Who Knows What Evil Lurks In The Hearts Of Men?

Yeah, yeah, the Shadow knows, but I'm not the Shadow and I don't get dudes. I seriously can't wait for this weekend when the only guy I know who makes any sense will be in town. Until then, I have karaoke to look forward to tonight and Dr. Theopolis and De La Soul at the Bite on Friday. Do doot do doot do do...shakin' that ass, shakin' that ass....

The Comfiest Bed EVER.

The minute I got home yesterday, I stripped the sheets off of my bed and threw them in the washer so they'd be done well before I was ready to go to sleep. Over the last few months, the center of my bed has slowly been sinking in and for some reason it finally bugged me enough yesterday to get down on my knees and look under there to find out why. Turns out the two 2x4s in the middle had slipped off the siderails and the thin slats that run the length of my bed weren't being supported by anything. After lugging the three futon matresses up, putting everything where it should be and giving the siderails a good kick to straighten them out, I'm pleased to say that my bed is flatter than it's been in months and I slept like a baby. It's so comfortable, in fact, that I didn't want to get up this morning. Not that I ever want to get up, but it's even better now than it was before. If I didn't have company coming down from Canada for Labor Day weekend, I would probably stay in it the whole three days. Seriously. It's that comfortable. What, you don't believe me? Wanna come check it out yourself? Well come on then. But don't get any ideas about staying there because it's mine. All mine. I'll let you take a nap or something, but that's it.

I really need to cut back on sucking down helium first thing in the morning...

It's Monday Again Already?

Quick recap of the weekend: Friday night we went to the Bonfire over on Stark where we played trivia and I kicked ass on the music category. Later, we headed down to the Clinton St. Pub and hung out with the guys.... somehow, just as we were leaving, there was a big drunken scene that ended in me taking my sobbing roommate home and then hanging out with Mariana and Mark at his place until almost 4am. Saturday, I took Shauna to the airport, called my folks, hung out and watched Comic Book Villians (don't bother renting it) and then got ready to go out for the evening. I got to Amy's birthday party at about quarter to 7, hung out there until 9:30ish and then headed over to Guy's birthday party. There was a stripper, high school yearbook pictures, 30 spankings with a grometted belt (he's got the welted and bruised ass to prove it), a drunk next door neighbor who fell out of his chair and passed out not once but twice and a guy in a cowboy hat who decided I needed a butt dance. Don't ask. Pictures were taken, alcohol was consumed and a good time was had by all. Sunday was a full day starting at 10am with the soapbox derby up at Mt. Tabor. Guy's brother Joel and two of his friends had entered a car made out of two razor scooters, a couple of pogo sticks, some fiberglass, part of a bicycle and I don't know what else. I wish I'd had a camera because some of the entries were just awesome... Guy, his dad, his stepmom, his dog and I all sat on one of the hills and watched the races and had a great time just being outside and enjoying the nice weather and company. At almost 4 when things were winding down, we all went our separate ways and I planned to meet back up with Guy for his actual birthday festivities at Chopsticks around 9pm. After being out in the sun all day, it felt good to sit on the couch and doze and watch Igby Goes Down (interesting, but not a keeper). I should have taken a nap, because I'm zonked today, but I had a blast at karaoke and I'm glad I went. We got some excellent rockstar pose photos while Guy was singing "Veronica" and "New Pollution" and I finally sang "Rebel Yell", which I think might be added to my list of favorites to sing. Anyhoo, now that Guy is 30, he's....no different than he was when he was 29 and I intend to follow suit next March. However, Joel and I promised not get each other strippers for our 30 birthdays as Guy got enough stripper action of all three of us. I can say that one good thing did come out of the stripper experience: we learned some extra special dance moves that we can do at karaoke from now on (smackin' that ass!!). Good times...

Tonight, I sleep.

