I Feel Numb. Burn With a Weak Heart. Guess I Must be Having Fun

Here we are taking a clean "before" pic. We were headed to a metal show where things generally get messy.

So, Saturday was WAY more mellow than Friday. I had been invited to a couple of BBQ's but after I ran and did some stuff with the girls, I fell asleep. I missed both of them and had to do a bit of scurrying to get to the Dublin my 9'ish.


There were plenty of tattooed folk at the show. Apparently, my friend K. takes her tattooed folk very seriously.

We had a drink and were off to see the RAWK! at the Picador. It was a lot of fun...If not very loud. A guy in one of the bands came up to me and told me he couldn't find his camera and wondered if I'd take a few pics of them playing. What a question...I was going to anyway.

Until she sees something funny. Then she's over the severity of it all.

Mr. B. said he was going to be at the show, but I didn't believe him. I was right. He never made it, and I was pretty glad. One less thing.

Here is FMDM playing his geeeeetar.

We got there just in time to see FMDM's band. They have been playing on weekdays a lot, when I can't go, so it was nice to finally catch them again.

Here are some boys making suggestive rock hands.

Here is my friend John blocking out his bandmate's face.

Around midnight, I was pretty beat. It's hard for me to go out two nights in a row, and I usually really feel it on the second night. So, even before the last band finished, I decided to take off.

Here we are in our "after" shot. See why we make a point to take the earlier one?

I made it home before one and went straight to sleep. No muss, no fuss. I love a dramaless night.

This Band's Curse Inflicts All Its Members

So, here's one thing I forgot to mention yesterday. On Saturday the girls and I went to Trek Fest in Riverside, Ia. - the future home of James T. Kirk. It was the 25th anniversary. We missed the parade in the morning, and weren't about to go to the casino and pay $25 or more to see Uhura, Sulu and Chekov. We, did however, catch enough Star Trek kitsch to last a lifetime. Oh yeah, there was also a car show at the same time, so we had lots and lots to look at.

Here I am getting attacked by the Horta on one of the floats leftover from the parade. Trek Fest can be very, very dangerous, you know.

Here is Coadster getting ready to board the Starship Enterprise...

...And here she is on the bridge with her finger on the contols.

Apparently, being in charge of all the controls really freaked-out Stinky. That was not the only time she made that face while we were there.

Eventually, we tried to escape the oppressive heat and humidity by entering the Star Trek museum place. Only in Iowa, do Trekkies and farmers co-exist so peacefully.

The girls were hanging with Spock and Kirk for a while, but then we quickly moved on. As far as I'm concerned, I don't trust the captain around my daughters.

I thought we'd be safe when we entered the next room, but were suddenly faced with a gigantic shrine to The Shat. This photo doesn't do it justice. I wish I had one of those panorama cameras, to show you all the crap they had in this room to pay homage to the man.

The rest of the day, I spent running and showering and dying of heat exhaustion and dehydration after my run. Then I got the girls to their respective places and headed out into the night.

Here are the Meat Puppets seriously kicking ass.

At first, I went to the Dublin to hang out with a few friends. We were having a great talk and watching baseball, when a bachelor party arrived, in an advanced state of innebriation. I was invited to the corresponding bachelorette party, but was too lazy to go to all the bars with them, so we were waiting for them to show up at the Dublin too. They eventually did, right when I was supposed to go to the Meat Puppets show. My doppleganger who also shares my name, kept trying to get me to stay. She told me the show was canceled because the whole band had diarrhea, but I didn't believe her and finally took my leave.

The band didn't have diarrhea (that I could see, anyway) and they were so awesome, I could barely stand it. Like the temp in my office said, they looked old, but they didn't play old. It was one of the best shows I've been to since Dinosaur Junior last year.

Here is Dexter and LN.

The show was sold-out and packed and hot and suffocating. Lucky for me, my friends Dex and LN, found the very best seat in the house. It was booth with really bouncy seats, located directly under the air conditioner. Basically, I jumped up and down with the air blowing on me for over an hour. If you ever get to see the Meat Puppets, I highly recommend bringing a mini trampoline and your own air conditioning unit. It's truly the best way to see them.

