inside the wonderful world of vee

i found a new “talk to us” friend! rachel and i went to westlake center today to hold up a sign saying “talk to us.” we went around 6, and initially, people were reluctant. i take it because it was rush hour.

THE TWO BLACK GUYS I COULDN’T REALLY UNDERSTAND.
the first two people to talk to us stopped by and talked to us but it was an awkward convo. one was wearing one of those handkerchiefs around his face and didn’t talk. the other one was friendly, but he was a little odd. he said he was going to stand on the street corner to be a “living, breathing stereotype,” and he was going to be the “angry black guy standing on the corner.” a little random and kind of funny. but kinda very random.

THE DUDE FROM LOUISIANA.
this guy was nice, nice. he walked by us at first (after giving us a smile), but came back right after. he asked us how many people had talked to us and we said not many. he said, “that’s seattle for ya!” and i said, “usually it’s a lot better than this.” and he said that if we were in lousiana, where he’s from, everyone would stop and talk to us and ask what we were doing and invite us over to their homes. kewl. he didn’t have much to say as he was meeting up with his friend, but just wanted to say that he thought things like this were great because they make people stop and think and make people understand that other people exist.

THE GUY I ARGUED WITH.
i forget this guy’s name but he was half-awesome and half-annoying. he had an extremely interesting way of looking at things. 4/4 on black male stopping to talk to us. anyway. he asked me if i was a citizen. i said i was. he asked how i knew. i said because they told me i was. then he said, “i don’t know if i’m a citizen sometimes,” and i asked him why. he said, “because i’m black.” and then i said… “well, at least you have some rights.” that brought a tear to his eye, cause he thought i meant that black people don’t have all the rights. i don’t necessarily think that, but i said some because i figured he was thinking that if he said he didn’t know sometimes if he was a citizen because he was black. bleh. some other stuff transpired, and then he asked me if i was in school. i said i’d graduated and that i was a sociology major. he asked me what the solution to the world’s problems were. i said i didn’t know. he said i had a sociology degree but i didn’t know? and then he proceeded to tell me i was a clone because i had a sociology degree — that having a degree and going to college made people clones. i said, “what if i didn’t think it was necessary?” and he said, “it’s too late. you’re already indoctrinated.” he went off about how no one wants to solve the problems in the world because then they would be without a job… that sociologists would go on to become social workers but they would only social work enough to solve the problem a little but not enough to solve the problem 100%, because they simply wanted to keep their own jobs under wraps, and solving the problem of homelessness or of the poor would mean that their jobs would be eradicated. i didn’t know how to argue with that. at some point while he was bitching and crying i kind of started to yell at him and i said, “you don’t like rich people. you don’t like people with degrees because you think they’re clones. you don’t like social workers because you don’t believe they’re really trying to make a difference. who do you like then? it’s not like poor people aren’t trying to be not poor anymore.” he didn’t have anything to say about that. sat there for a while, silently. and then after a while, i said, “nothing to say?” and he said, “popcorn that’s put in a pan is still popcorn if it doesn’t explode,” or something like that. i didn’t understand. then he said something about how martin luther king was once asked why he was looking melancholy, and he said he was looking melancholy because he was thought he was trying to integrate his people into a burning house. and he said some crap about how fire changes things and that for change to be made, america must burn. i was all a little confused by this.

at some point a few people interrupted — who knew him — and would come by. one large black dude and his? wife? came by and were yammering on about god. they asked the guy i was arguing with if he’d spread the word about god yet to me, and he said he was getting there. and the god guy said, “well, i’ll leave you to it, then,” and left. well the guy never did share anything about god, thank god, but if you’re going to talk to me about clones, what about religious clones?? TALK ABOUT CLONES. anyway.

THE HOMELESS LADY WHO WAS CONFUSING.
another lady came by, staring at our signs for a long, long time and not saying much. she finally came by and asked if we were in school or something and the guy i was arguing with (who knew the lady) said that i had a sociology degree. apparently they knew each other from a soup kitchen or something, and she asked me if i knew where that soup kitchen was. i said yes. she asked if i’d been there, and i said no. and then the guy i was arguing with said, “she wouldn’t ever be going there. she has a sociology degree.” bitter much? that’s pretty much the gist of it.

THE COUCHSURFER FROM FINLAND.
unfortnately, i didn’t get to talk to this guy because i was too busy arguing with the one guy and rachel was talking to him… this guy was from finland and was basically just couchsurfing across the united states (which is funny, cause i just signed up for that site yesterday…) and had just used rideshare to get a ride to seattle from wyoming or something. more details from rachel hopefully, since i cannot relay it, since i didn’t get to talk to him. which really sucks. because i want to couchsurf and i’d love to pick his brain about it T__T i actually juuuust looked him up on couchsurfing, though, and it’s pretty funny. i looked for people traveling in the seattle area and he was the third person on the list!! too easy!!

at some point here the security guards came by and shooed us away because we were sitting on westlake property and no one was supposed to loiter there (we’d long seen the signs but ignored them!). another homeless guy who had a sign asking for $20 was trying to save us, telling them that we didn’t want money and that we just wanted to talk to people, but we ended up getting shooed away anyway. nice of him. we just went to the planters across the walkway from where we were, and that worked out fine.

THE GAME PRODUCER FROM MASSACHUSETTS.
this guy was pretty much just trying to kill time while his friend was doing something else. he was here for a microsoft meeting and had just moved to boston. he was a producer? for lord of the rings online. didn’t talk to him that much… mostly just small talk. upper middle class white guy. he said it was cool that he goes into meetings and just discusses hit points all day. haha.

THE “JESUS LOVES YOU” LADY.
she asked us, “what do you want to talk about?” and we said, “anything.” she said, “did you know that jesus loves you?” and the massachusetts guy was still here — obviously uninterested when she came by. we answered in the negatory. she continued by saying that god would show himself to me sometime. i said, “i hope he does, because if he doesn’t, i will never believe him.” she left on that note.

THE CASUAL GAME AND TOY CREATOR FROM LOS ANGELES.
this guy’s name was ferad or something. he said he had tried to make up a story for his name before, since no one had actually heard of that name. he said he used to make up stories about where the name was from but that he’d forgotten it. i said he should say something about the fact that he is a prince, and he said it was something similar to that. lol. anyway. this guy was pretty laid back but still kinda cool. he was a freelance casual game designer and was just up here to crash some conference or something. he had bought an eyemask from daiso. i asked why. he said christmas. whatever that means. *__* he was very patient… when the christian guy (see next guy) was babbling on and on and on, he was obviously uninterested but still stuck around until the guy was finished. *__*

THE “JESUS LOVES YOU” MAN.
clones much? as if his wife asking us, “did you know that jesus loves you?” wasn’t enough, he comes by and says, “talk to you about what?” and we say, “anything.” he responds by saying, “did you know that jesus loves you?” i mean come on guy. nice thoughts but you’re a bit too um… clone-like. except whereas his wife backed off really fast, this guy shared personal stories for muuuch too long. there was the massachusetts guy still hanging around and ferad, and everyone was stuck listening to how he used to be an alcoholic but was no longer one and that jesus saved him blahblahblah. he told us that if we had a bible, we should read john 3:16, and i mean, come on. pick a better verse. any fool off the street can tell us to read that verse (and they do). he was nice and jolly though so i can’t fault him too much, and they didn’t argue about no one being interested in jesus… they mostly just spread positive vibes despite the fact that they were preaching, so i’m kinda mostly okay with it even though it was just a little boring. as they were leaving the wife regaled a story about how one of her friends got shot in the head and got in two accidents on the way to the hospital, and that he died and went to hell, and when he came back, he knew he didn’t want to go back to hell so he changed his life. she said he was a bad man prior to that. well, that’s certainly interesting. i thought she was going to say something about how he got shot and then started believing in god but at least this story has slightly more weight to it. then they went on their merry ways. they were, though, in my long times of doing this, the first couple that actually straight out preached to us. other people have given pamphlets or done run-by, “jesus loooves yoooooouuuu!”’s but they were the first ones that actually stopped and TRIED to make a difference, so kudos to them on that, although their plights fell on deaf years. the lady before she left also kept saying, “he’s going to make a difference in your life,” to me in particular, and she also said at some point that she wished she could witness it when it happened. if she were a little more um, not fanatical about christianity, i’d mighta’d give’d her my info or gotten hers to see if it ever happened. but no. no thanks.

THE FRIEND OF THE LOTR GUY.
the friend of the lotr guy had been buying a drink in starbucks and when he came out, he got me and rachel drinks (this all while the couple was preaching). he said, “you must be tired after listening to this guy yammer on!” and we thought it was very kind of him, even though the drink was sick as shit.

THE GROUP OF KIDS FROM BELLINGHAM.
this group of kids who had just graduated from high school — despite the fact that they looked older than rachel and i — stopped by after two of the guys, donovan and paul, noticed us and came by. their friends stood a ways away watching until they realized that donovan and paul were talking to us just fine and that we weren’t terrifying… and then it was all good even though the fact that we were surrounded by a wall of kids was kinda scary. *__* they were like this:

- girl 1 - guy who looked like john lennon - girl 2 - paul - girl 3 - donovan -

wow, now that i realize it, they were in perfect changing order. even though john lennon guy looked a little bit like a woman. initially, at least ;0 those kids had driven down two hours from bellingham or whatever JUST to watch “dark knight” in imax. that’s dedication right there. they all loved it. who doesn’t love that movie? pretty much everyone loves it. donovan works at colophon cafe (or at least i think that’s the right one) in bellingham. he told me to look him up if i went there this weekend — which i am going to. so i’m going to! this all because paul said bellingham was kinda hippie and that people would DEFINITELY talk to us there, and why not… i’ve never explored bellingham at all so i’d love the opportunity this weekend (sunday) to explore the place! anyway, when they first walked up, paul was mentioning that people did “free hugs” in bellingham and i said that wasn’t intimate enough, and the girl to the left of him said, “can i get a hug, though?” and i said yes, and we exchanged huggles. and then we talked a bit about donovan’s totally mangled shoes that were orange and green and looked like they had been destroyed, and they had been signed by flogging molly. he was also wearing red and blue socks. AWESOME. apparently paul’s shoes had been set on fire seven times — which i wanted to ask him about, but there was way too much conversation going on. all in all cool kids, and they asked us if there was anywhere in the westlake area to eat that was cheap. we said no and told them to walk ten blocks east to capitol hill to find something to eat. i gave them a redefine card telling them to check it out since they obviously liked music (at least, liked flogging molly). that was all after i said that people always thought we were selling things when we weren’t… but they said it was okay since this time the selling of things came after the talking and that it was an effective method of selling things. and off they went. i shall try to contact them this weekend. or something.

