I’m 36,000 feet in the air and it’s -78 degrees outside and the conversations that are swirling around me are almost as poisonous. David Eisner and Kristen and I are flying to NAMM in Anaheim at around 520mph (technology is wonderful), but the rep behind me is talking about how the war against terror OUGHT to be fought and how he’d really always admired World War II for the fact that we sent out bombers that weren’t afraid of hitting women and children. We bombed the fuck out of them… et cetera. We should do whatever it takes, torture, whatever.
I was reading the news before we departed, and again, foolishly reading the comments below the article. Haiti’s earthquake is going to be a massive disaster. Possibly unprecedented in a lot of ways. Sometimes I click on the comments thinking “there’s no way anyone can politicize THAT, perhaps there’s something intelligent being said!”. More the fool I. Though our enlightened DC-area newsfans didn’t actually manage to turn Hairi’s earthquake into a gay-bashing event, there was much speculation on what companies SHOULD’VE received earthquakes…
I don’t want to buy from that man. Don’t want to read that paper. I have the option of not doing the former, am semi-good at doing the latter – but is the reason I’m writing this from my hard-won bargain laptop rather than from a top-of-the-line $3000 somethin’ somethin’ because I’m not willing to be enough of an aggressive asshole? He’s talking about a $20,000 day being a bad one. I guess he does whatever it takes, whatever.
We finally make it to the hotel after an exhausting flight and some sniping for cabs at the airport. A man senses our directionlessness and starts “helping us with our luggage” in order to point us to a particular cab, which he insists will be cheaper than the shuttle… especially if we can help round up a couple of other people going the same direction. We, perhaps foolishly, go with this plan and then find ourselves the trapped audience of a particularly ornery cab-driver who insists on spraying the claustrophobic interior with orange-scented air freshener multiple times throughout the 20-minute drive. There’s confusion as to where we’re going and how we’re going to get there, and all-in-all I felt glad to arrive in one piece, having battled dramatic traffic, the growliness of our pilot, and the continued overheard backseat conversations of high-powered music salesmen.
January 3rd – PLOJ!!!
Continuing a PLOJ tradition of having an intense crew of knitters on hand, Acacia Sears shows off her current project. 
Rocking. See? It’s what we LIVE for! Rowan brought his bohdran to PLOJ. He was all whackita whackita. Brennan trying to learn “Rainbow Connection” quickly. It wasn’t pretty. We floundered a bit on that and then swiftly went back to rocking. We’re all older now, and we’d started at 4pm in any case. By midnight we were sleepy and getting ready to go home from PLOJ (Pot Luck Open Jam). It was a very, very good night. Twrr.
