Mar 2003

Shengri kuaile

2003 Mar 01

Probably one of the better ones I've ever had. I've always had a less-than-stellar birthday experience. I ended up kicking it with my folks all afternoon, and raked in the loot. Then Brian came over and we all went to Sekisui for dinner. I didn't get home until almost midnight.

This gave me a good idea for something i should pursue economically speaking...i should make make sushi and sell it to stores. Nobody around here is really doing this. I've been making sushi for around 10 years now, and have taught many people over the years from Collins how to do it too. In other words, i should make money doing something i like, and i have practically no competition. Seesel's used to carry sushi, but then they closed down and Shnucks didn't pick that back up when they reopened. The only other place in town west of 240 where you can get takeout sushi is Wild Oats, but they don't do much in the way of vegetarian stuff, and they charge a lot of money anyway. So hey...i might have something here.

Jan's in town

2003 Mar 04

Jan was in town briefly, so I met her up at the library...it gave me a good chance to catch up on some socializing and work on some plans. We went back to my house for the afternoon, then met up with Liz, Jay and the baby, and Brian over at Saigon Le and had a big dinner over there. I haven't had that many of my friends together in one place in I don't know how long.

After that we watched the Labrinth which i haven't seen in 10 years, then went over to Union Station and kicked it until it was time for her to go back to Chicago.

bad news

2003 Mar 06

so we got a notice that our insurance was being cancelled. that's the worst possible news we could ever get because we need to refinance a loan...and we have had loads of trouble finding insurance. The reason it was cancelled was because the inspector came by and didn't like the clutter in the front yard (which is a valid complaint, officer crane from city code enforcement doesn't like it either...but i'm not aruging about that)...but then he had the nerve to refer to our vegetable garden as "weeds" because the imbecile doesn't know what collard greens and turnip greens and herbs look like.

As Casey put it, "Guess, what, our house is never going to look like a normal house--because it ISN'T a normal house. and our yard isn't going to look like a normal yard because we don't want to have a well-manicured lawn and shrubbery...because it's a garden, not a lawn. We grow vegetables instead of grass."

I guess we can take comfort in the fact that at least he didn't see the pile of roofing material that was there last week...

but seriously, this is bad news, and it means we may not survive.

sunday's meltdown

2003 Mar 09

Hoo-ray for sunshine! i woke up bright and early and got Brian out of the house early enough to go on a mid morning bike ride over to the tire swings over on cleveland. Oops, it's kinda cold though--colder than it looked.

While we were in the neighborhood, we went to the place Minh was telling him about...but i think either Minh's a big joker, or shadier than we think. because even though the sign says "coffee shop", it's really a smoky room with a pool table and a bunch of guys inside who look like gangster's who'd rather steal your car than make you a cuppa joe. the little market across the street, however has the best price coconut milk in town. We ended up going over to Pho Pasteur and got our first shakes of the new year. it really wasn't quite warm enough, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

then when i was in Viethoa, i got a job offer to paint a mural. rock! I need the money. besides it would be way fun.

all this good stuff coming my way...hellz yeah. it's about fucking time.

When i went home, folks were trying to say, "we ain't havin' no house meeting", but i wasn't having that. I came home early so by god we're having a house meeting, all rightee then...things didn't start on a good note: I ain't never seen denny so mad before. Then they get cranky because me and shawn's rent's lower than theirs (well who set the prices? Not me, that's for sure). Things didn't get much better from there. I won't give you a play by play, but i don't know if our house is going to survive.

sushi time

2003 Mar 10

After tempers cooled a bit, things started to look a bit better. We spent all morning working on cleaning up the premises a bit...which is a must for keeping our scummy overpriced insurance.

After that, i spent the rest of the afternoon getting together the supplies for starting up a fledgling sushi business, then went over to the top secret prep site and with the help of Brian made about 10 cases for the first batch. They looked beautiful when we were done.

