02.25.02 - 12:00 a.m.

end of weekend, what happened?

friday: experimental music at sight & sound. it was very avant-garde. what this means in layman's terms is: we paid $5 to listen to a po-faced artiste scrape scouring brushes (the kind you wash dishes with) over a wooden box. occasionally she also banged a gong. the piece lasted for half an hour, and i would say it was maybe half an hour too long. openers (chevron) were not so avant-garde, due to the use of mainstream techniques such as chords.

saturday: brunch w/ a. first time i'd seen her since i got back from south america. it was ok but definitely awkward. i'd forgotten this thing she does that annoys me. a lot of times i'll say something, and instead of responding, she'll just stare at me blankly like i just said something really weird. at first i thought i was me, but now i'm convinced it's her. example:

me: so i have this idea. (i explain idea)
normal friend: that's dumb (or some other response)

me: so i have this idea. (i explain idea)
a. : (stares blankly)

after a few rounds of this, you just lapse into silence. ugh. anyway it could have been worse.

in the afternoon a huge mess of us (angi, sandeep, anita, a., anne-marie, josh, nate, suman, michelle, shawn, jenny) went to alcatraz. the boat leaves promptly at 4:20 and we were almost fucked because due to chinese new year's parade, the F trolley wasn't running. we hailed a taxi and got there with a few minutes to spare. jay/carisa/cosmo/triet weren't so lucky.

the tour was ok. it's hard to imagine what it would be like to spend one's life confined to a small cage. it scares and bothers me that the prison industry is a business-- that there are people who profit from the incarceration of others, people who lobby for more prisons and harsher sentencing laws not because they think it benefits society but because it benefits their bank accounts. i find that concept repulsive.

sandeep kept calling people on his cellphone, just so he could have an excuse to say "i'm on the ROCK."

later: in n out (i will not be returning but the grilled cheese 'animal style' was not too bad as greasy fast food goes) & smoking in public... i have fear but josh doesn't. it was interesting to walk around SF lifted, although i can never tell if things are truly bizarre or just seem that way cos i'm stoned. the chinese new year's parade was still going... everybody was lighting fireworks, sparklers. huge pink nantucket-nectar-mobile (come on, that was *weird*, i wanted to either worship it or destroy it), crowded north beach bars. city lights is truly a sanctuary in the midst of chaos. it stays open till midnight! i read giant robot for a while (interview with groovisions design firm-- "we are called groovisions." "where does the name come from?" "it is a mixture of 'groove' and 'vision'." ahso!!!) then everybody went to triet's house but due to bart considerations, josh & i split off with nate & hannah.

hannah is so full of energy. i like it but it definitely requires keeping up. here & there, dive bar in chinatown, creepy karaoke place with gunmetal backdrop... crowded into Happy Fun Photo Booth for 16 stickers to forever seal the deal. we each affixed one to bank card so now we're an elite club. a gang of hooligans.

oops i meant l33t

up to coit tower, so mysterious and beautiful and pure & bright & white. saruman style, orcs with ghetto blasters loitering thuggishly at the base. drinking atop hundreds of stairs, looking down at the city lights... good times. it always becomes improv theatre.

sunday: went with josh & nate to various junkyards to shop/scrounge for household necessities. like ikea in a parallel universe. we found an electric blue barbeque, some heavy metal objects we can lock our bikes to, a watering can and some chair frames. nate is very handy & crafty and i'm studying in his household science dojo. in the late afternoon we weeded the garden beds and planted some lettuce. (lechuga? my spanish is disintegrating)

the house is a canvas