SlicedChildren show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh. Saturday, October 7, 2000 Note: I found out this morning (October 10) that I'd messed up on the upload for this entry and everyone saw a blank page all day. I've corrected the problem, so please go back and read it!
I woke up this morning with Laundry as my mission! I started at eight. I should have started earlier, but I think the bylaws for our building forbid it. I got email from Jack midmorning: he was leaving at noon, and would put A--- on the Greyhound bus to her mom's place in Olympia. He often has trouble geting his ex-wife on the phone, and didn't want to start down without speaking to her. He finally gave up, I think. I washed many loads. Setting the oven timer helped me stay on task, though the buzz is a horrid sound that makes me jump. I think I only inconvenienced one neighbor by hogging both washers and both dryers, but he eventually got his chance. I was on the last few loads of dark clothes. I was getting a new trash bag in the kitchen wastebasket, but it wouldn't come off the roll cleanly, which irked me. So I picked up a knife and tried to help the bag along -- and sliced my left index finger. Yikes! Seeing my own blood on the outside of my skin was slightly alarming. I put pressure on the cut, and then a special "fingertip" bandaid. The cut wasn't too bad, though deeper than a paper cut would have been. Darn those serrated knives! I left the rest of the laundry until Jack arrived to help me.
It was so good to see him -- he's still rather harried and depressed. He almost gave me enough sympathy for my wound. We folded the last of my laundry and brought it upstairs to my apartment. With all my clothes clean, it was quite obvious that I don't have enough drawer space! I decided to go get plastic boxes for under the bed. Somehow this turned into an expedition to the U-district. We didn't pick the best time to go there, late Saturday afternoon -- it seemed the college football team was playing in the evening, for a change. I found a place to park, and we returned to the Tran Brothers Pho restaurant. We both like that beef and rice noodle soup! I tried to buy some cream puffs to take to Vanguard, but they didn't have enough on hand to sell a large-ish quantity. We followed up with visits to the used record stores (but Jack was really shopping for used anime videos) and the comics store. Jack was surprised when I reminded him of my original objective. We took a roundabout way to the University Village shopping center, location of the Storables store. I think this used to a branch of "Hold Everything." Jack waited in the car, reading his new Cerebus compilation, while I cruised the aisles, looking for the stuff I needed. The whole place was crawling with Husky fans. I bought two underbed boxes, and a metal white grid "folder" to hook to my gridded kitchen wall. A place for bills! We had time to go home for a short while, where I packed some of my tshirts into the boxes and stored them under my bed, huzzah! This will give me more drawer space. In a few months, I'll rotate the tshirts I'm wearing under the bed, and liberate the ones I've stored. I don't want to get rid of them at all -- they are irreplaceable Freddie Baer silkscreens! Then I got dressed for Vanguard. I wore an outfit that Freddie gave me -- celestial pants (a la MC Hammer) and matching shirt.
We arrived early, a few minutes after eight o'clock, as has always been my preference. A small group of us were sitting in Vonda's living room, reviewing Ray's photos from a origami festival he'd been to (amazing!). When a few more folks arrived, I found myself in the midst of a sneezing fit and allergy attack. I'm sure someone was wearing something that set me off, but I don't know who it was or what it was! I slipped off to the downstairs part of the house, Jane's apartment, which was still empty. I amused myself between the sneezes by pulling the notched cord through a flywheel-top on the coffee table. It did look like a flying saucer, spinning along in its holographic splendor. When I'd mostly stopped sneezing and my eyes weren't watering, I walked around the outside of the building and sat on the front steps. I picked up Ian Haggeman on the way, and we began discussing alt.polycon 5 (he's chairing this gathering for the denizens of the alt.polyamory newsgroup, next spring). I talked about journalcon, which was happening this weekend. I think more of the polyamorous folk are clued into the "con" concept than online journalers are. I walked next door with Margaret Organ-Kean and Vonda, to Vonda's office. She wants to make metallic-looking graphics and was having trouble. I think the very old version of Paintshop pro is causing most of the problems, and recommended an upgrade. It's a great program (but I use Image composer at home). Back downstairs at Jane's, Andy Hooper talked about toys. He had a cool Simpsons "environment" for Halloween, with Ned Flanders as the devil -- "I have here a contract for the soul of Homer Simpson, for the price of one donut!" Jack made a paper airplane, and got his fill of the remote control cars Jane has set up in her toy room. I didn't pay too much attention to Victor ranting about TAFF. We left before it got too late, and stopped at Jack in the Box drive thru. Jack was inexplicably hungry. We were home before one, which is on the early side for Vanguard. We need to do some recruiting! I invited a few weblog buddies, but left it too late and they were booked.
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