Saw a band called Ga'an last night.  They're amazing.  I took some pictures - I'll put them up soon.

Now I'm drinking sake and reviewing life's most notable recent events, last to first:

That's the end of my notable things.  I haven't been having many adventures lately.  We threw parties at Fishmarket these last two weekends, and they were the usual good times.  But I haven't gone exploring, and that makes me unhappy.  I haven't had a good conversation which also involved walking long distances for a few weeks.  I haven't been deliriously happy since some time mid-last-week, and that makes me unhappy.  I feel like I'm coasting, and I hate that.

Temporary solution:  I am forming a costumed Jenga league and tournament based loosely on the luchador tradition but with more drinking.  If you'd like to get in on that and you live in Atlanta, lemme know.  We're having a preliminary practice tournament this Monday at 9pm.  Bring tequila.

* I don't think we've been seeing each other more than two or three weeks, so I was sort of expecting this.

I think this is a summer for eating mushrooms in the rain.

Coveting cats.

Making bad decisions.

Visiting strange cities.

And hilarious injuries.

Man, I love this.

We dumpstered at a few million flower shops last night, and now the warehouse is filled with trees and vines and flowers and jungle bushes.  We are having a jungle themed concert/costume party tonight.  I am going to be a puma.  I am looking up pictures of pumas right now so I can correct anyone who tries to sass me about my un-puma-like behaviour.

Puuuuuuma.

Just saying the word makes me excited.

I cut through my first lock with the bolt cutters last night.  It was great.

I'm hosting these two couchsurfing girls from Elon University.  We've been having a blast showing them all the weird parts of the city, getting into hijinks, and playing Deluxe DVD Edition Lord of the Rings Trivial Persuit.

Ate dinner with the Hare Krishna's on Sunday.  It was excellent, highly recommended.

These Are Powers concert tomorrow night.

It's been so sunny+hot lately.  It hurts in a good way, leg flesh on burnt concrete.

I keep telling people I'm super-excited, but I think they can tell even before I mention it, because my eyeballs have been dancing like eggs in a frying pan.

I think I feel enervated.

I also think that is a word that I learned from some old SNES JRPG.

Things I am nervous and excited about:

first day at on the job tonight (I start in 68 minutes)
possibly adopting a kitten
new pants
first wedding photography job coming up
the four pet baths I'm taking pictures of this week
writing less?
going camping

I did a pretty good job at dancing last night. I hardly felt nervous, and I didn't run away when girls danced at me. Also, I wasn't very worried that people were criticizing the metronome like tick of my ass.

These were all taken this Sunday. They work best viewed in order.

(So, um. Ignore that first picture.)
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BTW, Rooftop Vigilantes are probably playing music in your town sometime soon.  You should check them out - they are good.

Here's Brooklyn Vegan's writeup.



And now I've got to go take pictures of the moon.

I hiked around this mountain for a bit yesterday.



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Then I spent the night wandering around crashing parties, which turned out to be difficult because every time I showed up at a party half the room would inform me (to my surprise) that they had been at my party the previous night. Sometimes I wish I had a better memory. But it is also really fun when someone says, "Ben! What's up? How was [shared experience]?" And then I get to spend the rest of the conversation trying to remember their name and how we know each other.

I have been telling everyone I meet about how we're building a jungle descending from the warehouse ceiling (complete with real fruit) for Em's concert in a few weeks. I don't know how that will happen. Please help.

I don't actually play bike polo - if I wanted to meander around a tennis court really slowly on a nice sunny day, I'd just drop acid, thankyouverymuch.

But I like how this picture came out, in all its unfocused glory:



Here's Komborerai Chapfika (and half of Susannah) at the interview Sunday:



And a closer shot of his painting:



The white spots are actually canvas. He paints the piece, then sands down patches to create the finished work.  Which is awesome.

Don't take the money out of your pants pockets at night.

When you do your laundry, you will discover millions of freshly washed singles flying around your dryer.

You will be rich!

Another thing I should take pictures of: there are goats living next door to my warehouse. They graze.

Today we paid our first month's rent. It was sort of ridiculous* - in total, I spent 4 hours at the bank, rounding up hungover roommates, waiting for them, getting the money together, arguing about the money, and finally turning it in.

I've been thinking more about photography than writing lately, and I feel slightly guilty. I guess, with photography, the work is so immediate, I feel like I'm actually creating something. With writing, even though the eventual payoff is better, the process to get there is filled with so many "what the fuck am I doing" moments that it becomes very daunting to even begin work.

I continue my search for guaranteed perfect happiness.

I stumbled out of the bathroom this morning, glasses fogged, and discovered that Samantha had painted the whole thing Dandelion yellow.

This is an excerpt from a very long facebook message I am attempting to respond to right now:

One lovely thing about going over there [the warehouse] is
that I doubt there will ever be a day when putting paint on
myself will not be an option.

Anyway, if I do go over there, perhaps I will come by and
paint things.
If that's ok.
Are you around often?

I mean I am really bad about phone conversations sometimes,
and I believe you said you are as well, but I prefer it to
messaging. Plus, I think that awkwardness is genuine. Its true,
unchangeable admission of our imperfections. When we are
uncomfortable, we are our most vulnerable. And that's ok.

