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").



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Saturday, April 12 1997

A the Gus factoid: telling me a sports metaphor is a sure-fire way to make me yawn.

Sorry boys and girls!

Uncle Gus has decided that boys and girls should discover the ways of their wee-wees from their little friends and not from grown ups. Indeed, it may soon be against the law for Uncle Gus to instruct young boys and girls in the ways of wee-wee-based fun. In these wonderful United States of America it is widely feared that boys and girls who find out the truth about their wee-wees will suffer severe trauma from the experience and end up being horribly maladjusted adults. I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for that. Perhaps, however, Disney.com has a wee-wee-website!

This was the first time I have ever loaned my car to anyone except a girlfriend.
Persad came to visit me at Comet and chatted a long time before asking if he could borrow my car. April showers were busy bringing Trump towers and he didn't want to walk to the Downtown Mall in such conditions. I reluctantly agreed, and then, after he left, I was filled with anxiety. This was the first time I have ever loaned my car to anyone except a girlfriend. My Dart is a temperamental car, however, and it refused to start for him.

Between the Webmaster's constant story telling, Persad's visit, and the trickle of phone calls, I had difficulty working on my musings, which is what I mostly wanted to be doing.

I sat on the porch with my housemates and some of the friends-of-the-house (I know how much you like that term, Will, though of course you weren't there at the time). We all were drinking liquor and watching the rain.

While I was taking a shower, Cecelia and Leticia the Brazilian Girls appeared. Since Cecelia was about to go wash dishes at the C&O, I drove her there in the Dart. Leticia and I went on to Pantop's Mountain shopping center to buy vodka and fruit juice with which we might become drunk.

We sat on the porch and drank our drinks. We hardly even talked to each other. It was as if we were going through some sort of required ritual more than "hanging out." Then Elizabeth came by and I talked with her.

We missed the Simpsons, but I wanted to watch Cops, the police show where the bad guys are chased and humiliated on national television. If you're from Brazil, you automatically consider the cops to be corrupt and a force of genuine evil. If you're also a punk rocker (or post-punk, as Cecelia occasionally calls herself), well... But I find Cops to be an incredibly entertaining show. Sure it's propaganda. And I watch it with that in mind. Leticia, on the other hand, seems to fear she'll be brainwashed if she watches Cops. She vehemently objected to my watching it. She wanted to go instead to the Horrid Crash Pad. So we compromised and watched only the first segment.

At the Horrid Crash Pad, there was the usual mostly-male crowd. They were drinking beer and playing cards as usual. The music was either Bad Brains or some close facimale. The Horrid Crash Pad is not nearly as horrid as it used to be. Most of the trash is gone, the spots have been scrubbed out of the carpet, and a variety of art hangs on the wall. The card table has been decorated with a bright tribal design. The air, while not exactly fresh, smells mostly of cigarette smoke. Leticia smokes clove cigarettes, of course, and once she showed up, the air smelled mostly of cloves.

I usually bring some girl with me whenever I go to the Horrid Crash Pad. Since the place is always so devoid of the tender gender, just by showing up with a girl seems to illicit a form of unspoken gratitude. The pot was quickly passed to me, and soon I was stoned. Surrounded by the art and art-vibes of the Horrid Crash Pad (an I'd never really felt this their before), I began to draw. I drew an odd little picture on the back of a $1 foodstamp. It featured a cubistic analysis of my face looking in on a monster-filled alien world. Leticia seized it from me and demanded to keep it. I said she could keep it but she must never lose it. I said it would bring her good luck as long she held on to it but it would curse her if she lost it.

The Brazilian Girls feel they have exclusive rights to me.
Not only did I do the Horrid Crash Pad the service of bringing Leticia there, but I left without her too. This was not easy. She demanded that I stay, but, you see, I had other plans for this Saturday night. I offered that she could come along with me if she wanted to. But when I said what I'd be doing (attending a party of mostly UVA students and members of the Curious Digit), she dismissed the whole thing as a "Frat Party." Fine, so I said she could stay at the Horrid Crash Pad then. She wanted to know exactly when I'd be getting back. I had no idea and said so. She was most displeased. But look here: I'm 29 years old and I don't have to tell any 17 year old what I'm doing with my night. The Brazilian Girls feel they have exclusive rights to me. This cannot be, not if I am to be happy. I've indulged this delusion for long enough.

Back at the Dynashack, I hung out in Steve's room with Steve and Elizabeth. For whatever reason I've never hung out there before, though it's a nice big comfy room with a couch. And the music is good there too. There's none of that annoying techno crap. He is forever playing Pavement through his monster stereo. Those who live on the second floor are always complaining about it. I say viva la low-fi. Steve on Pavement, "I never really got into those guys who were amazing guitarists." Elizabeth had some pot for those present to smoke. Until tonight, I hadn't smoked pot in awhile.


all we do is sit here playing games
none of our feelings have been given names

As we passed Dead Man's curve a red car pulled over and asked if we needed a ride.
Eventually, a contingent of us Dynashack people set off on foot for the Curious Digit Party, which was taking place in some odd apartments beyond the medical center. Those in my contingent included Will and Elizabeth and maybe Steve. As we passed Dead Man's curve a red car pulled over and asked if we needed a ride. It was driven by none other than the Amy who I introduced in yesterday's entry. My housemates were surprised and perplexed by this turn of events, but they were happy for the ride.

The party took place in one of those eerie 70's apartment-communities designed for the up and coming yuppies of that age. Outside, the buildings, set as ominous in rows in treeless parking lots, look conventional (reassuringly so, that's the idea), while inside the windows and room are big, low and rude in obsequious homage to Frank Lloyd Wright.

I don't remember much about the party. The music wasn't very Curious Digit, I despair to attest. The beer was good though.

Amy is shy in social situations. I wonder now how she ever had the courage to introduce herself on the streets of Charlottesville.

The experience tonight tempered the enthusiasm of yesterday. She and I drove back to my house alone and we talked some in my room with the door open. I must have been an ass; drunk as ever on a Saturday night, while she was more than a little okay to drive. I have never had a similar interaction with anyone in recent memory. It seemed so terribly forced. I felt bad for her to have to deal with me in this state. I was a far cry from the person she met on my web pages.


For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?970412

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