Sometimes life is funny. In December, I went on a couple of dates with a woman, Susan. Nothing earthshaking, but it seemed promising, at least from my perspective. We met at a neighborhood coffee shop, Spider House, despite the fact that she was loyal, she said, to a different neighborhood coffee shop, Little City.

January came and went with no communication from her except something like “I’ve been really busy, I’ll let you know when I’m available.” I decided this was probably one of those “I’m trying to blow you off with out being mean about it” lines, but wasn’t certain.

Tonight I stopped by Spider House to have a cup of coffee and read a bit, and I felt wry amusement to see Susan there, apparently on a date. I tried to avoid being seen–no point in making things awkward for her.

Anyhow, I’m pretty certain now. I don’t mind being blown off, I’d just rather people be more honest about it.

So I’ve discovered that riding a bike when sleepy can have a hallucinatory quality. This has happened to me twice now. The other night I was riding home from a Ghandaia show (which was great as usual), and it happened again. It seems that exertion is a key factor. Anyhow, my vision would play tricks on me–light sources (street lights, car headlights) would have a little bit of a trail, which would fluctuate between yellow and pink. Weird. Not necessarily unpleasant, but probably not ideal to experience when riding on a street.

I’ve heard it said that a mother of a newborn has olfactory immunity to the smell of her baby’s shit. I think dog owners must enjoy a similar acoustic immunity. Two of my neighbors have dogs that like to howl or bark. A lot. When one gets going, that starts the other, on and on in a vicious cycle. If I go outside and holler “Cleo, shut up!” Cleo’s people will notice that and bring her inside. But Cleo’s much louder howling? That they don’t notice.

Party at DuShun’s. Guiness. Rum. Pete’s Ale. Sangria. Oh yeah, I’m going to have the bedspins tonight.

A postscript to that last entry:The next morning, I discovered I had a flat on my back tire. I must have been riding with a slow leak, I reckoned, since I didn’t notice low pressure when I was riding.When I patched the tube, I discovered a complete nail was poked all the way through the tire. That’s unusual.

I love those days that are like two or three days rolled into one. Friday was just such a day. In observation of my b-day, Jenny took my out to a movie and lunch. First we went by Flight Path, where we figured out how to start up the wireless networking on her fancy-schmancy new Powerbook G4. It worked, and that was cool. Ram was there, he came over and was pretty wowed by the machine.Then, after doing a little web-surfing and caffeinating, we headed over to the re-opened Highland 10 movie theater. Highland 10 used to be owned by one of the big chains, but they closed it. Not a surprise, the place was kind of a dump, and some of the auditoriums smelled noticeably of mold. Well, it has been re-opened by some penny-ante operation that not only has done nothing to remedy the mold situation, but has done a laughable job of keeping up such infrastructure as remains. Case in point: the RESTROOM sign was made by cutting a template out of electrical tape and cardboard. This might have been a 2nd-grader’s class project.The movie we saw was the new Ocean’s Eleven, which was quite entertaining. Not the most cerebral of movies, but that’s fine. Directed by Steven Soderbergh. He’s good.After that we went to lunch at Kim Phung, a big Vietnamese joint. Noodles, spring rolls, Vietnamese coffee. Good. Then we stopped at the My Thanh grocery next door, where we amused ourselves greatly looking at strange food products and purchasing some of them. I bought two packs of these gummy ginger candies that are just fantastic. They come in what look like kretek packages.Jenny dropped me off at home, where, lucky me, my recently ordered firedancing video had just arrived, so I watched that.Tracy was having a little happy-hour get-together at Opal Divine’s, so I then made my way down there by bike, meeting her and some of her friends. Caesar was at another table with another group of friends, oddly enough. Jenny showed up on foot (she had gone for a run) and she had my birthday present with her, a very slick leatherman. As Jenny might put it, it’s juicy. I like it.I then rode to the Blue Genie Art Bazaar, where Shanti (among many others) was having an exhibit/sale of her stuff. I hadn’t seen Shanti in, like, forever, so I was looking forward to going. The place is a little hard to find, and as I was making my way there, what do I see but the distinctive yellow Beetle driven by my also long-not-seen friend Audrey, who is headed the wrong way trying to find it. We meet up and say hi.The Blue Genie warehouse is a huge place, really cool. I saw a woman working there who works at Vulcan Video, who I only know because she looks curiously similar to someone else I know. She pointed me to Shanti, and Shanti and I had a brief chance to catch up. Shanti introduced me to Rory Skagen–one of the Blue Genies, and an artist whose work I really dig. There was lots of interesting art to look at, and lots of interesting people-watching to boot. The postcard for the event promised firedancing, and it turns out the firedancers were Sage and Natalie. I asked Sage “need a bucket man?” and she did, so I volunteered for that. John showed up.Sage, despite having recently suffered some nasty burns, and despite a goopy gravel driveway to perform on, put on a typically excellent show, as did Natalie and, what’s her name, Addie (?) who performs with a flaming hula-hoop.After the show, I bumped into a friend of Justin and DuShun’s, Jay, said hi to him, and waved hello to Raq. Said my goodbyes and headed out, catching up with Audrey as I left.I turned north on Springdale, took that to Airport, and decided that, even though Airport is a pretty nasty road to ride on, it would be the most direct way home, so I took it. It was the first–and second–time I’ve been chased by a dog on an urban ride. And they were both junkyard dogs, too. They didn’t get close though. Phew. Made it home feeling totally jazzed, and decided to record the day for posterity.

