2:21 a.m. // 04 October 2004

The dead-tiredness is starting to sink in. This weekend was Ladyfest and Dwayne's birthday.

Friday: It was the first of Ladyfest's two music nights. I was at work and I only caught the last band; to be fair, something like half the acts dropped off the initial bill anyway. This band -- rather, the single-monikered frontwoman and her three backup guys -- failed to move me. The description was intriguing if generic, but the music was just the latter. Also, I was turned off by the Hot Topicky brand of "punk" short-shorts and the wearing of one's own merch.

I missed A. Lin's set, but she and her friend crashed here afterwards. Dwayne is always trying to figure out my circles of friends whenever he meets one of my old classmates. He asks them if they know such-and-such, another Rice person we hung out with in such-and-such city, and the answer is usually no. He asked me and A. how we became friends, and the answer was actually "never." I don't think we ever really spoke. We just had a couple English classes together and were aware of the other's presence. She is actually pretty nice. I guess maybe she's mellowed; at least, she doesn't seem as self-promoting as I used to think she was. Or maybe this is because we're seeing each other as musicians. I like talking to people about touring and what's going on in Houston since I've been gone.

So strike another perceived archnemesis from my extremely short list.

Saturday: We woke up and it was Dwayne's birthday. I worked some more. Somehow what was supposed to take me like an hour took more than three. I thought I was going to get to leave early. But work always expands to fill the time.

I kind of wanted to go to the LFBB workshops before work, but I didn't make it. Instead, I started working on food for the party and we went to the Girl Scout used books and records sale. Except that it was dinky and they had only a few records, and no Playstation games as advertised. We got some sweet pulp novels for 10 cents apiece, though. Die Like a Dog and Killers Are My Meat, a couple others and some postcards about the hijinks of the Amish.

After I got off work, J8 closed out Ladyfest BB. I shot photos of Landrest (yeah, Ladyrest Landfest) and somehow, trying to find the right shot distracts me from the actual music. But it's still a different kind of satisfaction.

Our set got pushed late by the lost breakdancer, so we started at 1:30. It was slightly shambolic and exceedingly fun. We did Dwayne's song that he wrote for Becca and David, "Hey! (I Found You)" [[or maybe it's "(Hey!) I Found You," not sure]], with Landrest. Two drummers, one behind the other; two bass players trying to figure out who should kick in first. Awesome. Ladyfest brought Dwayne a cake that said something like "Happy Birthday to the Ladies' Man."

At 3 a.m. I started making pizza dough.

Today we had our open-house kinda birthday party. I cooked all day and didn't finish making everything I had wanted to make, but there was plenty of food. People brought over some beautiful stuff. And their beautiful selves, of course.

I am tired now so the short version is that the party was good, and then we had a pleasant, quiet kinda evening with becca and david and nazli and josh and me and the birthday kid. and then to mable's for BARR and Wives, who brought on a noise complaint and we had to shut down the show. then in a fit of brilliance we moved it to the practice space, where wives and the sneeze and bad route played and where I decided the max capacity of the room is like 25. also, notably, dustin somehow busted a fluorescent light bulb during the set. glass chaos everywhere! (even his back.)

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