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February 8 1998, Sunday

N

ancy Firedrake and I talked for a long time this morning about the funny little online journal culture we live in. Al Schroeder kept popping up in the conversation, though occasionally Nancy would mess up and say "Ned Flanders" instead. For some reason I kept picturing Al Schroeder in the Antarctic, with his kids, transformed into penguins, running about on the ice. We also discussed
  • The weeks-long, much trumpeted end of the Meyhem Project
  • How much Spaceman hates me and how much more he'd hate me now if he only knew
  • The pronunciation of "Heinovision"
  • The fact that Burr and I are occasionally boring in exactly the same way
  • Funny things that haven't happened when Javina, JEL, Scott and Annette were together in the same darkened room
  • there was more, but I can't recall any of it now
A

fter we'd compared ankles and elbows and Nancy had studied the gaps between my teeth, we found our way outside into spring like weather capped by crystalline clean blue skies.

Jessika and Deya were in the yard, still dressed up to party from the night before. I stretched out on the asphalt of Observatory Avenue to absorb my share of the solar budget. A puffed-up Nicholas the Cat hopped about sideways, viciously attacking Deya's sandwich. Everything seemed surreal in a very familiar way.

On such days, it's natural to go to Bodo's Bagels for breakfast, (or "eggy slime time" as Jessika calls it). So that's where we went. We took pity on Shira the Dog and took her along, though she had to wait in the car at the restaurant.

Nancy and the Mayor followed behind us in the Mayor's car. As usual, even for this time of year, we ate our bagels out in the parking lot. A chilly wind was blowing by this point, and Shira the dog jealously whimpered at us from her imprisonment in Deya's car. Eventually Deya bought her an everything bagel and took her out, using a bathing suit as a leash.

I learned a new word from Nancy Firedrake: "trainwreck" is what she called a mouth full of chewed food.

The next thing on our agenda was the drinking of tussin. Despite being invited to participate, Nancy and the Mayor had to head back to their lives full of commitments and attachments back in Maryland. So they said their goodbyes and we drove our separate ways.

Next stop for Jessika, Deya and me was the CVS drug store at Barracks Road Shopping Center. I shoplifted a 12 ounce bottle of the tussin DM (Nancy, by the way, seems somewhat scandalized by my larcenous tendencies) and the girls bought eight ounces.

M

ostly for the benefit of Shira the Dog (who was still with us), we decided to go up Carter's Mountain to the residence of Peggy, Zach and the Baboose. First we stocked up on day-old beer from the keg, using whatever clean containers were available. The house stank of old beer and cigarettes, and beer mud was tracked everywhere. We didn't clean up the place immediately.

Up on Carter's Mountain, we set Shira free among the orchards as we pelted each other with bush honeysuckle berries.

Matthew Hart showed up, and he joined Zach, Deya, Jessika and me in an exploration of a tidy little abandoned house at the edge of a tract of woods. Between the orchard and the woods ran an electric fence which we determined to be off (Deya tested it by touching it with a blade of grass). So I tried to use the taught wires to shoot straight sticks in the manner of arrows launched from bows. It didn't work too well, so then Matthew, Zach and I used a sapling as a catapult to launch rocks and stuff. Our stone-age war-making skills were insufficient for us to do anything impressive, however.

We all decided to go to Mel's, the Afro-American greasy spoon on Main Street, so off we set in three different cars. I rode with Zachary. He still drives like a maniac, though I've become accustomed to it. The style sort of reminds me of written accounts of the techniques employed by Neal Cassady.

Mel's was closed, as it has always been whenever I have tried to go.

B

ack at Kappa Mutha Fucka, the evening came and darkness descended. We'd yet to drink any of our tussin, and we were so sleepy it didn't seem like we should tonight. So instead we drank increasingly flat day-old Milwaukee's Beast Ice beer from our second party keg.

one year ago
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