You Could Say I Am Tired

This weekend was full of wonderful. If there was any way I could have rolled up a dollar bill and snorted all the events into my nose for the head rush, I would have. It was that fun. Since I packed so much in it, I'm just going to discuss Friday night tonight.

I got home from work and spent time with the girls and got them where they needed to be. Then around 9, I met my girlcrush and other friends at the Foxhead where Mr. Meister was working.

We had been discussing how big our arms seem to look in photos. I suggested we just banana clip our upper arms, so we tried it out, and look how much smaller they are here.

After a bit, we headed to the Dublin and tried to mass our troops before we made it to the Mill to see the House of Large Sizes play.

We got to the Mill just as the band was starting and found out the show had sold-out. None of our guy friends had a ticket, so we said our good-byes and went into the bar.

It was populated with mostly old people - which is my kind of show. Luckily they weren't too mature NOT to make a beautiful pyramid of PBR tallboys.

The show itself was awesome. The band could still rock and boy howdy, did they. A few of my friends had never seen them before, and they were really impressed. With so many people, it was super hot and stuffy. So, after being in the thick of the crowd for a while, I went back to the bar and stood by my friends Bronson and Craig, where I could actually breathe.

Once the show was over, we went back to the Mill, where I took photos of my adorable friends and talked a bunch of shit.

Mr. Meister was nice enough to give us all a ride home after he got done tending bar. When we were in front of the bar waiting for him, this gigantic six year old looking guy (that's how some of my friends described him) kept bugging me about taking a photo of him. I obliged, just to shut him up, but while it was being taken, he started yelling, "I don't know what to do with my hands!" and then tried to get me to take another picture with him. Luckily, Mr. Meister drove up and I jumped into his car.

And We Don't Care About the Old Folks

Here is the silhouette of a satellite dish.

Today Coadster left for NYC. I'm really excited for her and I'm trying not to worry about her too much. I certainly don't want to create any anxiety for her, just because I can imagine a million scary scenarios in my head of all the things that could go wrong. I want her to feel free to go on wonderful adventures without freaking herself out so badly, that she doesn't want to leave her comfort zone. I also don't want her to be too stupid about being in a big city and get mugged or worse either. After all, we almost never even lock our car doors here.

The other side of this is that a few years ago, I was sitting in my living room, in my jammies, in one of the safest areas in the country and a tornado came through and messed with me anyway. Since we don't have a basement, if it had been any stronger, I wouldn't be here writing a bunch of bullshit for you to read right now. I just figure, if the bad crap is looking for you, it's going to find you no matter how safe you think you are, so you might as well, just do what you want and take your chances. That being said, I hope Coadster has an awesome time in the big city and I can't wait to hear all about it.

Now, it's almost the weekend. Tomorrow I leave work about 45 minutes early to go to the dentist. What kind of idiot schedules their dentist appointment on Friday the thirteenth, anyway? I'm just asking for it. Of course, I didn't realize what date it was when I made the appointment, six months ago, so if I need a root canal, I guess it's my own damn fault.

How's the rest of the weekend looking? Well, let me see... Since Stinky's grounded, we're going to hang out together and watch movies and play board games tomorrow night. she loves that, and I'm not much of a board game player, so I'm trying to buck up and go with it. I'll report back later about how badly I got my ass handed to me in Candyland.

Saturday night is a big, aging punk rocker reunion celebration at The Mill. There are also some bands playing at the Picador. I haven't decided if I'll try to mix and match or just stay with the old folks.

Now, I will retire and try not to worry about Coadster on her big adventure. She's one of the most poised, level headed high school kids I've ever met...I just have to keep reminding myself of that.

What will you kids be up to this weekend? Will you be rocking with your aging punk rocker friends, worrying, or both?