Brains are funny. Today, for example, my brain did something funny by recalling a moment from 9 years ago.

I had just moved back to Chicago from Tokyo, and was visiting with some friends. They had rented the movie The Running Man, and we watched that. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a dystopian sci-fi flick in which enemies of the state are entered in a gladiatorial-combat game show (hosted by Richard Dawson, nice touch). When the movie was over and the TV signal came on, what was showing but American Gladiators. For those of you who haven’t seen it, this is a gladiatorial-combat game show (sort of). I had to hold my head to keep it from exploding. “That was supposed to be science fiction!” I shrieked. “What has happened to my country in my absence?”

I guess it’s not only brains that are funny. The world can be pretty funny too. Funny-strange and funny-ha-ha.

My birthday has the funny tendency of coming near the new year, and so I get a double-whammy opportunity for reflection. With my birthday nigh upon me, I was in a reflective mood tonight, and in a rare moment, started feeling sorry for myself–this has been a tough year in some ways, and in some ways I felt that I had been stagnating or even moving backwards. A few more moments of thought made me realize that even if there is a kernel of truth in that, the idea that I have any reason to feel sorry for myself, or that I have been moving backwards overall over the past 365 days, is just ludicous. I’ve expanded my circle of friends greatly, tried new things, gotten interested in something new. I can’t complain.

Thanksgiving dinner at Farooq & Eileen’s. Drew was there, along with a couple of friends of F&E’s who I didn’t know. Jenny was supposedly going to show, but wound up not making it. Quite the feast. Yams, two kinds of potatoes, a greenbean casserole, stuffing, and oh yeah, a big ol’ turkey. Everything was great. After dinner Farooq gave me this bizarre “candy” made with saltpeter, Tyrkisk Peber. Tastes sort of like black licorice, but kind of spicy. Very weird. Well, I’m glad I tried it. Then he gave me something similar, but much more potent, which I concluded was really intended for nuclear reactor cores. Yech.

Although we didn’t talk as much about the situation in Afghanistan as I thought we might, Farooq did make an interesting point: he contends that it is a lucky thing that there’s a military dictator running the show in Pakistan–if there were a political government, he believes they’d kowtow to the extremist mob and would not go along with the military action.

Then we watched some Space Ghost Coast to Coast, with special guest Tenacious D.