Let me just say how much I hate hipster bars. It’s all about appearances. At the Zoo, it’s all about community, and having fun, and just being around each other. At the Hipster Bar, it’s all about what clothes you’re wearing and what drink you’re having. –And hey, can you dance to this techno-remix? The overall feel is just one of separation; whereas in the Zoo, you’re bumping up against one another and sharing glances, not making them, and best of all, singing along!

I also have to report that our local Queer Center has moved it’s location. It used to be on the second-story of a building, which was not handicap accessible and not visible from the street unless you were looking for it. It’s now located on the first-floor of a building closer to the heart of the downtown, and has two large windows. We were given a tour tonight by a board member and let me just say, I’ll be the gal hanging out watching films while knitting. It feels comfortable there and I’m really glad they moved to a more prominent locale.

The thing I’ve learned tonight: it’s true, as you age everyone just gets more bloated, so why not just have fun together?

Today (Saturday) was Octoberfest for Greater Lafayette, Indiana, and it turned out to be a great turn-out. Most surprising for me was the number of Obama supporters. The Democrats (and Republicans) had a booth and sold campaign yard signs and the number of folks walking around with Obama signs FAR out-weighed the McCain signs. WHICH IS A REALLY GREAT THING.

I would rather have two individuals who know what the fuck they’re doing than an old guy who’ll, let’s face it, probably die while in office, leaving, let’s face it, again, an incompetent, inexperienced eye-winker/flirter.

Don’t fucking FLIRT with me—help me change our country!

4 more years of the last 8 year’s shit?!

I THINK NOT!

And tonight The Partner and I helped to celebrate a friend’s and my 28th birthday!

28!!

Late last year I knit a blanket for friends and this blanket was to be similar. That was my goal. The middle starting point didn’t appear to be the same, but I kept knitting on.

First blanket:

This blanket:

Anybody else notice that pinwheel-esque swirl?

Yeah. I obviously was yarn-overing at the wrong time, even though I was using stitch markers.

Live, knit, and learn, I suppose. It may have been more squared if I had had time to block it; I finished it the morning of the shower. Then again, there may have been no hope of giving it straight edges and pointy corners even with blocking. I received a lot of compliments on it, though, so right on.

The Partner, our friend Missy, and I crammed into Missy’s car the Friday before Vic’s birthday and drove out to Penn State. Missy and I took turns driving and I was really hoping it would go a lot better than last time, but no, Ohio still sucks to drive through. As we didn’t arrive at their place until early Saturday morning, we all pretty much went to bed as soon as we got there.

Saturday morning proper we ate breakfast, drove around a bit, then headed out to the bars.

Here’s the thing about State College/Penn State: a lot of the bars won’t let you drink the day of your 21st birthday.

I’m sure you’re probably thinking, “What the fuck ever.” But I am not kidding. I thought Vic was kidding when she told me. I thought the bartender at the first bar we went in was kidding when he said they wouldn’t serve her shots, only beer. But then he took Vic’s driver’s license and wrote all her info down, then he got out a fat permanent marker and put big X’s on her hands so she would be forever marked as a Celebratory 21-year-old. I questioned his sincerity again and he told me again he could only serve us shots, and not her, because it was her 21st birthday. Then I told him his bar could fuck off, we’d go elsewhere, because we did not just drive nine fucking hours from Indiana to celebrate her 21st birthday without any fucking birthday shots. In Indiana, I said, we give FREE birthday shots.

But nearly every bar, bar and grill, and restaurant with a bar refused to serve Vic liquor. Some would only serve her if it’s been 26 hours since her birthday. Some places would serve her beer but not liquor. One bouncer wouldn’t even let us in, telling us, “We can’t do a 21 tonight. We can’t let you in.” And in the whole fucking city I couldn’t find one bar that would serve me two shots at one time.

State College bar owners, you suck.

Once we resigned ourselves to having to walk around searching for the bars that would serve us, the night went pretty well.

View the entire set here, or at Flickr:

He pulls out a jug of lime-green margarita mix that’s probably been in the fridge since last summer and asks, “God, how long’s this been in here?” He puts it on the counter. Neither one of us bothers with the jug of yellow margarita mix that’s been in there for at least two years, nor the jug of sour mix that’s a year old. “These beans have been in there a while now, right?” The Partner takes out the bowl of beans/rice/eggs and puts it on the counter. The microwave dings.

