today is the last day of my twenties.
whoo-hoo!

from free will astrology:
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I think it's high time you dreamed
up a few new vices. The old ones barely tweak your guilty
conscience any more, and they certainly don't pack the
educational punch they once had. Personally, I'd love to see you
try some really rambunctious diversions, like eating ripe figs
while playing with rubber duckies in a public fountain with
your silk pajamas on, or toppling the icons and idols you once
believed in but no longer do, or finally risking what you were
forbidden or too inhibited to do when you were in tenth grade.
But of course it's totally up to you how you want to depart from
the same old boring mischief. P.S. Don't you dare tell anyone I've
suggested this.

so, Erika is coming to visit, and we've got a lot of celebrating to do.
meanwhile I'm trying to clean every last particle of dust and cat hair out of the apartment, so she doesn't die of allergies.
I wanted to make some mixed cds for party music, but I think my musical tastes are too weird for people. maybe a little Eddie Palmieri and Cabaret?

ah, public service:
K got a jury summons, and it says, "Temperatures in the Court facility may vary. Please dress accordingly."
hey, and they give you a whole fifteen bucks a day now.

so much to do, so much to do!

where, oh, where, is my martini?


I honestly can't decide if this dress is hideous or not.

I'm not sure when I turned into such a Giants geek.
but check out the smile on Shinjo!

fun with spam!

"s_hunsicker Give Your Woman Multple Orgasm's!"
This Shocking New Product Will Change Your Sex LIife FOREVER!

wowee!

happy birthday, schnook!

ramble on (and on)

I'm slightly hung over today. my brain is working in slow-mo.
It's been established, again, that I talk an awful lot when I've been drinking. I have this memory of just shouting a lot. I guess everyone was.
goodness.

Ho-Ho wrote me an email months ago that I just keep rereading...
"My life is now a series of Thursdays and Saturdays.  By Thursday my attitude improves because the next day is Friday and no matter how bad things go on Friday it's still Friday.  And Saturday is when I get to live my life as I see fit.
'Everybody's workin' for the weekend...'"
yeah. sigh.
what's up with this sense of entitlement that we've all got, myself included? I'm entitled to more LIFE, more ME time, more time to CREATE!
I suppose (bear with my slow-motion thinking, please) artists have always been that way.
and most wealthy folk have always had all that time, and taken it completely for granted.
and people like my ancestors have always lived for the land, for their kids, for their parents; they've worked a LOT, and never felt they were missing anything: life is working hard, feeding your family, making sure everyone has shoes.
nothing wrong with that. nothing bad about working hard, and being dedicated.
am I lazy? or selfish? how do people find a balance? how do I finally find the JOB that makes me want to be dedicated and work hard?
do I really wish I could live with less self-examination? with lower standards for happiness? with the desire to spend the next 20 years raising pups?
One thing I would really, really like to do eventually (you know, after I have my shit together) is be a foster parent. sadly, this is not a way to make a living. and social work is probably not the career I'm looking for, either.

more and more people I know are having kids...
this is cool. I like kids; I like my friends having kids.
but it's not for me, I don't think.
green fairy has some rather extreme things to say about people having kids. She was sterilized at the age of 21.
The breeder counter on her site is pretty awesome.
but now we're talking about something different.
more coffee now.

first:
it turns out that my ISP has a streaming radio thing that's not bad. I've been listening to Yo La Tengo, Le Tigre, Cibo Matto, Cat Power, Sleater-Kinney, Elastica and some interesting bands I've never heard of.
actually, when I first signed up with Speakeasy, I had to call them a couple times and I noticed that their hold music was great; I'd bop around my apartment forever, forgetting that I was on hold. aMAzing.

second:
earlier I had so much to do and I stumbled on the 5k instead.
it's a competition:
"The deal is, you have 5 kilobytes to make the best web page or site you can."
really great stuff. I've looked at the winners for 2000 and 2001, and some of it is just flabbergastingly fun.

this happens to me every time I get bored and disenchanted with the internet and everything on it.
kaboom! someone shows me something creative and fun that makes it all worthwhile again.

