Yesterday we were awakened at 7 AM by the arrival of my brother in law and his girlfriend. YAWN. And then we slept until 10, at which point we started stirring ourselves in anticipation of brunch. Brunch was deelish Mexican food at El Maguey Y la Tuna, but the real point in going was to see Michael S., a friend of J's from the Phoenix days (also a friend of mine) and meet his husband and their 2 year old daughter (Vivi, who wanted to hold my hand when we left the restaurant and flirted outrageously with me during the meal). It was fun to see them both (er, well, all three of them). Oddly, they may wind up moving to Seattle, depending on where Husband gets his medical residency. And the food was fantastic.

Afterwards it was off to the Noguchi museum in Queens. I have really come to love Noguchi in the last five or six years - the Black Hole Sun in front of the Asian art museum is his. And this had a broad collection of his stone carvings, many of which had features I really associate with him - a sort of respect for and fascination with the rock itself. Basalt isn't just a material to create sculpture - it's interesting on its own, and somehow his sculptures, especially from the 80s, make you see the rock better (as well as having interesting shapes). It was a big hike to the museum from the subway stop but the trip was well worth it - I doubt I'll ever see so much of his monumental work in the same place again. I left asking myself, now, why can't I have one of these in MY back yard?

Then it was back to Brooklyn and the official meeting of the sister outlaw and late family Christmas present opening. Afterwards we went to a Korean bar for Korean chicken wings and drinks, then across the street to Chorus for a late night Karaoke bash. And by late I mean we went until 2 AM. Apparently the bartender likes my brother in law and sister outlaw, as he gave them free shots of Johnny Walker Blue and also gifted our table with several free drinking snacks, including a wonderful plate of fresh fruit. We ordered four or five of these jugs of Korean hootch (shoju? shochu?) as well as beers (for the boys) and sang and sang. There were a fair bit of other people there but it was a really nice atmosphere - people jumped in on other folks songs and helped them out or just participated because they liked the song in question. I think we got eight people up there for "Bohemian Rhapsody," among them Tom, who later tried to give me his number. Dear dear, I think we _all_ had just a bit to drink. We were in bed around 2:30 and we all decided that we would just not plan to do much today.

I actually got up at around 11 (I had been dreaming about dreamsewing, who was in England and wanted me to go to brunch in Cambridge with her), and broke down and ate some of the turkey from Christmas dinner at around noon. Now J and I are getting ready to have some tea (it's about 1:30) and with luck we might be having some brunch soon. J's holding on to his DS Lite (his Christmas present from me) like it's his lifeline to reality, and I am waffling between reading a silly Charlaine Harris mystery (Shakespeare's Christmas, my present to me) and writing up the Nutcracker ballet. Ooh, and drinking tea. I should really do that now.

Note: my mother in law got me a (in my mind) ridiculously expensive Christmas present (necklace and earrings). I'm not talking to her or having anything to do with her now (and basically hoping to never see her for the rest of my life). Do I thank her or do I let J do it or do I mail it back? What can I do to politely discourage such largesse?

"Your day breaks, your mind aches,
You find that all her words of kindness linger on,
When she no longer needs you.
She wakes up, she makes up,
She takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurry,
She no longer needs you.
And in her eyes you see nothing,
No sign of love behind the tears cried for no one,
A love that should have lasted years."

Et cetera. I managed to sing a horrid version of ABC's "Poison Arrow," a similarly mutilated "People Will Say We're in Love" (freaking intro!), a passable "Dear Prudence," and a pleasing "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover." I did not manage to sing "Sukiyaki" or "88 Lines about 44 Women" or "When You're Good to Mama," but since I got to dance with djm while julietk was singing "It's A Sin" (and I had buttered popcorn), all my failures will ultimately be forgotten "like tears in rain" and replaced with memories of fun, like watching shadowdaddy do back up guitar (with the Guitar Hero axe) for jhg's "Won't Get Fooled Again." (And do people really not know "As" was originally by Stevie Wonder?)

Got pissed off in a Chinese food restaurant (David Wong's Chinese Restaurant) near the Tooting Broadway tube station when they came back and told us our order wasn't hitting their per person minimum and we needed to get appetizers to flesh the order out. I was furious and walked out, and then they stuck shadowdaddy and wechsler with the food I'd ordered before they said we needed to ordered more and I decided to leave rather than pay for food I wasn't hungry enough to eat. Fuckers. Like it isn't criminal enough that they're charging $4 for a plate of plain rice.

The three of us went earlier to see Yobi, the Five Tailed Fox at the Barbican as part of the Korean Film Festival (animated movie day). It had a lot of sloppiness to the translation and occasionally weak animation (mostly bad proportions), but it was cute and the story was very interesting and at the very end it did something I really wanted to see happen, which was that it totally slipped off of the Western story telling plane and did some freaky assed stuff that had jack to do with my culture and had absolutely no explanation at all and was totally cool. Killer bunny spirits feeding soul-birds in their little cages, that rocked.

Oh yeah, and I missed my sister tonight, because I wanted to hear her singing some Stevie Wonder. I really need to give her a call.

After seeing shadowdaddy's lastest play, "Night, Mother," which is about suicide, I thought some life affirming activities were in order. In my case, this was karaoke. I'd just read over dinner (um, pizza) that the Crescent now has karaoke seven nights a week, and this is where we wound up. I only got in 2 songs between 10 and 2, but oh, how many margaritas I did drink. IT was the kind of karaoke scene where people were dancing with each other randomly and the whole bar was singing along with the singer - perfect, I tell you, just like the good old days at the Sea Wolf. splendid_geryon joined us after his shift at The Schmee, and we continued to hang out and sing and dance and visit and have a good time right up until they kicked us out.

Damn. What a good night. I stopped being able to feel my face around midnight, and yet I went for margarita number three. My basic thought (as I talked to "Angel" and "Violet" and "Tranny Kitaen") was that I felt like myself for the first time in months, and that was good.

I've already had three glasses of water, and I'm looking forward to some kind of breakfast involving gravy in many, many hours. And typing is killing me. See y'all later.