I also remember when this site had content.

What do you remember?

Weekend schmeekend, I have been whacked out of my gourd on percocet for like 4 days now, so it doesn’t matter what day of the week it is. And no, before all you heads who think I just stumbled into a scrip and am taking a holiday from reality rush to judge me (god damn I hate that – will you guys please stop that), I must state unequivocally that there is medical need. Seems one of my choppers went horribly south last week. Some little infective agent snuck under a crown and started a pain party in my jaw. So I, with great trembling of spirit, dialed my dentist’s digits.

Ah, my dentist. I chose him a while back as he offered this new thing called “sedation dentistry”. Seeing as I am not a huge fan of the whole dentist experience, the word sedation seduced me in ways that I could not resist. I could not really afford it at the time, but my fears played skeeball with my financial reasoning and off I went. Now sedation dentistry involves pills, not anesthesia. I believe the pills are called “halcyon”, but I am not sure. One wakes up, takes a pill every hour until one is blissfully catatonic in the chair of despair. This is why you need a ride to and from, which I had obtained. Of course, owing to my terror, I had also instructed the surgeon to give me nitrous, novacaine… basically everything he had on hand. This was a mistake.

I awoke in my house some six hours later, a bit sore and definitely confused. But I had had the work that needed to be done done, so I figured all is well. Well, all was well until I went in to the dentist’s office a couple of days later to arrange for payment, where I was met with a chorus of barely restrained laughter by the reception staff. Upon inquiring “what the fuck?” in so many words, the truth came out. Apparently somewhere between the third halcyon pill and the nitrous I some how morphed into a fucking rock star who simply could not be kept in his chair. When left alone, my repeated tendency was to wander the halls shouting “You call this a party! For $2500 I could throw a better party than this!” and such things. Sigh.

To make matters worse, my ride decided to stop at Integral Yoga on the way home to fetch me some sort of holistic healing mumbo jumbo that she was always on about. This was a profound error in judgement on her part. I was told to wait in the car, which of course I did not. So, with my rockstar persona still in full effect, but with the added bonus of blood streaming from bits of gauze in my mouth, I entered the ashram-mart and well… lets just say that I tested their mellow. I still feel the urge to be extra polite in that joint. Jesus beezus. But where was I? Ah yes…

So I have a toothache, and I called my dentist and guess what? He is on vacation for a week! So I hunt the intertubes for a dentists, and after this barren board came up with absolutely zero help, I decided to pick the one closest to my house on google maps. This proved to be interesting. I called and they saw me that afternoon! Cool huh? So I scoobied on down to the joint, filled out my paperwork and as I did I started to notice something. The receptionist was a generic receptionist, all office and sticky paddy and whatnot. But behind her I saw one of the hygienists. God damn! She was like a swimsuit model or something, all tall and blond and radiant. And of course, flawless teeth. I took note as my gender demands that I do, and then went back to ticking off boxes of horrid maladies that I do not have. And then I saw her again… but wait, it wasn’t her! It was another totally slamming blonde marching around in a lab coat. By the end of my paperwork and xray, I had counted at least four unbelievably beautiful women manning the joint – all generically so, but en masse, quite the phenomena.

At last it was time to meet my new dentist, who at this point unsurprisingly, was a young man that looked like he walked straight off the set of a soap opera… chiseled jaw, perfectly groomed and of course teeth that looked like they were back lit by halogen lamps. What the hell is this place? Stepford dentistry? I sat there musing the fact that here I was in a brand new office park, the only tenant being the dentist – and perhaps a back room where they were genetically breeding the staff, when Doctor Mandible Von Torso gave me my options. We could save your tooth, but it will run about $3K, and it might not work. Now with a kid in college, and another about to drive up my car insurance tab, $3K, well, it isn’t in the cards – be they visa or master. How much for the straight yank, frank? Bout $150. Done deal. Body parts are cheap, ya know?

