As you may or may not know, gentle reader, but heptapod.org hasn't been updated because of the holiday season and an upcoming wedding ceremony.
And here my stories begin.
At least the little kids were really cute and we were happy to see Lee's niece having a wonderful time onstage.
Annoyingly, I saw a lot of jailbait cleavage. Adding insult to injury when the show was finally over, believe me this was a Grand Finally than a Gran Finale, they started playing Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing over the PA.
Around exit 9 on the New Jersey Turnpike, usually known as just the Turnpike, I was doing 75 in the center lane. Left and right lanes were clear and the closest traffic ahead of me was more than ten car lengths away. Some guy in a Beamer is coming up fast in the center lane and decides that he's going to ride my ass like Lexington Steele instead of being logical by passing me on either side.
I tap my brakes once or twice hoping, hoping the fuck slams into the rear of my car. A minute or two later he gets the bright idea to pass me on the left. Jerky paces me and I give him a twinkle-wave and a loverly smile only to be greeted by some balding guy in the midst of a midlife crisis wearing sunglasses forming his mouth into an 'o' to accept the cock of his invisible passenger. I may be fat, hairy and ugly but at least I am told that I have a pleasant demeanor most of the time.
People can be so angry
Anyway I mentally wished him to enjoy his AIDS. I noted that he had a license plate frame showing he had attended the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Good lord, I know the U.S. Army was desperate and resorting to shady tactics while recruiting foo^H^H^H soldiers but if the Chairforce Academy was accepting slope-browed desk jockeys like this prick then I'm surprised the Republic has done so well pursuing GWB's quagmire of attrition out there in the Middle East.
Should Middle East be capitalized like it's being written by A.A. Milne? Please contact the staff PDQ with your two cents.
In my Sister's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. Woo lives on a street full of McMansions which can afford to have lawns. My hometown has McMansions except they're built on tiny plots of lands where a lawn is just a memory and neighbors are just the people on the other side of your window. First impression was that her house was fucking huge like the 1st generation XBox but it didn't feel cavernous 'neath its roof. Still the fucker had 20 foot ceilings in the three car garage. I did joke that I had to come in through the garage to prevent property devaluation in the neighborhood.
I am constantly surprised that my sister's voice hasn't changed and every time I hear her she sounds like she's between the ages of five and seven years old. When I look at her face I realize she's succumbing in the same way I'm succumbing to one of life's inevitable maladies. Fortunately she hasn't cracked and most likely won't crack for many years to come.
Her dog is a handful. Literally! His legs are full of springs set at high tension which catapault this pup into laps and faces for thorough nostril cleanings. No bigger than a cat but he's twice as spry. Then again cats know better than to waste such unnecessary energy on strangers.
We head out to a beauty supply shop because she had errands to run. To her credit she did ask if I needed anything like a new trimmer but I'm pretty much set in the toiletries and manscaping department. Back at her place she brought me into the basement where she trimmed my beard and shaped my hair for the forthcoming festivities. I told her about higher dimensions and I hope it stuck a little bit despite the fact it's a pretty dry and boring topic of conversation. Trust me, Lee's suffered through one or two of my ramblings.
The visit was rounded out looking at all her photos from various vacations and umpteen trips over the course of the past handful of years. Woo's quite the globetrotter having been to such far-flung locales as Santorini, Hong Kong and Colorado. Seeing Colorado in pictures made me cry and remind me how I miss that place. Yes, I squandered my time in the American Alps staying indoors, working hard at jobs which didn't deserve that kind of attention and maintaining difficult relationships instead of heading out to the high country every weekend to breathe the cool, clean yet thin air scented by the crushed sagebrush beneath my sneakers listening to the beef cattle lowing echoing off distant mountains then observing every possible naked eye visible star at night in perfect darkness.
Now I have my Lee and I have the ocean.
Brian wasn't there yet and I wasn't comfortable just letting myself in just as the Doctor said I could because everyone still remembers me after my southwestern sojourn. So I took a deep breath and let myself in. Buddha was happy to see me and everyone seemed to brighten up that I had come even though the same people saw me sometime in November without the same kind of fanfare, etc..
