January 5 1998, Monday

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s expected, Matthew Hart and Angela were late in arriving to pick me up for today's departure. But they weren't as late as expected, so I didn't have time to play around with Teri's Macintosh and check my email. Last night, you see, Teri had managed to get the computer's modem working again. It turns out that an essential modem driver had been missing, and that had been the cause of all my recent woes. Teri had actually figured out the solution to something that had completely stumped me. I'm not used to someone her age knowing as much about Macs as she does. But, unlike (say) my mother, she's inquisitive and has figured out a lot about her machine on her own.

My hair was greasy and I was unshaven, but as scruffy as I was, Matthew had me beat. He had dark bags under his eyes and an archipelago of fresh new lesions on his face, the pus disease perhaps? His pupils were tiny little dots, indicating he'd had his breakfast. He'd told Jessika yesterday that he wanted to "talk" to her before he left. But, as expected, today he didn't really have much to say, certainly not about very serious drug issues. Instead he chose to discuss Sara Poiron and how much he hates her. Since Sara had dicked us over last night too, it was common ground and non-controversial. Matthew never discusses matters of contention.

Angela, Matthew and I bid Jessika adieu and hit the road. Matthew kept nodding off as he drove, and by the time we got to King of Prussia, he couldn't stay awake any longer. I took over at a stop light and he passed out in the back seat after first fearing he'd throw up.

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gradually found my way back to the interstate and headed south. The road moved quickly under us while clear warm skies above gradually piled with clouds. Angela fell asleep for a time, and I played music softly on the radio.

Between Baltimore and Washington DC we stopped at a McDonalds for burgers and fries. Angela ordered an enormous amount of food for her and Matthew as usual, failing to consider the fact that they were both kind of nauseated. They picked at their supersized fries and ended up trashing the bulk of them.

Matthew took over driving at this point, though he continued to suffer from bouts of nodding off, to the point that Angela expressed concern, and he snapped at her.

Normally Matthew would play music (oldies) while driving, but today he loudly played a talk show: a couple moronic "regular guys" delivering a long stop banter of irritatingly unfunny "humour," often pausing to laugh at their own stupid jokes. They parodied nothing, they delivered no incisive social commentary, they were just stupid. It was awful. But Matthew never once changed the station. I waited to see if he would, but he didn't, not until the station faded out 30 miles north of Charlottesville. And Angela never complained or told him to turn it down. This wasn't the Matthew I know, the one who always changes the station when people stop singing.

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t Kappa Mutha Fucka, we found Shira the Dog outside, running around loose. According to Deya, she's a good dog these days, and she can be let outside without fear of her escaping. But while she was gone she shit all over the place and chewed up a bunch of Matthew and Angela's stuff.

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lly McBeal danced with the dancing baby tonight. If you didn't believe the web was having an impact on entertainment, this should change your mind.

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n the late evening, Jen, that bartender at the Tokyo Rose, dropped in. She, Deya and I went out to have adventures in the unbelievably warm evening, then sat around sipping alcoholic beverages with Matthew and Angela.

I realized today (or re-realized, actually) that Jen looks an awful lot like my old girlfriend Joy Powley, but her body language is very different.