then again...


i haven't done much lately because i've been trying to make plans to do something with the hot russian chick* from work before she's out of commission for at least a month, but she keeps canceling on me. so i've been crying myself to sleep every night after sitting at home waiting for her to call.

okay, not really. well, not completely. i don't think i sat at home waiting for her to call the whole time. and i suppose i didn't actually cry myself to sleep. i did laundry, i cleaned the house some. a few of the times i even did other stuff. sunday i met emily at inversion coffeehouse for awhile, then later she came over and we watched heathers. and last night i went to inversion coffeehouse for jack's "opening" of his art installation there (which has actually been up for a couple of months at this point).

last night after inversion i went to taco cabana on kirby near 59. i was in my pickup and was driving a little crazy down montrose and westheimer. i hit some standing water in the outside lane on westheimer and couldn't really see where i was going, but i think i mostly managed to stay in my lane. and i didn't hit anyone. then on kirby at the alabama light -- where i wasn't driving aggressively or crazy -- i was in the inside lane and it was going real slow after the light changed to green, so i moved into the middle lane. behind me, some black honda or acura or something had just come across all lanes (in both directions) from the whole foods parking lot and gotten into the outside lane. as we got up to the intersection the black car started angling over like it was going to make a wide swinging right onto alabama...except it didn' just kept coming into the middle lane...into the space the front half of my pickup was occupying. i slammed on my brakes and started skidding. my backend started sliding to the right and my front was starting to angle toward a car beside me in the inside lane as i was veering away from the black car, now almost halfway in my lane. fortunately, the squealing of my tires got the black car's attention and they pulled back into the outside lane they'd be occupying. i had the presence of mind to turn my front wheels facing down kirby again, so when i let off my brakes i didn't go flying into the inside lane (and the car occupying that space) but instead continued down the middle lane. i caught up to the black car and inside was an asian chick talking on a cell phone. grr. she would have totally driven right into my pickup as she jumped lanes in the middle of the intersection if i hadn't slammed on my brakes and taken evasive action.

on monday (a holiday for me) i had a late lunch with sue and the kids at lupe tortilla. there was a girl there that looked a lot like tamara did when we were together: same kind of clothes, watch, body type, fingers, haircut, skin tone, etc. it was kind of weird. she had a kid and was there with another mom with a kid. it definitely wasn't tamara though. after lunch i went back to the yankee candle store and bought a full size red apple wreath candle, plus three small candles: black cherry, buttercream, and juicy peach.

wednesday night at the radio show i got to handle the mac book air dwight has as a review unit. it was pretty slick looking in person. i didn't actually use the operating system to do anything, but i was able to handle it, open and close it, and check it out physically. i'm still not sure whether to buy one or not. i know it should be able to beat my current laptop in all respects, and i'm not going to be going back to a windows laptop so i don't have to consider many other laptops, but i can't decide whether to try and wait for some revs to this air model or suck it up and go with a regular mac book.

over the last week or two i watched all three of the netflix movies i currently have, but i never have mentioned it. i watched munich, which is a spielberg film about mossad agents hunting down the terrorists who killed the israeli athletes taken hostage during the 1972 summer olympics. it was pretty good. i watched the three burials of melquiades estrada, a movie starring and directed by tommy lee jones. it's set in south Texas and is about a border patrol guard accidentally killing an illegal alien and burying him. the mexican was jones' character's friend, so when he finds out who did it he kidnaps the border patrol guard, makes him dig up his friend's body, and takes them to mexico (on horseback) to bury him in his hometown. it wasn't as good as i expected it to be, but it was good. finally, i watched late marriage. it's set in russia, and is about a 31-year-old grad student trying to have marriage arranged for him by his parents. he's actually dating an older woman with a child, which doesn't please his parents at all when they find out. i think most of the characters are russian jews. it was pretty good, and the ending wasn't really what i'd expected so that was kind of cool.