and that’s it for now. still have to recap on talk to us part six. i’ll try to do that another time *__* but now yay! rachel loves it and she will participate with me in such events in the future. finally, someone that actually likes it.

on sunday morning, i went to chinatown to post up a sheet of paper for people to draw on (clarification pic coming soon). after stopping in at snowboard connection that morning and talking to kenji, kenji suggested i post one of the sheets in king st. station to see what the bums contribute to it. what a fucking good idea, i thought! and i did. i parked my car and went to cross the street. this guy stood next to me, kinda well-dressed (not like suit, but like, clean) taller black dude… light-skinned. he said, “papa-san told me that if i didn’t take care of you, he’d kick my ass.” i said, “that wouldn’t be good.” so the light changed and i was going to cross the street and there was this drunkard lady approaching and she had beef with him. they exchanged some words. he told me to keep on walking. lol. then i got to the pole, and i started putting my shit up, and he was still exchanging words with the drunkard lady, and when that finished, he’s like, “go ahead, post your shit, i got your back,” and i posted it. when i finished, i thanked him (even though his bodyguarding probably wasn’t necessary, it was nice) and he said anytime i was down there he’d watch out for me. haha. how cute.

that evening, rachel and i tried going to a seattle international film festival screening. fucking sold out. mothabitch. i really wanted to see that movie. after locking my key in my car (alex had to rescue me), we had to kill time by getting some food. went to dick’s initially. outside a guy asked if we had any change. i said, “no, but want food?” and he said yea, and i motioned for him to come inside. i didn’t think he was coming cause he took so long but soon i saw him right next to me. damn, he was tall. dick’s was way too fucking hot, though, and the line was damn long, so we went down the street to kidd valley. he followed. his name was ratt, i think.

i bought him a cheeseburger, yam fries, and a strawberry milkshake at kidd valley, kind of fulfilling my dream of eating a meal with a homeless person. i don’t know why that’s appealing. i suppose i just want to hear their stories. unfortunately, he mumbled a lot and it was kinda hard to understand him. he wasn’t completely sane but he wasn’t even near psycho either. he could hold a conversation but just barely. i asked him how long he’d been on the streets and he said his whole life. he muttered some stuff about how people don’t usually pay attention to bums except for on thanksgiving and christmas. some other talk about how he wanted to leave seattle because it’s not bum-friendly, so i asked him where was better. he didn’t much have an answer that was better… think he said he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

he got a LOT LOT LOT of food stuck in his beard. it grossed rachel out big time. haha!! can’t say i blame her, i mean, it was kinda gross. i don’t really mind that kinda thing, though. but yeah.

later some guy who WAS bat shit crazy and definitely a vietnam war vet came in and was babbling about this and that. ratt said that this guy was also on the street his whole life. i gave him my yam fries because they were much too much for me to handle.

man. i like bums.

um, can i just start this off by saying… I LOVE FOLK LIFE? i’ve never been to the damned thing before. the only thing i knew about it was that it was a “hippie” fest but i am so into it. i guess i am partly hippie, maybe that contributes to the sentiment that folk life is AMAZING.

alright so, after circling around queen anne for a long while, completely unable to find parking, i decided that i should just park at the spaghetti factory since i have a pass to park there. and so i did. and i checked on this piece of paper i stuck on the pole near the sculpture park last friday, and it was full, so i took it down.

the point of that piece of paper was to tell people to contribute one thing to the drawing to build off of what was there before it. woot. i’ll have the results up sometime soon.

walked up to the space needle and it was like, five blocks or so. put up another sheet of paper right near the space needle. then walked into folk life.

upon first going in, this guy! and he had a “free hugs” sign so i gave him one. WOOT. the first of many. he had these little stuffed lions framing him. haha. they had tiaras… one had a tiara that was a tambourine. how cute.

there was another folk band with accordion and washboard… these things are all the rage nowadays, that’s for sure.

then there was this guy with a whiteboard… on it had the word “who’s right?” and below that were other words, like “athiests”, “jews”, “christians”, etc. um, he was doing a lot of screaming and not a huge amount of dispelling anything interesting, really. he asked this question… “who thinks they are a good person?” and someone responded that he said he was. and the sign guy said, “have you ever lied?” and the good person says, yes, and somehow the sign guy took that to mean that he wasn’t really good, because he’d lied before. blahblah. then he got bored so he pointed to lenny and asked lenny who he thought was right, off the people on his board. lenny said, “i think all of them have good qualities,” and the sign guy said, “i agree with that,” and moved on. some guy to our left said, “hinduism? there’s something right about hinduism? they have a multi-armed monkey man picking his nose… something something bullshit bullshit,” and i said, “it doesn’t mean that’s the part that is the good part,” and he did this kind of pompous knowing scoff/laugh and said something about else along those lines. and i said, “you don’t have to be religious — i’m not religious — to think that religions have something good to offer,” and he couldn’t even say a godamned thing. nor did he try. he just gave another knowing laugh. and i said, “yeah, that’s a good answer.” and i was like mad, lol, and turned around. what a fucker. can’t even give reasons for why he thinks no religion has anything good about it… can only press his opinion that is worth shit. FUCKTARD.

anyway.

there were some other guys with jesus signs (pictured) and these three guys wearing all black walked by and like said “BAAA BAAAA BAAAAAAA!” in their faces. it was really quite quite hilarious. shoulda videotaped. oh well, at least i have this photo. ahha. i mean. it’s an asshole thing to do. but it’s still hilarious. unfortunately i caught him in pic too late so he’s not screaming in this pic :{

walked around a bit. ran into lenny’s friend. it was kinda awkward. but interesting! because her husband had the exact same camera and exact same lens as i did! he had a lens hood… that was the only difference.

found some cardboard in a recycle bin (after lenny gave $1 to this guy who had a sign that said, “i bet you $1 that you will read this sign”), haha. genius. ripped apart the cardboard in preparation for sign-making. never a shortage of cardboard, i guess.

borrowed a marker from the vendor that lenny bought a nature photograph from, and wrote a sign that said, “talk to us (about anything) we don’t want money, we just want conversation.” (i wrote that last part because there were SO many people begging for money at folk life, albeit rather creatively.)

there was this DOPE balloon guy. he did some things i’ve never seen a balloon maker do. he would pinch off sections of balloon without popping it… i don’t really understand how. he also got water into the balloon after blowing it up with this little cup-like gadget. he was trippy. his hat said, “NO WEAPONS,” and he said he only made things that were “helpful”. which is soo awesome. this is his helpful thing for this kid… it’s a fire-fighting airplane… hence the water on the bottom of it (can’t really see :[):

drum n’ bass… with a TUBA? fucking awesome. someone said this was a french horn. it is a tuba, isn’t it? i don’t know. too lazy to look it up. oh god. no i have to. no, it’s totally a tuba. i win. asshole.

got a smoothie and went to find a spot. there was this great spot on a corner but this band took it, so we found another spot near the main path that didn’t have seating or nothing… we just sat on the ground. werd.

and so, the adventure begineth.

***

THE FOLK LIFE STAFF GUY, IAN.
we’d seen this guy talking with the “who’s right” guy. he came down and sat down by lenny. ian and i talked about where vee and i were from and what we do for a living. he mentioned that he was leaving seattle soon and that folklife was like his goodbye seattle thing.

THE GIRL WHO WE KEPT IGNORING (AND FRIENDS).
so this blonde girl comes with two of her friends — a guy and a gal — and tries making conversation with us but we keep getting distracted and kind of ignoring her. she asks what our best conversation with people has been and i fail to answer because all these other people come by… (see below…)

THE 14 YEAR OLD RAVER GIRL.
so i saw that this girl was wearing a ton of candy and asked her about raving a bit. she said that this was her first time coming to folk life sober or some shit. i was like, what?? and she said that she had just popped an ecstasy pill (wtf!) and so i was like, whaaat! and i asked her how old she was and she said she was 14, and i asked her how many times she’d done it, and she said she’d lost count. i said, what? like 100? and she said, no, more like 23 or something. i was like, wtf, that’s more than me and i’m 24! and yeahhhhh. *__* she’s too young for that shit z0mg. her friend was on the phone, refusing to talk to us. i didnt talk to this girl but i talked to ian about them. i was like raver chix lul and he was like “hahaha”

THE GROUP OF 13 AND 14 YEAR OLDS.
initially spurned forth by two of them — sam and this other guy whose name i don’t know — these two thirteen and fourteen year olds sat down next to us. the asian kid with glasses asked us what we thought about marijuana. i said it should be legalized. i had forgotten who i was talking to. then that kid said that he agreed. sam was surprised. then asian kid said something about how marijuana was less dangerous than alcohol. i said, yes! but then lenny asked the kid if he’d done those things before. he said that he had not gotten drunk but had tried marijuana. so lenny said, then how do you know? and he didn’t seem to have an answer, really. meanwhile their group of friends came by but didn’t much say anything. when the 8th graders were talking to us about what we were up to i mentioned that ian was getting paid while doing this at the same time! sweeeet. i got the vibe that the asian kid with glasses was trying to act cooler than he was as a means to impress his lady friends. more power to him. go, asian kid. the girls in the group were quiet, they seemed like they wanted to talk but seemed like they were used to staying quiet. i wanted to hear what they had to say, but oh well.

THE ARMY GUY.
this guy came out of nowhere. i didn’t see him coming, but he gave his opinion of marijuana, and that was that it was not only a gateway drug but much, much more. he seemed to think that being in the military almost gave him credit to say this or something. so like this guy was just sitting there for a while next to ian listening to our conversation. so i saw him and said hey whats up. when we started talking about drugs i wanted to help him join in on the conversation so i was like “hey do you have any words of wisdom for these youngins?” and he was like haha i like how you turn to the oldest looking guy in the group, so i was like yea with age comes wisdom! lets hear it! so he started talking about how marijuana was more than a gateway drug and that he’s seen people’s lives ruined by it and he used to be a dealer down in cali but never did it. he started talking about how a joint was way worse than smoking a cigarette then the asian kid with glasses was like “do you smoke?” and he was like yea, and the asian kid was like you spend 3000 dollars a month on cigarettes, and the army guy was like dude i spent 3000 dollars in the past two days, and we were like wow on what? and he was like hahaha i dont wanna say so we all just assumed it was on hookers or something.

