car bizarre

so i bought that honda, finally, though i haven't physically picked it up & titled it etc, because i want to sell the mazda first. no sense paying insurance on two cars when i only drive 3x times a week. this afternoon i took photos of the mazda for my ad, and while i was cropping them in photoshop, i noticed something odd... my front license plate does not match my rear plate! wtf? i vaguely remember having a hard time with one of the bolts on the front, but surely i wouldn't have given up and gone driving around with one old expired plate and one new, right? nope, checked the renewal notice i just got in the mail, and neither of those plates is mine. whoever stole them was "nice" enough to replace them with other plates (likely stolen?) so i didn't even notice. weird thing is, it probably happened quite some time ago... back in november of '05, i got a letter from a gas station way on the southside (where i never go) saying i had driven off without paying for gas. i called the cops then, not wanting any trouble (VA promotes that they'll take away your license if you get busted for a drive-off), and they said not to worry about, figured it was probably a blurry security camera, or perhaps they were just off a digit and pulled my info by accident. i'm embarrassed to report that i didn't walk down the street that day & check my plates closely-- doh. thought about ignoring the whole deal, since i'm about to sell the thing (and apparently i've gotten away with it this long), but i figured i'd better at least file a police report just in case. plus, my luck with DMV is notoriously abysmal-- with my luck, i'll get pulled over tomorrow while i'm running errands & accused of stealing the plates-- since i just reported them suspicious myself. the other weird thing? the front plate is easy as pie to steal, but to get the back plate off (and replace the inside nuts, as was done), you have to get into the trunk. which means whoever it was either broke into the car without me noticing, or they had keys.

to be a woman and to be turned down...

reasons to work more often: one of the first things i found out tonight while at the cafe was that patti freakin smith has a new album coming out. an album of covers! and, as it turns out: an album of covers of some of my favorite songs ever!! i had an obnoxious out-loud moment of "wtf? how do i not know about this?" but whatever-- thank goodness one of my occasional co-workers listens to NPR. (funny that it came up after she revealed that some off friend had talked her into going with him to a justin timberlake show... whatever.) so i came home and fumbled around online looking for said patti CD, found out it comes out in late april... ok, but i wonder what else i've missed? got the new lucinda last week, but haven't otherwise been paying attention, since chris died... and that's how i came across live at massey hall. holy... holy all things holy. i don't know whether i want to hug (um, etc) or smack the smack out of whomever has been hiding this in their vault since 1971. the acoustic version of cowgirl in the sand? excuse me while i put that on half a dozen mix tapes-- er, CDs... damn, turns out there's a new maria mckee coming out the same day as the new patti...

random media

somehow, years ago, i missed the fact that dear gabo not only bought a litmag but also wrote an article on bill clinton for said mag. best line: "puritanism is insatiable and feeds on its own excrement." i was planning on rereading 'cities of the plain' this week, but i believe i just changed my mind. speaking of cormac... had a weird multi-day, dream-induced, dark train of thought going last week, and one of my random musings was that it was a shame that surely no one would dare take on the task of making a movie of 'the road.' so depressed by this thought was i that i've watched the lame movie version of 'all the pretty horses' more than once of late. (ooh ooh, the coen's 'no country for last things' is in the can!) but whaddya know, someone has. apparently john hillcoat plans to direct-- i know nothing of him except that he directed the nick cave-penned 'the proposition,' which is sitting in the stacks waiting to be watched. just got pushed to the top of the list, natch.