the punctuation of love -

dogs have their own language,
it is true.

but i've begun to decipher their code.

they commune with each other in parentheses ( ) :

  

and they rest in quotation marks " :

  

and they live, like we all wish to, in exclamation points ! :

the topography of love -

dogs sleep most of the day.

and still remain so very eloquent.

OUTSIDELANDS : or, why landis is no good at festivals. or crowds.

so,
given that tom was sweating his ass off getting this festival put together,
tim and i really wanted to come see what it was all about.

it's kind of like my fascination with burning man.
i think i want to go out in the desert with a thousand artists for a week and run around in costume doing drugs and generally acting like an insane person. . . but then i remember the dirt.

but we drove to golden gate park,
on a particularly foggy saturday, and parked seven blocks away.

that was an omen.

we did park behind this cute car.  which i took for a good sign:

then we ventured in.
outsidelands is HUGE.  enormous.
and if you're into the kind of outdoor three day venue
with six stages and multiple music acts ranging from . . .
tom petty to jack johnson,
then this was for you.

did i mention there were a TON of people milling around?

this was just the entry.

from above the main lawn,
in a dust cloud,
i began to hyper-ventilate a little bit.

i know!
cute hat, right?

and the height of fashion?

let's say the first sign that the devil is winning
played a large component of people's wardrobes.

what is the first sign the devil is winning?

yeah-huh.

tie-dye.

i would almost swear this was my cousin, eric,
if it weren't for the fact that it was frigid cold, damp, dusty
(i know, dusty AND damp.)
and i was acting too fussy to really take in the details.

tim kept trying to point out the nature:

yes, yes.
large, pretty . . . tree of some sort.
(i've stopped trying to identify nature on this blog since i recently called some large purple flowering thing on our back porch a "hydrangea" and got slapped for it by another blogger.  stupid plants.)
good for you.

but it's not going to distract me from all the stoners twirling in place like religious zealots.

sigh.

at least we went.

i consider it a "life experience".

check.  done.

at least tom knew we went for him.

he even drove me around in his prius.

that IS a prius, right?

how to endear yourself when you are a ten day houseguest -

so when tom porter came to work the outsidelands festival in golden gate park,
he crashed in our spare room for . . .
brace yourselves . . .
ten days.

and amazingly,
we all survived.

we even had fun.  dinners.  some time hanging out.
and no "guests are like fish.  they stink after three days" rule coming true.

perhaps it was that he was gone running cables through the park until all hours,
or that he's so laid back and fun.

but i think he may have figured out
whom in the household you really have to win over
in order to survive:

(the girls do like their tom . . . )