Refuge at ACL, day 1

I awoke Friday morning to phone calls—from my sister, my mom, Dan—telling me stories of people making it to Austin in the space of a few hours. There was still the issue of gas, though. Dad called and said that he had called ahead for me, and there was gas in Brenham.

Though initially fearful of a repeat of Wednesday night's events, I was quick to make up my mind that I would leave the possibility of a boring weekend at my aunt and uncle's for the opportunity to catch some shows in Austin.

Three hours and a brief stop for gas later, I was there. The drive was weird, with cars abandoned along the highway. Traffic was light. I got to Becca's, took a nap, dropped her and Kelly off at ACL (I abstained from the first day as the lineup was mediocre, the Arcade Fire show was that night, and I was still a bit wiped out from my aborted evacuation attempt). Bryan arrived, and we took off for food.

Since Rebecca now resides in the Aboretum area, we ended up at nearby Manuel's. Having wanted a margarita since I realized on Thursday that every resteraunt near my aunt and uncle's place was closed, I splurged and got their Patron margarita. It was, quite frankly, damn smooth. I ordered their enchilada sampler and enjoyed it, but was particuarly impresed with their mole sauce, which was quite tasty.

Food-in-belly, we then went in search of a drug store at which to procure earplugs. Apparently they don't believe in them up in the Arboretum, but we eventually found an HEB. We went back to Becca's, had a couple of beers, got a phone call from Phil stating that the Arcade Fire show was moving along ahead of schedule, and took off in a hurry.

Thankfully, Lauren C. was on her toes that night and realized the same thing, since I had to deliver Dan's Arcade Fire tickets to her. Things worked out beautifully, she and her friend found us at the gate, and we went forth into Stubb's, ready to rock and be rocked.

The Black Keys had just finished up, we found Phil and his crew, Lauren had placed a cold Lonestar in my hands, and the Fire was about to go on. Things were good. Lauren took off into the crowd in search of a better vantage point; Bryan, Phil and I elected to hang back, content where we were. That ultimately wasn't the best decision, but it didn't kill what was an excellent show. We just had to put up with a bunch of people who seemed incapable of shutting the fuck up.

Really, though, that's OK. The Fire came out and opened with, appropriately, a few verses of Dylan's "Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and then immediately went into their standard opener "Wake Up". I looked over at Phil, and he immediately gets it. Bryan too. These guys kick ass, and as soon as you see them live, you realize it.

The rest of the set was characteristically great, except for a slow spot in the middle that could have been fixed with better ordering of the setlist. A high point was when they dedicated "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" to me (and, well, the rest of the city of Houston).

The show ended (quite possibly with "No Cars Go", a favorite from the EP), and we were all quite thoroughly rocked. Bryan and I bid adieu to Lauren, I caught up with Toni real quick, and then we decided to call it a night.

Regufee Ward: Day 1 and 2

What's with the people who don't want to be called refugees? We were taking refuge, right? I claimed that title proudly.

So yes, last Wednesday, I found myself a refugee. The storm was looking bad, and BCM eventually decided to close down until Monday. After staying most of the afternoon to back up data (don't want to leave two years of research to the flood waters), I picked up Dan's ACL tickets, as he had decided not to go, went by Lowe's in search of hurricane supplies (I found trash bags), had some dinner, packed five days' worth of stuff, covered my more valuable posessions (i.e. stereo) with trash bags, and hopped in the car.

Persistent Sarah (or O squared, as Shawn has taken to calling her, for Obvious and Oblivious, I believe) had called to invite me to a hurricane party over at Nathan and Melissa's. When I got there, it turned out to be only the three of them. I stayed for a couple of hours, went swimming, etc., reasoning that I'd give the roads a few more hours to clear out from the people who decided to evacuate right after work.

To be even more clever, I thought I'd go the wrong way around and take 59 Southwest and then catch 71 up to Austin. I checked the traffic before I left; 59 was beautifully clear. I was cruising along well... until I reached the exact point, more or less, where the traffic reports stop, and, like a cosmic joke, gridlock began. There I was in Sugarland, stuck in traffic. Cars all around filled with belongings and pets and children. Surely this was just due to people getting onto or off of 6. I thought I'd just stick it out and get through the mess and everything would be golden.

