Love Hotel

Tour Dates 5&6

We got up not too early to get to Sacramento and I spent a good deal of time sleeping in the backseat, which meant that I missed the eternal mist in the farmlands between LA and our destination. But it also meant that I missed the part where random chunks of plastic fell off the undercarriage of my car after Bret hit a bump or something. I found out about this after a final big chunk, which protects the oil pan ripped free on the way out of Sacramento the next day.

However! Hector rules! I just want to say that all the time. Hector Rules! He gave me a book that I was reading and was just in general a really nice fellow. Kim Evie and her husband Greg came to the reading and put us up for the night. Megan Histand and her husband went with us to House of Pies, as did Mike Rainey who is my new secret boyfriend. I think it was his explanation that the Shakespeare Bridge in LA was constructed after in depth research of hidden mathematical principles in Shakespeare's works revealed the plans for the bridge that really clinched my secret undying love.

Sacramento has a HUGE silver watertower near the freeway coming into town that says "Sacramento City Of Trees". I repeated "City of Treees" which turned into "Covered in Beees" from Eddie Izzard's "Glorious", immediately after which there was an ad on the radio for the local Beekeeper's Supply Store for all your Beekeeping Needs.

Since we were early I decided to drive around town (not before eating at a Chinese restaurant named Simon's). On the way downtown on 16th Ave, there is a huge ceramic sculpture of a cow that looks like it's decomposing before your eyes twisting it's head in excrutiating pain (as you might imagine) leaping away from a cowboy on a pony, rendered in the same, expressionistic greys of suffering. The cow, which I first mistook for a steer, looks like a texas Longhorn with a rack about 8 feet wide. The only color besides the greys and tans of it's skin, was a deep berry red tiny tiny udder with four teats. It reminded me of those classic sculptures where the model was clearly a man or boy and they just stuck those impossible round floating boobs on them.

Our agent in Sac was an interesting fellow named The Lob. His real name is Richard (I saw a piece of his mail) and he used to be a manager for a bunch of punk bands. Real punk bands. Back when punk was an actual movement. The folks here were older. Aging hippies and activists. People who had masters degrees but also spent some time in prison in the seventies. There was a guy named Eugene Bloom who read, actually shouted, a poem about reading poems over the sound of a cafe blender. He had arranged for the barista to run the blender the whole time and then he shot the blender at the end.

I actually did not last that long. I'd passed into the stage of pregnancy where there is no such thing as a comfortable position. I stood up and ached, sat down and ached, when I lie down I flip like a pancake. I start on my left side and when I can't stand it anymore I flip over to my right until I can't stand it anymore... you get the idea.

So after Bret's set I went outside and walked around in the dark and tried to call SGNP who wasn't answering, stopped at the corner of the block, where a kid was doing tricks on his BMX and cried. And cried. And tried to call SGNP again, and he didn't pick up, so I cried some more. I think I cried for like a half an hour or something. The second half of the open mike started, and a nineteen year old whose boyfriend is in Iraq started reading her poetry and, well, it was pretty easy to leave at that point.

I slept very well that night, but we all slept really late. We stayed with Bret's Uncle Bill and Aunt Lucinda in Rocklin. Lucinda is about my height and so the shower head in the front bathroom came right up to the top of my forehead. I finally have had the experience of ducking my head under the shower. It was awesome. We didn't get on the road until about 11:45 which meant we'd get into Seattle at about 1:30am, which is exactly what happened.

Not much happened on the trip home, except for the aforementioned plastic ripping off the car. Except a perfect example of Bret's charm gone wrong. I sat up after napping and looked out the window and in the car next to us was a cute spotted dog sitting the backseat looking around. I said "Hello, dog." Bret asked me what I had said and I told him and he said that was funny because he was just thinking that, with my hair sticking up all over like it was, that I looked like a little dog.

That's right. I look like a dog.

Thanks Bret.

When we stopped in Yreka (pronounced Why-Reeka), I found a liquor store and got a small bottle of whisky. So I could have some once I got home. Which I did. I EARNED it, yo.

So we're back home. I have some kind of horrible sore throat thing that I have to go to the hospital and get checked out, because that's what happens when you're pregnant. You stub your toe and you have to go to the hospital. It's my fault. I called and asked them if it was okay for me to wait and get checked out at my appointment on Tuesday. Of course they said NO. I was supposed to go in last night, but I opted for having dinner and sleeping a lot instead.

JP is back in the House Bitches!!!

Posted by jlp716 at December 18, 2005 11:53 AM