it started off early because karisa and i wanted to go to the Obey / Giant sample sale down in the OC.

the sale started at 9am so on friday she said, lets go early how early you wanna get there? i tolder as early as possible. she said that she gets up at 8am, which she knew would be tough for me to match since i usually dont wake until 11am thanks to my beautiful job which im about to hand over.

sigh.

so i said i better get used to waking up early so i will meet you at your beach house around 9:30am. she said, no way. i said way, and the deal was on.

at 9am i tolder i was up, showered, and had pockets full of cash to give to shepard fairey and his subversive elves and at 10am there was me and karisa at the manhattan beach starbucks getting some lo fat breakfast and listening to the new steve aoki cd on our way to the OC.

at 11am we found ourselves in the longest line that ive ever been in to buy clothes.

let me tell you a little something about me and clothes. we dont get along. i do my best to get by on items my mom buys me for christmas and birthdays, and clothes of any style find their way on anyone other than me.

the rare exception are the weirdo threads by the good people of obey giant.

last year and the year before i made my way to the sample sale and all was well, but for some reason this year every one knew about the sale and they told two friends and so on and so on.

after 10 minutes the line hadnt moved so i said karisa, fuck. this. shit. and she said we’re here, where else are we gonna go? i said anywhere except this non moving line. but she said, maybe youre just hungry, go get some tacos over at that roach coach and we’ll see if the line moved at all. so i did as instructed and when i returned the line had moved a little.

two dudes came out of the exit door and i said, bros, when did you get here? they said, we got here at 6am. may i remind you it was 11:15am when i asked them that question. i looked at karisa. then they said, but our line was waaaay longer than yours, you probably only have a 2 hour wait.

now again i hate clothes. i love obey and i love karisa. i hate the OC but i hate lines even more. i love tacos. but i love karisa and never get to see her. but i hate clothes. why am i here? but karisa and i can talk up a storm about anything so the two hours went by pretty quickly and the one saving grace was the kids in line were all dressed really cool, and many of them were of the college aged variety and quite attractive. so if one had to be in a two hour line, this was the one to be in, and next to karisa didnt suck either.

sadly it was a three hour line.

when we got in the place had been picked through pretty well, and the prices had increased since last year. $20 tshirts that went for $5 last year were $8 if you bought 4, and there werent really any big jackets or pants. and there was only one skull cap for my sensitive bald head.

still somehow i managed to blow $160 because as i said i hate clothes, so if once a year i stock up then i can have that last for a good long while.

when i got home i went to this art show. it was supposed to be the most offensive christmas art show in hollywood, but maybe my tastes have dulled over the years but it wasnt all that offensive. it was funny. it was good. but not as offensive as i wanted. still i said hi to the curator. took tons of pics that will be on LAist tomorrow, and got out of there.

then i went to my former cohort bree’s 25th birthday. bree and i worked at buzznet together. when i first worked there there was only 4-5 people. after i got hired they hired 3 more younger kids to do a variety of things. all 3 of them are still there including bree. i hadnt seen her in a long time. the party was at the Cha Cha in silver lake next to a really great record store.

i met some of her friends who were really nice, i said hi to one of the original buzznetters, Steve, and said hi to a few other current buzzneters including their PR lady who kept mum regarding a partnership of sorts between one of my favorite music blogs Stereogum and buzznet. why keep mum over something good? dont ask me, but buzznet never made a lot of sense to me, but of course i was fired from there so clearly my brand of thinking and theres were often at odds. whatevs. it was nice to see everyone and since i had never been to the cha cha, it was nice to check it out out.

afterwards bree and i ate fish tacos in the cold outside at King Taco and had such a nice conversation that i thought about it all night.

last week i was on the phone seemingly all week. people were calling me non stop about my new job, people were emailing me, chatting, everything. yes i was very happy to talk to everyone, yes it was terribly exciting, but for a year and a half i had pretty much stayed to myself and only talked to people via email and IM. to actually use my voice for 7 days straight was a bit much.

which is ironic because yesterday chatting with karisa all day in the parking lot of Obey, and then later that night in deep personal conversations with everyone at the bar and the taco stand… i dont know. it was sorta powerful. and then today my bro Kemp came over and we talked about black colleges and bill cosby and dave chappell, the good talks just kept going.

it made me hope that my conversations at the newspaper will be equally thought provoking and actually meaningful cuz isnt that what its about – being surrounded by smart people talking about smart things? it is for me.

it made me grateful that i have good friends, and it reminded me that im not so much a loner in this dark world. there are others who might not look anything like me, but theyre more like me than they think.

ps happy birthday bree. i dont know if you read the busblog but if you do, thanks for inviting me to yr party!