So then Dr. Van Torso has to double check his prognosis with “The Main Dentist”, who turns out to be the guy whose name is on the sign. I found this odd, but whatever. Then Von Torso says to me This is gonna be great, did you know you are my second patient. Don’t worry though, I have done plenty of residential work at UVa, and a lot of extractions in prison!” Yeah. Maybe, just maybe you should keep that little tidbit to your self. Lord. I asked about the availability of Nitrous, which I personally love, and was told that they didn’t believe in it? Come again? I assure you its real… you can buy it. No. They don’t use it. What if I bring my own? No dice. So to allay my phobic reaction to all things dental I am, you guessed it, going on the halcyon ride again. God help us all. Especially this time, when I will be in a joint that actually looks look the back stage at a rock concert, what with all the hotties running around and the psychedelic paintings on the wall.

As a footnote, on Saturday, I received a handwritten note from Dr. Von Torso thanking me for, and I quote, “having faith in him”. Really? Really? I don’t even know where to start with that one. I want science and drugs, not faith. But it seems faith is the scrip im getting…

So tomorrow, when you are just waking up, or maybe enjoying your mint-half-cap-skim-venti-mocha-wacko-cino with foam on the side, say a little prayer for yo. He’s gonna need it. And if you want to stop by midday and draw penises on my face, I am pretty sure I will be powerless to stop it. Should be a wild ride, and who knows? I could end up looking like Brad Pitt! Yeah, yeah I know… but as long as I am having faith and all that. Peace.

It will be so goddamn hot that no one will know what is going on. Some will wander around and drink. Some will have to work. Some wont even leave the house. Most of you will act inappropriately at least once and no one will forgive you. There may be pictures, maybe even video. God have mercy on us all.

Im sure there are some bands and clubs and parties and what not, but what the hell do I know? Im just a cat lady, except for the fact that I am not a lady, and I have no cats.

My advice? Stay in touch with your star player and rock it like you own it, because haters gonna hate. Twas ever thus.

Did i miss anything? Think about listing it in the comment section and then get distracted by something and forget to do so…

No weekend update? Hold on,I gots this…

Weather
Its gonna be hot as hades and twice as humid. Day, night, it doesn’t matter. You will feel sticky all the damn time. God forbid you have to do something physical. My advice? If you aren’t underwater you should be indoors. Drink fluids if your religion allows this.

Weekend
Friday
Doesn’t matter your options, you are gonna do the same damn thing again, aren’t you? Mall, bars, dinners, parcheesi, translating Welsh sea shanties into Olde English… whatever it is that you usually do, you’ll just do it again. Don’t front, I know how you roll.

Saturday
With the exception of the World Cup at 3pm, this will pretty much be a rehash of Friday in which you go to that joint for dinner, or hang out with those friends, or see that band at that bar. I mean its Charlottesville, we just fucking rock like that! Its like a vast and endless conveyor belt of awesome.

Sunday
Do I even have to go there? I mean you get the theme right? Its father’s day, so you should probably take him out to brunch (I hear they are having a special on scampi at jiffy lube) or call him or something right? Bring him to story time. Sure he has his quirks, but over all he’s a pretty cool guy and doesn’t afraid of anything. But other than that, its pretty much just another sunday.

If I missed anything, feel free to let me know, and I wont add it as I find computers to be an anathema on weekends. But it will be in the comments and thats basically just as good. Hell it will probably be the top comment til next thursday!

Ahem.

Now that I have that out of my system, here’s my prescription: try something new. Seriously. Contact an old friend, talk to a stranger, smile at somebody, dig that there is fruit and baby flowers basically everywhere this time of year, go somewhere else – maybe somewhere out of your comfort zone… Honestly, I am beginning to realize its not the restaurants, bars, clubs, bands, city council, street musicians, cliquishness, economy, environment, bricks, weeklies, blogs, universities, parking, noise, or any other damn thing that makes this town like some sort of mobius strip wearing an all enveloping wool sweater. No sir. It is us, running in our little rabbit runs. I say we should be the change. This idea is still a zygote, but i think it has potential. Besides, since Golden Coral shut down, we are pretty much naked and on our on. So. Who’s with me?

