2001-04-15 - 2:08 a.m.

My original plan for today was to finish a poetry submission, take a walk with a friend, complete my income tax returns, and go see Henry 5 x 5.

This was before 7 p.m. yesterday, when the Beautiful Young Man and his pal Chris returned from the New York Auto Show. I'm usually a logical person, but it hadn't registered with me until they arrived that Chris would need to crash with us before continuing back to Austin. My computer is in the same room as the sofabed.

So, I smiled at Chris, swore at myself, and hastily settled down to a session of speed-editing the poems. It's entirely possible I would have done the same thing this morning at 11 a.m. (the last Saturday pick-up at the local mailbox being 11:45): I took two recently-revised Pretty Damn Good poems I'd specifically earmarked for the contest in question and added the four old so-so ones I'd set aside as backup - the actual plan had been to write four entirely new kick-ass poems, but I just didn't get past the rough-draft stage. They'll still become good poems when I'm ready to spend sufficient time on them.

The BYM and I are both on the verge of swearing off live non-classical concerts, because we're both cranks, we detest Ticketmaster, and neither of us have any patience left for audience members who Just Don't Get It. I'm all for people whoopin' and hollerin' their appreciation and having a good time, but for crying out loud, there are limits:

(1) Shut up when the artist is talking or singing. We're there to listen to her, not you. If your date doesn't know anything about Ani DiFranco or Righteous Babe, explain it all to her after the show, not during.

(2) Listen, really listen, to what the artist is saying or singing. If you were one of the people caught applauding when she mentioned the hotel where MLK got shot (because you were mindlessly cheering every other word she said until the silence around you informed you that she was Being Serious), yes, you are an asshole. If you were shakin' your booty when she sang her protest against the death penalty, you didn't look sexy, you looked like an idiot.

(3) These rules don't apply to concerts where the performer wants you to sing, dance, mosh, etc. Those concerts are held in arenas or in warehouses. This concert was at the Ryman. The place has wooden pews. Get a clue.

As for Ani herself - I disliked the mugging-for-the-audience bits but loved her energy. Still, I could have spent the ticket money on two CDs instead and subsequently avoided feeling snarked-off at the fuckwits who go to concerts because they think rockstars will notice them if they scream loud enough.

Still, as soon as I said to the BYM, "I'm too old for this," I immediately started listing exceptions. There are co-workers performing at The Slow Bar this week and next. I want to hear Tommy Womack again, especially if he's playing his tribute to the Replacements. There's free concerts scheduled for this summer that sound like a good excuse for drinking beer outdoors (They Might Be Giants, Superdrag, etc.). In short, I can't swear off live music altogether, and neither can the BYM ("I'd still go to see Suzanne Vega [at the Ryman]"), but I think we're going to be avoiding anything mainstream enough for the callow hordes - unless we're in the mood to be obnoxious ourselves, of course, but at that point it doesn't make sense to shell out three Hamiltons per ticket, not when we can slap down five apiece for a minor-league baseball game and heckle at leisure.

For breakfast, we went to the Common Grill with Chris. It's a self-consciously 50s-style diner that serves a good vegetarian omelet. (This I find amusing.) Afterwards, we noodled around a bit, and then I sat down at my computer to write to Phelps, because she'd appeared in my dream: she'd come across a journaller who was sounding alarmingly suicidal and wanted my help in tracking down the writer in Real Life; she handed me a detailed list of all of the searches she'd tried so far. Being a dream, and therefore maddeningly discontinuous, it dissolved before I could do anything. A scene or two later, I was in the mystery journaller's ski-lodge style living room - it had huge windows and a pair of Copenhagen blue twin beds - and no sign of either Phelps or the missing journaller.

I completely forgot to report this to Phelps in the course of writing my reply - but as our mutually-beloved Dorothy L. Sayers observed (via Lord Peter Wimsey), telling one's dreams is the last word on egotism, so perhaps it's just as well that she only has to read about it once (here). Besides, I like her dream of the book-filled house with lemon trees much, much better. I also keep forgetting to congratulate her on Pedro Martinez's strikeout total to date: even though he didn't quite have the stamina to outlast the Big Bad Yankees tonight, it's still quite impressive, and better than any of my beloved, perennially doomed White Sox has managed so far.

Like Evilena, I'm rooting for the Detroit Red Wings in the hockey playoffs, although my favorite player is Chris Chelios. I'm not a bona-fide Detroit fan - I root for Chicago teams whenever possible (Chelios was captain of the Blackhawks from 1996-99) - but it's just more fun following the playoffs (hockey, baseball, whatevah) when one can choose a team to cheer on - or to revile. I was really unhappy during the Subway Series because I can't stand the Mets or the Yankees. Since I happen to know more Yankee fans than Mets devotees, I eventually found myself hoping not so much that the Mets would win but that the Yankees would lose.

Evilena's entry also reminded me that I haven't decided what to cook for dinner tomorrow. Maybe I'll serve some squid in honor of the Wings.

Phelps, Evilena and I all belong to a private mailing list where the pro- and anti- eggplant debates have become a running joke. I'm less active on the list than I used to be, but it was the first thing that came to my mind the instant I read "eggplant porn" on Shiitake's list of recent Google hits.

Evilena is to blame for directing me both to a really rad version of Romeo and Juliet and a Dennis Miller/Iron Chef quasi-tribute that had me quaking in my boots with awe. It's clear that my future is in "serious" writing - I don't have the unfettered genius to come up with stuff like this.

Or this, for that matter. (One of these days I'm going to break down and sink into an Ewan MacGregor videothon, even though the only thing I've seen him in is The Pillow Book. After all, celebrity crushes don't have to be any more rational than rooting for the White Sox.)

Other online reading: Bear's essay on labels. Viv's essay on superficial judgments.

Other online writing: More and more books for the library (call number: Duthie).

The friend called - she was too wiped from her PCAT exam to go a-walking. I figured I'd just take the walk by myself after I finished the tax returns, but then the BYM found the three chow puppies in the bushes.

Sigh. We don't need any dogs right now. We both work full-time and my cat enjoys being an only pet. So the BYM emailed the neighborhood list, and we'll see what happens from there. In the meantime, we've named them Larry, Curly and Moe. Larry is the scaredy one, his sister Curly is the smart one, and Moe is the bitey one.

They were so damn adorable chasing the BYM around the pond (so was the BYM, for that matter). I keep reminding myself that this house is not big enough for what will become three large dogs. That neither of us has time to raise a second pet properly, never mind a trio.

They're in our kitchen at the moment, snoozing. I'm going to post this and make another stab at finishing the tax returns. Once I'm done, I'll check on the dogs and let them out if they're up and restless. Then I'll get some sleep, and then get myself to church. I'm not making plans for the rest of the day. I want it to include at least one nap, a session of checkbook-balancing, and the collaboration entry that's been evolving in my brain for the past fortnight, but who knows? If the sun is shining, it's going to be tempting just to sit outside with the puppies, and, no matter what I do, I'll also have to stay awake long enough to reassure my cat that she's the bonniest cat ever (for indeed she is).