to completely jump offtrack: after looking into the dental bills and the money paid out by my insurance, it does appear that i owed the dentist's office the $17x.xx i mentioned awhile back. so i sent them a check a couple of days ago. i'm kind of annoyed they were off by that much though. i can't find their estimate so i'm not sure how they managed to be that off, but they didn't appear to double-charge me for anything that i could tell. *sigh*

i took off work early today and was planning on going to brady, but my grandmother changed her plans so i ended up staying in town. i'll be going at some later day. i couldn't justify two trips close to each other because it'd cost me around $200 just to make a trip. (higher gas prices and old v-8 engines are a costly combo on long trips.) i thought about going to see dale watson at blanco's, but instead i stayed at home and ate some cereal and watched a few episodes of "dead like me". (the previously mentioned co-worker is letting me borrow the season one box.)

aside: why exactly does "what do you want me to do?" always seem to have to be such a complicated matter? why must making life simple seem to necessarily strip most of the possible enjoyment and/or benefit from it? what is it about the messiness of complexity? does the uncertainty of complexity allow for a hope somewhere in there that the sterile confines of simplicity just doesn't have the capacity for? and is it really hope in complexity? or merely distraction?

"doc: my dear, it appears that we may have to re-define the nature of our relationship.
kate: i take care of you doc. haven't i always been a good woman to you?
doc: yes, yes you have always been a good woman to me. then again, you may be the antichrist."
--val kilmer as doc holliday in tombstone

* oh yeah. about that "hot russian chick" comment up at the top. not that it's not true (especially with the new haircut...i <3 short angled bobs), but i mostly phrased it that way because i'd recently said i couldn't just go and put something like that on here because some people who read this might read too much into it. so, i thought it'd be funny to do it anyway. y'all did note the asterisk and read this footnote, right? right? hello?


well...obviously I have to comment on any post which quotes the "then again you may be the anti-christ" quote from Doc H in Tombstone. Val Kilmer totally stoled that movie. Anyway.... I think there is some context missing from the "what do you want me to do?" paragraph. I have no clue what you are talking about, other than it sounds like your implicitly referring to male/female relationships (did you know that an adverb is a female verb? At least according to Popeye).

<3 Heathers

Thank goodness you weren't in an accident! It sounds positively scary.

ash: yeah, that was a great character with a bunch of wonderful lines, and val kilmer did a superb job with it.

as far as the "what do you want me to do?" paragraph, there is indeed some context missing. partially because it's more of a general inquiry on my part. it seems like whenever that question is asked, the situation is complex, or the options are complex. it could be male/female relationships obviously, but it could also be parent/child, relatives, friends, restaurant manager/patron, etc. perhaps implicit in the question is the fact the person asking it sees various options and can't or doesn't want to decide which one to choose. the question can be used as a challenge, or a shift of culpability, or as a sort of reverse power play, or a giving up, etc. maybe it also seems like most people prefer not to have other people tell them what choice to make, so it is on some level a relinquishing of self-determination. whatever the case, it seems like a question most at home in complex situations.

my thinking on that led to a more general series of thoughts about how it seems in my life i am generally striving for simplicity, but simplicity doesn't seem to provide the same level of enjoyment in life...or perhaps it's excitement more than enjoyment, although the two may be intrinsically linked. perhaps with simplicity there is a lack of risk, and with a lack of risk is a lack of reward. or is it just that having so many unknowns -- such as a complex situation provides -- creates the illusion of hope? as above, this could apply to male/female relationships, but it could also apply to work, family, investments, etc.

if an adverb is a female verb, what does that make a conjunction? a transvestite? popeye should think about these things before he speaks. :)

serena: i'm not sure it was as scary for me as it was for the innocent bystander cars around me who could do nothing but hope one of us didn't crash into them. at least i had the opportunity to be in control of the situation from my side. plus i was more worried about keeping my pickup from getting beat up. then after it didn't happen and everything was okay i was just annoyed at the other driver. haha.

Ha. I got to fondle the Macbook Air today at the Twitter meetup. That computer has been in a lot of hands. At the end of the day I'm going to get a Macbook because that will be the best option for me, but man if I had the disposable money (and the actual need) to have two computers I'd get that in a heart beat.

Going to go add Munich to my Netflix queue now.

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