Let There be Light

Apparently, the electrician came and fixed everything yesterday because when I got home and absent-mindedly flipped the switch in my room, all four lights in the ceiling blazed on and about blinded me. If I hadn't just come from drinking beers with my co-workers and boss at Wankers (a peanut shells on the floor, beer served in a metal bucket style saloon in Wilsonville) and before that out in the sun at the company picnic, I might have gotten to enjoy the newly restored electricity and watch a movie or something, but I was so tired that I fell asleep in the bathtub, woke up about an hour later and crawled into bed. Didn't even move until the alarm went off this morning. And yes, the bar is really called Wankers. Nice one.

Power Outages Are Contageous

So I was all set to curl up on the couch and watch a movie while my laundry was running and what happens? I come home to no power on the whole front wall of the house. The front wall just happens to be where the tv and dvd player and stereo in the living room and my alarm clock and bedside lamp and overhead light in my bedroom are all connected. Damn. We checked the circuit breakers to make sure they were all on and I replaced the light bulbs in my overhead light, but there must be some short in the wiring on that wall because nothing worked. The kitchen, dining room, bathroom and Shauna's room all work just fine and the inside wall of my room has power, but everything else is shot. Damn, damn. I got two loads of laundry done and went to the store to buy an extension cord to plug my alarm clock in so I'd actually get to work on time and not sleep through the alarm on my phone (which was my biggest concern). Hopefully, Shauna called our landlord today to have an electrician come out and fix whatever is wrong because I think we've already done everything we can possibly do ourselves without a professional including calling my dad for advice. So much for staying in and being entertained. Damn, damn, damn.

Top 10 Reasons To Stay Home Tonight

10. Sleep is good.
9. I haven't done laundry in two weeks.
8. There are three movies just waiting to be watched.
7. There is leftover pizza in the fridge.
6. When I get home, I can change into pajamas and not have to think about what to wear for the rest of the day.
5. My room looks like it did when I had mono (a mess).
4. The dishwasher isn't going to unload itself.
3. I can't dye my hair at a bar.
2. I don't have to wear shoes if I don't want to.
1. It's free.

I'm going out to the Boiler Room tomorrow night anyway, so it won't kill me to stay home two nights in a row. At least I don't think it will. Guess we'll find out tomorrow, eh?

Just What I Needed

Went to a baby shower bbq for Tina and Billy yesterday. Between the food and the beer, Shauna decided we needed to go down to the Boiler Room and sing some karaoke. Once things at the bbq were pretty much cleaned up and 9pm rolled around, we rolled ourselves down to the bar and rocked out until closing time. I was feeling kinda saucy so I busted out Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" and The Cars' "Just What I Needed" and Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me" along with my usual standbys. Oh and this guy Bob showed up, sat at our table, kept pulling Shauna and me up to dance with him and called his girlfriend in Ireland and sang "Your Song" by Elton John to her because I told him it'd be a good one. Frickin' sweet.

Mom and Dad came up today to drop off my grandmother somewhere and stopped in at my office to take me to lunch at the Jasmine Tree. The sweet and sour chicken was really good and strange but true, Shauna had sweet and sour chicken for lunch today too (weird) with Ryan after they went to see Jason vs Freddy (which I refuse to see because it looks stupid). Anyway, Mom brought me the new Harry Potter book and I've already started digging into it. Looks like it'll be a quick read like the rest. However, I didn't get further into it than about ten pages today because when I got home Shauna said she was hungry and I said I wanted to watch a movie and the next thing I knew we were renting 4 dvds and ordering pizza. We watched How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days and still have Igby Goes Down, Comic Book Villains and Just Married to watch this week. Shauna has to go out of town for three weeks again on Saturday, this time to the OC (ha.), so we're getting as much stuff into this week as possible.

On a totally unrelated side note, my boss said, kinda out of the blue to me after I got back from lunch today, that she wants me to spend as much time as I can learning the assistant manager's job because she's already talked to her boss and let her know she thinks I'd make a good assistant. Crazy. That's probably the best compliment I've ever gotten from a boss. Anyway, we'll see how that plays out.

