I napped until 5pm, got my paycheck, and then purchased Vampire on Titus by Guided by Voices, new, for $12, and went to my house to have a listen. I was struck by how very low fi this album is. But hidden in the murkiness and lousey production are some really beautiful songs. One odd short little song that I especially like is "Donkey School":

I went to the Downtown Mall for the first Friday of the month art gallery extravanganza that Charlottesville is famous for. First stop, bozART, and there was Nathan VanHooser and wife Janine, Jessika and Ana and Nemo. The salsa there was good...it had olive oil in it I think. The best thing in bozART this month was a great multimedia horse -or dragon?- made by A. Faith out of wood, zillions of rusty nails and curly metal shavings.

Then it was off to Gallery Neo, which was well stocked with photography (including stuff by Jen Fariello and a number of former bozART members) and Steve Keene paintings stacked up like firewood and costing about as much. The vino situation at Neo was very good, thus holiday cheer abounded.

The Mudhouse was also having an opening. I chatted anxiously with Nathan while I watched Jessika check her e-mail on the Mudhouse computer. She took forever before she finally got to my letter. Then she read it. I could see her doing it. The crisis was about to begin.

She came up to me and demanded that I state out loud to her what I'd written. I didn't have much of a chance to respond though, since she accused me of being a coward and socked me in the left cheek and left, Ana and Nemo close behind. She whisked past a very puzzled Bn, replying negatively to his obligatory "what's up?" I told Nathan I'd be going and I went my own way home, in the opposite direction from the path I saw Jessika and Ana taking. Soon though Jessika was behind me and she wanted to talk. So there we were, sitting on the damp ground under a tree on the edge of Water Street just uphill from the ice park. I still couldn't really get into what I'd said in my e-mail. Just I won't be coming over as much, that there is nothing interesting left between us, just a series of events where I do her bidding, and that I'm sick of it, and that I'm sick of Morgan and his parasitic behaviour. She was pissed off and even accused me of being sexually aggressive while asleep. This is when I decided not to continue the conversation, but as I rose to leave she asked, "What, you're going to leave it like this?" and attacked me again, this time actually getting to use those steel toed boots of hers. It was as though she felt she had no recourse but violence. She even hurled a hasty snowball at me after I fell to the ground. Then she stared at me for a moment and then just left, going east. I went west, to home, to bed, and slept for two hours before work.

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