First Avenue Kind of Sucks (or, Leah shows that she is getting progressively lamer and has settled into her later 20s)

I saw a show at First Avenue a few weeks back. I saw the same band the next night at a place in Chicago. I didn't think First Avenue was that bad until I experienced pretty much the same show the next night. And this has nothing to do with "Gosh, Chicago is so cool and Minneapolis is so lame." It's just about First Avenue. The place in Chicago was built more like the Fine Line, long and narrow, with a creepy wood floor that felt like it might cave in. But the key word: wood. Wood floors are good for people who stand for 3 hours to see a show. I have experimented with many different shoes in my days at First Avenue, and they always ache when I'm through. Not just "wow, my feet ache after shopping all day," a true, "wow, my feet are throbbing and pulsate when I lift them up," the way they throb and ache when you're in high school and work at a gas station or grocery store where you have to stand all day.

So that's the first thing, the floor (I would complain about the fact that shows could just as well start at 9, instead of doors at 8, show at 9, but not really 9, becuase there are two openers before the band you came to see, which means they won't go on until about 11:30, despite the fact that it's a Thursday and you have to go to work the next day. I would complain about that, but I can't, because that is pretty much all venues these days, not just First Avenue).

Second thing: the noise. First Avenue has never really understood volume control. So when the place is not fire-marshal packed to the gills, they leave the volume up as if it is. Without all the extra flesh in the room to absorb it, the sound is truly ear shattering. My ears literally throbbed, kind of like my feet, for a few hours after the show was over.

Third thing: the people. This is nothing against the people who work there (though it's astounding to me that they seem to only hire weirdly pierced and tattooed people, when most of the bands there are not at all punk or indie or bucking the system...lots of them are actually quite mainstream and cities 97ish). And it's actually not even against the people who go there on a semi regular basis (myself included). It's more that by virtue of it being one of the slightly larger venues without bumping all the way to a theatre show, there are more people there, thus a higher likelihood to have annoying people there. The venue is just big enough that it's fairly easy to get tickets without paying a whole lot. One more capacity step up to a theater show increases the ticket price to $35 or so, instead of $18 or $20. And going to first avenue is a closer approximation to "going out" than going to a sit-down seating locale, such as the state or the pantages. Likewise, because the venue is still a club and not a theater, it's a good middle step for bands. That means that they probably have had one or two mainstream hits that have attracted just enough people who say, "Oh my gosh! I totally love that one song!" get tickets, and then proceed to talk through the entire show, except when that one song comes on (I'm not trying to knock a particular show or anything, but Grey's Anatomy has MURDERED otherwise good shows with their clientele showing up because Meredith had some display of emotion with a chosen song just before the credits play). With less mainstream songs, they'd stay at the Varsity or the Fine Line, with just a few more, they'd bump up to the State or Pantages Theatre.

See, I thought this out. I'm lame, but with good reason.

Maybe Trix really are for kids

So there was this great deal on cereal the other day. Buy 6 boxes, get $10 off. I figured that would bring my cost of box down to $1.50 or so, and who can pass that up? (I eat cereal every morning, so six boxes isn't that much...I can finish one in a week). I had a few extra coupons too, but there are only so many variations of cheerios one can buy (I was limited to a specific brand). So after three boxes of cheerios (multigrain, original, and their new crunch vareity), kix, golden grahams (a guilty pleasure), what was I left with? Behold, there is Trix. And for those of you who have not been paying attention to innovations in cereal, they have changed the Trix shape BACK to ordinary circles. I have not eaten Trix since they changed to the fruit shapes (cuts up the roof of your mouth).

I did have a bowl for breakfast this morning. They turned my milk pink. And after dinner tonight, I had another bowl because it was the closest thing we had in the house to dessert. And I haven't even mentioned the TOY that came in the box. When was the last time you got a toy with your breakfast? It's been quite a while for me.

