"...In between the 1st and the 40th drink."

I had a pretty good weekend. On Friday I got talked into house sitting while my boss goes to New York to buy art. It would have been much easier to say yes if she had asked me to go to NY. But c'est la vie. Friday night the Player and I dropped by the Plaza with the intentions of moving on to the Arena but that didn't happen so we rented Interiors, a Woody Allen flick. I don't recommend it unless you are in the mood to see an entire cast of Woody Allen impressionists. Saturday Batonga and I went to Sakura before the "meeting." I was pretty much hammered by the time we reached the Plaza. I enjoyed watching Tori relentlessly run the tables like a seasoned pool hall hustler, game after game. Thanks to me, Chris the bartender now answers to "Precious." I had some conversations that I can't quite recall in their entirety. Let's just say, I'm pretty sure I reaffirmed (for some people) the fact that I am an asshole. I obviously made it home safe and sound. Only to find that Super Action Kevin commented on my last post that he would like to take me to a gay bar. I forgot my camera so I'll be posting random pics from holidays past. I guess I'll finish with a list. Top 5 people I totally intended to make out with Saturday night but eluded me for various reasons.

1. HemisphereDancer-that rascal left early.
2. Kenn-I was too drunk by the time he showed up.
3. Liesl-I could not have out done the pornographic kiss between her and her husband.
4. My favorite Doorman- he was home sick.
5. BeaucoupKevin- he lives in bean town.

The Upsidedown Plaza

Ok people, here's the invite. Not that anyone should ever need an invite to a PUBLIC BAR. On Monday- I do not expect to get an instant message from anyone who did not get a personal invite. That means you!

Unsure

What could be worse than pulling up to a red light and seeing someone picking their nose in the car next to you? Glancing over to see a perfect stranger's look of disgust because he just witnessed me smelling my own armpit. I forgot to put on deodorant today and I didn't realize it until I was driving home. Just another day in my life.

Don't Hate.

I took Angelbaby to the Birmingham Museum of Art last Saturday. We went for the first time a couple months ago and she requested this second visit. (My baby loves art, I'm so proud.) Along with the same old crap, we saw several featured artists that were really quite good. The first was Bill Traylor. He was an "outsider artist" which I only recently learned is the term for someone who has not studied art formally. Personally I take the view that school or no school-art is art and elitist bastards that want to ruin it for everyone can piss off. Moreover, if you've been to art school and your work is still shite, get another profession-you are not an artist! I will be sure to explore that subject further on a later date. So where was I - Bill Traylor his work is mostly in pencil and crayons on pieces of scrap cardboard. Individually the drawings were not that impressive. But after viewing the entire collection his style starts to grow on a novice critic such as myself. I was impressed further by the black and white photos by Edward Weston hanging along side the drawings depicting Mr. Traylor as he worked. 25 stone sculptures by William Edmondson were also featured as part of this exibit entitled the Modernist Impulse. The major exhibition was One True Thing: Meditations on Black Aesthetics by Birmimgham born Kerry James Marshall. Mixed media including painting, sculpture, video and photography. Heirlooms and Accessories was a piece that most affected me. Marshall's quietly nightmarish "Heirlooms and Accessories" casually drapes locket pendants that contain the faces of three white women over a barely discernable, faded background of six lynched black men accused of improper conduct. The work recalls a time when such strange fruit was considered justice. In an interview with Jeffery Brown, Mashall said: This piece was sort of a reminder that these people are accessories to a crime in the first place, and that the heirlooms and the things that their offspring inherited from them were inherited from them because they were engaged in this kind of violence. It made me really think about my role in racism. The only time I ever dropped the "N bomb" in front of my dad I was pre-school age. My dad whipped his head around with a quickness and demanded to know where I had heard that word. In the wisdom of my 5 years I replied "everybody says it." (Everybody as in- other kids in my neighborhood.) "Everybody doesn't say it! You don't know what that word means and you don't know who's feelings your going to hurt by saying it. And I mean you'd better never say it again!" And that was it. That was all my dad had to say about racism. When I started school I learned very quickly what racism was. From elementary to high school, my schools were the last ones in Birmimgham City to be plagued by white flight. So the ratio of black to white students was 50/50 almost until I graduated. We were constantly hounded by the subject. Once, in middle school, two students were arguing over an eraser which broke into a fist fight. Someone had apparently used the infamous "your mamma" rebuttal and all hell broke loose. Because one student was white and the other black, they were sentenced to inhouse suspention where they were subjected to made for school movies about racism. OVER A FUCKING ERASER. Anyway- to me, Marshall's art implies that if you are a witness to hate then you are an accessory. I can honestly say I don't associate with people who hate. (To the best of my knowledge.) I wasn't taught to hate. I don't teach Angelbaby to hate. My question is: In this day and time, what more can be done?

All Grown Up.

I still don't much think of myself as a grown-up. It seems like just yesterday I was ditching school to hang out at the arcade. Turning 19 was hardly a milestone since I do not smoke. By the time I turned 21, I had become a bible beating, Mormon, Sunday school teacher to 4 yr olds. Getting wasted was the last thing on my mind and so 21 to me, was just another birthday. Yes, I have a child. But with the number of teen mothers out there, I simply cannot view giving birth as the definition of womanhood. Getting married didn't seem so grown up when we came home to an apartment that looked like it had been decorated by a bunch of punk rock squatters. And let's face it, divorce is always childish no matter how you slice it. Today, I felt like a grown up. It happened as I was walking Angelbaby to the bus stop this morning. Before we got there, the older kids that ride her bus were having a spat. I couldn't quite tell what was going on but there was pushing and yelling. In my head I was trying to think of the best way to handle the situation. Should I open with "What's going on here?" What to say... Then it happened. We got to the stop and they all turned to look at me. Then they looked at each other in anger as if to say "This is far from over." I didn't have to say a word. Because I am an adult. I thought about this "adult" business through half my morning. A lot of things are going to have to change. Like: I'm going to have to take a job I hate so I can afford to move out of my parents house. I have pretty much accepted it. But I am not going to do anything drastic like- stop drinking milk strait from the carton. That would just be silly.

