i’m such a fucking slacker when it comes to this journal. i’ll write a bunch of entries and then just write absolutely nothing for like a month straight. so here are some odds and ends i figured might be worth mentioning about this summer.
Haight street faire (june 8th)
i’m not exactly sure why, but every year that we go to this, everyone ends up *totally* wasted. maybe it’s partially cause we always end up at hobson’s at some point and drink their deadly long islands. who knows. this year was no exception. poor robert and erica were left *completely* wrecked. the rest of us had an absolutely epic battle at our house using every single pillow we could find. 45 minutes later, the room was utterly destroyed with stuff scattered everywhere, a huge painting being knocked off the wall, and broken potted plants.
Hawaii - July 4th weekend
like i wrote earlier, caryn took off to hawaii for work and ended up being there for about a month and a half. having her be gone was really hatin’ it. we had gotten pretty used to seeing each other every few days, and now all of a sudden we had to spend weeks at a time apart. our contact became limited to late night phone conversations, cell phone text messages, and Lj posts taken from the “Book of Questions". Although it was awful not having her around, it was kind of fun in a way to always have that end of the day phone call to look forward to. Before caryn left, we had hardly ever spoken on the phone at all… there really was no need. but now we started spending at least an hour or two a day chatting away and also sending photos back and forth of us from back when we were little kids.
for 4th of july weekend, i flew out to visit her for a few days. It was a really nice and chill vacation. we didnt spend any time rushing around or scurrying from place to place. instead we took things at a totally leisurely pace, relaxed, slept in, hit the beach here and there, and ate at a bunch of *bomb* restaurants. there is this small white truck on the north side of the island that makes *the* most amazing shrimp scampi ever. this stuff was sooooo good! we also saw fireworks on the 4th of july, did a waterfall hike, and snorkeled a couple of times. the vacation was too short of course, and all too soon i was back at home.
Las Vegas - July 24th
natasha, marcel, caryn, elena, patrick and i took a weekend trip to vegas. we stayed at the Paris hotel which was really awesome. it has this dope indoor lighting that makes it seem like it’s dusk at all hours of the day. the hotel itself is really beautiful both inside and out. we spent the weekend doing the usual vegas sightseeing stuff.. checking out casinos etc. the pinnacle of the trip definitely was seeing the cirque du soleil “o” show. it was soooooo good. incredible! the whole thing was totally visually stunning w/ great music, impressive tricks, great imagery, and was just very deeply moving. all of us were completely and utterly impressed. We also ate at Emeril’s restaurant for Marcel’s bday. the food there was super good. surprisingly, for a trip to vegas, i did very little drinking and very little gambling. i somehow managed to lose 100 bux in like 10 minutes on roulette, and wasn’t exactly eager to waste any more $$. unfortunately, we made the mistake of staying in vegas one day too long, and the last day just kind of dragged (due to lack of a) sleep and b) motivation).
My birthday - Aug 13
Elena and i spent countless hours trying to figure out what to do for our birthdays. we just couldnt come up w/ a good plan. we tossed around several ideas, like having a bonfire on the beach and whatnot, but just couldnt really figure out what we really wanted. it was so stressful to decide! finally, due to much indecisiveness, we just decided to go to dinner that weekend and then just wing it after dinner. for dinner (another difficult decision) we decided to go to this restaurant called Pasha. it’s this crazy morrocan restaurant in the city that looks all super decorated on the inside (fancy carpets etc) and has live belly dancing etc. elena and i were told that we’d get “special treatment” since it was our birthdays. we weren’t really sure what that meant, but it turned out that halfway though dinner, they made us and the other birthday people get up and belly dance in front of the whole room! doh! being completely sober still, elena and i were *so* embarrassed, but it was still really funny nevertheless. Also, later on, they made pretty much everyone in the restaurant join hands and do a dance outside on the busy SF streets while a waiter banged a drum. too funny. after dinner, everyone was indecisive as to what to do again, so caryn and i just went to hobson’s w/ erica and kevin for a few drinks.
