it's seems to be a habit lately. wake up, run errands, get home around 5:30, work on projects for a couple hours and then go out. i followed the same pattern yesterday. when i arrived home, i opened up my bag of treasure (my paper comic bag), and hurridly read through four comic books. i haven't been able to afford to buy them again until recently. i have a problem. i can't just buy one, i have to buy ALL of them, and that, my friends, is a very expensive habit. if there was a comic collector's anonymous, i'd be in the front of the line, a stack of x-men in one hand and a lighter in the other. until then, i keep the process going: read, bag, board, file away. between 6 and 7:30, kate, zane and i played a series of phone tag, each trying to arrange each other's nights. kate won, and i turned down zane's offer to meet him and his girlfriend, lexi, at the roxy for the showcase of ashley simpson's (jessica simpson's sister) avril lavign inspired band, but i told him i'd meet him at the after party. it was set. meet kate at the little joy at 8:30. in the meantime, i busied myself by doing the pencils of what would be my second rilo kiley shirt design (i'm making three, they'll choose one, hopefully). the idea for it is a remake of a rejected death cab for cutie shirt design i made years ago. two kids, clynched in each others arms and caught in a polaroid picture. for some reason, i drew the girl right, but i just couldn't get the guy right. after an hour of trying, i scurried to my car and made my way down to the bar. i walked in and there sat kate and her neighbor. i said my hellos and went promptly to the bar to order a johnny walker black, but the bartender messed up and gave me red, so he gave me both glasses for the price of one. the three of us passed them around the table and gave it the ole pepsi challenge. the girls liked red better, i liked black. does that mean anything? i stayed for a couple hours. we rapped about music and childhood stories, past obsessions and rekindling friendships. laughs were had all around and i think kate and i are are finally starting to feel comfortable. it was easy, no pressure, just talk, and pretty sober at that. i've lost the persistance of my younger days, and i'm ok with that. when i would meet girls when i was younger, more often then not it was instant, like someone threw pixie dust on us. now, it's like i miss that magic and i think that when i meet someone i could be interested in, i'm waiting for it, but i quickly realize it's just not the case anymore. there's too much hurt and betrayal to be that trusting. but i've reached my apex, i don't care anymore. i'm just glad we met. she's been the biggest inspiration to come along for a while. i wouldn't be able to be doing this (and this is part of a big project) without her. what more can i ask for? at 10:30 i left to go meet zane, but before i got up i got another one of those hugs (before she read the journal from yesterday! ha ha!). it was good, though, i'm really not complaining. as i left the little joy, i got stopped outside by a couple of people doing wardrobe research for a movie called 'artschool confindential' (i guess it's made by the same guy that made ghost world). they wanted that "real indie look", so i posed for a couple photographs for them, making sure to excentuate my superman beltbuckle and then gave them my diatribe on how bummed i've been at all the wardrobe people i've seen on sets trying replicate punk/indie/goth/scene kids and failing miserably. they assured me they were gonna "keep it real, and you're our .1 so far." i smiled, having just swallowed yet another hollywood one liner, jumped in my car and drove across town to the sunset strip. the bar i was going to was called 'on the rox'. i parked on sunset (where you have to pay the fuckin' meter till 2am!) and walked up to the club, only to arrive right when zane and lexi were leaving. i was bummed i was gonna miss them, zane left for spain this morning. oh when, oh when will i have me best friend back again? zane tore off his wristband and tied it around my wrist. we hugged each other and gave our all too common farewells. he promised me free food and drink inside, and i rushed in. i was starving. doing what any good punk would do at fancy parties where you don't know anybody and there's free stuff, i walked straight to the catering, pushing and shoving my way through the crowd, only to discover that the only thing i could eat was fruit and cheese. i stuffed myself anyway. i must have eaten a block and a half of cheese and a full melon. i tried to order a drink, but the bartender was like, "sorry, party's over, no more free drinks." so i split, but not before grabbing a couple more cheese cubes for the road. i decided to pull the caheunga shuffle and check out the beauty bar and star shoes. by the time i parked and got out of my car, i was feeling a little queasy from all the cheese and decided not to drink anymore. i stopped in the beauty bar first. i made small talk with cali and daniel, but decided maybe i'd rather check out star shoes. i walked