So yesterday at one in the afternoon, zipping along the 250 bypass just prior to, fittingly, the Barracks road off ramp, I hit a 150 lb black bear at 55 miles per hour. I didn’t even have a chance to break. I knocked the poor beast probably eighty feet, went into a good long fishtail skid amidst airbag smoke and confusion. I managed to get over to the side of the road about ten feet from whee the bear ended up. And there we were. The bear was still alive, but clearly fucked up bad. I felt HORRIBLE. I have been waiting to see a bear since I moved to Virginia, just not this close. So what to do? Well I didn’t know if the bear was just stunned or what, but it kept trying to get to its feet. So I went over to the side of the road and tried to get oncoming traffic to slow down and/or move over to the fast lane. I was also waving my arms like mad trying to get someone to stop and let me use their cell phone. A good five minutes passed. Probably a hundred cars passed. No one slowed . No one stopped… the bear was making these horrific noises and flailing about. Finally this old man stopped in a tiny car, handed me his cell without asking anything and proceeded to try to get traffic to slow down while I dialed 911. I know, I know, I should have a cell phone to call help. But I have always preferred calling for help the old fashioned way… by flapping my arms and yelling. I guess that doen’t work so well anymore.

Another five minutes, the bear is still wailing and flailing, and here comes the fire truck. Fire men pull up and hop up on their truck on the bumpers and shit, all looking all around. Im thinking what the hell, and I ask them as much. They say that maybe momma bear is probably around and pissed. I am thinking, if there is a reason for three burly firemen in big ass outfits to be up on a truck, then maybe you guys could, oh I don’t know, invite me and this old guy up on the truck? I told them I’d been there a while and hadn’t seen any signs of momma (as if I had even really considered that being mauled by momma was an additional option in this cavalcade of tragedy). So they got down an started putting up traffic cones.

Then the Ablemarle PD shows up. Nice guy. Heavily armed. Lots of equipment. And after a brief overview I start to kind of ask him if he might “put the bear down”. It was making the most awful sounds. He looked at me and told me that “this gun wouldn’t kill that bear”. Now Im no gun fetishist, but Im pretty sure that a 9mm would kill the already mortally wounded animal. And if it really wouldn’t, then Im pretty sure the shotgun in the trunk would. But what do I know? I figured he was avoiding some sort of weapons discharge paperwork. Won’t someone think of the paperwork!

Then a landscaping crew showed up, decked out in hunting cammo and such. They started to tell tales of bears they’ve killed hunting and habits of black bears and on and on. At this point the bear is trying to flop itself down the embankment. I can’t stand to listen to its cries anymore and I start to walk up the road to check the place of impact, maybe find my hood ornament, and also just to put some distance on the whole circus of death. I also didn’t wanna be right there if it got ‘put down’.

That is when two animal control jeeps pulled up from opposite directions. One guy pulls up on the medium and wanders down into the “woods” to deal with the bear. But the other woman pulls over way back up the road, where I am. We ended up walking back towards the circus that was ensuing by my broken car. I casually mentioned that the last thing I expected to pop out of the bushes behind a shopping mall was a bear. She said that bears use this part of the bypass to cross “all the time” and that it must be part of their “migration route”. Again, Im no animal behaviorist, but Im not sure if bears do ‘migrate’ per say. And even if they did, and this stretch of 250 was some sort of orsine artery (which I have driven four times every day nearly every day, for six years, miraculously missing the flocks of bears crossing the road) don’tcha think you’d put some sort of ‘bear crossing’ sign, or some such? I am pretty sure that this woman had just seen march of the penguins the night before or something. All the time. Migration. Yep. Sounds good.

As we then passed my beloved, crumpled honda she stopped looked at it and said ” I thought these cars were supposed to be safe.” Safe? Safe for what? I just hit a 150 lb animal at 55mph and Im here talking with you about it. I loved that car and it had done its job, and here “March of the Bear Cubs” was casting posthumous aspersions. Oh the humanity.

Well the bear finally died on its own, with one last painful moan and then it was paperwork time for everyone. The clipboards were brandished, the numbers jotted, the boxes ticked – heck, the cop who was drawing out the accident diagram even had a litle stencil for animals, which he carefully etched onto the front of the little car diagram. It looked kind of like a tapir riding a golfcart. I asked if he had different stencils for different critters, but no, he said, he didn’t. Damn budget cuts, I thought.

