my new knives
Originally uploaded by spidertangle.

ok… so happy! my motorcycle is out of the shop!! i picked it up this afternoon. i am also now mostly outfitted for my road trip. tomorrow i will do a sample packing. it shouldn’t be hard since i’m not taking much with me. i need to pick up my granola bars and whatnot.

before i went to pick up the bike, i went to world of knives in hopkins, which is where mike has a discount for his students. the guy there, mark, showed me a bunch of knives. i picked out a small folding knive for my pocket, in the style we’ve been practicing with, and a neck knife, because it was cool. both are tiny. i really like them. i was a little worried mike would laugh at me and tell me to return them and get something else. but he didn’t. he fully approved.

i now have knives.

this picture has my hand in it so that you can all see just how tiny they are. 🙂 isn’t that little neck thing sweet? i LOVE it.

so we did some practicing with the knives themselves today in class. i need to practice opening the pocket knife quickly. mike recommends that i tape the blade a little so i don’t cut myself while i’m learning.

so, tomorrow is my last day of training here in minnesota. it’s been fun. now i can feel prepared to find a place to learn more in maastricht. not such a pansy.

on a side note, matt’s parents have a full, professional massage table. rock on.

have i mentioned what mexican food is like in europe? bad. bad bad bad. ok… the problem is this: they can make it LOOK like mexican food, but since they’re missing many necessary ingredients, especially seasonings, or perhaps because they have so little experience with it, it tastes NOTHING like mexican food.

happily, here in minnesota there is a large mexican community, and food and ingredients are widely available. yay for us!! so we’ve had mexican food three times in 2 days. so far so good. dear friends in maastricht: yes, i am gaining back all the weight i’ve lost in recent weeks. oh well. mexican food is worth it. and helps soothe the savage beast after i chainsawed a tree up this afternoon!! practice for any future zombie killin’.

we are home relatively early tonight… 11:15, which is good. i am supposed to go to motoprimo tomorrow morning at 8:15 to find out if my bike was finished today. oh, cross any fingers and toes you find convenient. we had a nice dinner at dylan and emily’s, with mel and dwain as well, and we were all tired way too early, so that’s good. perhaps i’ll get a full night’s sleep. oh please. unfortunately, cool things we missed today: bruce campbell doing a book signing at u of mn bookstore, and revolver modele playing at the hexagon bar. too bad. thanks, andrue and jillian, for the info. sorry we couldn’t make it.

tomorrow more of matt’s family flies in from out of state, so after motoprimo, we are meeting them for brunch. then hopefully later in the day i will be meeting mike from cornerstone at world of knives, to pick me out a knife. fun fun fun! that afternoon i’ll be having my final knife lesson for the time that i’m here, and that evening YAY YAY YAY, we are going to see the MN roller girls at practice!!! thanks, zhac, for setting that up!! we can’t wait to see you guys hurt each other!

what the hell is six sigma??

we had a great time last night seeing combichrist and (uh, i’m not sure… gliss?) at ground zero last night. i hadn’t heard the opening band before, and they were fun, but i think there was something missing… was it energy? or just music volume? i spoke to a couple of people who thought it might just be volume.

it was fun watching martin dancing again. thanks, martin, for being fun to watch!!

combichrist was also good fun. i’ve been seeing their name around a lot lately, on playlists and perhaps on the kagan kalendar, but wasn’t sure i knew much of their music. i liked it. good heavy energy. i wasn’t in the mood for dancing, but i was out there wiggling around. a little spaced out on red bulls. 🙂

i was a bit surprised no one was dancing to the very nice music being dj’d afterwards. it was danceable in a good similarity with the concert music, i thought. but here i am complaining a little about no one dancing, but neither was i. oh well. i was enjoying sitting around and joking.

does anyone know anything more about an animal brothel in enumclaw, washington? i find the whole thing pretty ick. but i can’t get it out of my brain.

yesterday was exhausting, but nice. the weather was foreseen to be stormy, so we decided to avoid the river for canoeing, and canoed around spider lake, up near gail’s house (matt’s mom’s girlfriend), instead. it was very nice. i haven’t been in a canoe for around 4 years, but i don’t feel much sorer than every day today, so that’s good. we saw all kinds of wildlife: a loon and baby, many herons, 2 humongous owls, turtles, fish, gigantic grasshoppers, and a doe and her fawn. the owls were a bit exciting, in the middle of the day. we heard a really loud noise, and looked up to see the two owls apparently chasing off a heron.

another heron landed about 20 feet from us while we were picnicking. i don’t think it noticed we were there. and we were able to canoe right up to the deer. they watched us get closer and closer.

after canoeing, we went back to gail’s house and everyone took naps. i was ready to drop. then we ate cake, played some yahtzee, and matt and i headed back to the city in the storm, so that i could get to kickboxing. matt joined in, too. and after that we came back to the house for wine and games with matt’s family.

today we’re off to the minnesota zoo. i like the camels, but i like them best in the winter, when they’re all shaggedy and funny-looking.

i have been a huge fan of both the book and the old gene wilder movie for ages. i creep matt out by singing the oompa loompa song on a regular basis. but this…. THIS….

absolutely terrific.

mel and i went to pavilion this evening to see it. if you haven’t seen it, do so immediately. if you are creeped out by oompa loompas, no worries. they are not so freaky this time. i did get a bit sick on deliciously over-buttered popcorn. lekker!

before going to see the movie, we went to barnes and noble to browse. wow. i could browse in such a huge bookstore for hours. although i generally prefer to purchase my books at smaller booksellers, such as uncle hugo’s, i have been missing the privilege of a huge bookstore, all in english, with benches, chairs, sofas, and even food and coffee. wow. i will be making another trip there later this week. what joy!