THE FOLK LIFE STAFF GUY, IAN.
ian interjected by saying that he was 25 and from his personal experience he felt that people did marijuana but outgrew it. oh yea this is where ian interjected with his personal experiences and that only people who have addictive personalities have a problem with marijuana, and that marijuana itself isnt bad, its just that the people who are gonna get addicted to something anyways happen to get addicted to marijuana

THE ARMY GUY.
got a phone call and left after not really agreeing with ian. so yea he was just like preaching about how drugs were bad and stuff and then he started talking about how his job is way more dangerous than smoking and that he was a soldier… anyways he ended up leaving and it was like woa

THE FOLK LIFE STAFF GUY, IAN.
ian tells lenny some stuff. (lenny?)

THE GIRL WHO WE KEPT IGNORING (AND FRIENDS).
the girl tries to continue that conversation and tries to ask us what our favorite conversation in other times we did this was. on the spot, i can think of NOTHING. now i can think of a buncha things i coulda told her, but at the time nothing seemed all that appropriate or interesting :{ suckage. they leave after a bit. sorry, gal.

THE HUGS RAVER KID.
this kid was dressed up totaly awesome, raver-style, and kinda femme, with lots of pink and purple mixed with black. he had purple/black hair, i think. totally etarded, i’m pretty sure. he was talking about how he had scammed some “dirka dirkas” into buying his broken ipod and that they owed him $10. and he was totally looking to get that $10 even though he had scammed those guys and sold them a broken ipod that was stuck on the same one song. wtfs. those people hadn’t even checked it!!!! and he was asking if we’d seen the arabs and iraqis and we said no. he went to go look for them. he kept yelling dirka dirka! im lookin for some dirkadirkastan guy!! when he walked over i was like lawl this is gonna be interesting

THE GROUP OF 13 AND 14 YEAR OLDS.
leave and promise to come back. before they leave, i tell them, that if they’re going to do drugs, to make sure NOT to do meth, crack cocaine, or heroine. ahahhaha.

THE LESBIANS WITH A KID FROM KAZAKHSTAN.
or at least i thought they were lesbian. they were nice and middle-aged, with a cute asian-ish looking kid who they had gotten from kazakhstan. one was saying that she was talking to her partner about the trip to kazakhstan and how vacations like that were so relaxing and nothing much mattered on vacation. she said that what we were doing with our sign was probably like a mini vacation. the other woman had other thoughts to add… and that was that as she was getting older, she felt like she was talking to people less and less because she had no real interest in speaking with them, and that perhaps she should do something like this, too. they tried getting the kid to say hi to us but he had just awoken from a nappy nap.

THE PEOPLE FROM REDMOND.
this mom, with her two kids and… boyfriend? stop by. she’s the only one who talks but she loves the idea. there’s some generic talk. we talk about the delicious-looking donuts her youngest son has. they’re from redmond, as the younger son baseball’s tshirt says (redmond west).

THE POETRY GIRLS.
so some girls were walking by and told us to contribute one line to their poem. i told the main chick that she should go contribute to the paper that i posted up, and she said, “oh? that was you?” and it’s pretty cool that she’d seen it! i gave her my card and told her to send me the poems she got. the line i wrote in her poem was “they then searched in vain for the fuse” oh yes! my line was something about “penguins marching in line to the ______” here’s one of the poems they got that people contributed to:

THE SHORTEST POEM IN THE WORLD GUY.
this guy waited until the group left and then approached lenny and apologized if he talked funny… i guess he’d suffered a stroke before. he then said he used to know the guy who wrote the shortest poem in the world and recited the poem. it was something about how a day is just from dawn to dawn. and lenny said, “that’s a very straightforward poem.” this guy was pretty cool i could see him standing behind everyone eagerly awaiting to talk to me so i kept saying hello to him to get him to join the group conversation. he seemed perfectly content and i could tell he wanted to wait till other people were done. i commented about the card around his neck and he said it was an indian reservation card or something, then he was like i suffered a stroke so please forgive me if im slow with this, so i was like oh ok and he said he used to know the guy who wrote the worlds shortest poem, and i was like oh cool lets hear it! and he was like oh man and got nervous and forgot the poem and was like forgive me im nervous, but then he remembered it and told it to me, it was something like “i yawn until dawn”, and was like oh thats very short and straight forward, nice!

THE FLY-BY KONICHIWA MAN.
some elderly man walked by and was like, “konichiwa,” and i said, “i’m not japanese, but okay.” don’t think he heard cause he’d said konichiwa without really caring if we responded, methinks.

THE CRAZY LADY WITH THE SUNFLOWER SEEDS.
this partially crazy lady with a bag of sunflower seeds came by. her first question to us was, “how come orientals don’t talk to people?” and we were like whaaa? cause how the fuck do you answer that? lenny said something about how it was probably cultural. she would sit there listening to his answer and not saying anything… picking at her bag of sunflower seeds. and then lenny would offer forth some other idea and she would continue doing the same. no real answer-giving. and then because it was so awkward, lenny would keep saying stuff about how he thought it was cultural that asians don’t talk to people as much blahblah, and also mixed in a lot of “i don’t know”’s because, well, she wasn’t responding and made everyone feel uncomfortable. finally she spoke and said that she thought it was all a front that asians don’t talk to other people and that there was nothing cultural about it. she was weird. and ignant. she walked away. lenny and i were giving funny looks to the air as she walked away and i guess she kept turning around and seeing those. i didn’t see her reaction but lenny said she looked like she wanted to kill. this lady was thoroughly disappointing, but good thing she showed up because she gave us something to talk about afterwards: her. anyways… i kept offering answers to her like well its mainly the older generation that is old fashioned and more reserved, but the younger generation is more outgoing and she was still mean muggin the whole time. so these two asian kids (see below!) sat down and i was like hey you guys why do you think asians in general are less social than most people?? the asian kids were like what ?? asian people are the most talkative in my class, (although one did say asian girls were more quiet!) so i was like oh no i mean the older 1st gen people, your parents are asian right? and they were like yea haha it sux and i was like lawl azn parents. so i keep talking to the old lady trying to convince her that its not a defect in asian genes, its a cultural learned thing but she was just not having any of it. she started talking about how when asian people dance they have no feeling and its all just robotic, and i was like again thats cultural. and then she started talking about how she doesnt like how people blame it on culture and that thats just a front to cover up their own inadequacies.. anyways i started showing disinterest in her and she got the idea and walked away. as she walked away i gave the two kids this funny look and she saw me and glared at me and i started laughing and she kept turning around to look at me as she walked away, owned! im sure i didnt help fix the image of asians in her head.

THE TWO OTHER ASIAN KIDS.
so while crazy lady was there, two other kids sat down — one mixed, one not. we filled them in on what the conversation was about and they agreed with OUR ideas about it, but again, they too were scared by crazy lady. as soon as crazy lady left, the mixed one said, “i wasn’t talking because she was there.”

THE HUGS RAVER KID.
he comes back and tells us that he found the iraqi guy he was looking for, and that the guy gave him his $10. a bit shady. lol. oh well. then he saw some guy walking by with a free hugs sign and ran after the dude and was like growl-screaming, “GIVE ME A HUGGGG!” (so wish i’d gotten it on video.) after he’d hugged that group of people, he came back, and i saw another, and i was like, “ZOMG FREE HUG!! GO GO GO!” and again, he growl-screaming, “GIVE ME A HUGGGGGG” and went flying after those people. ahhahaha. man. shoulda definitely taken a video after setting him up like that. damn. :{ We were talking to those two other kids when he came back and i had to give them the backstory on this guy and why he got 10 dollars and stuff, they were like ohhh ic one of those two asian kids complemented raver kid on his totally flaming outfit. awesome.

(see that guy with his arms raised? that’s our raver kid who growl-screams for hugs.)

THE SPOKEN WORD GUY.
this one guy, raajni, stopped by, and he was a spoken word artist. he had a buncha cds with him and had sold eight today. lenny bought one from him for $7, although the suggested price was $10. he liked what we were doing, and said that he was trying to spread dialogue just like we were. he gave us a little taste of his spoken word / rap, and it was basically along the lines of how there is no more democracy in america and that everything is a lie. i said, “i agree,” and he said, “she concurs,” and gave me a pound (fist pound). there was a lot of fist pounding and he was pretty much awesome. and in all honesty, his spoken word was not at all bad! his spoken word was suprisingly good it had a good message about the state of our country and where its heading

THE TWO GIRLS?
they don’t get a better description, unfortunately. one just asked me about my lip ring and said she was thinking about getting one later today. i said it just felt like getting your ear pierced. i don’t even know if they’re old enough to get that shit. don’t you have to be 18?!!!?!

THE PSYCHOLOGIST GIRL.
so, people with signs are DEFINITELY attracted to other people with signs. this lady stopped by and she had a “psychiatric help, 5 cents (suggested donation)” sign. she was with a guy who didn’t really say a damned thing. she talked about how she had earned $1.25 or so from four people, but that only one of those people had actually talked to her about an actual problem and that everyone else just wanted a diagnosis but didn’t want to share a problem. so this couple was pretty funny, i talked to them about how portland is a vortex of unfun and how it was good for them to get out of that horrible city. talked to them also about various stuff and she said alot of people asked her what her qualifications were and she was like “look im offering help for a nickle! do i need qualifications?” and i was like lawl, talked about peanuts and how she needed a booth.

THE SALMON GUY.
so i don’t know if this guy came by because the psychologist girl was there but he said something about, “what do you think about this problem? no more salmon fishing for this year,” or some shit. and we were like, surprised, both by the idea of it and by his statement, i guess, since it was so random! this was obviously very much on his mind. haha. this guy was funny, he was appalled that they cancelled the chinook salmon season, and i was equally apalled because i love salmon, and he was like at least the silver salmon season is still on, and i was like oh jea silver salmon is my favorite salmon! his wife then came to talk to us about what we were doing and how it was awesome

THE HIP-HOP TEACHER.
this black lady came by and lenny talked to her a bit about the marijuana convo we’d had with the kids. i didn’t listen to that entire conversation but did catch that she worked at a middle school for a rotation program… those schools had hip-hop dance, i guess, not squaredancing shit like we used to. she said she saw a few of the kids she saw at the middle schools and that they would stop swearing as soon as she walked by. haha. she seemed cool but again, i didn’t talk to her that much. oh yeah, and she asked us what star signs we were and was surprised that we were sagittarius and cancer… she thought that we’d be aquarius and gemini. keke. then she asked us if we knew where we could pick up a program. we weren’t so helpful in answering that one.

