August

birthday girl
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

It's hard to leave a zit alone, isn't it? I have a zit on my upper lip and all indications are that if I leave it the hell alone, it will fade and go gently into that good night without anyone except me ever noticing it.. My friends, like me, are just not all that observant. Besides, we're old. We can't see tiny things like lip zits anymore - it's one of the few, the far between, compensations for aging. On the other hand, if I pick at it, as I am oh so driven to do, it will become a massive weeping sore that will make me look like I'm actually an 18th century prostitute in the last stages of syphilis and that will be hard for even the blind to ignore. So of course I'm fucking with it. Of course.

In other news, August is a month of my friends' birthdays. Last night we went to Kathmandu (the restaurant, not, alas, the city, although Krista, who has been there, says that it is kind of a horrible place anyway - the city, not the restaurant.) to celebrate Jodi's and Charles' birthdays. The food was fantastic; the service was utterly inept but at least good natured; an excellent time was had by all and because Annie has discovered the wonders of the dollar store, we all got bamboo back scratchers as unexpected party favors. Eating great Indian food in a companionable, if damn near unphotographable, bright orange room (yes, India, there can be too much heart chakra for lenses) with awesome friends and getting a back scratcher! Things do not, really, get much better than this: I have been wanting a back scratcher for months. I was even toying with putting one on my Christmas list.

As it is the month of birthdays - I get along well with Leos, apparently, and when you realize that in my lifetime I have dated FIVE left handed Leo musicians named Michael, it all becomes opaque - I also ended up at a birthday party last Saturday night. It was a cool party although I knew basically nobody and was therefore kind of nervous, which is probably why I was texting my daughter from the bathroom. Therefore, in the inimitable spirit of Texts From Last Night, or, okay, last weekend to be pedantic, let me offer the following, with the caveat that actually it was a very lovely party.

Me: Am trapped at sorta weirdass birthday party in n. asheville w/ bunch of 20 somethings. Every time I go to leave everybody's like but the stripper will be here soon!
Auds: Oh no. How did that happen? that is crazy as hell.
Me: Dillon & Jodi lured me out. Stripper is on her way out now. Am not allowed to take pix. Yikes. Stripper looks like Wiccan. Me I feel I have seen enough skinny naked wiccans for one lifetime.
Auds: Dear lord. I wish I was there!
Me: Yeah me too!

The stripper did a kind of belly dance routine, very elegant. She never did get naked, the people were really nice and as far as I know there was no black magic going on at all. And after that we went to the DeSoto where I ran into several friends I hadn't seen for a while and watched the people from the LaZoom bus polka tour. I had never thought of Asheville as exactly a sort of Polka Mecca but apparently there's more polka here than you would think. This is fine by me and if only these two things could be combined so that we had wicca polka, well, then that might be Asheville and August in a nutshell: the Wicca Polka Mecca.