I finally made it to the Rainbow Grocery co-op. It's about time, since they've been around for 30 years.

It's actually really fun to shop there, although it's like negotiating a minefield. Some stuff is very reasonably priced, and other stuff is like, holy sh!t! Nothing quite as extravagant as the truffles at Wegman's, but for some reason the "sea jerky" in the pet aisle caught my eye. Holy mackerel! Sure, with all those omega-3's I'd have the shiniest coat and the fishiest breath at the dog park. But $23 bucks! For a dog treat? I don't even spend that on treats for myself.

You can also pick up a nice assortment of hair colors. Some of these are pretty tempting.



And there's tons of gluten/wheat-free items. The soy sauce aisle alone was mind-boggling. Matthew, if there's anything you're having a hard time finding there, let me know I'll see if they have it here. Everyone out here has sworn off one food group or another, it seems. Apparently Californians have very sensitive constitutions. We should be called the "canary in a coal mine state" considering how many substances have been found to "cause cancer in the state of California" long before the rest of you catch on.

In other news, Larry is continuing to purge his apartment. I should be doing that too, although I'd have to get all my crap out of storage first. The last two weekends I drove him to Green Apple Books to unload four boxes of paperbacks ($240) and three boxes of hardbacks ($150). I'm really excited about tomorrow's mission though. Hard-Fi is playing a free show at Amoeba, so Larry's going to unload the first round of vinyl, CDs and DVDs. I get first crack, naturally. This is not helping my cause.

New usersound: Cash Machine by Hard-Fi

p.s. - Rainbow gave me 10cents off for bringing my own bag. Safeway never does that!

p.p.s. - I stand (partially) corrected. Safeway does give a 3cent credit per bag! I never noticed before.

Being at the gym is fine. It's coming and going that's dangerous.

You already know about the cashew [inlink]twisted,312[/inlink] den of iniquity next door to my gym. I decided to see just how many pounds of cashews I was going through in one week, then quickly called my own bluff. Some truths I can handle, but that's not one of them. So I decided to see if two 8.5oz cans (that's only $4.00 worth of cashews!) would last me a week. That seemed reasonable. It was hard, but I stretched them out. It'll just be easier if I don't have cashews in the house at all, no matter how much of a bargain they might be.

So I bought some soy flaxseed tortilla chips from Trader Joe's to satisfy the occasional crunchy / salty craving. For something so damn healthy- sounding, those things are pretty tasty. But not as addictive as cashews, so I guess they'll fill the bill.

Then on my way to the gym today I noticed a sign at Burgermeister's that Monday is half-price on wings! That's 12 wings for $3.46! 24 wings for $6.24! Hey, there's no law that says I have to eat all 24 wings at one sitting, but a bargain is a bargain.

It's funny because when I joined this freakin' gym they did the whole evaluation thing, and I told them my "goal" was to take yoga and pilates to counteract all the time I spend hunched over a computer. Weight loss? Not necessarily. Weight redistribution would be nice. Eat healthier - lose 6-8 pounds would be great. But mostly, firm/limber up, etc.

Well, they poked and pinched and weighed and came up with their master plan for the perfect me. Ok, I'll play along, god knows I could use improving. According to their printout, I weigh 118 lbs now, and my "goal" should be 116 lbs. So I ask if that's in 2 weeks? 1 week? what's the ultimate goal here? They say, oh no, 116 is the ultimate goal. WTF! 2 pounds! That's not a weight loss goal, that's a diuretic pill! Ok, whatever. It's ridiculous. I don't care how much more muscle weighs than fat, I definitely need to lose more than 2 pounds to be the ideal me. Whatever the hell that means.

It'll be ironic if I actually gain weight now that I'm exposed to all these tasty enticements on my way to the gym. I was probably better off stuck in from the computer with next to nothing in the 'fridge. I would gladly relinquish all authority for food aquisition to someone else. (Notice how I make it sound like a perk? Now if I could just find someont to fall for that, I also have a fence that needs whitewashing, haha.)