And now it's time to hit the sack. I'm navigating on auto-pilot and I think the plane is running out of gas....

What'd You Call Me, Punk?

So I went over to Captain Ankeny's on Wednesday after work to meet up with Owen, Matt and Eric for a beer or three. The night before, Matt had called Eric and I asked Matt to let Eric know just how I felt about him...*insert choice words here*. Eric responded in kind (he pulled out the "C" word!! LOL) and said I'd better show up at the Captain's. Met their friend Fun Rob (total goofball) and the five of us headed down to the Rialto to play pool. Owen's girlfriend Jody met us there and the next thing I knew, it was 10:15pm. I had planned to meet up with the karaoke crowd at 9:30pm so when I showed up at 11ish, Amy and Jason had already gone home. D'oh. Had a good time anyway with the Wednesday regulars and ended up closing the bar out with about 5 other people.

Last night I actually stayed home and watched the Secretary and the Rules of Attraction, both of which I liked. Shauna comes back from her trip tonight and then the party starts again.... I'm sooo sleeping in tomorrow.

Well This Just Sucks.

It's totally my luck that the guy I end up with a crush on from the weekend's festivities doesn't even live here. He left to go back to Burlingame (that's just south of San Fran for those non-Californians reading this) today and I'm surprised at how bummed out I am about it. What the crap, man? I knew he lived down there, but I went ahead and hung out with him and damned if I didn't start rambling (that's how I know for sure I'm interested in someone) on about art and cell phone voids and blah blah blah.... tres smooth, Nina. You just keep on talking so he leaves knowing for sure that you're an idiot. On the positive side, my friends couldn't talk him up enough and Sam is pushing for him to move up here. In fact, Nora said he gave him a 3 year ultimatum. Nice. Sam needs to turn on his matchmaking magic and work this out for me... Go Sam go.

What Do You Mean The Toilet Is Backed Up?

So there we were, out in the middle of a vineyard with the nearest town about a 10 minute drive away and what does the owner of the place announce over the PA in the middle of the wedding reception as we're just digging into the hors d'ouvres and finishing our third glasses of wine, beer or water? "The pump has stalled and the toilets are backing up so we'd appreciate it if you men could go out into the vineyard rather than use the facilities. And ladies, if you don't need to use toilet paper, we'd appreciate it if you didn't." Nice. Good thing I have a bladder the size of a small country. Aside from the toilet snafu, the wedding went off without a hitch and everyone had a good time eating, drinking and being merry. The reception party continued on into the night at Ed's house, with over half a keg of beer in tow, and then this morning I met up with Nora from Seattle, Ho and Brian for breakfast at the Cup and Saucer on Hawthorne. After a bit of book shopping, we headed over to Ho and Brian's friend D's house to get him, go to Dot's for drinks, pick up Nora's palm pilot at Sam's folks house, take a few pics and head back home. I'm pretty sure we're all meeting back up later with Owen, Sam and his Nora later tonight for coffee or something so the party continues...

I *Am* A Girl You Know...

I'm going to Sam's bachelor shindig tomorrow night. Yeah, those are traditionally dude-type thingies, but it's only recently been brought to the attention of my male friends that I am, in fact, a girl so it's no surprise that I've been asked along for the ride. This just reinforces my belief that I'm forever going to be thought of as a "friend girl" rather than a girlfriend. And now I'm probably going to be subjected to boobies again. Dammit, man. I swear to gawd, if it wasn't Sam and Owen, I'd have kicked the guys square in the junk by now.

Ah, Glorious Sleep...

Tonight will be the second night in a row that I get to stay in and relax and get to sleep at a decent hour. Two nights in a row! I haven't done that in almost a month! I was going to head over to the Ohm and catch Dahlia again, but I'm thinking that since I already spread the word about karaoke tomorrow night, I should save my energy for rockin' the mic. Plus, I need to do laundry like a mo'fo'. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but that's my plan for tonight. Laundry....and maybe a movie. Army of Darkness, perhaps. Or whatever. I'm just looking forward to clean clothes, clean sheets and sleep.

