May 24, 1999. Monday
Well, I spent the weekend around DC for the first time in about a month. And since moving to Potomac. It was rather boring, but relaxing for the most part. On Friday, my parents and older brother Garrick came into town. My mom's friend was having one of her plays performed, so my mom came down for the show. Garrick was here just for fun I guess. After work I went over to Matt's since my parents weren't due in town till about 8. It took longer to get there than i'd hoped since the tunnel was closed because I truck was on fire. It was a full-on blaze. Pretty cool. Anyway, after all that, Matt decided that he didn't want to just throw the frisbee around, but wanted to play frisbee golf. So after I drove all the way from Arlington, only about 4 miles but about 30 minutes, we had to drive over to Alexandria, about 2 mile past Arlington the other way. That's what frustrated me the most. I hate having to drive someplace, then end up having to drive someplace else that I had alread driven by or that's further past where I started from. i have the same problem when I go to Lexington. Rodzilla and I will often eat dinner in Staunton, which is 33 miles north, and which I pass everytime I go to Lexington. It really kills me everytime I pass Staunton, knowing that I'll be right back there in 2 hours. I'd rather drive to Roanke, about 15 miles further south down I-81, but at least I wouldn't suffer the anxiety of having to drive someplace that I'd already passed. I don't know why, but that really drives me batty.So anyway, I just wanted to dick around on the Capitol Mall, but Matt was set on playing in the "wooded" area, that most people would probably call the lawn around the U.S. capitol. By "wooded area," I guess he meant that there were trees, which was accurate, but I wouldn't exactly call it a wooded are. I of course had my usual reservations, and Matt resorted to challenging my manhood, so I went along with the plan. I just didn't want to destroy any vegtation or anything. I personally didn't really care, but I feared some over-zealous cop or something. Plus, there were enough people walking around that it became quite a hassle to have to play around and over them. Needless to say, we were eventually told that we frisbee was not allowed on Capitol grounds. It seemed kinda silly, but whaddaya gonna do. But it did seem odd that while frisbee was not allowed, vagrancy and various bums sleeping under trees and on benches was allowed. Oh yeah, before we started to play, Matt had to pee, and since there were not bathrooms around, he urinated in bottle. An Arizona Ice Tea Green tea bottle, to be exact. Right in public too. Well, behind a tree. since I'm used to these sorta antics, I wasn't really shocked. Rather, I tried to hit him with the frisbees as he peed. The only thing I thought about it was that some bum would be rooting around the garbage that night and think that he found a nearly full-bottle of green tea. Poor guy.
After that, we went back to matt's, where i did some internet stuff and watched tv. I saw something about the Chinese espionage thing. Some senator was talking about his committee's report. The most amusing thing was when he was referencing other senators on the committee. One he talked about at length was a Senator Dicks, the leading democrat on the committee. That itself wasn't that amusing, but what I did find amusing was the fact the along with Senator Dicks, the commitee was headed up by Senator Cox. that's right. The nation's nuclear security protocol is being investigated by Senators Cox and Dicks. I got a heart guffaw outta that.
Anyway, the rest of the weekend was spent being Chinese. We ate at some Chinese restaurant that we often go to. my dad told a joke, and Garrick and I thought that was the first time we'd ever heard him tell a joke. The food was pretty yummy. It's always good these days when I don't have to pay for it. After that we all went to my aunt's house. Garrick and I played the piano for a while. He played the bass notes while I played the treble. He's a bass player, you know. Althouth that didn't occur to me till now. I was actually pretty impressed with myself, since I hadn't played in a while and hadn't read music for a long time. it never occurred to me that I could forget how to do either till Garrick asked me if I had. I don't think my skills have diminshed that much though. although it's safe to say that in many ways I was a lot better of a pianist when i was in kindergarten. I could play a lot of stuff then that i probably couldn't play now. Another example of wasted potential . i really peaked too early. Plus, Garrick and I both agreed that are piano teacher, while a tremendously nice woman, wasn't really a very good teacher. I mean, we took piano lessons for 14 years, and we pretty much suck. All we ever did was learn how to play other people's music. We never learned much theory or how to construct songs on our own. The only time I've ever done that, i taught myself, really. Actually, the other day, I just kinda freestyled on the piano for the first time ever. I was just really ina mood to play, something that hasn't happened for a while, and I just sat there and belted out a song. It was actually surprisingly good at some points, at least to my ears. I think the guitar playing really helps my piano, which is funny, since it was initially the piano that helped me play the guitar. anyway...
