Psychic Tom is apparently no Psychic Tina

Last night we went to a Dead People Party at my friend Angie's (codename: Angie Frangie) house. It was first presented to me as a Supernatural Party, which was kind of confusing costume-wise. The reason it was a Supernatural Party is because the ladies decided that if we all coughed up like fifteen bucks we could hire Psychic Tina to come and predict our futures for us. How it became a Dead People Party I'm not quite sure, but everyone with the inclination to dress up in a costume came as walking corpses (note; we were not zombies). I would post pictures, but I left our camera at Angie's.

So there we were, with our fake bullet holes and cut throats and slit wrists, hanging out on Angie's front porch when this older dude drives by looking for an address that was actually Angie's but which he must have written down incorrectly. He kept driving by slowly, looking at us as if we'd lied to him about house numbers before he finally figured out that we were by far the most likely group to have hired him. So he gets out of the car and we're all like, "whoa; where in hells is Psychic Tina?" And he's all like, "Yo babies, be cool; Psychic Tom is in the house taken care of business."

Actually he didn't talk that way at all. I exaggerate for color, a free service to you. What he really said was that he was just as good as Psychic Tina.

Now, a lot of the people there didn't seem to think Psychic Tom was all that psychic, but I liked him. I've read books on Gypsy fortunetelling tricks to pull on rubes, and maybe I am a rube, but I want to believe Psychic Tom, because I liked what he had to say. For the most part.

I liked that he said I was going to live a long-ass time. This was from the palm and one of the first things he said to me. Then he told me that I was under-employed and likely would be for about two years or so before moving on. He told me that 2010 and 2011 would be better years financially than we're accustomed to. So all in all it was a pretty sweet future being laid out.

I can't help but wonder why Psychic Tom, being psychic and all, didn't seem to know that I was a powerful sorcerer in my own right. He didn't even mention it, or turn pale, or tremble or anything. No reaction whatsoever. So while I want to believe Psychic Tom is going to be right about my future I'm just not sure I'm buying it.

No offense, Psychic Tom.

Blogger V. Wordpress

In what I'm sure will turn into something akin to the epic battle of XTC V. Adam Ant (power-based pop V. new romantics) I've decided to do a side by side of Blogger and Wordpress. Blogger is easy and familiar; Wordpress is complicated but apparently lets you do a lot of neato things. So far results are pending.

I signed up for Wordpress yesterday at work while we were waiting for the final go-ahead to come through. All I did was register and make it look like I wanted, then it was time to go. I spend a good deal of time in the car on Fridays. Yesterday I spent it thinking of how to maintain two blogs simultaneously.

I came up with this plan to use the new one for an extended piece of fiction, a fake blog that I would gradually introduce a weird happening into, extrapolating on it until it got weirder and weirder without ever bothering to explain that it isn't true. But what to say? At first I thought about including a weird dwarf that would follow me around after a while, doing things like mugging people with orthopedic shoes in order to be incrementally taller. I had to scrap that as being insensitive (not just because I don't know any little people.) Then I thought it would be fun to recruit a cohort, someone to play the part of "The Creeper" in the story. All The Creeper would really need to do is let me take a few pictures every now and again, preferably while dressed all creepy and hiding in bushes. Maybe a short video of The Creeper being fled from in a car. No big deal. A Creeper email address (with only the picture of my volunteer Creeper attached to a fake name) also struck me as being a good way to gradually make his/her presence more immediate.

This was a very exciting idea yesterday while I was driving down to Clarksburg, but I don't know if it's really very feasible. You can't just go up to your friends and say, "hey, you're one creepy looking sonuvabitch, wanna be kinda almost semi famous?" So now that little project is on hold while I think it through a little more. Which means you're stuck with just this, my regular run-of-the-mill blog. If I go through with it I'll post a notice here. Addios.

Back into the proverbial swing of things

So it's been a really long time since I last posted anything. I took some time off in the months leading up to super beach vacation (which was a hoot), but it took me until now to start posting again. Sorry about that. Hope your deprivation didn't cause scurvy or rickets.

I'm at work right now, so this is going to be short. I've been thinking for a long time about scanning my notes from our Friday meetings. Here's the first installment. Bon appetit.

Seriously; if you didn't take that "adult content" button seriously - move along. Nothing to see here.

You were warned.

So way the hell earlier today (I'm talking around 5pm; it's now 2:02am, just for frame of reference) Tracy and I went out to dinner.  I had a jumbo margarita, and this at a restaurant where Mexicans make 'em strong.  Then there was this long sequence of being in a bookstore drinking coffee, then a craft store that rapidly degraded to sitting on a bench while Tracy talked her mom through a minor babysitting crises. 

So far, so good.

We came home to R (a semi-permanent denizen), R (a fleeting denizen) and J (a one-nighter) already at our house.  No problem.  Had a beer, changed clothes, then hit the road.

(Side note; I stopped the narrative here, at 2:10am, to eat a boiled egg.  It was delightful.)