After all that, though, i was dog tired. I went to sleep but woke up feeling all out of sorts. This forebodes a rough start for tuesday...

not quite what i had in mind

2003 Mar 11

so it wasn't the most fortuitous start for a business enterprise, but not the worst either, i guess.

i felt pretty bad in the morning so i had to call in sick to class...which frustrates me because we were finishing a book today and that's always fun.

i was supposed to drop off the first delivery of sushi in the morning, but i couldn't move until 1pm...just in time to miss lunch hour altogether. the good thing that did happen is when i took a sample to Square Foods, they said can you make us a dozen? Hell yeah. But I will have to wait until next week...

this bodes well for the future. if i can get this off the ground, i won't HAVE to work for anyone else...and how great that would be. The beauty of this is I do it by night, and by day I can be out and about doing what i want to do.

oops george did it again

2003 Mar 18

For me, this is a sad day, and this time i'm really ashamed of my country...this is a new low for the US, not that we haven't tried our hands at scraping the bottom before...

I was at work washing dishes when all hell broke loose. We listened to NPR for a little while, but decided it was far too depressing and decided to go back to reggae. You can only take so much of this war talk.

I've got a lot on my mind but here's the basics:

1. We attacked iraq even though they haven't done anything in particular to us. That's low, dawg.

2. We haven't even finished the war with afghanistan and Osama's still out there kickin' it somewhere near the Pakistan border with his buddies. One thing at a time, y'all.

3. War is always stupid and ugly. This one is especially stupid and ugly. The whole world is trying to tell us something and we're not listening.

4. oil/greed/hidden agendas/lies/fear it's all related.

what the hell are we doing?

2003 Mar 19

check out denny's site: www.regimechange-us.org

i'm amazed and disgusted by how our leaders are acting-liars. the media makes me sick...i refuse to watch tv until this shit stops. hell this bloodbath isn't even about saddam hussein anymore--whether he's alive or dead, whether there are weapons or no weapons, we're gonna bomb iraq. nobody anywhere should die over this shit. there is no good reason for this war. people need to wake up and smell the oil...nobody is telling us the truth--whatever it may be. and i don't believe anyone should die over a bunch of fucking lies. shit.

this war has got me pretty down. if it weren't for the beauty that still exists in this world, i'd give up. but as long as my seeds keep growing, i'll keep coming back like bamboo, which bends but does not break. i'm still kicking it, and i won't shut up.

preparing for the march

2003 Mar 21

There was a lot to do to prepare for the march. I had to go over to first congo to paint the banner for the march.

but first it was declerye garden day. we were out in mass breaking ground, and moving beds getting ready for planting. it looks so much better with the new configuration...and i think it will be more productive. it is always fun to be out there working with everyone. it's one of the best parts about living in the house.

But then i had to get to painting that sign. So I went over and worked on that for an hour, and painted a bunch of small signs for people to use in the march.

After that, it was almost time to be thinking about going to work, so I went home and got ready. Shawn had planned a spring equinox dinner party, and it had been cold and cloudy all day, but it never did rain. So the table was set up in the garden with flowers and candles. it was so adorable. we all sat outside under the magnolia tree and ate a meal composed mostly of things from our winter garden. i always look forward to these salads made of spring greens that we have every year in the early spring. but i had to run off to work too.

work was interesting because njeri was hosting an antiwar discussion that brought out a very interesting crowd. it was interesting to listen to the dialog while shuttling dishes back and forth. it took longer to get stuff done though, and i was super tired by the time I got off work around 11. The back rub afterwards sure helped though.

emergency peace march/co-op day

2003 Mar 22

saturday sure was packed...i had a ton of things to do before i even woke up.

first, i woke up and checked on the seedlings I planted on friday...they look like they're gonna be okay outside.

then i made a couple of props for the antiwar march this afternoon. one was a skeleton/scarecrow on a pole with a sign, and the other was an umbrella with bombs hanging down from it.

then i piled everything i'd need for the entire afternoon in the basket on the back of my bike: props, signs, costume, sushi demo kit, violin and purse, threw on some bungee cords to keep it together then hit the road.