So in this flourish of proto-beauracracy the landscapers came over and were chatting with me, all casual like. ‘I reckon’ this and ‘I can tell you what’ that. Then one finally asked “so… you want that” casually gesturing towards the dead bear, as if it were the last portion of mashed potatoes. I wasn’t sure if I understood him correctly. I glanced at the officer who volunteered that, as the driver, I had “the first rights to the carcass”. First rights to the carcass? You know, if they have made up rules about this, then that can only mean that there have, in the past, been fights over such things. “You may have knocked that bunny into the fast lane, but Im pretty sure it was my grill that killed him.” Tune in next week on RoadKill Court”. Carcass rights, eh? Well at least I know I have them should I ever hit something that I would really treasure. And what exactly did anyone there think I was going to do with the carcass anyway? I had no more car. Was I to sling it over my shoulder in the 100 degree weather and mosey off down the bypass into the horizon like the end of some western feel good movie? Yes, I said. I waive my rights to the carcass. You can have the bear. May has well have been early christmas as they tossed on the back of their trailer and drove off, thanking me. Upon reflection I have wondered what their intentions were. Food? Decorations? One of my coworkers has since told me that I could have sold the “gall bladder to the chinese for thousands”. Oh yeah? And how exactly does that work – ebay? “Winning bidder pays shipping and provides removal of the gall bladder?” Whatever.

So then it was done. I caught a ride with the sixty year old tow truck guy with profound psoriasis who proceeded to point out every female human that we passed with some qualitative observations (mmm look at those nice thick legs!). In between the rounds of pornographic pageant judging he told me that yes, bears are something, but when you’re driving what you really got to look out for is turkies. Turkies? Yes. Turkies. “They’ll come through the windshield and really fuck you up, fuck you up bad”. So I guess now when my post traumatic stress disorder abates slightly I will, while driving, be greeted by phantom suicide turkies popping into my peripheral vision. I tell you one thing, next thanksgiving, Im not leaving the fucking house.

So here I sit, waiting to see if my car is indeed totalled officially, wading through paperwork, and wondering if I will ever pull myself out of debt. I had just paid it off and just changed the oil! I am trying to shake the thought that, if there is a god, that somewhere along my life’s path I must have done something so terribly wrong that now he is throwing bears at my car. It has come to that, has it? I can’t for the life of me figure what my transgression might be, but believe me, if I do, I’ll stop. Please, just no more flinging wildlife. And by the time I finally figure that out, maybe all my coworkers will have stopped calling me “Grizzly Adams”.

So after living in two feet of frozen matter for months, the weather turned near 80 and my fridge had gasped its last gasp. It was sad, but I knew what I had to do. Head to sears, or lowes, neither of which gave me a warm fuzzy as having dealt with both has nearly put me in the fifth floor of the old hospital on several occasions. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t, so I went with lowes as they have a free delivery, free haul away policy. So tuesday after work, I headed up the ribbon of hurt that is 29 north, pulled into the skirt of the big box and strode tentatively, yet resolutely to the appliance section.

It was immediately apparent that 90% of the fridges were out of my league in both price and size, so I asked the red vested kiosk attendant to please direct me to the bargain aisle. Basically, my choices were three, all around 4-500 ducats. I opted for a non descript white fridgedaire. When dealing with the semi geriatric attendant, I had mentioned that my previous fridge had had an ice maker, and was thus hooked to a water in in my house. My new ghetto cold box had no such luxury. “Will this be a problem?” I enquired, even though somewhere in my soul I must have known this to be a foregone conclusion. “No, not at all.” Fine people, I knew this was not true, i did, I really did, but I was so bloated and emotional from having my financial period so early this month… well I guess I just wanted to believe. An irrational choice, to be sure, but I made it.

Why irrational you may well ask. Well, lets just say Lowes has had me pitch three opportunities to gain my customer satisfaction and had swung wildly at each. Three strikes, they should be out, yeah? Yet there I was, tossing yet another softball across the plate. Oh and what strikes they were!

