Lee.org

I went to Giovanni’s restaurant for my birthday with my parents… well, I tried to. We showed up on my birthday, Wednesday Sept 22nd and there was only 1 person there, the owner. He was very nice and all. He said it would be no trouble for him to turn on the lights and seat us. Yes, you heard me… turn on the lights. He motioned us over to the seats we were in last time as he switched on the lights in the place. I don’t get it… seating for 120, excellent food and…. nobody was there.

It’s kind of funny actually. I had called a few days earlier asking if I needed a reservation if we showed up on Wednesday night. He said something like, “No, you should be alright.” Well, he was right.

I’m saddened because I went to this place a few months ago with PPG. There were only a few people in the place when we went back then but we were so hungry (and I had to pee soooooooo bad) that we stayed. The food was, in a word, perfect. He served us Italian standards in a straightforward manner, strachatelli, eggplant rolatini and a few other dishes. We were overpowered by just how…. fresh and … correct… the food was. No curve-balls, no “Bam!” just unflinchingly perfect.

Rrrrrreww! This happens so often to me. I discover a good thing and it turns out that it’s about to be closed. Earlier in September, I went to Montclair to see a play. Turns out the production company has just lost their lease and I was seeing one of the last performances. Hurumph.

I want to know what the story is behind this restaurant! Maybe I’ll go down there sometime and ask.

So we got back in the car and my dad became the worst backseat driver… It was awful. I got my relief by playing the race card: they wanted me to pull over and ask for directions so I did. I asked two well dressed, articulate Hispanic men for directions. While we’re talking, my mother starts yelling from the back seat to go because she’s scared. Dad does the same thing. It was as though I had two screaming children in the car. She was banging against my seat and screaming. He was barking orders at me. And I was talking calmly to the nice gentlemen. He didn’t know the restaurant but it was nice to have an intelligent conversation, albeit short with someone during my ordeal.

In case you’re wondering, my defense for stopping and talking to these gentlemen was: They were well dressed. Their movements were completely unthreatening and well mannered, they spoke well (though with a strong Spanish accent), we were in an almost exclusively Columbian part of town, and I kept the car in gear, ready to pull away if need be (as I do with most car stops at night).

So we ended up going to Charlotte’s Web restaurant. It wasn’t awful. But as usual, they declared that this was some of the best food they had ever eaten in their lives. I spent the majority of the evening trying to not be smothered.

But I will say that my birthday cake was terrific. I told Noni that my favorite ice cream is ice cream sandwiches. So she bought some… and on my birthday, she made me a cake that is layers of ice cream sandwiches, Cool Whip and fudge. Yummy kudos!

Tim Powers did the Guest of Honor speech at Arisia in January 2004. I’ve never read anything from him but I was really impressed with the talk. Here’s one little anecdote that I made sure to remember. As a background, he has written quite a bit of spooky/horror/sci-fi. He was talking about why people are afraid of spooky things in books even though we all KNOW it’s fiction.

I don’t believe in ghosts but I’m still scared of them.

They did this experiment. Some 30,000 chickens grew up indoors on this farm for generation after generation. They hadn’t seen so much as a tree or a bush or the sun in generations. So they took this cut-out of a hawk and ran it along a string across the top of the building. And all of the chickens went crazy, running for their lives.

So now if we could talk to one of those chickens and ask why she ran, she’d probably say, “I don’t know man. But it really freaked me out!”

I’ve gotten several emails from people saying how they found my site because I listed Total Remodeling’s phone number. (Here’s a reminder)

908-686-1443
Total Remodeling
Neil Parsons
1767 Rte. 22, West
Union, NJ 07083
Phone: 908-686-5788
Fax: 908-686-7810

I say to everyone that finds this message:

• Go to Donotcall.gov and file a complaint.
• Call Total Remodeling back at 908-686-1443 and tell them what you’ve done.
• Forget about it and hope that the Federal Trade Commission gets around to suing them.

My order from www.rx1.biz came in. They look like real pharmaceuticals…. If you don’t see any journal entries from me in a month, then send someone to my house to check on me. $112 instead of $360, x 3 fills. Now I’ll find out if my 50% copay on pharmaceuticals covers Canadian drugs too (I didn’t call them yet because even if they don’t honor the copay, the Canadian drugs are cheaper)

When late becomes early

I went into the city last nigh. Had a very nice time with Tara and Ross. And then I had to get home….. I left at 1:40am or so. Waited at the 34th St PATH stop for 20 minutes, waited at Journal Square for 15 minutes, got to my car exhausted.. Made it 10 miles or so and pulled over to take a 10 minute nap; my eyes were so tired and dry! It felt like someone was rubbing sandpaper in my eyes as long as they were open. It was torture! After my nap, I made it another 10 miles before having to pull over… the sandpaper man was working overtime. Drinking lots of water helped a tiny bit, rubbing my eyes felt like… rubbing sandpaper in my eyes, turning the air conditioner on or off felt like I was changing the grit of the sandpaper. I stopped a couple more times. I got home at 5 fucking 30 in the morning. :-(((( Now here it is, 11am and I feel like I’ve been run over by a steam roller. This sucks. I tried loud music, pinching myself, heat, cold, singing loudly, pure concentration, naps, slapping myself, caffeine doesn’t work…. I don’t know what else to do. And the worst is, when I get out of the car, I feel awake again! I mean, if I had stayed home, I might have gone to bed at 2 or 3. It’s like I’ve got automotive Seasonal Affective Disorder or something. Maybe I should shine lights on my face to wake up.

