"It's like your dissecting your brain and taking pictures to show us all."

H


oagie, my dear old mother, hung out with me briefly at work, corresponding via email with one of my cousins who is currently in Pakistan. Hoagie wants to have "the internet" at her place back in Staunton. I suggested she get a newer Macintosh (the one she's using right now is a Mac IIsi whose clock I increased to 25 MHz). I don't know how I'd feel about instant feedback from my mum on my musings. I like the current condition, where she's imprisoned in the cage of an information stone age, getting tossed whatever bits of technology I deem appropriate through the thick iron bars.

Jessika wrote to tell me that my musings are a "million times better" than they used to be and, "it's like your dissecting your brain and taking pictures to show us all." That made me very happy.

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I


  watched a DRI videotape with Monster Boy after I got off work. I love DRI: fast righteous beefy metal guitar and lyrics about hypodermic needles accidentally unearthed by the tender hands of children in playground sandboxes.

Public writing is like fishing or hitch hiking: you cast your lure into unknown waters and wait for the fish to come.

A big homecoming UVA football game happened today in the stadium near our house, and that was interesting only for the sheer volume of pedestrian traffic it generated. Taking advantage of this, I put up lots of promotional flyers for these musings both in the morning before work and later in the evening. I doubt that the demographic breakdown of the pedestrian traffic was stacked with the sort of person who eventually becomes an avid reader, but I had to work with what the Lord handed me. Public writing is like fishing or hitch hiking: you cast your lure into unknown waters and wait for the fish to come. Some will bite, some will swim on by, some will miss it entirely, and some will laugh out loud. But some day, all fish must eat and in that lies their vulnerability.

Later on, I was hanging out with Monster Boy and Deya, again watching the DRI videotape. Later I played the acoustic parts of my Neil Young Live Rust album and discussed its nostalgia with Deya. It wasn't just nostalgic because I've heard it before; it is somehow inherently nostalgic in a way that only Neil Young can achieve. I was feeling increasingly sleepy, so I gradually lay down and fell asleep right there on the couch.

When I awoke, there was an odd mix of people hanging out: a blond guy with muttonchop sideburns named Doug who I was hanging out with us the other day, a long haired demonic-looking dude who occasionally showed up at Big Fun to play drums, and perhaps others, along with Sarah Kleiner, the well-scrubbed angelic daughter of junk-artist A. Faith. Sarah Kleiner is here to visit Deya when she comes, though she also is good friends with Matthew Hart. As you may recall, earlier this summer Leah caught Matthew and Sarah being friendly together in bed and punished him with a serious bite to the forehead.

This sort of feeling is, I'm told, a function of serotonin and testosterone levels.

The nap left me feeling gently powerful in a social way, if you can possibly know what I mean. This sort of feeling is, I'm told, a function of serotonin and testosterone levels. Having such a feeling, I felt an obligation to talk and joke in stereotyped guyish ways with the boys. For example, I told them "[I'd have pot to offer you], but, you know, Theresa came through the other day."

A


t around 11pm, I convinced to Deya that she and I should go see the Curious Digit tonight at the Tokyo Rose. The Digit were to be having a CD release party, and the evening was full of promise.

So we left two strangers hanging out in our house and drove off to the Tokyo Rose.

A Richmond band known as Drunk was about to start playing when we arrived. Drunk is a slow, meloncholy band whose outstanding feature is an accordion player with "antenna," two spikes on either side of his head. I and everybody I know has independently named him "antenna boy."

I had pleasant interactions mostly with blond girls:

• Deya and I were relating very well, which isn't normal when we're around a lot of strangers.
• Freedom and her blond friend invited me to a "prom" that will happen at Freedom's house. I told them that I was honoured, but that I have rotten luck getting dates for proms, that I was rejected by sixty girls in my high school. They said I could come without a date and pick up a girl there. That sounded like a plan, but I insisted that they be sure to invite lots of ugly girls, because they're the only kind I have any luck with.
• Former Dynashackian/lover Elizabeth bought me a beer after I did her bidding: making a rude officious announcement prior to the Curious Digit performance in order to clear the floor of people seated in chairs.
• I talked with Deidre at the bar and stroked her on the neck and she told me that, for a change, I was actually being nice to her. For some reason, lots of people think I'm mean when I'm really just shy.