The first came when I needed to re-carpet the rental unit upstairs. Now the upstairs has a very peculiar geometry to it, and I had dutifully mapped the whole bastard out on graph paper. I had worked out a way to use the minimal amount of carpet to cover the entire two rooms scheduled for thick, sound muffling berber goodness. This proved to be quite the conundrum for the crack team of carpet layers that were sent to do the deed. I was at work when I got the call from the carpet guys which distilled down to the following: “There are two ways we can put this carpet in. One way will have enough to cover the area, the other will not work. Which way do you want us to do it?” I pause to let that sink in. Ok so that would not be so bad really, I mean perhaps we all cant be the sharpest staple in the staple gun, no worries, but the thing that irked me is that since the “correct” layout was not specified on the work order, they made me come all the way home and “sign off” on the method it was going go in. Sigh. I was irked, but I was stuck, so I did it.

Strike two was minor, but still a bit breathtaking in its lack of foresight. I had purchased a gas range for the upstairs and again, a contractor from lowes came out to install it. They got the cooking beast up the narrow stairs without significant drywall damage, for which they are to be commended, however, they neglected to bring neither any significant tools, nor any way to create fire. Gas range installation. No fire. No wrench. I provided them with such with a deep sigh. There haven’t been any major explosions hence, but still.

Strike three was simply amazing. As part of the upstairs remodel, I wanted to install a new ceiling fan. I wanted new ceiling fans downstairs in my joint as well so my ill thought out, yet at the time reasonable plan was to hire an expert, watch him do the installation upstairs and replicate his skill myself downstairs. Ah but the best laid plans of mice and men, etc. The installer arrived in a quarter ton tool truck (the irony of which will become apparent shortly) with my boxed fan. I took him upstairs and showed him the spot of the old fan. He got his ladder and go to work while I scrutinized his every move, attempting to commit it to memory. He pulled the blades off, then pulled the shroud and then let out an audible exasperated sigh. I gave him a quizzical glance, and he sighed again and said simply “Bolts.” “Bolts?” I replied. “Yeah, bolts.” Seems mister quarter ton dually tool truck guy had only brought a cordless drill with screwdriver nibs. Whatever that behemoth vehicle contained in its steel stomachs, it was not something that could remove a typical half inch bolt. It was with the rare mixture of amusement, sorrow and frustration that I went downstairs and once again provided my tools to a lowely contractor. But this strike did not end there… As I walked past the stairs I passed the circuit breakers and it occurred to me that the juice was still on, so when I arrived at the scene of the tomfoolery masquerading as installation, I asked the guy if he wanted me to cut the power to the upstairs. He merely looked at me as if I had an extra chromosome and said, and I quote: “Now how am I supposed to know which is the hot wire if the power is out?” While I did not know the answer to this at the time, I was fairly certain there was a way. Still, I figured it was best to let Mr. Tool Time have his way. I had long since given up learning anything of value from this man and headed downstairs. About the time I reached the landing, I heard an audible POP! followed immediately by a clatter, then a house shaking THUMP. I know what you are thinking and you are right. Our genius had found the hot wire the hard way. He had shocked himself good and fallen off the ladder. After checking to see if he was alive, I returned downstairs. On the way, I flipped the circuit breaker anyway. I wanted a lovely fan, not some burned up dead guy in overalls. Turns out the guy was a cabinet maker and his truck was full of saws and shit. Go figure.

So, my fine fellows, you can see the anxiety that this fridge dilemma caused your humble narrator. I must confess to considering pouring myself a nice big bowl of benzodiazapenes prior to embarking on this endeavor, but refrained. I paid for the fridge and arranged for delivery. Red vesty dude said 9am the next day. Excellent thought I, naively. At nine I got a call saying it would be the classic “between 12 and 4″. At 4:00, it became 5:00. At 5 it became “no later than 6″ and finally at 6:45, a budget rent a truck shows up with my cold making box. And then the fun began! The men came in and immediately keyed in on the 1/4 copper water line, which they said they could do nothing about. This of course meant that they could neither disconnect nor let alone remove my old fridge. Seeing as I had all the food that had not yet perished strewn about my kitchen, I made the point that installation today was mandatory.They suggested I install the new fridge in the (even smaller) laundry room temporarily, which for various reasons I found unacceptable. I told them to just install the fridge in the kitchen and I would deal with capping the water line myself. Of course bringing in the new fridge required disassembling two doors, and that required the borrowing of my tools once again. Said tool use ended up injuring one of the men, who spilled his blood all over my floor in pursuit of his noble cause. This of course lead to me providing basic first aid in the form of bandaids, butterflies and neosporin. At long last, the new fridge sprang to life.

