my moral standing is lying down

But hey look, this is what happened tonight (Patrick was actualfax this close. *_____* http://lockerz.com/s/156835692), and it was the best possible follow-up to fun times earlier today!

I took video of my two favorites, Everybody Wants Somebody and Run Dry (X Heart X Fingers), plus his impromptu cover of Steve Goodman's The City of New Orleans! I'm currently uploading them to my youtube and linking from my tumblr, so check back in a few hours!

After the show I actually got to ask him "...so what's next?" and he started answering like, this was the last stop on the tour, there's nothing else scheduled, etc., but I said, "no, no, I mean, what's your next style of music?" I had wanted to explain that I was referencing this interview he'd given where he implied he wanted to do all different styles -- the one where he says he did the R&B album first because doing it when you're older is kind of creepy -- but there was a long line and although Patrick would've stopped to chat with everyone, the security was rushing us all through pretty quickly. But then he went and tweeted this a little later and I can't help but think that it was in response to my question (though tbf probably other fans asked it too?). I'm going to just go on believing it was all me.

merelyn got a quick photo for me, though, and I'm really quite pleased at how it turned out! =DDD




Hey, did I ever post about the P!ATD M&G I got to go to at the Philly show? ALSKDJFALSJFLSAJFLSAJ I'll post about that next (even though it's been almost two weeks now).

I've really got to get back into the habit of posting again, I really hate going a whole week without checking my flist and then having to play catch-up and missing awesome things like music friending memes and M&G/concert reports, and then also having like a million things to update about, too. So here goes.

Drove down to Philly on Tuesday so Juliet and I could get inked. This was also THE DAY OF THE DC EARTHQUAKE WTF. Juliet had to take the bus back that night so Nicole did her first; I stayed over and she did me and I drove back to NYC on Wednesday afternoon. So actually, these weren't as painful as the chest tats I had done a couple years ago (and didn't take as long, either -- 5 hours altogether instead of 8), but the aftermath has been way worse. My upper arms are very swollen, which is sometimes uncomfortable and sometimes very painful; I've got heat rash from the humidity like you wouldn't believe. Don't even ask me to describe it because it's horrible and icky and you don't want to know. The redness probably won't go away for another two weeks, but I'm hoping the swelling will lessen soon because it SUCKS. And also I've got a fucking P!ATD concert to go to on Thursday and I'm going to be on the fucking rail if it kills me. Which, let's face it, it won't, because it's a P!ATD concert and I'll have to restrain myself from popping 15-year olds in the face, but maybe I can find a bunch of guys and convince them to start a mosh pit with me. LOLZ.

Anyway, I'm not posting pics of the back-of-the-arm tats til they look better. But here's a pic of the third one, on my right forearm. A prize for you if it rings a bell:



The other big news of the day is that I'M GOING TO INDONESIA FOR SIX WEEKS!!! Um, yeah. So, I'm currently unemployed and I've got relatives there that I can stay with for free and a dollar goes a LOT farther there than here, so... yeah. I'm sort of SUPER EXCITED and also like, SIX FUCKING WEEKS, WTF. But I mean, I've meant to go to Indonesia for a couple of years now and what better time to go than when I don't actually have to take vacation days to do it? Liz is going to come with for 10 days at the beginning and then leave to go back to work. I'm ecstatic over that because while I still would've gone, it just wouldn't be the same without her. And meeting a hundred relatives for the first time, most of whom don't speak English, will be a lot less intimidating and a lot easier to handle when we've got each other. =D

You know what's going to be the weirdest? I'm going to a place where I will BLEND IN WITH THE NATIVES. Think about that for a second. And I don't mean that I will, really, because I'm sure I'll be dressed differently and relatively easily-identified as a foreigner (or a freak), but-- I could theoretically just disappear into the crowd. I've never, NEVER, looked like anyone else. In NYC there are so many ethnicities -- and I've only ever lived in areas that have extremely diverse populations (Queens is really good at that) -- but the Indonesian population here is relatively small and I've never really been part of it and I've NEVER looked like everyone else. This whole idea is sort of freaking me out!

So, two things of note:

1. Indonesia is 11 HOURS AHEAD. Which means, tweeps, that I will try to stalk your twitters anyway and DON'T LEAVE ME OUT OF ANY IMPORTANT CONVOS OR UPDATES, OR I WILL BE VERY DISSAPOINT. #wolfpack
   
   
2. Do you or someone you trust happen to be looking for a room in NYC to sublet for 4-6 weeks? If so, please point them my way!