My best man finally arrived once the game was underway. After destroying my Italian hot dog I became all sleepy and nodded off for about thirty minutes while reading Feynman's Six Easy Pieces. When I did regain consciousness, mostly because I was self-conscious to have dozed at the table, I listened in but was unable to follow because they were just roleplaying within the confines of the campaign and I was unfamiliar with the plotline.
Folks went home around 10 p.m., Brian went downstairs to visit with the Doctor and I joined them. Still sleepy after twenty winks I was hoping it'd be brief, Brian and I would discuss the looming date and I'd be asleep in my sister's refurbished bedroom before the clock struck twelve and I turned into a pumpkin. Ended up watching bits and pieces of a popular film in addition to numerous vignettes from Japanese animation.
Much later Brian and I bid each other farewell saying few words between us. I know he's going to be getting his suit cleaned for the wedding. Weird thing is when I was walking back to my car I felt like a dwarf. Not in the short sense. Believe me, everyone on the east coast is really short. I don't think I've encountered anyone regardless of gender who could reach six feet in height. When I felt like a dwarf I felt broad shouldered, stocky and strong if not stubborn and ornery.
Why?
No fucking clue. Just wanted to mention it.
There were fewer magazines on the shelf showing the toll of the internet upon print media nor was there one of those spinning racks of comics since most have been relegated to speciality stores since the early nineties. The counter was still there along with the old men spending their morning talking about the increasingly unread morning paper and its offerings. Beyond that nothing has really changed except the indian guys behind the counter were a little fatter and grayer with the passage of years.
I remember going there in my youth to play the original Gauntlet on a machine in the back room among other video games. Sadly I did have sticky fingers in those days and made off with a few comic books and goodies in my pockets. No idea how they're making ends meet but I'm glad that little store is still in existence.
The local Catholic church had already set up the crèche but they put the fucking baby Jesus in the crib despite the fact Christmas-proper is more than a week away. Mind you I'm a former Catholic cum atheist who is not going to be persnickety about setting up the manger, putting the animals in first, putting in the holy family on Christmas Eve then the shepherds on Christmas day and finally the Wise Men on the Epiphany. Still some things should just stay the same.
Only cost me a buck fifty to go to Exit 82 off the Garden State Parkway (GSP). Beats the living fuck out of spending $8.00 to cross the Goethals or Bayonne Bridges or the Outerbridge Crossing. Highway robbery, literally! Reckon that steep toll is keeping my friends, okay friend, from visiting me because it's also making me wary about coming back onto Staten Island. I can't wait until I'm back in Jersey proper where the gas and tolls are cheaper.
Lee was happy to see me. Also she made me breakfast. She did some cleaning for her folks while I sat up on the deck reading Six Easy Pieces. Only I didn't read that much because I kept nodding off. Around 3 p.m. I called her, which is the height of laziness, and asked "Doesn't the Office of Public Records close at 4 p.m.?"
One of the reasons why she was down the shore because she was going to the Office of Public Records to get our marriage license. So Lee calls them, finds out they indeed close at four and says she's going to go down there first thing on Wednesday morning.
So I finish reading, her father comes home and we talk about his trains and Santa collection including Mongolian Santa before he heads out for another errand. Dinner was rigatoni and meatballs with sauce. The sauce was okay but it wasn't thick enough for my liking leaving a watery smear on the macaroni instead of a nice, thick coating but the meatballs were good so I kept my mouth shut.
After her father went out again, we sat on the couch where Lee read an 'erotic' poem to me while I read Eifelheim which is about space grasshoppers who convert to Catholicism during the Black Plague. Some quality time later and it's time for the long haul back to New York. Ended up calling Lee five times on the drive back home because I miss her and want to pass along little updates. Spoke with my sister at length about the wedding and I guess it helped me out.
All four cats are hale and hearty. Lee is most likely to be asleep before midnight which is a remarkable situation and cause for celebration. Heaven only knows if I'm going to bed or if I'll read through the night or browse the internet.
Thank you for reading, gentle reader.
Think of it as a cheap Christmas gift.
heptapod.org thanks you for your support.
