Undermine the underground

I've gotten rather diligent about pursuing free tickets contests and promotions, putting my name in for things that even just remotely interest me, especially knowing they're free. Its how I ended up seeing Janeane Garaefalo and some other dude do stand-up (which ended up being the activity for a first date, and I will say, taking a blind date to something like that is a good revealer of how things stand, i.e., if they are laughing at the fcked-up unfunny jokes, I'm glad to know this now before I got swindled into sleeping or making out with them). A couple days ago, I won tickets to see Emmylou Harris at Ravinia this upcoming weekend. Luckily, DYA is free that night too, so we're making it a picnic date night. I only own Emmylou Harris albums where she's collaborated with other people, I like her, but I'm not some huge fan, but I trust it will be a good show. Plus, free. Plus, lying on a blanket and eating good snacks with DYA. So yesterday, the envelope arrived with my tickets and there were three of them, not two. Strange. Since it was a planned date night, I decided to offer the ticket on Craigslist to a stranger and was sort of overwhelmed by the response. And by the number of things in the FREE section. I had never really explored this part of Craiglist fully, but it might become a new hobby. There's something about the direct connection aspect, the idea of offering new homes, of wanting to relinquishing things into the world but have them be used and not just tossed into a landfill or gather dust in the back of a thrift store. But also, so many things available! I'm in the midst of wanting to get rid of things, but still.

Except for towels in the bathroom. We need some new towels badly. And like underwear, socks, and undershirts, I'm not really wanting to get those secondhand. I have my limits, even about community-minded free-lovin' bartering.

For the past few days, I have been in a state of ever-so-slightly manic. Except, I think maybe I'm just happy, or 'in good spirits' as the kids say these days, but I'm so used to working really hard to get myself moving and going and living, that when I'm actually antsy and bouncy and easily motivated, I suddenly feel compelled to pathologize it.

Here's a random list of things that I'm obsessing about:
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This last part reminds me of how I recently watched Wanda Sykes: Sick & Tired and she had this whole bit about the space program and wanting to build a space station on the moon so we can travel there, and she's like 70% of americans don't have a passport -- we can't get people to leave the country, much less the planet. Also, she called NASA welfare for really really smart people. They're so smart, they're useless, so we let them work on things that are completely irrelevant to 99.9% of people's lives, like figuring out there used to be water on Mars.

But the funniest bit was the part about the mouse on fire.