Generally Discontent

This entry is super long, so don't miss out on my wacky Thanksgiving adventures posted right before this one!

Leaving Charlotte kinda sucked. I'd hardly been there two weeks and was just starting to really get into it, but I had a great time, so that's important. In any case, I'd at least get to hang out with Seth for another day, since we headed out at 9:30 a.m. Friday morning, our destination being Savannah, GA. There we'd meet up with Mike and Becky, who I would leave for Tampa with the next day. Or Tallahassee, then Tampa.

The trip down to Savannah was fairly quick for a four hour drive, and it helped that it was so damn nice out. We stopped off at a Hardee's somewhere in South Carolina (another fast food joint I'd never eaten at, I don't think), the continued onward. South Carolina seems nice, I guess. Well, it seems full of trees. Maybe it was just the highway we were on, but the place looked really unpopulated. Anyway.

Hello Georgia! Just as we reached the Peach State (is that what it is?), Becky called to say they were twenty minutes from our hotel, as they had left earlier and the trip was shorter than they expected. We were still about forty minutes out, or so we thought. Once we hit Savannah, we also hit traffic. Along the way we saw the results of one car accident, and discovered that the traffic was due to another accident further along the road. Becky told us they'd seen a four car pileup on that same road when they got there, so we all concluded that Georgians can't drive.

But we finally made it to the hotel, about a half hour before check-in at three. So we farted around until we could drop our stuff off in the room, then headed out for Carrabba's for dinner. They weren't open yet, so we went to Media Play and looked at books and stuff. This isn't terribly interesting, so I'll skip ahead.

Carrabba's was fun, as it was happy hour and the waitress kept the drinks flowing. The food wasn't bad and the drinks were good, and I was half in the bag by the time we got back to the hotel room, after stopping by a huge liquor store to pick up rum and gin and assorted sodas.

We weren't sure if we were going to go to downtown Savannah just yet, so we spent the next two hours drinking and smoking and listening to music and whatnot. I had a bunch of rum and cokes, so by the time we decided to head downtown I was pretty lit, as were Becky and Mike. Seth was being good since he was driving, so off we went!

We never did find out where Savannah's night life was happening, though. After a fairly wacko trip through the convoluted back streets of the city, we found a garage and parked then staggered off to find a bar. But we had to do a lot of walking before we found anything that looked affordable, as the only possibilities we saw were ritzy cigar bar places and crap like that. Savannah is an interesting place, and I wouldn't mind seeing a lot more of it one day and in the daylight. But it was littered with abandoned shops and shoddy thrift stores, nestled in among the expensive restaurants and bars. Kinda bizarre, really.

We finally found a place to sit down at, a hole in the wall kind of place with townie clientele, but good enough. The best part was the DJ, who was a thin Latino guy with what I can imagine was the King of All Mullets. This thing was incredible. Actually, I wouldn't call it a mullet, as that term isn't good enough for the two-foot-long shiny black locks which flowed like rivers of the finest oil from this walking god's shortly-cropped dome. It was the alpha and the omega of mullets. The Ubermullet.

So that was a source of entertainment, anyway. It was clear that DJ Megamullet was gearing up for a little karaoke action, which we would not participate in. We actually only had one drink before deciding to move on, but when we got outside, Becky wanted to head back to hotel to collapse. So we found the garage and took off, picking up some beer along the way. After dropping Becky off, Mike, Seth and I decided to go find something to eat.

We settled on Burger King, brought it back to the room, and sat around watching Jurassic Park III and having some beers. The food tasted okay, but would later come back to haunt us with a vengeance. Mike eventually wandered off to bed, and Seth fell asleep on the pull-out sofa. I watched the rest of the movie, deciding that it wasn't so bad though if I thought about it just a little more I realized that yeah, it was stupid. Had some water, yawned, went to bed and fell asleep quickly.

I woke up. My guts were having some kind of problem and decided I should be awake so we could discuss it in depth. Not being terribly coherent, I lay there wondering which way the contents of my stomach wanted to come out and trying to fall back asleep. But suddenly I was wide awake and knew that I needed to go into the bathroom immediately for a very important appointment.

I haven't puked like that in years, I swear. I don't know if it was the Burger King or the rum or the dinner or what, but it wanted to fly and be free, that much was sure. And fly it did, my friends, fly it did. And it hurt like a motherfucker. My right eye is currently ringed with broken blood vessels and I must have blown something up inside my nose since I was snorting out blood after my epic vomiting adventure. But all this was lost on me, as I was too weak to even think when I was done. I cleaned up and fell back into a deep, black sleep.

"We're gonna be leaving in an hour, in case you want to shower or whatever," Becky said, or words to that effect, about five hours later. I think I managed a very confident "Blgxvzyb?" before looking at my cell phone and seeing it was 8:20 a.m. I somehow got up, got showered, got dressed, and got all my stuff together without dying. I also found out that Mike had had his own vomiting problem during the night, so it must have been the Burger King, though Seth was fine and dandy. Not long after, we were all out in the parking lot saying goodbye to Seth and piling our stuff into Mike's truck. Mike pointed the truck at Tallahassee, and away we were!

I can't say that I remember much of the trip, but that's okay since it was mostly just more trees and stuff. I think. I fell asleep a lot, not surprisingly enough. After four hours, we reached Tallahassee. The plan was that we'd go to Mike's dad's new office and help him run network cables, then off to his parent's place for dinner, then to another hotel, and finally down to Tampa the next day. But first we had to find Mike's dad's new office, so after some phone tag, Mike got the address and we went there. Tallahassee was pretty much what I expected, I guess. A bit more Southern than anything I'd seen so far, and the proliferation of shops with names like "PAWN & GUNS" and the hunting gear section in the gas station convenience store made me chuckle.

We found Mike's dad and hung around at the office, watching them do most of the work. Or I did, anyway. Becky was helping, too. In short, I was pretty useless. At some point, Becky and I went to check into our hotel and we stopped by a Dunkin Donuts on the way back to the office (the Medium Ice Coffee is my god). Some more work was done, and I got to help a little bit so I didn't feel so much like tits on a bull, then it was off to Mike's parent's place!

It was dark by then and I fell asleep in the car again, so I don't know much about the trip. We could have driven to Texas for all I could tell. All I knew is that we were suddenly in the woods. But then we pulled up to their house, and all was well. I met a good deal of Mike's immediate family, and everyone was really nice, especially his parents, who both have great and twisted senses of humor. At one point, Mike, Becky and I were sitting out on the porch with his parents, when his father suddenly stood up, claiming to have seen something in the woods. He shined a flashlight out there and eventually caught two little glowing eyes. A raccoon or something, we figured.

"Wait, there's two more of them!" he cried! By now, Mike was up with another flashlight, and we all saw those sets of eyes staring at us, unmoving, as if we were suddenly surrounded by horrible little monsters of the wood. But the one in the middle, the one closest to us, the one in front of that tree there looked weird. Looked like... Well, it looked like the tree itself had little glowing eyes. As hard as I stared at the eyes, I couldn't see an actual animal connected to them. What, I asked myself, the fuck?

That's when Mike's parents started laughing, revealing that they had stuck little reflectors to some of the surrounding trees, and recalling all the people they've fooled so far with this prank. It was some seriously funny shit. How could you not like people who do stuff like that just for shits and giggles?

After awhile, we had a sorta-Thanksgiving dinner, since I guess not everyone was together two days earlier. And goddamn was that stuff good. I made a point not to load up my plate like I had at Seth's, so I managed to finish my meal without wanting to die. We spent the rest of the time just chilling out and talking - well, I was listening mostly. I got to hear some cool stories about when Mike's dad was a truck driver and would bring Mike and his brother along for some cross-country trips, about that time the truck caught fire and burned to the ground, igniting the Alabama-bought fireworks contained within, stuff like that.

But damn, were we all tired. We said our goodbyes and drove back to the hotel, where I now sit. Mike and Becky are asleep, and I soon will be, too. It's been a great couple of days, though I could use about fifty hours of sleep and some clean clothes. After this, it's three more weeks and then I get to go back home and bitch about the winter. Stay tuned!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Turkey Day in North Carolina! Man, what a good day. Well, until the fire and burning and stuff, but I'll get to that.

Seth, Dwyer and I spent the night before geeking out and playing City of Villains, and I ended up staying up until about 4:30 a.m. So I wasn't so happy getting up at ten, but so be it! Or was it eleven? Well, whenever I got up, I was tired as fuck. But that was okay, since Dwyer needed no help in the kitchen, and Seth needed no help cleaning. I asked if they needed help, I swear! I emptied out the ashtrays, anyway, so ummm yeah. I helped!