So then it was eight o’clock, and I sat amongst melting frozen things, blood, dust and an array of tools considering the layout of my new cooking area, which for the time being is replete with two giant refrigerators. I guess for a while I could brag I have a side by side refrigerator, but really, that more literal than most people would understand. I have considered calling Lowes and demanding that they send out a plumber to cap my line gratis, but then I considered how that probably end up. They would probably send out someone who specializes in roofing and before you know it my corner of belmont would be underwater. I guess Im gonna try and figure it out on my own this weekend as the odds are at least as good as the professionals at Lowes, but if you don’t hear from me for a while it is because I have some how managed to drown myself in my kitchen. Wish me luck!

The trouble with being shunted into this central casting character type, is that I find myself woefully unprepared. And this, dear potential victims, is the understatement of the year. Allow me to elucidate.

I have scrutinized the ad rituals in my little pigeon hole and observed several dominant themes. First and foremost, apparently I must lie about nearly everything. The most prevalent lie seems to be that of omission, mostly in the form of extremely short blunt ads. It were as if these suitors were of such an urgency to find their juliet (or juliet for the night as the case may be), that they had not the time to even toss a few meager punctuation marks into their little ascii text box for good measure. Im sure this serves the purpose of not having to mention their extensive criminal record, their extra limb, their collection of finch carcasses or some other delicate yet deal breaking fact, but still. Is a complete sentence too much to ask in the name of love, or at least lust? As you have no doubt garnered by now, I have a tendency to be quite verbose, languishing over lascivious language being a penchant of mine. Clearly, obscurity through brevity is not an option for me. A pity, really.

But enough of things that are short yet should be long, let us address the converse, which is lie number two. It seems a common enough tradition of us in the M4W tab to produce, in all it’s pixellated glory, a stunning representation of our penis. Well, *a* penis anyway, as usually these are detached from any sort of context. I certainly have no sense of shame when it comes to my body, and am rather fond of my penis actually, but a general sense of decency precludes me from providing such a display to you all en masse. Any of my previous lovers were certainly welcome to capture its image to their Mapplethorpe-y heart’s content. But here? Now? Well, I told you I was a novice. I suppose I could borrow one from a gay porn site or some such, there certainly seems to be no shortage of a range of body parts on the internet, but the thought of wading through the multitudes of denuded scrotundae and glistening shafts of light is frankly, a bit off putting tome at the moment. I hope you will forgive my lapse in this additional area.

Ah and the lapses continue to pile up…

I could lie about being single, but seeing as I am actually single, it’s acuity as a lie is, well, ridiculous. Similarly, I could lie about having a decent, somewhat interesting professional job, being college educated, owning my own home, being tall and fit, all my hair and teeth, being socially at ease in any milieu… but… oh what the hell. Damn it.

Hmm, there must be something. Ooohh I got it! I am fabulously rich beyond your wildest dreams, and not at all on a rather middle class budget. Also, I am a non smoker, and dont at all enjoy the occasional cigarette at a respectable distance from anyone that may be offended by such behavior. There. There’s two at least. That should count for something.