BTW, I love my Tues/Wed yoga instructor, Jehfree. Forget for a moment the oh-so-California spelling of his name and the fact that he's gayer than the Castro on Pride week. I unconditionally, unequivocally, love him. (Those short-shorts he was wearing my first class when I sat right in front of him certainly didn't hurt.) I love him without reservation, and I know he loves me too. Why else would he hold out hope week after week that I might actually contort myself into a one-legged pigeon balancing pose? That is so not going to happen. But he doesn't give up, so I keep trying. Oh yes, we're in it for the long haul.

Did you ever get hung up on a little thing and then it becomes a big thing? I do that every once in a while. You'd think I'd see it coming by now, but apparently not.

The latest instance is really stupid so I'll be brief. I had to fill out an application for Pacific Gas & Electric and they want you to fax it back to them. I don't have a fax machine any more, plus I have some questions about the application and I want to pick up some info about solar power incentives. So I figured I'd just drop the damn thing off at whichever of the two huge PG&E buildings is the right one downtown and actually talk to someone about the other stuff while I'm there. Ha!

It's taken me three days, four PG&E offices that "don't handle" my type of application - each one incorrectly directing me to the next address - to finally give up. The icing on the cake was the last office where visitors needed a security escort just to enter the building. The sign on the door helpfully gave the extension to call security, so having come that far, I plugged the four digits into the house phone mounted outside the main entrance. No answer. Eventually, a voice attendant asked me to enter the extension of the party I was trying to reach. Well, I'd already done that, but I tried entering it again. And when that didn't work, started over and didn't enter anything new. Same result. The infuriatingly pleasant voice attendant came back with, "we're sorry you're having trouble. Please try again later." Yeah right! Next time I'm looking for an excuse to go postal, I'll do that!

So I faxed the damn thing after all. It would be easier (and faster) to deliver a first-born and give it to them. But I don't have time for that either.

Even if you are one of the peeps who may have been mildly interested in my Arctic Monkey stories to begin with, you're probably sick of them by now. But here's one more. I'll throw in a real-life example of the law of supply and demand to spice things up.

Even after three hours of milking my way through Kathy's birthday afternoon [inlink]twisted,333[/inlink] drinking binge, I managed to stay conscious for Arctic Monkeys AND made damn sure we all got there in time for the Spinto Band. Knowing this was going to be a sold-out show, Larry bought four tickets. The lucky winner of the extra pair was Larry's friend Dave and his wife Pascal. Well, turns out Pascal had a really bad experience at the Franz Ferdinand show last October, so they decided she better not take a chance on another sold-out show. WTF! I was at that show, and it must have been a really, really bad experience to cause that much of a negating effect! Anyways, the back-up lucky recipient turned out to be Dale, who works for a recruiting firm (if anyone ever needs to find a job out here) and was also writing a review of the show for some local music 'zine. So he was writing down every damn thing we said about the show/bands. Naturally I talked up the Spinto Band, since I had already seen them the day before at Amoeba and again that night at Cafe du Nord. (Does that make me a groupie?)

The show was great, so I won't even go into that. They ended with "A Certain Romance" (currently my usersound if you want to hear it) and NO encore. That's the second show we've seen recently with no encore. I hope this is not a trend. Speaking of encores, I'm really glad I got to see the Spinto Band headline their own show. They do an awesome cover of Seal's "Kiss from a Rose" which they squeezed into the Amoeba set and again at Cafe du Nord, PLUS a cover of The Motors' "Airport" for the encore at Cafe du Nord. And you know how I love my 80s tunes. Anyways ... back to last night's show.

We started chatting with these two British guys (Larry's a real anglophile, so he can pinpoint exactly where they're from and which bands originated from nearby and all that sh!t). When the guys went to recycle their beers, one of the British guys confided to me they had paid $260 on eBay to buy their two tickets for the show. Whoa! When Dale got back, I figured he'd be interested in that little tidbit of information for his story. I mentioned it to him and out came the notepad.

I thought I'd better check the facts myself. Looks like with shipping that was the going rate:



I think the lesson here is clear: Scalping can be damn lucrative! No wait, that's not it. I mean: Buy your tickets in advance!



