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The end of my penis burned like fire for awhile after that.
I
woke up abnormally early. I tried to pee in a vodka bottle because the bathroom was tied up, and for not allowing air to escape from the bottle, I forced some into urethra. The end of my penis burned like fire for awhile after that. I feared I'd get an "air embolism." I've heard that women have died from having air blown into their vaginas.I rode my bicycle downtown and drew some money out of my bank account. Then I went to Gallery Neo to pick up some images from Lydia, the curator. On Friday she is having an opening for the famous New York photographer Christopher Makos. Part of my endeavours at Gallery Neo involved grappling with her pokey AOL Internet connection. Dealing with the graphic-intensive training wheels felt like a combination of fighting my way through honey and trying to research a philosophy paper in an elementary school library. In the midst of this, Makos suddenly arrived in a dark green Jaguar. He's a thin mischievious-looking man, with bleached blond hair in the manner of Andy Warhol. This is no surprise, since Christopher Makos' fame was mostly achieved by photographing the famous pop artist. Reportedly he was also Warhol's lover.
I went to the Downtown Artspace and continued work on the painting I began yesterday. At some point Elizabeth and Monster Boy came by and were surprised to see me there.
M
eanwhile lots of youthful artists ambled about shuttling their paintings and sculptures into the Artspace for an opening on Friday. Jenfariello will be hosting part of Lydia's Makos opening, though the art in the Artspace will be entirely local artists. One of those artists will be me; Jen liked the creepy painting I laboured to finish and said she will feature it prominently on the central pillar. I was very pleased with the painting by the time six pm rolled around.At six, a "cocktail party" was to be held in the honour of Christopher Makos. Lydia had specifically invited me. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, I most definitely planned to attend. At around 7, I walked over to the party. It was held in a posh apartment on the top floor of the C-Ville Weekly office building (a big pink building to the south of the Downtown Mall).
There weren't many people at the party when I arrived. Those present were dressed mostly informally, though black clothes seemed to be a sort of uniform for some. Makos, dressed in pastel blue sneakers and a lime green sweater, was there with a number of male friends, as was Lydia, and a few people who are familiar to me in the Charlottesville art world. One of these was a doctor who shaves his head and speaks with a cultivated accent that sounds, I dare say, contrived.
The apartment's walls groaned under the weight of numerous paintings, most of them done in the style of early 20th Century expressionistic cubism. There was also much unique and elegant furniture, antiques, plants, and a great many books. The place was tidy but still looked cluttered. Numerous skylights eased the oppressive gravity of all the loot.
Numerous skylights eased the oppressive gravity of all the loot. I didn't have much to say to anyone. I talked with Lydia's boyfriend about what I know of the Internet. He's wealthy and well-connected (he's the one who brought Makos down), so he seemed a good connection to make.
Most of the men present were obviously gay. Since I don't know that many gay men, their presence in such numbers made the evening oddly exotic. Interestingly, they all seemed mysteriously aware that I am not gay. I admit that I found this disappointing.
I didn't see a single cocktail at the party. There was vino and there was sushi, and there was amazing chips and salsa. But there was no liquor. I wasn't complaining though; I must have drunk five glasses of wine during the course of the evening. I kept telling myself to excercise restraint and to not act like a drunken fool, and, by force of will, I managed to behave like a somewhat shy teenager.
I kept telling myself to excercise restraint and to not act like a drunken fool, and, by force of will, I managed to behave like a somewhat shy teenager. I certainly felt like a teenager. Even though some present (Lydia's boyfriend, for example) were my age or younger, I felt like the youngest person there. No one seemed to regard me with any respect; I could be disregarded as a party-crashing nineteen year old. This sort of treatment is common at the hands of people my age, and it should come as no surprise that my response is to hang out with people who are much younger than me.
J
enfariello showed up. Normally at functions such as this she becomes the target of the amourous advances of various men. Tonight, though, she seemed oddly isolated. The calm lifted when Fred Oesch, the founder of Gallery Neo, showed up. I still chuckle when I recall Fred buying Jatasya beers in Trax back in the Fall of 1995 when she was still 16 years old.Cameras flashed, and two different people were running video cameras. The obsessiveness with which the event was documented seemed to reflect a shocked pleasure on the part of Charlottesville's glitterati that such an artistic big shot should come to our small town.
Jenfariello took me with her when she left with an elegant wraithlike woman and an older chain smoking woman with an Eastern European accent. I later learned that the wraithlike woman is a fantastically wealthy local art fancier and that the older woman, another Lydia, is an art teacher at UVA. She was born in Rumania. We four went back to the older Lydia's apartment on the fifth floor of the tall building near the interesection of 5th and Main and gazed upon her tiny little closet studio and her oddly-decorated living room. Small talk was exchanged. The older Lydia was dignified and modest in everything she said. For some reason I hit it off with the her rather well. I was doing my best to be charming; Jen had taken me aside and whispered in my ear that this particular Lydia is a good person to get to know in this town. All this rich and famous stuff...
I
returned by bike to the Dynashack and found a group of my friends gathered in the living room around what remained of a bottle of vodka. Those present included Matthew Hart, his on-again-off-again-lesbian-girlfriend-now-wife Leah, Monster Boy, Cecelia the Brazilian Girl, and Angela. Apologetically, they handed it to me and I drank the teaspoon's worth. They were all much drunker than me, acting friendly and goofy.Since the alcohol was gone, we went on a run to the Barracks Road Super Fresh and I went in to get a three litre bottle of Carlo Rossi. Despite initial promises, I ended up paying for all of it. I knew I should have collected the money up front.
I'd been sort of interested in going with housemates Elizabeth and Ches to attend a Neutral Milk Hotel show at the Tokyo Rose tonight. I wanted to see Amy again; the mutual neglect between us has become embarassing. Besides, she'd billed tonight's show highly, saying NMH is "very lowfi." But by this time the night had been hijacked by other forces. I didn't want to deal with the anxious resistance I was surely going to get from the others (Cecelia particularly) if I left for the Tokyo Rose with my housemates. Even so, I wanted to hang out longer than going to work at 1am would permit. I called Stephan to say I'd be coming in late. As I did so, Leah drunkenly demanded that I do something other than talk on the phone. Then she hung up on me. However, after considering her inappropriate behaviour, she was filled with remorse, fearing I'd been on the line to my boss and that I'd be fired. Little does she know how loosely the good ship Comet.net is run.
Monster Boy took a big swig of some remaining vodka drink, promising that it would surely make him puke. And sure enough he did, both in the yard and in a tupperware container in the living room. (The next day I threw the container away.)
The evening was proving pretty boring, so I took a pre-work nap anyway. I overslept an hour, but that gave me an opportunity to sober up.
E
van the network engineer was working at Comet when I arrived. He told me that Dan Reitman, my old college nemesis, has complained about my web pages yet again. This time Dan is upset about being "defamed" by his definition in the Big Fun Glossary. Appropriately enough, the Glossary says he "lacks social skills." He's particularly concerned that someone (an email-tag-trawling robot, actually) mistook the Big Fun Glossary C-E page for "his web page." He hopes something can be "done" about this matter. By his typically Reitmanesque sky-is-falling over-reaction to this matter, he's proved yet again his lack of social skills, thus saying so is not defamation. I love the beauty of this logic. I wonder what I did with that animated GIF of Dan and his one-time girlfriend "doing it."