Great week / terrible week

Wednesday night, I went with Bobby's cousin Charity to see Leonard Cohen at the Rose Garden. I knew several other people who were floating around in the venue, but didn't see any of them. Leonard Cohen played for nearly four hours. He ran onto the stage, and skipped merrily back and forth from the backstage area. He sang on his knees. He thanked us profusely for attending, and performed all of my favorite songs. At this point, I am unaccustomed to attending shows without furiously scribbling in my notebook the entire time. I got to be a civilian observer for this one, though, and sat silently captivated on the edge of my seat. For some reason, there were a pair of ox-like meatheads seated behind me. They talked loudly during several songs, and made some comment about Liberace during "Chelsea Hotel #2." I turned around to give them the stink-eye, and they finally relented. I'll not have my Leonard Cohen experience, for which I paid $50 to sit in the nosebleed section, sullied by a pair of troglodytes. Obnoxious patrons aside, it was an incredible performance that defies description. This may have been my favorite part. The video isn't from the night I attended, but it's the same delivery.



Thursday turned out terribly stressful, and I got rained on when walking back to work from the food carts, so I spent the day looking like a drowned rat. Kelly and I were supposed to hang out after work, and the torrential downpour made us decide to get out of the Pearl and go somewhere on the Eastside. We were driving down a flooded Hoyt Street when the drainage system overloaded and sent a manhole cover floating down the block. Kelly's front tire went into the exposed drain, but she drove out of it. The rear tire slipped in, though, and got the car stuck. She told me to drive while she pushed the car out of the hole, and we were able to free it. However, the front tire had blown. We abandoned the car and walked down to Low Brow to wait out the rain until her tow truck arrived.

Kelly's insurance called her away to deal with her car, and I didn't want to be the pathetic person hanging out alone in a bar. The rain had let up, and I posted something on Facebook about being stranded downtown. As I was getting on the bus to go home, I got a text from Jonathan, who lives in the neighborhood and promised me a ride home if I wanted to go hang out. Despite having paid for the bus, I climbed back off and walked over to his building. We sat at Yur's for a while until Conor finished work, then went to pick him up on our way back to my house where wine and Rock Band awaited. Bobby made me dinner, and I ended up spilling red wine on my last clean pair of pants while gesturing wildly to retell the tale of the car and the sewer. Went upstairs to change before playing some Rock Band with the gentlemen. Bobby, the sneak, caught a video of me trying (and failing) to play the drum part for the first time, but is kind enough to keep the video to himself.

Friday I wore a skirt to work out of necessity. No time to tackle my massive laundry pile all week. Was supposed to cover The Head and the Heart at Doug Fir, and was to be accompanied by Bobby, Conor, and Jonathan. However, the show was canceled at the last minute and we ended up at Ron Toms. Ron Toms was packed full of people, many of whom were attending an ugly christmas sweater party, and we decided to head over to Dots for the remainder of the evening. Dots was strangely dead for 11:00 on a Friday night, and therefore much more conducive to chatting about all manner of things: John Waters; my bad luck with Darren Aaronofsky films; and jokes about serving beers to bears in bars in Billings, Montana. A much-needed mellow end to the week. Not to mention, Sephora emailed me to tell me my Urban Decay Woodstock eyeshadow was back in stock, so that's on its way to me now.

Today, I have nothing on the schedule except Ladies Rock Camp karaoke around 9:00. It'll be nice to see those folks again. Tomorrow: breakfast and putting a dent in my stack of remaining holiday card addressees. Here's hoping for a less stressful upcoming week. Oh and I finally got to do my laundry. Clean pants for days.