Outside, I found that the mansion was merely a tangential outbuilding, an experimental poem of architecture on the fringe of a compound of bigger, more traditional, more serious houses made of brick, stone and cedar.

T


he original plan was for us to evacuate the cavernous mansion before 9am, when Claire's Daddy was scheduled to arrive. But 9am came and went and the only noise from upstairs (where most of my friends had slept) was a sappy Country Music station playing really loud. I think it was supposed to act as some sort of alarm. I found myself sort of liking the music, especially the sad twangy steel guitars.

Nicholas the Human was the only other person up. He was outside, exploring the shore of a lake in the rear of the house.

In the full scrutiny of morning sunlight, the place became a parody of upper-crust conspicuous consumption. Outside, I found that the mansion was merely a tangential outbuilding, an experimental poem of architecture on the fringe of a compound of bigger, more traditional, more serious houses made of brick, stone and cedar. The biggest of them all sat ostentatiously staring across a vast empty field at distant rolling blue ridges. It looked like it had been painted into existence by Jan Vermeer. Back in the suddenly trivial side house in which I'd spent the night, I looked at the various photographs prominently on display. One was of some anonymous middle-aged man, perhaps Claire's father, standing with former President George Bush and First Lady Barbara. I found myself thinking, "anyone with this kind of money would have to be a Republican."

We were in the Free Union area, in the heart of Charlottesville's ultra-snobby horse racing region, which lies to the northwest of the city.

I called down to Comet and said I'd be a little late, and continued to wait for some kind of life from my friends. But there was none. I grew impatient and antsy. Time was ticking away and I wasn't where I should be, at work. It seems I have an extremely powerful work ethic; I could feel myself growing physically ill, even though, rationally, it wasn't a big deal.

My solution was to convince Nicholas the Human to drive me into town. Last night, half of us had come in his Ford Escort, you see. He was agreeable.

Just the driveway leaving the compound seemed to go on for miles. But at some point we made it onto bigger roads. We were in the Free Union area, in the heart of Charlottesville's ultra-snobby horse racing region, which lies to the northwest of the city. As Nicholas drove, I wrote down the directions on a piece of paper so he could find his way back. When he dropped me off on the Corner, I gave him $4 for gasoline. Nicholas the Human is yet another Aquarius, by the way.

My parents said they did some bidding on the nearest 18-acre parcel of land, jacking the price to 56 thousand dollars in a bidding war with their crazy Greek neighbor.

H


ere I am at Comet, and there's quite a few people experiencing network protocol problems today for some reason. Comet recently sold off all its conventional dial-in accounts to Redlight Communications, another ISP in town. From now on, we just do things like web hosting/authoring and ISDN accounts.

My folks called and told me an amusing story. The old widow who lives a quarter mile from my childhood home held an auction today to sell off her farm. My parents said they did some bidding on the nearest 18-acre parcel of land, jacking the price to 56 thousand dollars in a bidding war with their crazy Greek neighbor, whose name is Dimitra. Dimitra won the bidding war, but my folks say she wasn't acting rationally at all and they have doubts she'll be able to raise the necessary funds. In such a case she'll lose a $10,000 deposit. My folks may get yet another crack at those 18 acres.

---

There's something about Tom Hanks' instant immersion into sexuality that has a special resonance for me

A


fter work, I sat with Deya watching Tom Hanks in Big on pirated cable. Tom Hanks often seems to end up in roles where naïvité is glorified and romanticized. This message is dangerously popular. Innocence, you see, is no virtue, it's a vulnerability. What you don't know has an amazing capacity to leap upon your back and snuff out your experience. By the way, there's something about Tom Hanks' instant immersion into sexuality that has a special resonance for me. It reminds me of waking up from the somatic coma of the rural farm and going off to college and suddenly being evaluated and regarded as a sexual being, expected to participate in sexual politics, while being simultaneously titillated and shyly, conservatively, fearfully unwilling. My oblivious parents and my disdain for all things high school had left me completely unprepared.

Kelly came over after she got off work, as did Angela's former boyfriend Aaron (with a 32 oz. beer for Deya), and we four watched more of this sort of teevee (including the especially forgettable Incredibly Shrinking Woman). I was becoming a hybrid of restless and tired, so Kelly and I went back to her place with a bottle of mid-priced vino. She didn't have a cork screw, so I had to use the "screwdriver plunge technique." When using this technique, the goal is to push the cork down irretrievably into the bottle.

As theories were formulated to account for the little pink marks, I sat there quietly, hoping the subject would change.

A couple years ago, back when I was marketing manager for bozART Gallery on the Downtown Mall, I used to occasionally take my underage friends into the gallery after hours so we could drink vino in peace. One day in October, 1995, when I was in the gallery with Matthew Hart, Deya, and their friend Harmony, Matthew attempted to do the "screw driver plunge technique" for the first time in his life. In so doing, he managed to spray droplets of red wine all over the white gallery walls. It dried to a sort of light pink colour, almost unnoticeable. But one day at a gallery meeting, someone did notice, and drew everyones attention to it. As theories were formulated to account for the little pink marks, I sat there quietly, hoping the subject would change. Many months later, I was kicked out of bozART for a drunken incident that eventually led to my arrest.

Kelly showed me a little collection of photographs from her life. She also told me stories about becoming a smoker, playing guitar for the Matchbook Poets, and more adventures with the weirdoes and freaks of Charlottesville. A compilation of such tales would probably be as good a read as the Big Fun Glossary. I spent the night in Kelly's big brass bed. Since I was pretty sober, I remembered my dreams:

As I was charging ahead to scout out an escape, I found myself at the very edge of an incredibly high cliff.

I was loitering in front of a camera store with Jessika and Sara. The girls had a plan to steal a camera and they wanted me to help them in some way. When they came running out of the store, I ran after them, feeling foolish and wondering how I was supposed to assist them. A crowd of others were soon pursuing us, trying to catch us for the crime. We were in some little Appalachian valley town dominated by a river. After running across a bridge, we continued on up a very tall mountain. Near the top of the mountain, we found ourselves in a distinctly agricultural setting, with old farm buildings and several big mansions. There was a patch of woods at the very top, and somewhere therein, Sara and Jessika dropped the camera, which was in a small sack. I was going to carry it with me and continue eluding our pursuers, but as I was charging ahead to scout out an escape, I found myself at the very edge of an incredibly high cliff. I ran around to a lower ledge, hoping to find an escape route but there was none. By now, Sara and Jessika were being questioned by police, and were successfully convincing their interrogators that they'd stolen nothing. Meanwhile the bag and the camera lay somewhere in the patch of woods. As I began to wake up, I considered tossing the camera out over the cliff.

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