Hey Shorty! It's Your Birthday!

It's good to be back home.

One of the best things about Eeyore's Birthday Party is that everyone is so nice... it's a very happy festival, full of charity and goodwill, not to mention dogs, at least one shoulder-borne cat, a goat, a pig, probably some other wildlife I didn't see, people dressed as Twinkies and bananas, the guy on the two-story bike, drums, smoke (both kinds - the dangerous one and the illegal one), and beautiful girls and boys of all ages and shapes and sizes in various stages of dress, undress, feathers, foliage, and paint. Also, there's beer.

Last time I volunteered at Eeyore's, year before last, I painted faces. The pressure was just too much, though - even though most of my paintings came out extremely well, I was horribly anxious about all of them, and the one silent, solemn little girl whose liquid eyes welled up and spilled over when I gave her the mirror was enough to convince me that this was not a job I was ever willing to take on again, even if nobody asked me to decorate their naughty bits. So this time I sold beer tickets. This is a doable job: insanely busy and fast-paced, and you have to be able to do simple arithmetic in your head reasonably quickly - a weak point of mine actually - but everybody's happy, everybody's nice, and because you're roped off behind a three-foot-tall fence of orange webbing, nobody cops a feel. The organizers give you a special marker that turns yellow on real bills so you can check 100's (and you'd be surprised how many people pay with those). You run out of tickets and ones a lot. It was the fastest two hours I've ever spent - I'm definitely up for doing this again next year!

After our shift, Robbie and I wandered around a bit, visited the drum circle, checked out the egg toss, and then found our lovely friend Diane, in honor of whose 50th birthday the whole festival was actually being held even if many of the partygoers were unaware of that fact. What better way to celebrate?


Happy Birthday, Diane and Eeyore - and many more!

Balancing Attempts

In high school, I was co-captain of the Scholars' Bowl team.

Yes. Go on, I know you're impressed. I told you I was hip.

Tonight, a few people I know from work went to a trivia night at a restaurant near my house. I didn't really know what to expect, but what the heck - trivia!

It turns out I must have killed off a few brain cells since high school, because my team suffered an epic loss to - well, to everyone else there, first and foremost a table with a guy who was reading "The Fellowship of the Ring" when I arrived.

The universe is still badly out of whack.

At least I've been rocking hard at work, and that makes up for a lot. Conference in San Angelo is next week, and I am all over that like shit on a fly... I am so good. I feel awesome. Of course, it hasn't actually taken place yet, but I would just like to say that, coming into the final stretch, I feel like the most competent person on earth.

If I still feel this way one week from right now, I done good.

Next Saturday I'm selling beer (NOT painting faces) at Eeyore's - come see me! Ask me about San Angelo. And ask me who the first person besides Oprah ever to appear on the cover of O Magazine was. I knew that one.

It's Mostly About the Beer

You know those winsome, leggy, skimpily clad, impersonally flirtatious girls that beer companies hire to walk around restaurants handing out free samples?

They don't put up with any shit.

My face-painting gig at Eeyore's was amazingly successful. I only made one little kid cry; and to be perfectly fair, she seemed as if she were about to cry before she sat down, and the whole time she was having her face painted, too. So I don't think it was really my fault, though I felt awful. Fortunately, everyone else seemed really happy with their paint job.

The best was a redheaded kid who knew exactly what he wanted - a red dragon and a black dragon, one on each cheek, facing one another, breathing great gouts of flame that united at the bridge of his nose and flowed up onto his forehead. I probably spent about a quarter of my two-hour shift on that one kid, and it turned out absolutely awesome, so I hope he doesn't wash his face for at least a week. One onlooker told me she wanted me to remember that design when she came back later in the afternoon. At another point, someone actually referred to me as an artist. It's wonderful what high-quality, independent, locally-brewed beer goggles can do.

We hung out for a few hours afterwards, listening to the bands and the drum circle, and just watching some of the freakiest, most beautiful, happiest people and dogs in the freakiest, most beautiful, happiest city on Earth pass by on the trail. It was a perfect day.

Later, Kevin, Robbie and I ended up at Hill's Cafe on South Congress, a fine example of retro-trendified nouveau-vieux, for a little après-Eeyore's gnosh, and met someone really passionate about her job.

Two girls were making the rounds of the place, pouring cups of Miller Chill (rhymes with "swill"), which I didn't try, but which Robbie and Kevin didn't care for, seeing as how we'd spent the day sampling a lot of really good beers. Fair enough, but unfortunately, a few minutes after pouring the samples, the girls stopped by again to ask if we liked it.

We all smiled and nodded politely. "Not really," said Robbie.

The girls laughed, but one didn't want to let that go by. "What didn't you like about it?" she asked.

"Well, it tastes like Miller," Kevin pointed out, reasonably enough I thought.

"Well, it's a whole different recipe," the girl said, still laughing, but with an edge to her voice. "I've never heard that one before."

"Well, now you have," Robbie responded.

The next logical step was for her to break a Miller Chill bottle on the edge of the table and go for his throat, but fortunately, they gave up and moved on, which is good, because by then I had a monster headache from all the sun, all the squinting at small children's faces, all the beer, and most of all the live country band playing at Hill's, which probably was not, in clear violation of the principle of truth-in-advertising, called "Quaver McWobbly and His Amazing Vibrato Squad."

Headache aside, it was a great time all around. I'm looking forward to volunteering again next year, and here's a tip for you if you ever sign up to do face-painting: Don't set your drink down on the table right next to your paintbrush water. You might as well just drink Miller Swill and be done with it.

Will Paint Unidentifiable Objects on Your Child's Face for Free Beer and a T-Shirt

So Diane, Robbie and I go to the Wednesday night volunteers' meeting, at the Dog and Duck, for Eeyore's 44th Birthday this upcoming Saturday. What a totally happy, Austin experience! There's nary a non-weird person to be seen; and everyone is filled with such an excess of goodwill that female strangers cheerfully take turns guarding the men's bathroom for each other. (What? There's a long line for the ladies' room, and there are plenty of trees on the patio.)

The main volunteer slots open are for face painters, which is kind of sad if you think of the children. Look: Just have your kids ask for something easy, okay? Rainbows, flowers, butterflies, things like that. Spiderman in full web-swinging action? Hell, it's your $3.

12-2, y'all, if you want to come out and get your face painted. I believe the Complaints Department is at the other end of the park.