1:06 a.m. // 16 April 2004

For the size of the venue, the stage at Hailey's is really, really low. I could mostly just see the tops of Deerhoof heads from the middle of the crowd. I thought of all the bodies moving and shaking and smoking and sipping and tapping their Converses as a kind of filter for the music. Before the last five or six songs, two tall guys in front of me saw me peering through the cracks in between them and found a space for me to stand.

I got right in front of the drummer -- who moves like a Muppet, really. Josh P. should have been there. The drummer has the sparest kit possible, a bass drum and a snare and one cymbal. He sat on an overturned red milk crate. I thought that was very versatile, because when you're finished playing you can throw cables and pedals into the crate. But then they all switched instruments for the last three songs, and the singer/bassist girl took her turn behind the kit -- and the drummer brought out an actual drum stool for her. So there went that theory.

Before the set started, when I had just arrived and was trying to get my bearings, this guy came up alongside me: "Are you... " -- and I turned -- "oh yeah, you are Asian. You're like the fourth Asian I've seen here. What's your ethnicity anyway? Chinese and Filipino? And a little bit of Japanese? Well, all us Asians are sitting over here in the corner, if you want to come feel at home. If you see anymore Asians, come tell me."

Dude, WTF? I don't do self-segregation, so just chill. Well, I didn't bust his yellow pride bubble by deriding his weird ice-breaker tactics, I mostly just nodded and said "yeah" and "okay" and rolled my eyes, and then absorbed myself into the crowd.

I walked from work. Dwayne was (is) sleeping because we went to shows the past three nights already. Sachiko insisted on driving me home because she says she's seen skinheads around the square and that they've been beating up people on Fry. But instead I walked most of the way home with J. Morley along Bolivar. He bought like six CDs at the show and one 7". Not exaggerating!

It's a fine night out. It reminds me of the time when Mark, his friend Paul (he filled the best-man slot at the wedding) and I walked to IHOP. You would think that two miles is a long-ass way to go for a midnight snack. But when you're walking with friends on a good night, it's not about the destination, or the shitty Reuben that awaits you.

Mark's not moving to Hawaii. I think that actually comes as a relief to me, so long as he doesn't feel too let down. He and his bride Jennifer were there for three weeks for their honeymoon, and he applied for a page designer job at the paper there. They wanted locals, though, not an impulsive mainlander who falls in love with the land wherever he is.

Before work I hung out with Karen, because she was in town for some convocation thing at TWU. For a second I didn't recognize her in scrubs when I drove up. (She has Dickies scrub pants; apparently they are very comfortable.) I took her to Cappuccino Cafe and she bought glittery blue towels at the secondhand store. It makes me feel intimidated to be in the makeup section of the drugstore with my little sister, because she knows how to use all of this mysterious stuff and I'm absolutely clueless. I have been trying to buy facial powder for like two months now, but everytime I decide against it on the basis of there being too many chemicals involved.

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