THE OLD GUY WITH THE HAT AND GLASSES.
he was a cute older guy who sat next to lenny. i’m not sure what he talked about. i forget T__T

THE ASIAN LADIES WITH THE ANIMALS.
a couple of asian ladies came by and one was silent while the other one asked us questions like, “what animal would you be?” i answered that i would be a sloth. (i wanted to insert the awesome fact that sloths could swim well but i didn’t.) lenny said he’d be a flying squirrel. as she was leaving, she told me that next time she thought of a sloth she’d think of me. lol? when vivian said a sloth i was like DUDE A SLOTH’S HEAD IS LIKE ABNORMALLY TINY <– cute old guy, above, thought that was hilarious. i wanted to say my half favorite fact that sloths can swim really well but there wasn’t a good place to insert that in. darn!!

THE MEDICAL MARIJUANA GUY.
he was just passing out flyers. guess he didn’t really want to chat!

THE POT-WANTING GUY.
this guy was a total bum and talked to us briefly about how he likes making signs too, and that once he made a sign saying “potless”. then he asked us if we had pot. lol.

THE GUY WHO WORKED AT UW.
this man and his wife — who had funky fake teeth — stopped by. he worked at uw for biostatistics and we talked about how the building was far away and stuff for a while. along with tons of other people, they asked us if it was a school project. it’s funny, people are searching for reasons, and after i say that i was a sociology major then everyone is like, AAAH. as if all the pieces finally come together and it actually makes sense now. haha.

THE LADY AND SON IN RED.
both of them were in red, yes. i was talking to someone else when they came by but the lady seemed really cool and nice. she liked the idea. the son didn’t say much. we talked to the lady about the scary lady who was kind of racist and she said, “it seems like she is the one who didn’t really like talking,” since scary lady would say stuff and then like not really respond to our answers. lenny talked to her more. the lady liked what we were doing and asked how often we do it and the types of people we talk to and if we got anyone freakish so i mentioned racist lady. as they were leaving i told em they should try “talk to us” sometime

THE JAPAN-LIVING GUY, MICHAEL.
i didn’t talk to this guy much, but he had a blonde mustache with one tip (right side) that was white hair. it was quite interesting. quite interesting indeed. this guy had lived in japan for a while when he was 18 and was pretty fluent in japanese, i think. he said he’d been the only white guy there so everyone knew his name was michael but he didn’t really ever know what most of their names were. haha. he’d spent a recent year in china and picked up some chinese. i put him on the spot and had him try to speak some but i think he was a bit bashful about it. this guy was pretty cool, very chill and laidback, he looked kinda goofy but i liked that about him. he was the kind of person that i can get along with easily he was in seattle for a few months on his break from this neat study abroad program he was in for school he just got back from china and was gonna go to japan next and then 2 other countries which i forget. the thing i liked about michael was that we could talk about the people vivian was talking to and it was fun like that, he stayed for a while and we had many a conversation.

THE WELSH ACCENT GUY.
this guy had some musical wooden sticks. he sat down and he said, “nihonjin desuka?” i said, “no,” as i always do when people ask that question haha. and lenny said, “iie, chugokujin desu.” whatever. people always ask that shit and i always try not to humor them haha. i always answer with a blunt “no”. it’s almost weird that they say that right away because they’re expecting that you’re japanese and asking you in japanese — probably to show off their limited shitty japanese skills — but if you’re not japanese… and you didn’t know any japanese… then you’d just be like, “what on earth are you saying?” and it’s just a bit odd to ask that in another language, i think. just my opinion because it happens to me so much, though, i guess. i talked to him for a while as lenny was talking to michael. i mentioned that he had an accent and asked him if he was irish, and he said no, but i had a keen ear, and that irish accents are similar to welsh accents, and maybe that’s why. um, he told me this joke… something about how people who speak three languages are trilingual, people who speak two are bilingual, and people who speak one are american. we then talked about how it sucked that in america you learn another language when you’re in like, middle school and high school, and not elementary school, and by then, you can’t learn languages as easily. he said he used to tutor vietnamese kids and that the older kid would learn english fine but never could really get rid of his accent, whereas the younger kids learned the same amount of english over the same amount of time but were able to get rid of their accents. interesting point.

THE BEST IDEA GUY.
this guy asked us what we would do when we were out of good ideas. i think lenny said something about how we wouldn’t run out of good ideas, and i said something about how we’d just keep using this idea. i don’t know. then he asked us if this was our best idea and lenny said sushimonsters was his best idea. yeaaar. so this guy was like ‘this is a neat idea what other ideas have you come up with’ and i was like ummm and then he was like ‘whats the best idea youve ever had’ and i was like ‘this one!’ and he was like ‘haha’ and he was like ‘ what will you do when you run out of ideas’ and i was like ‘cry, ill cry’ and then i was like ‘ no just kidding i wont run out of ideas’ and then i mentioned sushimonsters.com and then michael was like ’so what are you some kind of good idea guy?’ that was funny.

THE TIT GUY.
this guy was the only one to come over out of his group of four. he was baked, i guess. came over and lifted up his shirt and said, “tit?” and then said, “talk to you about anything, huh?” and i said, “yeah, anything, but i don’t want to talk about your tit,” or something, and he said, “do you want anything?” and looked at me, and i was like, “uhh no,” and he’s like, “don’t get shy on me now, you don’t seem shy,” and i was like yeahhhhhhhh. felt a little awkward haha. after the tit thing and intense look… not really sure why :0 he just bumbled on a little and then apologized for being really high.

THE 14 YEAR OLD FREE HUGS GIRL.
this younger girl had a free hugs sign so i called her over and gave her a hug. i pretty much gave a hug to everyone who i saw with that sign that looked our way, haha. she was wearing a tegan and sara shirt and i mentioned that redefine had had a tegan and sara interview recently, and she said, “oh no way!” so i wrote down the address of the website for her, along with the redefine myspace site. she told me some story about how she went to go see tegan and sara in bellingham and almost passed out because she was anxious since they were four hours late getting there or something. i don’t really know. she also said that her friends and her were starting up a screenprinting clothing site and was going to launch into something about how we should work together but then caught herself and said nevermind. she asked me what my lip ring felt like and i told her just like a ear piercing, really.

THE GROUP OF 13 AND 14 YEAR OLDS.
they came back. sam was first and said that he kept his promise. i said something about how he loved us and was like, “right?” and he was like, “yeah.” haha. he was this cute little black? maybe mixed? kid with basketball shorts on. they had a crew of like 8 kids — guys and girls — their age. i don’t know the names of any of the rest but we talked to them for a good freaking while. this time we talked about a lot of things.

for starters, myspace, and how their parents wouldn’t let most of them have them. apparently those kids had taken sexual predator classes in school hahahaha. weird. and i said, “we never had those,” and lenny said, “because it wasn’t a problem when we were kids,” and i guess that’s true. sam asked if we’d watched “to catch a predator” before and i said, yeah, and that he should be able to have a myspace because don’t predators usually target girls? and this taller boy with massive calves (i guess he “had hops” hahaha) and a basketball t-shirt on said that he had been approached by older men before. the first story was that he was at a basketball court playing basketball and some guy approached him and asked if he wanted to play, and he said okay, and played with the guy for twenty minutes. and he got really sweaty. and then the guy said that they should go to his house to shower. hahahaha. and this kid told him to fuck off. and he said that it was easy because these predators who had approached him were way shorter and smaller than him (he was pretty tall). this other predator came up jogging behind him when he was running around greenlake. again, he was sweaty. the guy said that later they should go skinny-dipping in the lake at midnight. hahahaha. the kid again told this guy to fuck off. and lenny told him, “maybe you should stop getting sweaty, then,” and he said that he got sweaty from doing nothing. SO FUNNY. we continued talking to the kids about what they termed as chimo’s (child molestors) and four of the kids (two being brother and sister) had a sex offender living in their neighborhood. this chubbyish kid said that there was one living two houses down from him and that that guy would always be staring at him. haha. that kid was cute too. quite rotund.

this one girl had a really cool necklace with legos on it, and i guess all four of the girls there had one of those and they’d made them together. they looked DOPE. i want one. anyway, one girl (after being asked by lenny) suggested that we talk about how young kids have cellphones. she said she was 14 and had just gotten hers and thought it was ridiculous that some 8 year olds are walking around text-messaging on their cellphones. interesting stuff… i got my cell when i was 16 so it’s not too far off. interesting, the generation gap.

we asked them if they had people in their school that smoked pot. one girl said only one kid did. her friend said, “yeah, but there’s only 19 people in our class,” and she said, “true.”

after that we got to talking about the rules they have at their catholic school, since all of them went to catholic school. something about how girls aren’t allowed to wear nailpolish… and then there was talk of uniforms and all that jazz. and how they got in trouble more than we could ever imagine. sounds like a pain. i went to catholic school… i don’t remember it being that strict since i was third grade and under, but as a high schooler or middle schooler, i’m sure it’s a bitch.

at some point talking to all these kids got overwhelming. there were just SO MANY of them and all of them had something to say, which was really kinda cute. they were really open and cool kids.

THE PREACHER LADY.
as we were talking to this group of kids, stupid lady came by and handed us this piece of paper. she said, “this is a good discussion topic.” the paper said on it something like “make peace with god.” further inspection made us realize that it was some advertisement for billy graham. ahha. i said, “no, we are not talking about this,” and stashed it away. lol. kid who had been approached by elderly men said something negatory about those christian word-spreaders (of which there were a LOT LOT LOT at folk life).

THE COOL-LOOKING KIDS.
again, some emo-ish looking kids… four of them… one with a banged up hand drum. talked to them briefly about how — and this is kinda weird of me — they were the coolest-looking people to stop by and that other people who “looked cool” didn’t really stop and talk. and one of the kids said, “guess they aren’t really that cool, then.” touche. his other friends were rather silent, however. i dont remember that conversation at all and didnt notice that they looked cool , i did comment about how their drum was neat though

THE OLD CHINESE MAN.
lenny talked to this guy a little and then told me to speak to him in chinese. bah. putting on the spot. such badness. i spoke to him a little about what we were doing there and he asked if we were practicing english and i said no, that we were born here in america, and he got a bit uninterested at that haha. and i asked him if he was playing his instrument, since he was carrying a case, and he said he was taking a break, and then said bye and left. ok so this guy was mad grinning at me, he was standing to my left when we were talking to people and i noticed him and was like have tharr!!! and he was like are you chineeese! and i as like im half , are you chinese? and he wwas like yea, and i was like do you speak mandarin? and he was like ya, and i was like so does she! you can speak to her!!!

