No karaoke tonight, saddly.

No karaoke with my friend's mother-in-law tonight, saddly - the other few people going dropped out, and he and his wife thought they could definitely make it but weren't sure when depending on how long it took to get the mother-in-law back from the airport, and if she was tired she wasn't going, so I just chucked the whole thing in favor of going out with other friends. Oh well, there's always next time.

I did have a fun time at hipster karoake last time, though. The buck-toothed host recognized me and was psyched when I opened up with "Chiquitita", though the tight Swedish harmony did me in, and I got thrown by the fact that they did away with the instrumental beginning... It's just too hard to hold down the melody when you have these Swedish women singing harmony octaves above you. It's almost liked the time I sucked it up on "Ruby Tuesday" and fought valiantly against the harmony, though not quite.

For my second song, I did Barry Maguire's "Eve of Destruction", and I was *on*, especially since I had canvassed for Obama that morning and really felt the social commentary on lines like:

think of all the hate/
there is in Red China/
then take a look around/
at Selma Alabama

On lines like "my blood's so mad/ feels like coagulatin'" I felt something too, but I'm not sure what. But, I had a great time singing it, and did so emphatically, and in tune.

The night, however, fell apart from there. There was a roller derby team in there, and like three of the big, bruised-up chicks sang this really self-absorbed rendition of "Paradise City", where they were all singing and shouting together, which is nice as team-building exercise, but sucks it up for everyone else. My friends kept poking me for saying "This is total shit!" too loud, though I'm not sure if it's because they were embarrassed or they thought the roller derby chicks might overhear and come fuck me up.

Also, these two short fat hipster girls with dark dyed hair and pale tits all falling out of their shirts were standing behind me and my friends, and they said I did a good job after "Eve of Destruction", then we started talking and one of them said that they had rented out the American Legion post and the same karaoke host for one of their birthday parties, and how they all sang till 4am since they paid to keep the place open. We talked then about how fun karaoke was, and I at one point started telling them my theory of karaoke, and then all of a sudden, one of them was like, "Hey, we're those jackasses!", and then it was just awkward so I went back to drinking with my friends, and was embarrassed.

Later I went up to see where my one friend's name was - one of my friends I was with sang "The Safety Dance"; it's the only song he ever sings at karaoke, and though back when he used to live in Iowa he gave it up, he would go into bars there and they would call out his name and make him come up and have the song all cued up for him, all without him putting in a slip or anything, which was embarrassing for him but much better than our night went at hipster karaoke since the song's intro was gone just like with "Chiquitita", only the song's intro had some fun singing parts unlike the "Chiquitita" intro, which was all instrumental -- and it was way down the list, but the host asked me if I wanted to go ahead. I guess he lets regulars skip to the front of the line, and anyone who pays him $2, and anyone to whom he gives a "skip to the front of the line" card after you sing a really good song, or do something really nice for him.

Only, it was getting late, and I was uncomfortable with the in-group/out-group dynamics such a hierarchy of singers creates, so I politely refused. I've been to places like that before, and it's divisive in a major way, so I'm not going to do it, no not one bit.

That night, I had a dream that I was walking down a steep cobblestone street between the closely set whitewashed walls of a rural Italian village somewhere in the mountains, and up on these steep steps leading down from a door to a house where the two big-titted hipster girls dressed in long bright white robes. They were selling relics, I knew, even though I didn't see any, and they looked down at my glaringly, and I knew I had hurt their feelings by describing them as karaoke jackasses.

This morning I had a big scabby booger on the far outside of my left nostril, too. I picked it out and ate it.

Songs / Overheard conversation.

When I woke up this morning, you know what song I had in my head?

Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head"!

Yesterday it was the 'suicidal'-refrain of Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls", which is never a good song to be overheard humming to yourself around my campus, what with the not infrequent student suicides.

Walking into school today, there was this tall 20s white girl walking between a white guy her age and a 30-something serious-looking black woman, and I overheard this snippet of conversation from the white girl:

"...neti pot? I use one all the time..."

Friday karaoke.

So this guy I know and his wife have been really excited about going to karaoke... They both used to do it occasionally when they were single, but since they've been newlyweds, they haven't gone out at all, and since they found out about this good "last Friday of every month" karaoke at the gyros lounge downtown, they've been psyched and have had it on their calendars and have been planning ahead for it for like ever.

Anyhow, though, I ran into the guy yesterday, and he told me again that he and his wife are both really psyched for karaoke this Friday, but his mother-in-law is coming into town unexpectedly.