So then, thats about the best CV I can muster as an aspiring CL stalker creepy guy of dubious intent. I suppose I should say a few words regarding my interests in a potential victim. How difficult! First off, if you actually would like to be kidnapped, I am afraid I cannot oblige you seeing as my basement is unfinished, and as such quite unsuitable. Frankly, I am afraid I may be a bit slack in my ability to stalk you as well, as If I am not mistaken that requires quite a bit of time invested. I always have several creative side projects cooking, and coupled with my full time job and need for sleep, well, I just don’t see how I could fit it in. Perhaps in time, we could turn it into some sort of art project or some such. Its just the idea of sitting in my car outside your work for hours on end to take note of whether you smile at the UPS guy or not sounds a bit too much for me to take on. Besides, I think that UPS could use a smile without fear of recrimination from some car dwelling green with testosterone “kind of boyfriend”. Rough job, that. UPS, I mean.

If you absolutely need it, I suppose I could put on some creepy aires. That wouldn’t be too too hard, not too much of a stretch and actually a little mystery is always good, titillating, even. I mean how else can one explain the recent resurgence in the “sexy vampire” motif in popular culture? I could go that route. Physically, I am attracted to victims on the leaner/fitter side of things, but really have no “type”. I suppose since I do not have any sort of expectations as to how exactly having a victim would play out in my life, that information may be irrelevant. I admire self confidence in body and mind, a touch of daring do, sense of humor and an open mind above all else. Oh, and of course patience, because damn, this stalker internet kidnappy bad guy stuff is more challenging than I thought, and Im gonna need you to bear with me.

You have been there for me in the past. My server is local, but I will re-host my software in “Casual Encounters > Nigeria” if I have to, so dire is the situation. So please. Fake me out with blind links, bad grammar and pictures stolen from some Norwegian Facebook user’s profile. I promise I will return the favor and hit you with my best photoshopped celebrity pix, mysterious snippets of code and spyware.

As always, ‘your’ pic gets ‘mine’, and please put your social security number in your response so I know you are real. Can’t wait to hear from you! *wink*

~Brock.

Which is why I am posting this ad. I need a nice sane woman for long hops on the veranda, dusting a menagerie of glassy eyed former best friends, and helping me pickle cabbage, which is a big pass time of mine. Did you know you can bury a cabbage throughout the winter, dig it up and its good as new! Well, they get a little dirty, but I didn’t skimp when it came to buying a pressure washer, I can tell you what! 600 psi on the sharp nozzle will clean a cabbage right up. I know a lot about cabbage, but if its not “one of your things” well, thats ok. I mean, I guess. The kraut can be out. So please be sane and not crazy at all. Between my Aunt Croutessa, and the conjoined twins Lessi and Ricky, I am up to my armpits in crazy women. They live in the trailer next door, and boy if its not one thing its another. You’d think it was a crime to burn old cabbage husks in the yard the way they go on about it. I guess the sweet pungent aroma doesn’t strike every one similarly. Still, its one thing to dislike a smell and quite another to shoot paintballs at crippled man while screaming in that Germanic devil language. You’d think Old Lefty and Righty (my nickname for the twins) would be a worse shot, seeing as the share a torso, but man, they are dead eyed from 100 yards. And paintballs sting when they hit you in a boil.

Yes so please be sane. Very very sane. Because I am just a normal guy. A very very lonely normal guy.

Oh and, knowledge of ointments, salves and unguents is a big plus! I tell you why later..

Cant wait to hear from you!

As evidence of this, I offer my very first step on the path to personal sexual self discovery, which, like many, was masturbation. I was about twelve, laying in my bed, absentmindedly scratching a primal itch when something magical happened – my penis erupted with a mystery substance, which I only noticed after the waves of seretonin and dopamine had cleared my shuddering brain. Amazing, this. And being twelve, and largely ignorant, I came to the only conclusion one could – that this phenomena could only happen at nine o’clock at night. I had stumbled upon the magic hour, and oh how I could not wait for bed time the following night! Of course, at nine the following night, it worked again and thus my theory was proven. And so I was born as a sexual being, taking my first steps in a bizarrely misguided yet harmless direction. And so it went.