THE SPANISH SPEAKING GUY.
some guy came by and said, “hablas espanol?” and i said, “poco,” and he said something really fast, and i said, “lentamente, por favor,” and he said something about, “yo quiero ir al bano?” and i said, “no,” not that that even makes sense. but he left and as he was leaving, said to his friend, “they said to talk to them about anything.”

THE RAINBOW CAMP PEOPLE.
two folks, unique? and mike, came by and gave us some flyers for this event in wyoming that is like burning man but FREE. sounds interesting. i am actually kind of interested. welcomehome.org is one of the websites. i don’t remember the other off the top of my head. she said that she thought we would love it and it was for weeks or months at a time. i don’t think i’m that much of a hippie haha but she said that it would involve just going into the woods, having giant bonfires, playing music, doing drugs — and she kept stressing we didn’t need to do drugs but that we could — and other fun ol’ hippie stuff. sounds like a jolly good time, i’d say. they said they were getting there a week early so they could get the best hallucinogens but again stressed that we didn’t need to. unique? said that if we went they would for sure see us. she was crouched talking to us and three dirty guys threw water down her pants and said, “it was getting hot down there,” and she stepped up and smiled and they were like, “ohhh she likes it!” and i don’t know if they knew her but it was fairly amusing.

THE INSTRUMENT KIDS.
three kids with various stringed instruments in their cases. asked them what kinda music they played, and they said, “kinda like folk.” i said, “oh yeah. duh. it’s folk life,” and they said, “yeah.” asked them how much money they’d made over the weekend, and they’d made like $120 or so. not bad, not bad. they were young. again, probably 16 or under. cute kids. one was silent. the other two kinda talked.

THE CAMERA GIRLS.
we were walking to sushiland and had to walk through fun forest, and i saw some emo kid with a “free hugs” sign so i went to go hug him. he asked me what my sign said and i showed him, and his two female friends started talking to me about my camera, and one had just gotten a film minolta camera from her grandma and wanted to invest in a digital rebel next. ah yes more 16 and under year olds who are friendly. it’s fucking weird.

THE FACTORY MUSIC GUYS.
so, at every local seattle event… or maybe washington event… there are these tribal guys who play music. they were at all the days of folk life, of course. one of the guys saw our sign and started talking to us after we said hi to him. just asked him if they’d sold a lotta cds and they said today was slow but sunday went very well. interesting!!

***

OBSERVATIONS:
1) people our age (21-30) barely talked to us. the primarily age groups of people who did talk to us were 16 and under and hmm, probably over 45 or so. very interesting.
2) some people seem to assume that “talk to us about anything” means that we have the answers to everything… no… it really just means talk to us. lol.

***

i shall end with photo of little girl crying. haw haw. this is totally NOT in focus but look at her awesome (and scary) balloon. she was unfortunately no longer in the throes of anguish, either. she was totally crying a second ago. :[

i’m listening to… emilliana torini, ryan adams, ella fitzgerald.
i’m feeling… meh.

10:12 pm — i am soooo tired =__=

and it’s not from lack of sleep… i just want to go somewhere and not have to worry about anything =) tired of not having the magazine work, tired of not having a job, tired of not having money… oy.

through the past month or so, i have discovered come to hate some people! really, really. it’s not the best thing, but some people are just like fucking intolerable, i swear…

hate is so bad… but i think i finally hate someone!!! for the second time in my life (but i am over the first person because i got an apology… although what he did was far worse… and maybe i’m not 100% over it, but i don’t really have to deal with his existence, so whatever).

the other day i went to sure shot cafe on university way to drop off some magazines, and this old dude stopped me and started ranting about how all people who run indie magazines should band together to create one magazine and make one magazine that has information about everything… like a collective magazine. because magazines are supposed to be a storehouse of knowledge, he said, so therefore they should have everything. he kept going on about how editors of magazines are cocky monkeys, and how everything is about ego, ego, ego. that may be true, but a collective publication would never work out… people have different goals and different aims. a publication like that would never work. he went on about how in the 60s they tried doing collective publications like that but the police stopped it, and how no one will ever do that now… he said a lot about how “america was dying” blahblahblah.

anyways. the past weekend the scm people came up for some lan tourney, la la la. yes. nothing much special there. yes.

we need to go questing… it’s been a while.

blahblah. of all things lately, i’m yearning for some stability. i need something constant… cause nothing really is. i make my own inefficient days… and although i DO do a lot more than a lot of people, it feels so incomplete… i hope i’m one of the people who gets lucky enough to get something out of my own trials and tribulations, rather than out of someone else’s… to be deeming what you want to do for your life is the most underrated shit. i don’t want to be stuck as one of those who gets told what to do.

it’s that feeling that’s coming up again — of overwhelming mediocrity and the lack of being complete. UGHHHHHH. i don’t know how people can sit around and do absolutely NOTHING. as human beings, don’t people feel like there’s a duty to themselves to accomplish something? i don’t know though, maybe if / when you don’t do anything, it’s easier to not be let down, right? why risk it…

i went to a job interview for web design last thursday, and i THOUGHT i did swell, but i haven’t heard back from them yet. i don’t honestly know how long it takes people to make decisions like this, but i really hope i get it. they’re nice people, and i think i can craft websites that are shitloads better than the ones they have now… and i thought the interview was okay… so there’s no reason in my mind that i shouldn’t get it… but i’ve never successfully interviewed for a job yet — every job i’ve had i kind of had ASAP… so… that being said, i don’t know…

i’ve been getting nosebleeds like when i wake up every morning UGH. today i got it for like twenty minutes while taking a shower. it was fscking annoying. and it’s like. only out of one nostril. and it is super runny, like the consistency of water, just spurting out, and then chunking up all over the place when it finally congeals into little livers. UGHHHHHH.

i feel like i should be saying something more worthwhile because i haven’t written anything in here like a month, but nothing is really coming to me. oy vey. too much incompleted stuff to think about to get things to “come to mind,” i guess…

lenny, posa, and i have been working on our sushimonsters.com site. it’s slowly coming along, but the amount of work involved is massive. SO TIRED UGHHHHHH… gotta fight it. one of these days, one of my business ventures will hopefully pay off, and on that day, i’ll be happy.

work isn’t everything, but it is a huge indication of who you are if you want it to be. and i want it to be; i want to make a mark with something worthwhile.

i’m listening to… discovery channel and some thing on area 51.
i’m feeling… okie.

12:32 am — this thing on area 51 is showing their satellite photos over the course of years… and how it has expanded and been remodeled over time. so clearly something is there?!

lalala. i was going to say something, but i don’t remember

today is lenny and my 5…?-month anniversary? i thought today was the 9th. it is in fact the 8th. well, technically the 9th now since it’s 12:38 am, but whatever. didn’t really feel like anything special. lazy day — yes, yet another. felt quite blah. our times spent together towards the last… week have felt… uninspired.

i posted a link on this website with a video on the CIA’s remote viewing experiment, saying i thought it was real. this guy responded with a link to this website saying that, hey, this website talks about it, and penn and teller said it wasn’t real, so it’s bullshit. what makes me fucking livid is that i actually read this website, and i don’t really think that he did. there’s virtually nothing in this article that says remote viewing does NOT work. and that’s bullshit. what a fucking idiot… sending me a link to prove that i’m full of shit when in fact the article attaches truth to my claim. what a dipshit. that just makes me mad. that he is so out to prove someone wrong that he finds a link that has the results he thinks will be there (even when it doesn’t), doesn’t take the time to read it, and just posts it like an idiot.

anyway. last night before going to lenny’s house, i stopped by albertson’s to get some milk and mushrooms for making risotto. unfortunately, i didn’t know albertson’s was closed. these two little emo bitches who look like my chemical romance fans were being hella rude, saying, “it’s clooosed,” in this weird voice, but i didn’t hear them. so i was like, “oh it’s closed?” when they finally said it, and one of the guys was just hella laughing, saying, “i can’t believe…” blahblahblah. so either he was laughing at 1) me not hearing them a bunch of times, or 2) my clothes, since i was wearing these hideously awesome pajamas. either way, it made me mad, which is stupid, unfortunately, but i was already in not that great of a mood, and it didn’t really help. i just fucking hate it when people are jackasses. makes everything feel like shit to know that people are just that fucking bored and shitty. i’ve been mean plenty in my life, but that was a long time ago, and i have since learned to at least try and make an attempt at being more civil and respectable. douches.

tonight i went with alex and andy [crossett] to eat wings at romio’s. there was really no one there but us when we got there. in fact, it was really kind of eerie since no one was around. but nevertheless, we went in anyways. got 40 wings, although the guy thought it was 20. then he accidentally entered it into the computer as 10. so he brought us 10, then 10 more, and then 20 more. rofls. narb. but he tried to be nice, so it’s all good. anyways, at some point, this guy came in and i didn’t even notice him come in, but he approaches us with a dime and asks us to flip a coin for him because he wants to, “see something.” i would have done it, but i suck at flipping them, so we kinda waited around til andy decided to do it. the guy told him to call it in the air, and andy called heads. it was tails. the guy said, “well, that’s strange,” and said, “you guys have won this coin and your tab.” we were mostly just surprised. not everyday does someone do that. so i asked him, “why?” and he just said, “random.” that’s good enough of a reason for me, although it’s a strange one. so i don’t know why it is good enough ;D anyways he told us that it was an open tab and we could order whatever we want. we didn’t order anything else, though. at some point he left, and all of us were like, wtf, and the waiter was saying how he was drunk. i guess he has come in there a few times and bought people meals for no apparent reason. later, he came back with a bum, and fed him dinner. good shit.