I don't know. For me, being uncomfortable swings me into a defensive sort of hyperactive overdrive. Sometimes I am an asshole in that mode - aggressively so. Other times, I am just very very charming (and also very pun-y). When I am not uncomfortable, I say what I think. Which can be just as bad, as my close friends are aware.

* If I had never met flyingover, I would never ever use this word.</lj>

My grandpa (on my mother's side) is in the hospital again.  He's been sick so long that I was surprised to learn he wasn't already in the hospital.  He's at that age where being sick becomes the default.

(Old people are sick, teenagers are angsty, twenty-somethings are self-absorbed, and I don't know what stereotypes apply for the points inbetween.)

But.  I'm getting ready for Thanksgiving Critical Mass, which is rumored to be the craziest of the year, as this is the one that tends to try stunts like taking over highways or doing loops around the city's busiest malls during Black Friday.  It should be fun, but I'm predicting either a few arrests or a crash.

After that, I'm going to try and see as many art galleries as I can find for about an hour and a half - I'm looking for something interesting to review for that 1000 word job, which is due on the 8th.

I think Buy Nothing Day is the most asinine thing I've ever heard of.  A surprising number of the causes Adbusters adopts are insultingly stupid, but those black spot sneakers and Buy Nothing Day are two of the worst.  Maybe tonight I will celebrate Buy Nothing Except Whiskey Day.

Sorry.  This holiday's got me down.  Winter's got me down.  Hearing Christmas music's got me down (more on this later).  It's started to rain, and that's got me down.  Feeling a pain in my ribs when I take a deep breath's got me down.

And my boots have finally started to fall apart.  I got them second hand, but I still assumed they had another few months of life left.  I wish I could be nicer to shoes.

The weather service said it would rain this afternoon, so I went riding downtown just before the clouds starting sweeping in.

I went over to the Hyatt, which is pretty tall and usually has an unlocked roof access... but this time all four of the doors to the roof were locked. So I put my camera back in some plastic bags, got on my bicycle, and headed home.

I got caught in the rain for most of the ride back, and now I'm sick.

The Vodka Cure is not working too well. At first it was doing great - I wasn't sniffling at all or anything. Then it started to fail completely. Then I got annoyed because I was stuck inside on a Friday night. Then I got more annoyed because there are some things I'd like to see tomorrow night and I'm worried the weather will still be bad.

Then I tattooed the word "YES" onto my calf with some white ink. I'm not sure how it will turn out, but if it looks cool I am prepared to cover that entire calve with "YES"es.

I don't know. I am like one drink away from playing Jenga with myself*. And I've spent the evening trying to make my way through Y: The Last Man, a zine about anarchism in Argentina, and Umberto Eco's History Of Beauty. Also I have been watching a lot of TV - Mission Hill is amazing.

Here is a question for your morning hangover:  Which part of rain do you prefer:  before, during, or after?

* not a euphemism.

My parents are traveling to Turkey, so I've been spending most of my time trying to avoid telling them how long they should stay in Cappadocia.  I don't know guys, stick around until you get bored.  There's giant stone penii in every direction - you should be happy for a few days.

The bike's falling apart more than usual.  My cassette teeth are so worn down that a few of them are more round than square.  And somethings wrong with my right shifter - I think I can probably fix that.

Halloween parade yesterday, and Halloween things afterwards.  It was fun.  I realized that I shouldn't be around my musician friends when they've got instruments.  I realized for the millionth time how much I love October.  I realized that drunk people love bathrooms even more than they love shots, traffic cones, hamburgers, or promiscous members of their favored sex.

I got tricked into going on a date Friday night.  It was late, and I was confused, calling around to see who was still up at 10:40 pm.  I reached an old high school friend I hadn't talked to in months, they said come meet them, I did, and was introduced to this girl they'd been trying to get me to meet all those months ago.  It was pretty awkward (surpise!) - The girl and I are sitting next to each other, there's three other people at the table, and the whole time I get the idea that my "technique" is being closely inspected.  I wanted to leave very very badly after ten minutes, but I didn't want to insult the girl or my friends, so I invited the girl to come for a walk, which ended up being a bad idea, as the walk lead to my place, and a long drawn out morning the next day, and probably another week or so of journal entries along these lines.

I'm planning a Halloween pre-party on the day of.  It will be at my apartment from 6 until 9, there will be weirdo foreign horror movies (with an emphasis on Lucio Fulci's ripoffs of American zombie movies), hunch punch colored orange, and probably a smoke machine.  Maybe sandwiches too.

I am trying to find a way to organize all the parties and stuff happening over these next two weeks.  Halloween night is especially bad - Critical Mass, my pre-party, an alleycat at 9, the alleycat afterparty, Black Lips at Star Bar, and then like three different house parties.  I would like to try and be at all these things.  I would also like to get fairly trashed and makeout with a girl dressed as a sexy cat (this is my goal for most nights, but October is the only month it actually happens).

