tonight was the first night of bumbershoot 2002. chris and i bussed over to the seattle center with plans to hang out at the skychurch and see the gossip and 764-hero.

we got to the grounds and ate some food i made this morning, brown rice with a yogurt-orange dressing. it was weird and not incredibly good, and we weren't terribly hungry at the time, so we ate about half of it and dumped it, fearing some pointless "no food" rule at the venue entrance. we walked closer and hurriedly ate a small bunch of grapes before heading in.

we caught the end of the drop's set. they were all right, if not terribly exciting. when the gossip finally came on, they were fabulous as usual. i heart beth ditto, and the other band members rock immensely. they are talented and hardcore and have fabulous presence. however, after playing several great songs and inducing plenty of crowd enjoyment, they stopped suddenly with a good 40 minutes left available to play. chris and i were right in front and saw the crew take away a totally smashed-up cymbal from the drumkit, but was that really all? i feel unfulfilled.

disappointed, we sat around for quite awhile longer, figuring we would just watch the pattern and keep our cushy spot. chris said he was hungry, and pointed out that these girls who personified vapid, originally appreciated on the bus ride to the grounds, had arrived at our precious skychurch. we decided it was time to walk.

we grabbed some cheap but decent meals at the center house--me my rice bowl of thai basil chicken, chris his super deluxe philly cheesesteak--and wandered a little more, eventually succumbing to the temptation of a $2 tiny thai iced coffee from a stand by the blues stage. it wasn't the orgasmic goodness they serve at the thai-ger room, which is about twice as big and $1.50, but still. mm, coffee. we sucked it down and went back to the sky church.

the woman checking stamps outside emp said she recognized me and i didn't need to check my stamp. heh! i have achieved uniqueness! a fashion statement! i am not a cookie-cutter indie rock nerd! huzzah! and all it took was a red plaid skirt and a green "don't be a dick" tshirt!

we came in at the end of the pattern's set. they were fun and very rock'n'roll. i think jenny would have enjoyed them. my main thought was a very snarky, "these boys are clearly in a band to pick up chicks." chris was convinced they wanted to be the rolling stones more than anyone he's ever seen.

after the crowd dispersed, we took up our old rail space in the front and waited. we were told twice that they expected quite the crowd for this show, and that we should all squeeze together. great, except we had no room to move the direction they desired. whatever. when the show finally started, it was going great, until somewhere between the first and second songs, two girls, stinking of alcohol, pushed their way through the crowd and stopped right behind chris and i. the first chance they had, they began the shrieking that would not end for anything.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! 764-HERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JOHN YOU FUCKING ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

the screams were of the piercing variety displayed most often by people in great pain or by deep-voiced girls in horror movies, yelled out of drunken joy and, most importantly, directly in my ears. i wanted to turn around and tell them, "it's people like you who ruin shows like this for people like me," but i figured that might be too wordy or something.

it would have been okay if they had only made their presence as SUPERFANS known at the beginning, or even just between songs during the appropriately long interval in which people applaud, whistle, and yell "wooo!" but it was not. oh, no. they continued in this fashion FOR THE ENTIRE SHOW. they yelled so loud and so frequently that i often couldn't hear the band over these dumb bitches. honestly, i don't expect concertgoers to be super-polite, but i do expect them to be sober enough to not abuse peoples' eardrums in addition to personal space and enjoyment of the show they all paid to see. these girls were clearly jumping over that fine line. at one point, one of the girls took a swing at the guy standing on the other side of chris, and security came over to yell at her. she took on a jerry springer guest-esque "you don't KNOW me!" stance and they left her alone; the guy received free earplugs. they were often close enough to me to (1) drool on the back of my leg (ew, ew, ew) and (2) cause me to shove them away with my hip because they were touching it.

anyway, drunk bitches aside, 764-hero was very rocking. they played a bunch of songs i love, etc. they were gracious, as this was their last show, and most of the fans were nothing but polite and appreciative. someone called out that they should play "long arm of the law," which they didn't, but other than that, i feel they played everything i would have thought they should. i have enjoyed the shit out of their records recently, especially as driving music (they are superb driving music; just don't drive in the carpool lane if you're a single person! heh), and their performance definitely lived up to that.

chris and i found ed! after the show, and he was kind enough to give us a lift home, as the city buses had left him in such a jam that he simply drove here to catch the band. alas. tomorrow there will be much bussing for all, i suspect. and burritos.

i would just like to say!

that, for the RECORD!

i beat paul at a game of pool.

