I'm back at work for the second time today. We're waiting for something to make its way down to our office, so it's very dark and quiet here right now, nothing but mouse clicks all up and down the hall.
I'm glad I didn't know I didn't have to come back when I left here at five today, or else I might have worried that I'd exhaust myself by riding my bike all over creation after stuffing myself with Thai food and tea and drinking a pint of wheat beer for dessert. Urp.
This afternoon was pretty nice, but yesterday won the prize. It wasn't anything really special or particularly interesting, just notable for its niceness. And I said I'd tell you allll about it, so...
I woke up, drank lots of coffee, read the headlines, and talked to
my family on the phone. I shuffled around for a long time, procrastinating, then took a shower with our amazing new water
pressure, which burns like fire and stings like tetanus shots at full power.
Oh, baby, does it sting.
After my shower, Eric and I liberated our half-feral buddy, Ball-Less Wallace the Asshole the Cat, from his prison in the garage. Poor guy had been locked in there for at least two days, and we only noticed yesterday that he hadn't been around much lately. He had some sort of Stockholm syndrome thing going on with the garage at first. Even after we opened the doors, he just cowered and yowled indignantly and refused to leave for fifteen minutes. Freak.
I ate gooey enchiladas for lunch and went shopping for supplies with Dan and Eric so we can get our leaf prints
going. Dan recently came into a bunch of transparency paper that we can
use to make negatives, and he's eager to start the experiment. I'm glad
because I haven't been that motivated lately. I needed a little kick in
the ass in the form of an enthusiastic friend.
Later we made pita pizzas, and I handed over the photographs I took at my friends' wedding.
It was getting late after that, so Eric and I started to ride our bikes to the art museum grand opening. Dan called when we were halfway there with a flat "don't bother"; he said the line to get in stretched all the way around the building.
I pouted for a second and started to ride home, but we decided to take a detour and take some pictures instead. We took pictures off an overpass and at the dinky little graveyard off the side of the highway, which may not be the most original places to take pictures, but they were right there, and they were perfect for long exposures.
Then we went back home to drink a beer and post photos, then drove back down to the art museum, but the line was still insane, maybe an hour and a half wait, so back home again to drink more beer and watch boxing, and then back to the museum, where we finally got in at about 2:15 a.m. after waiting in line for about half an hour. (Our house is only a five-minute drive from the museum, so it wasn't as strenuous and dedicated as all that might sound.)
The Blanton is cool. Not very comprehensive, and with a friggin' ugly exterior, but there's plenty of good stuff in there. They have several rooms with prints and drawings, so I saw a lot of woodcuts, which I marveled at (how the fuck do you get that much detail?). They had one sculpture I really liked: a little fiberglass fireman putting out a huge fiberglass fire.
Anyway, it was great to be running around a museum in the middle of the night, bumping into people I haven't seen in years or people I don't really know but have always seen around since I moved here. It all seemed very fun and sociable, like we live in an actual community. Usually I am very careful to avoid big gatherings, especially the civic-pride festivals and parties. New Year's downtown, Eeyore's Birthday, Pecan Street Festival, all that shit makes me writhe. I hate crowds; I hate forced festivity; I hate a lot of things, actually. But this was nice. It's always nice to see people lining up to see art instead of, say, football tickets or free Slurpees.
Anyway, we finally got home around four. We were going to go to bed right away, but I wanted to watch the rerun of Stephen Colbert speaking
at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Crap, it was good. Savage
and hilariously awkward. We probably shouldn't have stayed up until
almost six, especially since we'd taped it, but it was worth it. You
can watch it too. You might like it.
Finally, I ran a neti pot through and went to bed, and that is the story of my very good day, the first one in a while. Not that all the others have been so bad lately. It's just been a while since I had a really good, ordinary day. I liked it.