Moon over unincorporated areas of Anaheim

The full moon probably does cause more crimes and craziness. It just makes a person feel weird having that big glowing orb up there. And here it was a warm summer night the week after the schools got out. Looney tunes.

I saw at least five bicyclists without light or helmet, heard a call on the fire radio about an accident, and then saw the emergency people rushing to the scene after one of the bicyclists was run over down by the Frog House.

I saw a guy just standing on the top of a bus shelter, looking reflective.

Punk Rock Tom told us the story of how he had a blowout in the work truck and slammed into the safety rail on an overpass. He was bleeding from the chin and trying to cut the rim off to get loose of the rail when the Metro guys came and forced a tow off, then dumped him in a parking lot in Carson which was full of CHUDs. He duct taped his chin wound shut and finished the repair so the CHUDs wouldn’t steal his tools. Punchline is that he didn’t consider the stitches in his chin to be an injury and wouldn’t have told the story at all unless we’d insisted. An injury for Tom is a broken leg from skateboarding. Tom has a ’52 Ford Victoria which he has sculpted into a genuinely beautiful work of art. He had to cut the steering wheel to a half moon shape because otherwise he was always bobbing his head to see out the slit-like front window.

The “Fritz’s That’s Too” strip club had a marquee sign that communicated: IT’S “DUCK” SEASON! Yes, the name of the place is “Fritz’s That’s Too.”

I think tonight was also Some Kind of High School Party because the county was full of nervously glamorous teenaged girls dressed in their first grown-up summer night out dresses.

I am reading Burton’s Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah. It is a magical book and this is the fourth time I’ve dived into it.

even a baby sloar is kind of big

Set aside your troubles, we haven’t been murdalized by a giant CGI asteroid.
Of course we have at least 99 problems to set aside.
One of our problems is making sure the Dewey Decimal number for porches is correct.
Kevin recommends that you stalk yourself annually to find out what everyone else already knows.
Evangelical Christianity and American right-wing party politics have become almost an identity, but one pastor was willing to give up one for the other, even at great personal and professional cost. His book and other writings and audio are on his church’s website.
If you’re, like, a total bitch, you should use Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound.

Today all of the subject lines on my craigslist feeds are Smiths songs, somehow:

TIFFANY HARVEY WHERE ARE YOU MY DAUGHTER
Missed something (OC to Hellman)
red running shorts
To chastity from deja vu
Exhausting all means (Irvine)
Sweetie with herpes

Pugs not drugs

The “johari window” mostly has complimentary or at least non-pejorative adjectives in it. This is good because people are more likely to be honest if they don’t have to avoid bad adjectives (capricious, drunk, totaly retarted) and partly because it’s less likely to cause fist fights.

Unsurprisingly the person with the least complimentary set of adjectives chose a pseudonym.

At the Ralphs tonight someone had brought an entire binder of coupons. It went on and on and on. There was only one checker. Coupons Galore was a large round young woman with a blonde ponytail, accompanied by a short round young woman and a large goofy guy with hair all over the place. They looked like they were on their way to an Insane Clown Posse show or just to get arrested. But she was a coupon nut. The poor checker was starting to lose his cool, and the line was stacking up. The guy behind me cracked “Coupons are illegal after midnight”. It went on and on. A few minutes later the dark-haired woman shot me an angry look and mumbled at me. “Eh?” I said. “It’s just COUPONS. What’s funny?” I said “I have no problem with coupons.” “Well what’s so FUNNY?” The guy behind me said “Coupons are funny.” She made him repeat it twice and then said “WELL WE COME IN HERE AFTER MIDNIGHT BECAUSE WE FIGURE NO ONE’S HERE.” She was looking at me for some reason, and I recalled now that she was glaring at me in the aisles earlier too. And now she was getting all street, yo, and throwing some Angry Mexican Girl vibe. “If you don’t give me any attitude I won’t give you any, how’s that?” I asked cheerfully.

Then another checker arrived and we all went to him. The end.

In the horrible mall down by where Bave and Dethya live, the one that looks like the Sherman Oaks Gallery turned into a half-solved Lament Configuration, there is an “italian” restaurant called, no joke, VER-SA-CHEE.

I love sitting at the bar at D’s chatting with Michelle. She’s so great.