Zero

It is telling that I don't post as frequently as I used to but I'm not quite sure what it says.

I spent much of yesterday over at Dogger's playing D&D. Our party made it to Everlund and we kinda went our separate ways. My character, Severus, spent time at a temple to his god reading and learning. Then he got a bug up his ass to learn potion brewing which led to yesterday's little adventure. A magic pestle went missing and some sleuthing ensued. It was a good time and I was all proud of myself for having killed an air elemental hoolie.

Saturday night was spent in DeForest at Claire's birthday party. Claire is Pete's sister and, just to make things interesting, she is a lesbian. For whatever reason, Pete takes offense to this but, to me, Claire is a hoot. I've gotten along with her since we first met some 13 or 14 years ago. It's not that Pete doesn't love his sister or that he hates gay people or anything like that, he's just not totally comfortable around them. His parents are way better about this issue than he. Sure, they had proabably hoped that Claire would be straight and marry a nice guy and have kids'n'all, but they accept her and get along with her girlfriends exceptionally well. Claire's latest squeeze, Tiffany, is really cool. The two of them are a lot alike. They both like to indulge is some brewskis, have a good sense of humor, and don't take shit from Pete. Pete's buddy, Lee, was there as well with his wife and son, Joseph.

The party was at a bowling alley so we rolled a couple lines. Of course I kicked Pete's ass as he's a horrendous kegeler. Joseph is only 6 so he's got much to learn about the art of bowling but he gives it the old college try and it's great to see the big smile appear on his face when he knocks down some pins.

Everyone gave me shit about my new shoes but I personally thought that I was highly fashionable. At least my feet were. When I asked for a pair of bowling shoes, I was surprised to find that they were florescent pink and yellow - even more gaudy than my Chuck Taylors. One of the highlights of the night was when Lee forced Pete to sing karoke - Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue". While it was amusing, I've heard Pete to it better. He was clearly not drunk enough. Another highlight was when he gave an account of how he got laid at work. He came home a few days ago with this big shit-eating grin on his face. "You'll never guess what happened to me at work."

"You listened to progressive rock?"

"No."

"A UFO landed?"

"Nope. Even stranger."

"I give up - what?"

"I got laid at work!"

Truth is stranger than fiction. He was just standing on a ladder when someone starts unzipping his pants. It turned out to be one of the bartenders at the site he's working at. Why can't I get a job like that?

Claire works at WPS and I had me a job interview there on Friday. It went OK, I guess. I'm a horrible judge of such things so I won't make any predictions. But I dropped a couple names and hopefully that HR recruiter will call them. Miss Rosie was one and she's been there 20+ years. Speaking of Miss Rosie, I went out to her house for Thirsty Thursday. Gina was there as well. We ate some fried chicken coated in a batter mix that I had brought back with me from Louisiana. Quite tasty, I assure you. And we drank. While my newest nickname, Stiffy, was bestowed upon me almost in error, I did my best to earn it that night. Ten High & sours had some kick to them and they flowed generously.

Honestly, I had a good time but I also felt sorry for Miss Rosie. When she gets lubed up, she tends to say and do certain things which reveal the pain inside. Talk about her weight, her fake breast, and about how she can't find a man because of these things. Put some bourbon into her and the tough-as-nails fascade crumbles to reveal scars on the inside to go along with those on the outside. She has a mental block which makes it extremely difficult for her to be intimate with a man - her breast. Starting right after she overcame the cancer, sex with her husband was done only in the dark - she can't stand to be seen naked by anyone. There's this feeling inside her that she is deformed. Her last husband sure exacerbated things with his bullshit. He felt that way and told her on more than one occasion. Rosie should have dumped his ass a fuck of a lot sooner than she did.

