The Daily Rick

Hey! I can hear out of my right ear again! The sucker's been clogged for about 3 days due to this whatever the hell I have. I felt whatever was in there starting to push, as if to say, "Hey, sleep on your right side and maybe you'll have a little surprise in the morning. Like maybe your hearing returned to you." So I did and I do! Today, amongst my errands, the damn thing began to close in on itself again. So it's a little muffled, but not like yesterday, when it felt like I was wearing an ear plug.

The big 3 months today! The little lady woke up in a lousy mood. I'm a little off myself. Hopefully we'll both be in a lovin' mood later. I'm trying to figure out what movie to take her to tonight. Our choices are limited, but I think we'll find suitable entertainment. Does Jesus being tortured make for a good date anniversary movie?

I realized something today and I don't know whether to laugh about it or seek help.

When my girlfriend comes home we inevitably talk about our individual days, the things we did, the conflicts we experienced, etc. Being at home most days, I eventually tell her about the crap I watch on television. And part of that story will ultimately include something funny I saw on either Regis or Ellen. I find both people pretty funny. And I guess I was always fully aware that these shows are sort of geared toward stay-at-home housewives. Girlfriend, at work. Me, at home. Have I become a house wife?!

This has got to be the cold medication talking.

Oh yeah....after months of being relatively healthy I've been struck down by a pretty bad cold. I've been blowing all manner of viscous fluids in a variety of fruit flavors into every soft piece of paper in the house, usually something in a lime-green and sometimes in a garlic brown sauce. Not pretty. I have two types of colds: the lasting 2 days kind and the lasting 2 months kind. I'm hoping for something closer to the first one.

3 months in 2 days, and it's a beautiful morning.

Okay. So, Valentine's dinner was great and terrible all at once and I don't think it would've been as good otherwise. We had reservations at Ca del Sole, a semi-fancy "northern Italian" place here in town. From what I've gathered, if you wanna charge an extra 12 bucks for the ravioli, you call it northern Italian. I could be wrong.

Okay, so it's only the one menu for that night, a special holiday thing, which is a bummer because you end up paying whatever the hell they charge for whatever the hell they give you. But I was ready for this contingent seeing as how all the other places I looked at getting a reservation for had the same deal.

So it starts off okay...we get to our table a half-hour late since this joint was packed to the rafters. People left and right complaining up a storm. I was gonna be the one guy not to be an asshole to the staff. So, we're eating our bread and olive spread junk. Half hour later, we order. We get to choose this and that from a 5 course dinner. So, we get some bread thing with some cheese thing and caviar. Oooh....fancy. I've never eaten caviar before. I spread it around. It tastes like lox. And if I hadn't had lox before, then it tastes like a fish's vagina, naturally. Then we get some fancy looking salad. It's got some fruity stuff and some nutty stuff. I think it has bits of yam, maybe. And the rest looks like weed pullin's from their back garden. I eat it. It's good. Then we get some kinda blah blah blah fancy name but I figure out it's gnocchi or however that's spelled--anyway, I've had it before. It's good. I ate the basil in it. Not so good. So we get the main course. Linds has the veggie looking thing. I have the veal. The veal is great but it's smothered in a sauce that is reminiscent of....I'm gonna have to go with the fish vagina again, Alex. But a few chews of the delicious baby cow and the flavor sort blended well with the meat...in a seafood genetalia sort of way. It was also covered in shriveled up grapes. No, not raisins. Shriveled up grapes. Linds did not fare as well. The only thing I recognized on her dish was carrots. Everything else looked like something concocted by the Star Trek chef in respect of the Klingon delegates. But finally, we arrived at dessert, which we took with coffee. Coffee: great. Dessert: amazing...some kinda spongey thing with strawberries. Mmm...I can still taste 'em. Oh...by the way...all these courses were like a half hour apart. So we got there at around 915pm and left just this morning, it seems.

We agreed that we'll have to try Ca del Sole again when we can dip into their regular menu. The place really is beautiful and romantic. Just not on February the 14th.

Anyway...it really was a great night. And as far as I'm concerned, my first official Valentine's Day.

Almost time for dinner and as it turns out, it's been an amazing day. I'm exhausted already, but it's a good exhausted. All my days should be this good.

I really want this to be a good day. The odds are against me, but fuck the odds. I'm determined. Either way...I had a good time with my boys last night, if only for a couple hours. It was good to see Star Strip too. That cat's hilarious.

