February 16 1998, Monday

There was no momentous change in my life. I awoke to the sound of sleet pelting down and my mother coming through the Shaque door (thirty years to the moment from when I came out of a completely different type of door). She told me there was no way in hell that she'd be taking me back to Charlottesville today what with weather like that.

So I got up, caught up on these musings, spun around through only the best online journals, and noticed that the sleet had stopped. I checked my email. Jessika keeps sending me nice things electronically. And Nancy Taylor used the Internet to spank me thirty one times (one to grow on, you see, I'd forgotten about that).

I somehow convinced my mother to drive me back to Charlottesville, despite the threat in the weather. We were concerned about running into fog crossing the Blue Ridge on Afton Mountain, but it was clear sailing.

Back here at Kappa Mutha Fucka, Angela and Matthew Hart are all wrapped up in looking for Shira the Dog. Evidently, she's been on the lam since this morning. Somehow I have a feeling that she won't be found this time.

As I sit here I'm running a program that converts .AVI movies into MPEG versions. It's very slow, even on this machine. 2500 frames have been processed, and it still has 65 percent to go. And still I have no Internet access.

T

onight Jen Fariello is taking me out to dinner to celebrate thirty years of Gusness on this planet. We're going to the Metropolitan and I will have to dress up. First, however, I think I'll upload this crap.

J

en picked me up after the last of the Simpsons. Originally, as I said, the plan had been to go to the very fancy Metropolitan restaurant (near the Downtown Mall). But in the end Jen and I decided to dine at the local Tex/Mex restaurant known as the Contiental Divide (on Main Street between the Mall and the Corner). The food is more flavourful and less expensive and the atmosphere is more casual at the Continental Divide. Since I was already all dressed up with a white shirt and a tie, Jen and I would be the most formal-looking people in the place.

There was a five-table line of customers in front of us when we arrived, so Jen ordered us each margaritas at the bar. When, after a long wait, we finally had a table, we ordered spicy blue chip nachos, more margaritas and then chicken fajitas. It was really excellent food.

We discussed Jen's emerging career as a professional photographer. Amazingly enough, she's able to support herself exclusively in this manner (with money to spare). I'm not used to my friends actually achieving success on their own.

T

he next place we went was Michæl's Bistro on the Corner. Jen likes that place on Monday nights. In fact, a week ago, on Deya's birthday, I ran across Jen in the Bistro and that's when she invited me out on this date. I'm not an especially big fan of the Bistro, especially when they charge $2 covers at the doors for bands I don't stick around to hear. The band tonight was yet another Charlottesville funk band, this one with the appalling name "Phatness." The only thing going for them is that they're not exclusively a bunch of white boys like all the other funk bands in this town.

I would have ordered a pitcher of beer, but good god the pitchers were expensive. Locally-brewed Dominion Ale pitchers were $14. So we ordered up yet another round of margaritas. They were strong, and we fought our way through them.

Matthew's 20 year old Chinese-American friend Michelle showed up and we chatted with her when she sat nearby at the bar with us. Outgoing as ever, she soon had me reading poetry and Jen painting her nails. Oh yes, and my nails got painted as well. I looked like some kind of gay boy, a look that appeals to Jen for whatever reason.

We were pretty drunk by the time we made it back to Jen's house, the Brick Mansion in the 'Hood, where I spent the night. It wasn't even late.