Along these same lines, she told me that The Pollack's last wife, Christina, is in some deep fecal matter: a couple counts of child abuse. That woman needs some serious help. But the worst thing was that she used to push Jason, The Pollack's son from his first marriage, around and, in some minor ways, be abusive towards him. That really pissed me off. Sure, I feel horrible for the kids that she's hurt most recently but I know Jason. When Rosie told me this, I was merely incredulous on the outside but seething with anger on the inside. And then Rosie says that Christina had asked The Pollack to appear as a character witness at her trial! "The nerve," I thought. But what does he do? He tells her that he'll think about doing something in writing. He can't be fucking serious. There's gotta be something else, he must have some ulterior motive because there's just no way that he'd actually do anything for her out of the goodness of his heart. Not after the cheating, the divorce, and the shit she did to Jason. I don't want to be forced to pull an intervention on his ass. No fucking way is he going to do anyting for that bitch after all the crap that's happened the past 3 years. He absolutely cannot have anything to do with her. Whenever he has contact with that woman, he gets all pissed off and it trickles down to the rest of us, including Jason. Not that The Pollack hits Jason or anything, he just puts his ass to work when he visits on weekends. He rarely lets the kid just be a kid. Sure, Jason is 16 but he's got a fucked up situation in Milwaukee and then he goes to Edgerton on weekends to work. Let him relax, let him go out and have fun. He's not a fucking indentured servant.
What's going on this week? Anders and Lisette needs computers fixed. Anders is a jazz musician whilte Lisette plays woodwind in an ensemble that performs medieval and Renaissance music. I am the fucking tech support guy to the Madison music community. Doing jobs for these folk is fun as I get to hear and learn about music. Speaking of music, it's all I can think about. Yeah, that's usually the case but I've got a few articles in mind that I want to write about music and musicians. My Tull essay begs to be completed but my mind just isn't in the right frame. If I can get my editor to agree, I want to interview Bill Malone. He is a professor of Southern culture and the author of the definitive history of country music, Country Music USA. And he hosts the Wednesday morning country show on Madison's WORT. Also, I discovered a group called the Steam Engine Preservation Society which is dedicated to preserving America's folk/bluegrass heritage and music. They just raised nearly $15,000 to buy Tut Taylor's collection of recordings. The music will be archived and then released free to the public via the Net.

Such essays deal with two topics dear to my heart: sweet music and an exploration of how people communicate with each other, how they bond with each other via tradition. There's a book in there somewhere. Something about the music industry, Napster, and how the Internet has changed the relationship between fans & musicians.

I had this weird dream last night. While I can't remember much of it, I do recall that it involved me being at a joint in Cambridge, where I have a few friends. An ex-girlfriend of mine, The Tetragrammaton, was there carousing with people and this made me jealous, like she had the audacity to tread on my turf. In another scene, I am in a room where a Filipino boy is sitting in a small bathtub kind of thing. He is naked and then he starts masturbating while I just stand there in a daze. He ejaculates at some point and then leaves the room. The last thing I can remember before waking up was looking in the tub and seeing this huge cloud of semen at the bottom. All I could think was how much more it was than I could ever produce in one sitting. Now, what the hell was that about? I await all the comments about sexual inadequacy...

I woke up knowing that it was early. Why the hell was I getting up a half hour earlier than I normally do? It's a pretty lousy day outside - cloudy and grey - and it's supposed to rain. All I've been thinking about this morning is the fact that I don't have a girlfriend and about children. I got to play with Miss Regan yesterday - maybe that's what made this mess in my cranium. She is getting big and is learning to crawl slowly but surely. Soon she'll be off to college and won't want anything to do with her honorary uncle.

I had the chance to "read" the new Playboy yesterday. Some chickie named Charisma something-or-other from a TV show with "angel" in the title is on the cover. She was pretty cute. There was also an essay by Gore Vidal on church/state separation which piqued my interest as I had seen an interview with Susan Jacoby, the author of a book tracing the history of American secularism on Friday night and watched the Frontline episode about Dubya's born-again experience and how his religious beliefs influence his policy. I find that I'm becoming less and less tolerant of the religious right's intolerance. It's getting to the point where I'm becoming fearful. Fearful of the Supreme Court becoming filled with a bunch of Antonin Scalia clones and an executive branch teeming with warmongers convinced that they're doing God's work and this has all-too often historically meant killing those who don't share those same beliefs. The atmosphere here in this country just seems to be slowly getting worse for non-Xtians. Bush once stated in a speech for his faith-based initiatives that the government cannot legislate morality. That it's up to the people themselves to live the right way and to do the right things. Then he turns around and does what he can to appease the religious right who want to do exactly what he said could not be done. I've been thinking about charities to which I will give money when I get my inheritence and I've that the Freedom From religion Foundation is definitely getting a new member.

Another bit in that Playboy was enlightening - I found out that I have a fetish. There was an article which featured two pictures of a blonde woman naked - from the front and back. There were lines pointing to various parts of her anatomy with little blurbs about the fetishes for the anatomical delights. In the vulva section, I was told that there are some men out there who like women to actually have pubic hair and apparently this is now considered a fetish. Since I am among them, I, therefore, am a fetishist or whatever we're called. I never knew.

Something must be wrong with me and my brain
if I'm so patently unrewarding.
But my dreams are for dreaming and best left that way
and my zero to your power of ten equals nothing at all.

There's no double-lock defense; there's no chain on my door.
I'm available for consultation,
But remember your way in is also my way out
and love's four-letter word is no compensation