This was about 12:15 AM. By 2:45 AM, I had moved about .8 miles. I was starting to worry. Would it be like this all the way? Should I turn around? I had no real basis on which to make this decision. When faced with arbitrary decisions such as these, it's good to get a second opinion, and like me, my dad always opinions. So, at almost 3:00 in the morning, I gave Dad a call.

Our first attempt at an alternate route was for me to take 99 north. I then hit Alt 90, which runs parallel to 10, and headed west. Things were looking good for a while, but traffic slowed down quite a bit in Richmond and Rosenburg. I did see a couple of people lounging in chairs in the bed of a truck, Beverly Hillbillies-style.

Once again, I thought that if I just made it through these towns with their stop lights (which should have been blinking, damn it), things would be better.

They weren't. It was about 6:00 AM or so.

West of Rosenburg, things were pretty much at a stand still. I moved forward only when somebody else decided to turn around. I soon made the same decision, and headed back east, trying to cut north to 10, first on 36 before going back through Richmond and Rosenburg (which took all of ten minutes) to 99.

Things were smooth on 99 for a while, until I hit traffic that was just trying to get to 10. By this point, I was feeling thoroughly defeated, and Dad had persuaded me to give up and go back. I caught the Westpark tollway back into town, noticed that traffic was completely stopped on it in the westbound direction, and made it back to Houston proper by around 7:00 AM. Home free, I thought. I decided to go to Susan and Jerry's, since I had already closed my place up, but I didn't really have any good, traffic-free options for accomplishing this, so I had to settle for spending the next four hours on the Beltway. Things got bad around the two toll plazas, both because lanes had to remerge on the other side, and because there were major exits for 10 and 290. The 290 one proved to be the worst, with traffic completely stopped for about two hours.

By this point, I really needed to go to the bathroom. Modesty kept me from doing it on the concrete barrier by the side of the road.

Finally, things started moving again. I got my real break when ambulances pulled into my lane, and I followed them on out to freedom. I found Susan and Jerry's place fully stocked when I got there around 11:00 AM. Jerry was cleaning his gun, which despite my oposition to such things, I found comforting. Though I was hungry and thirsty, I was sleepy more than anything. I took a nap. It was good.

I later went out in search of WiFi and a place that was open that would serve me a margarita. I found neither. No chances to top off my gas tank, either.

The rest of the day put what I had gone through into perspective. Any way you went, the traffic was awful. There were tales of 24 hour drives to Dallas. A day late and a dollar short, there was talk of opening up contraflow lanes. People were running out of gas along the side of the road and getting stranded. I'd just never seen anything like this. I didn't realize traffic could be this bad. I managed to completely and totally underestimate things, but thankfully, I knew when to give up.

G.R.A.B.; M.I.A.; Earlimart

Damn. Couldn't find a way to make that last one an acronym.

Oh, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. You feel like home.

Now that I'm posting on things that have happened within the past week, I can, perhaps, forego the use of clarifying dates. Wonderful, that.

So Friday night,
Dan was once again DJing; this time at G.R.A.B.—that is, Game Room And Bar, so after procuring parking under the freeway, I enterd this establishment on the edge of downtown. It was a bit dive, in sort of a Scruffy Murphy's or Marquis sort of way. The flyer had promised beer specials, of which there were none, but there was a special on Malibu, so I had the first Malibu and Coke I'd had in quite some time. A bit frou frou, perhaps, but enjoyable non-the-less.

Dan played a great set and this looks like it could take off for him, judging by the writeup I linked to above. You go, Dan. As for me, I drank some Shiner, played some really bad pool with Kristin, played some of the classic Simpsons arcade game with three people I didn't know, and talked with the refugee crowd for a while. They were sitting near the doorman, who, at the mention of karaoke, shared with us that he had rewritten the lyrics to "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" to be "The Devil Went Down To Texas" and changed the story up so it was about pot smoking and a golden bong instead. Apparently, he would perform this and people would buy him free drinks for the rest of the evening, or so he claimed.

This is the kind of drunken encounter you just can't make up, folks.

