Mothers and fathers: at a certain point the dog has so many fleas he can no longer scratch. But this should give the fleas no comfort.

In the industrial age, it seemed anachronistic.

T


he sky was preternaturally blue today. In the industrial age, it seemed anachronistic. The air was cool too, like the Spring has been. The rain clouds had been smacked in the face and sent out to sea, leaving in their wake soggy telephone cables and protocol error complaints from Comet customers. They should be happy; it could have been so much worse. We are a severe infestation of fleas and the world is a scratching dog.
From Cocke Hall at 10am I called the landlord for 129 Observatory Avenue.
He said Leah and I were:

approved.

I may be getting a little long in tooth, but I've never applied for a rental anything before, and I have to say my experience so far has been nothing but good. There had been almost none of the dancing around that precedes sexual relationships, art sales and being hired.

I slept at 22 Elliewood with 16 hundred dollar bills in my wallet. I dared not venture too far afield in such a vulnerable condition.

---

F


or the purposes of signing the lease, I'd arranged to meet Leah in front of Higher Grounds on the Corner, so I went there and had a cup of coffee. A subset of the usual crowd was there, as always. Deidre's been reading my musings and when I ran across her she seemed very concerned about me.

At the landlord's dreary faux-wood-paneled office, we skimmed over the pile of papers and signed them without really knowing what they said.

Leah was a half hour late because she'd been smoking marijuana with a hippie neighbor and had lost track of time. She's such a silly little Aquarius girl.

At the landlord's dreary faux-wood-paneled office, we skimmed over the pile of papers and signed them without really knowing what they said. They're specifically designed to be incomprehensible. Yet if the terms were too bad, they'd have no customers, right? $1475 poorer, we drove away jubilant. All along we'd feared we'd jinxed the process simply because our circumstances, hopes and dreams had all been stacked against this moment and WITHOUT 129 OBSERVATORY STREET WE WERE SCREWED.

W


e went to Raphæl and Ana's place on High Street to find Matthew Hart. He was there chatting with Ana and young Nemo, who is now almost a year old. Excitement swept through our ranks at the happy ending to our (immediate) drama.

Then he overheard the waitress speaking perfectly good English on the phone and he felt he'd been deceived.

Leah, Matthew Hart and I went to the little Chinese restaurant off the north-east sector of the Downtown Mall and lived large for a little. None of the staff of the restaurant spoke English very well, and Matthew saw this as a sign that the food would be good. However, he was dissatisfied with his bean curd. Then he overheard the waitress speaking perfectly good English on the phone and he felt he'd been deceived.

Next we got some fake fruit mixers for some remnant vodka at the Pic & Pac (Jessika's favourite store in northeast Charlottesville) and proceeded on the Little High Street home of Nathan VanHooser and Janine to thank them for any part they'd played in our successful house rental. But they weren't home. As we had back on Halloween, we hung out on their astro-turf-covered deck and drank our drinks.

Back at Nemo's house, we met up with Zachary, Peggy, Monsterboy and Deya. We all had cause to celebrate, since now Monster Boy and Deya would also have some sort of place to live. It now looks like Deya's going to have a room in the house and Monster Boy is going to have a couch unless he can entice someone to let him share a bed. And Raphæl might even get in on the action and rent the basement for a music studio and other fun things. The only rules established so far are that the following people are banned from the premises:

• Wonderboy Neek
• Josh Mustin

I like interacting with random strangers as I drink.

It's good that the Malvernian kids will have a nice place to crash when they come to visit.

We went to the Barracks Road ABC store and got a litre of 100 proof Aristocrat vodka and proceded to drink it right away. I thought that in spite we should go drink it on the Dynashack porch, but Matthew wanted to drink on the railroad tracks. That's where the homeless all drink the beverages of their choice. I don't really like the isolation of the tracks, I like interacting with random strangers as I drink. So we ended up hanging out in front of Follette's on University Avenue, drinking right in front of Dwain the tall lanky Corner cop. But our drinks were orange, and what Dwain doesn't know he doesn't usually want to find out. After all, unlike the nazis, we were being pleasant to everyone.

The pre-work nap was again at 22 Elliewood. I'm still homeless until we can move into 129 Observatory on Monday.

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