Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").

links

decay & ruin
Biosphere II
Chernobyl
dead malls
Detroit
Irving housing

got that wrong
Paleofuture.com

appropriate tech
Arduino μcontrollers
Backwoods Home
Fractal antenna

fun social media stuff


Like asecular.com
(nobody does!)

Like my brownhouse:
   through my evenings and into my dreams
Saturday, March 29 1997

A mysterious question: If I were to say and you said okay, would I fall prey to the goad of the grey?

Even though I woke up at a little past 7am this morning, I managed to get a lot of sleep in the preceding 24 hours. Way too much, perhaps. The sleep last night was rich with dreams. I don't recall them all very well. But here is an idea:

I was homeless in a town and I asked my current housemate Elizabeth (who had a place to stay) where I might stay. Instead of telling me I could stay with her (as expected), she instead suggested that I go stay at Leah's house (Leah being the same Leah as Matthew Hart's on-again/off again girlfriend and now wife). I was disappointed, but set out for Leah's house, which was down a hill through some bad neighborhoods, where streets came together to form a big triangle. As I walked, though, I became fearful of being mugged (and losing the money in my wallet from the check I'd cashed the day before). I also feared that I would not be well received by Leah. These doubts caused me to turn around and head back...to where I don't know. Other odd things happened from there, most of them involving or symbolizing me being rejected by possible sexual partners while striving to avoid situations that required risk taking.

I went to Comet at least a half hour early for today's shift. Just once I'd like someone who is to replace me to do the same. Despite the good weather, the phones have been ringing fairly regularly. But I'm getting stuff done. It's nice for once not to have a hangover during my Saturday shift.

I took a little break and walked through warm streets, fought my way through hordes of nubile maidens and somehow managed to get down to Plan 9 records. There I bought Dinosaur Jr.'s Without a Sound for $6. It was released in 1994. I'm reasonably familiar with Dinosaur Jr., since I listened to a lot of college radio throughout the early 90s. Matthew Hart used to play a lot of Dinosaur Jr. in the days of Big Fun, too. I think prior to his exposing me to it, I used to find the vocals kind of whiny and annoying. Subsequently I've decided that the melodies and instrumentation are so good that they somehow make up for unattractive vocals. The bass sounds rather like Sebadoh (even though the bass player, Lou Barlow, who is now in Sebadoh, left Dinosaur Jr. in 1989). I haven't heard enough of this album to form much of an opinion, but what I've heard so far I like.

ihf ia road thuh seez ahnd yew saht ohn air
ia wuhd riad rohkehts juhst tew see ihf yewr thair.
We tried using a coffee grinder, but that did no good whatever. We left the grinder cleaner than I have ever seen one before.
As I returned home from work, walking east down Wertland, I was hailed by Josh Mustin from the porch of the Horrid Crash Pad. He told me of his new job fulltime as bellhop at the Sheraton (a position of some prestige among my peers) and invited me in. Hanging out just then was Josh Smith, Jeremy, one of the members of the infamous band The Odyssey, and another guy. They had a fairly respectable amount of liquor in their possession and were eager to find a blender with which to prepare drinks. They asked if there was one at my house, and I had my doubts, but Josh was insistent that I "had to have one." So we all trooped down to my house to look. But no, there was nothing of the sort to be had. We tried using a coffee grinder, but that did no good whatever. We left the grinder cleaner than I have ever seen one before.

So back at the Horrid Crash Pad we made due with ice cubes. I had one margarita, but after that the grape or cherry-flavoured mixer yielded subsequent drinks that tasted too much like Robitussin [ha ha, I've registered the generic term "tussin.com" to myself!]. I went back and forth between the Horrid Crash Pad and the Dynashack a few times to keep things interesting. I joked with Elizabeth that it was fun to hang out only with boys for a change at the Horrid Crash Pad. I said that we sit around and compare our rape fantasies (which, by the way, we don't).

searching for sunrise but we're never on time,
we're finding fossils at the scene of our crime.
Eventually Hapless Mike, then later Karen the German Girl, Cecelia the Brazilian Girl, the boy Jesse and perhaps Annie the Taurus all showed up at the Horrid Crash Pad. My memory starts getting fuzzy at this point. But somehow the goths and I all went down to the Corner to pick up vino and beer. I got involved in a fun conversation with Catherine (not Katherine, she has informed me) DeGood and her housemate Deidre. Catherine says she's been reading my musings of late and that my March 27th entry (the one where I talked about observing girls in the springtime) had the effect of improving her day.