The slog begins

I had a glorious month off. No classes. Just coming home after work, reading whatever I wanted to. It was nice. I start class again now, but a change in plans has me only taking one class (not two), potentially one more in the summer, and then starting graduate school in the fall. the G word. Speaking of, I should probably make sure I know deadline dates and all that stuff... My new class has exactly one final, one midterm (short answer and multiple choice), one quiz, and one three page paper. Is that the best assignment list you've ever heard or what? And a big YAY for the professor that chooses modern texts instead of something theoretical written in 1765.

I went to Arizona last weekend. It was nice and warm there and kick ass freezing here. It was still kick ass freezing when we got home, too. But we brought grapefruit! Has there ever been a more perfect fruit to grow on a tree than grapefruit? I dare you to tell me what.

I attended my first spinning class on Wednesday night. I've been a regular exerciser off and on for 5 years now. I started out running a few miles every day when I lived in Winona. I clung to running for awhile, until I realized that I hated it. I still find it very triumphant...but the actual doing of it just sucks. I get weird hip pain, too, so last summer I switched to biking home from work, which is multi-tasking and much easier on the hips. This winter, I go to the gym two or three times a week for intense cardio with a friend (intense because she's in way better shape than me and I have to act like I can keep up, and I would feel dumb if I quit, whereas normally I just stop when I think what I'm doing it not fun) and loads of weight lifting (which I actually love...no sweating, but still working. It's perfect). So spinning is on this special kind of resistance bike...I don't get what makes it different from others. It's easier to change the resistance I suppose. But it's kind of like hell. It's cool because the instructor is like CONQUERING THIS HILL IS LIKE CONQUERING YOUR OWN FEARS! YOU ARE ALL HEROS! But there comes a point in my life where I let fear get the best of me if it's like climbing a hill at level ten for THREE MINUTES. What ever happened to short climbs? Small victories? Maybe next class. On top of it being like hell, your ass will ache for three days, even if you do wear padded bike shorts.

The slog is over!!

I finished my four credit class on social theory tonight. Final over! Papers over! Christmas nearly here!

To celebrate, I did something that I likely would have done the first time I was in college. Any guesses? I ate a whole bowl of sauteed mushrooms. No steak, just mushrooms. Quite possibly my favorite food. And I realized tonight that just because I'm a respectable adult who married a pretty good cook, there is no reason I should not be eating random bowls of sauteed mushrooms more often.

Christmas cookies are kind of like rabbits. Nice to see, good to eat, even, but they MULTIPLY like you would not believe. Work has been well fed, as well as anyone else who's come by our house. "EAT A COOKIE," I beg. If you come over, you too would be offered cookies. What can I say, I was in a cookie bake of my own, was invited to a cookie exchange, and then merely ATTENDED a cookie bake where I had nothing reasonable to offer, and they still gave me a few plates worth.

Maybe the presence of cookies can make up for the lack of other displayed spirit around here. no tree (by choice). no wreath or any other display (by sheer time passing more quickly than I think it ought to. And it's cold outside).

Tonight there is a vikings game. My bus to the train would not drive me by the train because of this. I had to walk two blocks through the midst of viking fans. They were everywhere. The train came, so I thought, but they wouldn't let us on that train...it was out of service from that point forward. The fans swarmed out. They went to climb the fence. I backed up, thinking I was not in front of the bench. I was. I was forced to sit down when I ran into the bench with the back of my legs. My Upass got smushed as I sat down with my hand weirdly gripping it. It broke in half. It no longer lets me get on the train free. I hope I have money on my old bus pass, or it might be a long walk tomorrow morning.

Recent observations:

Possums are mysterious. It's like seeing a dragon. I saw one in person the other day as I walked to the bus. It was awesome.

Buying pants on ebay may or may not be a good idea. In my case, at least this week, the "may not" part.

It was REALLY cold today.