HA!

yes, i suck total ass. and yes, he scratched on the 8-ball, so it was just a technicality, i guess.

BUT I WIN.

HA HA HA!

sometime today, i make my triumphant return to the fair city of seattle. thank gosh.

not that i dislike spending time with my family, or hate everything about this city...it's just...boring me to death? not that i will be more occupied in seattle. i've taken off work and internship and there are no classes until those things start back up, either. i need to finish my stats final, which shouldn't be a big deal, and that can't happen until after i get back from san francisco.

my sister left for school yesterday. she's living in a hotel. i think she's excited about the whole kit'n'kaboodle.

bumbershoot is this weekend. i'm thrilled, y'know. yay! also, my very dear old friend rachel, whom i haven't seen in probably three years despite keeping in touch and only living a state apart, is coming up with her college roommate. that should be fun.

i don't have a lot to say, but this weekend will be fun. yayayay. i need that right now.

i am drinking my mom's coffee again after a few days of refusal. i went to bed around 1:30 and woke up around 7:30, so i think it's warranted. strong stuff with a strong aftertaste.

my brother's turning 15 this weekend. he's having a formal party today, meaning his friends are supposed to wear suits. they are getting a steak dinner and playing card games and shooting pool (with paul's new pool table, lovingly assembled by him and a friend just last night). paul is obsessed with gaming, but not of the console-vs-computer variety.

my mom has had to tell the story of the night my dad died too many times since it happened. every time it makes her cry. i don't know why people who try so hard to be sensitive somehow aren't. they almost never tell her what she needs to hear. everyone wants to talk about their own loss. to her. i can understand the need to talk about it, but with the widow? who then must take on your loss in addition to her own, which is great? sensitivity is just somehow something you can't explain, but you know people lack it when they're not in your shoes.

what's strange now is how i can feel a sort of kinship with people who have also lost their fathers, or how i think mom is able to talk with women who have lost husbands in a way she can't with other women. i remember on the day of the funeral, youen and putha (matriarchal figures of the cambodian contingent) were having a discussion with mom about that very subject.

the experience of loss is subjective and different for everyone, of course. there's no real way to quantify or explain it without a silent understanding, empathy, and...i don't know what.

by the way, did i tell you about the time i was too sad-looking for hot topic?

right after posting that last entry, i left to go to the westside to attempt to exchange windows xp for win2k because winxp is incompatible with the p.o.s. wireless network setup here at the house, and therefore useless to us. my sister had a charging cellphone surgically affixed to her ear, and as such, was in no condition to leave the house with me, and i didn't want to share the car with my stinkybrother, so i wandered out alone.

i took the freeway and got off at the black lake exit and proceeded to drive way up the hill to get gas at a shell station. (not that i am particular about where i buy gas, just that i wasn't able to get into the far lane soon enough to get to the nearer texaco.) as i got back in the car after filling up, i reached into my pocket for keys, and all of a sudden, PAIN. my entire back--the ribcage--felt like someone had put their long, evil fingers right into the bones and done something to make them hurt. it was all i could do to drive myself to another part of the parking lot, park, and call mom for backup. it hurt to *breathe.* after probably half an hour of sitting there, yelping like a drama queen all over the strip mall parking lot, my mom arrived with lee to drive me home. as older women, they both dispensed advice and comisseration over back pain. mom pumped me full of aleve "to take the edge off," which may or may not have helped, i don't know. it fades slowly.

anyway, i wasn't able to go see webley on saturday, either. bummer.