We eat and watch S2E4 of the X-Files. Afterwards we get ready to walk the dog, me going upstairs to brush and floss, The Partner doing whatever in the kitchen. A couple minutes later he joins me in the upstairs bathroom to brush his teeth. “It was the beans that stunk,” he informs me while putting toothpaste on his brush, “I threw them away.”

While brushing I garble out, “Did you flush* them?” He garbles, “No, I put them in the garbage.” I shoot him a look, thinking he’s joking. I asked him again. He nods. I rinse my mouth out and say, “Seriously. Did you really put them in the garbage?” I’m sure I asked him a few more times, shoving him once or twice in the “get out of here!” manner.

I stare at him blankly.

“You’re fucking serious? You put rotting beans in the garbage can? It’s going to stink up the house! Plus, I just took out the garbage today! It’s a new bag!”

“I’ll take it out. I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

“Obviously! Why would you do that? Were you thinking, ‘Shit, I’ll just dump the stinking food into the new bag, the new bag that won’t have to be taken out for two weeks.’ What the fuck?”

“I guess. I don’t know!”

Later while on the walk he admits: “I did think about it when I dumped the beans into the garbage and they plopped on the bottom.”

_________
*Our garbage disposal is finicky and is currently not working.

The Partner: I can use whatever I want.

Me: No you can’t, not if you want your site to be accessible in the year thirty-one hundred.

The Partner: Did you just hear what you said?

Why Watching The L-Word in Sweat Pants Is NOT Better Than Us:

• We are REAL LIVE BEINGS!
• We are more REALISTIC than L-Word characters
• We most certainly do not make more than $50K/year
• We hardly ever have perfectly coiffed hair
• Our clothes are NOT designer labels,
• nor do we care if they are
• We sell our art for $50-$300
• We won’t cheat on you with the carpenter
• We won’t cheat on you, period.
• Sweat pants? You really think L-Word characters will take you in sweat pants?? Fuck no. WE, HOWEVER, WILL.
• Movie producer? WhoTF here is a movie producer?
• High-class LA/NY art galleries? Fuck that, we got high-class Lafayette galleries, complete with FREE WINE!
• Where the fuck were you?
• Goddamnit.
• WTF?

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We got home around 1:30-2:00AM and, having been in the car for a short while, I took the dog out back to do his stuff. Looking around at our Outside Stuff (things such as a grill, an outdoor fire pit thing, plant stand, bicycles), I notice the dirt outline on the patio of where The Partner’s bike usually sits. And its sans bike. I look around, thinking perhaps someone moved it, but there’s only the regular stuff and my bike.

“Babe, your bike’s gone.”

“What?”

“I don’t see your bike.”

“What?!”

The Partner went outside to search the yard, thinking a bike by the neighbors might have been his, but found nothing.

“Someone stole my bike.”

The Partner’s bike worked, although it was shitty and most likely needed air in the tires. I took my bike seat off right before winter hit, so that probably made mine less appealing. We bought them maybe four or five years ago at a big box store. Our compact four-door could only fit one at a time, so I had to drive home with one bike, wrangle it out of the car, then drive back to get The Partner and the other bike.

I can’t believe someone stole it. Right out of our backyard even. The past two mornings I’ve gone downstairs and looked to see if anything else has been stolen in the night. It’s Spring Break for the university, so either someone really did steal it, thinking all the students would be gone, or someone thought it would be funny to take our shitty big box bike.

While The Partner feels dejected and we’re both rather pissed our stuff isn’t safe outside right by our back door, we have been planning on buying new bikes for the spring—decent bikes from our local bicycle shop downtown—and this sort of forces us to start planning it out now. Still.

If you could hear The Partner when he says, looking sadly out the back door, “My bike was stolen”, your heart would weep, just a little.

Today, however, was an extremely foggy day. The two-to-three inches of snow we got Sunday night did not like the Monday warm up. Our drive home this early evening was INSANE, with near-zero visibility mixed with semis and idiot SUV drivers attempting to go 75MPH. I’ve driven through whiteouts and heavy fog before, but never anything that lasted more than 30 minutes. It was I-can’t-fucking-see-a-damn-thing-foggy the ENTIRE drive home. My nerves were completely shot by the time I turned the car onto our road.

The upshot is that most of the snow from last week melted, and even though our backyard is now a lake, I’ll take it.