chickenmonkeys and goatchimps: Four Days of the Wedding Present & Eleven Other Excuses Plus One Thing I Hate

SXSW has rolled out of town on this great big gust of wind that we are experiencing right now. Unfortunately all the trash that is left behind is plastered up against fences and in our creeks. I really hate how much waste SXSW produces. It’s disgusting. Today all of Austin is recovering from the sticky, noise hangover, and I’m trying to find someone who still wants to leave the house to go see TC Boyle with me. I’m not having any luck, and even my body thinks I’m crazy for wanting to get off the couch for I have not really been spending the lovey-dovey time with it as I should be.

To recap my life of late:

Wednesday, March 7: The day before CSP’s birthday, much spazzing but playing it cool in his presence—I’m not even sure what we did that night because I was in a panic-induced fog.

Thursday, March 8: CSP’s 40th birthday. Meat on swords! Men in puffy pirate pants. Mass quantities of meat and Pão de Queijo consumed (will someone please bake these daily for the rest of my life, PLEASE?). I almost vomited at the table. Some smuggling of the bread was involved—but not with my vomit, that was eating too much meat, not bread.

Friday, March 9: Drunken happy hour with friends. CSP ability to read a map after at least 10 drinks is (not surprisingly) significantly impaired. He was able to proudly show me how his Android and my iPhone had the exact same map on them! Wonderful, now tell me if I need to make a fucking right or left turn up here. Also learned that he is a fan of declaring himself not drunk while holding on to the fridge for dear life.

Saturday, March 10: CSP’s family arrives in town from Iowa. My first time meeting them, and under the inauspicious timing of a surprise birthday dinner for CSP arranged by a friend of his and CSP’s mom (a delightful women except when it comes to birthday planning). The original plan, or my marching orders, was to drive CSP around in the country, and do this bait-and-switch restaurant thing, which would involve me missing a turn and driving for at least 10 more minutes while somehow convincing him I wasn’t insane. Plan was amended to him driving us out to the restaurant with his family, and the surprise being his friends were there (which was actually really nice of them since it was far out in the country on a rainy night). For future reference, I hate surprise parties, and I am severely night-blind, and would never drive at night where there is limited light and lots of deer. I’m no fun at all, I know.

Sunday, March 11: Play with the family.

Monday, March 12: Work, come home and clean the joint like I will be arrested if there is a speck of dirt. The family comes over for about ten minutes, thus making my maniacal cleaning frenzy so worth it. We go eat barbecue, which also was worth all my efforts.

Tuesday, March 13: Was treated to a lovely dinner by Cowhide. Then she introduced me to House of Lies. I wish I could spend more time with her. I will gladly cheat on my couch with her couch.

Wednesday, March 14: Day one of seeing the Wedding Present.

Thursday, March 15: Day two of seeing the Wedding Present, but missed the Magnetic Fields.

Friday, March 16: Day three of seeing the Wedding Present, and managed to see the Magnetic Fields at their official SXSW showcase at the ACL Moody Theater. That was two very long, agonizing hours of waiting in line having no idea if we’d get in or not. We did, and I only cried twice.

Saturday, March 17: Day four of seeing the Wedding Present. And a lot of morons wearing green. What percentage of those people have any actual Irish heritage? Why the shamrock knee-highs and plastic beads, and tiny, plastic Leprechaun hats? Have some dignity, and shut up while the Wedding Present is playing.

Sunday, March 18: If I had been paying attention, I could have seen WP for a fifth time, but sadly, I was too busy having sexy times. Okay, not sadly at all. Those were good sexy times. The rest of the day was spent doing errands, like finding CSP new glasses. While not a rocking good time, it was very nice to spend the day doing something a bit mundane and necessary, and didn’t involve beer at 2pm.

Thus, I am home even when my favorite living writer is just a couple miles down the road. I just can’t bring myself to mill about a bookstore alone.

Other reasons (beside seeing the Wedding Present four times in a row) why I have not blogged in so long:

It’s been raining a lot, thus I’m cranky and pretend my fingers are water-logged and incapable of typing
Watermelon Sour Patch Kids
Angry Birds’ Cherry Blossom (I never stop playing Angry Birds until I have 3 stars on all levels)
Friday Night Lights (I’m pretty sure I’m reliving my own Texas high-school days, but there were no attractive football players on our team—actually, I’m pretty sure one of the players was 40 years old by the look of his paunch and bald spot, and our coach taught history and health)
Various game nights where I triumphed at least once each evening (that’s the most important thing, right?)
Work, oh, god, work, how it tires me, and makes it so I can only fathom coming home to watch FNL or make out with CSP
There was that really sucky week where my car died, and Ex-Cop had to jump me (he was impressed I knew how, and I had to work on not being snarky to the man whose help I desperately needed in the moment), and I had to replace the battery (hybrid batteries are more expensive, but it’s a three-paycheck month, so I guess it could have been worse)
Weed eating the yard, and ruining my One Stars since I didn’t realize, as the privileged allergy-sufferer that I am, that grass turns the whites green, how incredibly fucking lame
Contemplating how and when Brekkie’s nose went from black to dark orange…this takes up a lot of my brain space, really
Then there’s the whole problem of America going mad and hating women; that’s really wearing me down, too
Also, someone is a little worried about the owls in the tub—it’s very upsetting