I looked to see if I knew of any of the judges, and the only one I recognized was Dean Allen, whose blog I read from time to time.
but- another judge is Susan Kare, who's been designing icons (and I mean icons) since, well- for a long-ass time.
Finding the person who designed the happy mac icon feels oddly personal.

whoo hoo!
5.2 on the Richter Scale!

we were at the Giants game at Pac Bell Park during the earthquake.
I didn't feel it, and I feel almost cheated, although I realize I should shut up.

Morpho peleides.

''Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.''
-Vladimir Nabokov


photo (w/out permission but w/ thanks): Kevin Schafer

no imagination

spotted yesterday in Russian Hill (which, for those of you who don't live here, is trés, trés $):

submissions wanted for
Bourgeois Magazine.

here's a write-up of the the 2002 Firecracker Alternative Book Awards.
Daphne won a Wildcard/Special Recognition Award:

Most Frantic Yet Deserving Campaign For A Spoken Word Award:
Why Things Burn by Daphne Gottlieb, Soft Skull Press

enthusiastic finger-wiggling.
we're all for it.
(read the second half of the article, where he stops talking about National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and starts singing the praises of masturbation.)
hurray for Mark Morford, whoever he is.

from archy and mehitabel, by Don Marquis.

you want to know
whether i believe in ghosts
of course i do not believe in them
if you had known
as many of them as i have
you would not
believe in them either
perhaps i have been
unfortunate in my acquaintances
but the ones i have known
have been a bad lot

doubts about Mehitabel

someone came across this page looking for mehitabel hoopla, and I, being curious, had to go look and see who my google-neighbors were.
(I'll be making no more apologies for being self-indulgent.)
anyway, I found this archived page from Ftrain.com, a site I've enjoyed many times.
In fact, I don't know why I don't have a permanent link to it. we'll rectify that.
go read it now, please.
Ftrain.com

ok, the gig's up, let's not beat around the bush.
I'll be 30 in twenty-four days.
whoo hoo!
Special guest star Erika Hunsicker will be appearing at my birthday party.
I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I do know I'll be having myself a drink that day.
for the sanity of the folks who have already heard about this, I'll shut up now.
I just can't guarantee how long.

sometimes I feel like this guy.

and in case anyone is wondering, I only found that by doing a weird google search for turning 30.

Partly out of curiosity, and also because I agree that Verisign is evil, I've decided to participate in the new google-bombing experiment that Dean has begun (in response to hoopla.com being stolen away from Leslie Harpold).
I've switched over to Dotster. just to be out of Verisign's evil clutches.

Network Solution Horror Stories

and I though no one wrote lyrics anymore

for your brooding pleasure:

le Tigre
from Feminist Sweepstakes
"much finer"

do you wanna stay in bed all day
-yeah!
do you remember feeling any other way
-no!
do you wanna stay in bed all day
-yeah!
do you remember feeling any other way
-no!

and, from The Magnetic Fields
69 Love Songs, Vol. 1
"cactus where your heart should be"

the cactus where your heart should be
has lovely little flowers
so though it's always pricking me
my ardor never sours

no guarantees against burping

from craig's list:

Lift available SF to LA
Date: Tue Apr 30 23:03:53 2002
Hi,
Lift available SF to LA on Wed May 1 after work. Returning Sunday afternoon.
I am non smoking Professional Guy. Gas not expected.

thank you, dean.
(unbekannterweise)

Free Will Astrology dot com
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): There's a party in your astrological House of Self-Definition, Gemini.
Four planets have converged there for a rare get-together: forceful Mars, ingenious Mercury, intimate Venus, and concretizing Saturn.
What does it mean? This is the best time in many moons to get to know yourself better, to glorify yourself with feisty precision, and to
nurture relationships that will activate your dormant potential. Choose one dream (not two or three or ten) that will best serve
all those purposes, then initiate plans to make it your labor of love for the next two years.