You Know You Had a Great Night When...

...your ass is still sore two days later. Riding on someone's handlebars for several miles over crappy city roads tends to have that effect. Especially when your driver is a little tipsy. It was a great night though. Sushi, "delicious sake with an essence," and a show. We certainly arrived in style at the venue - by that time we'd mastered the art of handlebar riding (which I'd never done before). The opening band wasn't too exciting and the headliners were so-so, but I really enjoyed the middle band, Oh No! Oh My! who I'd never heard before. But they were very fun, upbeat, and totally dancable. I really liked the venue as well. A perfect size with a patio out back and a lot of personality. It's also filled with girls such as the one we met who was rather fixated on reaching enlightment by eating Eddy Vedder's poo. Really. Bonus points for Top of the Hill: one of the stalls in the ladies room had “vaginal hurricane” written on it (plus plenty of other entertaining etchings). After the show, we risked life and limb to get back, and fortunately succeeded. Then it was jam time! I'd written a song about the slightly absurd obligation many people feel to go to church, and we jammed out with a fellow band member who happened to be staying with my friend and worked out a melody and some chords. I can’t wait to record the song as well as the other one we wrote on our camping trip.

So the weekend before, Meghann and I drove down along the PCH to visit our friend, Jake, in LA. It was an extremely long drive thanks to uber-winding roads and painfully slow drivers ahead who wouldn’t pull over...



...but the views were pretty spectacular.



(Not sure my photography combined with the dirty window quite did it justice, but I tried :))

After spending the night at my brother’s house (Meghann’s first time sleeping on a bed since leaving Minnesota) we met up with Jake and some of his friends at Zuma Beach, which is just past Malibu. I’d never been in the Pacific Ocean, and I don’t think it could be more different than the beaches back east. The water was almost completely clear (hooray!) and definitely much colder. We all got used to the cold after a while, but then of course it hit us again after our core temperatures had plummeted. But in the meantime, we had great fun playing in the kelp. Jake used it to look like a zombie with a possessed and/or severed kelp-arm, and it was a super weapon. It comes in amazingly long pieces and Meghann and I swam out to get a giant patch of it, which was probably 40 feet long. None of that good fun to be found on the east coast. Oh, and as a bonus, popping the air packets that make it float is even more satisfying than popping packing bubbles.

Later that night, we met up with Jake again at his friend’s house. We had a Red-themed party with lots of vodka and fabulous music including the Russian national anthem and the Red Elvis’. Special attire was even provided for those who arrived early enough. The theme was pretty entertaining, but the highlight of the evening was by far the full-size trampoline in the backyard. Jake would only jump with me one time after each drink, so I ended up drinking more quickly in order to get extra jumping time. Maybe not the best decision.... But it was good times and I think trampolines should make appearances at parties more often. However, there definitely need to be preventative measures in place because both Jake and I ended up with trampoline rug-burn. And man, I have to say that is unpleasant. Mine took over a week to heal. Ouchies.

The following morning we all parted ways and Meghann and I briefly went out to lunch with my brother and sister-in-law at the fine eating establishment that is Subway. It actually turned out to be the perfect post-party, pre-road trip meal. Afterwards, we headed up the 5 for a long drive through incredibly boring and isolated central California. The highlight of the trip was definitely driving through a dust or fire cloud and having the sky all red with differently colored layers.





There was a hill with a particularly creepy sky behind it which I dubbed Mt. Doom.



Overall, it was extremely weird and disturbing. We were happy to be done with it.

After a long drive, I did something which could really happen under no other circumstance. I got excited to see Dublin! At last, a name I recognized! Then of course I realized that Dublin is about the most uninspired place there is, and it looks like someone just crapped out a town around a few businesses. Ick. But soon we were home and all was well.

So all of this happened about a month ago, but between busyness and lack of internet, I haven’t been able to write a post. In the meantime, I’ve managed to get both a job and an apartment. I’m working at a market research firm in the mission district and am basically being trained to become a project director. The cool part is I get to be trained by helping out with random tasks so that the learning process isn’t as overwhelming as it might be if all the information just got dumped on me at once. I think I’ll like it here, and I definitely feel comfortable with my co-workers. Always key. Soon I’ll post some pictures of my walk from the BART station to work as it’s quite entertaining.

The apartment is…well, kind of shady but very cheap and has a lot of potential. I see it as a blank canvas for expressing all of our home decorating creativity. And man does it need it. Hopefully we can start prettying it up soon; for now we’re working on disinfecting and unpacking. Of course I don’t really have anything to unpack just yet since everything except my clothes is in Virginia, but that should be coming before too long. I think perhaps I’ll wait to post pictures until we fix it up a bit. :) Hopefully it won't be too long before my room is looking spiffy – I splurged a bit at Ross to get a cool comforter and a few decorative items.

One super-awesome advantage of our apartment is that we’re a block from the West Oakland BART which happens to be the only station in the east bay that has all the lines going through it. Translation: you don’t even have to check the schedule because anytime you go, you can catch a train to SF within a few minutes. It’s really pretty great. Now I just need some free time so I can take advantage of the super convenience and go explore the city.