Yesterday we (my cousins, cousin in law, uncle, and parents) went out to lunch at this sushi place. It was really, really, good. I usually never get enough, since it's so expensive, but my uncle paid. Since he goes to this restaurant all the time, they always give him all sorts of free shit too. Plus, the portions were enormous. The amount of raw fish almost made me sick, something i never felt possible. I'd say each piece was at least 3 time more than you'd regularly see. Some of the sushi was hog-dog size in length. It was ridiculous. Since i'm never one to leave raw fish at the table, I had to finish it all. I haven't been that bloated on sushi in a long time. It seems that wheneve it's free or cheap, I always eat too much. Once when Underpants Cowboy played the Tokyo Rose in Charlottesville, we got a half-price deal on sushi. By the time it was time to play, I was so bloated on raw fish and Bass ale that i was on the verge of keeling over the whole time. That was kinda unpleasant. I like to blame that for my personally poor performance that night.
So at lunch, there were also various discussions on Chinese matters. One was the subject of names. I've always hated my middle name, which is my chinese name. Of course, it just sounds ridiculous after my first name. But I suppose I'll subject my kids to the same ordeal. Apparently, there's a distinct order of name prefixes that is followed. Sometimes I feel very Chinese, and at those time all these chinese issues and considerations seem very important. The middle name thing is one of those. It has to be that way. Just to check, I ran the idea past Rodzilla. She seemed cool about it. But she was kinda freaked out by the prospect of changing her last name to mine, seeing as how odd it would be to address a caucasian woman wth a Chinese last name. Now, we're by no means engaged or anything, but you just think about these things sometimes. In all honesty, I really don't want to be a piece of trivia in the future, or some historical footnote. I don't wanna be the explanation 100 years from now for the blond haired, blue-eyed kid with the Chinese last name. That just seems really wrong to me. But at the same time, i'm not gonna marry some chick just to preserve the racial stauts quo. I just wish one of my brothers would do it. I can't really imagine being as enthused about anyone on the same level as I am with Rodzilla. Nor do I really want to. Of course, she's going to France and I'll be in New York. That's really increasing our people-exposure by about 1000 times to what it is now. So who knows what'll happen. Then again, last summer, after not seeing each other and being all weird for about 9 months, we still got along famously almost right away, and are doing pretty damn good now. So who knows. Things are generally ok between us when we're in the same place. We'll see, I suppose.well, I'm gonna go get lunch. I ate pretty healthy all weekend. Bloating myself aside, sushi is pretty good for you. and we ate at this vegetarian place on Saturday. the only bad thing is that it tries to hard to make some of the food taste and look like meat. This is accomplised mainly by deep-frying everything, usually a mushroom of some sort. But it was surprisingly tasty at times. Well, time to reward all that healthy eating with a cheese steak and onion rings. more later
I talked to Nora a little while ago. She's settling in in London. She got a job in a restaurant as "the hostess with the most-est." It was kinda weird to hear her voice, her being in Europe. I'd really like to get over to visit her at some point. She also wants me to update my Frequently Used Nouns. Well, her section, anyway. She has to pay for internet access over there, but she said she didn't realize it while casually perusing my page. So someone actually paid to read my writing. can that indirectly qualify me as a professional writer? Probably not. What if I started my own ISP? Would that make me a professional writer if I put my writing on a login page or something? Then again, who really gives a fuck? I don't. So it's safe to assume no one else does either. So i might as well take my own advise and shut the fuck up.
On an annoying note, Jed is once again screening his calls. I hate when his weirdness and/or laziness coincides with my visists, especially when I have to stay with him for a few nights. I had to get Trevor to give me the secret code in order for Jed to pick up the phone. I don't know why he even has an answering machine. He should just invest in caller ID. His answering machine blinks the number of messages it has on it. Last time I checked, it never stopped blinking. I don't know what he doens't just erase them. Well, he said that there might be some he wants to listen to. Last time i checked, around the beginning of April, he had 22 messages on there already. I'd be willing to bet that nothing on there is too important. anyway...
Just for my own historical reference, I wanted to list a few noteworthy things that happened so I'll know when they happened in the future. My memory ain't so good no more.
Last night, wrestler Owen Hart died. That's sad. What's even sadder is he fell wearing his ridiculous "Blue Blazer" costume. So now all the news reports say "Owen Hart, who wrestled as the Blue Blazer..." which is sad, since he wrestled most of his career under his real name and only recently brought that gimmick back as a joke. Now he'll forever be remembered as the Blue Blazer. Sad. "the world needs a super-hero"
Hmmm... I can't seem to remember anything else. See how bad my memory is?
DA&R
home
Archives
previousnext
South
Pole Home Greg's main page
©1999 Three Match Breeze