Oh, and a camping trip sometime in the future, but inside the city.  I'm thinking along the beltline - there's a few really nice spots that are far enough away from people that campfires can be set up with no problem.

Work still sucks, still looking for a new job.

Haven't felt any real inclination to eat lots of acid for three weeks now, which may or may not be a good sign.  Though, now that you mention it, I currently do want to eat lots of acid.

Whatevs.  I'm gonna go be in a pillow fight.

Domestic issues at home. My mother and I are both very stubborn*, so our arguments tend to go Cold War very quickly.

Other things are going good. We've got some writers and designers lined up for this new website, that music site I write for just won a regional prize, I've almost got enough work out the way to start on another pay piece, and, y'know - there's this weather.

I've got a crush on one of the barristas at this coffee shop, and she's like at least 30% of the reason I go there, but I haven't really done anything about it because I'm not comfortable with hitting on people who (at least in theory) earn their money by being nice to me. A few days ago she came over to chat on her cigarette break, and we mainly exchanged the sort of babble two people use to prove that they're:

1) weird
2) smart
3) hip
4) artsy

It was a stupid conversation, but I think we both enjoyed it... ironically.  As the conversation was ending she kept talking about stuff she was doing that weekend, and I was too dense to even say "I'll see you there," or something along those lines.  So then I ended up at one of the things she mentioned, because it turns out she's in a band I really like, but I hadn't realized it before because when she's performing she wears a falcon costume + mask + foot high heels.  It got awkward from there, and now I'm sitting at home trying to make a list of everything I hate about burlesque.

* more accurately, we're only very stubborn when we're arguing with each other.

I should make a list of words/phrases people use which make me stop paying attention to them permanently.

The only one I can think of recently is "post-collapse," and I guess I could add using "Marxist/ism" in relation to current American politics... though that opens up a whole barrel of fish: "reverse-racism," "main stream media," etc.

Anyway.

I want to build a sail and replace my bike seat post with it.

Another thing.

I spent the summer looking for a job, and now that I have one I am mainly angry all the time.  Or at least all the time I'm in the office.  I don't do much right now except transcribe, though they tell me I'll be writing in a few weeks.  But the joke's on them - I interviewed with another job today, doing internet stuff at an internet place.

But I don't really care either way... I mean, I do, in that the other job pays more, has comfier chairs, and a better view.  But the money's only important in relation to how many more month's I'll have to work before I can go to India.

I'm borrowing this photo from a recent post about biking from Phoenix to Athens on the bikepirates group.

It's something I'd really like to try doing myself some time soon.  So I'm posting this as my inspiration to finish a tour (even if it's only the 80 mile tour to Athens) by Halloween.

Augh. Been running around to interviews today. Woke up, started putting on clothing combination, had to cut a notch in belt because apparently I CAN get skinnier. No biking yet, but soon (my pet).

My tie was amazing.

I'm going to interview the guys who run this mysterious boutique/art gallery on Monday. The interview is for a story, and I am being paid cash money for that story. It came about because I asked my editor, "what's up with that place that always has the secret Black Lips/Deerhunter/King Khan/Liverhearts/No Age shows?" and she said, "I don't know - want to write about them?" I like that sort of editorial decision making process.

The weather has been fantastic today: overcast, with shards of sunlight. Windy, with slips of still. Rainy, but the rain never falls.

It shouldn't have to be restated at this point, but sometimes I think my entire life is tied to the weather around me. I like heat and sunshine; mainly hate everything else. I went to Turkey during one of this decade's hottest summers because I had been in England for three months and I needed the opposite of that. I think Atlanta's weather is changing, and, maybe (hopefully) the silence I've been in all summer is changing as well.



I'm going to spend an hour or so trying to write about this tonight. It's the first time I've ever written about abstract sculpture. I'm pretty excited though. I got a chance to wonder* around Whitespace Gallery taking pictures yesterday. You can see all my best shots here. I don't really understand something unless I've taken pictures of it, which I think is similar to the way that some people don't understand or remember a concept until they've written about it.

Two bands to recommend:

The King Khan and BBQ Show (sort of two bands, but they almost always play together. Currently out of Berlin. They won't tour here until next year.)
Cohen and the Ghost (from New Orleans, Baton Rouge-ish. Lap steel, and violin.)

I'm way more excited about one of the jobs I interviewed for than the other.  They're both editing positions, but the one pays really well** and provides medical and dental insurance.  Also, is in a vaguely internet related office, which is cool.  Anyway, even if I don't get the job, you should probably check it out.  Send me an email or reply in the comments if you'd like info.

*  This is a typo, but I'm keeping it.

**  "Really well" is still less than $40,000 a year.  I worked out recently that $26,000 per year could keep me pretty happy (as long as I didn't get sick, have a car***, need to go to the hospital, or have kids).  So anything higher than 26k is good, and anything way higher than that is a A Fucking Miracle.

***  As others have pointed out, having a car is a really crazy stupid gamble, especially for young not-rich people living in the city.  I tell this to a lot of people.  Sometimes I tell it to complete strangers and then offer to build them bicycles.  Not sure if that is a Good Habit or a Bad Habit.

TTYL, gonna go watch Olympics.