to my computer. Ultimately he told me I would have it back in 3-5 days and, I thought, he packed it off to be sent immediately to be fixed.

Of course, it turns out the fucker didn't ship it off until the next day. Coupled with the fact that the shipments don't move over the weekend, and Apple's alarming lack of stocked parts for a machine that's not even a year old means that I still don't have my computer back. If it's not back on Friday. I'm going to be pissed off.

Anyway, on Wednesday, I helped Sabrina and Shawn move into their new place. Thanks to work, I managed to miss some of the heavy lifting, and the XanderNeffs had plenty of help even in my absence between various family members and friends.

Once we got most everything unloaded, the male contingent went to take a rather sizable load to a storage unit in northwest Houston. Thanks to my ninja navigating and driving, and The Reverend Doctor Neff's kick ass maneuvering of the U-haul, we made surprisingly good time. After finally getting all of Sabrina's crap into the shed and tracking down a place to return the Uhaul, we were treated to dinner at Chili's.

The XanderNeffs and I treated ourselves to some of Star Pizza's delectable salsa verde pizza on Thursday night. I think any meal of that caliber deserves a mention in the blog.

Quick note

Lots to bring up: busy week, Sabrina's move, Dan's DJ debut, second annual sweekend of debauchery. I'll write it tomorrow when I've more energy.

We all suspected...

One of the things that brightens my every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Birthday plans

The egotistical part of me loves my birthday, but it ends up being such a big deal to me that I really dread having to plan it.

But yet here I am, once again, another birthday approaching. Last year was nice enough, but it would be nice to having something a little wilder. I wouldn't be opposed to having more elligible young ladies around, either.

Since Sabrina killed my plan for having a house party at her house by not getting a house, I sought input from Dan and Kristin, who suggested having something at Poison Girl, the Proletariat, or Rudyard's. Dan checked into Poison Girl when we were there, as he knows the owner, and he seemed perfectly willing to reserve part of the bar for me. It's very long and not very wide, though, and I wonder if it's really conducive to a party. But it would be cool to take over half of PG for a night.

The Proletariat's main room might be ideal. Rudyard's upstairs is probably too big, and their downstairs back room is probably a bit on the small side. Dan's best connections are to Poison Girl, and I don't know if we would have to rent out any of the other venues, or even if we could.

Anyway, I know I'm stressing unnecessarily. I just wanted to whine some. I'll try to chill out now.

Let's see what else is going on. I went to D&K's to watch Six Feet Under tonight, and I thought it was really good (if sad). I'm glad they don't feel the need to finish out the series adhering to some status quo. Kristin made some pasta that was quite tasty as well.

I relaly don't want to work tomorrow. But I've got a great week ahead of me. Sabrina arrives on Wednesday, which is super exciting. This weekend is shaping up to be the second annual weekend o' debauchery, with the grad school Valhalla night on Friday, and a Binz street party on Saturday, which I'll hopefully be able to drag Sabrina (and Shawn, if he's in town) to. Should be good times.

And then the next weekend is my birthday. Rock.