Saturday, March 26, 2005
still in the airport and its a nightmare already... a dysfunctional family of four, going to a dangerous place they don't want to go to do a grim task they don't want to do. fuck. Wednesday, March 23, 2005
thanks to everyone for their thoughts and help today; it's been tough. everything is about death today, mortality is everywhere. from the lyrics to a song on the new cd i got yesterday to the fresh aire interview on the radio as i'm writing this (which actually started out with an author reading from his book about the day his father died.) i found out at about 2:30am, when my parents called me - the manager of pablo's business down there had called their number, looking for me. i don't know what i'dve done if i'd have found out first. only knowing that we had to get there, i started to get ready immediately. i found my passport at 3:30 - only to see that it had expired eight days ago. amazingly, i found the forms on the internet, got photos taken at kinkos, made an appointment, applied for and recieved a new passport by noon, so if i'd have needed to leave immediately, i could have taken the second flight available. unfortunately, holy week is not a good time for US citizens to die in central america. everything is apparently closed from wednesday until monday, from the US Embassy to all the government offices that need to issue documents to certify the death of a foreign citizen and all the necessary releases. consequently, our going down there today would be useless; so my parents, sister and i will go this weekend and into early next week. so much to deal with here. going to his house today was heartbreaking. i'm going to miss him so much... *sigh*
my grandfather died tonight. now i have to go back to guatemala to get him and bring him back. oh, god. i'm having too many thoughts at the moment, i knew it was a possibility, but... at least i know for a positive fact that he was happy being down there. i'm not looking forward to the next few days, but at least i've got logistical nightmares to deal with before the real kind start happening. this all seems very, very unreal. i typed the first sentence of this post, but it doesn't make any sense when i look at it. he was one of my best friends. Monday, March 21, 2005
this whole congress intervening in personal/judicial issues is bad, bad, bad. oh, it is very, very bad. it scares me to no end, when the federal government thinks they have any right to make this sort of individual-level decision ... Sunday, March 20, 2005
I'm at d.b.a. in the marigny tonight, where the twinemen are playing - no cover and the best beer selection in town, not that i'm taking advantage of that at the moment. darren and gina are here, and brandon- the regular going-to-see-music crew - but the crowd is also notable because it also includes my friend dan, my ex-girlfriend amy, and melinda's ex, brett. the twinemen, though I've never seen them before, are near to my heart because they're what's left of morphine, which was/is without exception one of my favorite bands, ever. I never got to see them before mark sandman died - but this has got to be almost as good... and they even play morphine songs! Wednesday, March 16, 2005
evil, evil lapsed catholic that i am, i'd just like to fully express my support for the 52 funniest things about the upcoming death of the pope. apparently, most of the US needs to seriously loosen up and remove the proverbial stick from the collective ass where people like sean hannity have so firmly lodged it. looks like the conservative insanity for taking everything too literally has begun to extend beyond just the bible and the constitution and is now being applied to the *alternative news weekly*. it was a humor piece, people. tasteless and irreverent, yes. intended to provoke thought in light of the obscene amount of attention the mainstream media pays to meaningless bullshit like the michael jackson trial and the pope's friggin heart rate at any given minute? yes, absolutely. worth the condemnation of the masses? fuck no. get a life, america, and a good introspective sense of humor while you're at it. Tuesday, March 15, 2005
not going to SXSW as planned - I guess that's my big news this week. i had gotten the time off, made plans to stay with my friend james and his - and things have just gone awry. everything seemed to be hitting at once there at the end of february - car repairs and the like - and so its been a bit of a lean month thus far. and then, my ride to austin fell through at the last minute and... just no way. argh. I won a silver "addy" award last friday night at the new orleans ad club awards show, for a self-promotional ad I did last year, but for some reason I'm not as enthused as I ought to be about that. new orleans just isn't the design town, not the advertising town, not the client-business town... and I *know* I'm capable of more than I'm able to do here - and the addys just kind of accentuated that. I'm definitely at a crossroads again - I'm content for the most part, but the action is stagnating and I feel I'm in danger of becoming complacent, and feeling the slow vortex of new orleans' malaise at work again. *sigh* Thursday, March 03, 2005
car turned out fine, for all that. pretty small repair, and not too terribly expensive this time, which was a hell of a relief. besides that little positive note, this week has just made me want to run and hide under a blanket or something. i feel like i've got a million responsibilities, none of them seems to be getting done, no matter how hard i work at them - which leaves me feeling irresponsible and inefficient while at the same time overworked and undercompensated. all of which are true, i guess. back to work. Tuesday, March 01, 2005
my car - a 1997 mercury mountaineer - had never given me much trouble. well, at least until december of last year, when it started overheating, and i found out i had a radiator leak. since then, it's been one thing after another. got a new radiator in december, got new brakes and rotors in january, and i almost made it out of february... but not. last night, as i was driving to the bank after work, the engine started making what were pretty clearly not-good noises. a low, circular clatter had replaced what was usually a clean kind of high-pitched whirr. not good. i turned around and headed back toward the office, and then came an aquatic "quoit" noise - a muted ping like a hammer hitting a pipe underwater - and then another. by then i had pulled over, which was good because a belt started squealing and the steering locked up and it became clear i wasn't going much further under my own power.
walked back to work, called a tow truck to bring it to my auto shop of choice... called the heroic melinda, who came and rescued me from work and brought me (after a good italian dinner) to my grandfather's house, where i borrowed his car (which i can do because he's in guatemala for another month yet.) so. turns out it was a belt pulley; bearings went bad, they're fixing it already. nothing left but the paying lots of money part. ugh. in other news, corrosion of conformity (with drummer stanton moore of galactic fame) are filming a new video downstairs on the bluescreen at my office. heh. gonna be a *loud* day. |