jinian

I think this has more in common with "Grey Cell Green" than with "lily-livered" -- are there organ-character idioms I'm missing?

The Cave Singers' "Summer Light" ends, "we don't care where we are/ we don't care if we arrive soon."

I heard "don't care for your ribosome."

Somehow, I instinctively knew this was not entirely correct.

I went out on Saturday night! I didn't entirely feel like it, but the Metro Club is only once a month. This month was their 20-year anniversary for holding this queer dance in Japan, so I figured it'd be worth seeing at least for a bit.

Doors opened at 10; I got there a bit before 11[*] and left a bit after 2. The place started filling up around midnight, and there was a drag and semi-stripping show shortly after that. Later it got smoky and crowded and louder, resulting in sore throat, no fun dancing, failure to talk to people, and annoyed ears. Apparently the party goes until "at least" 5, but I was done.

The music was monotonous, boring dance stuff, but getting better by the time I left. I think they saved the good tunes for later, when more people would be around. We were starting to get Men Without Hats, so I assume that Erasure, Madonna, and Gaga would have been forthcoming at some point.

People talked to me: I made friends with a maybe-gay boy from China immediately, and learned a lot about how fucking dire his situation is. He had a gay uncle who disappeared for a long time, and China is apparently rife with conversion therapy. I didn't know what to say, except, experiment while you're here and maybe you have a terrible choice to make. (Is there some online tool for Chinese homosexuals to meet each other for beard acquisition? I'm sure it's filtered out if there is, but if they're outside of China... It's all so terrible.) He offered to sleep with me but I didn't want to and I don't think he did either. He kept looking at guys and they kept having boyfriends, poor kid.

A boy from New Jersey was the first one dancing, and he was happy when I came to dance too (after a couple other people did). We shouted at each other briefly.

A Japanese girl thought I was someone else.

Brazilian guys chatted to me for a while; apparently I was straight-looking, as that's what they asked early on. Uh, no. One offered me white tablets and said they were candy. Rather a first for me. You enjoy those yourself, good sir!

A couple of Spanish-speaking boys caught me as I was heading home and complimented me, in that usual way in Japan where they first say how not-Japanese I look. (More salutary experiences for white people! Being exotic: not actually fun!) They seemed pretty entertaining, but I was outa there.

I even approached a person myself: this cute Brazilian butch in aviator glasses. Like a lot of the non-Japanese people there, she's a proper expat, been in Japan for seven years. There were a few students, too, and a lot of Japanese people, only some of whom seemed to be queer. And drag queens! One of them seemed to be the person who runs the event -- very tall, very friendly, very flaming of course. With plumes I swear this one person was eight feet tall.

I successfully hailed a taxi and took it home, despite the residence's business card not working as advertised. The driver looked at it and said "Nagoya Daigaku?" and I said sure. School is close enough. By the time we got there I was looking nervously at the meter, having been so unwise as to buy an extra drink in the bar (note: their gimlet was really great), and let him drop me so I could walk the rest of the way home.

I'd forgotten that non-Seattle places may still allow smoking indoors. Luckily I had planned to shower anyway, but my clothes got banished to the balcony. I crashed about 4am and slept until 11. (I honestly thought it was about 7 when I woke up, but it was just rainy. Yay sleep!) Yesterday was aftermath/pajama/internet-outage day -- somehow both my arms were really sore? -- and here I am back being verbose tonight.

* I had to keep watching Community until Troy and Abed made up, okay? Besides, I knew it would be quiet early on.

How did I not know that the singer from 'Til Tuesday was Aimee Mann?



(Look at her teeny queue! I remember those! Also Wikipedia says "Voices Carry" was originally sung "as if to a woman.")



Mann has a new album out today, which is how I got my mind blown by this information. Thanks, Slicing Up Eyeballs.

Saturday afternoon: Went to a little mall full of Japanese stores. Ate donburi, bought adzuki cream buns, then went to get sewing stuff to repair some evil jeans.

Came home from that and crashed for a bit. Then there was godlike French toast. (Note that I got to eat rushthatspeaks' cooking multiple times, while you likely did not.)

After dark it was still unmanageably hot in the house, so we went out to a re-created fort to experience wind and coolness, which were very nice, and a view of Boston, which was pretty but didn't alleviate my geographic confusion.

Sunday: Breakfast of adzuki cream bun! Delicious. Sitting around sewing and reading can be assumed for all morning times.

Lunch at Mu Lan (Taiwanese) with very good crispy salted chicken and the most gorgeous basil eggplant. The fried basil with the chicken was done using sufficiently advanced technology. A birthday present was acquired and the kitchen is now much more comfortable.

When we were getting ready to go see Moonrise Kingdom, a cat carrier was needed for the outdoors cat to go to the hospital, which was worrisome; he remained poorly the last I heard. The movie was absolutely wonderful, though.

I'm sure I am not the first houseguest to be doing the mending, though it certainly doesn't seem very modern of me. I will fix my sweetie's jeans when I get home, too; it's only fair.

Also from today: Gotye getting the last word.

Monday: We were extras in a movie! There was ice cream (blackberry-lime and vanilla in my case), and new people to meet, and a bizarre MIT dorm, and much walking in the heat (so that I had to be a heroic drink-getter at the Whole Foods, which was strangely Trader-Joe's-like). We also saw an amazing hearse.



(It's a little hard to see, but those are purple velvet drapes with leopard-print bands, and there's a white coffin in there.)

Also gaudior got back, yay.

