PNW Tour '04.
2004-07-18 7:31 p.m.

The Pacific Northwest Tour '04 was a whirlwind. I left Thursday afternoon for Tacoma where I hung out with my parents, aunt and uncle for a fabulous barbecue. We broke open dad's birthday present (a case of wine) and drank until late in the evening. Friday morning I went out to lunch with mom and dad. Then I called some friends on Vashon Island and casually asked if I could stop by. They were thrilled and there was even more wine, good food and lots of fun. Their babino is super cute and fun to play with. I taught him how to use my digital camera, I'm sure he'll have his own website in no time. Then I had to catch the ferry over to Seattle at 9:50pm. I even reenacted the scene from Titanic by standing on the bow of the ship with my arms outspread as the salty air caressed my body. Then I made my way to Capital Hill to crash with one of my buddies. I love Capital Hill, the gay men are all so nice and funny. I love sharp sarcastic humor. The next day we did some serious shopping downtown. I am ashamed to admit I spent over $200 at the Stila make up counter, but I swear it's not all for me. Some of it is for Angi's birthday present. I'm sharing. Really. Then it was out for drinks with an old college buddy and even more drinks with my pals Chris and Keri. I would have liked to have seen more of the Seattle crew but they all had prior engagements. There was a lot of cellphone tag going on but I was happy to stay in Freemont and drink gin and tonics on the patio. This morning I was up at the crack of dawn for the long drive back to Portland. Needless to say I'm a bit tired. Here are a few pics:

My parent's cat Gizmo chillin on the side porch.

The first ferry from Pt. Defiance to Vashon was full so I had an hour to kill. I took pictures of the marina and lounged in the shade.

If you look closely you'll see a seal that we passed on our way to the island. I saw another one a few minutes later on the othe side of the ferry.

Cynthia, Paige and I. We were inseperable during college. You can blame my vampire obsession on Cynthia loaning me her copy of Interview With a Vampire.

1 People have tried to sell me Viagra
Can you point us to the punk department?
2004-07-16 10:14 a.m.

My parents printed out my Amazon.com wish list and took it into Borders with them in the hopes of picking me up some CDs for my birthday. Imagine two pleasant looking people in their late fifties whipping out a list and saying: "Do you have anything by The Damned? Stiff Little Fingers? Sham 69? No? How about Voice of the Beehive?" The clerk must have thought they were the rockingest baby boomers they'd ever meant. Instead my parent's got me a cordless phone system and the new Stephanie Plum book. Score!

1 People have tried to sell me Viagra
My hair hurts.
2004-07-14 9:42 a.m.

My subconscious mind is torturing me. I have these wonderful dreams only to wake up, roll over, feel an empty pillow next to me and mutter "damn." Then I stomp around the house all angry and make coffee in a rather agressive manner.

I start thinking you know you're getting older and you're not getting any prettier. Someday you're going to wake up looking like Georgia O'Keefe and no body is going to want to sleep with you because you're not even interesting enough to paint flowers that look suspiciously like female genetalia. Then I think maybe someday you'll be in a bookstore and you'll randomly look up to find the head of the [insert name of ivy league college here] english department staring at you. He'll come over and ask you if you know where the poetry section it. You'll tell him that you hate poetry and you'll both stand there smiling at each other dumbly because he didn't really want to ask about poetry at all.

My brain is an awful lot to deal with first thing in the morning...

2 People have tried to sell me Viagra
Shaken not stirred.
2004-07-13 9:20 a.m.

I was woken up this morning at 4:00am by a thunderstorm. I unplugged the computers then stood at the window with the cats watching the lightening skim by. It seemed to hang high in the atmosphere going off at horizontal angles rather than trying to devle down and jar the earth. I went back to bed and had my dreams of books and libraries invaded by surreal loud rumblings.

Side note to KungfuRamone: The eagle has left Portland!

1 People have tried to sell me Viagra
Feel free to geek out amongst yourselves.
2004-07-12 8:05 p.m.

I know there's some SCA people who read this (pointing at Bootkiller). I'm trying to find a translation and a picture from English heraldry. It's a heraldic charge with a black and white cat wearing a crown around its neck, holding a plume in its paw with flourished writing below it. The slogan reads "messias non est." My Latin is pretty bad. It could mean "There is no harvest" or if it's taken from Greek Messias could refer to the Messiah "I'm no Messiah?" I want to know the correct translation and find a picture of the heraldic shield. Feel free to geek out on this and get back to me.

My vacation has started out with a sputter. I slept in, cleaned house, played with the cats, installed OS X.3 (panther!) and read.

On Friday when I was looking for birthday gifts for other people I ended up spending entirely too much money on myself. I spent some time in Powell's going through the medieval lit section on the off chance that there was something I didn't own. I found a book on medieval latin phrases only to be disappointed that they had all been translated. Where's the challenge in that? I then came across a copy of The Book of the Courtier which I picked up. It's a little too far into the rennaissance (1516) for my liking but it does cover a lot of court life which I find interesting. My interest in literature pretty much runs from 1200-1500 then skips forward to 1800-1910. I'm not a big fan of American literature (although I've read copious amounts of it) or contemporary literature aside from the occassional genera fiction I read for kicks. I also purchased a book on Lord Byron's letter and a fascinating biography about his sex life: molestation, incest, young boys, adultery, scorned women! It's better than HBO.

Now I'm sipping a glass of Shiraz and promising myself that I'll do something constructive tomorrow like write and workout.

Have you seen the birthday pictures?

2 People have tried to sell me Viagra

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