Saturday brought a performance by M.I.A. at the Engine Room. She was a big hit at South By Southwest this year, apparently, so I thought I'd make sure to catch her show. In the end, my lack of appreciation for hip hop probably hindered my enjoyment of the show. I thought she was good, but by no means spectacular. Please don't hate me.

Afterwards, Jody and I went to close our tabs, only to discover that they had already started closing out tabs in alphabetical order. Me being Ward, and her being Worthington, we were pretty soundly fucked. We waited at least half an hour. Jody at one point suggested to one of the bartenders that we could use some free shots. My suggestion of a vodka gimlet was derided as too strong; in the end there was some concoction involving cranberry juice, crown, triple sec, and green apple pucker. Tasty, but it didn't hit very hard.

Those free shots? Jody got charged for them. I, on the other hand, only got charged for one of my three lonestars. Not only that, but I passed on the opportunity to tip, primarily because of the inexcusablely poor service, but also because I got tired of the bitchiness of the blonde bartender who assured us that not only was the long wait not her fault, but that we shouldn't even intimate such things, as it was her birthday. Happy fucking birthday, bitch. I used the savings to buy the next round for Jody at the Red Lion. I wasn't impressed at first with the place, which seemed a bit overly posh compared to what I'm used to passing for a British pub, but all was forgiven when a wonderfully British man who I can only guess was the owner came out at closing time to encourage us to finish our drinks.

Sunday was impressively productive. Not only did I get through some pleasure reading, two episodes of "Nip/Tuck", two episodes of "Justice League Unlimited", and do some cooking and cleaning, but I also managed to make a run by school to pick up a PC laptop on which to do some lab work.

My lone failure of the day was my attempt to make a case for my shiny new iPod nano out of an altoids tin and some packing foam. It's hard to slice foam, folks. Especially when all you have at your disposal are knives and scissors. In the end, though, it was the size of the nano itself that was the problem; It's plenty thin and narrow, but it's only a hair shorter than the tin itself, which makes for an uncomfortably tight fit.

Once Sunday night Fox had passed, I realized that my productivity might very well leave me bored for the rest of the evening. Lauren C. had, back on Thursday night, proposed checking out Earlimart at the Proletariat, but an earlier phone call had confirmed my fears that studying would consume her evening instead. Not giving up so quickly, a phone call to Dan revealed that he and Kristin would be in attendance. So I went on to the Prole. I swapped a few text messages with Lauren while waiting, in part out of boredom, in part as a half-assed attempt to lure her to the show, but she remained steadfast. Dan and Kristin showed up, though, followed soon by Levi and Zaina, so I did eventually have company.

Earlimart soon took the stage. I hadn't heard them before, so it could have been having no expectations, or it could have been the $1.50 Shiners (God bless America), but I really enjoyed it. The music was fairly down-tempo, textured, some occasional rocking out; comparable in some ways to American Analog Set. It was one of those times when I caught a show and everything sounded great and I was reminded why I love to go hear live music. But maybe that speaks more to my mood than the show itself. And the Shiners certainly didn't hurt, either.

So, it's the middle of the week now, more or less. ACL is ahead; here's my tentative schedule. But plans could change drastically due to the hurricane currently penetrating its way into the gulf like a teen on prom night. At first, I thought Houston was far enough away that this wouldn't be a concern, but things are looking worse. Of course, I'm going to be out of town anyway, but I need to know whether to make preparations for my apartment and for a prolonged stay in Austin or Waco.

Hopefully, neither will be necessary. It sounds like there will be more info available tomorrow.

After hours adventures; Quality time; Trail of Dead

Another week down, another week behind on the 'blog. Let's see what we can do about that, shall we?

But first, I wanted to say hey to any new readers that have made their way over here from Sabrina's blog. Welcome, and make your presence known in the comments, eh?

Moving on.

Friday, 9/9

We stuck around after Keck to watch (and help) the beer disappear. Jessie's news was that, in a masterful if unintentional negotiation move, his divorce was final. This quite clearly called for more beer. I hitched a ride with Char and he, Graham (eventually plus Kennedy), Jessie and I descended on West Alabama Icehouse for a couple of rounds before I moved on to other plans for the efvening. After a brief stop at home, I went to meet Sabrina at the poorly-named Wet Spot sports bar, only to discover that I knew almost no one there. Once Sabrina recovered from a bout of geographical amnesia, she came to rescue me, and we had some nice quality time before I moved on to familial obligations and she to academic ones.

