As my work day ground relentlessly onward yesterday I began to fret (as I am occasionally wont to do) that the horny e2 Portland conflagration would be (dare I blaspheme?) less exciting than my fevered imaginings had painted it in potentia.
Thank goodness I was utterly wrong.
The evening began (for my late (chronologically, not mortally) self, anyway) by meeting the throng outside the 24-hour church of Elvis in downtown Portland. After initial confusion that I was, perhaps, some sort of wandering street lunatic or even an owner/operator of said C of E, I was swept up in the milling crowd and shortly discovered that dinner plans were in the works.
A few moments of heated discussion later (during which, I might add, we blocked the entire sidewalk with a large, chatty ring of people) I headed back across the bridge with three noders in tow (in my car, actually, but they might have been in a little trailer or sidecar if it helps you sleep at night to imagine it that way). We arrived at Montage (I hope that's right), a cajun restaurant fairly bristling with ambiance.
Dinner was a fairly impressive event (what with 20-some of us seated at a loooooong single row of tables). The waiter managed to get my order correct, and I met sarahh, so I was hugely lucky on both counts there. In fact, through some bizarre, 6°-type strangeness, I discovered that not only did I attend the same college as sarahh's cousin, Ted, but I am fairly certain I actually met sarahh on at least one prior occasion. I shiver at the myriad of vectors of confluence which put both of us at the same event and even seated us next to each other. Eerie.
After a dinner of much rich and hearty food (which most people seemed pleased with, if slightly overmatched by) we convened in an adjacent parking lot (post-bill-settlement...as if we could casually sneak 20+ people out of a restaurant without paying...the very thought) and attempted to organize a convoy to the funhouse.
As anyone who's ever tried to organize a herd of cats knows, it's a task which begs certain things...like a bulldozer or a collection of nets. So too was the logistical exercise we called "going to ideath's house". After much deliberation, I took a collection of persons (more than the capacity of my car, but that's a matter we will speak of no more forever) to another adjacent parking lot (there was a lot of parking, OK? Get the hell off my back or I'll kick you in the throat.) and attempted to sort out who would be going with whom (well, with me, really, but I've always thought of myself as a "whom" sort of fellow).
After sending some of our travelling party away to walk to ideath's on foot (gasp of shocked horror) I drove back over the bridge to begin the process of retrieving cars.
prole was first, and she proved to be the most skilled vehicular tracker I have ever been tailed by. She clung to the rear bumper of my Saturn like a heat-seeking Patriot missile through some of the most irritating downtown driving I've ever seen. Why, I must ask, is it necessary to have a stop sign every sixteen feet? Are people really so out-of-control that they must be stopped that often to regulate their behavior? I ran a red light later in quiet protest.
Next out was flamingweasel jeeves (I think so I have been informed by more knowledgeable (not that it takes much) noders...I was, I'll confess, a little unsure of everyone's names at this point in the evening, and reading name tags in the dark, backwards in the rearview seemed a little too challenging) and Kenny chinchila.
This was, I would later realize, my first mistake.
As the two people who actually knew where we were going exited the car with promises to "get their car and meet up with us right here" I had a fleeting moment of worry which was, ultimately, completely justified.
With prole following, I drove in rather elaborate squares around the nearby city blocks waiting for the aforementioned pair to return with their car. When they finally rejoined us we made it almost two blocks before losing them in traffic. Though we tried valiantly to find them, they disappeared like a child's balloon in gale force winds.
JasonM's plan was to collect his car, then for us to follow him to ideath's. Seemed like a good plan at the time. I was so very very wrong.
In the ensuing hours which followed (OK, that's a little hyperbolic...it was only about 50 minutes) we saw more of the wilds of Portland than I ever knew (or cared) existed. Streets rose and fell, we laughed, we cried, we stopped to call for directions (which didn't help even one whit).
When we eventually gave up searching on the west side of the river, somewhere north of Civic Stadium and recrossed the river, I realized that, perhaps, it would have been a good idea to have gotten my own set of directions from ideath. Hindsight is a irritating bitch, to be certain.
