After I got up Steve told me my mother Hoagie had arrived and gone to the Bakery for lunch. This was earlier than expected. I'd invited her to attend the opening at the Downtown Artspace, and assumed she'd be coming to Charlottesville later on. But it had begun to rain and she was concerned about ice on Afton Mountain, the ridge that stands halfway between Staunton and Charlottesville.

Power was out at the Bakery when I found my way there. My mother wasn't anywhere to be seen either. So I went to UVA's Cocke Hall and did a little work.

Later I was at the Bakery drinking coffee and talking to Jenfariello about various things like tonight's opening, the impending demise of the Bakery, and the dodging of a fairly close semimetaphorical bullet. Emily, one of the sexy counter girls, even made me a free mocha. The "endless free coffee" I am getting as payment for the sign will only last for the one more week the Bakery will exist. It's been in operation for 20 years. Jenfariello put a notice of the impending demise of the Bakery on the door. It will go out with a bang; there's a BIG party there a week from today. Yes, there will be a keg. I want all you readers of my musings to be there, too.

My mother came by th Bakery a fe minutes after Jenfariello had left, and we went back to my house. It was by now almost 6pm and my mother and I had a big debate over how we would get Downtown (a mile away) to attend tonight's opening at the Artspace. She didn't want to take her Subaru or ride with me if I was going to be drunk. But I finally convinced her not to care particularly if in fact I did drive drunk. She's flexible that way. She freaks out more when I'm a sober driver anyway, since when she's sober she's a horrible passenger, freaking out at everything. But when I'm drunk, she's drunk...and sedated too.

So we took the Dart downtown. The Artspace was already hopping by the time we got there. And more and more people started showing up too. Jenfariello had feared that the rainy cold weather would keep people away, but that didn't happen. The crowd ended up being very youthful (UVA students mostly). The most prolific of the artists there is a very talented UVA student named Jacque, a friend of my house. His video production (yes, this opening was fully multimedia) was especially beautiful...though I have to say it looked like a male erotic fantasy. It featured jumpy scenes of a guy being dealing with nubile maidens and a teddy bear in a big grassy field.

The decor in the Artspace is looking better and better, if grungier and grungier. Jenfariello had ripped up all the old carpet and left a concrete floor mottled with glue. It's better than I feared it would be. And my huge rooster is better than I remember leaving him. He received lots of positive feedback.

When vino ran out prematurely (Jen had no idea so many people would show up in such bad weather) she and I went to the nearby downtown IGA and purchased six more litres.

For musical entertainment Matthew of the local band Plutonium was doing his usual trippy guitar stuff, and later on I loudly presented some poetry over his guitar. There was no PA so I was forced to shout. But I have a loud voice when I put my mind to it. The poetry I read was from my art paragrams, which I'd copied by hand off the Internet at the Mudhouse just before going to tonight's opening. I hadn't thought ahead enough to print my poems out, which would have made things considerably easier.

My mother and Jenfariello were relating extremely well against all odds. My mother was being obnoxious though, bragging about her sound investment decisions. Jen was pleasantly reminded of her own mother and kept hugging mine. If my mother hadn't been so drunk, she might have said, as she once did to another hugbunny, "I don't do that!"

I drove my mother back to my house and we hung out with my housemates and friends for awhile. She ended up sleeping in my bed but NOT WITH ME.

I wandered to the horrid apartment on Wertland and didn't know much what to do there. Vanna the Increasingly Gothic Punk Rock Girl was there, and Theresa V. came by later, as did a very heavily made-up Liz the alterna-chick. The girl to boy ratio in the horrid crash pad is always very low. But the boys always seem happy and the girls always busy themselves by playing cards.

I ended up sleeping at Jenfariello's house. She was VERY DRUNK by this point, having repeatedly done shots of tequila since seeing me last.

today, courteousy of Altavista, I present another girlfriend.

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