Cousin Jer was in town. He had arranged to hang out at Poison Girl with a couple of lawyer friends of his (why has my life, over the last few years, sudently included so many legally-inclined individuals?) who seemed nice enough, but by a few beers into the evening, I wasn't really feeling up to social interactions that required lots of bullshit small talk. So I was thankful when they left not too long afterwards (Jerry having not made an ass of himself; cf. my birthday), leaving me to join Dan, Kristin, Jessica, Brian, Dacia, Melanie et al.

Saturday, 9/10

I had an offer from Cindy and Dave (and, by coincidence, John Van as well) to hit up a soul show at the Continental Club, but I passed and chose instead to join Dan, Kristin, and Mel (and her assorted refugee hangers-on) at the Proletariat to check out the Star Project.

The premise is to solicit entries from a variety of aspiring musicians, put them all in a bag, draw out a group of four, and designate them as a band. Give them a few weeks to practice, and then have a series of "Battle of the Bands"es (I can make that plural, right?). I guess my expectations were too high; at worst they were awful and at best they were horrible.

I ran into Kitten (which has been a pattern lately; I had seen her the previous night before, and countless other times at Poison Girl or Cecil's) and we had a conversation in which I felt, more than any other time, that she recognized my existence as an actual human being. I also bought her a drink (because I'm a nice guy; not because I'm looking to get with that), an action which seemed to genuinely confuse her.

At some point, we gave up on the Star Project and opted for a change of venue to Poison Girl. Mel, fellow refugee Jody, and I closed the place down, and the two ladies, being from New Orleans, weren't ready to call it quits for the evening. Mel (who was apparently in rare form) picked two gentlemen at random and asked them where we might find some sort of after hours establishment.

They replied with the only one I knew of, Natsuoh's. I knew of this by virtue of Dan's recent DJ gigs at Clark's; the owner, Tim, runs Natsuoh's, too. Of course, I didn't think I could get us in. I doubted that Tim would respond to me name-dropping Dan. But the girls were sold on the idea, and wanted company, so I decided to tag along.

I got us to Clark, and found a non-descript door with a somewhat broken doorbell. Mel was on point, armed with her knowledge that a friend DJed downstairs, and her refugee status. A man in his late thirties or early forties came to the door in an open baseball jersey and shorts, looking distinctly like he had just been awaken by the doorbell and was none too happy about it, though apparently he looks like that all the time. Melanie gave her spiel, and it turned out to be enough; Dan would later tell me that knowing Jessica would have done the trick as well.

I guess I could describe the place as an artists' loft, but that's really underselling it. It's an artist's loft in the attic of what used to be a shoe store; there are shoe boxes (with shoes) from the 20s up there. And God knows what other junk. The place is dimly lit. What looked like the door to a tent sectioned off a toilet in the far corner to form a bathroom. There were a couple of booths scattered around, and couches, dart boards, a pool table. Everything was dimly lit. We sought out the bar (I was thrilled to find Bavaria), got the distinct impression that the bartender (Tim's girlfriend or wife) was making up the prices as she went along, and grabbed a booth. Our friend from Poison Girl game by and talked to us; explained that the idea behind the place. Apparently Tim considers it a performance art piece, providing people with a place to interact with others that they normally wouldn't ever meet. And it seemed to suceed. Everybody was friendly, eager to strike up a conversation. People bought each other drinks.

Mel continued to be in rare form, apparently meeting everybody there (easily 30 or 40 people) and giving her number out to quite a few of them (at least a couple of whom called the next week). While she was off doing that, Jody and I had a nice drunken conversation, bouncing from subject to subject but spending quite a bit of time on exes.

By 5:00, Jody was ready to call it quits, I certainly wasn't opposed to the idea, and we talked Mel into leaving. I got home not much before 6:00 and felt very satisfied, having done something novel with my Saturday evening.

