16_Lifting Weights

Mark your calendars:  Thursday, July 26th, 2012 was the day that I, Kid Brother, signed up for a gym.  I've been involved in the Glitterati's cardio challenge this past week and a half and joining the gym seemed a good way to keep myself on track.  Plus, when you spend $70 ever thirty days on something, you tend to want to use it.

So the past few days I've been gyming hard, lifting weights and running on treadmills and such, trying to undo some of the damage I've done to myself over the past few years of relative inactivity.

And it feels great.  Well.  Sorta.  My legs and my lower back disagree with that statement, but I, in general, feel awesome.  At least I feel like I'm doing something.  Which is a big help.

And hey, if this schedule of willing myself out of bed at 9am continues, I might even find time during the day to get some writing done.  And that would be magnificent.

- Kid

15_Chronic City: Baltimore Edition

I just finished reading Johnathan Lethem's Chronic City and the timing couldn't have been more appropriate.  You see, in that book, among the various other happenings in Manhattan is The Tiger, a mythical beast that destroys buildings in the city seemingly at random.  As the story progresses, the buildings destroyed by the Tiger begin to directly effect the characters.

It seems like something out of a work of fiction, right?

I give you Light Street, just a block north of the Harbor.  A water mane burst yesterday, flooding all the important streets Downtown and making travel through the city almost impossible.  So was it just an accident, a random happenstance, or has the Tiger migrated South to Charm City?  We shall see...

- Kid

14_Plans

In one hour, my week begins.  I've come to see my life from a true bartender's perspective:  my weekend is Monday and Tuesday, my week begins after that.  Now that Josh is moving across country and I'm picking up almost every shift of Yonko's while he drives with Josh, I will be completely incomunicado for the next few weeks, spending my time off not being out at a bar, for fear of the Vietnam-esque flashbacks that that may bring on.  (Speaking of which, I just started Dennis Johnson's Tree Of Smoke and so far, so good.)

Last night, I tried to cram it in a bit, knowing that for the next six days I'd be chained behind the bar, more or less.  Janine and I ended up at Sticky Rice for some karaoke because we both wanted to see hot tattooed people, something you rarely see in Federal Hill.  This neighborhood is where conversations about punk music, anarchy and other generally alternative topics, come to die.  Not that I'm terribly into anarchy, but it is a nice break from the usual barely repressed NeoCon dialogue we get down here.

Hot tattooed people there were a plenty.  To the point where it was almost sensory overload.  We escaped to BAR for a nightcap.  Also, Janine totally won karaoke with a rather sultry rendition of "Black Velvet".  It was pretty hot, not gonna lie.

And so upon waking up today, a thought struck me.  If I'm going to go on vacation up to Philadelphia at the end of the month, once Yonko gets back, why not take the opportunity to see what the world of Philadelphia ink has to offer me?  So off it was to peroogle Philly tattoo artists.  So not only do I get to escape Baltimore, escape work and get to see some of my best friends (who I haven't seen in WAY too long, by the way), I get to get started on my long awaited sleeve on my left arm.  I.  Cannot.  Wait.  It's going to be amazing.

Pics, of course, will happen.

- Kid