Art Snob soiree - aug 16th
Erica decided to have a house party at our house w/ an art theme. she sent out emails to all the artists she knew asking them to bring some art the night of the party for her to put up on our walls. the party itself ended up being pretty fun, even though not too many people actually brought art. everything was a bit more mellow than some of our other parties, but everyone still had a good time.
Here are some photos that caryn took of the party: click!
Aug 23rd
for soooo long i had been trying to coordinate it so that people would go w/ me to see this play Urinetown. it’s a off- the-wall wacky musical that has played on Broadway, but is super irreverent and hilarious. as soon as i read about it, i knew i *had* to see it. at first, like almost 20 people agreed to see it w/ me, but it was practically impossible to find a date that would work for everyone and to motivate a group of people that large. in the end, i ended up just going w/ jamie, tom, and caryn. the play was *So* good!! fucking hysterical. good plot with a lot of interesting political and philosophical points, but set up in a totally fun and funny atmosphere. the actors did a really good job, and i really got to say that i enjoyed this play more than most plays i’ve seen in the past. so cool!
that same night we celebrated joey and li’s bday. we started off by going to eric’s chinese restaurant (yummmm), and then headed off to club six. very soon, everyone that we were with was quite drunk. it ended up being a really fun evening. everyone was dancing and having a blast. tom kept messing w/ homeless people outside the club, and eventually i think random people started slapping each other. did i mention that everyone was pretty drunk?
Burning Man - Aug 25th
I set out for burning man for the 5th year straight this year. For some reason, this year, unlike years in the past, none of us were really that motivated to plan for bman before the event. i’m really unsure why we were so apathetic. possibly because we spent so much time and effort last year that we just wanted to be lazy this year? who knows. unfortunately, i think our lack of enthusiasm prior to the event, made for an un-enthusiastic time at the event. now dont get me wrong. i didnt have a bad time. there was still *tons* of cool stuff to check out. and the burning of the man itself was the best i have ever seen. but at the same time, there definitely was just something missing. i guess this just goes to show how important it is to participate. the first several times i went, i could have the most amazing time just watching things, since i had never ever experienced anything like it before…. but after a while, things really need to be taken to the next level. last year we did that. we signed up for a bunch of greeter shifts. we built a ducky artcar and cruised around the playa. once you do something like that… you cant really just go back to doing nothing. you have to keep building!
anyways, despite all that, burning man was still pretty cool. we bought these little electric scooters and drove them around the playa a few times. it was nice to have a motorized vehicle that you didnt have to pedal. there was kind of a lack of large scale art exhibits this year as compared to previous years, but there was still some neat stuff. they had this thing called the temple of gravity, that had 3 huge 75,000 pound slabs of granite suspended by chains that you could stand on and swing around on. there was a massive chandelier that was broken and made to look as if it had fallen out of the sky. there was a roller skating rink where you could borrow skates and skate around. there was a bman equivalent of a mechanical bull (a huge pig barrel with ropes on pulleys at each corner, that was pulled violently by 4 guys). Piotr had built this cool thing called the fountain of frozen tears. before coming out to the playa, he made aluminum foil castings of several people’s faces (including mine), and then set them up looking downward and having water droplets sprinkle down from their eyes. then, there was a strobe light flashing at the faces that made the tears look suspended in the air. really cool!
Chinese Acrobatics - june thru august
yan and i signed up for a chinese acrobatics class that met once a week. it ended up being really cool. we did all sorts of stuff like headstands, learning about handstands, dive rolls, and other stuff. the class was hard. really really hard. each time we would leave from the class totally exhausted and would be sore fore several days. we had to do upside down pushups. we had to stand on our hands while balanced on the wall for a long long time. it was so tough! but at the same time, it was so so fun! it was totally something we looked forward to each week. unfortunately, by the end of the class, even though we were definitely improving, we still couldnt do a handstand for a long time or anything. to do that, we would have had to take more classes etc. *sigh*. oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
-v