Monday, 9/12

I had mentioned to Sabrina the previous Friday that we needed an opportunity for a good chunk of quality time, and her response surpassed all of my expectations, as she managed to work her ass off Sunday (more so than usual!) and clear out Monday evening for us. After she picked me up from school and I went home to change into something sexier, we went to Niko Niko's, as I had gone way too long without it, and Sabrina certainly wasn't going to turn it down.

Having shared dinner and good conversation, we resolved to first stop for a strawberry basil margarita at the Volcano, where we recommended on to a guy at the bar. He obviously didn't appreciate it on the same level we did, as he managed to spill it all over his female compatnions. "Guess who's not getting any tonight?" Sabrina said.

We went to check out Catbird's new dollar night, which was in direct competition to Cecil's. The bartender recognized my Trail of Dead t-shirt and mentioned that he was a former member of Octopus Project. We sat down, had a round (regrettably, Catbird's dollar night does not include Shiner), tried to make conversation with some refugees seated down the bar from us, and then took off for Cecil's in an attempt to find Dan and co.

Despite the fact that they weren't there, and that I had trouble finding the front door (thrown off by the fact that they had placed the tent where they serve food between us and it), we grabbed a round there before Sabrina had to return home so as to be able to fill her scholastic obligations the next day. The evening managed to remind me afresh exactly what a great friend Sabrina is and how thrilled I am to have trapped her here in Houston.

Tuesday, 9/13

Tuesday was Mel's birthday, so we did things up right and took her to Mi Luna for dinner. Point of interest: Mi Luna has all-day happy hour specials on Tuesdays, including $3 margaritas ("Margs!" yells Dan) and sangria, and $3 tapas. Mmm... cheap tapas...

We went to the Dark Horse (which, in our party, seemed to get frequently confused with the Black Night, the Dark Knight, the Black Horse, and the Gallant Knight, only one of which is, to my knowledge, a Houston drinking establishment) near Mary Jane's for beer afterwards. I liked the place (though the walk to my car was a bit scary), but didn't stick around long in a feeble attempt to make it an early night.

Wednesday, 9/14

I got suckered into going over to Rice to get some lessons from our collaborators in some software—at 8:00 in the evening, though to be fair, this was because I wanted to make sure I had time for a quick jaunt home to pick up my beautiful new iPod nano from the leasing office.

I unboxed it, and man, the thing is tiny. It's amazing to see an mp3 player with a very readable color screen that holds a good 60 or 70 albums and still manages to make a business car look big. The nano in my posession, the realization struck me that I had never before been that cool, nor would I ever be again.

The ease with which it scratches is still a bit unsettling, but I probably just need to take the Jeff approach and let it build up some character. It does a good job of replacing the iPod shuffle I sold to pay for it, adding a lot of functionality without adding much size and weight.

I then went by rice, listened patiently while our collaborator explained that the fact that the program he wrote was crashing was (and I'm not making this shit up) supposed to crash. Apparently, if I do something wrong, crashing is much more appropriate than, say, a meaningful error message.

I was there for an hour before I excused myself. Dave had invited Cindy and I over for dinner (lasagna and salad) and a music swapping session at his surprisingly-well-decorated apartment.

Thursday, 9/15


By Thursday, it had been on the order of three weeks since I'd been to the grocery store. I was out of food. I had intended to go every day for the past couple of weeks. It was pretty bad.

After the O.C. (which had its moments, I must admit), I managed to squeeze in a trip to the store (and time to fix a frozen pizza for dinner) before I went up to Walter's to catch Trail of Dead for the second time this year.

I got there, said hi to Levi and Zaina (apparently I've been spelling it the wrong way; sorry for the confusion), grabbed a beer, and settled in for some rocking. I was keeping an eye out for Dave and Cindy, who would probably be there, and Lauren C., who had called to let me know whe was en route. Lauren arrived; Dave and Cindy emerged from the crowd, and then the rocking began.