alex and andy found it a little strange. they initially thought the guy was asking us to flip a coin so he could decide if he wanted to kill himself later or something. i don’t know. i never thought it was weird, and “random” was a good enough reason for me. it doesn’t really make sense to me. it’s sad, though, that someone could do a good deed and it makes people freaked out just cause it is a good deed. i’ll admit, he wasn’t the most clean-cut, unshady looking guy i’ve ever seen, but i’m sure he has good, if not great, intentions. i don’t find these inexplicable good deeds as things that should cause us to be freaked out. i don’t think that people don’t have a good reason behind it. if anything, it’s inspiring that people would go out on a limb and do something nice for no particular reason. like those people who pay for your toll when they’re the car in front of you. everything is really just nice, and i don’t think these people really have a conscience to clear (as andy suggested) or that they have an ulterior motive. is it really that weird to do something nice for no reason? maybe that’s what makes some people feel right. while the bum was ordering food, he was just sitting at the bar with some gOofy smile on his face. later, he went to sit with him. the smile made me think it just made him feel good. if only these things didn’t always make people so scared. how cynical is society? man.

sometime in this past week lenny and i went to this restaurant in wallingford — some mediteranean food place. it tasted alright. the guy was really nice though; he was the owner, cook, waiter… rofls. he said his help was late. too bad. we were the only ones in the restaurant. so many restaurants and shops… so few people. sometimes i wonder how these places stay open. it seems so hard. seems like yet another difficult dream to start up. :[ sad.

i’m watching this thing on the discovery channel now about the “bermuda triangle,” and this guy is not a believer in it, so he is dedicating his life to proving it wrong. seems so… pointless to me. but i guess it’s getting him on tv, so yeah. i’d much rather be proving it right, than to not know and say it is wrong right off the bat. but i guess i’m drawn to stupid shit like that that has no definite answer.

people in our apartment want to assign everyone dishes since some people aren’t doing theirs. that seems a little silly to me. i dunno, i’ve done sinkloads of other people’s dishes before… and people have done mine. and i don’t really see what the big deal is. maybe if someone had nasty dishes all the time and NEVER did them, but maybe that person just needs to be bitched at more. shrug. i’m willing to try the idea — why not — but i definitely, definitely do think that it’s silly.

i was having a weird headache for the past couple of days in the back of my head, but it’s mostly gone now. fantastic!

i borrowed “40 year old virgin” from jesse who borrowed it from blockbuster. excellent. oh yes, within recent times i watched “crash,” which was pretty excellent… well, some parts were anyway, and “the island” (did i already mention this?) “the island” is particularly weird because no one really watched it, but most people who have watched it (i heard people talking about it at this blockbuster too before) think it’s not so bad. so mind-boggling. and “king kong”? not sure if i mentioned that either, but some parts were excellent, and some parts were not. the movie as a whole was too long, though. not really my bag of chip movie. i want to see some movie that i saw on the tv yesterday, even though it has elijah wood. it’s called, um… “everything is illuminated” — looks visually pretty cool.

i’m listening to… … kind of like spitting, hellogoodbye, death cab for cutie, michael bubble, the vells, keith urban, blood brothers, kanye west, sufjan stevens.
i’m feeling … hokai.

rofls hae pueple text is lenny
4:46 pm — i shoulda written in this the day after we came back, but i wasn’t feeling like writing in it, unfortunately. SUE ME. but now is the time to write. weeeee. bring it awn!

so we woke up @ like 10 on saturday morning but didn’t leave til like noon to go to canada.. it was me, lenny, arlen, and farm. stopped by the mcdonald’s and the 7-11 to grab some phat disgusting unhealthy eatz(vee’s choice of tims cascade was jalepeno while mine was the superior wasabi flavor), wewt wewt. DOWN WITH MCDONALD’S GIFT CARD SLOGAN: “it’ll not only give you good food, but good times!” SHUTUP. SINCE WHEN DID MCDONALD’S GIVE ME GOOD TIMES?! maybe if good times = heart attacks and fatty fats, bitch! i got apples from mcdonalds!

anyway. so i drove the however long it took to get there and was … so sleepy. so very sreepy. :[ T__T and everyone else in the car was sleeping. teh bastards. got to the border and everyone else had birth certificates (DUDE LENNY HAD A BIRTH CERTIFICATE THAT’S LIKE A CREDIT CARD, WTF!) and i only had a liscense… the lady said we might get some trouble on the way back (which makes sense, sorta, since anyone can get a liscense)… but yeah. let us in. the lady was like the american border inspection people are anal! you could be held up for 4+ hours ect ect, we were scared

first thing was did was exchange some money at the tourist booth. I found some cool rock salt on the ground and put it in mah pocket! la la la. but much to our discontent, MY CAR WOULD NOT START. we sat there for like a half hour waiting for it to start. went inside after a while to try and call for a tow truck, but most of them were like AAA, where you need to be a member. the guy there was trying to call around and find a place for us, but luckily, since we popped open the hood for a while and it got to cool down a little, and it finally worked… after numerous failed attempts!!! hurrah, though.

didn’t want to stop the car again, but we had to at the hostel. drove the half hour or hour or whatever that it took to get to the hostel in mid-vancouver. didn’t know where to park, so we parked in this one lot without paying, but it was like… $3 per hour from 6pm to 6am or some bullshit. so i’m like, FUCK THIS SHIT. so we went inside, got our room, and then came back out to move the car. once again, the car did not work. bitch. so we waited around for another while and went to chinatown to walk around. but then i decided chinatown was boring, cause all it is is like 50 dry goods shops, 50 fruit shops, 50 pastry places, 50 roast meat places. sick!!! and unexciting!! i wanted to go to the underground shoppig mall, but we ended up not going, since when we were leaving chinatown, MY CAR WOULDN’T START AGAIN! we decided it needed a break, and went to the holiday inn down the street from our hostel, cause the hostel front desk lady said we should go there to park since it was $13 for 24 hours. excellent.

afterwards we started walking from our hostel (which was #13somethingsomething on granville st.) to shabusen (which was #2993 or something on the same street). unfortunately, i am n00b, and i directed us in the wrong direction. didn’t realize it until we got to like #600-something. so. we had already walked like a half mile, and we had to backtrack to walk three miles in the other direction to shabusen… ROFLS. it seemed like it took sOo long. i think it took at least an hour and a half or something. good exercise though! i guess?!

went to eat and we didn’t make a reservation, but we lucked the hell out because it was 7 or something, and someone who was supposed to show up @ 6:30 but never did. so the guy gave us a table, saying that we HAD to be out at 8:30. and he kept checking up on us every so often. MOTHERFUCKER!!! but yeah, the food was fucking GLORIOUS. i’m dreaming about it right now :0 i wish i could eat it! it’s basically just sushi and fried rice and REALLY GOOD tonkatsu and more junk and food and tofu and food and sushi. actually, we were kinda weak sauce with the eating and really did not eat that much. i’m rather disappointed with myself. but mmm spicy shrimp rolls for the win… although the all-you-can-eat sushi place in hawaii is much better. cause it had soft-shelled crab rolls 8( and a cute waiter. and potato hand. and giant bag of ice :0 but god, shabusen’s tonkatsu was… REALLY good. yummyyyyyyy.

ANYWAY moving on. as we were leaving, we ran into jun and lewis, which was pretty much FREAKY. they didn’t make a reservation and shit, so i wonder if they ever got in. they were with their RO guild or something — like 10 people or some shit.

on the way back we stoppd by this coffee place called blenders or something. farm got a hot cocoa and WHOA you can pick white chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate. HOW FUCKIN AWESOME!>?!!? so lenny and i decided to get one, only i wanted to try the orange hot chocolate one, and lenny thought it was pretty gross, and i thought it was okay, but it kinda made me sick… ROOFLS.

we walked back the two and a half miles to the hostel wee, and it was a helluva lot faster than the way there, although it was just about the same distance! lenny kept picking up the pieces of salt they spread on the ground and kept it or something. i think he thought about taking it home to make ramen with it.

on the way back, we walked over this giant bridge, and farm and arlen were walking ahead of us and this cop car stopped right next to em… we thought they were gonna talk to them or something, but they didn’t. behind the cop car stopped a counterterrorist van thing… we concluded someone was going to try and blow up the bridge. EXCELLENT. only, it never happened. too bad. but it mighta! and maybe they caught it JUST IN TIME WEWT WEWT.

we stopped by this sex shop on the way back. didn’t buy anything, except lenny bought two condoms cause he felt bad for going in and not buying anything or whatever. the shop owner loved corny jokes. corny corny. i don’t remember any of them except for the one he asked lenny before we were leaving. he told him to imagine he had two dice. “what number did the first one roll?” he’d ask, and lenny said, “three.” “did it remind you of your first sexual experience?” and he said, “no.” then he told him to imagine what was on the other die. the number was four. same thing. and then he told him to roll both of them together. and was like, “does THAT remind you of your first sexual experience?” ROFLS. you have to picture it to get it, i guess!

then we went to this arcade, which was the weirdest thing because most of the people in it were GIRLS. WTF. weird. one of these old ladies was supposedly giving farm lesbian eyes. they had time crisis three, which after 80 years, i am still determined to beat. GODAMNIT. i swear, if i had five dollars to waste on that fucking game, i would have long beaten it. but i always play like two or three bucks and never get through it. godamnit. some guys were taking pictures of the screen for an art project supposedly (i’m not sure what kind of supposed art project that is), but they were playing so shitty. i seriously wanted to volunteer to help them beat the game, cause they put in like $5 worth of coins for what would normally take $1. st00pit.

there was also a karaoke booth HAHA. it was just like going to noraebang, cept it was a little room. they also had a buttload of sticker machines, which cost like $8 each now, WTF. i remember when they were $3 and i thought, WTF HOW ARE THEY SO EXPENSIVE?!!! i can’t even fathom paying $8 for that fucking shit! there was also some weird samurai shooting game where you go around shooting ninjas and tetris, bubble bobble, beatmania, guitar / drum games, ddr, pump it up, etc. etc.

after we got bored of that area, we decided to head to the other arcade down the street. this one had a sign outside saying “men’s theatre” or something, and it was decidedly LESS exciting and MORE dirty. god. in the back, there were like 8 white booths and if you put in a quarter, you get a one minute clip of porn. sick. there was also a strip poker game which i won two hands of, but one quarter only gave you two hands, so that’s as naked as the girl got. retarded. it was like, from the 70s too. haha.