My $13 ticket even included a complimentary Spinto Band kazoo. Who doesn't love a band that plays the kazoo? Maybe if I start practicing now there's still time for me to become a rock star. ;-)

I finally moved my earrings into my new place. I can't deal with packing them up any more so I just leave them on the rack, put the rack in a plastic bag during transit, then hang them on the picture rail. That worked great moving from my old place to temporary quarters with a couple different sets of friends in Alameda - no holes in the wall, no muss no fuss. Now that they're in my new place I need to buy some picture wire so I can lower them down to Victorian ceiling height (11') from Bungalow celing height (7' or so).



The top row is 8 feet from the floor. I'm 5'3. Some people have a library ladder for books, I need one for earrings, lol.

I really should get out from behind this computer more often. I have so much fun when I do.

So I caught the Spinto Band at Amoeba today. Started out kinda liking them, then liking them, and finally really, really liking them a whole lot. Yeah, I even bought the CD. (Thanks for the enviro-friendly packaging, guys! I appreciate that.) I'm even thinking of going to see them at Cafe du Nord tonight. But since I saw them for free today, and will see them tomorrow with Arctic Monkeys for a mere $13 (thank you GAMH!), I kind of hate to pay $10 to see them tonight. Contrary to popular belief, I am not made of money. There is one guy on craigslist looking for a date to the show tonight. Maybe I'll look him up and at least save $2 on an advance ticket.

So March is my friend Kathy's birthday month (the official party was last night, plus drinks tomorrow on the actual day). She's Irish-born / Italian-adopted, so with St. Patrick's day in close proximity, she pretty much lays claim to March as an all-out excuse to drink the rest of us under the table. I'm a lightweight to begin with, so that's not hard. The thing that's killing me this year is, I said I'd meet for drinks tomorrow (her actually birthday) because the crew that works at the West Coast Since trading hours are EST, they start work at 5am and hit the bars by 2:15pm. Then I'm supposed to meet Larry and his 2 friends at the Hemlock Tavern at 7PM for a brew or two before the show. So I have to pace myself or I'll be under the table by the time the Arctic Monkeys come on. Yeah, it's not easy being me.        
    

Craptastic cell phone pic of Spinto Band at Amoeba

p.s. - oh, NOW you tell me!

Wow. Great show last night! I am really kicking myself now for missing them the last two times. (Yeah, I was kicking myself before, but even more now.) They used to open for the Lovemakers (gave Lisa & Scott a shoutout at the show last night). I've seen the Lovemakers four times with Larry since the first time we saw them open for Kaiser Chiefs at Slim's last March, but never with She Wants Revenge. The Kaiser Chiefs show was the first Larry/Ed encounter - which is way too long a story to go into now - but it turns out Ed hates the Lovemakers. He says they're the only band he's ever walked out on. (Which just goes to show, it pays to window shop [inlink]twisted,329[/inlink] when it comes to music buddies to compensate for anomolies like that.)

Anyway, when Larry started going out with Britta he took her to see the Lovemakers with She Wants Revenge at the Fillmore last November (without me, obviously, since they were just starting to get together). Then, they were going to see both again co-headlining at Mezzanine on New Year's Eve. But instead of going to the show, they broke up. In other words, I missed two great double bills for nothing!

All I can is, if I could go back in time, I would do things differently. Ok, that might not be at the very top of the list, but still.

p.s. - I'm really not heartless. Just practical.

Ok, I would not have phrased it quite this way, but apparently I'm The Window Shopper (Random Gentle Love Dreamer). Yes, I admit even when I'm in a relationship I have one eye open in case something better comes along, so that's probably what nailed me. But I've never cheated on anyone. That I can remember, haha.

Thank God my usersound is already appropriate. You'll just have to endure one more round from Dogs Die In Hot Cars. I promise I'll change it later. Maybe I'll grab a sound clip at the show tonight. Then I can spend hours transferring, converting, editing and uploading my clip. Great! (e:Paul) - could you please stop making this site so cool? I barely have time to keep up as it is. ;-)

p.s. - I think recent circumstances may have skewed my results somewhat. I wouldn't really call myself "random" so much as, um, noncommittal. Yeah, that's it. Then again, everyone's self-perception is skewed to begin with - including mine - so maybe that's it.