in that direction and as i did had a small, interaction with some friends. wrestling and loud comments were involved and then we were in opposite directions. i walked into star shoes, did a once through, saw that the band sucked and decided to head back over to the beauty. when i got back out front i ran into two really good seattle friends that had just recently relocated as well. one miss kelly brooks and one mr arlie carstens. it made my quickly dwindling night and we headed inside after kelly and i gave arlie his prerequisite shit. i hit the bar (for a water) and ran into my friend jonah. we talked about seattle and how i am or aren't looking forward to going up there this weekend and then compared seattle buddies. specifically seattle buddies originating from hawaii. the main focus was our friend JJ. he told me a funny story about JJ slapping him and i told him the infamous story of a little altercation i like to call "the cha cha riot." sometime last year, in seattle, i was at one of my favorite bars, the world famous cha cha lounge. i was hanging with my friend john p by the bar, disecting the intricacies and hidden meanings of X2. slowly, three big, drunk hardcore kids, looking for a fight (think hatebreed) thought they found what they were looking for in us. the nudged over, shoving me repeatedly with their elbows and eventually cornering us. john took the initiative and confronted them. an argument insued and as we spat insults back and forth, JJ (being on the complete opposite side of the bar) noticed, grabbed a beer bottle, ran to our aid, smashed it over one of the guy's heads and insanity insued. i mean it was like a good old fashioned bar brawl. the whole place exploded. fists flying, beers bottles in the air, i think there was some dude in the back of the bar doing kung-fu. it was just like a fucking movie. right when it started, i got shoved behind the bar. when i got up, the brawl was already in such a full swing, all i could do was stand there and watch, the panicky crowd being such a blur i couldn't tell who was who. a couple months later we made peace with those hardcore dudes. we bought each other shots and that was that. when i was done trading stories of masculinaty, i spent the rest of my beauty bar experience in the smoking hallway. not always an interesting experience, i encounted two notable ancedotes. 1: while standing in the back i ran into two ladies who i hadn't seen since moving here. two seperate girls who i'd had crushes on, but never really pursued, two girls whose names i could barely remember, yet seemed excited to see me, two girls who served as only reminders unto themselves as why i'd forgotten about them, two girls i was glad to hear were doing better. 2: miss kelly brooks was being heavily hit on by a frat dude with a tongue ring. she was trapped and waved for help. when i arrived for my rescue mission, this coversation ensued: frat dude: what does AWK stand for? (i was wearing my andrew wk hat) me: it's a sound. fd: a sound? m: yeah, you know, AWK! AWK! like that. fd: oh. kelly: frankie's a friend of mine from seattle. m: don't you mean BOYFRIEND from seattle (puts arm around kelly's waist). k: oh yeah, sorry baby. fd: seattle? huh. what's that like? m: i'll tell you what it's like. it rains all the fucking time and it's gray and grunge is everywhere- fd: i love grunge- m: yeah, but listen. the only saving grace is the hot springs man. the fucking hot springs. there is nothing fucking better than being in the springs with one girl rubbing your back abother sucking your dick. fd: yeah bro, that's awesome. m: un, no it's not. (to kelly) wanna go? we grabbed arlie and left the beauty bar completely. arlie suggested we go back to his house in echo park. kelly and arlie ate food as i (still sick from all that cheese) surfed the web. i took care of all the normal e-mail, friendster, whatever, but then i began exploring the news sites, both political and nerdy. conversations ensued and before we knew it it was 5 in the morning and all three of us were on arlie's bed, barely mumbling, but still trying to make the dialog continue. eventually i realized it was time and drove home. i laid on my futon and began reading the new issue of 'rubbernecker.' i woke up face down in the spine. the first thing i did thursday morning was finish the t-shirt design (which i finally became satisfied with). after that i went over to steve's house. we talked about upcoming events and surfed the internet together. at 2pm we picked up our partner jason stewart and headed over to filter magazine headquarters where we had a meeting scheduled. they were interested in sponsoring our nights. when we were walking in the building, we ran into mark (polaroid scene guy) and invited him in to join us. in the next hour, all of us, jason, steve, mark, filter and i had made a pact. this will be the start of a new era and it is only the beginning. as a reward for our new agreement, they let steve and i 'filter' through their freebies. steve and i both left with a box of new music, accessories and a smile on our faces.