Folks started showing up around 1 p.m., and the wine started flowing not long after. There were a lot of people there, a total of twelve including myself. And everyone brought at least one food item, so there was an assload of food to be eaten. Some of the highlights: a broccoli and cheese thing with a layer of Goldfish crackers covering it, bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, and some tasty apple pie. And chocolate pudding pie. And baked ham and grilled veggies and mac and cheese and mashed potatoes and, and, and...ugh.

Around my third glass of wine, we dug in. I was starving, so I piled the food on and actually managed to finish of 3/4ths of it before I felt like stabbing myself to death. That's a little strange for me, since I typically hardly eat anything at Thanksgiving. But everything was so good, plus my metabolism has changed quite a bit while I've been out and about. I don't eat many times a day, but I'm often ravenous when I do. Back home, I'd be lucky if I could eat half of whatever meal I was eating. But now I'm going back for seconds and thirds. It's weird, but I ain't complaining since I've had so much good food to eat at all the places I've been.

Everyone flopped around for awhile, then dessert was had, and then more flopping. Mostly we hung out on the deck since it was so nice out, and later we started up a fire in the portable fireplace that Seth had. It was pretty nice just lounging on the deck, warming your feet by a good fire, downing beers.

After awhile a few people left, so the rest of us went down to the man cave to play the Music Channel Game. It goes like this: Seth's cable provider has a ton of music channels that just play songs and shows little tidbits about the currently playing artist, including artist name, album title, song title, what Bob Dylan's favorite food is, shit like that. So someone takes the remote and goes through the channels one by one, keeping the channel guide up on the screen so no one can see the artist. Once you think you know who the artist is you call out their name and the person with the remote exits the channel guide to show the info. If you're right, everyone else drinks. If you're wrong, you drink.

As you can imagine, this can get pretty messy, especially if you're not well-versed in music. But considering that everyone was pretty drunk already, that wasn't much of a problem. In the end, a good time was had by all. Or by me, anyway.

Eventually it was just me, Seth, Dwyer, Dwyer's ex-girlfriend, and their friend Ryan. Seth and I hung out downstairs playing City of Villains for a bit before giving up and just watching the teevee, the turkey sleep poison setting in. At some points, Seth went upstairs and didn't come back for awhile. But then he stormed down the stairs, and-

"The fireplace burned a fucking hole in my deck!" he exclaimed. And it was true. Ryan discovered that the section of the deck below the fireplace was burning, and acted quickly to put it out. But the damage was done: a large-pizza-sized scorch mark with a grapefruit-sized hole in the center now sat square in the middle of the deck. Seth couldn't figure it out, since they'd used that fireplace many times without problems. The only thing we could think of was that an ember had fallen out of the bottom somehow, or maybe the fireplace just got too damn hot. In any case, it's going to take some work the fix the deck.

So that was a downer, but at least some entertainment came later when Dwyer stumbled downstairs and plopped down on the couch, muttering something that may or may not have been caveman language. I swear I couldn't understand a word he was saying. Then Seth got a blow-up doll from somewhere and... Well, nothing weird happened, I'm happy to say. He just threw the doll at Dwyer, who punched it and then went to bed. Seth passed out not long after, and I was left alone.

I should have gone to sleep right then, but I wanted to make my last night in Charlotte last as long as possible, so I ended up staying up until about 3:30 a.m., even though I had to be up at eight. I'm stupid!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just want to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Hope you have a day full of booze and turkey, but mostly booze.

Posted by CosmoDNA at 07:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here I am in Charlotte!

Huh? I was already in Charlotte, you say? Oh, yes, yes, of course. I mean to say that I'm in uptown Charlotte, like in the actual city part of Charlotte. Big buildings and fountains and all that rot. It's really nice, from what I've seen. And while I don't know if I've seen a lot in the last three hours, it sure feels like it. Lots of walking around, taking quick pictures so I don't look too much like a tourist.

See, I hate tourists. I have to, I'm from Boston. Tourists are slow-moving, bobble-head-doll-headed blobs with their only purpose being to get in your way when you're trying to get somewhere important. Those tourists. So I have a certain averseness to being like that. This, I walk quickly, try to stay out of everyone's way, and whip out the camera only when there's something really worth having its picture taken. That's how I roll, yo.

Anyway, I was supposed to go into town yesterday, but I woke up feeling like poop, feeling a vague cold or something coming on. So I opted to fart around the house all day, though I did manage to update this site and the gallery, as well as take a walk to the local Bojangles to have a tasty chicken sandwich for lunch. Okay, so I'd go to the city tomorrow, being today, which I did. Go to the city, I mean.

First I had to get to the bus stop. I knew there was one right near the Bojangles, but Google Maps told me I could get to the main road a lot quicker if I went down this other street which ended up being some projects next to a car dealership. Then again, everything in the area I ended up in was next to some sort of car dealership. Regardless, it was a smart thing to do, as the area around Seth's house can be somewhat confusing since the street names are all sort of similar. Names like Mapleridge, Thorncliff, Edgewater, Starmount. Sounds like a bunch of goddamn elf villages or something, I swear.

So I missed my bus because I'm stupid and ended up standing at a stop before the street where the bus came from, so after realizing my stupidity I wandered down to the next stop, vaguely angry since it was cold and windy out. But really, there was nothing to be mad at. Certainly nobody was to blame but myself, and there's no sense in getting mad at yourself or anyone else for a lack of understanding. And that was my little bit of wisdom for the day.

Okay, so there was the bus ride and suddenly I was downtown. Or uptown. I'm not sure what it was exactly, but there were bunches of huge buildings everywhere, so that was fine. I had a few goals in mind aside from taking in the sights: 1) find a post office so I could send out postcards and stuff, 2) get North Carolina postcards, 3) eat lunch, 4) find one of the two Dunkin Donuts that were within walking distance, as listed on dunkindonuts.com. Not in that order.

Had lunch at Chick-Fil-A, which brings me up to five or six fast food places that I've tried for the first time while on this trip, most of which are in North Carolina. Got some postcards, then went for a walk. A long walk. I think I walked in circles about fifteen times, always coming back to what is known as the Four Corners. I think it's called that. Uh, it's the center of the city, pretty much, the intersection of North and South Tryon Streets, and East and West Trade Streets. And it has some beautiful sculptures on each corner, and lots of artsy things and plants and stuff.

East Trade Street was the alleged home of the two Dunkin Donuts I was looking for. I figured I'd get me a coffee and sit down to write some postcards. Good plan! Now I just needed to find 33 East Trade Street or 333 East Trade Street. No problem! Well, it was no problem after I discovered that I was walking down West Trade Street, so I turned around. Back at the Four Corners or whatever it's called, I noticed that both Trade Streets seemed to start at 100, so my hopes of finding 33 East Trade Street were quickly dashed. Fine! Off to 333 then! Tally ho!

I turned around at about 600 East Trade Street, after taking a moment to admire Charlotte's lovely city hall. Passed 400, passed the Transportation Center where I had gotten off the bus and which was 310 East Trade Street, passed a big empty hole where a building used to be, but may or may not have been 333. It soon became apparent to me that Charlotte eats Dunkin Donuts franchises like candy, and also enjoys watching me walk around like a moron. In short, Charlotte most definitely hates me.

In the end, I found a coffee shop in one of the many ritzy shopping centers that Charlotte has to offer. Got a coffee, sat down, and wrote postcards. Talked to Seth, and he'd be able to come pick me up in a couple of hours or so, so it was up to me to entertain myself. I had seen Discovery Place during my travels and I'm a big fan of science museums, so I headed off to do that, without knowing that the museum closed at five and it was now about six. So I just gave up and went to a bar.

I spent the time writing and smoking and drinking and talking to Carly on the phone, catching up. After awhile, Seth's roommate Dwyer came by and picked me up, as he had just gotten out of work and was passing my way. Oh, and I did get to a post office somewhere in all that mess. And I also walked around this place called The Green, which was a little park surrounded by expensive restaurants, but the cool part about it was all the literature-inspired sculptures and art and stuff.

And then we sat around and had beers and played video games and prepared for Thanksgiving, which was the next day. THE END.