I was disappointed with Trail of Dead when I saw them at the Engine Room this spring. They seemed sloppy, and the size of the venue seemed to swallow them up, which was suprising for a band that was renowned for their energy and stage presence. Whether it was the smaller venue (Lauren, having last seen them in their home town of Austin, remarked how strange it was to see them in such a small venue), or whether they were just better, their previous problems were gone. They put on a great, energy-filled show; exactly what I had always expected. It wasn't without its own set of problems; the set lagged a bit towards the end (though it might have been from my not knowing their older material); the stage at Walter's is probably only a foot high; compounding this, it was pretty much consumed by their two drum kits (assets which they used well, by the way), relegating the other band members to the floor in front of the stage, where they were pretty much impossible to see from the back of the room.

They weren't impossible to hear, though. I have got to start remembering earplugs.

Anyway, great show. Glad I got to catch it.

Closing thoughts

So, another week behind, another week caught up. If I could go ahead and get this weekend written up tomorrow night, maybe I could break this viscious cycle. But if things get busy, I'll catch you all after ACL this weekend with a full report.

I will catch up.

9/1

Mostly uneventful. Oliver and Anup were out at Baker Street celebrating having passed their quals (I think the committees were easier this year), and Anup's girlfriend and a couple of her U of H psychology cohorts were with her, but that night I didn't really have the patience for lots of small talk. But the guys were tired, and called it an early night.

9/2

Due to Labor Day weekend, there was no Keck seminar. Sabrina had once again graciously invited me to join her law school friends, so, once I could get away from school, and after a brief stop at home, I headed up to Baker Street once again (two days in a row, scary). Meeting most of these people for a second time, I made some connections. Austinite Lauren C. made some comment about not understanding why people come to Baker Street, and when I asked her what her preference was and she rolled off a pretty good list of bars, I knew I had found a kindred spirit. We progressed from there to talking about shows, and by the end of it I had another buddy for ACL. Chris M. got in on the conversation, too. And I think that Christina (?) seems fun, despite her Aggieness. Nobody's perfect, right?

Chris M.'s non-U of H friend there told me that he liked my "kicks", the second time I'd received that compliment (though about different shoes this time) phrased in that manner. Lauren C. echoed those sentiments. Always nice to get compliments.

As the evening went on, our thoughts turned to food, and I suggested La Tapatia. We ended up with a pretty good group there, and ended up having an "I never" sort of conversation that was occasionally interesting. Lauren C. asked if I was going out after that, and I suggested that we should consider the evening. I gave them directions to Poison Girl, made a quick trip to drop Sabrina off at home, and then joined them there.

They stuck around for a couple of ours and then took off. I found Kristin, Jessica, and Dacia there participating in a girls' night, which they graciously allowed me to intrude on. Up for discussion was the fact that Dacia doesn't like cucumbers. And then something about Jessica liking men that look like lumberjacks (which one would think would have made me a shoe-in). Kristin and Jessica in particular seemed to be having a good ol' drunken time, and I enjoyed their banter.

Saturday was uneventful, so we'll move on to...

9/4

After a lazy morning (really an afternoon), I went to join Char and Leroy at a cookout hosted by one of the virology students. Half of the crew I didn't know, but Jessie showed up and I enjoyed the company of those that I did know. I also had what I think was the best jambalaya I've ever had, courtesy of Leroy. Seriously impressive stuff. And I drank some crfappy domestic beer.

BCM Zana showed up, with a couple of her Albanian cousins in tow—one of whom was a model; the other didn't speak English. Lauren had once made the entertaining observation that at parties, Zana tends to hold court for a legion of male admirers; with there being three of them, this behavior was just that much more obvious.

Ready to move on to other things, I caught up with Jeff and Jim at Baba Yega, which was very likable. Sort of a vegetarian-friendly resteraunt in a converted house.

Jeff and Jim were convinced they needed to take me out "gaying" after that, so we first went to the middle-age friendly leather bar the Ripchord. There were lots of men in shorts and mustaches, some in leather harnesses.

I'll say this about it: it was one place where I felt young and pretty.

Next we went to gay country bar Bricks. We didn't stick around too long—Courtney was in town with her girlfriend, and so we met up with them at a very crowded Poison Girl. It was great to see her and we had fun catching up.

9/5

I eventually made it out of bed, over to Whole Foods, and then to Sabrina's for yet another cookout. The gathering was a bit small, but good times were had. There was swimming.

