April 14th, 2009.

Heather eagerly awaits to see what Dave (of Skeleton Crew Tattoo) and Chris will create at the Comic Book exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. What’d we get for our patience? A 4-legged armoured octopus and a stripy cat rattlesnake thing with wings.

Setting up for a great day at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis – a Star Wars exhibit, a Lego castle exhibit, dinosaurs, the last days of their show on comic books… I’ve long heard great things about this museum (apparently the largest children’s museum in the country), ever since I worked at the Science Center in Baltimore, MD – and it looks like we arrived in the middle of some great things…

I spent Easter doing my taxes. No big complaint there, just aware of the fact. Aware of the fact that I should’ve bought some envelopes yesterday. Got to pop those hot puppies into a mailbox somewhere.

Taxes. A lot of people gripe about them. I understand that they’re a neccessary evil, but don’t really have a clue as to what’s fair, what’s not, what’s needed. If more people just looked at the bottom-line: take-home pay AFTER TAXES, there might be a little bit less freaking out done. As we move further into the digital age and more of our financial activities are tracked, taxes will no doubt be harder to evade and easier to complete.

Through the centre of the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is a gigantic, four storey sculpture made by the amazing glassblower Chihuly. I’ve never seen his work in person! And from the basement you’ve got a revolving recliner couch device where you can just lie back and look up through the whole thing!

People complain about “giving money to the government”, but frankly, I don’t want to think about how much it would cost me to hire individual people to go forth and take out my trash, bring me water, haul away my crap, pave roads to the places I want to go, and incidentally, make an effort to keep me safe. On TOP of all that we’ve got people watching those people to make those people don’t abuse other people… we’ve got philanthropic efforts and education and occassional efforts to get to the Moon. And yes, we also have Vietnam and Iraq and scandle and attempts to put “no gay marriage” into the Constitution, but I’d argue that it’s still an OVERALL MOSTLY positive thing. And someone has to pay for that infrastructure.

The original Death Star toy from Mattell. Part of the Comic Books Exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, for some reason – I was sad that they didn’t have the foam in the trash compactor, nor the – but still knew Brennan would be jealous – and that’s what this picture’s REALLY about!

I must admit. At this point I’m just eager to get home. We’ve had some really good nights, but even just ONE night off, like tonight, rips the momentum out of the whole trip. For whatever reason, I’ve not really made any close friends here in Columbus, IN – I’m not quite sure how the cards have fallen that way, but I’m not aware of who to just hang out with here. Probably too many of the “getting to know you” conversations went unobserved by me as I tend to shut off after the “you want to go get a drink?” introduction.

*Our friend Chris getting his groove on inside a suddenly kaleidocopically lit corner in a mirror maze at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.*

Last night we ran an open mic at the Columbus Bar. It went way better than I was expecting and I think everyone had a really great time. I think that if I was to say “forget that there East Coast! I’m moving to Columbus, Indiana!” I’d instantly have a decent open mic to run. The talent was amazing and the venue’s always wonderful.

Having grown up in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, we believed in our hearts that our home-grown Smithsonian was the best museum in the country… at LEAST when it comes to dinosaurs… how wrong we are. The dinosaur hall at the Houston Museum of Natural History shames anything in the nation’s capital, and then the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis has the most artistic display I’ve ever seen. The whole “Dinosphere” is built in to what appears to be a titled planetarium theatre, allowing projections of clouds, atmospherics and the occassional pterosaur. Going from dawn to day to twilight to the starry, starry night and back with the periodic thunderstorm and accompanying strobes makes this the most beautifully-lit piles of bones I’ve ever seen.

At the moment I’m killing time at a Starbucks where they’re playing something mellow that makes me think of Christmas. The grey, the swish of traffic, the feeling of homelessness is all coupling into that holiday gloom of feeling lost. The whole day has been movement – first leaving the house in the morning and chasing rabbits in the yard, then wandering Columbus looking for an open bookstore… then an open music store… finally ending up back at the Columbus Bar for a late lunch and a couple of hours using their internet… but there’s only so long I can hang out there without feeling like a bad, non-consuming human. And so I wandered the streets again for a while, ending up at a Wal-Mart of all things, vaguely looking for books, but again just killing time.

*Not only dinosaurs – but giant Lego DRAGONS! Heather came out of this covered in Lego goo….*

Unfortunately – the Midwest Walmart book selection consists of bodice rippers, magazines and Dan Brown books (both of them!), none of which have any particular appeal to me.

*Heather and the Hutt. I’m not sure which Hutt – but where the rest of the museum was incredible, the Star Wars exhibit was distinctively lack-lustre. We had to make our own fun.*

And so I’m at the only coffeehouse that I can find in the city, which is a Starbucks (there are two of them)… .looking up movie times… and (lol) there are three options: Fast and Furuous (no way I’m spending money on THAT!) and Hannah Montana (…) and Monsters vs Aliens which I wouldn’t want to see alone!

Oh, the agony.

thoughts: open mic night – “oh she’s just drunk” – Dell driver.