At any rate, we eventually wended our way to the right neighborhood (after a dazzling U-turn in the middle of the street by JasonM) and found the house of ill repute with little trouble. Ideath's house, on the other hand, was a few minutes' walk away, and well worth the hike and travails on the west side.
For those noders who couldn't make it (coughloserscough) the funhouse is a gorgeous place indeed. Even packed to the gunwales with Everythingians it was clear that ideath and megan (her roommate) are in possession of a fine home.
The evening began with a rousing game of cat-poop eat poop you cat (a new one to me, but amusing and not a little bit endearing to see how lame everyone's (mine in particular) stick-figure art can be) followed by music-making, drinking tequila (last time for me...my body has reached its tequila event horizon), rummy, and eventually a movie of some kind involving cats (which I missed due to a need for sleep and returning to work on time).
I am so very glad I went.
Much as Ed Norton's character in Fight Club sleeps best after self-help group fakery and eventually, beating the snot out of other people, so too did I sleep like a babe and awake refreshed this morning as if from a long peaceful slumber. And I didn't even have to embrace anyone with bitch tits or pound anyone into hamburger. Yay!
i blame mojoe
The evening so far had been quite entertaining. Dinner was delicious (too bad I was still full from a late lunch -- but that meant more for the quantum singularity in Pseudo_Intellectual's stomach). The Church of Elvis was, uh, wack, but in a good way. I got a bunch of really neat-o 'zines. Fun was had by all. We were engrossed in a rousing game of Eat Poop you Cat (Note: this does not necessarily mean we are causing the cat to eat cat poop. Any type of poop will do.) My mix cd was a hit with at least some of the noders (Dialogue offered to make love to my taste in music, which I can only assume is a good thing), despite the rumah sakit song which appeared to bother some of the posse.
Then, moJoe and his entertaining friend Osarch (look, just do everyone a favor and pronounce it "Ozark", like the mountains, 'cause everyone except for him apparently prounounces it completely wrong when they try to say it like he says it) brought a bottle of my arch-enemy:
Tequila
Evil, in a bottle. You always start shots of tequila thinking, "Okay, just this one and maybe one a little later, 'cause last time I had a bunch..." Yeah, right. I had two in the house, then moseyed out to the porch to discuss very important matters with the people out there -- moJoe, iDeath, Girlface, LordOmar, Dialogue, Prole, and prolly a few others I'm missing.
Then moJoe brings the tequila outside. And encourages, nee forces me to have three more. Once my logic centers were sufficiently anesthetized, I proceeded to have a bunch of beers, and...
Anyway....I'm a bit better now -- these saltines and juice are staying down pretty good.
So. Mad props must go out to ideath for dealing with the mob in her house so well, even taking a little time to throw a blanket on me when I had laid down on my part of the floor. Send her cash prizes, in small unmarked non-sequential bills, c/o the Funhouse. Ah, what the heck:
I blame moJoe
Every host should be this lucky, the day after.
We sure felt like a huge host, a veritable gang (of possibly questionable menace), when there were seven of us swarming down the street. We joked about the massive amounts of trivia with which we would be able to stun hapless opponents. But as i crossed the bricks and slowly processed the sight, i was the one stunned.
Surely these can't all be noders!
But they were. Even the gang clustered to the right on the steps, of whom i recognised a total of none, turned out to be of us. We quickly became one group. We were no longer a gang, really, we were a swarm of something far more literate than locusts.
It might have been the light of dusk, as we made our way to Montage, or the giddy glee of finding friends, but i was impressed by how beautiful everything was. The lights on the water as we crossed the bridge. Broken glass glinting on the ground. Clean lines of industrial/warehouse architecture. Prole's leopard-print glasses. Dialogue's singing voice.
There is music in my house. There are people on the floor. qousqous is on the phone for an hour, or some long amount of time, as he's passed hand to hand. Through the TV window, there are smokers and non on the porch, intoxicating themselves. The night extends well into morning, what with a contribution to the city's public art collection, and Brain and Srkorn's great grace in the dark. Er, folks, that means, we played frisbee (until 5 am). They can jump! I put flowers in p_i's beard and he didn't complain. Ah.