I'm finally getting around to finishing the Sunday paper. Here are a few tidbits from the "Pop Beat" column.

I'm compiling a list of my most memorable music moments of 2006. Right at the top of that list is the Lovemakers' Valentine's Day show at the Great American Music Hall, when, for their encore, the East Bay foursome pulled from its retro repertoire a dead-on cover of the spooky Cure classic "A Forest" that would have had black streaks of joy running down Robert Smith's powdered cheeks.

That's exactly [inlink]twisted,307[/inlink] what I said!

Oh, and (e:Jessbob)'s pal's the Spinto Band are playing a free show at Amoeba on Sunday. Anybody want to go? Oh, dagnabbit! You all still live 3,000 miles away! Can't I get anybody to come out here?

p.s. - wow, three posts in one day. Just like old times!

p.p.s. - I also suggested to dear John that we catch the [link=www.beniceparty.com]Be Nice Party[/link] next month, since I noticed it too late for tonight. Never hurts to have a wingman/woman.

I guess I should inlink even if I'm only referring back to my previous post when continuing a story. Let me clarify.

"Break up" [inlink]twisted,326[/inlink] was a exaggeration. Here's the whole timeline:

Sunday 9PM: I respond to a m4w post on craigslist
Sunday 10PM: after a few rounds of email we decide to meet for a drink
Monday 6-8:30PM: aforementioned drinks, as described here [inlink]twisted,325[/inlink]

Here's exactly what happened after that. He sent me the following email from his "real" email account (previously he had used a generic account - common practice on craigslist before you meet face to face):

"It was fun to meet you. If you're really interested please send me your # so I can call you."

I responded, also switching to my real email account:

Hi John. It was great meeting you last night. It's uncanny how much we have in common - especially considering we met through craigslist.

From your ad I know you're looking for love and a LTR. I really enjoyed hanging out together and would be into doing that again. But I don't feel the kind of connection to be dating each other. I don't mean to make what may seem like a premature determination, but I've been putting off sending my reply for that reason, so I wanted to be upfront about it. Anyway, I do like you and would be interested in doing stuff together. Some guys who are looking for a LTR only want to focus on that. You don't seem like that type, but with your limited social time I could totally understand if you wanted to reserve it for finding that special someone and spending time with your current friends. But if you ever want to do something together, give me a call or send me an email!

Lisa
(with my phone number)


His reply:

Lisa,

Thanks for the nice note, I appreciate your candor. Yes, I am interested in meeting someone with an intimate relationship as the end goal.

That being said, I did enjoy meeting you and you seem very cool and together and I could see getting together from time to time for some laughs. Who knows we might introduce each other to the perfect mate! And as far as I know yo can't have enough friends.

So promise to call me if there is something going on or youre in the neighborhood and I'll do the same.

John

My point about screwing and chemistry is this. I would much prefer chemistry and good conversation any day of the week. That's ultimately what I'm looking for. But the difference I've seen between women and men is, even if there's no chemistry some guys will screw you until they get bored. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but don't be surprised when the chick is pissed six weeks later when you then tell her you're breaking up because there's no chemistry. Can you guys get that, or no? I thought it was pretty simple. It would be better to say upfront "I really don't see us together long term, but I could sure use a good fuck if you're up for it." See what I'm saying?

On the flip side, if there's chemistry but no conversation, hopefully at some point you both come to the same realization. But I agree if I ended up screwing someone I couldn't see having a certain rapport with, I should probably say something upfront about that too. Unfortunately that hasn't come up for me yet. I'll keep you posted.


p.s. -

Just so you know I'm not out to lambaste the male of the species (if that were the case I would have properly categorized my post with one of the many colorful categories created by hodown - which I have been dying to use - but my damn inherent sense of diplomacy won't let me until I have just cause) here's an afterthought.

I have to correct myself about women 'typically' not screwing a guy if there's no chemistry. I have seen some women who will screw a guy just to prove to herself she's worth screwing. I have no other words of wisdom about that, just an observation.