It was a beautiful sunny day. I went to the co-op and dropped off the props for the march, talked to audrey may and a friend who were organizing a civil rights event later this week, and said hi to the folks at the non-profit day. Then i went over to the church and made a few more signs for the march, took the rest outside and rode back to the co-op to get ready for our get-up.

Suzie dressed up like the statue of liberty, casey, rom, shawn and sarah dressed up like the sons of liberty. i put on my random red halloween outfit and we marched to meet up with the parade.

It was great. there were so many people there! The media followed us around like mad because we were the most visible elements there...in costume! then we marched up the street towards overton park. i played the violin some and denny got some chants going. casey played the drum and sarah brought her violin.

i didn't go all the way because i was supposed to go back and do the sushi demo, so shawn and i walked back. on the way, a lot of people looked at us very strangely but we only got one heckler...some guy in a car who clearly put a lot of thought into what he shouted at us "war is good". umm, yeah. whatever. that's the brilliant retort of the week. uh-huh.

once i got back to the co-op i discovered that everyone was gone (to the rally) so there was no reason to do the sushi demo. so i just put up my tired feet and watched snow globe until brian came by. then we hit abyssinia where they had cnn on, which is the first time i've seen it since the war started. they were showing primarily coverage of the antiwar protests, which amazed me, since they basically have a policy against showing protests...they don't like to give much coverage to dissent. so it kind of made my day.

all that wore me out though, so i called it an early night.

on that sunday

2003 Mar 23

kind of a pleasant warm sunday here in memphis. it's relaxed with no agenda. slept in til noon which seems criminal on such a beautiful day. had strawberrry pancakes for breakfast thanks to the boy.

we went over to midtown bikes to look into getting him a new more comfortable seat. the guys who work there are from central illinois. they struck me as being on the racist side of things, which is guess is pretty normal for farm kids for illinois. unsavory.

after that we went to viet hoa and i talked some shop and did some shopping...got inspired to make spring rolls. so we spent the rest of the afternoon making a mess that resulted in spring rolls. then we took in a little sunset with a bottle of vino and some tire swings. after dark, i watched a jet li movie and hit the hay. it was a pretty nice sunday.

whew it's hot!!!

2003 Mar 24

the pollen's flying everywhere. sniff sniff. i rode to overton park this morning and played the violin for a bit, then struggled home against the prevailing wind and pollen. did some work in the garden this afternoon, went to check out the paint situation (i'm paining a mural for viethoa), read some of njeri's raw foods book, dug up some weeds, and kicked it in the hammock. everything's blooming and it's hot. there's lots of flowers everywhere and it's so beautiful. i'm sure thousands of people are dying somewhere...

wow, the day's half gone. time to get off the computer, and on with life. happy birthday jenny!

small minds, ugly words

2003 Mar 25

"Mama, put my guns in the ground, I can't shoot them anymore." i don't know what it is, but today just ain't doin' it for me. a sense of dread in the air.

"They just can't remember how to act, their minds are filled with distorted facts" i should remember that these people sound stupid because they just don't know any better. you could say they're still in the matrix so to speak, and haven't been unplugged...

"I haven't known peace and quiet for so long I can't remember what it's like." but this ain't it. all this wild carrying on. people acting like fools. police cars.

"Like a dog on a chain, he ain't got no name, but it ain't him to blame, he's only a pawn in their game." so i won't hold it against them. but i can't help feeling frustrated by it all. i am not proud of my country or some of its citizens right now.

masters of war

2003 Mar 26

"You play with my world like it's your little toy" the Bush Administration's breathtakingly fraudulent and obstinate drive for "A world war can be won, you want me to believe" the U.S. is the world's most bellicose nation, invading a new country every year or two "Is your money that good, will it buy you forgiveness, Do you think that it could" the truth can take years to piece together, forgotten in the rubble of lies "When your death takes its toll, All the money you made, will never buy back your soul"

things are taking a turn for the worse. somehow they always do. i thought i had a viable plan. now i'm not sure at all. maybe the world ain't ready yet.

i started painting the mural today at viet hoa. the first panel is a school of fish and a crab. it's nice to be out in the sun with some peace and quiet. it's fun to watch people coming by watching me.