I was fourteen and her name was Cathy Page. She was a 16 year old half phillapina catholic school girl who lived in the neighborhood, and oh man… oh MAN did she get my motor running. In hind sight, red flags were everywhere, but the lust of a 14 year old boy can blind one such that it could make Ray Charles look like a sharpshooter. Her mother was a Philapina woman who had married an white Army guy, who had then promptly left her in single motherhood. This lead to a catholic post traumatic race and garment based over protection of her daughter that bordered on pathological. I, being a young punk rocker, always wore a bunch of surplus army stuff that I had modified to flaunt my budding ideology. This attire, and my courtship of her daughter developed in her a nervous tic, as if she were holding back some sort of PTSD infused venom that could explode at any minute. Still she was polite enough, though, and I returned the favor out of pure fear.

Being both from single mothers who worked 9-5, me and cathy always had a couple hours afterschool in which we were semi unattended. I say semi unattended because there dwelt at Cathy’s house an individual named “auntie”. Auntie was a severely mentally disabled woman who would wander the house in her muumuu making strange guttural noises and obsessing over the availability of breakfast cereal. It was fairly easy to lock auntie out of Cathy’s room, though the noises were somewhat distracting. We would be making out on Cathy’s bed when from behind the wall would come a ‘Muaaaaah! Cheerios! Cheerios!” Small obstacle though, cause I was making out with Cathy Page. Auntie could have set off a bomb and I wouldn’t have blinked.

It was Cathy’s idea to “go all the way”. I believed she had done so already, but I sure as hell hadn’t. I found the idea compelling, in an “oh jesus christ I am the luckiest kid alive” type manner. We planned to do it just as soon as I could get some condoms. Ah., but my friends, this was the time before the plague, before condoms were in bowls at restaurants and in classrooms and every damn place imaginable. No, no. One had to go to the drug store and ask the pharmacist! Oh yes. I lurked in many a Walgreens the next couple days, looking for a non judgmental looking male pharmacist who had at the moment not a customer in sight. My moment came, and I made the deal. It was on!

So it was time, and as we lay naked in her bed in the afternoon, I suddenly came… to the realization that I had no idea what I was doing. Like so many other times in my life though, I took a deep breath and took the plunge. I could go on to describe that first feeling that has come to define some of my best and worst decisions in life, but it is not germane, and I only have seven minutes, which as it turns out was longer than I lasted that dafternoon. Succinctly, I came. As it turns out Cathy, like so many of you mysterious humans of the female persuasion, had only one way that she could come. Seriously, what is it with you folk and your special secret techniques? Jesus. She would extricate my semi hard wet penis and gyrate upon it. I knowing nothing, assumed this was normal protocol for intercourse, (and carry that misconception all the way to college) and seeing a the sensation was not entirely unpleasant, I lay back and enjoyed Cathy’s moans and groans as they mingled with the far away cries requesting Captain Crunch. Life was weird, but good.

Well, good, that is until I heard a new sound, a scary sound – the sound of the big deadbolt on the front door clicking over. This could only mean one thing, Momma was home early. General panic ensued. I was trapped, and was forced to slip into Action Hero mode. I did the only sensible thing and leapt, stark naked out the back second story window into the back yard. It was a good five minutes before Cathy was able to sneak back to her room and throw me out my clothes… well most of them anyway. She had neglected to toss me my shoes and socks.

Without a way to contact her I found my self on the horns of a dilemma. I got dressed, snuck out the alley between the houses, across the street to the laundromat and called her house on the pay phone. It was my intention to call and ask if she could toss my shoes out the window, which she did. What I hadn’t considered though was that the door to the alley had locked behind me. Now my shoes were in the back yard, I was unshod in a cheesy laundromat, and cathy was inside trying to explain why she was taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon. Ah young love!

My friends, I had no choice but to steel my resolve, summon my most powerful jedi powers, and march straight up to her door shoeless. I knocked and was greeted by Momma. “Hello Mrs. Page, is Cathy home?” I said trying with all my might to create the most magnetic eye contact ever conceived, anything, anything to keep her from looking down. Fortunately for me, either the powers of fate, or perhaps my freshly died pink and black hair, allowed me to pull this off, and I was granted access without a hitch. I subtly retained my shoes and spent the rest of the afternoon being the polite innocent young suitor that any Momma would like.

I have since read many books on human sexuality, and to this day I have never found a chapter on “Naked and Airborne”. If you have any suggestions, just let me know.