I love this town. I love noders. You make me grin.
Come back!
The phone was passed from noder to noder as I sat on my bed, watching the snow out my window. I chatted with those ranging from noders I had never heard of to names I had seen in the list to those I am happy to consider friends. I impressed all of them with my earth-shattering lack of brilliance as I regaled them with tales of unfortunate scheduling. I encountered the fair Iowan Girlface, whom I invited to the upcoming Midwest E2 gathering. And I contributed the first line in the homenode contributed to by the most people, typing from over a thousand miles away.
As I talked to more and more Everythingians, hearing in the background laughter and revelry, my disappointment mounted. Thirty-two minutes on the telephone were not what I had hoped for when I first heard of a Portland E2 gathering. Damn your black heart, Chronos! Next time, this summer, in Vancouver, I will be there. Next time, at last, I will attend.
3/12/01 4:00pm* - The Arizona bunch parks in downtown Portland, and its members make their way to Pioneer Square.
4:30pm - Jeeves points out another tourist looking at a map of Portland, then suddenly realizes "Hey, wait a minute... that's the Nodespotting T-shirt!" We approach him and it turns out to be flamingweasel. Joining the group, chronologically, are Brain, moJoe, sarahh, and then a large group containing P_I, ideath, chinchila, LordOmar, prole, Girlface, and possibly others (sorry).
5:10pm - We arrive at Powell's City of Books after a brief walk through downtown Portland. I'm unable to take in my surroundings fully enough to anything but stare slack-jawedly at the enormosity of the store, until ideath asks me what kind of books I want to look at, and leads me to the Psychology/Linguistics/Religion wing of the building (which is roughly as big as an individual bookstore back in Tucson). After a drawn-out internal struggle (resisting the urge to spend over $60 on books), I settle for buying Psyche and Symbol by Jung and The Owner's Manual to the Brain.
6:10pm - 17 noders make their way to the Church of Elvis, where the most ambitious (myself excluded) go inside to watch some kind of "weird" performance. No one gets married. Also, Ninja-Lad shows up. We then walk across a large bridge and arrive at some cajun restaurant, apparently the only place in town that will accept a group of 18 (which would constitute an unruly mob back in Tucson). Everyone buys expensive but tasty food, after which we leave for ideath's house.
?:??pm - We arrive at the Funhouse, less some of the people who drove. Travel stories are exchanged, followed by a game of eat poop you cat, during which moJoe and a friend of his go on a tequila run. As the results of the game are being read and exchanged later on, the group seperates roughly in to the non- and the drinkers, the latter of whom move outside after 10 or 20 minutes of Jeeves and me banging away on our acoustic instruments. Pseudo_Intellectual joins in the cacophony on kazoo, jawharp, nosewhistle, etc., and earns colossal applause for an amazing performance of the Peter Gunn theme. The drinkers eventually come back in and start playing cards.
1:00am - 'Black Cat, White Cat' is place in the VCR. (you should find a copy and watch it for yourself, preferably not while trying to fight off sleep)
3:00am - People start leaving, and the rest of the desert-dwellers express interest in getting some sleep. We five set up sleeping bags and lie down. When it is clear that I'm not at all tired, ideath invites me to join the small group of conscious, present people in the kitchen, who are planning an excursion. Soon, ideath, (her roommate) Megan, Pseudo_Intellectual, Brain, Girlface and I set out to commit petty vandalism, making sure to produce some highly self-incriminating evidence.
4:00am - Upon returning to the house, P_I goes in to get some Z's, while the rest of us walk to the park to play frisbee. Brain is very good (apparently he played a lot in high school), and ideath somehow knows how to throw the frisbee in such a way that I can catch it (sometimes).
>5:00am - I go to sleep in the living room, while Brain and the three girls go upstairs to play Spin the Bottle (or so I can only assume)
10:00am - I get up, use the WC, and start cleaning my fingernails with my pocketknife. Shortly, ideath comes downstairs and we return to the scene of the crime, with flamingweasel in tow. We stop to buy some OJ, then return to the house for two hours of waiting for lazy people to get up.