there was also the classic area 51 there… tetris again, and some hunting games. i’ve come to the conclusion that i would seriously be good at shooting guns. i swear i need to try sometime… although i’m against guns and all… i still think i would be a really good shot, and i’d like to test it sometime. :0

but yeah, that place smelled like BO. too many dudes, and lots of greasy ones :0

afterwards we walked around a little bit more and lenny got a crepe, but there wasn’t really much else to do since we were poor and underdressed, so we went back to the hostel. they gave us a coupon each for a free beer, but for some reason, none of us redeemed ours (well, i wouldn’t have, but everyone else should’ve!). we chilled around the lounge for a while… lenny and i tried to play pool but didn’t want to pay money to play. just tried shooting the ball around, really. lenny’s never played pool before really. then we just started working on this 1,000 piece puzzle where a shitload of pieces looked the same (it was of a marina, with like tons and tons of boats) and a bunch of pieces that DIDN’T fit FIT. ghetto puzzle!!! :X we spent like 3 hours and got like oh, i dunno, 200 pieces or something done. talked to random hostel folk here and there along the way. one fobby chinese guy who had been living there for like a month and a half, some guys from eastern canada, and yeah… there were a couple of aussies looking to see if this certain door was locked, and lenny’s like, “it’s locked; i already tried.” and i guess they were like, “how would you know? guess everyone’s lookin for a place to shag,” and lenny’s like, “yea,” and apparently they gave me a weird look or something! i’m too young to be shaggin omg!

finally we went to bed and woke up the next day to go to stanley park. arlen asked why it was called stanley park, and i told him it was named after vancouver’s founder, mark stanley. he believed me. ROFLS. owned. arlen was quite gullible that day and believed a lot of lies.

before going there, however, we stopped by chinatown and picked up some roast duck, some buns, and some roast pork (SICK — GREASE CENTRAL!!). i didn’t eat any of that shit; i only ate part of a zhongzi… and it was fine. we ate it in the middle of the park on some benches… it was excellent. i kept thinking frost on the ground was snow, cause it was fucking thick. wish it coulda snowed.

finding stanley park was a bitch cause there was only one exit from one direction, and if you missed it, you had to cross this bridge into north or eastern vancouver. and we missed it at first, so we found a gas station in northern vancouver or whatever, and bought some coolant for my car. AND THEY HAD BANANA MILK YAY. it was like this little mini-jug (like a miniature gallon jug)… so CUTE. and so NUMMY. we drove back across this bridge but i thought there’d be two exits from this direction when there was only one. MISSED THE EXIT AGAIN. had to turn around AGAIN to enter the park. after the park, we just drove to richmond. would have been nice to hang around the park, really, but i guess it was just cold and… i dunno, i guess we really should have. stanley park is MASSIVE yo. MASSIVE.

at richmond, we just went to this daiso store and bought some random crap. it was in this mall that had a LOT of really bad asian drivers. GO RICHMOND, ASIAN CENTRAL, AKA BAD DRIVER CENTRAL!!!!! we were throwing quarters from the second story into this fountain on the first story (above that they had like, a planetarium ceiling, omg!) and we were throwing it rather far, but farm threw one that landed like right behind this guy’s head. funny to see them all bewildered! and i left my mini-jug of banana milk IN THE TOILET. NOOO.

after leaving, we stopped by a gelato place and ate some ice cream. lenny’s first time having gelato, and i think arlen’s too. yummy nummy in my tummy. the difference between gelato and ice cream: instead of using heavy cream, gelato uses non-fat or low-fat milk. NOW YOU KNOW. and then we came home :0 on the way back, lenny drove, and there was some weird ass filipino guy who had a power trip, and he’d be asking us questions (farm and i), and we’d answer him, but he wouldn’t hear us, and he’d be like screaming, “answer me when i’m talking to you!” and he tapped on the car to… check for drugs? who knows, yo.

oh yes, the day before this trip, i went and bought farm an engagement ring from arlen because arlen is a carless scrub!! wewt wewt. i still have it — it needs to be returned — but did you know that they only make rings in size 7?! how freakish. so you’re like… REQUIRED to change the size. those jackasses. who the fuck has size 7 fingers?!

i’m listening to… brandtson, “celebrity fit club” on vh1.

3:13 am - a couple days ago me, lenny, and liz hit the streets of downtown seattle with a sign saying, “TALK TO US about anything and everything. we’re here to listen.”

it was fun times. it’s always fun times. i didn’t take a racial tally this time around because people were much more engaged than they were in san francisco… but i will give an idea about what kind of thing went on… as best i can remember, anyways.

we started off on the pier downtown waterfront area but couldn’t really find anyone interesting to talk to, and blahblahblehbleh. so we moved, and walked up to pike place. up lots of stairs. :X

as soon as we were setting up on some streetcorner, some guy came to talk to us right away. his name was randall w. stack. he showed me his veteran’s card. he was a veteran from the vietnam war. looked homeless, but was loaded. told lenny to buy him a beer, and then told him to buy us drinks also. we said we didn’t want any, and he said, “you know women. they always say no when they mean yes.” how true! just kidding. anyway, he kept telling me to take notes, even though he could barely finish a sentence, lmao. anyway, right before he told lenny to go buy drinks, he was telling us that he wanted to tell us a story. but right when lenny left, some ther guy name timothy showed up. he kind of looked like indian, with really long curlyish black hair and just normal clothes. he was from the UK, on his way to dinner. when he heard that randall was going to tell a story about the vietnam war, he stuck around, because he grew up in a military family and his dad died in that war, but they never really got the chance to talk about it, so basically, he was pretty repressed his whole life… when timothy first came, we started asking him questions, and randall was just like all freaking out, saying, “oh, you ask him questions but you didn’t ask me any!” like he was jealous that he wasn’t the center of attention anymore, lol.

but lenny took too long to come back with the beer, and randall wouldn’t start telling the story without him there. another guy showed up. his name was shawn. white dude with headphones, just a regular shirt… just a typical working guy. he was working at a law firm, and he didn’t really want to do that for a living, but it was just a job. he had just read a thing on MPR??? about a lady in france who sat in a park with a sign saying “talk to me” in french and english, and she just talked to people. her point was that it’d be hard for young ladies to do the same thing, because people wouldn’t be comfortable talking to young ladies. he found it interesting that this didn’t seem to be true. meanwhile, timothy from the UK had to leave because he had to go to dinner and didn’t have time to hear the story.

fast-forward. shawn left also. lenny came back without a beer, and so randall left to go buy one on his own. he really needed that beer! a guy named rod, a clean-cut african-american dude stopped by. he had a bunch of bags of stuff from pottery barn and some winnie the pooh towels and kid stuff… he was from bellevue. he was like, “i’m bored, so i came down here to buy some stuff.” he had a son that was 12, born in canada. dropped out of tech school that his parents were paying for to join the navy, and they were quite pissed. his son had dual citizenship, and i asked if he got free health care, and he’s like, “hell yeah, that’s part of the reason for having him be born in canada.” ruckyyyy. he was a cool guy. enjoyed his laugh. he’d been in jail for marijuana posession. lame.

randall came back halfway through and gave rod some weird-ass looks. rod left, and randall was about to tell us the story when a security guard lady came and said we couldn’t be in pike’s place market because all the stores were closed. we were going to walk to westlake, but randall told us to go to the park with him. he told us there would be people we could talk to there. didn’t know there was a park in pike’s place for one, but we got there and no one talked to us. he did try to tell us a story, though. haha TRY.

he told us about how when he was young, he was greedy and self-serving, and didn’t believe in religions. he had an apartment on the beach, sold drugs, and knew a lot of girls. he was listening to a ted nugent song which said, “i got news - you never got to go,” and when he was listening, a voice said in his head, “i am the alpha, and i am the omega,” and he thought it was god… uhh so i asked him, “are you christian now?” and he just gave up telling the story altogether, and was just like, “you’re way ahead of me,” but never finished anything. you have to realize that this guy had the absolutely most fascinating teeth. he was missing most of his front teeth except for two on the right side of his mouth, and they were like, yellowed and double the length of my teeth. it was… fascinating. he was like the dirty mad hatter or something.

anyway, we decided to leave because he wasn’t entertaining us, and decided to walk to westlake. the whole way, we held the sign up, and it was probably like a three-block walk. on the way there, this lady was like, “talk to us about anything and everything? get those crackheads off our streets! you see that street right there? a famous musician died there because of crack! get the crackheads off our streets before your kids have to deal with it!” and that was all.

another lady just saw the sign and asked what it was for. she said, “our social experiment is going out ith a group of ladies for this lady’s 39th birthday. just to celebrate that we’re still alive.” lol., like 39 is that old WTF.

then we sat down on these stairs outside of westlake center… and we couldn’t find a place that was that great, but one dude stopped by to talk, and another guy was like, “hey, talk to me,” and we were like, “come over here,” but he said, “i only talk to people here,” so we went to sit by him. his name was savalas. it is greek for “leader of leaders.” smart dude man. but… he sits there everyday talking to people. he told us how he knows everyone and talks to all sorts of people, and people come talk to him… and he told us all about the different kinds of solicitors in the area… people for women’s rights, money for africa, etc. he was a theology major. he really thought the name of my magazine, redefine, was sooo awesome because it is challenging pre-made definitions that were put in place by people of power, etc. etc. blahblahblah. he asked us a lot about what we were studying. i asked him what he was doing with his life, what his dreams and aspirations were. know his responses? he says, “that’s a very personal thing. do you have kids? do you have sex?” and i was answered those questions, but he was like, “see? it’s very personal.” i don’t really think that dreams and aspirations are nearly as personal, but to each his own, i guess.

a large black lady passed by and was like, “i’m so glad you’re talking to them,” to savalas.

a couple more people i don’t remember. this one guy stopped by and he kind of looked crazy to begin with. we asked him where he was going, and he said, “i’m going to canada. i’m from los angeles.” wtf? he said it took him 28 hours to get from seattle to the canadian border, and when he got there, they wouldn’t let him in because he didn’t know where he was going. he said that he needed to get there before his girlfriend stopped being his girlfriend. LMAO. wtf? he’s crazy.

another guy was a musician named nick. he had a guitar and was on his way to a coffee shop. he was from the bay area, as were many people… like rod, and some other people. yeah, i didn’t really talk to him because at the time i was talking to savalas about redefine.

at some point a group of skaters walked by, and savalas told them to talk to us. savalas asked one of them if he could do tricks, and he’s like, “of course. i’m a professional.” savalas was like, “bullshit.” and the guy was like, “yeah okay, i can’t do anything. professional people would probably say, ‘i’m alright.’” and i was like, “dude, you’re wearing sandals,” and another guy who was with him was like, “yeah, that totally gives it away.”

savalas left us with a couple of quotes:
“i freed a thousand slaves. i could have freed a thousand more, if only they knew they were slaves.” - harriet tubman.
&
“we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” - albert einstein.

werd.

i’m listening to… a wilhelm scream and hong kong six. whatevers.

