Posted on the other blog five days ago.
This might be the more successful dating attempts Peter has had in the last year. It's a shame he lives in Coupville.
Yesterday
Peter and I went to Seattle for about twelve hours. He solicited the
trip on Thursday or Friday and I politely convinced him to drive me all
of the way from Bellingham to Seattle with him (he lives in Coupeville,
which is on Whidbey Island and Bellingham is definitely out of the way
from Seattle). We drove down to the Alderwood mall in Lynwood first
because he had to fix his iPod Touch that actually turned out to not be
broken at all. While we waited for his appointment we sprinted to the
guitar center and partook in some boring bullshit.
After our boing-scapad Peter and I headed over to Capitol Hill because he was going to talk to our old MB friend, Brian (who happens to be newly gay), because we were going to confirm our place to stay. Instead we couldn't get a hold of him and I elected that we head to a coffee joint to get coffee or something. I used the internet on Peter's iPod (damn handy) to see what was happening tonight and what I found was a Halloween dance party in Ballard hosted by Hollow Earth Radio. I also found out that there was a small music festival happening this weekend called Expo '86 and we caught the last leg of a spoken word set. It was pleasant and Peter heckled the speaker a bit but in a good way.
After the last set thing was done, I spoke with friend Spencer after noticing he was in the audience. We had grand conversation, most of which was spent discussing my upcoming SFO trip and what he had in mind to do. He suggested eating burritos in the Mission and taking a boat ride around Alkitraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. We made jokes and I also met Tennessee's mom (who is slightly taller than her daughter). I remember Spencer mentioning something about playing at Neumo's with the Cave Singers and Peter responded with "Oh, so your band must be really good to get to play at Neumo's!" to which spencer replied that it just means he knows people. Spencer's current band is Triumph of Lethargy which I mentioned to Peter after we bid our fair-wells and I also mentioned that Spencer was in the Murder City Devils. I had to mention this to Peter about three times in conversation until he realized. See, I asked him if he had heard of MCD and all Peter could come up with was that he remembered them being on some documentary mentioning Modest Mouse. After Peter realized that Spencer was part of the MCD he flipped a boat after pooping in it. I pretty much love doing that to Peter.
Following our departure from the last leg of Saturday's Expo '86, we headed over to Ballard in search for the HER dance party. We found it after some wandering only to find out that it was about twenty yards from where we parked the car. At this point Peter wasn't agreeing with the night at all since there wasn't much happening and he didn't really dig the dance party. I spoke with some people there that I know, and it became one of those things where I said hi to everyone and then kind of left. I did speak with a fellow about music video hosting in the form of a partnership with that Off Tempo thing I'm gearing up. He was fairly tipsy as well and it wasn't much to discuss but it's definitely an option of partnering with that fellow if I felt like it. I don't feel like doing that so much. Peter told me that he was going to wait in the car and I soon followed after telling everyone goodbye.
About fifteen minutes later I had convinced Peter to pull over to the side of the road so I could convince him to not become discouraged and drive home. See, we initially came to Seattle because he had a date he was going to go on but the girl wasn't really consistently responding to his text messages and she also was busy with her friend birthday party. Peter didn't think anything was going to happen and that the night wouldn't turn out grand but I told him to stop being a bastard and that usually when I have the same frame of mind, and I force myself to... Do whatever I'm not too optimistic about, it has about a 75% turnout rate. I had to convince him to give it a try and soon we were in Linda's bar on Pine St.
We get there, Peter looks for Allison (that's the girl) and I scope out the bar. It has a pretty big interior with a medium friendly setting mostly composed of wood and a pool table with a missing cue ball. The outside was a very mellow setting with drinking benches, an outside bar, and some nice propane lamps. There was also a back area for smokers to... Smoke.
I complete my round of scoping and I'm getting close to the bar on the interior so I can acquire some water and I run into Issac Evelrum. Of all people, I run into Issac. We had some short and pleasant conversation but nothing to in depth since he was looking to score some hooch and I was looking to score some H2O. Also it was quite crowded and shoving isn't necessarily grand for conversation nor starting one.
I stayed with Peter and humored his girls friends, who were decent folk but not my type. I ended up spending the next four hours with them after we left the bar and headed to Allison's place. The bar kicked us out and Allison couldn't use the restroom there nor any from the surrounding establishments so she decided to pee next to a car on between Pine and Pike on 8th ave. No one fussed and she seemed drunk enough to not really care. We started to head over to Allison's place; during this journey Allison and Peter were holding hands and all of that jazz. Peter was doing well but I, on the other hand, was kind of just hanging around. I kind of asked for it though. I already called some people I knew to see if they were wanting to hang around but their phones didn't function well enough and Tennessee was watching a film with her friend. I just hung out and made mental future plans.
Somehow I ended up wearing a dress at some point during the night. Nothing too noteworthy happened within the four hour block and we left at about 4:00 to head back up to Bellingham. I drove since Peter was only slightly intoxicated and I have been itching to drive a stick since I drove his pickup months ago prior to him wrecking it (he hit a Jaguar).
I received a big thanks from Peter for talking him up but he was upset that there wasn't really much for me that happened. I told him "don't worry about it" since that is what I'm used to doing.