Anyway, I went to my friend Willy's house.  Willy is my fellow degenerate, the dude I turn to when I feel like it might be a good idea to go out drinking, possibly smuggle a beer out of the bar to drink in an alley, and definitely pee someplace that Roscoe P. Coletrain would disapprove of.  We drank a beer, then walked down town to see what was going on.  Our usual place of interest (one 123 Pleasant Street) appeared to be hosting some sort of hootnanny.  A hootnanny with a cover charge, no less.  Well, believe it Discerning Readers when I tell you that neither one of us were willing to part with five American dollars to see this hoedown in Motown.  So up the street we went.

Willy and I have made a practice of stopping in at a place called the Boston Beanery, which was our next stop.  This is a very regimented visit; we walk in, step up to the bar, do a shot, then get the hell out.  I secretly hope we'll become semi-famous, the Two-Guys-Who-Hate-This-Stinking-Craphole-But-Want-a-Shot-of-Bourbon., though Willy tells me he's in there on a semi-regular basis, thus shattering this petty dream.  

I digress.

We walk in, do our shot, then we're out of there.  We walked up High Street, ending up at a place called Gibbie's.  There is, in fact, an actual dude named Gibby.  The last time I saw him he was by the pool table in his bar, biting a girl who was dancing on said table RIGHT ON THE ASS.  Clearly this is a quality establishment.  All the same, my friend Brian's band (The Love Me Knots; dig 'em) were playing, so that's where we sat, listening to Brian and watching some seriously one-sided boxing on what I took to be ESPN.  

Even this grows stale after a while.  Willy and I, however, are not to be discouraged.  In another time and place we may have been pirates, or perhaps Viking raiders.  We craved more; adventure, spectacle...something.  So we did the only thing we could, took the only avenue left open to two such as ourselves on a night such as this.

We went to Buck's.

Now, Buck's is a very special place.  It's the last bar on the Other Side of Town.  It had been a long time since I'd been there; perhaps five years or so (the previous visit to that being some ten to fifteen years past).  Buck's has not changed very much.  We walked in, sat at the bar and listened to the jukebox, secretly wishing they'd turn it off and crank up the Def Leopard concert that was on the TV.  Then Willy revealed a Revelation: Buck's has an upstairs.

Perhaps, like me, you are a bit curious as to what could be better than sitting in a bar constructed mainly of plywood, listening to U2 on the jukebox, wishing that in addition to pickles and pickled sausage that they had pickled eggs.  It turns out that there are many things.  

Most noticable are (1) upstairs there is karaoke and (2) upstairs are where the girls are.  Don't get the wrong idea; these are not girls that I would want to meet.  In fact, the most likely chance of me actually talking to one of these girls is if she walked drunkenly into the men's room while I was in there quite contentedly throwing up a bit of the bourbon I so injudiciously drank.  These girls do have a few things going for 'em.  They dance, AND they sing.  Perhaps more amazing (in the interest of being fair, balanced, and not sexiest) there is also the spectacle of the Dancing Redneck Dude.  In retrospect they are a package deal.  You really need to see them both doing a bizarre line dance to MC Hammer to really get a feel for the place.  Imagining neon, disco lights and a drunken blond girl with no shoes dancing with a backward-hat redneck dude....well, that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

I'm going to have to cut this short; it's late and I'm tired.  Suffice it to say that a good time was had by all.  AND (as an addendum) Willy and I made further plans for our kick-ass band, including finally deciding on a name.  

Ladies and Gentlemen; I give you Keziah Mason,

That is all.  Return to your daily lives.

Mad! Mad I say!

So I've kind of been haunted these last few weeks. Not in a badass blood-seeping-out-of-the-walls sort of way, or even the lame-o rattling chains sort of way.

There are people in my house.

I should preface this; this was partially my idea.

My cousin is going through a divorce and staying with us until he gets a job and an apartment. We grew up in the same house together, so it's nothing all that new to me, with a hitch-I'm an adult now. And it turns out that I'm more than a little set in my ways.

Take tonight, for instance. Usually when I get home a tad bit early I sit at my computer and write. There are two stories that I'm working on, one of which is pretty well outlined and well into the rough draft stage. Almost a finished rough draft.

It's not getting finished anytime soon.

When I came home tonight, my cousin was up and watching some Sci Fi Channel TV show. Not a big deal, but I'm on the back porch blogging on Tracy's laptop instead of finishing some work up. This is not good. Then there's the massive amount of alone time that I absolutely require if I'm to stay sane. This alone time has become like the rarest diamonds, something so precious that I can see why some people would be tempted to kill for it.

Now, again, this move in was partially my idea. I'm not mad, I'm just venting.

In other news, it's been a long ass time since I've posted anything here (what with the almost finished stories and the house guest and all). I'd like to say all kinds of awesome things have happened since last post, but aside from a long drive to Virginia and back and a few good hikes, not a whole hell of a lot has gone down. Fact is, I'm bored.