Tuesday: Grocery shopping, should have taken a nap but streamed some live Yaz and R.E.M. instead, then stayed up until 3am making bao and birthday cake. Also cramps, ugh.

And then Wednesday I had to come home. Such a good trip!

Final installment of reading list:
- Finder: Voice (among the best)
- Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind (holy shit Raccoona Sheldon was hard core)
- Wigwam Bam (reading all of these eventually piecemeal)
- Drops of God v3-4 (Oishinbo-style wine-geeking meets Yakitate!! Japan for insane reactions though thank god less punny; m-pig, I trust your friend E reads this already?)
- Japan As Seen By 17 Creators (highlights: Aurelia Aurita, Fabrice Neaud, Etienne Davodeau, Kan Takahama, really just about all of them)

Yesterday I ate mac and cheese with salad (at Noodles, since I didn't figure anyone else would want to go there socially). Then there was NAPPING.

I had my alarm set for 5:30 so I wouldn't miss the GoH reading, but when my roommates Betsy and Matt arrived five minutes before the alarm I realized that half-price margaritas sounded a lot better than the reading, so I did that with them and Joanna. Regrettably, Frida's where margaritas used to be had has gone, and we went to Moe's, where there are four flavors of margarita and some slightly fancied-up pub fare. Good pulled pork, amazingly boring french fries.

Wiscon karaoke was next! I wore too many clothes because I was worried I'd be cold on the way home, which was foolish. Fun as always, with new people and people from last year. I sang "Dress You Up" and "She-Bop" creditably, but got lost during the Prince-freaks-out-and-screeches-a-lot section of "Little Red Corvette". The first part was good! I was tired and drunk enough not to be able to recover from losing my place, though. Annoyingly, I could intermittently hear someone in the audience singing it fine -- come up to the stage and help, then.

On my way home: Feral rhubarb next to the sidewalk at Gorham and Broom. Chautara restaurant's traditional chalk drawing for Wiscon being worked on by the artist.

Today we had roommate breakfast and then my day was All Clothing Swap. It went great, with huge volumes and lots of volunteers. We have an entire car full of donations that we need to take to Goodwill at some point; the front desk printed us directions to a drive-up donation center. (Previous years have gone to St. Vincent de Paul, but they apparently don't accept underwear, and there are some good bras here.) Currently I am exhausted, with hip, knees, and feet that are being very sad at me. I probably should have eaten lunch. The Gathering cookies disappeared before I got there. I probably should go get dinner now.

But I got such the best skirt, and some other good stuff too. I am still not convinced this very 80s top fits me as it should, but it is hot pink zebra print, come on. The octopus T-shirt may be appropriated by hattifattener when I get home, so I'd better wear it before then. And!!! A swap volunteer I met at karaoke last night not only had a Rarity toy as a keychain on his bag (<3 <3 <3) but will give me his extra one.

Tonight my plan is to curl up at the vid party for the entire night, which will be (1) awesome and (2) roughly my physical and interaction capacity.

Friday: Spring Fair in Puyallup with marzipan_pig! We don't do this every year like the harvest-time fair, but occasionally we get it together for this one too. Great weather this year, cool with sunbreaks and no rain at all. Going on Friday, we missed the crowds, which was a little strange; it did mean we got to see more mascots and clowns than usual, including a guy riding a giant chicken (on stilts inside the suit, I think). Highlights included an impromptu monster truck parade, Swifty Swine races, miniature horses and pygmy goats, and the Land of Wool with spinning, yarn, and real little lambs. Neither of us liked the dancing horses, who just seemed uncomfortable. I got dahlias that I need to plant soon, good plump tubers with shoots coming since the selection was still nice, and a head-crushing hairband from which I plan to harvest the adorable brown and polka-dotted fascinator.

Saturday matinee: Metropolis with restored footage and live music by Alloy Orchestra at the Cinerama. $30 a person was a bit excessive, considering Alloy Orchestra turns out to be three dudes. However, the movie is beautiful, a great look at early science fiction filmmaking with a good score and effective cinematography. Despite some slight overamplification I really enjoyed the show.

The three musicians did a great job, and it was a lot of fun to see them on stage making the sound effects and performing the percussion. All the non-percussion was synthesized, which was a little disappointing from a spectator's perspective but likely inevitable given their staffing restrictions.

Metropolis was severely edited shortly after its initial release, and the footage removed was thought to have been lost entirely until a print was found in Argentina a few years ago. The quality of the formerly lost footage is not good, but in a way it's nice that there's a marked condition for it. I'd never seen any of the edited versions, so this way I could guess at how confusing certain events would've been. (Pretty darn confusing! How did real Maria get away from the evil inventor without this footage?)

Of course I loved the Art Deco style, and I really wonder just how many things I've never suspected were visually influenced by this film. The Thin Man so obviously needs a white-clad counterpart. And when they first show the inventor's house -- a mysterious little house left behind as the city grew up around it, which everyone avoids or fails to notice -- I fully expected to find the Dimension Witch inside it.

Everyone else interested finished reading the entire archive a month ago, but not me! YAY GRAD SCHOOL.

( Here's my list anyway. )

Yay grad recruitment, that brings us 80s night at Dante's. My feet hurt, my knees and hips are like to hurt later (took aspirin already), and I am kinda limp, but my only actual complaint is that it was really 80 (+/- 15)s night.

I made a shirt and wore it! People liked it! People liked my dancing! My friends were there! It was awesome! Yay again!