12:00(?)pm - We (down to only 10 people now) meander over to LordOmar's house for an exquisite breakfast and several hours of watching episodes of the Muppet Show (damn, but those Portlanders are hospitable!). Finally, the Arizonans summon up the nerve to leave this wonderful oasis and get on with the last leg of our journey.
9:00pm - The Canada-bound Six arrive at an IHOP in Bellingham, WA to meet with a local noder, KesperNorth. Four out of seven simple-minded fools have nothing good to say about the food.
11pm-ish - I wake up in the car just in time to comment on the Canadian speedbumps and watch us arrive at the Canadian border. Here, we are throughly interrogated by five levels of Canadian counter-intelligence (ha, ha). Particularly, Delvan is forced to explain in detail the plot behind Sailor Moon after a picture of the Sailor Scouts is discovered in his wallet, and Pseudo_Intellectual is asked to demonstrate that he isn't trying to hide any American apples in his beard. After snidely remarking that one of the customs agents has a snub-nose and funny accent, Jeeves is dragged out into the street and beaten.
12:06pm - We finally enter Canada. P_I points out that the speed limit of 100 is in kilometres/hour.
(return to Jeeves and Srkorn's Excellent Adventure)
* Most times are given in Mountain Standard Time, making them an hour earlier than the times perceived by any accomplices who joined us along the Pacific Coast. But some times might be PST as well.
I am a dark goat demon. Apparently. I'd settle for Pan. Confused? Talk to the ungodly host.
The event began, for me, with a most auspicious launch, albeit one leading to subsequent problems. The night before I had hied myself (in the company of Zarah) to the venerable Vancouver East Cultural Centre - aka the 'Culch' - to subject myself to a program we had been anticipating for almost a half-year: The Little Chamber Music Series That Could presents Green Eggs and Cam - a Cam Wilson Retrospective. Including: the House of the Rising Sun Variations, Addams Family Opus 111 1/2, Carnival of the Animals (that Saint-Saens Never Got Around to Writing), Playground Rhymes for Grownups and (as announced in the program:) (If you liked the last piece and you continue to clap incesantly, it will be necessary for you to endure the only version known in Vancouver of Queen's classic tune for piano quintet and electric violin obbligato) -- that is, Bohemian Rhapsody performed in an utterly straight(-faced) classical style up until the guitar solo towards the end, at which point Cam busted out from behind the curtains burning out the blistering solo on a shiny (and... almost sexy) black electric violin. Rock on! Rock on!
It was upon the conclusion of this somewhat unusual concert, after a brief walk home, that my plan tumbled into motion - and with it, my First Glaring Mistake of the Conflagration: to ensure my being awake early enough to be adequately prepared to catch my 7:10 am bus departure I entered into a compact with my bed to stay up all night. This sort of behavior is not unknown to me, and it was facilitated both by the residual adrenaline pumping and baffling through my system from the concert and by the anxious heebly-greeblies regarding the colossal (for me) adventure I was to be embarking upon in a few mere hours. I doubt that I could have attained a restful sleep state even if I hadn't planned otherwise - but I was grossly mistaken in my assumption that sleep missed tonight could be caught up on during the Greyhound trip south. Being in a two-days'-sleepless state during the later meet was primarily responsible for my stumbling about in a zombie-like state of zonkification, dulling me despite occasional referential triggers from Dialogue and accounting for my being located, dazed and stunned, in the background of almost all pictures taken at the meet. In short, a foolish assumption led to a real shame, Portland and company being treated to only a pale shadow of my erudite and charuzmatic larger-than-life in-life persona. Something to keep in mind for next time.
Backpack wrapped tight around supplies which will largely go unusused (excepting a VHS tape and a bulk bag of gummi bears) I lurched from my cave in a slightly pre-dawn gloom, feeling ominously oppressed beneath an unusual preponderance of crows, passing motionless practitioners of tai chi and being ogled by what must have been every homeless person in Vancouver during the ten minute walk from my house to the bus station at Main and Terminal. I make a mental note to preserve the eerie atmospherics of the city before it becomes alive for the day for a future 3-day-novel.
The Vancouver bus terminal is beautiful but plays no significant role in my travels despite featuring vaguely humourous coffee - "so fresh you'll want to slap it!" I boarded my bus when it arrived and, to get into a suitable U.S. headspace, et up a copy of The Stranger (tragically, one of the final issues distributed on this side of the border) when it became apparent that no sleep was to be got on this infernal - but effective - four-wheeled rolling conveyance. The experience of international travel by bus seeming less of a fascinating novelty than my previous visit to my e2 brethren across the border, as we pulled into customs I would find that there were still surprises to be had in store.
Deflated and slightly twitchy on sleep-dep (I wonder if they can tell?) I am disgusted, in retrospect, by how quickly I crumple into Good Citizen mode - Yes, sir! It's right here! In duplicate! (sir!) The U.S. wants proof that your visit to their country is only intended to be a temporary one, my one-way ticket a problem given my plan to be driven back with Jeeves and company. My lack of proof of employment compounds things, and no doubt my appearance does as well. Finally it appears as though the sum of my "unnecessary" precautions - the ones my roommate laughed at my efforts to obtain, since Canada and the US share an "open" border - tipped in my favour and saw me through; the passport, ("What if you don't meet up with these Internet people? Where are you going to stay? How are you going to get back?") the $200 in U.S. currency, ("What if you get injured while in the U.S.?") the travel insurance, ... in short, those things that you never need to have when you're a clean-cut, gainfully-employed family of three going through the border crossing in your own vehicle. I recall hearing somewhere that the only people who take Greyhound in the US are criminals and the criminally poor, and wonder if my (lack-of-)choice of mode of transportation lumps me in with that automatically-suspicious lot.
The presentation of my student card seemed to baffle him more than anything yet, asking me about the classes I'd miss while in the U.S. I had to gently remind him that for us students it was Spring Break at the time, at which point he folded and made some notes. Finally, not finding any further grounds on which to block me, the customs official gave up and waved me through ("THIS time..."), and I begin to wonder whether I pulled a fast one on him - did he ultimately do me a favour by permitting me passage or was he merely being unnecessarily bureaucratic earlier? I consider rendering his trust misplaced just for spite, seeking out the first under-the-table job I could find once I pass the border, but figure it's probably too much effort to fulfil a mere fancy of emotional perversity.
While waiting for the other inhabitants of my bus to clear the process I had finally emerged from, I make plans to ensure less hassle next time. Proof of return is the biggie - having also been problematic for me on the Washington, D.C. hookup of my 1999 European trip - and I ultimately bring myself to agree that should such a get-a-ride-back situation arise again, the 12% cancellation fee on a two-way return ticket might just be worth the expense for a more-seamless and less-in-doubt transition between countries.
"Hey, Rowan!" - clearly an artifact of sleep-deprived sensory apparatus. No one there knew my name. "Hey, Rowan!" Oh, wait - my "friend" at the customs desk was beckoning me back. Did they forget to scan my retinas? Perhaps a cavity search had been accidentally omitted? The truth was considerably more benign - in such a state of shredded nerves after the grilling, I'd forgotten my passport at the customs desk. What a mess! I hoped I could pull myself together by the time I reached the Conflagration. Sighing in relief, I pocketed my passport and slunk out to the bus with my fellow passengers, now cleared, relieved that the customs officials hadn't unearthed the fact that like Netscape, PKZip and PGP, my tremendous brain is technically classified as munitions.
Heart still palpitating furiously, I sunk back into my seat on the bus and waited to calm down, but only inane worries appeared in my head: What if I lose my only pair of pants? What if Jeeves decides to go to Alberta instead of British Columbia? What if pictures of Mojoe and I in a compromising position are taken? What if I don't get up early enough to catch my bus across the border? This last concern snapped me back to some vestige of sensibility, realizing that I was in fact worrying about the possible outcome of an event which had already passed successfully. Then the realization of what I really missed struck me - the Second Glaring Mistake of the Conflagration: Damnit, I knew that something important was going to be forgotten. This was to be a subtle preparation, but one that I felt was important; in short, today was supposed to be a chocolate day!