Posted by CosmoDNA at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I sort of got up at ten with no trouble at all. I was glad that I had stopped drinking around 2 a.m. the night before, since I was more tired than hungover. We headed out for Asheville around noon and got there at two. But first, a little tangent:

Before I left Maryland, Vani's friend Ellen insisted that I go to Asheville, since it's a haven for artists and creative types. Sure, maybe I'll go, I thought. Then Seth's friend Michelle, who is from Asheville, said that I simply must go upon learning that I'm "the artsy type". Well, that's kinda strange that two women in two different states would tell me the same thing! But then another Charlotteite, Elizabeth, after hearing where we would be going the next day, demanded that Seth (who she said was being a poor tour guide) take me to uptown Charlotte to watch football and drink beer instead of "antiquing". Her vehemence seemed slightly unbalanced with the situation, but I'll chalk that up to the large amount of alcohol that she had consumed. Anyway, finally, after returning from Asheville today, I get an email from Andrea in Connecticut that if I was still in NC I should go see her sister-in-law's bed & breakfast in - you guessed it - Asheville!

So, what was so great about Asheville, you ask? Well, I'll tell you! For starters, we ate at an exotic sea food restaurant called Long John Silver's, where I had some tasty chicken planks and A&W root beer and that was good. Then we parked in downtown Asheville and walked around for two hours. It's a pretty nice place, a little hippie town nestled in the low mountains of North Carolina, a beautiful place, really. Reminded me a lot of Woodstock, NY or some Vermont town. And yes, it was very artsy. Seemed every damn building had some kind of art gallery in it, including the local Best Western.

Now, art galleries are great and all, and I fully support them, but I can't say that I get art all that much. I really don't. I mean, I can look at a piece of art and say it's good, or it sucks, or it's weird, or whatever, but that's about it. I look at art and I see something that someone else made and that's fantastic and okay, let me go do something else now. I almost felt bad coming to this town since I really had no intention of checking out all the art galleries. Hell, the motorcycle and car museum, and the earth science museum sounded a heck of a lot more interesting to me. I'm a bad artist, I guess.

But that doesn't mean that I just ignored all that art. Many shops had stuff created by local artists, some of it really good, a lot of it just plain silly. I guess tearing the side off a video camera and sticking it in a store window is art. Or maybe that was a video camera repair shop. Shit, I don't know. Anyway, there were lots of artsy fartsy things all over the place, and the town itself was very artistic in its strange-yet-typically-American mishmash of old department stores converted into art galleries and hardware stores; ancient, gorgeous banks now the breeding ground of small, swanky, overpriced shops; facets of the city twisted and transformed into art or something a little more functional.

And the people were okay, I guess. Lots of really well-dressed and evenly matched couples wandering around, lots of "wonder what'd happen if I stuck my clothes in a blender then put them on" punk-types, lots of bums. LOTS of bums. I think they have their own union for bums in Asheville, because those guys were organized. After buying a guide to North American birds at a small, swanky, and overpriced shop, and having the book placed in a bag with the word "NOKIA" plastered across it for some reason, Seth and I headed down the street to find something else to do. We passed a gang of bums hanging out in front of the library, and one of them tried latching on to us.

"Scuse me...scuse me!" he burbled behind us.
"Huh?" I said.
"Issat one o' them NO-KEE-YA phones in that bag of yers?" he said. In that moment I wondered A) what his scam was, and B) what the hell he was talking about, as I hadn't yet realized that my bag said NOKIA on it. I looked down at the bag, then told him nope, it wasn't a phone. That seemed to disappoint him and he wandered off, leaving us to ponder what the fuck that was all about. But that seems to happen often in these small hippie towns. Lots of bums, lots of beggars, and lots of places that charge you twice as much as anywhere else in the world. Huh.

Anyway, we ended off our tour of Asheville by stopping by the Earth Science Museum, which was awesome. It wasn't too big, more of a small section of the basement, really, but it was packed full of dinosaur bones! The helpful and nice lady who was running the joint (and the only other living being down there) explained that this dentist guy spent a good deal of his life collecting and cataloging fossils, and after he died a whole lot of them went off to the Smithsonian and some other museum. But there were lots of fossils left, so the dead guy's friends thought it'd be a swell idea to donate them to the museum, since the guy was from Asheville. So here were bones!

And rocks, too. Most of the geological displays were blocked by the various dinosaur skeletons, and none of the nifty displays in the kid's learning room worked, but it was a nice place. And the old lady was sweet and let us take some stuff from the baskets of tiny shark teeth and rocks on her desk. After that, we made our way back to the car and, after a brief stop at a Krystal so I could experience the wonder that is the tiny cheeseburger, took the two hour ride back to the house, where we proceeded to be lazy for several hours before going back out to pick stuff up for Thanksgiving dinner.

So that's what I've been up to. I've got four days left in Charlotte, as we'll be heading down to Savannah on Friday. In that time, I need to do a few things: send out postcards, go to downtown Charlotte and walk around, and...uh. I guess that's really all I need to do. Oh, and get a haircut! Woo!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, Charlotte's a damn cool place! The first thing you should know about Charlotte is that pretty much nobody who lives here was born here. For some reason, Charlotte draws people from all over the country to come and live, and then a lot of them say that it's only temporary. I've met a lot of people this past week, and I think only two or three of them are from North Carolina, and only one was actually from Charlotte. It's kinda strange, but I can see the appeal of this place. Nice weather, nice-looking city, lots of stuff to do in less then a twenty minute drive. And they have Waffle House too!

Another thing you should know is that the outlying areas of Charlotte look an awful lot like the outlying areas of Baltimore. What I mean is, there are lots of intersections and gas stations and strip malls. Seems that once you get past New York, there's a standardized way of thinking as far as strip mall placement is concerned. Not a complaint, just an observation. Aside from convenience, strip malls provide a wide variety of comedic material in the names and types of small-town shops.

Anyway, yeah, been a fun week down here. Wednesday night, Seth and I headed to an Irish pub and met up with his friend Roger. I guess I'll get it out of the way now that Roger is a cross-dresser, but he doesn't do it all that often and wasn't doing it that night. He's a cool guy, and we got along well. A bunch of other folks Seth knows showed up, and we ended up hanging out, playing darts, and talking about making levels for Half-Life. All in all, a good time.

Thursday, I accompanied Seth to PetSmart, to have them look at Newman (one of his beagles) to make sure it'd be cool if he came in for a teeth cleaning next week. Newman, not Seth. As far as I know, Seth goes to a normal human dentist. As opposed to a normal horse dentist, which I would advise against since horses can't really hold drills too well. Speaking of horses, this was the first pet store I've ever seen that had its own horse supply section. Yes, I am in the South.

Then we have Friday. Friday, we were supposed to go see the new Harry Potter movie, then presumably go out and drink lots of beer. Well, for one reason or another we never got to see the movie, but much drinking was had. A bit too much drinking, since I eventually ended up with my hand dunked in ice water for no apparently intelligent reason. Here's why: Seth's roommate Dwyer went to school up north, in New York somewhere, I think. At some point during his stay, he and his friends invented this game where, after finishing off a bucket of a beer, everyone would take turns sticking their hand in the ice and nearly-freezing water that was left over for as long as they could.

So it was only natural that this game would migrate to Charlotte, as their favorite bar served up buckets of Bud Light by the, uh, bucketful. Yeah. Anyway, the official record amongst their friends was four minutes, and the unofficial record was around ten minutes. So, with bellies full of beer, we set out to break some records. A couple of guys lasted a minute or two, then one of Dwyer's friends got up at bat...

...for fifteen minutes. Now, I was fully intending on take a turn after this guy, but any hopes of trying to beat the unofficial ten minute record were blown away as the minutes passed and the guy showed no signs of passing out. He sure didn't look happy, but he was a trooper and stayed in for the last few minutes simply to make breaking the new record extremely unlikely. After he was done and his hand covered in several bar towels, I gave it a shot. Now, I had no hope or interest in going fifteen minutes, but I wanted to stay in as long as I could. At about three minutes, I decided I'd stop at five, since it was really pointless to try for anything more than that. I'm pretty sure I could have done ten minutes, but again, pointless. So I got to 5:01 and pulled my numb, lifeless hand out of the bucket.

Fortunately, there was no permanent damage. Soon after, we took off and went back to the house, since we had to get up semi-early for the next day's festivities.

Festivities being a college football party, and then later a birthday party for Roger. The football party wasn't bad, and brought many firsts for me. It was the first time I ate venison, albeit in chili form. It was also the first time I played Cornhole.

Done laughing? Okay. Cornhole is a bean bag variant of horseshoes where, instead of throwing horseshoes at posts, one throws beanbags at a slanted plank of wood with a hole in it, with the goal being to land a bean bag on the plank itself (one point), or get one into the hole (three points). Pretty simple stuff, and it was a good backyard sport to play when you're drinking and stuffing yourself full of chips and buffalo chicken dip. Around five, we said good byes and thank yous, then headed back to the house to chill until the birthday party.

That evening, we headed out to a place called Sushi 101, where the bartender was good friends with Seth and felt the need to fill us up with free sake. Roger and a bunch of people were there boozing it up and whatnot, getting ready to go to the Bucket Shop to see a band called Perfo. Sounded good to us, mostly drunk as we were.

The Bucket Shop was a strange little place, looking like a punk dive bar, though the speakers were playing dance hits from the 80s. Regardless, the bartender there was cute as hell and went to Northeastern, and if I had any social skills whatsoever I'm sure I could have turned that into some sort of interesting conversation. Ah, well. The place was decent though filled with twenty-something scensters, and I realized once again that I really need a haircut. Don't ask me how those two are related.

Some shitty band got on stage first, three older-than-forty guys who had hung up an American flag upside-down on the wall behind them. Their first song was called "Bush Knew", and their whole set stayed about as cliché and ridiculous as that, especially when the lead singer said something like, "Now, I just wanna say something. I'm not and anti-Semite, but I am an anti-Zionist!" and then launched into a song about how the Jews run Hollywood, or something. He was pretty garbled, and really wasn't worth trying to decipher. So we drunkenly wrote a bunch of nonsense on their mailing list sheet, then politely waited until the main band came on.

Perfo came on, and they were good. Full of energy and a bit better than your typical pop punk band. By the end of their set, we were all pretty wasted and figured we'd go back to the house to wind down, especially since Seth and I were planning on going to Asheville the next day. That didn't work out so well since their friend Jamie met us at the house, so we ended up staying up, grilling burgers and playing Xbox until about 4:30 in the morning. Oh well, I could be up at ten with no trouble at all!

To Be Continued!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jeff, the guy I wrote about in an earlier post, and his lovely wife Jenn had their first son this week. Well, Jenn had him. I think Jeff sort of just stood there and watched. He possibly said something along the lines of "Uh, push?"

Anyway, just wanted to give a shout out to my peeps up in C-town - you're parents now! I'm proud of you both.

Read more about this harrowing adventure here: http://www.almostzen.com/

(and just a note about this site: updates will be coming soon, most likely tomorrow. Got plenty to write about and a buttload of pictures to put up. Stay tuned!)

Posted by CosmoDNA at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here I am in sunny Charlotte! And man, is it sunny. And warm. I was getting used to the weather being in the 60's, and now it's closer to 80. I think I've somehow gotten jetlag from a train.

Seth picked me up at the train station, which was fortunately small so I didn't have to wander around too much. The trip back ran right through downtown Charlotte, which I was happy for - it's nice to see a big city when I come to a new place. As much as I like to walk around in the woods, and as much as I like seeing cows and farms and shit, I guess I'm more or less a city boy after all.

Anyway, Charlotte looks like a really nice place, with some big ass skyscrapers and lots of statues and stuff on the ground. I was still in a post-train haze, so I didn't really pay much attention. After awhile, we got to Seth's neighborhood, which is a nice suburban area. Picked up some beer and headed to his place...

...and were attacked by dogs! Oh, wait, this isn't a dog attack. Just Seth and his roomate's dogs, happy as hell to see us. So I met Baxley, Newman, and Sammy, as well as Seth's roommate Dwyer. Dropped my stuff on the futon I'll be sleeping on for the next two weeks, got a quick tour, then went out to the back deck to relax, smoke, and drink some beers while they grilled up some dinner.

This is a nice house, a great mix between bachelor pad and hominess. Homeiness...home...is that a word? Anyway, I like it here. It's going to take some getting used to, of course, after a month in Maryland. Definitely a different vibe here, but a good, laid-back vibe.

After an awesome dinner, we flopped down in front of the teevee with beers and watched Family Guy for awhile. I was pretty brain dead by this point, but managed to stay alive until they went to bed, and then I collapsed.

And awoke to someone passing through my room, which doubles as the computer room as well as the side entrance. I thought it was Dwyer, but found out later it was someone else. Whatever, I was too tired to care, and immediately fell back asleep.

Got up around noon and groggily took a shower, wondered if it was okay for the dogs to go outside or what. Fortunately, Seth came by around one with some burgers and advice on when to feed the dogs and, yes, it was okay if they hung around outside. I don't know shit about dogs, though. Last time I had a dog was when I was a wee lad, and I didn't really feed or walk her or anything. Lucky for me, they're all really good dogs. Sure is something to get used to, though, since the last animal I was around was a parakeet, and the most I had to do for her was pick up the occasional poo with tissue paper.

Later, while sitting on the toilet, someone came in yelling hellos. Again, I thought it was Dwyer, but upon exiting the bathroom, I met...um. He told me his name, but I can't remember it now. One of Seth's friends who was just stopping by to hang out for a bit. Or maybe it's his other roommate? Or uh...I dunno. It was the same guy who woke me up this morning, I got that part, anyway. Whatever, he seems like an okay guy.

I later learned that this was Harden. We talked a bit, he told me how much Charlotte sucks and gave me some info on the various sports teams around here, then took off. Kind of a bizarre introduction to the place, but whatever. Later, everyone came home, including Seth's other roommate Brandon, who I met for about two minutes. And then it was time to go out for beers!

We headed to one of Seth and Dwyer's favorite hangouts, the Press Box, sort of a dive-y sports bar place. Monday Night Football was on, and the buckets of Bud Light were flowing. Now, I've never been a Bud Light guy, but I can see the appeal if you're spending the night sitting in a bar, boozing it up, especially if you toss in the occasional shot of Jaeger. It was kinda nice not really getting drunk at all!

Some of Seth's friends came by as well. There was Tattoo, an older guy who is into an amazingly wide variety of music, from U2 to Poison to Slayer, a real audiophile and a pretty cool guy; Michelle, a laid back girl from Asheville, NC, the same artsy-fartsy, hippie-lesbian town that Vani's friend suggested I visit; and Sam, Michelle's boyfriend and a painter of celebrity portraits. All were very nice people. As a matter of fact, I've been pretty lucky with the people I've met over the last few months. With few exceptions, everyone's been great.

Today I woke up with barely a hangover, and then I spent the day hanging around the house, playing with the dogs, doing nothing in particular, really. Seth and I went food shopping, then stopped by Sonic for some late dinner. Of course, I didn't have my camera on me, so I couldn't document this historic moment. See, Sonic airs commercials all over the place - Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland - yet the closest Sonic to any of us Northern folk is somewhere in Virginia. So I was charged by Jamie and Vani to find a Sonic and sample its wares. I have done this, but I have no proof.

But considering how good it was, I'm sure as hell going to try to get Seth to go again. Plus it has cute girls on roller skates, so that's cool.

And now I sit, watching Highlander with Seth's roommate. So there you go!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 12:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I'm in North Carolina! Got a couple of big posts coming up, but I gotta figure out how to get them from my computer machine onto the information superhighway. Just figured I'd post in case anyone is wondering where I am.

While I'm here, I wanna request that you comment if you read this, just so I can get a good idea of how many people read this site. Not that there's any real reason; I just want to see how popular I am. Uh. BYE!

New post right below this one...things got a bit wonky with timestamps and shit!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

2:30 p.m.

And here I am on a big fat train rumbling southwards to Charlotte, North Carolina. Can't say I'm feeling too excited right now, sorta want to go curl up in a ball and die in a ditch somewhere, or at least sleep for twenty hours. Eh, it's not so bad. Just tired and sad. It sucked saying bye to Vani and Jay, Vani especially since we've become much better friends than we were when I arrived. Who am I going to sit around with all day watching cartoons and making jokes about various disgusting bodily functions now? Bleh.

But it is what it is, such is life and all that, and it's not like I won't be seeing them again. In other news, this train kinda sucks! It was twenty minutes late and instead of picking up time during the trip, it seems we're falling more and more behind. Just had a rousing bout of sitting still for fifteen minutes right after leaving Richmond, VA, but now we're chugging along so things ain't so bad.

The other reason this train sorta sucks is because it's frickin' packed! I get no window seat except here in the snack car, which I will talk about more in a minute. My car is pretty full, and I think I'm one of the few white people in there. Not that this affects me, really, but it is interesting. I don't know why it's interesting, but it is. I guess. I'm so tired that I don't know what the fuck right now. At least the view is nice, what with all the trees and...trees. Lots of trees. Uh.

Yeah, guess I'm just cranky right now. I'm sure that once I get down to NC and unload my crap at Seth's place I'll be feeling hunky-dory. Hell, I get to spend two weeks going to bars where the girls will have that wonderful Southern accent that gets me going. A Carolinian girl could be telling me that she's about to crush my nuts in a vice and I'd say, "Yes, please."

Anyway, let's talk about the snack car. Seems nice enough, normal enough for a train snack car. The first time I went in there to get something for breakfast, there was a woman sitting near the empty counter area wearing an apron. I assumed she worked for the snack car, but when she didn't get up or acknowledge my existence, I just figured she was doing some other job besides working behind the counter. The counter person must have been in the bathroom or something. Yup.

Nope. The sitting woman waited about three minutes before getting up and asking me what I wanted. Yay! I love shitty customer service! Meh. I got my sandwich and apple juice, sat and ate grumpily. The second time I went up, she was okay, got my drink in a timely fashion and whatnot. Third time, not so much. I ordered a drink and as she reached out her hand to get it, her other hand grabbed her cell phone, and there she froze. Staring at her phone while the one hand hovered inches above my soda. I stared at the back of her head, trying desperately to make at least one of her synapses fire with whatever latent telepathic powers I might have. She finally broke out of her trance and gave me my drink, but this lady sure ain't helping my mood. Not like this place is busy or anything. Whine, whine, whine.

Goddamn, I want a cigarette.

4:13 p.m.

Sweet fucking Christ, kill me. I'm pretty aggravated right now, for probably no good reason, aside from the fact that we're running about 50 minutes late, dammit.

Sat down for awhile, relaxed in the too-warm car (seems our AC isn't working so well), just vegged. Started feeling better, figured I was just being pointlessly bitchy, but hey, here I am in the South! Or getting closer and closer, anyway. Looking forward to it, can't wait to get there, can't wait to get off this fucking train.

But it was too warm to stay awake, too tired...nodding off, snapping awake, nod, snap, nod, sna- COUGH. Something caught in my throat and I was instantly awake, coughing my guts out, vaguely paranoid that I'd puke up my mostly-digested bagel sandwich all over the back of the chair in front of me, but I made it through the cough-fest okay. I was awake and annoyed and coughy and... Wait, not annoyed. Angry.

My annoyance at my coughing fit and the late train and the heat was instantly turned into blind rage when I was confronted with some horrible sound gurgling from the seat next to me.

It must have happened while I was napping and I hadn't noticed. The little, polite Indian lady sitting next to me had turned on her walkman and, instead of putting the headphones on her HEAD like they're supposed to go, she put them around her NECK and turned the volume up. What came crawling out of those headphones was not any ordinary music, nothing that anyone else might want to listen to. What I was suddenly confronted with was Kenny G-caliber smooth jazz cover tunes. What I heard was "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?" rendered in a tiny, tinny, screeching saxophone that burrowed into my psyche and stomped my mind to death, starting with my childhood memories and working its way up. Fuck me.

This continued for awhile. I suppose I could have said something. Something like, "Please shut that off before I PULL YOUR SKULL OUT OF YOUR FACE!" But it's better that I grabbed my laptop and retreated to the snack car. Lot cooler in here, lot more leg room, even if it's filling up with old people and children right now. Bah.

But, regardless of how I may be feeling and overreacting, the train sure is better than a bus, especially on such a long ride.

4:46 p.m.

This train has it in for me, I'm convinced of it now.

The snack bar re-opened for business, so all the kids and old people formed a line, with me at the end. But we had a new snack car lady who seemed a lot more friendly and responsive, so the line moved along quickly. Maybe I just needed some food, I thought, Maybe that would make me less cranky.

Got a microwaved cheeseburger, some chips, and a Sam Adams, which seems to be the best meal combo I could possibly order from the snack car. Trudged back to my seat, past screaming middle-schoolers, only to find my seat was wet. Looked like someone spilled some water on it. Fine, whatever, I have an extra napkin. Fine. Wipe, wipe, wipe. Sit, sit, sit. Eat, eat, ea-

Motherfucker. Turns out the AC on the ceiling above my seat was leaking, and now it was leaking on me, a stream of water raining down from above as if God's most favorite cherub drifted down from the heavens in order to take a whiz on my head, and a cold whiz at that. FINE. I give up.

The food was decent at least, edible. Beer is good. Gonna be in Raleigh soon and I will have a smoke or I will kill someone. OH GOD SHUT UP MIDDLE SCHOOL KIDS!

5:37 p.m.

We're gonna be about an hour late getting into Charlotte, fun fun fun. I talked to Seth during my glorious smoke break at Raleigh, and he's cool with showing up later. I feel a little bad a bout Seth, or staying at his place, anyway. Or, uh, I mean to say, I haven't had much contact with him about staying there beyond him saying yes initially, and me letting him know when I'd be coming down. I just don't want anyone to feel as if I'm taking advantage of them, though I doubt he'd think that. Plus, I have no doubt that we're going to have a great time. So, uh, okay I don't feel too bad.

Still sad, though. Vani called from Padonia Station to say hi. She's sad and having beers in my honor, so I might as well have another beer or two on this train. Never got drunk on a train before, and I'm not about to start. But a nice buzz sure couldn't hurt! God, it's so strange having so many great friends scattered all over the world. I seriously have to win Powerball or some shit so I can afford to have a private jet flying all over the place picking people up or whatever. Damn.

More people just got on, I don't know what stop we're at. It's strange - seems like nobody's getting off, only people getting on. My ass is still wet from the AC dripping on me. Ride, train, ride!!

6:28 p.m.

Okay, beer was a bad idea. I've become so used to drinking and smoking at the same time that I really, really want a smoke right now. Can't have one til I get to Charlotte, two-and-a-half hours. Fuck.

Wish I had a DVD or something, a movie to watch. Ah well. I have plenty of comics to read if I'm going to do anything. Also have my sketchbook if I want to draw, and the book Vani loaned me if I want to read. But I think comics are about all I can handle right now. I'm still tired and prone to dozing off. All this sitting around really kills you, sucks all the energy right out of you. Or maybe that's the beer. Huh.

7:16 p.m.

Less than two hours to go, if all goes well. I've switched to water and coffee since the snack cart is now too warm, so - combined with the beer - I'm back to being drowsy.

We're almost to Winston-Salem, where the cigarettes are made! Exciting! Well, I'm trying to get excited. Still sad as hell but not so annoyed anymore. Just before the sun set, I drearily glanced out the window to see a glowing yellow field, and on it was a cow, and another cow, and a horse, all grazing. And there, anticipating twilight, sat three great and ancient husks: broken down and rusted out pick-up trucks. I have arrived!

Well, that gave me a smile, anyway. Guess that's important.

I'm also pretty excited about not having the slightest clue what to expect in the next five weeks. Two weeks in NC, then Seth hands me off to Mike and Becky in Savannah, GA, and then on down to Florida. Well, no matter what happens, it should be a lot of fun. So yeah, so there. It ain't all bad.

8:05 p.m.

And here I am in Charlotte, NC! WOOOO!

Or at least that's what I'd be saying if we still weren't an hour late. Sigh. I burned my tongue on coffee, or re-burned it, since I had initially scalded it with espresso Friday night at Susie's birthday dinner. Yawn.

I'm just typing to hear myself type at this point. I don't have any profound thoughts today, nothing but big, uncarved blocks of emotion dropping all over the place. I still need to write an entry about comic books, or another about my obsession with poo jokes, or even another talking about just how fortunate I am to be able to do all this. I need to fix the map view thing, need to change the look of the site though I'm pretty sure that won't happen. Sure, I could do all these things while being so damn bored on this train, but I really don't feel like it. Besides, all the kids roaring in and out of this snack cart are really friggin' distracting. Don't these little monsters have parents somewhere?

Two more stops! Yay!

8:28 p.m.

Almost...there... Gonna shut this shit down in a few minutes and gather my stuff, also want to get away from the fine young thugs who are boozing it up in here and hitting on underage girls. Or something. Well, Seth's going to pick me up around 9 p.m. and he mentioned something about London Broil for dinner. Sounds good to me!

Of course, if I get mugged and murdered before I can find Seth's car, make sure someone feeds my fish. Thanks!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 06:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Well, yesterday was one hell of a day. Jay was off for Veteran's Day, so the three of us drove into the city to have lunch and visit the National Aquarium, which I was told was amazing and fun. Though I had doubts - since everyone knows that the One True Aquarium is the New England Aquarium in Boston - I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was in fact amazing and fun, and amazingly fun. If you made it through those two sentences without some kind of blood vessel bursting, I applaud you.

So we got to Baltimore after a scenic drive through the Loyola University campus as well as the "old money" area on the outskirts of the city, where many multi-million dollar homes dwell. I was hungry and whiney, so we had some lunch before taking a casual stroll through the harbor area on the way to the aquarium. I also finally picked up some postcards to send to family and friends.

Finally, the aquarium! We got in and were greeted with the stingray pool which was full of stingrays, as you might expect. There were a few other fish as well as a three-flippered turtle. Later in the day, we'd see some divers feeding these fish through the windows looking in at the tank from below, though my secret guilty hope that the stingrays would turn on the divers, resulting in a horrid bloodbath went unfulfilled. Near the stingrays were the sharks, who were cool but not as cool as I'd hoped. Maybe that's just because the sharks weren't eating any people at the time, I don't know. No, I don't have a "violent fish attack" fetish. Why do you ask?

Then it was a long, curving path throughout the building, tons of cool and educational displays with all sorts of fish and animals, pretty much what you'd expect from an aquarium. But there were a few outstanding displays, particularly the rain forest area, which was in a hermetically-sealed secrtion of the place and full of tropical plants and animals. And humid as hell. Good thing I was wearing my leather jacket and a hooded sweatshirt! Ugh.

But despite the heat, the rain forest area was fantastic. Dozens of colorful birds flew this way and that, sat on branches preening themselves. We saw some piranhas, other assorted fish, and what was by far the best part, a golden lion tamarin, which was a little daffy orange monkey who seemed to always be saying, "What the hell are you people doing in MY house?"

But for all the educational areas of the aquarium, nothing could match the big fish tank. At first glance, it might seem the most mundane area, the least interesting. It's just a bunch of fish floating around, after all. But if you really look at the fish, you'll see all sorts of amazing things. I don't think I ever really noticed just how beautiful fish could be, even the ones that seem typical, the ones you see sitting on ice in your local fish market. But the colors, the shapes, the natural evolutionary choices in camouflage and social interaction just had me mesmerized. I felt like a little kid again, discovering something new that not many others saw. Goddamn that was fun.

But while the fish were fantastic, the other people there left something to be desired. It was early on a weekday, but the kids were still there, as were the old people. If you weren't being blocked by slow-walking, unobservant butterbeasts and their fifteen screaming children, you had to dodge between ancient, shambling husks of people who you wouldn't know were alive if not for the fact that they were standing up. Then there was the guy who practically used his own baby as a battering ram to get through the crowds, and the rugrats who ran rampant through the place, inches from death or serious injury at every moment, and the parents who couldn't have cared less. However, none of that could get us down, since we were having such a great time.

After the aquarium, we headed over to Fell's Point, where I had actually been a few years ago when my brothers, Jeff and I went down to see a Red Sox-Orioles game. We had a beer then headed back home, or tried to, anyway. There was an accident on 95 and it took us a good hour to get back to the house. Just in time to clean up quickly and head back out in order to meet Susie for her birthday dinner at Michael's, a semi-swanky seafood restaurant nearby.

Dinner was great, and we learned a lot about Susie, about being a pharmacist in Trinidad, how she knew how to prepare and grind coffee beans (I'm talking getting the beans straight from the field and the process that goes into making the coffee beans coffee), lots of other stuff. Then it was off to Padonia Station for drinks and pool, the Friday night thing. Jay was pretty exhausted, so he headed home after Vani secured a ride for us, so we hung out for another hour or so, just chatting and drinking and having fun.

Unfortunately, Jay got pretty ill shortly after we got home, something about the dinner and the odd mix of wine, beer, and Jack Daniels didn't sit right. Vani tended to him while I tiredly chatted with Mandii in Aussie land, and was happy to hear that she and her husband had finally found a house to move into when Frank is transferred to Syndey in December. So, despite the puking, the day was as happy as it could possibly be, with lots of fun stuff and good news. Not a bad semi-end to my stay in Maryland. Not bad at all.

Not to say I'm not feeling bad. Or sad, rather. I'm sad as hell to be leaving this place. Though it may seem that I haven't done a whole lot down here, it's been an eventful month, what with the illnesses and accidents and arguments and discussions and discoveries and deer. It's also been the first place where I've actually felt a bit homesick. I don't know if that's because of the passage of time or the distance from home, but I really do miss my family and friends and my city. But I'll see them all again real soon. I've still got a bit more left to do.

Though things are bound to get stranger, I suspect. Maryland has been partially alien to me, but that might just be because I don't have a good sense of where I am exactly and what lies beyond the green hills that surround me. The people have been alien to me as well, to a degree. But I just need to remind myself that they're no different from any other people, the same reminder I needed in Europe, in LA, in all my other travels. I must remember the wisdom of the great French philosopher Jean Depeche Mode: People are people. Indeed. Indeed.

So now I'm going to go get prepared to leave, gotta do some laundry, pack up my stuff, clean up after myself, a few other odds and ends. I really don't want to leave, but I know I must. Vani and Jay have been spectacular to me, and I hope I've given them something positive during my stay. But they're not so far away, nor are any of the other folks I've stayed with or will be staying with, not far away at all.

NOTE: There are two galleries of aquarium pictures, one by me and the other by vani. Go check em out!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

And now for a lilttle serious bidniz up in dis piece.

Jeff's one my best friends in the whole wide world and has been for many years now. A bit over a month ago, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a type of cancer. This came on suddenly and at a pretty bad time, as his wife is pregnant with their first child and they just moved into a new house this year.

But if anything can be said about Jeff it's that he's a fighter, and he's ready to beat the shit out of this thing no matter what it takes. And if anyone can do it, I know he can. You can read about his journey on his site Almost Zen.

In other news, his sister Amanda will be running in the Dana Farber Cancer Institute marathon, and is trying to raise $1000 in his name. If you'd like to read about that and/or make a donation, you can do that here! Please take a gander.

Thanks for reading :)

Posted by CosmoDNA at 04:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've updated the Gallery with a bunch of new pictures! Specifically, our trip to Rocks State Park and a bunch of new pics in the Maryland Misc. gallery. GO THERE NOW, FILTHY DOG!

Rocks State Park Gallery

Maryland Misc. Gallery

Posted by CosmoDNA at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday! Seem I only write on Tuesdays, huh? Well, it's pool night and when I'm not running for beers or loading the jukebox with my awesome taste in music, I don't have a whole hell of a lot to do besides drink and smoke. So Tuesday it is!

My last Tuesday, to be specific. Next Tuesday I'll be in North Carolina, moving on in this whatever it is I'm doing. I still have no idea why and what, where I am.

Jukebox is playing "Solsbury Hill", which is the one song that should get my ass going toward what I want to do, not that that'll make much sense to many people, and I don't feel like explaining it right now. Anyway.

Doors close, new doors open, others stay open just a crack to let the light in, to let me know I'm not as alone as I might be feeling. I've decided to take a train to NC, since it's just as cheap and far more comfortable than a bus, and the trip will be ten hours instead of twelve. Besides, trains are far cooler than buses. Trains carry and automatic romantic air about them, some Murder on the Orient Express shit, I don't know.

What I do know is that I will most likely get drunk off my ass on that train if they serve beer in the snack car. Maybe I'll meet a cute Asian hippie chick like I did on the train from LA to Boston so many years ago. Maybe I'll do something about it this time. Heh.

So my last week, one month in displaced Maryland, another month of my life gone, and what have I learned? A hell of a lot, actually. A few realizations, good and bad, various thoughts and whatnot. Nothing I can share here, only for the fact that I still don't know what to make of any of it, and you're not here to read half thoughts, are you? No, you're here to read about where I am and what I've seen and how the parking lot of this place smells like shit. Like SHIT shit. Smells like an old fat guy took a dump all over the place, I swear.

So that's it for now. Guess I'm not talking about what I've done much, but I'm writing in a notebook right now, and it's easier to write introspective drivel here whereas it's easier to write travelogue-style stuff with a keyboard. Yup, that makes sense.

Anyway, I'm tired of writing, so bye!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(this was written on November 2, but I'm lazy)

The next Tuesday, pool league night, and some asshole thought it'd be a grand idea to play what is apparently the entire Matchbox 20 discography on the jukebox. Man, I really don't like Matchbox 20 all that much, not my thing. Meh.