mom and i rented a bunch of movies saturday night instead, in a fit of desperation to fucking do something already. i got vhs of hedwig and the angry inch and waking life, because apparently hollywood video is capable of carrying the most random things without cool features on dvd but not the movies i want to rent. living by scarecrow has completely ruined me for normal video stores. my sister loved hedwig, of course, and we still need to watch the other.

on sunday, my sister and i got very bored and left the house. we finally attempted to return winxp to circuit city, but because their policy is open software cannot be exchanged or returned, we got nowhere. alas. i fucked up. so we went to goodwill. and big lots. the joy of thrifting, my friends. i got some books, cheap plastic coathangers (too many of my shirts are doubled up), and little memo notebooks that will fit in the purse (rather, cd player travel bag that i use as a purse, heh). then we decided we wanted to eat, so because we would have to actually drive to the mall to get thai food and chinese food was in the parking lot already, we went to emperor's palace. that place used to be good. emphasis on "used to." jeez. though the pre-meal tea was lovely, the dishes themselves had a disgusting aftertaste of mediocrity that caused me to not even want to box up the leftovers. it was edible, yes, but it tasted like ass. margot had the same problem with her dishes. bad chinese food is worse than bad. i *know* that i can like chinese food; it's not my favorite, but it'll do... but damn, eating meals like this reaffirms my distaste thereof. uf. i almost need a trip to new china express to remember what non-crap tastes like.

here is the thing i think most thai restaurants i've been to do better than most chinese restaurants: explaining the dishes on the menu. sure, chinese food has been popular in america for much longer than thai food, but that doesn't mean everyone has a clue what the dishes are. most of the menus i've seen list the name of the dish and the price, and that's it. at thai places, there is generally a brief description of what the main ingredient is (meat/tofu/shrimp), how it is cooked (fried/grilled/stir-fried), what the major seasonings are (basil, garlic, pepper, coconut milk, etc.), and perhaps what else is in there (veggies, rice, noodles). i find this information very useful. of course, i also tend to prefer the general style and flavor of thai food to chinese--much less deep frying; much more vivid flavoring. i readily admit this is probably only because of my american restaurant-eating perspective, and i am sure homemade chinese food is great, but when eating out, this is what i've noticed.

i should go dig up my nasal spray. i seem to have misplaced it since coming here, and my allergies are acting up. go figure!

yesterday was a crappy day. the majority of the day was spent stressing over my sister's school trying to screw us over for housing three days before she's supposed to move in. apparently, she was not assigned to the dorm she thought she was, and the dorm she was actually assigned to has been condemned and all its residents moved to this new hotel setup they have. the hotel setup is actually a pretty sweet deal for margot--she'll only have one roommate, and phone, cable, and high-speed net access are included for free, which they sure as hell weren't in the regular dorm. the downside is that now, all of a sudden, there is a bill for $1800. why? the room rate is the same since they had to switch (how fucking generous). oh, that's $1800 for a REQUIRED four month meal plan, which works out to $14 a day for two all-you-can-eat buffets in the hotel. hmm! $14 a day isn't, y'know, EXCESSIVE for eating expenditures or anything! no! so my mom and my aunt and my sister fought this all day and finally came to the conclusion after exploring several options that to say yes was to take it in the ass, but that's better than not getting laid at all. (well, that's not what they said, of course, but y'know.) essentially, this private institution has the ability to totally screw with its WRITTEN AGREEMENTS with students and suffer no repurcussions. suddenly i am very glad to attend a public university with a shitload of organization and accountability. they may screw me over sometimes, but i'll be damned if it isn't at least through a lot of red tape and not nearly so egregious as this shit with margot's school.

so i was in a shitty mood yesterday and napped a few times. i slept through half of plan 9 from outer space, but i don't feel like i missed any important scenes, plot points, or amusing imagery. (seen one string attached to a "flying saucer," seen 'em all?) eventually, mom, margot, and i went out for thai food. we were going to go to lemon grass, but it was closed by the time we got downtown, so we went to mekong instead. mekong special chicken is goooood.

my sister is having a goodbye party today, and we still need to watch waking life! otherwise, i don't know what else is going on. i'm hungry, it's morning, i've woken up too early. uf.