We went to the Haight. I'd never been to that neighborhood before. Did you know that there are certain thrift shops in the Haight that sell $50 hats? Thrift shops. That's all you need to know, right there. But eventually, we found Mecca. It's sort of a costume shop that sells all kinds of outrageous custom made clothes and hats, and sparkly things. Everything is sparkly. I bought blue hair glitter (yay) and a hat.

This is the hat I got. It makes me look like a Muppet who has just had a terrible shock:

Or, reversed (the way I'm mostly going to wear it) the Muppet fluff is on the inside, peeking out playfully, and the outside is this sort of shiny pleathery material:

I psychotically love this hat. So much so, that I spent about twice what I originally wanted to spend. But I knew if I left the hat behind, I would totally regret it. It was exactly what I wanted, and worth the money to me. So I went for it.

I was able to make my first fashion statement that very evening. I donned the Muppet Hat, and Eleanor and I headed downtown to have drinks and dinner with the lick-a-licious Mar, her ultra-cool mom, and the person I had never met before, Krystyn.

Mar gave me the most perfect birthday gift: a beautiful blank writing book with this blue leathery cover, and a quill with a bottle of gorgeous peacock blue ink. A quill! I have never had one before. When I mail out my first book of poetry, I am going to use this quill and ink for the inscriptions. And the book is so lovely, it's going to be difficult to sully it with writing. Her birthday is coming up next month, and I have no idea how to approximate the perfectness of this gift. I need to take a crash course in having nice handwriting.

Now comes the boring part where I say how much I fell in love with Krystyn, and how we got along, and how she's hilariously funny, and how I wanted to kidnap her and hold her hostage on my and Eleanor's imaginary yacht, the Good Ship Lick-a-Lot. I could also tell you that we formed an imaginary band called Feral Pussy, whose first single is going to be "Sirloin Sauce." But I hate to inflict all our shenanigans on you, so I'll stop there.

Krystyn said her cheeks hurt from smiling. Mine did, too.

My Urban Scrawl class has been interesting lately. We have been reading about the New York "bohemian" lifestyle.

I always joke that I'm turning into a bohemian out here, but apparently that's more true than I thought. Back in the day, the New York Times defined a bohemian as, "An artist or author whose special aversion is to work." I can get behind that.

We learned about the New York Draft Riots in 1863. They tend to be skimmed over in the annals of New York history, but during the civil war, when Lincoln drafted a bunch of citizens of the city, it became the catalyst for riots that were horrifying in scope. There were many, many riots in New York during this time period, but the Draft Riots were the worst of the bunch. Much of the city was burned, rioters and cops were killed and wounded, the city's black residents were lynched left and right. The black orphanage was burned to the ground and a little girl was killed. Prostitutes were gang raped. People had no clear agenda, they were just a racist mob out to destroy things.

It was sort of a civil war within a civil war. The country and the city were both weakening themselves with pointless infighting. Unlike the French revolution, people weren't agitating for some big philosophical goal. They were just restless; they could be set off by anything. There's a theory that the confederacy was secretly responsible for the rioting. Considering that it was an advantage for them, that wouldn't surprise me.

We also learned about Victoria Woodhull, who is my new hero. She ran for president in 1872 (although she technically couldn't even vote) with Frederick Douglass as her running mate. Her platform included free love and the medical inspection of prostitutes. Not only was this woman ahead of her own time, she's ahead of ours, too.

I got two platinum cards in the mail this week. Yeah, $11,000 more credit. Just what I needed. (Blowjob face.)

Actually, I have plenty of credit already. I applied for these cards because of their balance transfer promotions. But the last few times I've done this, I've been rejected. I have sort of hot and cold credit. I go through fits of responsibility (for a while, I paid my bills every Monday during Ally McBeal) and sometimes it just gets away from me.

So I'm not looking for more credit. In fact, I'm going to cancel my two cards with the highest APRs. But the moral of the story is that my recent responsibility in paying my bills is paying off. I have a decent credit rating again! Yay!

Does anyone out there doubt that I am a big giant dork? Let me lay your doubts to rest once and for all by sharing the song I wrote for my parakeets.

Cassie, bless her fluffy little heart, likes to fly over and hang out with me once in a while. Mostly it's when I'm eating something crunchy, but sometimes she just likes to come over for no reason at all. And I'll talk to her, and she'll chirp. The other day, though, I decided to start singing. This is roughly what came out (to the tune of "Copacabana" no less):

Her name is Cassie
She is a birdie
with yellow feathers, yellow fluff
and a beak that's sharp enough
to eat her birdseed
and nibble drywall
she likes to shake her feathers dry
she likes to chirp and likes to fly
she is so round and sweet
my little parakeet
she has her seeds and she has her water and she likes to tweet

at the Cassie
Cassiecabana
where the bird looks just like a banana
at the Cassie
Cassiecaba-a-ana
flyin' and flappin' are always the fashion at the Cassie...
she flies around...

His name is Pidgie
he is quite stupid
with pale blue feathers he can puff
most motor functions he finds tough
sometimes he's missing
when I return home
because he's anything but sage
and he can never find his cage
his flying's very poor
he flies into the door
he tries to land on his cage instead he crashes to the floor

at the Cassie
Cassiecabana
where the bird looks just like a banana
at the Cassie
Cassiecaba-a-ana
flyin' and flappin' are always the fashion at the Cassie...
she flies around...

the day when Cassie
first met Pigwidgeon
he puffed himself up fat
and she chirped, "What the hell is that?
Is it a new bird?
Well I don't want one."
he didn't get it right away
he doesn't get it to this day
when Cassie tilts her head
and will not be his friend
he just wants her love-- she wants to eat his head

at the Cassie
Cassiecabana
where the bird looks just like a banana
at the Cassie
Cassiecaba-a-ana
flyin' and flappin' are always the fashion at the Cassie...
she flies around...

And unlike the birds, my brain is bigger than a peanut. So I really have no excuse for this. Maybe the Muppet Hat is cutting off circulation to my brain. Yep. That must be it.

None.