I Gotta Have Some of Your Attention, Give It to Me

Here's me after I reprised Jodie Foster's role in the movie, Nell.

So, I'm still in putz mode and Stinky had friends hanging out at our house until after ten, and so I'm finally getting to the computer to blog and it is very late and I have to go back to work tomorrow and wah and wah and wah. Once again, that's my excuse for a lame blog post and I'm sticking to it. I spent tons of time with my girls the last four days and even had some time to myself. I also went out for a bit both nights of the weekend. I didn't really drink much, but judging from the above photo, I can make a huge ass out of myself completely sober. They say everyone is born with their own special gift...

Here is my Reader's Digest abridged version of my evening activities this week:

So, yeah. I saw some of my whacky friends on Friday night and had fun. We all called each other names like the big, fun dysfunctional family we are.

I got outdanced by an adorable two year old who also had better hosiery than I did. God, I hate competition.

I was so thankful that my friends made it home safely on the treacherous foggy, icy, snow covered roads we all had to contend with the last few days.

I saw some boys RAWK'ing on Saturday night at the Picador.

I tried very hard to avoid the pit, because the kids were all aggressively full of the Christmas spirits at this show.

I watched my friend plug his ears when I spoke to him. For some reason, I seem to inspire this reaction in a lot of people.

Once my friends played the human version of the Barrell of Monkeys game, I decided it was time to go home. I got a ride and skipped any after hours events both nights. In other words, I had a lot of fun, but still managed to be a good girl. Yea me!

Once I Thought I Saw You In a Crowded Hazy Bar

Good lord, but I'm overwhelmed. I had a great weekend, I'm not saying I didn't. It just kept going and going and going. It was all great stuff, but WAY too social, and at some point today, I shut-down and napped. And everyone knows how much I heart napping. I also think I need to be placed in solitary confinement for a week, just to get over all this manic socializing I've been doing lately.

On Friday afternoon, I met my friend G. for lunch at Mickeys. He was in town from Virginia and I hadn't seen him for way to long. It was a brief lunch, but really nice. He seems happy and is in a great relationship and I'm so glad of all that. After that, I went running and then did something I swear I wouldn't - I went to the big scary maul on black Friday. It was pretty late in the afternoon, so it actually wasn't too bad, and my skin didn't even burn off or anything. Weird.

Here is a picture of some RAWK!

On Saturday, my family all descended on my house and it was loud and we did our early Christmas and ate Chinese take-out for lunch. One of my cousins was coming through town and decided to stop by with his family. It was nice, but man, I need a bigger apartment for when the family converges. Everyone was finally gone by 6'ish. I wanted to take a nap, but I had to start getting ready for the show at the Picador.

This is me and my friends and one guy I didn't know.

I putzed around and took my time, and finally made it to the show around 10. There were so many people in from out of town, and I was pretty socially overwhelmed. I had a great time. Mr. B. actually showed up and we had a good and necessary talk. DJ and her crew were there too, I didn't get to talk to them as much as I wanted. I also didn't get to take pictures of FMDM's band like I promised him I would, and I felt bad about that, but I have a good excuse.

These are my friends on PBR.

That's right. It's called the PBR tallboy. Because I was trying to save money, when I saw my friend Brooke with one of those in her hand, I figured that would be a really, really good idea. Crazy thing was, I was really really wrong. Like tequila, apparently, the PBR tallboy is never a good idea for me. So, after one of those, I was suddenly distracted and my bar ADD was on overdrive. I still had tons of fun and was very happy I made myself leave the house.

Back to today - now do you see why I needed to nap? Sure, I still ran a bunch of errands and drove the girls all over hell, but I didn't run or get groceries or a few other things I normally do on Sunday. I guess that means I'll be hitting the ground running at the beginning of this week for sure.

You Think You're Higher Than Every Star Above

Here is a picture of construction being done on Clapp Street, on the way to Hotz Street - the sexiest part of town.

