L |
We were only five minutes late as we parked at the Observatory Street house and looked around for our tour guide. He was in the house. In fact, he was the present tenant. I thought the idea of having a tenant conducting the marketing for a rental apartment most peculiar, but what the hell.
The building is in good shape, better than any place I have ever lived. The paint isn't peeling, and there's even evidence of real architecture; the rooms upstairs have elegant little angular junctions between the walls and the ceiling.
The biggest surprise was the basement. It's a real basement. There's a huge earthen structure along one wall, but it has a reasonably high ceiling and a concrete floor. It's given to flooding on rare occasions, but a raised floor would not be difficult to build. The present tenant has a small music studio set up in the basement. That's encouraging. Perhaps we could make the Big Noise down there, or rent it to Raphæl as studio space.
The landlord himself showed up briefly. He seemed anxious, as if there was some deep dark shady secret he wasn't telling us. Or else, as Leah suggested, he was eager to go play golf. It was a Wednesday, after all.
The present tenant was eager to please and entertain. He cracked jokes, pointed out little flaws, and even suggested that Leah and I might be romantically involved. For our part, we came across as a youthful but respectable couple. Leah was even wearing a dress. We were obviously intelligent, seemingly sober, and perhaps even well-educated. We did have an Achilles' Heel, though. If the landlord had happened to look inside the car in which we'd arrived, Matthew Hart's Vomit Comet, we would have surely been dismissed. It's rolling recycling bin.
We were told that if we were interested we should fill out an application at the landlord's business office.
As Leah and I drove away, we were satisfied. The tour had gone well and the house had proved unexpectedly large and in unexpectedly good shape.
L |
As I worked at Cocke, I was distracted by thoughts of other CDs that might have been stolen during Space Party II. Since the initial shock of my missing CDs on the morning of the 10th, I've discovered that two more CDs than I'd originally thought had also vanished: a Bad Religion CD and my Polvo CD. Chaz is still on my hit list.
Returning to the Dynashack, I played around with computer hardware. It was frustrating work.
The aggravation made me crave a different experience, so I went off to the Corner for a Two Moons burrito. Monster Boy came with me. Cory, the Java Hut coffee cart girl, works at Two Moons now. She's a silly girl, giggling and calling me "Buttface Jackson" for humourous effect. As I ate my burrito, I discussed the connection between friendly girls and free restaurant food. Still, I'd paid real money for my burrito.
We ran across housemates Steve and Elizabeth at Higher Grounds, and Elizabeth made a comment that my hair was looking bad, as if it needed to be cut. I'd been thinking the same thing all day, so back at the Dynashack, I excised the proto-mullet behind my ears. Then I sat on the porch, playfully trimming off the hairs on my left forearm. I later progressed to shaving it. Around this time, the goth girl who works at Little Johns showed up. She's been expressing interest in Monster Boy of late, and he's pleasantly surprised with the situation. They're going to be attending a big goth show in Richmond tomorrow, along with Cecelia the Brazilian Girl. I'd been drinking a cup of Higher Grounds coffee and was pumped up. I was full of myself: making lots of jokes and being silly but amusing.
Cecelia and Leticia the Brazilian Girls arrived and all four goths went off to Cocke Hall to surf the web and check their email. I stayed behind to sleep, but became distracted by computer hardware work.
T |
Deya went off to track down the goths at Cocke Hall and I began my pre-work nap.
I |
The X album, Hey Zeus, that I picked up yesterday is better than expected. I have to say that the male/female vocal harmonies remind me of folk or even country music, but that's okay. There used to be something off-putting about the harmonies in X, but I've come to accept them. The instrumentation, on the other hand, reminds me a little of slow-tempo Pixies. There's a quality to much of the passive guitar that reminds me hot summer days spent sipping a beer on a front porch.