"Well," I was like, "A friend invited me to some other shit that wouldn't be as cool, so I could go do that, and some other friends of mine might be coming to karaoke too, so no matter what happens, I'm going to have plans for Friday night, so do what you need to do with entertaining your mother-in-law and don't feel bad about dropping out, we'll just plan for next month."

"Actually," he was like, "She wants to come along too, she loves karaoke. Is that cool with you?"

2 comments and an etymology.

Today I pulled out a red-and-white striped shirt and my khaki shorts and was going around in that and a hoodie and some sandals, and on the way to school I passed by two middle-aged black women, and the one, who was slightly overweight and had a big smile on her face and a haircut kind of like Halle Berry, just said to me as I was walking by, "My, don't you look summer-y!"

Yesterday morning when I was roaming the local CVS in desperation at 9am looking at their toasters since the hardware store didn't have the model I liked and I was like the only customer in the store, I came out of the hardware/homewares aisle to almost run into this early 30s good-looking black woman holding her hands out and running towards her co-worker and being like, "Hey there, girl, how you doing!" We both kind of laughed knowingly, since that was a moment I wasn't supposed to see, being the only white person around.

Also, today I found out that the Spanish region Andalusia gets its name from the 5th century "Vandal" occupation.

Hipster kickball.

Hipster kickball was different. There was this Asian girl in black dressing and a wispy white dress with shoulder straps who was pitching, and the guys on their team all had those jeans that way narrow down the legs. A lot of the people were smoking, and for some reason a large portion of the hipster guys were Jewish, as I found out from comments like, "Nice play, Noah," and, "Way to kick a home run, Elias." Those comments, too, made me look differently at the hipster guys with ambiguous names like "Joshua" and "Jacob".

None of the girls seemed particularly Jewish, though, though one who was tall was chunked up and built solid with big tits and dyed hair and wore black stretch pants and a sleeveless turtle neck of that not-quite-hot-pink color popular among the sleeveless gowns of late 60s girl groups. That girl was a decent first base man, and I got her out once (though not by pegging).

What an evening!!!

I forgot that I had planned to meet a Belgian guy I know from Classics for a beer outside at the one outdoor beer patio in my neighborhood at like 4:30pm, and then I just ran into an undergrad I know from one of my classes who invited me to a kickball game at 5:30pm that's hipsters vs. anti-hipsters.

"Come along," he was like, "Maybe you'll get lucky with a kick and hit a hipster." He quickly qualified and was said that all the hipsters were his friends and they worked at one coffee shop on campus, and it was him and some other of his friends versus them, but I liked the way he advertised the game, since you could tell he was just keen to maybe whack a hipster too.

In any case, I'm definitely going - nothing like having a beer or two and getting a buzz and then playing some kickball on a nice day and whacking a hipster a good one. I hope to knock a guy's trucker cap off, or maybe nail a fat hipster girl in the chest and make her tit pop out of her bra. The hipster girls are fat ones, they are.

Backpacks toasters and waste.

Everyday I see people around campus with a small satchel or no backpacks, and I'm always like, "Who are these people who can go around campus all day with no shit to lug around?"

My toaster broke a few days ago, so I've been microwaving my bread in the morning as a stop-gap measure. It's crusty and heated and yeasty in all the wrong ways, and just the smell of it is enough to make me vomit even before I slap on some hummus and the smell of both blends with that of the strong coffee I always drink every morning to start off the day, but I'm not sure what else to do. I went to the hardware store today to buy a new toaster, but they only had white plastic ones except for the black-and-chrome display model, and while did want that model toaster to match my 50s chrome kitchen I didn't want to get the display model since it might be messed up, so now I have to wait till Friday till they get more toasters in.

Looking at toasters put me on a home improvement kick, though, so this morning I hunted down two clear shower curtains and threw out my old white, opaque moldy ones, and my bathroom is already filled with a soft natural light coming in from the frosted window in the bathroom. All I need now is a bathmat, a toaster, and ten of those clear-zipper bags old ladies store afghans in for my ten sweaters I need to store away for the summer, and I'm all set with my apartment for a while.

But, throwing away my toaster and my shower curtains this morning almost killed me. I'm just not used to throwing away a massive amount of shit at one time. Since I've had my Danish haven, the throwing out of stuff (toasters, shower curtains, sponges) has just killed me. I always wonder how people live with themselves who throw out a lot of shit everyday, or very frequently. They must not think about it or not just give a fuck.