I am always excited when I get the opportunity to share a beautiful wonder of nature with any part of the world that cares to find it. And this week, I am happy to share Hatebeak. It’s a death metal band with a parrot for a lead singer. Another deserving genre – bitch slapped.

Halloween is so mysterious. You never know where you’ll end up or what you’ll end up seeing on Halloween weekend. The last two weeks at work have been about the roughest it’s ever been. So I had no intention of going out on Saturday. I planned to watch Land of the Dead, which I’d been saving on my Netflix account, and fall asleep on the couch. That’s not what happened because Lisa had Friday off and was ready to go out.

So we ended up driving to the city to meet some of her friends. It ended up being a pretty large group. Four carloads full, whatever number you think that might be.

Because it is Halloween – and I am told it is always important to have fun on Halloween – we were all in fun costumes. Included in our traveling party caravan were the following:

• 1 flapper

• 1 Goldielocks

• 1 Frank Sinatra (A guy I used to sort-of know from my dorm days. It’s always awkward hanging out with those guys after not seeing or talking to each other for 10 years).

• 2 or 3 pirate whores

• 1 gangster (or maybe a Hasidic Jew, I’m still not sure)

• 1 Hunter S. Thompson – “The Great Shark Hunt” version (we would see a “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail 72” and a last days on Owl Farm version later on)

• 1 naughty schoolteacher (with interchangeable ruler and riding crop accessories)

• 1 quarterback (he taped a quarter to his back)

• 1 “the guitarist from Dio”

I, of course, didn’t know I was going to a costume party, so had not prepared a costume. But good homebodies know they must be prepared for the times when they can’t avoid the pressure to join the group, and I have a gorilla suit for these occasions. Lisa liked the gorilla suit wearing the extra-large “tighty-whitey” briefs I had improvised, so they stayed on for the night.

We skipped around to about three small parties before 1 a.m. rolled around. At the lesbian party the costumes were incredible. There was a Dolly Parton, a Kid Rock and a flying monkey from “The Wizard of Oz.” Several others were taking turns breathing fire in the back yard. The next party had really good snacks. There were Rice Crispies treats rolled up with gauze to look like mummies. It was hard to peel all that gauze off and I ended up eating a little more of it than I wanted to. So in retaliation, I stole a little rubber mouse from the food display. The people there didn’t talk to us so we only stayed for about ten minutes. At the third party, people were yelling incoherently so we didn’t stay there very long either.

The last stop was a huge fetish party in a warehouse just outside of downtown and was by far the most interesting. The name of the party itself suggested acts that would leave any rational observer deeply disturbed. But I did not see anything terribly disturbing. A pregnant golden Buddha took our money at the door. I saw a naked woman in a gas mask being whipped by a priest with a cat-of-nine-tails and people eating barbecued cockroaches for free drinks at the bar. I saw a transvestite with a beard rolling around in a pit of oatmeal. A she-Nazi rode around on a fat gimp. I watched a man and a woman with a strap-on penis fucking an inflatable sheep. A man walked over broken glass. A couple was having sex in the open, and naked people were everywhere.

The music sounded like it was being played backward. I was furry and hugable.

It was a train wreck and we were a little nauseated from the cockroach eating, but it wasn’t very disturbing. In fact, the only part of the experience that was slightly disturbing was how messy it was. I had to put my shoes through the washing machine this morning, and y gorilla suit will never be fully free of oatmeal again. Even as such, it was impossible not to watch and be amused. It was simply a bunch of semi-normal people escaping their normal lives in a safe place and having fun. Like they should on Halloween.

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gabriel and i had a fun time on the subway tongiht playing, “halloween costume or just really poor dresser?”

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I dodged a bullet yesterday. A figurative bullet, not a lead one.

I was on a plane from Salt Lake City to Vegas on my way home to Burbank. It was a long day for me, what with having to wake up at 5AM, flying to SLC, looking at real estate and cubicle furniture for seven (!) hours before having to hop on a flight home. I was exhausted. I was flying Southwest, where you get to pick your own seat. I take my seat next to the window and another guy takes the aisle seat, leaving the much appreciated middle seat clear. It began to look like no one would take the seat, guaranteeing my comfort for the next hour of my life, but the last guy on the plane decided to take it. Minor disappointment, but no big deal. Like I said, I was exhausted, and I passed out five minutes later.

I wake up some time later when the flight attendant tells me to put my seat in the full upright position. As I slowly regain my consciousness, I start to eavesdrop on the conversation of the two guys next to me, who seem to have been talking for the whole flight. The man on the aisle seat was describing his river rafting adventure company, which seemed to greatly excite the man in the middle. Soon after the pilot came on telling us to get ready for landing. And then the man in the middle changed his tone and asked, “So how do you feel about our lord savior Jesus Christ?”

