strangepulse.com

I get tired of my blog always being about me, me, me.

What are some small goals you have?

Nothing too weighty. I don’t believe in huge goals. Low expectations = never being disappointed.

OK, I’ll go first.

1. I want to spend a day exploring on the commuter train. I’ve taken it from Long Beach into downtown LA before, and then into Hollywood (where it’s actually a subway). I’d like to do that some more. Just take off and see where I end up.

2. I want to start playing the flute again. Haven’t played it since I was in high school, but I’m pretty sure I still remember the B-flat scale. And what more do I need? A flute? Oh yeah.

3. I want to look out the window and make jokes.

4. I want to see Converge in a small, all ages place. And then I want to walk up to them after the show and say, “Hey. You probably don’t remember, but I sent you a fan email once. My name is Susan. I’m a 39 year old Mormon housewife, and I’m your biggest fan.”*

* This one could actually happen. They’re playing a small all ages place soon, and my son got me and him both tickets.

Are you surprised?

I’m not either. I forget everything!

I posted a video blog the other day about some old music magazines I’d saved from my teen years. Included in all the stuff my parents sent was a fanzine that my penpal, Laura, put together.

She actually did multiple issues, but I only saved a copy of one, not sure why. Maybe because it was the only one I submitted anything for. I don’t remember. But I’d completely forgotten I’d written some album reviews for it until I started to scan it for Laura, who I recently reconnected with on Facebook. She lost all of her own copies of the ‘Zine, which is really too bad, because she did some cool interviews for it, including the Alarm. She interviewed them in San Fran, then flew to Seattle to stay with me for a few days and we went to see them play. When we met them after the show, they remembered her from the interview. It was cool.

Anyway, here is the page that features my reviews. I think it’s funny that I still basically write about music the same way I did when I was 15.

Back when I was Susie M.

Into our family life.

Daniel was watching the ski jumping on the Oympics, you know, when they look like this:

Daniel said they should put some webbing between the skis and the person’s body, so it’d be like wings.

Elijah said, Yeah. And then they should attach a string to them that someone in the crowd could hold.

–

The other day the subject of kids’ names came up (yes, again). I think it was because Elijah was complaining about not having a middle name—so he could never just use two initials and then his last name. Like R.L. Stine does.

Cat has a list of kids’ names she likes, which she showed to us. Included in the boys list was Beatrix. I told her no.

Daniel said he was going to name his next kid Shutup Youstupidhead. We had fun with that.

“What’s your name?”

“Shutup Youstupidhead!”

Roll call in class: “Darren…Present. Shutup…Here.”

–

Elijah was telling us how his friend Mark’s dad is just exactly like Daniel.

He said, “There’s only two differences. One, Mark’s dad is Mexican. Two, I came from Dad.”

I was too lazy to take pictures or scan stuff and write everything out about this. Instead I rambled on in front of a webcam.

Because I’m an introvert, if I don’t get regular alone-time I start to wig out. Not wig out—I think it’s almost impossible for me to really wig out—but Daniel noticed that I was starting to get a bit cranky and offered to take the kids to our friend Dave’s this weekend.

YES!

Of course the kids didn’t want to go. All of them wanted to be left home without the others, and wondered why just having one person around, even if they stayed in their room the whole weekend on their computer, would make a difference.

It does. Believe me.

So I’ve had 24 hours of completely quiet aloneness, aka bliss!

What did I do? Pretty much the same stuff I always do. But it’s just so much easier to do alone. Even housework. I have a hard time doing housework when people are around. Is that weird? I just get in this burrowing-mode where I can’t do anything if there are people around.

Anyway, this week I’ve managed to socialize as well. Rare for me. I met up with a Flickr contact who it turns out works just down the street from me at a really cool preschool. We met up for a few minutes on her lunch hour and took some pictures.

They have a horse at her preschool! Among lots of other animals.

A couple weeks ago, Daniel, Nathaniel and I went into downtown LA. Nathaniel and I stopped by an art gallery I’d heard about on Flickr. They normally feature artwork by graffiti artists—not graffiti, other stuff they do. So we dropped in, and they were having a show on prison art.

The door was locked but a sign said to knock, so we did. A man came to the door and let us in. The gallery is small. He stood in the middle of it, staring straight ahead, just zoning out. He never said a word to us.

A lot of the art was mostly drawings of naked women, which was kind of funny to be looking at with my 19 year old son. But it was interesting—all the artwork was done by prison inmates, and most of it had a letter from the artist talking about his work. The one who did the really lurid naked pictures said that he started drawing to make money or trades with the other prisoners, and everyone wants the naked chicks, so that’s what he draws.

I asked the fellow working there if I could take some pictures and he nodded his head. So I snapped a couple, but only three. Here’s one:

The sign says "This plastic cup was done using a needle and cigarette ash by an unknown inmate in San Quentin."