She later complained to an unsympathetic Matthew, "Nobody will look me in the eye.

The most interesting thing about the evening at the Tokyo Rose was the social tensions, especially once Matthew Hart got off work and came over. You see, both Rory and Leah were present, being kind of public, and with the lowered threasholds provided by all the alcohol, the place was a powderkeg.

Rory was being sort of a jerk to me. It wasn't too bad, but it just seemed to confirm the ill feelings I have about him. He'd go from being friendly to snatching money from me as I handed it to the shaven-headed female bartender. He kind of reminded me of Wonderboy Neek. I just wanted to hit him; but it all felt like chewing the same piece of gum for a whole month while lying in concrete pipes in a recurring dream that I used to have. Matthew saw one of our interactions and told Rory to fuck off.

Like many people, I had trouble knowing what to do with Leah. Once when I accidentally acknowledged her existence, I gave her a slow, surreal Blue Velvetesque wave, and she said, "Oh, I see, that's all I get." What could I say but "yeah..."? She later complained to an unsympathetic Matthew, "Nobody will look me in the eye. I didn't do anything to them!" To which he either said or thought, "Maybe that's because what you did has given them some insight into your character."

He couldn't stick around after a climax like that, even though there had been no actual violence.

At a certain point, I could see Matthew up in Rory's face, their noses only an inch apart. The former was loudly giving the latter a piece of his mind. It needed to happen, it needs to happen again. After he was done, Matthew left. He couldn't stick around after a climax like that, even though there had been no actual violence.

Dancing to the Curious Digit with the old Dynashack crowd was a lot of fun. The Digit boys have been practicing, and they've tightened up. In return, we were a good happy audience, those of us without other issues.

A


fter the show, Deya drove me to the after-show party on Wertland Street, at the house where most of the former Dynashackians now live. A keg of beer was going strong.

It's the complete opposite of the path my musings readers have taken into my intimacy, from the inside out.

What happened there? What indeed. Lots of things. Somebody who has been reading my musings from afar introduced himself. I hope I said something witty and intelligent, in keeping with the sober lucidity of this tour I have given him of my mind, but I have really don't think so. I doubt I'm very interesting when I'm drunk. All I have to work with at that point is my reputation and my looks, and, while the former can be good or bad depending on who you are, the latter has rarely been a source of any confidence.

But on a few occasions I'll be at a party and a girl, a complete stranger, will be struck by my appearance from across the room and zero in on me. She won't know anything about my art, my writing, my web pages, my Dodge Dart, my marathon running grandfather, my NASA scientist/eco-radical father, my lunatic brother, my mother and her horses. She'll just see my face and that's enough. It's wonderful when it happens, but it has such a potential for disappointment, both for me and for her. It's the complete opposite of the path my musings readers have taken into my intimacy, from the inside out.

She liked that idea, and wanted to go out a window, but her solution was to claw the screen out with her fingernails.

Back to the party: I was standing in a well lit room with a number of others, kind of bored, hoping something interesting would happen or someone interesting would show up. Then, out of nowhere, this drunk girl in a black dress came up to me and said something very complimentary, I don't know what, my memory is fogged. Then she kissed me on the lips. Several times. I might have preferred a less aggressive approach, but this situation was rapidly becoming interesting, and I decided to just go along with it. We went into the back bathroom and did stuff, me and this anonymous girl in a black dress.

Despite the fact that she was so drunk, almost incoherently so, there was something about her spunkiness that I was liking a lot. I decided we should escape from the party. She liked that idea, and wanted to go out a window, but her solution was to claw the screen out with her fingernails. I thought it might be better if we just went out the front door.

Her dress was torn, she was bleeding. She was a real mess.

I couldn't get a straight answer about anything from the girl in the black dress. Where did she live? Where was her car? Who was she? She might have told me her name, but I don't know for sure.

As we staggered together down Wertland Street, she would occasionally walk up to random cars and try to get in, insisting each was her car. She'd try all the doors and then look for her keys, which she'd already lost a long time ago.

Not knowing where she lived, I guided her back to Kappa Mutha Fucka. She fell down in the street a few times, and started limping pretty badly after one such fall. Her dress was torn, she was bleeding. She was a real mess.

She slept with me in my bed, though we did not actually have sex.

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Get a sense of what I was like exactly eight years ago and one year ago today.

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