Tonight, Abe and I traversed the underbelly of the Golden Triangle. We were Lewis & Clark, on a small scale, and with booze.

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Fonty listed me as a reference on her resume because I was her superior during my time at the helm of the MQ. A law firm that she just did a second interview with called me as I was waiting for the bus on campus. A woman named Rose asked if I had a couple minutes to provide a reference, and I told her “Yes, but it will have to be quick, I’m waiting on an appointment” even though I think she could hear the traffic in the background.

Twenty minutes after getting off the phone with Rose, Fonty called me to say they gave her the job. That felt pretty good.

“Sometimes I wish Cussen’s room was a burrito shop.”
—Utako
5:09 am

And this was after we’d been dozing for a few hours already. The heat does more than disrupt your sleep—it can make you crazy, too.

On Friday a veritable herd of us went to see Batman Begins. Some of us were there to see it for the first time, some the second, and Kevin for the third. A clever drinking game, courtesy Utako and Abe—Drink when it’s awesome!—united us, and so we smuggled hard liquor in with dizzying efficiency. Since Batman Begins is awesome, it follows that I cannot quite recall the night’s events beyond the charming 20-minute walk home. It was all a blast except for the rotten hangover the next morning, but that goes without saying.

After Utako nursed me out of my hangover, we took off for Comic-Con 2005 and went into shock from all the people-watching there was to be done. In between trance-like stares, we got some sketches and signatures done by friendly web comic authors (Penny Arcade, Exploding Dog, Creatures in My Head, PvP and White Ninja).

In a shorter-but-just-as-sweet visit to Comic-Con today, Utako and I got autographs from Orson Scott Card, who was wearing a very loud, very unmormonly Hawaiian shirt and was as nice and benevolent as puppies. Utako, today armed with her scratch book, got sketches done by the Dumbrella & White Ninja guys and we both snagged an awesome little drawing from the Dr. Tran duo.

Afterwards, inside a store downtown, a random guy I met the summer I lived above Kinkos and I recognized each other. He was dating Brian’s Manager at the time and stopped by our humble sublet once or twice to collect his girlfriend (who would follow Brian home at the promise of liquor, natch). Talk about a weird moment.

Oops, another bedtime shot to hell.

It is without irony that I regretfully inform you the post immediately preceding this one was itself aborted before achieving satisfactory completion.

And so, I am sure, will be this one.

I can never find the time to transcribe my life here, even though I want to. Days are too busy, nights are too filled with distractions. Everything moves at a break-neck pace, and I’m lucky enough that most of it enjoyable and/or satisfying.

Utako made tataki for dinner tonight, supported by smoked eel and a cucumber salad. My Mom would be happy to hear I’m eating so healthily. (Also the Dutch are big fans of eel and she would insist on reminding me of that fact.)

I helped a lady out with her computer earlier in the evening today. She is 77 years old and works at the Macy’s handbag department. We met at the bus stop, and I offered to fix her “it just keeps freezing up, the keyboard stops working” computer in exchange for some home-made cookies. As it turns out, her computer is just a tired ol’ horse that needs to be put out to pasture. 200mHz/64mb running Windows 98 and AOL’s bloated Broadband software? Forget about it. I’m going to try and drop Win2k on there on Tuesday, but I’m also bringing along some researched prices on new systems, either from Dell or Frys or something like that. Seems like she’s eager to drop $400 on a new system if it’ll let her send email without having to wait 5 minutes to boot up and another 5 to log into AOL. She may be 77, but she sure is impatient with the mouse.

I drove to San Jose with Utako last weekend and got sunburned at the flea market. I now have the most horrifying t-shirt tan my short life has yet to include. We hung out with her Mom, Brother, Sister in law and nephew a lot and managed to watch Troy (train wreck) in between loads of delicious, home-cooked Japanese food. Tatsuya, Utako’s nephew, is a champ. The clutch in Utako’s car is, by her own admission, “loose like a whore.”

On the other end of the anecdotal spectrum, Utako and I inadvertently saw a crazy man’s penis last week as he urinated on the sidewalk outside the Blockbuster we patronized. He held it like a bat. Earlier, he had been stumbling around inside, drinking a tall boy out of a bag and trying to engage other people in conversation. He was oddly young. I saw him again today as I left Albertson’s; he was still muttering to himself as he ambled around.

My graduation party went well, except when I cut my finger while slicing limes. Ouchy. Thank you to Utako and Fonty for letting me haul them up to LA, you two took the edge off. Over the course of several commutes between SD and LA, I managed to purchase a car which pleases me to no end—a tight little GTI that I’ve been lusting after since high school.

July 4th was fun, Abe’s place is great. I’m quite tickled that such an able host lives such a short walk away.

I’ve been trying to do more reading recently, both pleasureful and pragmatic books. Things were kickstarted by the down time I had during the drive to San Jose and back; I managed to finish Eastern Standard Tribe, Parable of the Sower and Naked Pictures of Famous People last weekend and am charging ahead with more this week. More reading would be a nice habit to revive now that I don’t have classes to tangle myself up in anymore. Seriously, college students never have time to read, especially their course work.

Bah, there’s still more, but it’s late and I’m getting over a cold. I’ll continue the saga when I can.

PS: The last post was cut short because, as it implied, I had been drinking that night. Despite being hung over and disoriented, I felt embarrassment upon waking up the next morning and having to admit to myself that I poured cheap beer all over several cars just a few hours earlier. Then I realized that there are far worse ways a drunk young man can vent some displaced aggression, got over it, took a few Advil and went about my Tuesday. Just so you know.

My last post was an aborted one, like anything I try to publish to this site.

Tonight I got trashed with Lar and Harish, and then we stuffed a backpack full of beers and wandered the streets getting as drunk as possible. Many cars were saturated with beer—any vehicle that looked at us the wrong way got a bath.

A helicopter has been flying overhead for nearly 20 minutes now, and I’m disgruntled by it.