I also found Bn there. (He told me the next day that from all appearances I had been obviously flirting with Catherine and Deidre). He was looking kind of bored so I invited him to come back with me and the goths to my house. We all sat in my room, drinking vino and beer until about 10:30pm. Then we headed off to a party down on 14th Street.

willing to argue over egos of glass
and season the pot of the loot we amass.
The house with the party had some cool junk sculptures in the front yard. They were all funky with rust and decay. It seemed the people living there must be of a similar creative mindset to me and my housemates. Funky yard sculptures are never seen at fraternity parties.

There were at least two punk bands that played at the 14th Street Party. I say "punk" even though one of the bands, Vegan Death, used to be sort of Death Metalesque. Now they had a more thoroughly punk sound. But to tell you the truth, I was so messed up I was having trouble distinguishing between faces in the various bands, so I really can't say what band played when. I just know I thoroughly enjoyed it all.

There is a snapshot of his nose all covered with blood in my sporatic but occasionally vivid memory of things. Subsequently he was kicked out.
One of the things that happened was a reasonable amount slam dancing to the music, mostly among my friends, but also including some familiar faces whose names I do not know (these poor souls were casually dismissed as "posers" the next day by Cecelia, who doesn't even know them). In the process of all of this I became drenched with alcohol abuse, and so I took off my shirt. Jesse managed somehow to have his nose broken. There is a snapshot of his nose all covered with blood in my sporatic but occasionally vivid memory of things. Subsequently he was kicked out. I don't recall having a playful punching fight with sixteen year old Annie the Taurus, but the next day her leg was covered with vicious purple bruises. I also don't recall the Brazilian Girls drawing all over a table in the kitchen. What I do recall was chatting up one of the female members of the house, then losing her and ending up with Elizabeth. We sat on a couch and I tearfully told her how much I loved her. I recall looking out at the crowd of partiers through the blurry waves of falling tears and being mildly embarrassed and then rationalizing that they were just wallpaper.

Elizabeth drove me to Ian's rave (for which I'd created a web page). It was being held in the Downtown Artspace, in the basement of the Jefferson Theatre on the Downtown Mall. Lots of sweaty teenagers and others were moving their sweaty bodies to thumping techno and "house" music while all sorts of lights pulsed and sputtered. I was so drunk at this point that I couldn't hope to dance. I found myself chatting again with Catherine's housemate Deidre. This continued sporatically throughout my attendance of the rave. I have to admit that my conduct towards her was funky with a rather unsubtle form of sexuality. She seemed puzzled, intrigued, though somewhat aloof. She kept asking me questions without telling me what she was asking me. I met this with my own form of Aquarian rationality, expressing my interests with clinical though tasteful frankness. Jenfariello sat beside me briefly and denied that she'd been ignoring me last night. She said she really hadn't seen me. I accused her of being a liar.

Elizabeth drove Ches and me back to the Dynashack. The whole time I told them about how I used to have sex with 16 year olds when I was 26. In truth, I was exaggerating greatly. For some reason I wanted them to think me cheap and immoral.

I went directly to bed. I rarely wear any clothes when I sleep. Before the normal amount of time it takes for me to enter REM, a strange "dream" took place:

the feather falls slowly through the twisting winds of march.
Catherine DeGood and her housemate Deidre suddenly appeared and, I don't know, they were in bed with me or something. Or else they were on top of me, gently attacking me. I don't know how involved Catherine was in this particular dream; it seemed Deidre was the principle protagonist. This was much like a lucid dream in that I was aware, while I was having it, that it was a dream. It had most of the hallmarks of my sexual dreams: nothing much really happened; it was just tantalizing erotic fragments or indications connected in a disjointed manner. What set this erotic dream apart though was that it involved people I actually know. And as quickly as it had started, it was over.

Later I found out that it wasn't a dream at all. It really happened. Much like a dream though, it haunts me and tantalizes me. I'll bet they just did it to end up in my musings. How fun.


For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?970329

feedback
previous | next