weapons of massdistraction

I am not an indecisive person. Life is much simpler when clear options present themselves, to be sure, but that isn’t always the case unfortunately. And hasn’t been, at all, when determining which school my son will attend for the 2010-2011 school year (and beyond). But I have a good feeling about the one I toured yesterday. It is an arts magnet, geared toward creative, visual learners like my boy. And they understand the need for mainstreaming our students on the autism spectrum. Inclusion is key. The fact that it runs through 8th grade also swayed me. So I’ve just called the district center and declared that to be our first choice. I’ll find out in the next few weeks whether or not we’re in.

This week I also managed to gather all of my tax documents, just in the nick of time. That’s another major task out of the way. Now to find a summer day camp for the kid (which is where my tax refund will be going), to work on updating my photography portfolio, lining up engagement and wedding shoots and fleshing out my novel.

Some terrible or awesome or terribly awesome things:

• The Regretsy book signing - complete with a penis costume and taxidermy mishaps.
• Love love love the Kaikidan Ekotoba - “a mysterious handscroll that profiles 33 legendary monsters and human oddities, mostly from the Kyushu region of Japan (with several from overseas). The cartoonish document, whose author is unknown, is believed to date from the mid-19th century. It is now in the possession of the Fukuoka City Museum.”
• An adult artist shares her sketchbook - and some lovely memories - from the first grade. Makes me even more determined to hang on to as much of my son’s creative output as possible.
• Venturing into the uncanny valley is this seriously creepyass humanoid robot that laughs and smiles.
• An 8-bit version of Dr. Horrible and how about a Peeps Show?
• And lastly, a elementary school production of Scarface, with expletives replaced with the term motherfudger (via weird universe).

Even though it’s just on the other side of the river from me, in downtown St. Paul, I hadn’t been to Babani’s Kurdish restaurant in ages. I was so happy it was Brian’s choice for his birthday celebrations. I’ll definitely be returning soon. Other things to celebrate? The beautiful and talented Amy Rice has an art opening at the Frank Stone Gallery on Friday. And Saturday my dear friend Adam Bubolz will be performing at Eclipse Records as his Ennio Morricone-inspired solo act Oktaha.

A little further out? The annual Minneapolis / St. Paul International Film Fest opens April 15th. On April 17th Skoal Kodiak will be playing at MCAD and, later that day, The Wedding Present will perform Bizarro, in its entirety, at the 400 Bar. Saturday May 1st will see my son’s favorite thing ever - Free Comic Book Day! And the following weekend Cinco de Mayo will be taking over our neighborhood. Can’t wait for it get really warm out so we can walk down to La Chiquita to grab some horchata popsicles. We have much to look forward to in the coming weeks and months. Emerging from my winter hermitude never felt so good.