Reality shows are kind of like cocaine. There is this guy who talks about cocaine in the History Channel series: "Hooked: Illegal drugs and how they got that way" (which I would recommend to anyone; it's totally fascinating stuff). He says that you'll never irradicate a problem that has a 17000% profit margin. No matter how serious the penalty, the promise of that much return on your investment will never stop it from being imported. If you watch the section from the same series on opium and learn about public executions in China, you may disagree with that statement. But after seeing "Trick my Trucker" on CMT the other day, I've become convinced. If you can pay out $2500 in gas money and that's your only real cost for "talent" in a half hour show, why would you ever think it's worthwhile to pay people $1 million or more per episode, even if it was as successful as Friends or Seinfeld?

Not that I'm being all anti reality tv. I watch reality tv. I actually really like Survivor. And the Amazing Race. Obviously, I've been known to see "trick my trucker" (gave myself away on that one). And who could resist a good episode of "flip this house?" Pretty much no one.

A knock at the back door

This is a true story. I was watching Court TV and reading stuff on the internet about the Caledonia Jane Doe (a girl who was found shot in 1979 in New York and never been identified). Kyle was gone. There was a knock at the back door. We have an enclosed court yard, so the only people (in theory) who could knock at the back door would be someone who lived in the complex. Or a bad guy. because I'm watching Court TV and reading about murders, so I was admittedly creeped out (note: this happens often. I just about peed myself one time in college watching a documentary about the zodiac killer on a sunny Sunday afternoon when my roommate came home early). It was indeed a neighbor, who had received a phone call from the hospital telling her to come get her boyfriend (who was there for an unknown reason). She was not quite sober enough to drive and asked if I could give her a ride. SInce I didn't have a car, I said I could drive her car, if she was okay with that.

A trip to HCMC, and oops. She had wrong information. She couldn't pick him up quite yet, but at least she found out what was wrong. Just a little too much to drink (or probably a lot too much) and a subsequent fight while taking a certain mode of public transportation.

I'm glad I don't have enough drama in my life that I have to read about other drama on the internet. Or inherit a little from my neighbor.

Lasagna Inspiration

I met my husband over lasagna. The dish has sentimental value to me. This morning, going through the Sunday ads, I saw this amazing picture of 9 layer lasagna at Macaroni Grill. Initially, I thought, "I must find a reason and a friend to go to Macaroni Grill to eat this masterpiece." About three seconds later, I thought, "Hey, it's a Sunday afternoon. I could probably make this myself."

Heck yeah I could! So it wasn't nine layers, but it cost me $9.31 in ingredients and produced TWELVE pieces of Lasagna. Woo!

My other achievement of this weekend: finally conquering the stick shift. My car has been sold for about 6 months now, and I generally take the bus or train or bike everywhere. But there are those occaisions where I need to go somewhere that K doesn't really want to go or doesn't need to. Generally, he drives me anyway. It's that bad, folks. I never learned how to drive a stick and now that I've put in 10 years just hitting gas for go, it's hard to do that much thinking when you're driving.

I spent time this summer practicing on my dad's ancient 4 speed truck, which was significantly harder to drive than our mazda so the mazda should be easy, right? WRONG. The 4 speed truck is driven out in the middle of no where, and the only thing worse than taking a good 15 seconds to get started at a stop light is having three people behind you revving up, waiting for you to go. And then you panic nad then you kill it and then they are more impatient and they rear end you. Or at least, I'm always nervous about getting rear ended.

But yesterday, there was a girly gathering 35 miles north. I wanted to go. Kyle did not want to go. It was time for the training wheels to come off. And I made it. I made it there and I made it home. There were minor crisises on both trips (traffic, stop and go, unexpected stop lights, getting minorly lost, etc.) But I really think I have finally conquered the beast. Go me. I even bought myself some cheesy popcorn to celebrate.

Further clarification on earliest posts:

When I said I couldn't believe I had been married a year, it was disbelief because time had gone so quickly, NOT because K is horrible to live with and we should have broken up by now. Not that at all, just the time flying thing.

The super sweet camera kyle got me is a Sony Cyber Shot....um....there are some specifications too that would probably better explain...12.1 something? It's nice.