Forgot something.

Might be writing for a well known porno mag. Music reviews. Will be available wherever old men in trench coats shop.

Old people eating Jello spiked with Vodka.

I never imagined doing something for 20 straight years. Now I’m so old, I can measure things I haven’t done for 20 straight years, like go to High School.

In fact, I went to a celebration for people who haven’t gone to high school for 20 years, specifically all the people I went to High School with.

I went to my high school reunion, in other words. Please try to keep up.

It was like a pretty good wedding, without God, old people or small children. There was also Jello shots, something I’ve never had at a wedding, because I have fucking class.

Unlike a wedding, the bar was only open for two hours, so we all drank very quickly in the early part of the night. This was wise on the part of the hotel, because by 8:30 we were all drunk enough to pay six bucks for a bottle of domestic beer chilling in an open cooler.

Jesus, I’m disorganized writing about this. I’m old, goddamit. I have to choose my chairs carefully and I worry about eating too much meat and all that shit.

It all started on Friday night. One of my coevals managed to land a job teaching Spanish to the undeserving zit-faced twerps that sit in the seats that I used to sit when I was DAZZLING classmates with my bleached forelocks and enormously tough Levi’s jacket.

Anyway, she swung us a tour of the school. So we assembled late this past Friday afternoon (it was fucking HOT, yo!) and took a tour. It was weird and creepy and kind of fun looking at all the old crap, which has made somehow new and improved. They up and added a second story for example, and built a swell little performance space.

It was into that performance space we entered and watched a show put on by a few alumni, who played guitars and sang songs and generally were all talented and shit. One chappie, who evidently had some sort of crazy ass twenty-years, even got up and presented a poem of epic length in free verse, accompanying himself on a squeezebox. This same gentleman once called me a “pencil-necked geek”. So, people change. Remember that.

It nice to find out how enormously rude I can still be, talking loudly during the performance to Yvonne and Caprice, hitting up Chris M. up for gum.

After the show, we all went to the Round-Up Salon (this is around 25 people, I’m guessing, out of a possible 350) a former biker bar (like extremely former, like forty years former) that has become the townie bar in the little burgh my high school was located in.

Things started to go all soft and weird, very dreamlike. Like a stress dream, though not unpleasant. Faces I know, but faces that aren’t the age I know them as, all bobbing and weaving and sweaty in this tiny, crappy, hot little bar. I talked to a guy about a mutual friend who died of a sudden heart attack, had a long buzzed conversation with a friend’s husband, and I tricked people into buying me beer, which is the way to go at these things.

I drove home, a little too drunkish probably, blasting death metal in my Honda.

Saturday afternoon, I dragged my long suffering family to a picnic on Satan’s Anvil – a scorching afternoon by the reservoir, where we stared at each other’s bald spots through the heatwaves rising up off the dead lawn. Paula and the kids, sensibly, took refuge under the play structure and I brought friends to them. We lasted maybe an hour, then fled to the coast for ice cream (Earl Grey ice cream. Fucking delicious shit) (Look, Paula and I goddamn old and we're usually home out of the sun, watching our stories and playing Go Fish in the cool of our home) That night Paula had people over for dinner, while I went and made an ass of myself dancing to New Order and the English Beat.

That night, the shit went OFF.

Not really, but it was fun seeing people being all grown and shit. Liz, Roger, Yvonne, Chris, Sam, Neil, Dave L., Corey, Ryan W, Heidi making out with Dave (recent development: Heidi and Dave are all into each other and making out. But they’re in their late thirties so it’s a lot less gross if they were making out as teen-agers) and a bunch of other people, all handsome and sleek and well.

I dunno. It was fun. You should go to yours.

(Thanks to Liz for convincing me to go.)

Guest Post: Paula Takes the Kids To Grandma's (Read this, it's funny!)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Paula took the kids out to her parents' house for dinner. This is her report from the evening:


I'm gonna call the Policeman!

Today I schlepped the kids to Danville to see my great grandparents (who now live with my parents).

For some reason I was very sleepy upon arrival, and I sat down in my mom's kitchen and didn't move. Grandma had Oprah on very loud even though she was sitting less than four feet from the TV.

So, I couldn't hear my son's shenanigans very well. I guess he was jumping on the couch and bothering my grandfather, who is 97. Finally someone turned down the TV and I heard grandpa screaming "Hey Jumping Jack! Stop jumping on the couch or I will call the policeman!"

Owen burped loudly at dinner, and my mother cracked up so hard I thought she would piss herself. Later on we all laid on the hammock outside and my mother cut the loudest and longest fart I think I have ever heard. Owen laughed so hard I thought he would pee.

Owen tried to bug grandpa after dinner as he tried to sleep on the couch, and grandpa yelled at me to "cut him down, before he hurts himself!" Grandpa is pretty deaf, so we have to practically scream in his ear to communicate with him, and I noticed Owen leaning over Grandpa's head.

"Why don't you go and FAAAAARRRRRRRTTTTT!" he yelled right into Grandpa's ear.

Then I packed up the kids and drove them home.

My Father-in-Law's Auto Repair Shop.

Off of Google Streetview. It reads "Mighty Little Allied Engine" and that's Mighty Mouse up in the left. My father-in-law is a bit of a character. The Wife actually created a typeface called Allied Engine.

If you ever are in San Francisco, and your car breaks down, now you know where to go.

A blog meme thing from Stephanie

Stephanie made me do this.

We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here’s my go:

1. I have a gimp wrist, specifically on my left arm. It only rotates 180 degrees, from thumb pointing straight up, to thumb pointing straight down. As a result I can’t put my left hand flat, like “slap me five” flat. Has prevented me from pursuing my dream of being a waiter. The Wife claims she fell for me when I showed her my malfunction, so I guess it worked out.

2. I tried out for the quiz show “Jeopardy”. I passed the written test, but performed miserably on the screen test portion.

3. The Wife has bandied about the figure of $150 per month as my Amazon allowance. I see this figure as sort of a baseline theoretical ideal, rather than an actual number per se.

4. I got my driver’s license at age 30. On the day of my first attempt at taking the test, The Wife drove me to the department of motor vehicles, and we pulled up to wait in the vehicle line. It was taking forever, so long in fact that The Wife had to leave to pick up our then infant daughter Ruby at daycare. I was left vehicle-less, standing in a long line of cars and trucks. In the Escalade in front of me, I could read the lips of the father of the 16 year-old kid in the passage seat, waiting to take his test. The man said “What is that motherfucker doing?”
A little functionary came waddling out and explained to me gently, as if I might flip out and kill him (because, let’s face it, I looked crazy standing in the drive with NO CAR) that “We don’t actually provide a car sir.”

I waited on the grass for The Wife to return from picking up the baby.

5. I get choked up by bagpipes. No idea why.

6. On the days I drive to work, I like to sing Hank Williams songs at the top of my lungs. And sometimes Nick Cave.

7. I have a prejudice against some types of southern American accents. I associate them with being disingenuous. I haven’t had any experiences with any southerners that were any more negative that with northerners. I have experienced more “Hell, you’re from San Francisco? How do you manage with all those fags out there?” coming from southern-accented voices. I dunno, it’s complicated and irrational.

8. My feet smell today.

Now, here’s my victims list of memed people:

G
Dave
Tracy
Kim
Marion
Jay
Kelly
Greg-who-is-not-me
Al: Cube mate and hug friend