I've heard before that there is no reason for an intelligent person to be bored, but I'm bored all the same. Malaise, I think they call it. Not much has struck me as interesting lately. Maybe I'm getting depressed.

I heard on the horror radio show that I listen to every week (Rue Morgue Radio; www.rue-morgue.com. The dash is important; without it you get some kind of crazy porn) about this contest to win a book about Ray Harryhausen. The contest involves writing a letter detailing how his work has affected your life. I briefly considered making up this big lie about Cassiopeia from Clash of the Titans being my first (pretend) girlfriend from the time I was 13 until I was 28. I had a pretty good lie all cooked up, but then was too apathetic to bother to send an email. I probably would have won too; those radio hosts are some pervs. But I think the thing to take away from this is that I was too lazy to go through with the easiest of all hoaxes to perpetrate; the email scam. I'm never too lazy to mess with someone via email. I've spent days exchanging emails with those crazy Bank of Zimbabwe email scams. I make up little characters to be; like a homeless guy in the library or a crazy immigrant saving up money for a sex change. I keep them in a special folder labeled "Fun with Email Scams". Yet I was too lazy to try to talk a good enough game to score a free book. That can't be a good sign.

On both the up and down side, vacation looms. It's the upside because I get to get away from this town for a few days. I like Morgantown, but even pineapple upside down cake gets boring if you have it every day. It's the downside because the vacation fund isn't quite where we'd hoped it would be. At least the house is already rented for the week. Even if we don't get to stash away any more loot for vacation, I'm really looking forward to it. Seven days with only the handful of people I hang out with outside of work or D&D is going to be pretty rad. Delia won't be the only kid, so she shouldn't be bored. I personally don't care if I don't get any further from the house we all rented than the two blocks to the beach. And it's encouraging that every single one of us who boldly proclaimed that by now we'd be in the best shape of our lives while we were planning this trip last winter was completely full of shit; failing isn't all that bad if there's a whole group of you. In fact, get enough people to fail at any one thing and it becomes something different; not so much a failure as a flaw in the system, whatever that system may be.

Maybe since we all failed we could score some of that sweet bailout money they keep throwing at the auto industry.

I'm going to bed.

Jonestown

Last night we had a cookout.  It may be the biggest party we've ever had here at Edgehill house.  I think at least a dozen people were here at one point.  The nice thing about cookouts is that it keeps people more or less clustered outside.  The bad thing is that people never eat as much as you think they will, so there's always a butt ton of food left over.  I could feed a smallish army this morning if one happened by.  

Another downside of the cookout is beer bottles.  My friends all like to drink.  None of them are alcoholics (that I know of), but when you get fifteen or so people together the old glass bottles start to pile up.  Usually after a big party (say, the annual Halloween bash) it's like the Jonestown Massacre the next day.  Dozens of glass bottles strewn about the compound, staying where ever they happened to fall after the Kool Aid did them in, waiting for health workers to pile them into ambulances.  This is what I was thinking about this morning when I woke up.  I was lying in bed kind of dreading coming down and having the easter egg hunt for Sam Adams and Miller Lite bottles.  

To my delight, it wasn't that bad at all.  This was not what you'd call a wild, out of control party.  There are a lot of bottles, but they are for the most part conveniently where the recycling belongs.  I didn't have to collect them from random bookshelves, bathrooms, or hidden inside random boxes, shoes or backpacks (not that that generally happens, but you get the idea).

Sometime today though it's going to be time to play "The Town Alcoholic Goes Recycling."  This is always a hoot, having a VW full of empties that I pile into the recycling bin six at a time.  It always makes me feel conspicuous, like people will be looking at me thinking, "Good Lord, that guy drank sixty beers last night!"  I'm sure they aren't, but still.

Last night was also the second Sneakies show.  The Sneakies are a newish band; this was only their second show.  I saw them at McClafferty's a few weeks ago, but the sound there is terrible.  Last night was a 123 night, so you could actually hear the band, which was both rocking and rolling.  Now if only they would play on a Saturday so Tracy could go.

Epic

When Delia was in kindergarten we started reading Harry Potter at bedtime.  I don't always get to do bedtime.  Work, grandma's house, late night movie nights; all of these have helped stretch a series of bedtime books out.

Seven books over three years.

Thursday night we finished book seven.  It's kind of amazing to me to think that we've been reading this series for so long.  The first five books were re-reads for me, so it was really exciting to get to book six, then the grand finale.  I thought I would feel hollow or let down when we finished, as if we'd reached the end of a really long journey taken for the sake of the trip itself; that perhaps the destination would be a bit of a letdown after the fantabulous trip.  Not so.  Instead it felt more like a milestone.  Tracy and Delia have been through a lot of  books.  Narnia, Percy Jackson...they seem to crank out the stories.  But this is the first that Delia and I have finished.  It's a pretty good feeling.  

I think she wants to go through Narnia again with me, which will be nice.  I've never read any of them.