You say you want
Diamonds on a ring of gold
You say you want
Your story to remain untold

But all the promises we make
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you

You say you'll give me
A highway with no one on it
Treasure just to look upon it
All the riches in the night

You say you'll give me
Eyes in a moon of blindness
A river in a time of dryness
A harbour in the tempest
But all the promises we make
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you

You say you want
Your love to work out right
To last with me through the night

You say you want
Diamonds on a ring of gold
Your story to remain untold
Your love not to grow cold

All the promises we break
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you.
-U2.

So...it turns out that I may not have that long a work gig after all. The job which was gonna be nearly 3 weeks long has been drastically reduced to a few days...likely just this week. This happens when clients find out how much a job is gonna cost, decide they don't wanna pay that much, and then decide which shots out of their film they really wanna deal with. Okay...this doesn't make sense to most people. The short of it is that second sentence. Good news and bad news type of deal.

I'm really starting to look forward to Saturday. Come to think of it, I don't I've EVER looked forward to Valentine's Day. That's something.

Tonight, I start a visual effects freelancing gig that will last about 2 weeks or so. Now that I'm looking at the calendar, it looks to be more like a little under 3 weeks, but that doesn't include the weekends. I'm supposedly booked until the 27th which makes this one busy month all of a sudden. I'm looking forward to making a paycheck again for the month but not so much looking forward to working.

I started the re-design of my website yesterday. It's gonna be even simpler than before and focus mainly on the illustration and comics stuff. But it's gonna be a ton of work. I'm hoping to use my days wisely.

Linds started her new child development class yesterday. I'm confident this will be the start of good things for her. Well, technically, that started with me, but I'm not one to brag. Anyway...I'm happy she got the class. Even if Valley is way too goddamn dark at night.

This Saturday is Valentine's Day. I haven't had one of these in years. I found it a meaningless and empty holiday simply to sell greeting cards and flowers and to make significant others feel guilty. It's funny how that changes when one has a girlfriend.

I think all the sleeping I did today has caught up with me. Now I can't sleep at all. I'm hoping to get drowsy soon. I'd really like to not feel like crap in the morning. I'd also like to wake up in the morning, period.

So, there I was, waiting in Santa Monica to meet the one and only Mike Judge. I wasn't really sure why I was there. I was only sure about getting lunch for free, seeing my pal Rick whom I don't get to see much anymore, and that some time that afternoon, I get to meet Mike Judge. Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead. Mike Judge, creator of King Of The Hill. Mike Judge, the genius behind the genius that is Office Space.

But this isn't about Mike Judge. This is about Elvis Costello.

So, I'm sitting there basically twiddling my thumbs, when my phone rings. I look at it and don't recognize the number, but I answer it anyway (as it is against my policy to do so). It's a friend of mine whom I haven't spoken to or seen in close to a year. She relates to me how she remembers that I'm an Elvis Costello fan (how she would remember this, I have no clue), and further relates that she's getting tickets for the show that evening (which I was unable to get tickets to just days ago). This show was in the back of my mind ever since I got juked out of tickets so hearing this news was spectacular. Okay, so, to make a long story less long, I got tickets to see the show. 4 tickets. 4 VIP tickets. To see the greatest singer/songwriter of the last 20 years.

It was clear that the time I spent waiting to meet Mike Judge turned into time spent waiting to see Elvis Costello.

As my girlfriend and I drove to the vicinity of the House of Blues, it became quite apparent that this was the hot ticket in town. The venue was shrouded in white cloth and lit up like a blue lava lamp. We entered the place like royalty. After some drinks, we ventured over to the balcony (after my girl figured out we could actually get on the balcony because we were VIPs now suddenly for no reason) where the stars were. I don't need to drop any names, but this was basically where the beautiful people see shows.

I started to feel ill at this point, the early day, the driving, the waiting, the more-driving, the food, the drink, the heat of the balcony: all catching up with me. Still, the music was glorious, and the song line-up was just fucking magic:

I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY NOW
DOLL REVOLUTION
EVERYDAY I WRITE THE BOOK
BEYOND BELIEF/WAITING TIL END OF THE WORLD
RADIO RADIO
CLUBLAND
CLOWN STRIKE
CHELSEA/45/LESS THAN ZERO
HONEY, ARE YOU STRAIGHT OR ARE YOU BLIND?
WATCHING THE DETECTIVES
DUST
JUST ABOUT GLAD/ALISON
MAN OUT OF TIME
EITHER SIDE OF THE SAME TOWN /DARK END OF THE STREET
UNCOMPLICATED
DEEP DARK TRUTHFUL MIRROR
PUMP IT UP/SCARLET TIDE/P.L.U.

So there it was. An uneven day perfected by perfection.

Then we drove home and I puked my guts up and out for the next 5 hours.

My aim was true.