Recap

Ok, if I was actually home for more than ten minutes at a time other than to sleep, I'd be updating this more often. Anyway, the last three days have been non-stop and I'm about ready to pass out. You know you're going out too much when you're sitting in the drive-thru of Taco Bell at 4 am wearing a sombrero for Ezra's amusement with a guy you just met the day before riding shot-gun and no one thinks there's anything weird about that scenario. But I'll get to that in a minute. I got to leave work at 5pm on Friday since I didn't get a lunch break on Wednesday, so I made it to the PDX Blogger monthly meet up at Kell's. Met some of the new folks and see that the group is slowly getting bigger (maybe because of the recent articles in the Oregonian?). I got to talking to Karl from katzke.net and told him about the Dahlia show I'd planned to catch at Berbati's Pan that night so I met up with him later after picking Shauna up from the airport and heading over to Tina and Billy's for a barbeque. There was a very drunk, very crazy straw hat wearing dude at Berbati's who practically fell into my lap at one point and we were waiting to see which guy was going to kick his ass. Dahlia was amazing as always and Karl liked them well enough to buy a cd, so I should join their damn street team or something.

Sam is in town this week before he and Nora tie the knot next weekend so I signed on for breakfast Saturday morning and 6 of us (Sam, Nora, Nora, Ho, Courtney and me) headed over to the Cricket Cafe on Belmont and had some really good grub. After breakfast, Sam, Nora, Courtney and I split off from Nora and Ho and went shopping for a dress for Courtney to wear to the wedding. We were finally successful, after about 5 hours of shopping and a coffee break at Stumptown, at Banana Republic and everyone was happy to head over to Sam's folks' place to grill a flank steak that had been marinating for two days, some tuna Sam's dad got out at the coast and some really tasty veggies. Sam and I headed over to my house to meet up with Shauna, change for the Dr. Theopolis EP release show and head downtown to meet up with Karl and Ed at the Ohm. Of course, after the show, a few of us went back to the house and hung out with the guys and this is where the sombrero wearing trip to Taco Bell comes in. It had been a long day and I'd gotten my third wind so when Ez asked me to wear the sombrero on my border run to feed the party people, I didn't need much convincing.

After about 6 1/2 hours of sleep, I got up, got clean and got Shauna to the airport so she could leave for a 5 day business trip to LA. I did a little grocery shopping on the way home and by the time I got back, unpacked everything and looked at the clock, it was time to go over to the Montevilla pool for the pool party this guy Jamie has put together for every Sunday in August. It struck me earlier today that I wouldn't be able to go swimming because of my hair (the color would bleed into the pool) so I offered to help out with the barbeque and ended up taking orders and collecting the money and said I'd be happy to do the same thing next weekend if they needed help. A photographer and reporter from the Oregonian turned up to take pics and interview Jamie and some of the kids who were there, so I'll be keeping an eye out for the article in the paper.

Now that I'm finally home, nothing sounds better than crawling into bed and curling up with a full body pillow.... Oh yeah, just fyi - screw Krispy Kreme. That's right, you heard me. I had the best damn donuts friday night after the Dahlia show at Voodoo Donut. It's between the Paris theater and Berbati's Pan on 3rd Ave and the donuts there rule. So, go. Right now. 'Cause they're open. And it's a good time for a donut.