9/7

I managed to work up a little crew for the Octopus Project show. Neither Lauren and Chris, nor Lauren and Chris managed to make it, and Dan and co. skipped out, but Jeff came, and we met up with Cindy. I've seen OP a few times before—first opening up for the Dismemberment Plan in 2003, maybe once or twice last year either headlining or opening, and then this year opening up for Trail of Dead. Their electronica-influenced rock has always been quite likable, and as always, an attractive female member only sweetens the pot.

This, though, was probably the best that I've ever seen them. At their height, they reminded me of the excellent Caribou show I saw earlier this year. Something's changed with them—they were on a new level.

9/8

Thank God, the O.C. is back. Will came over, bearing pizza, and we watched the premiere. As someone said (Mel? Lauren C.?), opinions of the second season probably hinge on this follow-up performance. Right now, it seems like the first season was much better; the second often seemed contrived, with too many people acting out of character. It's too early to say anything about season three; too much had to be done to resolve last season and set up this one. We'll see what happens this week.

I had considered going to the Pernice Brothers show, but Dan called and told me that Mary Jane's had been shut down—some tax something or another. Interesting. Super Unison says that all the shows will go on, though perhaps with a change of venue. Frankly, I wouldn't mind Mary Jane's closing forever, but it sounds like things might get worked out. So who knows?

Coda

And that's it for now. This weekend proved to be interesting, both good and bad, so there are some stories to tell (and perhaps not tell). But I'll tackle them later. I can count this as caught up, right?

Asking her out is no longer an issue; accosted; Boys and Girls Club

For those of you who last week expressed your support for me asking Jessica out: thanks, but apparently it was never really an option anyway. I got an e-mail from Dan last Wednesday (8/31) saying that he would be DJing at a small benefit at Clark's that night, and, oh yeah, apparently Jessica's secretlly been dating Brian for a while. Sorry about that one.

Of course, I appreciated the heads up. Ironically, when I first met Jessica I thought they were together, but that wasn't based on much evidence; it was just an uneducated guess. And, having been around them some since I found out, I still don't see it. But as Sabrina said, you don't really expect to see it when it's "secret".

But that's OK. Really. She's headed off for the Peace Corps in a few months anyway, and really, it was only that she was at the top of what was a very shor list. The list has grown since then, but I can't exactly give details since, surprisingly, people do read this thing, and some people know other people, and so forth. I hate to have to censor, but it looks like that's the way it's going to be for a while.

But enough of that. Clark's was good and Dan once again played a good set. I enjoyed myself, once I got over being pouty. Levi and Zana pushed for a change of venue once Dan's DJ set was over. I had intended to make it an early night, but couldn't say no, and so we took off for 1415 California for their Wednesday night event, Boys and Girls Club.

I was walking to my car, downtown, and noticed that a gentleman changed his path to intercept me. He said something to get my attention, and, since I'm bad at intentionally violating social conventions, I couldn't just ignore him. There were other people walking around. I didn't feel unsafe.

He was a middle-aged caucasian man and he explained his situation to me, rambling a bit but with good humor. He was from New Orleans, was evacuating by taking a Grey Hound to Chicago where he had lived previously, had a layover here, had fallen asleep while waiting, and awoke to find his luggage gone, including his wallet. He was asking for money to help buy a one-way ticket to Lake Charles so that he could get some money out of his bank account and try to make it to Chicago.

Fair enough. I felt bad for him. He seemed a little strange, but I took a leap of faith and gave him a five, and told him not to stay in Lake Charles any longer than he had to.

So I headed on to Boys and Girls club. The building had the feeling of an office building constructed in the seventies or so; something about it reminded me of Waco. They had a really great patio area set up on the roof. The crowd was pretty similar to Dansepark at Numbers; lots of jailbait. Having seen the place and blow my last couple of dollars on a Lonestar, I took off for the evening.

Rudyard's and refugees; Another Monday night at Cecil's

For Sunday, 8/25, I joined Dan and Kristin at Rudyard's something'th anniversary celebration. There was some free food, and their standard $1 Lone Star tallboys, which together spelled a bargain as far as an evening out goes.