i am really impressed by the greenway. i was on it today with our friend martin doyle. really nice. if i get a chance, i’d like to bicycle it while we’re here. but tomorrow we’ll be canoeing in the st. croix all day. until time for going to kickboxing, of course.

annemette, if you are reading this, dick’s key isn’t working. we gave him your phone number, so he may be calling you. or maybe not. don’t know if he still needs our boxes for his packing adventure.

ok. time for bed.

we have just come home from bahb’s pool party. thanks for inviting us, bahb, if you read this!!! not only was the company fantastic, but that’s a spectacular pool. i had a great time on the slide and playing around with the noodles and the somewhat violent basketball game. 🙂 sorry we split so early. we are still getting tired a bit sooner than we’d like. it was really great to see the people who were there that i knew, and to meet some new people. and it would have been even better if i’d once managed to successfully get the damn basketball away from newmie (spelling?). too damn tall!!!

in other news from today, we went to see the art car parade, which was pretty sweet. i was surprised what kind of bullshit some people seem to want to call “art cars.” is it really an art car if you’ve just taped on things that you can remove easily later, or are really just advertising? i really liked the happy truck at the end. that guy was hilarious, with all his happy anger, and screaming at the cops. yay! and the little bmw thing was cute. and the radio-controlled couch. and the turtle. apparently liz fish was in it, but we somehow managed to miss her! too bad.

the storm this morning was also incredible. i’m so glad it did that, given that the forecast for today was supposed to be so awfully hot.

we also went to a picnic with claude and folks matt’s known for forever this afternoon. had some interesting chats with a woman i hadn’t met before.

see how i’m really condensing everything? this is because most of the people who might read my journal experience some of these minnesota things with me, so you people don’t probably want to read them too. or maybe you do. a lot has to do with the fact that it’s late and i’m tired, or i wouldn’t have left the party. i’d still be there. but you know it’s a bad sign when 3 consecutive conversations end with a general dwindling and stare, and your energy level is being entirely conserved by highly sugary drinks.

damn. i’m going to bed.

first things first:

i forgot to mention how gorgeous the moon was last night when we were coming home. it was full, or mostly so, with bubbly clouds around and over it, and a halo.

tonight was too much fun. it was great to see EVERYONE. holy shit… some of you i hadn’t seen in years!! and those same ones probably don’t even read this, so won’t hear just how fantastic it was to see them. and everyone i do occasionally see: it was super wonderful to see all of you too!!

music was fantastic. everyone was beautiful. fucking fantastic. i wish i’d been more energetic from the beginning, and less psychotic later, so that i could have had more conversations and less, “dude!!!” oh well.

matt is home from aikido, and the news is that we don’t have any dinner plans or anyone who can give us a ride to ground zero tonight. he had meant to get that sorted out before going to aikido. both family cars are in use. so we are stuck at home. if anyone wants to help us out with this, we’d be quite appreciative. call my cell phone.

well, i seem to have fucked up my shoulder again. not much of a surprise. even the loads and loads of ibuprofen i take for it can’t do everything. even just working on the knife stuff today was hurting. i think it was because i was dancing so hard last night. it was just so great to have all that space for dancing. anyway, so i went to cornerstone, and learned some more fun ways to hurt people with a knife. before we were quite done with that, my shoulder was hurting. then it was time to do some boxing. actually, that was feeling just fine, so i decided that i could hold for the other guy’s rounds. big mistake. holding really stresses my shoulder. anyway, i didn’t even make it through his first round before i was in a great deal of pain, so i sat out for a little while and then did a round of only kicking. gads. i need a LOT more of that. what a fucking wuss. 3 minutes of kicking had me ready to drop. and besides, it reminded me that i had literally ripped open my toe dancing as well. 🙂 i thought it was just a blister, but it’s not. heh heh. my poor body. it may take it a couple of days to adjust to what i’m asking of it.

anyway, i’m relaxing with a jones soda (mmmmm… yes, i’ve missed them… this one’s a strawberry-lime) and more ibuprofen. lucky me.

mike has lent me a book on attitude in self-defense, to prepare me mentally (and emotionally) for the concept of ripping into somebody if i have to. 🙂 over the years, actually, when we were learning such joyful manoevers as sticking my thumb in someone’s eye and ripping off their ear, i’ve attempted to imagine what something like that would actually feel like. as i said to mike today, it really just seems pretty “ewwww” to me. i feel a little better about the ripping through someone’s flesh with a foreign object, but anyway, with this in mind, he has recommended to me a book list. he also suggested i try to observe an autopsy. heh. right. like you just walk into a morgue and say, “hi, i’m learning to kill in self-defense. do you mind if i watch you rip a dead body apart?” uh huh.

no, really… i’m a nice person. really!

tonight…

GROUND ZERO… ROUND TWO. depending on shoulder, we’ll see about how much dancing i do this time. maybe if i didn’t fling my arms around so much, i wouldn’t have so much trouble with this. or maybe more tequila would help.

well, dwain and the guys at motoprimo had sad news for us today. in addition to the valve work we were expecting, the lovely bike also needs new fork seals and they don’t have the parts. thus, we have no transportation until monday or possibly tuesday. super bad. super sad.

that means NO RIDE ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, to those we’ve discussed that with. much sorrow.

had a lovely day today, hanging out with christian, jillian and febbi. but now i have to get ready to go to cornerstone, so there’s no time for more typing.