Now That's What I'm Talkin' About

There are times in life where you just have to say, "Screw it. I'm gonna go out and damn the consequences." Last night was just one of the many times I've said that lately and I seem to be doing ok. I went to the Tonic Lounge to hang out with Amy and Jason and see Sophe Lux again ( I know, I know...but I'm not a groupie, I swear...I actually do other stuff with some of them as you will soon read). They played two new songs, both of which I dig but I especially like "Lonely Girl," and I finally found out what that pager looking thing Guy plays his guitar with sometimes is called (it's an e-bow and it makes the prettiest sounds). Right after their set, Jenni and I were fired up to go sing at the Boiler Room for the last hour of Wednesday night karaoke, but almost all of the regular folks had left just before we showed up and we decided to scrap the karaoke idea and head back to rejoin Guy, his brother Joel and some of their east coasty friends at the Tonic to close the place down. Right close to lights out, it seemed like a good idea to me and Guy to go punch Joel, so we double teamed him. Strangely, he seemed to like it and then it was time to go. And what's the only way to keep the party going when the bar shuts down? Breakfast at the 24 Hour Hotcake House over on Powell, baby, yeah! There's nothing more amusing at almost 4am than some guy named Kevin (friend of Joel and Guy who was in town from New York) just going off for a good 30 minutes about random stuff and seemingly embarrassing the hell out of Guy. On a side note, I found out this morning that Mr. Barker, rather than follow us north back over to the Tonic and head home from there, turned south on 39th and was almost to Oregon City before he realized he'd gone the opposite direction of where home is and had to double back. Now that's funny. Ok, not really....I was a little worried that I'd read him wrong and maybe I shouldn't have let him drive himself home, but he says he was sober and just really tired. Nice one.

So, what's the moral of this story? If you aren't paying attention, you end up in Oregon City or you get punched. If you are paying attention, you get french toast and bacon. Yum.

Membership Has it's Privelages

At Red Ranger International, I can't quite tell what the privelages are besides the spiffy laminated membership card you can proudly carry and flash around schwanky industry parties and a bunch of Red Ranger swag, but join the club anyway and support local filmmakers. I met Rob and Milo at Wednesday night karaoke and they run this outfit, so check 'em out and buy their crap.

For The Love Of Pete, Somebody Stop Me

One of the things I like about being single is the ability to be selfishly spontaneous. You can do whatcha like, when you like and it has no affect on anyone else's plans. Friday night I stayed in and fell dead asleep at 9:30p (guess the outings all week kicked my ass). Saturday I got up and headed out with the intention of shopping a little and only being out for about 2 hours. Five hours later, I rolled in and asked Shauna if she was hungry and felt like going to Dot's for burgers and she was down so we went. On the way home, we stopped at Freddy's to pick up hair dye and when we came out to the car, one of the tires had been knifed (the jackass who did it broke off the knife tip in the side wall) and was flat. We spent about 45 minutes changing it, with no help from anyone else thankyouverymuch, and the spare turned out to be flat as well. D'oh. So, we drove on it down the street to the gas station to fill it and headed home to wash up. After that, we weren't really motivated to do anything and I called Jenni to see if she and Dave wanted to come over and play cards or something. She reminded me that Joshua James (who I know from Eugene back in the day) and the Runaway Trains were playing at Duff's Garage and they were going to that if we wanted to meet them over there. We mustered up enough energy to go and that was a fun time. The bands were kinda old school rock/rockabilly and Duff's is exactly the kind of place you'd expect to see a bunch of guys dressed like 1950's style greasers rocking out. We both slept in and finally left the house on Sunday just before 2pm to head over to Captain Ankeny's for pre-softball drinks at one of the sidewalk tables. One of Shauna's co-workers met us there and we chatted for an hour and a half before we all had to go. Once we'd picked up a cooler and filled it with beer for the game, we headed down to the schoolyard for a 7-on-7 softball game and followed that with a little 4-on-4 basketball action. Tired and hungry, we made a run for the border and then hung out at the guys' house playing Halo until about 11:30. At this point, I am completely wiped out. So what's my plan for tonight? I'm going out to See Odds Against Tomorrow at Nocturnal. If it weren't for the coffee, I'm fairly certain I'd have passed out by now.

Well, That Was Weird.