The other pictures I took were of this stainless steel toilet that someone had etched stuff on. Don’t think I want to know how an inmate got ahold of anything sharp enough to scratch steel…

Here’s a shot I took with my half-frame camera of the sign for the gallery on a street corner:

The upper frame is a shot of the pavement right next to the sign. The plaque reads: "Private Property - Permission to pass over revocable at any time."

One more shot I took of the building next door to the gallery. I love this little street in downtown LA:

My camera’s going out, the shutter is staying open too long, so it’s over exposing and everything is blurry. But it’s kind of a cool effect.

One of the funniest commercials I’ve ever seen:

My parents recently picked up an old camera for me and inside was an exposed roll of film. Really old, probably from the 50s or early 60s. I developed it today.

The pictures are of a farm. Most feature a horse with a colt and a cowboy.

But some feature a milk cow and a farmer and a little girl.

“Milk Cow - And Proud of It!”

At the end of the roll were these turkeys and a cat:

Is it me, or do turkey’s talons look really funny? They totally make me want to laugh.

I love finding old film like this and developing it. It’s such a mystery. So many possibilities. Who took the pictures? The Mrs? Did the farmer take the pictures that he isn’t in? Where were they taken? (Probably western WA somewhere.) Who are these people?

You can see all of the pictures as a slideshow here.

Into our family life.

Elijah will often come home and say this same phrase: “I was the only one in my English class today who knew what (fill in the blank) meant.”

Most recently, it was a Napoleon complex.

Before that, it was propaganda.

And if you ask him how he knows about these things, he gets insulted. “I read things!” And he does. Always reading stuff online, looking up information on all kinds of stuff. What’s weird is he retains. Everything.

Nathaniel had what I’ve come to think of as an Elijah-moment the other day. Daniel doesn’t really like peas, so I never make them. Like, ever. But the other day we were having mashed potatoes and I like peas in mine so I made some. Nathaniel was busy so he ate later than us. He went into the kitchen, saw the peas, and asked, “Is there something wrong with the corn?”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. He said, “Why is the corn green?”

Today at church, our stake president spoke. He’s the leader over several congregations in our area. And he always likes to speak in these extended metaphors. Daniel describes his talks like this: “There was a bicycle and a rabbit, and they did some stuff…So don’t be a pancake!”

This morning his talk was all about being goalies (Olympics-inspired). I leaned over to Catherine and said, “So don’t be a mailbox!” just as Daniel leaned over to me and said, “So don’t be a palm tree!”

There’s a story behind this picture.

The other day we were in downtown L.A. My son Nathaniel and I were walking on the sidewalk under these windows when someone threw a glass bottle out a window and it crashed into pieces just ahead of where we were. A woman across the street (where this pic was taken from) started yelling "Hey man don’t be throwing stuff out the window! There are people down here!" etc. Nathaniel and I considered inching along close to the building to get past the spot where more bottles might come crashing down but instead just jaywalked across the street.

The woman was still yelling at the guy and he poked his head out the window. I tried to snap a picture of him but when he saw my camera he ducked back inside.

Sometimes I want to tell people, "Don’t worry, the picture will be all blurry."

The woman kept talking. She said, "You could kill someone doing that! I seen it happen before. Right on this street a couple weeks ago!"

Isn’t that a great name for a band?

For Christmas just about all Nathaniel wanted was cash so he could go to shows, so that’s what he got. Problem is I don’t want to be spending money for me to go to shows now that Daniel’s unemployed, and he doesn’t have a driver’s license. Since Dillon wouldn’t go with him to see this band he wanted to see, Animals As Leaders, Nathaniel sprang for my ticket and I took him.

The show was at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go. Famous venue (the Doors played there!) but totally lame. Any venue on the Sunset Strip is lame…but the Whiskey packs like 8 bands on a bill and lets them all play about 4 songs. And some of the bands actually pay the venue to be able to play there.

Some thoughts during the opening bands.

First band (that we saw): Will someone just stick a fork in my eyeball already?

Second band: Bubblegum metal…How much more cookie cutter can you get?…Can I stick a fork in his eyeball?

Third band: Closed my eyes and almost went to sleep.

Animals As Leaders were awesome. I wasn’t sure what to expect since I didn’t know anything about them, but they’re doing stuff I’ve never seen anyone else do. Two guitarists on 8-string guitars, with a drummer, and no vocals. Their songs are proggy/mathy. They have heavy moments and they have soft moments. There were a couple laptops in use too, for samples I think. Or drum loops or something.

It’s always awesome to see a black guy in a metal band. And he rips on guitar.

The crowd loved them, which I was a little surprised by, since they’d also loved some of the previous bands that were like torture to me. There was even a big pit going, which was interesting—I don’t really see their music as something to mosh to.

Sad part—one of the guitarists had intrument/equipment problems, and it took awhile for him to get it fixed. They only played five songs!

Here’s what they sound like: