April 25, 2005

[the weekend] ^{4:07 PM}

When I told Jimmy what restaurant we were going to, his response was, "I need to swing by the ATM." Barefoot wasn't the most expensive place to eat in LA, but it wasn't Wendy's either, apparently.

Luke was already waiting at the front door, and Paul and Toby were behind up on the steps very soon, and we made out way back. It was dimly lit, candles, table clothes, many people were in dressier-than-usual outfits, and then we found my table. My early birthday table, which Drew and Jerry had decorated with plates, napkins and trinkettes from The Incredibles. Since I'm so easily amused, my favorite thing of the evening (aside from the company of course) was a red plastic Increcdibles ring and a super-bouncey-ball that had a picture of Dash and Violet inside.

I almost lost the ball under a table of loud noisey girls, and Jimmy had to run to the bathroom to run water on his pinky — he got his ring stuck. Everyone else was well-behaved.

The waitstaff joked about the dining room situation. We were a table of seven boys (men?), and beside us was a table of seven girls. Very loud girls. Drew was adamaent to our waitress that no mingling was going to happen, no love connections tonight, oh no, but I was antsy. At first I wanted a dance-off, but then I wanted a large production of "Summer Nights" from Grease. I like watermelon martinis.

Alas, I knew that Luke and Toby were about as likely to burst into song as they were to dress up as Raggedy Ann and Andy for Halloween, so no music was to be had tonight.

After dinner, everyone but Jimmy and I went home. Instead we went to get a drink at Motherload, which I had never been to. One of his good friends, another Kyle, works there, and we could get some free rounds (which we did). There was something about saturday night, something crazy. Motherload was packed (and decorated like a gaybar from the 80's — and not in glam way), the line to the Abbey was way way down the block, and Here was closed off for a private party. As it started to rain we decided to call it a night. For the first time in a week, I was out for the count before 1am.

A few weeks ago Jims and I took advantage of a sale of season passes to Six Flags Magic Mountain. We tried to convince everyone else to do the same, but they're finicky or something, so no one did. We made a round of phone calls for brunch Sunday morning, and then a round for Six Flags, but no one answered (the batstards), so we made voodoo dolls and prepared to go it alone.

There are a lot of different types of sky. Blue skies, cloudy skies, inspirational God poster skies, grey skies, color-less skies, foreboding skies ... yesterday was more Lord of the Rings sky. Beautifuly and puffy on one side, some shafts of light, and then ominious and black on the fringes.

Six Flags is in Valencia, a thirty minute drive in the Valley that was made amazing by some Mint Royale remixes and the LOTR clouds that were floating about.

I hadn't been on a roller-coaster in about 4 years, not since Six Flags Over Texas in Dallas, and while I wasn't afraid, I was a tad trepid. Once you do something the first time, it's easy to keep doing it (see: the near-vertical waterslide at Splashtown), but once a few years have passed, it takes a bit of a push. My first push wound up being on X, the newest rollercoaster in the park. A rollercoaster where your seat moves independantly of the track. This means, that when you do a loop, you spin. Bodies were never meant to feel this sensation.

The first drop you take you're upside down, and facing outwards, so all you can see is the sky, the valley, and then the ground. Rushing up at you. At 100 miles per hour. My eyes were never meant to see anything like this.

My way of coping with extreme situtaions is as follows: take a fictional character, then play him. That time I was skiing and found myself in a rough patch going straight down? Hum the James Bond theme and evade the agents of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Being on a standard rollercoaster pulling some G's? Hunker down, focus on the track, and pretend you're flying a small jet away from something big. You're at least given a vague sense of control, the best kind of lie to give yourself, but the X wouldn't allow that. You couldn't see the track, you were constantly spinning in various directions, and thanks to the Swiss design company, you were moving in ways that only the characters in the pilot for Lost can relate to.

It was awesome.

We spent the afternoon at the park, which was thankfully quite empty, riding rides and screaming and laughing our asses off. I can't think of a time when I laughed as hard as I did on sunday, on (of all things) the log ride.

We had seen people getting off the log ride, the person in front was usually soaked, the person in the back was relatively okay. It was odd I thought, because as a log rider for 15+ years, I'd never been "drenched." Nevertheless, I agreed to go up front, with Jimmy in back, so that I could take the brunt of the water (if there was any) and his hair would be okay.

For 25¢ you can stand off to the side of the log ride and fire waterbombs. While the final "plunge" got me moderately wet and kept Jimmy dry, a boy off to the side had plunked his quarter in and pressed the button at the perfect moment: drenching us both. Jimmy was dumbfounded, I found it hard to catch my breath I was laughing so hard. I don't think a single part of me was dry.

The funny thing about Six Flags is that they're everywhere, and they're all relatively the same. Superman: The Escape in Valencia is Batman Sub-Zero in Dallas, but they're the same rides. It's like no matter which one you go to, it's like being a kid again, part of your childhood has been re-created and tweaked across the country (Texas alone has 3: Over Texas in Dallas, Astroworld in Houston and Fiesta Texas in San Antonio).

The season pass deal was a really great deal it turns out — $10 cheaper than regular admission. We didn't ride everything, we could come back as often as we wanted in the coming months. This sense of leisure at Six Flags was decidedly not a memory of my childhood. Someone was always the militant ride-goer of the family, and added a marked sense of urgency to any outing. This person was usually one of my cousins, and every so often my sister. Rarely myself, thought I was often more adament about seeing the stunt shows or laser spectauclars than riding any rides (save for Raging Rapids).

A long shower and a breif painting experiment later, and my day was done. Hooray for weekends.

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