I went over the The Green Room last night to see Sophe Lux and The Garden Gnomes. Had a good time hanging out with Jenni, but kind of got a weird vibe from Guy...there seemed to be an awkward tension like maybe I shouldn't have gone. Weird. Anyway, they played a new song that ROCKED and those Gnome guys kick ass. I think all the going out is starting to catch up with me, though. I'm wiped out today and while I'm not positive, I have a feeling we'll end up doing something again tonight. Ooo, I also have to practice the bass some more. I'm pretty sure I have the first song on the cd down, so I'm pretty proud of me since I've only had my hands on the thing for two days. It's getting easier to figure out the notes and all that, but I'm still trying to find the most comfortable way to hold my hands and get into a strumming pattern. I tried both using a pick and not using one and besides the fact that I looked like a gimp with the pick, it's just easier without it. Jenni was telling people on Wednesday at karaoke and again last night that I'm learning to play the bass and I dunno why, but it freaks me out to hear someone say, "Oh yeah, she's a bass player too..." Maybe it's because....(insert Wayne or Garth here) I'M NOT WORTHY!! ....but one day I will be....

Just Can't Get Enough

Have I mentioned how much I love karaoke? I have? Oh. Well, we went again last night and, as usual, I had a blast. Ever since last Wednesday I've had a raspy voice and it worked well for stuff like Bette Davis Eyes (seen the movie Duets? Yeah baby yeah!) and Come Together... also, one of the regular Wednesday night guys, Milo, totally rocked Try A Little Tenderness and another regular, whose name escapes me, sang Daddy Wasn't There by Ming Tea (from Goldmember) and that was super cool. This town has a ton of talented people and a crapload of them hit the Boiler Room on Wednesday nights. If you're looking for untapped rockstar potential, come on down and check it out...

Ow.

Went to Karaoke From Hell last night with Shauna and Jenni met us there...none of us had been before and we loved it because you get to sing with a live band instead of regular karaoke music. I sang Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash and Come Together by the Beatles and I rocked it. Yeah baby yeah! If you ever go to karaoke with me ask me to sing that Beatles song and I'll rock it for you too. Jenni won the 100$ they give away every week and was nice enough to buy the band a round of drinks with some of her winnings. She was also nice enough not only to bring her old bass and a cute little amp, but she also burned a cd to practice with and wrote up a three page crash course in how to play the bass lines of all 9 songs on the cd, complete with pictures for the really retarded folks like yours truly. Shauna and I have been working on learning the first song and she's making me practice, which is good because I suck. After almost two hours of playing the same song over and over until I was too tired to play anymore and almost have it down, I only have one thing to say: damn my fingers hurt.

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

It's the peak going out season, I've been riding the party train all weekend and the madness continues tonight. Friday night I went to Produce Row with Owen, Jody, Matt and Ed and we hung out and drank beers and finally went back to Matt's to watch the funniest home video of Ed, drunk as hell and raving about being "beer-savvy", getting knocked on his ass by his own car out in the desert. Maybe you had to be there... On Saturday, Shauna's dad came into town, took us to lunch at Dot's, hung out at our house while I took Shauna to get a deluxe facial at Bellini's Euro Spa (late birthday present) and then we all drove the hour out to Hood River to see Dr. Theopolis and The Cherrie Poppin' Daddies play at Hoodfest, a small food and music festival at the marina. On Sunday, we both slept late and then headed out to find something cute to wear to the invite-only Absolute Vodka party on the rooftop of Billy Reed's. We met up with Shauna's friends, Nicole and Jenny, at a little place called the Bonfire for drinks before the show and then headed over for three hours of booty shakin' and free food eatin' and free vodka drinkin'. Woo! We followed that up with a visit to the guys' house for a Halo playin' and beer drinkin' marathon until 2am... Oi. Next up, Karaoke From Hell at Dante's tonight with Shauna, Jenni, Jake, Jen Jo and anyone else we can round up. It seems Shauna's addiction to the karaoke has taken over and I'm having too much fun to do an intervention. Yeah, it's Monday and I have to get up in the morning for work, and yeah I'm going to go out to the Boiler Room with Shauna and Jenni on Wednesday and sing karaoke again, but I figure I can sleep when I'm dead and I'll make double large vanilla lattes my new best friend.