A few days before, I had offered to hook Melanie of the Modest Mouse list up with some software, which resulted in us swapping IM screen names and chatting a bit. I'd heard a little bit of Mel through Dan and of course through her posts, and was looking forward to meeting somebody else off the list when she came to town for an IKEA run the next weekend.

Mel, though, lives (lived?) in New Orleans. So she ended up in town a weekend early to stay with a coworker's parents. We managed to coax them out for a little while that night, and tried our best to keep them entertained and a bit liquored up. By the end, though, Mel was fading fast (emotionally and physically).

Jessica, Dacia and Kristin were in and out. I wasn't really getting a chance to talk to Jess, Melanie had left, it was getting late, and I was tired, so I called it an evening and headed home.

Monday night brought Cecil's once again. Mel (understandably) didn't make it out, but everybody else from the usual crowd was there (though Jess left early). I also happened to run into Kitten.

Kitten and I, during our drunken conversation at the Binz street party a few weeks ago, had discussed male footwear options, during which she had mentioned her feelings on flip-flops: they're completely and totally unacceptable if one is "going out". Knowing a great opportunity when I saw one, I mentioned to her that I had thought of her when I chose to wear my Rebecca Ward-approved flip flops to Cecil's that night. This action apparently had two consequences: it was an even poorer choice and an insult to Kitten, apparently, since I had been informed of what a horrible idea it was; and, additionally, I had caused every other woman in the bar to discount me as a potential mate.

That said, Kitten invited me outside with her for a few minutes, and I obliged, though I was on my way out. Once outside: "Do you have a cousin that's tall with curly hair? I want you to tell him something for me. Tell him I said he's a sexless, pathetic man. He's a sexless, pathetic man, and it was nice meeting him, love, Kitten."

When I asked what brought that on:

"He touched my ass. He didn't just grab it; that would have been OK," (here I mentioned that little piece of information was nice to know), "well, not OK, I would have been mad, but instead, he tapped it lightly twice and I wasn't mad, just creeped out."

And later:

"I hope he comes back here. I was right here two years ago talking about how much I wanted to get into a fight with someone. I'd kick his ass."

That, ladies and gentlemen, was entirely worth going out for.

(That's it for tonight. I've got a few words to say about last Wednesday night, and then some reasonably interesting stuff about this weekend, and maybe a few other incidental things (school), and I'm caught up. Possibly as soon as tomorrow night.)

Tagging along; Dansepark

It's qualifier season at BCM (moved up from last year to keep the kids from wasting their entire fall on this bullshit), which has one effect on the older students: practice talks. For the cost of our time and attention over the course of an hour and half or so, we're rewareded with free pizza. Works for me. Oliver had his first practice talk on Friday, 8/23, and I enjoyed the free lunch.

The first Keck seminar of the semester was that afternoon, which meant more free pizza. The downside? We're required to sign in now. Hell. So much for skipping the bad ones...

After scoring a ride home and taking a few minutes to cool off, I went and joined Sabrina at a U of H Law happy hour. Met some people that didn't really make big impressions (but often new people don't the first time, just like new albums); gout our Chuy's on, and then the law kids were ready to call it an evening. I called Dan, hoping he had something for me to do, but that didn't pan out, so I ended up calling it an early evening as well.

On Sagurday (8/24), after some Star Pizza with the XanderNeffs, I went to Numbers for Dan's DJ debut in that venue's small upstairs room. I'm not sure exactly what's up with the Dansepark nights lately. Either I'm tiring of them and not as easily impressed by the crowd as I used to be, or I hate people more than I like to admit, or the crowd's gone downhill. I commented to Jessica at one point that if you don't fit with the misfits in the main room and have to get away from them by hanging out upstairs, that speaks volumes about something... not quite sure what, though. Anyway, Dan was there, as well as Kristin, Brian, Jessica, John (for a while), and others I'm probably forgetting. I spent some time talking to Jessica (of course), hung out with her and Kristin while they tried to guess whether individuals out on the dance floor were participating in "dancing" or "ironic dancing".

Jessica had mentioned to me her desire to make it a late night, and sucessfully managed to steer the afterparty back to Dan's, where we drank all of his Shiner Light and hung out until he and Kristin pretended to be asleep to get us to leave.