My time in the city was good. We tried the Kava Kava I had ordered from Hawaii. It was nice… a very similar feeling to when I was at Burning Man. That was good.

(No, it didn’t make me any more sleepy than usual. I’ve had this sleepy-driver syndrome several times now)

It’s not that they are terrible. Just a bit slow and don’t always have good product stocks. Read on…

9-16-04 Ordered a product online (at 70% off local prices). I had found the site from some official-ish Maine health care web site.

9-21-04 Sent email asking what’s up.

9-22-04 Got email response

My name is Aleisha and I would like to thank you for your interest in CanadaPharmacy.com.

We received your prescription on Sept 20th and needed to confirm the date the prescription was written. We got confirmation from your Doctor and the order is now processing.

You will get an email when your order is shipped. It will contain the tracking information.

9-28-04 Sent email saying that I’d cancel my order if it didn’t arrive by October 11th

9-28-04 They leave me a voice message to call them back.

9-29-04 I call back. They say, “We don’t have it in stock and don’t know when it’s coming in. We’ll cancel your order now.”

:-(

Now I’m trying www.Canadadrugprices.com. Wish me luck.

Professional driver. Shown with optional accessories. Closed Course. Do Not Attempt.

I desperately want to tell you, dear reader, all about Burning Man. It was such a huge moment. I’m building up a big thang with pictures (some 400 photos raw footage), stories, guides, all that jazz. So don’t think that Total Remodeling of Union NJ has replaced in my mind the energy of Burning Man.

I’m already making an effort to shift my current world more into the world I saw in Black Rock City.

Imagine every holiday you’ve ever experienced, every amusement park and every monument you’ve ever seen, all rolled up into one experience. No, I’m serious. Mention any of those things and I’ll have a response.

TJIC said, “The Washington Monument.”

Someone told me a story. I think this took place in 2003.

A man tried an experiment. He parked his car outside the gates of Burning Man, removed all of his clothes, identity, everything. He walked up to the gate with only his person and his ticket. He wanted to know if he could make it the entire week without anything but his self and the kindness of The Man. Happily, he had a fantastic time.

Email to Camparctica list

So there I was, standing in the ice truck in the middle of the desert, 92 degrees in the baking afternoon sun, quite chilled even with a sweater and hot chai in my hands after 3 hours of slinging. I love Camp Arctica! Thank you!

Email to NYC list

Subject: My Black Rock City experience

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful
Absurd, remarkable, scary, dusty, blinding, lonely, re-found, connected, wide-eyed, dizzying.
Fear of death, anxiety, released, spiritual, connected.
Wonderment, internal song opened up.
Wonderful, wonderful.

Repaired, destroyed, renewed, a child’s happy thrill.
Possibilities for endless happiness hinted at and reminded of.

Lee / Connector

Email reply to CinemaGirl

(Background: many people were involved in negative threads about the burn on the NYC list today. Icky poop experiences, a weird vibe, unhappiness about tourists, supposed commercialization of the event, etc)

>did anyone offer up any suggestions for clearing playa brain?
>
>I have it really badly this year. I have been useless at work this week.
>Maybe I should have slept more between playa and working.
>Did anyone find a cure for this?

I’ve tried two strategies. One was working but the side-effects made me stop, the other is working pretty well.

First method: Read lots of negative comments about the burn. After an hour of reading, you should start getting angry, cynical, and closed. Side effect: the world becomes the unhappy place you thought it might be.

Second method: Smile, view photos of your second home, think about your second home often, and let the second world meld slowly into the first. Revel in it. Stay centered for a whole year. Side effect: people will keep telling you that you look different and you’ll have to keep telling them about your experience.

I was at a client’s (Ba. Wh.) yesterday and she offered me coffee with amaretto flavored liquid Coffee-Mate. After about 30 minutes and 3/4 of a cup, I felt like I had just mainlined 3 cups of coffee. I felt like I had to run around the block. My chest itched a bit and my whole body felt super-buzzy. I honestly didn’t believe her when she told me it was decaf. But she showed me that the only coffee in the house was decaf! I had so much trouble concentrating and was so jittery, I couldn’t focus on work at all. I left, walked all around the neighborhood. That helped only a tiny bit. I sat in my car for 30 minutes quietly and that helped a little. I went back in and worked on the computer for another 20 minutes but I couldn’t continue and we called it a day.

I went home, had breakfast/lunch and sat around a bit and felt better after a while. Weird.