Trouble to the nth degree, where n equals trouble

(The title of today's entry is provided by Scott Seagroves)

June 11

Such an eventful weekend! Let's see if I can write about it in anything approaching a coherent fashion.

Hmm.

Nope. I can't. So it's going to be nigh-incoherent. Sorry about that.

*

Dear Heather came to visit me this weekend. I got off work early and raced home... to find a note from her on my door. She'd gone to see a clothing exhibit at the museum, and would be back soon. So I sat around, read some short fiction, watched Crossfire. And then, at last, she arrived! And rejoicing ensued.

She gave me a stuffed spider! Why? Because she's the best girlfriend ever, is why.

I've got quite a little menagerie going now-- two ferrets, a pteranadon, a goat, and a spider. All I lack is a stuffed scorpion and a stuffed monitor lizard, but those are probably trickier to acquire...

*

I read Jody Scott's Passing for Human this weekend, and liked it better than I, Vampire. The principle joy of I, is it's absolute looniness-- it's a novel that includes a vampire, Virginia Woolf, and an alien porpoise. I, is actually a sequel to Passing, though, and I think Passing is a much better book overall-- more fun, more coherent, more put-together.

And it also features Virginia Woolf and alien porpoises, so that's still cool.

*

Heather and I went out for dinner on Friday (she wore a beautiful butterfly-patterned dress that she made). We ate at Costa Brava, which is an odd Italian/Mexican place-- so we got bread dipped in olive oil and wine, and guacamole and chips. An odd combination, I know, but that's the kind of place it is. We also drank margaritas. Then we went to the Red Room (hippest bar in town) and drank gin and tonics. We got sleepy-drunk, and went home, and went to bed, where we passed quite a lot of time in a sort of pleasantly languid haze before finally, actually going to sleep...

*

I finished Sleeping in Flame a few days ago... Obviously, I like Jonathan Carroll, or I wouldn't keep reading his books. But I'm beginning to think that I read his best book too soon, and that now I'll be comparing all the rest of his novels to Land of Laughs, and that they won't measure up. Land was his first novel, so you'd think the others would get better. Though it's possible that his priorities have simply changed-- maybe he's no longer interested in writing the kind of novels that I'm most likely to enjoy. I am looking forward to reading Bones of the Moon (since I've read the two books that come after that one in the rather loose "Rondua Trilogy"). I guess I like Sleeping second-best of the ones I've read... it doesn't fall apart in the last third, and it feels more complete than A Child Across the Sky. It wasn't the sparkling revelation I'd hoped for, though.

*

Heather and I rose on Saturday and went to Planned Parenthood to get STD tests (always a 'sponsible thing to do when one becomes involved with a new partner, and it's been about a year and a half since I've had any testing done, so it was past time for me to do so again anyway). The people at PP were very nice and friendly-- I'm not used to being comfortable in doctor-y places, but I was.

We made a big tasty breakfast of eggs scrambled up with bell peppers and garlic and tomatoes, with toast and a bowl of strawberries and some yummy coffee (I thought it was yummy, anyway-- Heather prefers espresso to ordinary coffee). Sitting at the dining room table in the morning sunlight, eating breakfast with her... that was really nice. I could get used to doing that.

On Saturday, Heather wore the sexiest shirt ever, a velvet one that shows off her belly and has laces in the front. She's so beautiful, and she's so very good to me.

*

I hope you're all signing up for Timprov's pool. I assume Heather and I are not permitted to take part, since it would be fairly easy for us to rig the game... ah, well. No prize for us.

Except, I suppose, the prize of being in love with one another.

(Sorry, to anyone who might have picked today in the pool. No points for you today, suckah)

*

Saturday evening we made broiled salmon with wasabi and soy-honey sauce, along with rice and some soy-sauteed mushrooms. Mmm. I'm pretty pleased with how it came out, and the sauce was delicious. Cooking with Heather is making me eat in a much more healthy fashion. I've never had a great enthusiasm for fish, but I'm starting to get excited about the possibilities for good fish dishes now.

After dinner, we got drunk. Scott got drunk with us.

Here's the entire Saturday-evening booze line-up, in (roughly) chronological order: Beer at home. Sake at home. Tequila tonics at home (we rode scooters to the corner liquor store in order to acquire the tequila). Beer at the movie (we went to see The Center of the World, about a lap dancer and a depressed millionaire dot-commer; sort of a really depressing version of Pretty Woman. We snuck in beer, because it's a little independent theater, and we knew we could get away with it). Guinness at the Poet and Patriot (where we saw Ariel, our favorite Saturn Cafe waitress, celebrating her graduation. Ariel hugged me, which says more about her own level of drunkeness than about my inherent hugability). Mimosas at the Saturn Cafe (two liters of mimosa, split three ways). More tequila tonics at home. More beer at home (this necessitated another trip to the liquor store).

So. Mondo drunko. We listened to the new Radiohead, and to Modest Mouse. We littered the coffee table with the corpses of beer bottles. We laughed a lot. I rarely get drunk, but this was such a spread-out, nicely sustained drunk, with such good company, that I had a marvelous time.

Heather and I went to bed and eventually to sleep, acquiring unconcsciousness around 4 a.m.

*

Sunday was not much fun for a while. I woke at 8:30, hungover and dreadfully dehydrated. Heather (have I mentioned that she's the best girlfriend ever?) made me some peppermint tea. I didn't think I'd be able to go back to sleep, so I sat on the couch reading and trying to feel better. Eventually I passed out on the couch, and later woke up to crawl back into bed with Heather and sleep again. We managed to get up for real about 4 in the afternoon. I felt like I had a large poison-filled egg in place of my head. I moved slowly and talked softly. And yet, I've had much worse hangovers-- even in my misery, I knew it wasn't that bad off. We got some dinner, and then joined a bunch of people in my living room to watch a game of the NBA finals. Mmm, basketball. I began to feel better.

Heather and I snuggled. We ate cookies. We cooed at one another. She planned to leave about 8:30, but she didn't actually get out the door until almost 11:30. It's so difficult to say goodbye to her, we have such a good time together!

*

And that, more or less, was my weekend.