So, despite all the fun I've had here, the stay in Maryland has been rife with illness. When I showed up, Vani was halfway through a bout of tonsillitis or SARS or something like that. Then, just as she got better, Jay got something, a cough that wouldn't go away. And I almost made it without getting sick but, uh, nope.

It was just a couple of days, but I had a shitty cough, waking up each morning (er, afternoon on some days) needing to hack out roughly two metric tons of phlem and goo to feel anywhere close to human.

Oh yay, John Mellancamp.

Anyway, I got past that okay, everyone seemed to be in good health aside from the odd hangover here and there.

Then yesterday shows up. I decide I want a peanut butter and banana sandwich for lunch. Bananas were nice and ripe, wheat bread was fresh, peanut butter was... Well, it sure smelled peanut-y! Smelled like a jar of peanuts, actually. But hell, I hadn't had peanut butter in so long that maybe I just forgot what it smelled like. Yes, this is how my brain works sometimes, folks.

So, slop goes the peanut butter and down the hatch it goes. Sure tastes like peanuts, this peanut butter! But the sandwich as a whole was pretty tasty.

CUT TO: A half hour later, and I'm not feeling so hot. Kinda nauseous, actually. Burps have the slightest tang of peanuts. Uh... Maybe I should take a second look at that jar of peanut butter, not that anything could help me now.

USE BY JUNE 05

Aw hell. The next few hours has me drained of all energy, the peanut butter trying to decide which orifice it wanted to come out of exactly. Eventually I tried to make myself puke with the knowledge that we’d be getting take-out sushi that night and I wanted to clean my system out. Goddamn, I'd make a great bulimic.

In the end, nothing came up but I somehow felt better by dinner time. In fact, I felt better until the next day when Vani made pasta and chicken for lunch, which made me feel awful for some reason. Despite our jokes that she's trying to poison me, I don't think it was her cooking, since the pasta was very good. My stomach just wasn't ready, I guess.

So now, here I am at the pool hall, sorta under the weather, and even if I needed to hit the bathroom in an emergency I couldn't, because have you seen that bathroom? It's friggin gross!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What a hell of a fucking day this has been. But first, last night.

We spent the evening hanging out, playing some Scrabble (Vani cheats like hell at that game somehow, which is the only way to explain how much ass she kicks)(barring actual skill and all that claptrap, of course), and watching the movie Crash, which was a gripping tale of racism in post-911 Los Angeles, starring Don Cheadle and Sandra Bullock and two (2) people from various Star Trek series. It was pretty damn good, and I'd suggest you rent it or Netflix it or do whatever you do to get movies, steal them or some shit.

So there's that. Watched the movie, then Vani and I stayed up watching cartoons and having the occasional smoke break. Then things got weird. Around 12:45 or so, we head outside and are confronted with a tiny black cat with a strange jeweled collar. Okay, maybe not so strange, but the fact that this Kitten of Doom (as it most obviously was) was sitting square in the middle of the next-door neighbor's front walk STARING at their front door was freaky as hell.

And to compound the freakiness: as soon as Feline from Hell noticed us, it slowly stood up, somehow rotated forty-five degrees, then sat back down in order to stare at us. And stare Cat of Death did until we nervously doused our cigarettes and scrambled inside, to the light and warmth where we could laugh and quietly hope that the horrible beast wouldn't be there the next time we went out. Fortunately, he wasn't, and we went to sleep with slightly less-troubled minds.

8:15 a.m.

THUD! My door swings open and my eyes are hardly in the same state, but I recognize Vani standing there, and somewhere in the back of my mind I'm happy that I'd covered myself in sheets.

"Jay's been in a car accident I have to go to the hospital something something something!" My brain could only decipher so many words at this point, but I understood the gist and managed to get my ass up and in a semi-conscious state by the time Jay's parents arrived to pick Vani up. She didn't know how bad it was yet, and she was on her way to the hospital. I, in the meantime, just hung around the house, made some coffee, tried to be awake and alert while also being concerned and instantly stressed. I didn't know what to do or what to think, and ended up resigning myself to sitting and waiting, the saving grace of someone on the edge of a crisis.

But then Vani called. Jay was okay, not hurt so much, but the car was totaled. Whew! Good, good. But before I could feel relieved, I had to make more coffee before the gang got back to the house! Deftly I darted downstairs, aware that only half a pot sat waiting and I had little time to replenish it. With cat-like reflexes, I emptied the pot into my cup, and with agility that would impress the most well-trained ninja, I cleaned out the filter and refilled it all in one sweeping motion, taking only an extra moment to fill the water reservoir and flicking on the ON switch. Watching the coffee percolate with desperate, anxious eyes, I wiped down the counter and cleaned out a few cups, hoping there would be enough for all, unaware of what would come next. With only seconds to spare, I-

Uh. What the fuck am I talking about? Anyway, Vani, Jay and Jay's parents and sister showed up not long after, and it was nice to meet the family though the circumstances were surely lacking. Jay seemed okay and was moving around fine, and it turns out the main injury was that his knee was banged up and scraped up a bit, and his back would definitely be hurting later. But what happened?

Jay was on his way to work, waiting for the red light to change at an intersection. Light turned green and he slowly moved forward. Unfortunately, some jarhead in a pick-up decided that red means go and ended up slamming into the side of Jay's SUV. On the plus side, the airbag went off and kept Jay from being smooshed, so that was pretty awesome. On the down side, the car is fucked, but hopefully insurance will help sort all that out since it wasn't his fault.

The gang headed back out to retrieve his stuff from the, uh, the place where they put smashed up cars, the smashed-up car lot or something. Later, when everything had quieted down and Vani had her fourth or fifth heart attack, she and Jay's mom and myself headed off to grab some food and beer. At Wegman's, my addled brain was reminded of how crappy people apparently drive in Maryland as I had to leap left and right to avoid the rampant carts of old people and soccer moms. Now, I can get a pretty goddamn good case of road rage while pushing a shopping cart, wanting to ram the idiots who stand in the middle of the aisle screaming, "Honey? Should I get the Heinz or Hunts ketchup!??" while their significant other is halfway across the store, but the folks at Wegman's took the prize as Worst Cart Drivers of All Time. If it wasn't for Wegman's amazing selection of cheeses, why, I might just have flipped out at those people. Well, I was pretty tired, too.

And that's that. We're all pretty worn out. I feel like crap, and I can only imagine how Vani and Jay feel. Jay seems okay though hurty and tired, and Vani is now finally relaxing after a day of worrying and doing all she could to make everything as good as it could be. So now we're trash-talking each other while playing Burnout Revenge. Specifically, we're playing the maps where you have to crash your car into other cars in order to do the highest dollar amount of damage as you can. Go figure, huh?

Posted by CosmoDNA at 01:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and witness the horror, the wonder of Maryland's authentic and unique Crazy People! See the seat-stealing Karaoke Cowboy sing his siren song and shoot his plastic guns! Fear the mundane conversation of Creepy Neighbor Guy...can you escape before he talks you to death? Feel the nauseating rubbing of Batshit Insane Poolhall Woman as she hunts for a mate or something! Don't worry folks; they don't bite. Or do they..??

Translation: I've seen some really bizarre people here in Maryland, so bizarre that they warrant their own little entry.

First up, we have Creepy Neighbor Guy. He lives a few doors down from Vani and Jay, and Vani had warned me about him before I had the displeasure of actually meeting him. One morning, I'm out having a smoke alone, and this guy approaches me asking the dude (me) if he has an extra smoke. I say sure, why not, here you go, no need to give me what looks to be the forty-five cents in your hand there, it's just a cigarette for chrissake. So there you go, here's a light, have a nice d-

He starts talking, making small talk that I don't really want to make, as his shaky demeanor and strangely sunken and pitted face already has me on edge. But so it goes, and he's one of those people who feels the need to blurt out his whole damn life story to any person, animal or object he comes in contact with. I discover that Creepy Guy used to live in Florida, then up to New Hampshire to live with some girl, then she dumps him and he's laid off, his old boss in jail for tax evasion or some shit, now back home with the 'rents and man, this is the worst his life's ever been! And oh yeah, he likes hockey. And oh yeah, he'd locked himself out of his house. Wonderful, just wonderful.

I managed to use my burned-down cigarette as an excuse to escape this wretched husk of a man, but not before the most minute part of my soul died a sobbing, screaming death. But that wasn't the end so much, as the guy is constantly going in and out of his car, constantly pulling out of his parking spot and roaring down the street as unsafe speed, constantly just...being...creepy.