There was simply nothing to be done for it. Perhaps such sensory hacking could be revised next time. Being now in the mindstate for such concerns of legitimate interest and importance I began taking notes as to my trials thus far, which is probably why I have been able to recount it in such detail four months after the fact. The writing calmed me down more, as it is known to do, and I reflected on the differences between physical and online exchange and commerce across international borders, examining the hassle I'd ensured thus far to get a chance to interact with international noders in face-space and contrasting it with the total lack of government interference or regulation involved in interacting with them electronically. I contemplated how sorely lacking the unpopulated database would be if similar customs procedures were applied to the online world. Would nate ever have gone through the bother to bring even Brian Eno to us?
Pulling out from the border crossing at last, I was still fluttery enough to laugh nervously at the driver's recycled joke as we pulled back in to a rest stop; "If the bus leaves without you there's no cause to worry - it comes by here again the same time tomorrow." Finally arriving at some complete calm - obstacle passed, there are no further impediments to my having a great time with some great people tonight - I make a mental pronouncement which later proves to be the Third Glaring Mistake of the Conflagration: Harrowing as that customs experience was, look on the bright side - there's no way the return passage through Canadian customs could ever be as involved a fiasco.
Gearing down from the second-to-second frenzy of unexpected mental activity at the crossing I settle back into a baseline mellowness which permits the passage of uneventful (or un-noted) hours (no doubt helped along by spontaneous bursts of microsleep) bringing me to the Seattle bus terminal, where I am to make a transfer to Portland. Eventually. The terminal seems familiar from my last trip South - the only difference seems to be that where the last time it smelt vaguely of urine, this time a faint aroma of vomit manifests. The same video games are in the arcade, and I observe a television set mounted on the arm of a chair being put to unusually good use as a pillow. Though we won't realise it until later (though she might have suspected something), Girlface and I sit together for a time waiting for the Portland bus to arrive.
The bus rolls out, bringing me towards my final destination, and finally calmed completely I get some reading done - finishing off Kenneth Patchen's Selected Poems; finding that despite her increased success in fiction, Margaret Atwood can write a mean poem in Power Politics; and starting Albert K. Cohen's sociology textbook "deviance and control" before noticing its soporific effect on me and supposing that this close to the gold, sleep at last would probably be A Bad Thing. Closing that final book, I gaze out the window and furrow my brows at the frequent bags of garbage lined up by the shoulder of the highway. Do Americans throw out entire garbage bags' worth of trash by the roadside? (as Jeeves later explains, yes and no: the litter tends to accumulate there on a piece-by-piece basis, where it is periodically collected and bagged by chain gangs - my heart skips another beat, how exotic!.) Washington mostly passes in a haze of the above words and as we start crossing an increasing number of bridges my heart knows Portland must be growing imminent. Instantly as we cross the Columbia the frequency of cyclists explodes tenfold and I know we have reached the halcyon fantasyland of tonight's mythmaking.
I disembark to a disappointing lack of fanfare and, presuming my Welcome Wagon has not yet arrived - though, of course, none of us have ever seen each other before - prowl around the station a few times, getting my bearings and getting a copy of The Everything Guide! from the Washington County, Oregon, Convention & Visitors Bureau (www.wcva.org) - Disappointingly, even it cannot resolve my ongoing problems with pipe linking[| . The third time I stalk around the perimeter of the station I find in the distance two people looking at me and grinning. Not entirely uncommon, but these grins and looks weren't like the ones I provoke in everyone else but almost as if they were the parties expecting me! Heart leaping in mouth, I make my patented hard link gesture (practiced late the previous night, replacing the relatively clunky everything salute) and their expressions of recognition affirm that These are Those For Whom I Am Here. We exchange false noder identities (me momentarily being Pukesick) and in quick succession first Girlface, then Prole and Dialogue show up and join our rapidly-growing party, little any of us realizing the ridiculous scale to which the group would soon be expanded.