My stupid migraine followed me around all weekend. I would take my meds and get all spacy and tired, and then it would come back and I'd take more meds and so on and so on... I did make myself do a couple of things, so the weekend didn't seem like a total waste.

On Friday night, Coadster and I watched the movie Driving Lessons together and then I made a vat of fresh de gallo salsa. It was a nice, mellow night.

My girls worked most of the day on Saturday. I slept a lot, but I did make myself run my six mile route, because the weather was perfect and I know these nice days are numbered.

I drove kids around for a bit in the evening and then I sat around and watched the last Die Hard movie. My migraine was under control at that point, so I was kind of in the mood to watch people trade wisecracks and see shit blow-up. Weeee! My friend K. texted me to see if I wanted to go to a cookout and then to the Picador to see a band called Petit Mal. I passed on the cookout, to watch the end of the my shit blowing-up movie, and really didn't want to go to the Picador either, but I thought I should talk to adults at some point over the weekend, so I made myself.

I'm glad I did, because I had a great time. Some of my girlies were there and a lot of my guy friends. Oh yeah, and the band was awesome too. Plus, I got to have a guy use one of my new favorite pick-up lines on me. I thought the last band that played sucked, so me and some of my friends were going to the beer garden to hang out. Just as we were getting ready to head downstairs, some guy came up to me and asked me if I wanted to dance with him to the suck-ass band. I thanked him but told him I was going downstairs with some friends and then he said, "Well, um. I just got back from flying a helicopter. You know, just in case that fact would make you change your mind about dancing with me..." So, of course, I had to dance with him then... Just kidding, I told him I already promised my friends I would go to the beer garden with them. I thought it was hilarious, though and you all are totally welcome to use that next time you're trying to hook-up. I will warn you, results may vary.

I heard another funny thing on Saturday night. I was talking to this guy B., who I used to work with at Great Midwestern about ten years ago. He told me that I intellectually flustered him sometimes when we spoke. At first, I was all ready to take that as a compliment, but then I remembered that the last few times I've talked to him, he was really drunk and from what I've seen, most really drunk guys can get intellectually frustrated by a gnat, so I don't think it meant much.

Here is a hot air balloon that was making what sounded like heavy breathing noises when I stepped out of my house on the way to work a couple of weeks ago.

Today was our first football Sunday at The Vine. My friend C. was supposed to come up from Fort Madison, but he didn't make it. Stinky came with because she's a huge Steelers fan, but Coadster had to do some volunteer work and she watched the Bears game later tonight and got to feel superior because they beat the Colts. Anyway, we watched the game and ate wings and other greasy food and drank some soda and the Steelers won by so much, that the game was almost boring and my migraine seems to have lost its hold on me. The end.

Smell Like I Sound, I'm Lost in a Crowd

I chose the Saturday Scavenger Hunt word this week and it was animal. Here is a picture of me and my girlcrush at her wedding where we were being hungry like the wolf. Since I don't have any cute pet pictures to put up, I figured I'd show one of us acting like animals. So, now I think I'll pick The Alien at the Swamp Gas blog to choose the next word. Has he chosen the word recently?

So, here's the dealio. I took myself off of the internets for most of the weekend. Basically, I had shit to do in the real world, so I took a break to get it done. My house thanks me, because it's all clean and tidy and livable once again. Whew!

My Friday off was so very nice. Even without video games to piddle away the time, I still didn't get much done. I ran, of course, and did some cleaning, but I certainly didn't get the world's problems solved, let alone my own. I did have hours upon luscious hours of alone time and man did I need that.

Friday night my friend K. texted me to say she and her boyfriend wanted to hang out with me, and it worked out well, because I wanted to hang out with them too. We went to The Picador to celebrate its second year anniversary. It was so much fun. There were tons of people there I hadn't seen in forever. My friend C. came up from Fort Madison, my beautiful friend S. showed up with her equally beautiful boyfriend and my tattoo artist friend, Kris and her boyfriend even came out. At one point, someone walked upstairs and saw us all standing around talking shit (read: screeching) and they said, "Holy shit. It feels like I just walked into 1998 all over again."