So the Mormon sales pitch began. I quickly closed my eyes and faked sleeping to keep myself out of it. The main jist of his argument that most critics of the Book of Mormon haven’t read it, and that if you actually read it, “it’s clear that these are the words of the Lord.” He started to really lay the guilt trip on the poor man in the aisle seat. I kind of felt bad for the guy. The man in the middle then pulled out the conveniently stashed Book of Mormon he had in his briefcase in case of emergency or chance of conversion. He then said my favorite line of the whole conversation: “Don’t be like everyone else. Be a real man and read it!”

The man in the aisle and I get off the plane, and the man in the middle stayed on because this plane was his connecting flight. After we got out of the jet way I saw the aisle man quickly throw away his newly procured Book of Mormon. This was Vegas, and he had some sinning to do.

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the ceilings in my apartment are quite tall. so tall that on my little stepstoll i am not even close to the recessed lighting. well, i have eleven bulbs within my lighting, and over the past week seven of them have burned out, one by one. it’s especially annoying in my hallway where i basically can’t see at al. anyway. there is a clause in my lease explaining that maintenance will come change burned out bulbs for a fee of $25. that’s an obvious rip-off. so i was pleased to discover that things like light bulb changing poles exist. i hit lowe’s after work yesterday and bought one for $20, excited and patting myself on the back as i brought it home. i took it out and investigated all the fun bonus attachments (like a cleaning thingee to dust my ceiling fan!) and then set out to do some bulb replacing. except…the attachment i needed was definitely not included in the kit. wtf.

i have really no idea why i am relaying this possibily boring story other than to express my frustration at being so damn inefficient when i was trying really hard to the opposite. ugh.

i am so god damn itchy right now. allergies, cold, i have no idea, but i’d like to turn my nose and throat inside out right about now. my lips are also crazily, painfully chapped. hot.

for the first time in…ever…i’m not feelin’ the new madonna video. i only caught about half of it today and felt quite let down. it’s shot to look intentionally low budget and a little grainy, i understand, but i just feel like it’s so bleh. hopefully they won’t take away my fan club membership card for admitting these feelings.

in other music news, sara and i are getting tickets to see gwen stefani at madison square garden in december. i’m psyched, even though a huge venue show has never been my big thing. except, of course, in the case of nkotb.

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when it rains, it pours.

seriously.

its been a bummer of a couple of days. and, as usual for right now, i cant talk about any of it.

that doesnt help.

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Geez! The days have been flying by. Now it’s my turn for the “Sorry I haven’t been posting” post. Oi.

So, I was in DC during the Million More March. That was interesting. It seems like paying reparations for slavery keeps cropping up and I wonder if the French want the Italians to pay reparations for enslaving them during the rise of the Roman Empire. The Brits (and thus, all their colonial brood) could likely get in on that action as well. The Romans often called the Brit slaves “barbarus” or barbarian because they didn’t shave.

But I digress.

So, Reed read his first word on (roughly) October 19th. That was pretty cool. “COW.” Fantastic. Now he’s reading cow, cat, hat, word, my, book and sometimes color. It’s probably just memorization, but it’s still pretty darn cool to have him recognize words at 2years and 3months.

As for me, I’m working like a fiend on the weekends and in my spare time. There’s so much landscaping to get done. I’m building three terraced beds for tulips. Of course, i have to be a jackass and build the sides out of dry stacked stone. On a slope. That shit is heavy, in case you were wondering. But I think it will look nice when I’m done. Also, I’m taking concrete reclaimed from someone’s driveway renovation to build a fieldstone-like patio. Big-ass project that has involved digging a trench, laying some drainpipe, backfilling with stone, laying a 2-inch thick bed of crushed stone, then hand-placing each piece of rubble and stabilizing it with shim stones, then ramming crushed stone into the edges so everything is tight.

In case you were wondering, yes, my back hurts.

Or at least it did for Tuesday and Wednesday. I got back to feeling like myself today and worked out. 7 miles on the treadmill and did some lifting.

Tomorrow is off to the doctor’s to get checked up for any signs of more bad stuff. Then I get a couple more tons of crushed stone delivered for the weekend.

I party. I party hard.

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i wrote this saturday. but couldnt post due to the database bug.

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i have been following the valerie plame case pretty closely and now ive decided to make a motion info graphic about it. which is pretty crazy b/c the assignment is to make a graphic that is only 90 seconds. and this one will definitely be longer. eek. which means lots of work to get done today.

it’s fall. it’s raining. and last night we went to some ’southern’ place for dinner. kind of like bill’s barbeque but not as run down and with side dishes that werent quite authentic. everything was really good except for the macaroni and cheese. i was expecting real mac and cheese and instead i got velveeta on boiled pasta.

i cannot wait to go home. i dont know why im so crazy about it but i just cant wait to be back in virginia. i adore that place even though there are a lot of bad dressers and white people. and bad drivers and surburbia. i figure if i can move somewhere really rural eventually, i’ll be okay and wont get so annoyed with the lack of diversity. so long as i dont have to deal with people who think they have a great sense of personal style when actually look like everyone else in town. i would say there is a lot of that in hanover and it drives me nuts when i let it.

i should go. im procrastinating.

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