9:08 am — woke up in the morning and then drove to brett [buchholtz] [pwn]’s place in ellensburg. got lost there as usual but somehow managed to find his house. FUCK MAPQUEST. they always give me fucked up directions to his house. -__-

crammed myself into matt [buchholtz] [stretch]’s car, and we had to pile sleeping bags and stuff on top of ourselves hah. then we met up with the rest of the hoes @ rite-aid, and i got into brett [murphy] [weezy] & lindsey’s car. la la la. drove to the gorge and there was like no one there yet. this was around 11:30 to 12. i thought it had started @ 12, but we actually had perfect timing. as usual, the parking people told us to park somewhere, so we’d say OK and then wait a minute (or in this case 20 seconds) and then drive to another campsite, and proceed to take up about four-cars-worth of space to set up our tent in and shit.

then we went to the show just in time for the first acts, pretty much.

senses fail was the opening act on the main stage. the lead singer was like, “so everyone went out and got all punked out for warped tour, right? i know i did!!” and we were all like, “my god, what an idiot…”

there was honestly no one really worth mentioning except for armor for sleep. they were GREAT. i happened to see josh and cynthia (who flaked on going with me in the morning) @ armor, and that was cool. ARMOR IS SO GOOD. they’re so much better live than i had thought.

who else… this providence was kind of disappointing. the singer is SO very fruity. he’s a good-looking guy, but he’s like 17 (even though he’s like 20, 21). he’s… so fruity. my god. too fruity for me = fruity as fuck. i’ll bet most of their fans are girls. they’re a good-looking bunch of guys.

me and trask interviewed riley and teppei of thrice… it was kind of a last minute thing because their interview was going on when i found the press tent (wewps, they had different directions this year). they are alright guys, but you can tell they kind of think their music is the shit.

reggie & the full effect was pretty freakin great. james is a funny old man. they were wearing matching american eagle shirts. yeahhh.

my chemical romance’s lead singer gerard looks like a girl… however awesome he is. it’s not talking shit; it’s talking truths. when i went back to the press tent, i saw frank from mcr (who i interviewed last year), and he kept staring at me and smiling while he was talking to this other dude… so i should have waved or something! but i didn’t cause i’m stupid and shy. :[ and i didn’t want to ‘interupt’ his conversation, although he obviously wasn’t that engaged. nOoOoooOo!! i’m so mad at myself lol. -__- that bugged me for the rest of the day (i was going to talk to him when i went back, but he wasn’t around anymore T__T)… and now it’s bothering me again since i brought it up, grr.

interviewed two other guys from MCR with a lady from AMP magazine at around 7, and it was a weird group interview, and there were like 4 people in the room who were just there to watch and had nothing to do with the interview at all. i’m sure they were disappointed because the two people who came weren’t gerard and frank lol. mcr is too big now, it’s good and all but damnit, i wanted gerard and frank! redefine will get some credit in AMP for this, though, so that is fucking AWESOME.

night time was umm crazay! a lot of stuff happened, a lot of probably which i have forgotten, but i will try to remember. we had to wait around in the freezing cold for a long time because stretch (who had car keys) stayed around til the end (around 1030) and we left around 8-ish. to my stupidity, though, my stuff was actually in weezy’s car lol. so i froze for two hours for nothing!! anyway. shit. uhh. got drunk. lots of people asked for weed. weezy kept saying, “my wrist is broken. it’s limp. my hand is broken, it’s limp. my finger is broken, it’s limp. my arm is broken, it’s limp.” i forget why, though. crowd management services (CMS) kept walking around too, and they were being all stealthy and shit. some people were setting off fireworks, and they totally were like hiding behind cars and running out of nowhere to catch the people haha. their fault for setting off like eight fireworks in broad daylight. they also took all of the alcohol of some underage kids, and later caught us smoking weed with a random group of people (but luckily they didn’t care because no one had any on them, and they were just like, “we don’t care what you do in your tents, but try not to do anything out here.”) anyway, so the whole night everyone in our group kept shouting out, “CMS!!” or at some points, “INS!!!”

went to walk around a bunch of times. with different people. first time was with zach, pwn, weezy, and trask. we climbed up on this trailer and weezy jumped off and owned his heel LMAO.

so we were walkng back, and somehow we lost zach but he found his way back later. weezy was like, “my heel is broken.” lol. and then he just left after that. then me, zach, pwny, and matt [zach’s friend, i don’t know his last name] went out… and that was fun!!! met some dudes who smoked us out and one of us made us listen to his music… we totally could have stayed around for longer but zach wanted to go back because the weed + alcohol was not doing him good lol. pwny smoked out for the first time. it was my first time in like, god, at least a year and a half or something. but it was good, cause weed is always good with other things - usually OK by itself. met some kids who kept saying they needed some coke because they were too trashed and couldn’t stay up otherwise. the one who was relatively sober was like a giant drag queen or something, but whatever. more power.

went back and then went out again with lindsey and pwny. i had this random idea to go up to random people and be like, “WOW ____, I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN SO LONG!!!” and it’s funny, cause people are like, “oh yeah! i know!!! how are you doing!?” hahaha it’s fuckin funny. me and lindsey went, so pwny went up to this girl and was like, “HI AMY!!” and she didn’t even turn around lol >__< me and lindsey were like dying of laughter on the floor. went back to the potheads, and they had lost their keys and gotten their alcohol stolen. i guess a lot of people had their alcohol stolen. which sucks.

umm don’t remember what else happened. went back again and went back out with pwny… and uhh. met more random bitches. these people were trying to get everyone to sit down in the middle of the road, but that pretty much failed. some girl in the group was on shrooms. lol. and then some guy came to harass her, and she ran away. lucky spokane people! so easy to get shrooms!!!! >__<

when we were going to sleep some guy was threatening to kill himself because his girlfriend cheated on him or his girlfriend thought he cheated on her or something. and his friend was saying, “dont do it,” blahblahblah. cept later his girlfriend came by and was like, “i don’t care, kill yourself, you’re better off that way.” it was weird. the guy was bawling.

weezy passed out on the ground the whole night and i guess pwny had an escapade in a basketball court til 6am or something (when i was the only one awake, arrrrrghhhh). i woke up mad early and sat around for like half an hour talking to random neighbors and hoping someone would wake up. talked with the guy who was telling his friend not to commit suicide and that was um interesting. and some guy who said he drank a whole bottle of jack daniel’s. lol. man i dunno. then i went back to sleep cause there was no sign of anyone waking up.

we left and weezy’s sister whitney has FUCKED UP friends. she got dropped off at warped and then her friends took her car back to the show, and drove it to a campsite adn shit, leaving her behind. fucked up shit. friends like that, jeez. so we spent like a half hour trying to find her car and shit, so i was put into zach’s car while they looked for it some more (it wasn’t at the campgrounds we looked in initially, and her phone was dead, so she couldn’t call people), and so that weezy could yell @ her.

ate lunch at a restaurant like we did last year, and the combination between warped tour people and sunday parishoners was funry.

god, i’m sick of writing in journals. i’m sure i’ll think of plenty more.

i’m listening to… daphne loves derby’s new album, the strength of all convinced. i’ve listened to this album probably about 80,000 times. also, ruiner by a wilhelm scream (whatevers).
july 1st, day one, milan
ghetto. chinese tour groups are ghetto. they will try to rip you off however they can. but more about that later.

i am currently @ holiday inn, where there is wireless connection but i cannot figure out how to connect to it. most most tragic. :[

so it goes like this… 40,000 hours of plane ride. watched “million dollar baby” which was an alright movie at best. no idea why it won so many awards at all.

finally got here. got picked up to go to milan. blahblah. ate gelato, which all seem to be owned by asian people and don’t taste as good as one would imagine. saw the duomo cathedral, which is one of the largest - got partially destroyed during world war ii, blahblah. lots of trendy ass people in milan (fashion capital of italy, pretty much)… seems like the social class discrepancies between the rich and the old are really huge. me and sherry are wanting to have a contest to see who can gain the most weight. then we both went to eat another gelato. the second one i got was a banana one, and i had forgotten - banana gelatos are freaking gross. they’re calling gelati here… wonder why they’re called gelato in the u.s.

also this freaking chinese lady… she’s not in our tour group - she was just in the huge square outside of the cathedral… BLEH!!! horrible… she had a son and a daughter. the son kept capturing pigeons, and she kept grabbing them for him and putting it in his hands in a “certain way” as if it looked right… it looked like the pigeon’s wings were going to snap off. at some point, she put the pigeon in a plastic bag. i thought she was going to take it home and eat it or something, my god. turns out she poked a hole in the bag and put the plastic bag with the pigeon in it to her son. and her son dropped it. and it was just flopping around in a plastic bag. the woman reached for it and then thought, nevermind, and just left it there flopping around there on the ground. there were seriously so many people looking at her. finally an old dude went to tell her to let it go and she did, smiling and shit, thinking she was cool.

onwards… chinese tour groups suck. they don’t include tickets into the tour. they were supposed to book us in rooms of two but instead put us in a “three bedroom” room, which in fact is… two beds and one cot, which i assume will be mine.

also - we’re in italy. we’re only eating non-chinese food for two nights. the hypothesis? they get something for bringing all of these stupid tour groups. tonight we went to this nasty ass chinese place. seriously, the only people who were there were us and another tour group that came later (that had the same meal as us). that restaurant seriously only made like 6 dishes or something. we had three cabbage dishes. GRANTED they were three different KINDS of cabbage, but still. what the hell.
july 2nd, day two, verona & venice
juliette’s balcony is lame. verona is kind of cool looking, but beyond that, there’s nothing more but the myth of shakespeare’s play being held place there. and a couple streets that looked like cs_italy, but we later found that to be true (if not more true) in siena as well.

venice is cool, though. st. mark’s basillica doesn’t necessarily even have st. mark’s bones (just some dude’s)… and the italians made up some story about stealing it out of istanbul and covering it with pig meat so that the people would be digusted when they were checking through customs. no idea. umm lots of poeple, 2x the number of pigeons. expensive living. we saw a glass-blowing presenation (though i’ve seen one before in seattle, and this one was lame in comparison) - it was still cool though. found out how colors are put into glass