FMDM's band, Snow Demon played and they were awesome. They just keep getting better and better. They even did a Thin Lizzy cover of "Jail Break" and it was very cool. I feel bad, though that I didn't get to talk to everyone I wanted to. My friend Jerry told me that he was sorry he didn't come over and say hi, but I was so overwhelmed that I didn't really even see him, so neither one of us had to worry. Around one in the morning, after some guy I'd never seen before tried to convince me that I had to make-out with him, (I was very adamant that I didn't have to) and I kept my friend C. from getting into not just one, but two fights, I figured it was time to go.

On Saturday, I ran my seven mile route. The weather here has been amazing for August. I spent some more time by myself in the evening while my girls went to their dad's house. K. texted me to tell me that our friend Jerry was having a cookout. I didn't make it there until around 10, but it was really nice and mellow. I ate some food, I had my two beers and had a great time reminiscing with Jerry about the old hardcore punk days. We didn't know each other back then, but apparently we went to all the same shows. He'd say, "Yeah, I went to see The Clash at Palmer Auditorium in Davenport..." And I'd get all excited and tell him I was there. Then I'd say something about going to see Husker Du at Robot's studio above the Soap Opera in 1984 and he'd go, "Shit. I was there too." It really is bizarre that we never knew each other back then. Since he's gay, we could also talk about the guys we had crushes on when we were young and stupid. See? All the guys I know in this town who are my age, aren't interested in women. I'm really not making it up.

Guess what I did on Sunday? That's right, I ran some more. While I was running, I got a text from Gyuss/Nate of the Canoe Trip blog. It seems he was driving through Iowa City right then, but I didn't get the text until an hour later. Wah. I told him that he should text me if he (and his wife?) were going to be anywhere near Iowa City again. I would love to hang out with them, but I did warn him that I'm at the mercy of my girls' schedules, so it may or may not work out. The last two bloggers who were in town, came on nights when I had the girls and I couldn't meet them. Damn it but kids are needy, aren't they?

Okay. I'm going to try really hard to get to everyone's blogs in the next day. Sorry to be such a lame-ass, but sometimes we all have shit to do in the real world.

For Those About to Rock

I'm making a special Thursday edition of "it's late and I'm tired, so this will mostly be a photo post". Usually it's on Wednesday, but since FMDM was playing his first gig in forever, I changed my schedule around in order to gawk at the RAWK.

I asked FMDM to act like a rocker right before the show, and this is what he gave me. Pretty convincing, huh?

Then I took some more photos so you could all see what metal really looks like. Apparently, when you can't find a fog machine, you have to resort to cigarette smoke to get the right effect.

This kids xylophone must be the new phase in metal. It actually sounded pretty cool.

It's also important to wear your wrist bands, if you want to convey to all the world just how absolutely metal you can be.

If you can incite the crowd, that helps you look like a total RAWKer. As you can see, wearing a black shirt is also very necessary.

Also, remember to drink your PBR, for maximum metalness/tude.

The other important thing to remember if you want to be truly authentic, is to flip me the bird when I take your photo. Nothing ensures your RAWK! status like giving me the finger...At least in this town, anyway.

When You Run Out of Digits, You Can Start All Over Again

This week's Saturday Scavenger Hunt word is number. So, I decided to show you photos of people making numbers with their fingers.

This first one is a zero. What it really is some game that boys seem to like to play, where they try to make you look at them making that zero shape with their fingers and when you look, they get to punch you. Sounds fun, huh?


I can never get this guy to take a serious photo. So, then I just keep trying. Now I have a whole series of photos of this guy flipping me off (I'm number one!) next to my friend K. looking all adorable.

Stinky isn't happy, unless she's taking photos of herself making the peace sign. That's two fingers right there.

My friend J. also hates having his picture taken. He normally puts his hand in front of his face when I try, but this time, his friend Fodge did it for him. It took him all five fingers. Okay, that's quite a number of photos for this word.