vovat | Has It Really Been Five, Ten, or Fifteen Years?

Beth and I have now been married for ten years, which seems unlikely, but the math checks out. We were married on Leap Day in 2008. I feel bad that I couldn't think of anything special to do to celebrate; I'm really bad at that kind of thing, and at romantic or even just friendly gestures in general. It's part of being a creature of habit, I suppose, but I think Beth deserves better for putting up with me for all these years. We do a lot of things together, but I don't know that they're couple things per se. Anyway, we DID do something together this Thursday, but it was something we were going to do anyway even if it hadn't happened to fall on that day. We went to the Bell House for a live performance of Everything Is Terrible!, a website that features edited versions of weird videos.

This particular show was called The Great Satan, so most of the clips were of conservative Christian stuff. We'd seen some of it when watching TV late at night. Part of our cable package is something called Smile of a Child, which is all religious kids' shows, often low-budget and cheesy as hell. Or should that be "cheesy as Heaven"? There were also a few short segments with actual performers that maintained a bit of a narrative, if a really convoluted one. A preacher sang a song distilling his religion into two main concepts: Give me all your money and don't touch your weenie. Then there was a He-Man parody called New Testa-Man, where the He-Man analog was racist. The Skeletor character later went to recruit the preacher as a minion for Satan, who was portrayed as sort of an anteater with horns.

The night ended with a ritual sacrifice of videos of Jerry Maguire, sort of an ongoing theme with EIT. The Bell House has limited seating and we didn't show up that early, which meant standing for the whole thing. Must have been Satan's idea.

On Monday, I went out without Beth to the fourth and final night of Kim Boekbinder's residency on the Lower East Side. There were two openers, but I can't remember the name of the first, who did two songs. The second was pretty memorable, Miss Eaves, who introduced herself as really socially awkward, then rapped about masturbation.

Awkwardness manifests itself in many different ways, I suppose. Other numbers of hers were about enjoying food and being single (although, as she explained, she actually isn't at this point). Kim's set included different guest performers, including a cellist, horns, and burlesque dancers Jezebel Express and Cat.

She ended up doing a few songs twice, which I guess is inevitable when you use backing tracks for each one. After the show, she recognized that I'd been to all four this month and gave me one of the stage decorations, which she signed.

I think there are other people who'd been to all of them, but maybe I was the only one she didn't know personally. It was fairly convenient for me, since I work in the Financial District now. Still, there was quite a bit of time to kill between the end of the workday and doors for the concert. This week, I wasn't hungry, so I went to Nintendo NYC at Rockefeller Center, where I bought a T-shirt for Beth and a stuffed Koopa Paratroopa for myself. It seems like the store is cutting back somewhat on stock. I got Beth a purse there a few months ago, and they didn't appear to be there anymore. I want them to do well, because they're a fun store.