3 am and all's well

2003 Mar 27

late on thurs night after the house meeting, steve-o c-ame over and wanted to know if i wanted to go on a little bike ride...since i didn't go to felix, i felt like doing something...so the next thing i know we're heading down central to goodlett, then ended up on walnut grove bound for shelby farms. that's a mind boggling trip on a bike although according to mapquest it's only 10 miles. so all told, we probably did 20+ miles last night. the city late at night is quiet and peaceful, i really like the radically different characteristics of usually congested streets. last summer in chicago, i used to go on these crazy late night urban bike adventures in places that you can't really go by day...

odds and ends: check out these headines from Yahoo News: Missile hits Baghdad market, dozens die/Bush accuses Saddam of atrocities/U.S. missile goes awry, falls in SE Turkey...hmm. Which one doesn't make sense. "That's odd, isn't it. Well, I have to go now, it's bedtime"

bad moon rising

2003 Mar 27

man this week sucks, i don't mind saying it. everythings turning into shit, fast. everyone's got the wrong ideas about me, i can tell. i wish a whole lot of people around here would just fuck off.

this jacket tammy jo gave me feels like i was born with it on. kickin' it with latoya last night after finishing up early was awesome. leaving the key at home wasn't.

i feel like i'm being stabbed in the back. i feel like bitching about it. i feel like i'm a hundred years old and nobody knows how to speak english or love one another anymore. things are pretty goddamn ugly. the money's tight. and i'm losing it, fast.

today's entertainment

2003 Mar 28

probably more interesting than any of my silly self-indulgent journal entries are the following:

www.atmo.se: short "educational" films

weebl.jolt.co.uk>: vaguely amusing.

you can thank me later.

spent most of the day in recovery mode. don't think i left the compound all day until it was time for work. got there early enough to hang out with casey and tj before hitting the dishes. it was a pretty slow night. there was some group from wolf river conservancy there. otherwise, it was just as slow rainy night. i got done with the dishes a shade early, so latoya and i headed out ahead of schedule. i went over to java cabana to see if the show was still going on over there. i saw lots of familiar faces...brandon, josh, denny, rom, most of my house...but tj had already left so i had to go back to her house to give her the key. i made silly faces through the window, but felt let down because the kids were doing playing already. instead i went over to brian's. sometime during the course of the day i had developed a nasty case of chiggers so by midnight i was just a hurtin. i hate those little fuckers. where did i even manage to get ahold of them?

steve's losing his shit...i hear he hasn't slept in a week. when i saw him last night he seemed okay for the most part, but was really exciteable and would lose his train of thought when we were talking. talking did seem to calm him down a lot though...today though, he called the house and insulted denny and casey. now everyone's worried about him, because he's starting to get edgy.

When i woke up this morning, i looked over at brian and felt really good. in spite of it all, of all the ugliness and despair, some things in this world are still beautiful..."Love transforms the world. The world which once seemed empty and tiresome becomes filled with meaning, risks and rewards, majesty and danger. In this sense love is subversive, because it poses a threat to the established order of our modern lives. Love poses a threat to our political system, for it is difficult to convince a man who has a lot to live for to be willing to fight and die for an abstraction such as the state. Love even poses a threat to our society itself. Love permits no lies, no falsehoods, or polite half-truths. True love is irresponsible, irrepressible, rebellious, scornful of cowardice. Love urges men and women to heroism, and to antiheroism—to indefensible acts that need no defense for the one who loves. What if everyone feared loveless, lifeless monotony more than they fear taking risks, more than they fear being hungry or cold or in danger? What if everyone set down their "responsibilities" and "common sense," and dared to pursue their wildest dreams?" (from Harbinger)