To reiterate: INDONESIA. SIX WEEKS.
Spencer Smith is now going to demonstrate how I feel:






ETA:...oh yeah, that whole itinerary thing I meant to post:

Friday 09/09/11:
CX 841 JFK 10:05 → HKG 14:05
CX 719 HKG 16:00 → CGK 19:40 (arrive Saturday evening)
[22.5 hours travel time]

Monday 10/24/11:
CX 798 CGK 00:05 → HKG 05:50
CX 830 HKG 09:20 → JFK 13:10
[24 hours travel time]

THEY ARE SO CUUUUUUTE. I somehow started watching Merlin behind the scenes videos again. OH GOD. THEY ARE JUST IRRESISTIBLY CUTE. CANNOT STOP. SEND HELP. (In this case, "help" may also mean "enabling via minimerlin".)

Here, watch Uther being the BAMFiest BAMF who ever BAMFed. Shown to me by spuffyduds. Seriously, Tony Head is fucking amazing. And Spuff, seriously, you need to watch Repo! the Genetic Opera!!!




( OMG AND THEN THERE WERE JGL'S HIPBONES. THEY ARE SO BITABLE. SO VERY VERY BITABLE. )

If we have NA on Wednesday at WR, I'll be able to meet up after class. If NA is this Thursday I won't be able to make it as I'm going to meet up with a few old friends after work at the highly praised Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden in Astoria for food/drinks.

If anyone is interested in joining me at the Beer Garden on Thursday, you're more than welcome. It's right off the Astoria Blvd stop on the N/W line, which is about a 20-25 minute train ride to/from the midtown area.


( philly recap )

Anyway, I leave you with this quick cell phone pic of my new tat. It says "w;t", because I like the word "wit": what it means and how it's used. The semi-colon is a reference to John Donne poetry (which I love), by way of this play (which I saw when I was 17 or 18, and also love).

We went to the Eastern State Penitentiary and it was really freaking amazing! It was SOOO cold and the penitentiary is unheated and the tour goes in and out throughout the grounds, so it was kind of crazy cold. But it was really an amazing sight and we have all agreed that we NEED to come back after April 1st when they have their "regular format" where you get to roam the grounds at will.

The suckiest thing, though, is that a good portion of my photos from the later part of the tour are corrupt. Don't know how that happened since neither the camera nor the memory card have ever done that before, but I can't open the files at all. Does anyone think they can somehow recover the files? There are a couple of photos that I'm really really really sad to be missing out on. ;_;

So I had the expected two hours of sleep, got on the bus at Port Authority and we were in Philly at 10:30am. Picked up the car and went into the city. South Street feels kind of like Haight Street in San Francisco. But more diverse, so actually kind of interesting and funny. Lots of sex shops, clothing shops. We went into a goth/rock/punk store that had moved around the corner from its previous location -- where it had been since 1980, apparently one of the first punk stores in the nation. Supposedly they'd opened one year before Trash & Vaudeville on St. Marks. The women there were really cool and after we mentioned that we were visiting this weekend from NYC, they talked to us for a bit about goth clubs and interesting places to visit in Philly.

Oh man! Jim recommended going to Jim's Steaks on South Street & 4th Avenue. When we got there it hadn't opened yet, but on the way back we passed it and there was a line out the door and around the corner! I'm looking forward to going there at some point before we leave. (I also have to remember to tell Jim that I have now experienced and more fully understand the benefits of a GPS if you're driving in an area you don't know. It's pretty darn cool. Still, I wouldn't go somewhere dependant only on a GPS, I'd still bring a map with me.)

Anyway, after eating and taking a little time around the South Street area, we went over to the Mütter Museum. It's a bit smaller than I had thought it would be, but it was full of fascinating stuff. Took about 2 hours there before driving over to check into the hotel. I could have stayed a little longer, but it was crowded in there and I'd given my full attention to everything that I thought looked particularly interesting. I really enjoyed it; I'm really glad we went!

We have a tour reserved at the Eastern State Pen tomorrow, and hopefully we'll be able to get to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and possibly the Rodin Collection by the end of the trip.