Most of the actual Portland social activities have been more-than-adequately covered by the sooner up-writing correspondants. I will try to fill gaps and provide missing details only. En route to the first of many trips to Powell's City of Books we joked about the massive amounts of trivia with which we would cumulatively be able to stun hapless opponents. Team Everything2 could assuredly trump Team Prettymuchanyothercommunity(onlineoroff) in any information-based game show situation, barring perhaps Team Mensa or Team Rhodes Scholars.
$50 US at Bookland goes like hot butter - a much-expanded the collected Kenneth Patchen (from which I later learn ideath used to read to her brother at an early age, no doubt scarring him for life), The Journal of Albion Moonlight, the Collected Poems in English & French of Samuel Beckett (endorsed by the woman at the checkout whose name Laurel wanted me to spring on her - but this evening was to contain enough glorious weirdness without needing to contrive further such) and some obligatory tripe from Fritz Leiber, Swords and (Some Nonsense Or Other) to complete my Lankhmar collection.
After meeting up with much of the rest of the attendees at Pioneer Courthouse Square, we find ourselves irresistably drawn back to Powell's (and they say the quantum singularity is in my stomach - ha! I don't even have an event horizon!) ... no further books are bought by me (not for lack of funds or self-control - my backpack is stuffed to the brim) so instead some conversation is made with sarahh and girlface at the café there. I'd have been more scintillating if I'd had some sleep, but what are you gonna do? A mix exchange is made out front, girlface and I trading tapes with flamingweasel, while an old lady by the door repeatedly attempts to sell us a magazine we don't want. Skrorn appears out of nowhere and insists I accept a dollar bill from him. What's with these people unexpectedly foisting money on me? I ask. He explains it's payment for the bet he'd made with me back in the meet-organizational phase, that I would not be able to find words beginning with the same first syllable of his name for the Battle Beasts-style roster of expected parties. Numerous times brain nearly drops his blue juggling apparatus into oncoming traffic, and I am multiply tempted to utter some pithy remark regarding this revolutionary remedy for the plague of blue balls.
After the Church of Elvis (or the outside thereof, for me) and Quite Some Walking we arrive at Montage - a novelty for me inasmuch as you can't really get Cajun food in Canada. That's what we get for expelling the inhabitants of Acadia. I wonder where in my hometown I could wander in amongst a mass of 20, ask for seating for the group and get it - instantly. Nowhere with the atmosphere of this place, to be sure. I could live without the seafood shots, however. Aside from the talkers-on-one-end, quiet-folks-on-the-other arrangement of our table some card observes that we're seated roughly as we might be found in the Other Users nodelet - the high-level users, comfortable in each others' presence, gabbing away and the relatively newer users mumbling in their gumbo at the other end.
From this point on it seems that someone is always missing from our group. It may be because their cars got separated from the caravan and took hours and hours to get back to the Funhouse. It may be because they were part of the goodly chunk of the group (as much as a half of us?) who installed themselves on the front porch to smoke, imbibe and miss the feline trio of Black Cat, White Cat and Eat Poop You Cat - surely (in my eyes) rarer and more appealing pursuits than nicotine and alcohol. Perhaps I'm missing something. Maybe I just wasn't willing to remove myself from the corner beanbag in which I had comfortably installed myself.
Based on his typed and tipsy entry in the write-up contributed to by the most people, lordomar clearly needs to node drunk more often.
What do you do when you are presented with a portrayal of your own death? This is a situation with which I had to deal during the eat poop you cat, sarahh passing to me an unmistakable depiction of myself (bearded, bespectacled, button-hattified) lying on the ground, eyes X'd out, a mysterious fluid seeping from my stomach. I calmly described what I saw, passed it on and shuffled a bit further away from the architect of my demise. Later on the picture was seen in the fuller context of what came before and after it, but I never came to any satisfactory understanding of what precisely prompted that particular image. It continues to haunt me to this day.
We called it a Conflagration but we were sorely mistaken - nothing burned. Nothing even smouldered. The torch was even brought from somewhere for use in conjunction with the tea candles I'd brought and even taken out but by then I felt that the possible wielders thereof had probably imbibed a bit too liberally to be trusted in activities of eXtreme pyromania. I didn't get to know mojoe t
