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What all have I done the last few days? A lot!

We got really antsy and saw 'Lilo and Stitch' at the dollar movies on Tuesday. It was okay, it had your standard Disney parental death and some funny moments, but nothing outstanding.

Wednesday and Thursday were days to putter around the house and catch up on email. Hub made a Frito pie in there somewhere (Tuesday, now that I think of it) that was amazing. Someone at work had some and I got a big craving for it (I'm susceptible to smells that way) so I asked him if he'd make it. Well, he whipped up this vegetarian version that involved a lot of corn and soy chorrizo and poblano pepper and beans and so on that was the best Frito pie I've ever had in my life! Not that I've eaten a lot of the (usually) horrible stuff; and this was probably actually good for you! Color me and my stomach impressed.

We ate out with Gordon on Thursday; he was feeling extremely chipper almost to the point- no, definitely to the point of being manic. It was hard to be around after 2 quiet days at home.

Friday hub and I went to the artsy theater on the UT campus to see the latest James Spader movie 'Secretary'. It's a movie about a sadistic lawyer and his masochistic secretary, and how they find Troo Love together. Very quirky, cool movie that sticks in your head. Well, in mine anyway, I like James Spader a lot even though Steven Soderberg said he was an amphibian (because he never blinks).

That evening Ellen took me to see this couple that does mantra chanting and other songs. She is at their workshop as we speak, in fact. It was a really good concert; I wish I could recall their names. They're from Germany. The wife played keyboards and had a voice like an angel, and her husband played guitar and had more of a folksy style. Her stuff was all mantras ('gate, gate, para gate' etc.) and his was songs that were very sweet and hopeful- 'Puff the Magic Dragon' sort of stuff. It would have not been everyone's cup of pee but I enjoyed it thoroughly. I also met a few friends there, including Shakti who surprised me by saying she was probably going to get a divorce soon. Also Cathy and Dave, old friends of mine that I have been thinking about recently since I haven't seen a lot of them. She said she's been feeling down and overwhelmed, and Dave said they were learning to say 'no' more.

Crowd-watching was interesting at this event. It was heavily representative of the New Age crowd. Many people sneer at the New Agers, and it's true that they can be self-absorbed and unrealistic. But one thing you can say about them, is that they feel nice to be around. The energy is inviting and happy. Most people were in their 30's or older. A lot of the women were pretty but not in the hard overly-tarted up Dallas-pretty sort of way; I think doing yoga makes women age a lot differently than the average American woman. The men were what I think of as 'sensitive pony-tail guys' (a phrase from 'Singles'). The only way I felt out of place was that New Agers tend to have a bunch of money, unlike other pagan crowds I hang with.

The couple encouraged us to sing along with both the chants and the songs, which I loved. I miss singing and being musical... it was fun to stretch my vocal cords some. I found myself singing harmony at every chance. I wonder if that says anything about me; I'm sure it's a reflection on the fact that I play French horn, which is not often featured as the leading melody instrument; it's more often harmony, or support. This fits with my personality. I can lead, and lead well if needed, but I feel more comfortable as support.

(no subject)

Yesterday was a fair amount of running around. Bob told me about a protest against the war the night before, and I wanted to go. So he picked me up at 10:30am and we drove around the Capitol building and got a really good parking spot. It was either misting or raining the whole time, and the energy was pretty low. Also, I'd initially thought it was a march, but instead it was a bunch of us standing at the steps of the Capitol building listening to speakers. There were protest singers singing (and chanting and cheerleading) protest songs, and signs waved, and people in costumes. My favorite was the fellow in the business attire with the Bush mask, led around by a leash attached to a dog collar around his neck, by a woman dressed like Satan. He even had little toy six-shooters.

So we all stood around and cheered and sang and so on. There was a bunch of people, one nice policeman said he guessed about a thousand. One speaker was a man who'd gotten in trouble for taking food and medicine into Iraq. He made the very wise and probably hard to swallow point that we must not demonize our leaders the way our leaders are demonizing the Iraqis. I was happy to see the crowd gave him big applause for this point, even though there were plenty of laughs and jeers made at Bush's expense. The 'for the children' rhetoric was annoyingly heavy, but not surprising. It's like the speakers assume that if they say a million Iraqis are starving we won't give a rat's behind, but when they point out that half of them are children, why, that's terrible! I didn't move around much, though of course Bob circulated like a monkey on crack and seemed to know half the people there. He was a pal though and drove me home, though it meant he missed the RAVE act (Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act, which would make club owners and party even sponsors and hosts responsible if anyone is caught with an illegal substance- yes, absurd) protest scheduled for later that day.

After a bit of recharge time, we went to Ellen's to watch 'Y Tu Mama Tambien', a movie that was sold as a sophisticated sexual adventure movie, but really wasn't. I mean, it was about sex, and there were subtitles, but it just spooled through a story without being very engaging or even having that much sex in it. Ellen did say it was the cut version (Blockbuster probably didn't want to carry the unrated version) but even so. Still, it was cute and had it's funny moments. She then tried to tempt us to watch 'Brotherhood of the Wolf', which looked really interesting but I wanted to head home.

We stopped at the store and something was weird; we got really snappy at each other for no real reason. This continued through the evening, but we both recognized it and tried to head it off as much as possible. It may have been the weather- we've gotten rain for a couple of weeks it seems with no break. I made dinner and we discovered another thing the cable company is trying. It's pay-per-view that starts when you want it to start, as if you were in a hotel room. So we decided to watch 'Queen of the Damned.'

It was all pixelated for a lot of it, which was irritating as hell. We haven't gotten a really good signal for months. Also, the movie was... I hate to say it... boring. It just sort of lay there. I didn't really feel much for any of the characters, and hub even fell asleep at one point. Not an improvement on 'Interview with the Vampire', which was pretty good I thought. Instead of Tom Cruise (who was a surprisingly good Lestat) they had this guy I've never heard of- Stuart Townsend. He was very pretty, and had no pores at all. But he was a lot of style without much substance. And had a weird accent too. Lestat is supposedly French, so I guess that's what he was shooting for, though Tom Cruise didn't really bother, as far as I recall.

We turned the clocks back! Now the clock in my car is correct! I do so loathe Daylight Savings Time, and am happy to be back to real time. I swear, there is no good reason for DST. And it's nice to wake up when it's light again, though that'll change due to oncoming winter soon enough.

One of the neons bought it this morning, now I have nine. I really need to get better filtration; I guess I'll do that when I get paid Friday.

(no subject)

Note to self: this site has cool stuff; I just need a reason to get any of it.

Also back when I was dating the Evil Ex, he and I joked about the band Megadeth, and wondered if they were 1000 times more bad-assed than Kilodeth, but only 1000th as bad-ass as Gigadeth, which was similarly less bad-ass than Teradeth. That's as far as it went back then in the 90's, but according to this information, I can now wonder if Teradeth is that much less bad-ass than Petadeth, which is that much less bad-ass than Exadeth, which is that much less bad-ass than Zettadeth, which is that much less bad-ass than Yottadeth. Yottadeth! Sounds eeeeerily similar to that cheerful Japanese metal band, Yattadeth! Raaaaaaaaa!

(no subject)

I talked to my dad on the phone today. He teased me about the protest I went to yesterday (he compared me to Jane Fonda, so I compared him to Charleton Heston). Hub suggests I get him this. I'm seriously considering it.