Next on the list is Batshit Insane Poolhall Woman, or BIPW for short. It was Friday at the bar/poolhall, the beer was flowing and the balls were, uh, rolling and clacking and whatnot. We noticed BIPW pretty quickly, as she was hanging with the somewhat trashy folks on the table next to ours. Late 30s / early 40s, thin as a damn handrail and used just as much as one, bleach blonde tangly hair and a face the Mummy would be envious of. She was dancing. Dancing a lot, and clearly her intention was to make every male within reach her stripper's pole, as she moved from one to the next, rubbing her ass all over them.

She was clearly drunk and most likely high on something, or really just insane. At first I thought some of Vani and Jay's friends knew her, as she was butt-rubbing against them, but they said they'd never met her. I sort of feared for their lives, but in the end no one seemed to get hurt, though I hope they burned their clothes when they got home that night.

BIPW was last seen up on the stage with the DJ and a couple of other dancers, shaking her itchy ass at the crowd and generally acting like a maniac. She will be missed.

Our last crazy person is the Karaoke Cowboy, one of the people at the Halloween party last Friday. He was a tall guy dressed as a Cowboy, with a bright blue shirt and bright orange guns. And fairly indistinguishable from the various furniture and Halloween decorations littering the townhouse were in. Until the seat-stealing began.

Jay, Vani and I were hanging out then decided to go grab some more beer and a smoke. Vani gets up from her chair and heads for the stairs, and about two seconds later, Karaoke Cowboy leaps forth from the corner he had been sitting and plants his ass on her chair. Perhaps that's not so weird, but you didn't see the determined purposefulness he exuded as he lurched at that chair, as if he desperately desired to soak in whatever aura Vani's ass had left on it. So, yeah, that was a bit odd.

Then we're out front, having a smoke with the host of the party, John. But here comes Karaoke Cowboy, melting out of the shadows (Had he been there the whole time? I thought he was downstairs in Vani's seat?). He's there, not smoking, obviously John's friend or brother or something, but he's not part of the conversation. In fact he- wait, what? His orange plastic toy guns are out suddenly, his legs bend, and BANG BANG BANG (or, well, CLICK CLICK CLICK) go the guns as he ruthlessly murders a tree just for snoring too loud or something. And then he went and did the seat-stealing thing about ten minutes later when Vani got up from a different chair.

And to add to his weirdness, he decides to coerce the DJ into helping him do karaoke, though nobody else at the party seemed interested in doing that. It was "Sweet Home Alabama", a remake by someone who might be Jewel, and it was both awesome and horrific at the same time. He did a little line-stepping dance, got out his guns CLICK CLICK CLICK and belted out the words in the most dull monotone you're ever likely to hear. All we could do was sit and stare, making no sudden movements for fear that this obviously recently-escaped mental patient might attack us. Then he was done and ceased his Vani-stalking, possibly out of embarrassment, but most likely because the voices of his victims had been satiated by his angelic singing. In any case, I'm sorta glad we cut out of there early.

So there you go, three very different and very crazy people that I have witnessed here in Maryland. I report this so that you, Joe America, don't have to come in contact with the strangeness and terror that I have. You better feel damned lucky!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tuesday. Pool night and I'm getting close to drunk,. The jukebox went dead so I'm the DJ for the next fifteen songs, and I sure hope these people like it. Well, I don’t care so much, but I don't want anyone getting pissed that Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" is playing. Whatever.

Been a good night so far, a good day, really. Woke up groggy and maybe a bit sick, but got better and spent the afternoon playing Burnout Revenge with Vani, and talking to my homeslice Jeff on the AIM. Shout out to my boyee Porzdawg cold kickin' in it Chelmsford, Mass. Mad love, yo!

Now, here, chatting with Vani and Jay's friends Ellen and Susie about being "too" nice to people, those who take advantage of others, drug problems, and just what am I going to wear to the Halloween party this Friday?

Then he comes, the kid, trying to scare Susie and it's awhile before I realize nobody knows who he is. But it's cool, he's a cool little kid. He tries doing laps around the poolhall before some Grumpy Gus yells at him, then he regales me with tales of how when he was in the Olympics, he could run up and down a mountain in one second with no legs while covered in dirt that took ten showers to remove, something about bees in armpits, little unknown kid jumping on my back. And then Susie was gone, then the kid was gone, and my last song (Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls") ended, and all was quiet.

So I throw some more songs on. "Turn the Page" is on and I'm getting beers.

Posted by CosmoDNA at 04:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, yeah, so hi. Sorry about the no new posts thing... Jeez, it's like monsterrobot all over again! But it's not like I haven't been doing anything. In fact, I've been pretty busy, which is why I haven't been posting. Yeah, "doing stuff" is a pretty lame reason not to write about what I've been doing, huh?

Anyway, what's been going on, you ask? Well, I'll tell ya! Lots of drinking for one thing. Or, well, a good amount of going out to local joints, playing pool, watching other people who can actually play pool playing pool, stuff like that. I guess I'll try to sum shit up here in somewhat chronological order:

Two Fridays ago, we went down to Padonia Station, the place we went the first night I was in Maryland. Vani and Jay go here most Fridays to hang out with folks from their pool team and other friends, and to play the aforementioned pool and drink the aforementioned drinks. It's a pretty interesting place, and the clientele is...curious. My next post will be about some of the crazy people I've seen, particularly this one super wacko chick who was there that Friday and who was rubbing up against every guy she saw like they were hair and she was a balloon that really, really wanted to stick to a wall.

I haven't written in awhile, so yeah, my analogies are worse than usual. Sorry about that.

Anyway, that Sunday we went to this place called Weber's Farm to get pumpkins for jack-o'-lantern carving. The place was a combo of farmer's market, petting zoo, and country fair, complete with hayrides and various things for kids to do. It was so cool! Vani and Jay's friend Susie and her son joined us, and we spent a few hours walking around, checking out the animals, and trying to find the perfect pumpkins. Then a scenic ride through some of Maryland's farmlands brought us home to chill out before heading out to Padonia again.

It was just the three of us, and I totally stomped Vani and Jay into the ground with my mad pool skills. Ummm, not really. But I did hold my own just a little bit, on like one or two shots. Okay, I got smoked big time, but fun was had by all so it's a good thing.

Other nights, we went to pool league night where I played DJ on the jukebox while the team played (and I just remembered that I wrote a whole thing while I was there that I will have to transcribe and post later). Then we...uh. I coulda sworn we did something else that week. Oh yeah! We went to Target and then this Halloween store to grab stuff for our costumes for the big party Friday night! We also stopped by a pool and bar supply place that had all sorts of tables and sticks and bars and various silly (and expensive) things for you to put in your bar. I'd never been in a store like that, so it was pretty nifty.

And on to the Halloween party! Vani got all dressed up as a sexy witch with funky green face paint and a bouncy rubber bat, and Jay suited up as a beer keg, complete with theoretically functioning tap, though we never got it working. And I went as a vampire once again, the costume I always end up going with when I realize that the time for creating an original costume has passed and I need to whip something up quickly. But it came out okay, and I got lots of compliments on my fake teeth and fake cross burn on my face. And Jay won second prize for Funniest Costume at the party!

The party itself was cool but strange. For one thing, there were a bunch of little kids there, though the host and his friends were getting boozed up and sneaking out back occasionally for a little nip of the ol' wacky tobaccy. Then there was the Karaoke Cowboy, who I will include in my "Crazy People" post...that one was WEIRD. We ducked out early before Vani's head exploded from cat allergies, then headed over to Padonia, where no one else was dressed up. And then a bouncer asked me if I had any extra makeup, as he was going to a party after his shift was over. That was a little awkward. But by then I was tanked, so it was all funny. Well, funny until I woke up the next day and wanted desperately to die in order to get rid of my hangover. Oy.

That brings us up to the last few days. Sunday night we went to this snazzy Irish pub place called The Still, where we had the worst bartenders ever. You'd think that guys who make a living by giving customers drinks and then having those customers give them money would be a little helpful to you, but nope! Not these jerks. Oh well, it was a nice place, and they had antler chandeliers!

And finally last night we hung around the house, got sushi takeout, and passed out candy to all the cute little trick-or-treaters in the neighborhood. We got lots of compliments about our cool jack-o'-lanterns as well, and some strange person took pictures of them! And to complete the trifecta of crazy people, the creepy guy down the street said our pumpkins were really cool, too! Oh, joy!

One more thing: deer. Every night around midnight or 1 a.m., the deer are out and about, chewing on the neighborhood lawns and slowly moving around