May 03 1998, Sunday

My hangover was bad this morning. I mean bad. At one point I got up to take a leak and I almost passed out; I had to lie on the bathroom floor in a miserable cold sweat for a couple minutes before I could go back to bed.

I ate a bagel, though, and it made me recover almost immediately. There's a healing quality to that Jewish grub.

Nancy Firedrake and I had little unscripted breakfast with Jessika and Wilbur the Cockatiel, and the latter performed all his comic little whistles almost on cue before a bright orange orange.

Nancy and I sat out in the front yard under the bright warm sun playing with Nicholas the cat. The grass in the front yard hasn't been mowed since July, is two feet high and peppered with interesting wildflowers such as Money Plant (which Nancy brought to my attention). Nancy pulled out a grass stem and wiggled it to draw Nicholas' attention. He was delighted, and she had no difficulty stirring him into a tight little grey blur defining an "O." Whenever she stopped, he stood there panting with jerking head movements in dizzy exhaustion. She stopped for fear he might drop dead of over-exertion.

When she left to return to Bethesda, Nancy took two paintings she'd bought some weeks ago: Given the Circumstances and my ever-popular Cello Music.

J

essika and I decided to go to the Corner to recover lost items at Blond House, but first we thought we'd stop in at Ray Snabley's place nearby. We both took umbrellas since rain was coming in sporadic showers. It was the first time in my life I ever made much use of an umbrella.

Ray had had a party last night, and it had been a well-attended event even if I hadn't gone. As usual for parties he attends, Tad was still there, still talking incessantly without listening, and still being gently ignored. Morgan and the gutterpunks were there too, they'd gone in search of leftover beer but had been mostly disappointed. Mel, the very black wise man was there as well, silently rocking in a rocking chair and observing everything like a shrewd student of human nature. And of course Ray, Melissa (Ray's girlfriend) and Shawn (Ray's sister) were all there, but not Wingnut (Shawn's husband).

We didn't hang out long before we decided to continue to the Corner, leaving Ray and his housemates behind. We caught a free UVA bus in front of the Haunted House on JPA and went directly to Follettes, hoping to track down Dempsey in the apartments above. Jessika wanted to see some of the ample footage of videotape he'd shot at last night's Space Party IV. While we mingled on the Corner, we came across the car belonging to Michelle the Manic Chinese Girl. She recently spray painted her car silver and it looks really shitty. Jay the gutterpunk found a bag of donuts in the back seat of her car and stole them. Michelle was hanging out in the new Corner coffee shop, Espresso Royale, but she soon discovered her donuts had been stolen and saw Jay holding the bag. She ran after him, but he easily outdistanced her. She was in such a manic fury that she didn't seem to notice anyone else. Dempsey came down from his apartment, claiming Tasha (his glamourous gothesque girlfriend) was sleeping and we shouldn't disturb her. I gradually became bored and embarrassed by the gutterpunks' panhandling. I also wanted to avoid running into Manic Michelle any more, so I quietly slipped away to UVA's Cocke Hall.

I checked out Wendy's journal. She works at Espresso Royale and documented a hilarious tale of Manic Michelle's typical behaviour.

I walked home, took a nice long bath, watched the Simpsons, etc. with Deya, and then reclused myself in my room.

S

omewhat before midnight, I heard people coming in downstairs. It was Jay the gutterpunk, Jessika and Tad (still hanging out from last night!). They'd had numerous adventures all day on the Corner. Josh the gutterpunk had managed to steal a bunch of Mad Dog, so everyone had gotten good and drunk.

The evening had culminated with a bout of fire breathing (using isopropyl alcohol and butane). But the cops showed up at some point and grabbed Josh the gutterpunk and may have gotten Morgan as well, no one was quite sure why.

Suddenly Morgan turned up. He was livid with anger that the cops had taken Josh the gutterpunk to jail on the charge of "flicking matches" (evidently no one had witnessed the fire breathing or any of the Mad Dog thievery). Morgan was especially mad at Duane, the lanky cop often seen patrolling the Corner on foot. Duane and Morgan share a special loathing for one another, and it was Duane who saw to it that Josh was taken away.

I drank a few beers and eventually retreated to my room. Tad kept demanding my attention and I had to get away; I felt like his monologues (which he seems to think constitute conversation) were sapping my life force.