taking my lumps

Sometime on Saturday afternoon my brain shut off. The power-on switch is stuck, I think, so it's been blinking sporadically since then... I'm not really sure if its ever going to come back up to 100%.

Ryan and I made plans to go see Match Game at UCB on Saturday night with Zach and Mimi, so we decided to carpool. On the way to pick them up from his dad's house (where we'd never been before), I got completely and totally lost. The directions I got were... um... convoluted. But the thing is that there are TWENTY streets in Newport Beach with the same street name. So when we realized we were going the wrong way, I typed in the address into Google Maps (courtesy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and it gave me twenty options. We tried the first three, ended up at the exact address and called, but nope - wrong house. There are twenty streets with the same name and at least TWO matching addresses. HOW? WHY?!

My lame driving direction skills caused us to be late and by the time we got to UCB it was standing room only, which is no fun. So we skipped the show (sigh) and went for delicious dinner instead. I ate eighty five pounds of chimmichurri sauce which apparently messes with your brain. So then we got Adam and headed over to the 101 Coffee Shop to meet Kate. I tried to squeeze my car into a too-small spot and ended up scraping my side mirror on a pole. Like an idiot. At the 101, we all caught up and had ice cream and waffles and discussed the secret agenda of the Pride Parade to turn people straight and how to tell if a gussied-up working girl is on the clock or not and why not all actors are as good at improv comedy as they think they are and how some actors are are a jillion times better at improv than you'd ever guess.

Sunday we went and picked up our new futon, which was more... distressed than described, but it was so cheap that I can't say it was unexpected. The man selling it said that he got it second-hand from a friend to put in his kids' room but they didn't want it after all. As we loaded it into the truck both kids (maybe 4 and 6) ran out and protested. The boy started pulling it back out until his dad made him stop. The girl kept pleading to give the futon just "one more hug" and we offered to leave it behind. The dad said that really nobody ever used it, except his wife who sometimes used it as a smoking couch out in the garage, but even that was rare. So away we went. Once we were home, I pulled off the cover to wash it and we realized that the mattress inside had springs - have you ever seen a futon with a spring mattress? Me neither. So that was weird. And some of the springs are sticking out at the edges, but whatever. It's all cleaned and washed and Febreezed but I don't know if it will be comfortable to sleep on directly, but it's perfect size for the air mattress to fit on top, so... yay. ? I'll probably end up buying a brand new mattress soon. But in the meantime, there is now a place for you to sit in my office and visit me. Hooray!

THEN I decided that the wood frame with the slight whitewash was fugly. So I started sanding it - I even went to Lowe's and bought a hand sander, people. What? Since when am I that guy that does home improvement projects on the weekend? It's HGTV up in this hizzy! Once it's all sanded, I am going to do a Tic Tac orange stain/paint wash. I did a test spot and it looks pretty freaktastic. The office walls are already a bright blue (below, with the old closet doors) and the futon is black, the frame will be orange. I'll probably make another futon cover in light, bright colors. Now I just need to make new curtains. Weeee!




And THEN driving tonight I got pulled over for having a headlight out (damn!) and got a fix-it ticket from the nicest cop ever. He had the cutest british accent and looked like Simon Pegg's older brother or something. I kind of wanted to ask him if he'd seen Hot Fuzz, but decided to keep my mouth shut. He was super cool about it, so now I just gotta get that bulb changed. D'oh!