--{ quick, before i forget }------
Unlike Leonard Shelby, I do have the ability to form short term memories. My ability, however, is very poor. So quick, before I forget: some notes from the last two weekends.
last weekend, in cincinnati
I flew into Cincinnati the weekend before I had to work there. Brady, another friend from law school, also flew into Cincinnati from DC (where he works drafting legislation for Congress). We stayed with our friend Anna, who lives in Cincinnati working for Legal Aid.
The weekend was perfect, oh perfect. It is weird, because I was so tired of law school people by the time I left, tired of everyone and everything they said and people people people. But now, with some distance, I was actually able to have tons of fun.
It is hard to explain the perfection. It wasn't just what we did, though what we did was fun. We danced, met cute people at clubs, laughed at chicken rings. We saw an exhibit of the photography of Gordon Parks. Anna and Brady skated around Eden Park and laughed at my poor skateboarding skills. We ate Indian food like there was no tomorrow. We danced till 5am at all the gay clubs we could find (because Brady was being silly and pushy and was (in his words) "feeling randy"). We even ended up at one dyke bar where, unfortunately, everyone was older and partnered. We consumed oh so much fondue, and made fun of our could-be-cuter Republican jazz musician waiter.
But, like I said, it wasn't just what we did. It was our rapport -- it was somehow . . . perfect. We were laughing and hugging and mocking other people (because we so much love mocking other people) the whole time. We had bonding talks about relationships and politics and everything.1 (Though Brady got me really worried about DC, especially about how hard it is for lawyers to meet, in a dating sense, nonlawyers there. And he concurred with my impression that there are too few butch women in DC, how queer gals are all business-femme.)
It was a perfect weekend. Not the kind of perfection you can repeat over and over, but the kind of perfection where, for the instance, everything just clicked. By the end, we were tired but happy and sated. And life was great, just great.
a short saturday conversation with my dad
Dad (out of the blue): So it turns out Memphis has a hip hop radio station.
Me (stunned): [...?]
Dad: Yeah, there was an article on Memphis radio stations the other day. I saved it. I even circled the hip hop station.
Me: [...?]
Dad: Because sometimes the classical music station has that [wai gwai, which basically translates as bad demon-ey] contemporary stuff, and NPR has that wai gwai Michael Feldman and I need something to listen to.
Me: Dad, do you know what hip hop is?
Dad: Yeah, it's this black music from the 50s.
Me: Uh, dad . . .
just this weekend, in memphis
I saw Jason, one of my best childhood friends whom I hadn't seen since we were both seven years old. Simultaneously awkward and amazing. It's been a long time, and wow people go through a lot in twenty-two years. The last time we'd seen each other, we were teeny tiny tykes, playing on a log that was really a time travel machine on the banks of a small lake in Jackson. The log "fell apart soon after you guys [meaning me and my brother] moved," and the lake has since been drained. We talked about loss, and animals, and japanimation.
It was a spur-of-the-moment trip for Jason, who, because of a recent loss, really really really needed to get out of town, and some friends of his were driving up to play a gig in Memphis. A sort of lonely gig, because the crowds were all at Memphis in May but hey.
On the drive back home (because I still can't drive so they had to give me a ride), Jason's friends, Tommy2 and Rusty,3 joked around, parodying Beavis and Butthead, but more intelligently. A sample quote from Rusty: "Huh, Tommy let's you and me start a Christian rock band, the kind where people can't tell if we're singing about girls . . . or Jesus."
I really hope Jason and I see each other before another twenty-two years pass by, because hey, I think we all need the continuity.
050601
1.
Brady had a funny story about this new project of his called Hostile
Takeover. ("Anna said you would totally love this," he said.) Brady's
deal is that he hates the usual gay club music. Hates it hates it hates
it. (Though when we were clubbing, it didn't look like he hated
it.) And he thinks that the gay population in DC is much bigger than the
current club/bar capacity.
So what he and his friends have been doing is this -- they've gotten
together a huge (over a hundred, apparently) list of friends and
friends of friends to do a hostile takeover of one straight bar/club a
week. He thinks they have Stetsons now. When he described to me what he
wants in an ideal bar (comfy-grungy, with sofas), I suggested Black Cat.
I hope it works.
2. Who looked a bit like Bill Murray in Rushmore.
3.
Some musical coincidences with Rusty (who personality-wise, reminded me of
Kevin D., and looks-wise, reminded me of Harry), who self-denigratingly
mentioned his "bad CDs" of groups like Neutral Milk Hotel. When I
mentioned I'd just bought one of their CDs, he said he actually thought
that was the best album ever. Then, upon further mutual probing, it
turned out we had a lot of similar music tastes, like Belle and Sebastian
and The Magnetic Fields.
Then in a show of PURE INSANITY, Rusty whips out 69 Love Songs,
only . . . different. It turns out he had REDONE 69 Love Songs (which
entailed coercing his girlfriend into helping him with the female vocals).
No really. All sixty-nine of them. We played the first redid-CD on the
way back to Germantown. Wow.
It actually made me feel a lot better about my crazy tribute works, like
re-laying out Calvino and Cortazar and Murakami short stories.