As a going away present from my old coworkers from FLUOR, I was given some Wal-Mart gift cards. I knew two of them added up to about $55.00 but I had one that I didn't know the quantity of. Why I was given Wal-Mart gift cards, I don't know, nor did I believe there was one of those monstrosities her in Bellingham but sure enough I was wrong. It's in a location north of the Bellis-Fair mall that is definitely a Wal-Mart location and contained the same variety of customers you'd see in, let's say, the Tri-Cities.
So, I'm kind of low in money and when I remembered I had these cards I was like "holy shit! I don't have to starve until Wednesay." I spent about $57.00 on beans, rice, milk, tortillas, eggs, cheese, cereal, chips, bread, and a toothbrush. I'm really great at looking for low priced non-brand items but after I had everything rung up I recalled how expensive food is/is getting.
I came back to the Summer House™ and made a bean, rice, cheese burrito thing. It was a bugger though because I had to toss a ton of chile powder and other seasoning in it just to get it even the tad bit spicy. Now begins my Mexican cuisine phase.
I headed upstairs, updated Amy's WordPress/website, drew a bit, then Rod (the fellow that's subletting his room while he's gone) came in with a ridiculously tall and cobalt colored bottle of presumably cheap wine and asked if it was mine. I imagine my roommates were all talking about booze, looked above the fridge and then wondered who's bottle that was. Apparently it just showed up since no one knew who's it was. So, naturally, it was opened and poured.
Here's the thing.
It was terrible. Worst-wine-ever; it was definitely cheap wine (that probably went bad). It was elected that it be thrown out but I denounced that saying that it would be a waste of cheap wine and that it ought to be drunken. I said I would take up the responsibility and was then my roommate, Cameron, said that he would not allow me to drink it by myself and decided to join my cause. We drank the poured amount that everyone else didn't want to drink and closed the bottle so that the remainder can be consumed at a later date. Seriously, this stuff was god awful.
I did start on finishing the damn webcomic strip, which is good. Also, my head is flying with ideas for the new comic I want to get done. They're not really ideas as much as content I'm going to put into it. It's just really scattered all over my brain right now and I'm afraid to type anything out and I think I'm going to do this one on the fly like I used to. It's more fun that way.
I've been reminded of the problem with having a job for 40 hours a week is that you hardly get any time in the evenings to do anything.
I checked out the room yesterday in Monroe Manor (1030 Garden St. Bellingham, WA 98225) and listened to the landlord talk about Andy Worhol, the Velvet Underground, reception of artists that are 'of their time', and other art in the media stuff. It was good to hear an opinion and POV on that stuff but it was kind of hard to listen to him and be able to respond or switch topics. I suppose it's to the same degree that people may have conversations with me. Ironic.
The room reminded me of the depressing room that Javier lived in after he moved out of his parents place. The carpet was the 50's or 60's looking brown, orange, yellow, and stain color and the walls were wooden. I'm second guessing staying there based off of the fact that it may not be a good idea to be in the same building as Catherine and Anna since we already lived in the same building as each other last year. Also the downstairs partition of the building is pretty much isolated from the above portion of the house. I think the bottom is meant for the guys but the thing is that I get the feeling is that even with eighteen people living in one place there is still a high chance that an individual can acquire some anonyminity. That, of course, depends on the individual and whether or not they want to know or be unkown to the other residents of this establishment. The landlord told me a few stories about peolple that lived in the manor but no one knew that they existed. Kind of sad.
So, I'm mulling this over and in either place I'll be living in a basement. I don't really want to live in the original house but at the same time I don't think it's too great of an idea to live in the manor. I do think the manor is $50 cheaper though.
After checking out the room I headed over to the Summer House™ to start whatever project I was going to work on. I talked to Matt and Susan for a bit, decided I was tired and wanted to take a... four hour nap? Not really what I intended but I was really tired. I woke up, ate something, then I watched a film with Matt and fellow roomate Jeff that had to do with a russian mofia, a baby, an undercover agent, a diary, and prostitutes. The title had 'eastern' in it and the damn thing was confusing at points because it was like "bam, unexplained plot twist." It was pretty violent and two throughts were slit. I would not recommend watching whatever the film was called.
After the film I headed upstairs and started to put up posters and started to figure out what dimensions I want for the book I want to make this summer. I hopped in bed around 1:30 and until around 5:00 I drifted in and out of consciousness. I was tired but I went to bed with an unfavorable mood and several things on my mind that kept themselves injected into my head probably all night. I did come up with a few ways to start a comic and maybe a premise but I'm still formulating things.
Today I'm going to get some sketches worked out for one poster I'm going to make, maybe pencil the painting I'm going to work on, and work on the unfinished webcomic that I've been meaning to finish.
I worked for about eight hours yesterday and afterwards called Richard-the landlord for the Monroe Manor on Garden Street. I'm meeting with the fellow at the manor today at five but I'm unsure as to what might happen after that. I paid this months rent which has left me with $13.07 (something that I'm not proud of) and I'm slowly waiting for next month when I get paid for my current wages. So, in a couple weeks I'll be fine on money and so far the plan for the Summer is to hardly spend anything. I'm going to travel between here and Seattle as well as the San Juan to visit my sister but that's about it. Oh, yeah, one trip to the Tri-Cities.