Oblivious

Sunday I saw Wilco at the Alabama Theater. I am in love with Wilco. Great music, great stage presence and two grammy's to prove it. I do not find it at all strange that though they have been around for about 10 years give or take, I only just heard of them a couple of months ago. I am usually oblivious to the best music. That is, until a friend comes along and says "hey idiot why the hell aren't you listening to this?" By all accounts, I should be a music nazi. My mom says I sang before I could talk. I played the flute for 7 years in school. The piano for 2 years. I even went to community college on a voice scholarship for about a year. I should be searching through stacks of rare demo's on 7 in. vinyl released by bands that no one in Birmingham but the music nazis have ever heard of as I type. Alas, I do not. I'm not sure why I take music for granted. My worst hell on earth would be to go deaf. (Outside of anything happening to Angelbaby.) I do listen to the radio. But generally speaking, a band has to be out for about 5 to 10 years before I deem them worthy to purchace a CD. Anyway, Wilco and I are together now, and that's all that matters.

Ditched

The weekend- Friday night I stayed home to chat with friends on AIM. Because that's the kind of dork I am. Saturday-Part Deux. Sunday-Wilco at the Alabama Theater. Part Deux-I can think of a hundred things that would be more fun than a night at the Plaza. But a night out with friends is always fun, no matter where we are. Thanks to HemisphereDancer who was Johnny on the spot with the shots. Even still, I managed to maintain my almost sober status until time to go home. Since Jason Coleman was the new man out Saturday, he was met with much hazing. He seemed to have taken it well, that is until he ditched us at the Grill. No kiss, no "kiss my ass" just there one minute and gone the next. It's too bad really. I was beginning to believe that maybe, just maybe a good republican wasn't necessarily a dead one. Hopefully he will permit me to post his mug in the scrapbook anyway. The Exhibits totally rocked. Again. And Tori's rack was mystifying. I didn't get too drunk, didn't kiss anyone, and went home alone. But all was not lost, indeed it was a good evening after all. Mean Muggin.

Curse this Sickness!

I took on the personality of 4 out of 7 dwarfs today. Including: Happy, Sneezy, Grumpy, and Sleepy. Happy because Angelbaby lost her first tooth this morning. Sneezy due to my head cold. Grumpy because I could not stay home in bed to recuperate. Sleepy from the cold medicine and I guess that made me a little Dopey to. Make that 5 out of 7 dwarfs. Damn I hate being dwarfesque!

The Cowgirl

Well, thanks to HemisphereDancer's 100 things (#82), today I wrote a letter to a long lost friend. The Cowgirl. The cowgirl and I met on account of her grandparents living next door to me since before we were born. When we were young, she would spend weekends with her grandparents in the city and when we got older I spent most of my summers at her family's small horse farm. Yep, Irish spent many a day covered in mud, crawling barefoot through a creek looking for frogs. The cowgirl's family treated me like an extra kid of theirs except when it came to introductions. I was referred to as the city girl. (I am sure this was a polite way of explaining my black fingernails and combat boots.) By all accounts the cowgirl and I were like sisters. Screaming, punching, hateful, sisters. Always willing to do each other in for a laugh. The thing I remember most about being down on the farm was falling off horses. No, not riding- falling off. I fell off every horse I ever rode. You see, the cowgirl's favorite joke was -not teaching me the correct way to ride. She would then put me on horses with names like Stormy and Shotgun. One day all the kids were rounding up calves so the boys could practice their roping skills and there I was hanging on for dear life to a horse named Hotshot while the adults watched me with tears in their eyes from laughter. Oh yea, I was down in less than 8 seconds. The cowgirl's father said I looked like I was riding a rocking horse and still snickering, he scolder her for not teaching me how to ride. Another good laugh came while we were racing down a dirt road. By the time I reached the finish line, I was dangling from the side of the horse with one leg through the stirrup and one hand on the horn of the saddle. I didn't actually hit the ground until the horse came to a complete stop so, thankfully nothing was hurt but my pride. The list is endless from being bucked off to simply sliding right off the ass end. If I was on a horse, I was going to fall off. Oddly enough the only broken bone I have ever suffered was from washing a horse. We were washing Sandy for a horse show later that evening. And , as usual, I was sporting bare feet. Washing a horse is alot like washing a dog. A 1,000 pound dog. My littlest piggy got stepped on. We didn't tell anyone because we didn't want to miss the horse show. The cowgirl's mom noticed me limping that night and demanded an explanation. By the time I took my boot off my toe had turned blue-black. Being a nurse she just laughed at the expression on my face and told me I'd be ok, that there was nothing the doctor would do but give me some pain meds. The cowgirl and I did a lot of growing up together. Sadly, by high school all I wanted to do was ride around with my friends and get high and all she wanted to do was find some man to marry her. And though we no longer have anything in common, I miss her.

The Crackpipe of Technology

My new phone came in today! I didn't even have to change my number. Unfortunately for Tori, the only number that I failed to write down in my paper address book is Superman. Of course, I do have Mi-so Horny's number if you wanna call him to get to Superman.