HOW I SPENT MY WEEKEND

So I ended up blowing the coke money that old co-worker gave me. I intend to pay it back, but for now, it's gone. It just goes to show: you should never lend anyone coke money, for any reason.

Like I was really going to go out of my way and score coke... sheesh...

Friday night found me in Chinatown, riding along with Captain Capsule and his girlfriend. Peter and I were in the back seat, watching the relationship psychodrama unfold.

After dinner, it got ugly-- Capsule's girl doesn't smoke weed, so she sat in the car as we all enjoyed a spliff right outside the Full House restaurant. Then, Paulie kept refusing to let Capsule pass on the freeway on the way home. This resulted in Capsule's girl nagging at him for driving her car so recklessly. Capsule ended up losing his cool and yelling at her in harsh terms, in front of us.

"I mean, shit, baby, what am I, 16 years old with my learner's permit? You tell me I'm driving too slow, you tell me I'm driving too fast-- JUST GET OFF OF MY BACK, OKAY?"

I tried to ignore it all. KCRW was playing "River Euphrates" by The Pixies, and that song NEVER gets played on the radio. I was high as hell and just wanted to get back to my car in one piece.

The next day I traveled up to Lancaster. My mother turned 49 on Saturday. I bought her a special edition DVD of the movie Dirty Dancing. I sat with my stepdad and discussed the finer merits of Fahrenheit 911-- my stepdad was a Reservist who was asked to do a double tour and refused. He totally agreed with Michael Moore's points, especially when he interviewed the troops on the ground. After all, my stepdad was there, and he smelled more than just rats... more like chickenhawks.

We went to dinner at a sushi place, and then I saw The Last Samurai-- a Hollywood production, to be sure, but not as offensive as I thought it would be. Tom Cruise was fine-- this movie is an obvious "vehicle" for him, but he wasn't any worse than he normally is. The fight scenes are stellar-- the samurai were formdible warriors and you get the sense that they were feared by many.

I sent my condolences to one of my mother's friends, whose own mother had just passed away due to brain cancer. I didn't know Carol's mother for very long, but we got along famously, and she apparently thought I was an intelligent and well-mannered young man. The news of her passing made me somber for a spell.

I drove home, my tail lights on my car completely out. I kept out of the way of the highway patrol, maneuvering my car in front of other cars as much as possible. Last thing I need is to get pulled over for not having tail lights on my hooptie ride.

I made a pit stop at the Garage, bringing with me a PC monitor trhat I'd been given earlier in the day. Much hashish was smoked, easing my mind.

I got home around 3 in the morning and had a hardcore case of the munchies. So what did I do? I bought a pack of Pop Tarts from 7-11... and promptly ate all 8 of the tarts in the box! Suffice it to say, the next morning I was feeling iller than ever.

Down Low woke me up with a phone call at 10AM and invited me to breakfast. When he stopped by, he had a cute Polish girl in tow named Justina. He met her in Reno a while back, and was entertaining her while she visited L.A.

I instantly got the vibe that she was bored. When Down Low went to the bathroom, she opened up to me in the best broken English she could muster. Low most likely took her to the places he felt she should go, like Disneyland or the local bar, as opposed to asking her what she wanted to do. As I talked with her, I got the impression that she would've been just fine with hanging out and chatting.

When they came back to my apartment for a quick smoke, she instantly noticed certain things in my pad.

"Oh, you have kitty cat also?" she said, upon seeing Otis. I knew it was over from there-- she was sprung. Low didn't look too happy.

"And you have astrology book-- and a guitar!"

"Yeah," I said. "Low has a cat too... and a guitar also."

From the look on his face, it seemed that he didn't even think of those things. Low is one of those guys who thinks every girl wants to go to a club and spend all of his money. I could tell that she was the arty type, and arty girls are low maintenance, for sure. They are content to spend an evening indoors, discussing philosophy and politics over coffee and cigarettes.

When she went to the bathroom, I commented to Low, "She's hot. Nice work, bro."

"Yeah," he said, "But she's hot and cold."

No surprise there-- I think he only had one thing on his mind. Granted, she probably felt the same way at first, but there's only so far you can go with that before a girl craves something as simple as a conversation, even if there is a slight language barrier.

She was in the bathroom for an awful long time-- I thought she fell into the toilet.

Anna showed up as they were leaving-- Low had to drive the Polish girl to the airport to make her flight back to Poland. As I spoke with Anna, Low walked back in-- Justina had left her sunglasses in my bathroom, and he walked back in to retrieve them for her.

I don't know why, but I was flattered by that gesture. I'm sure she really left her sunglasses on accident, but I've had that happen to me enough to know that sometimes girls don't leave their sunglasses in a guy's bathroom "by accident", especially if they take a liking to you when they stepped into your apartment.

Oh well-- she's his chick, not mine. He's the one who found her.

They left, and Anna and I watched a rough cut of my animation DVD. Then we ventured out to Tower Records and discovered, while shopping for music, that the annual street fair in Sherman Oaks was going on. I drove around, found a key spot, and we spent about 45 minutes walking about, checking out the sights.

Anna revealed to me that she wished she could move back to L.A., that she missed the city that much. I felt for her-- I don't know why, but I just can't get sick of this city, even if everyone else does.

She showed me the spot on her back where her doctor scraped away a lesion that was turning into skin cancer. Seeing it kind of shook me up, because she's too young to be having these things to deal with, and it makes you think about your mortality and how much time you really have left on this planet.

We hit up The Iliad, and I scored on some prime books, including two volumes of Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey:


"I think somebody should come up with a way to breed a very large shrimp. That way, you could ride him, then, after you camped at night, you could eat him.

How about it, science?"


I also picked up Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, a writer I have yet to read; and The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie-- it's about time I read that one.

After I parted ways with the lovely Anna, I sat at home and watched TV. Around 6PM I received a call from Eve, and she had some better news: Eve's mother had arranged a meeting with Dick, Eve's ex, and she basically made Dick sign a form stating that he would leave Eve alone forever. Now, I don't know how binding that contract is, but seeing as Eve's mother is Italian and knows people from the old country, if you know what I mean, I think it's safe to assume that Dick will never bother Eve again.

I think Eve was trying to invite me over to her place for dinner. She announced it in a way that I've heard before, from other girls. However, just minutes before I got a call from the guys in Funkin Pie-- they were meeting later on, to rehearse. I'd already flaked on them the other night, when we all went out for Paulie's birthday. I agreed to meet them, and then Eve called, hinting at an Italian pasta dinner made with her bare hands. She didn't outright ask me, so I informed her that I had plans later on. The shift in her voice told me that she was getting ready to extend the invitation and thought better of it.

I had to politely decline. In a way, I was kind of glad-- I don't know what the vibe would've been like had I accepted the offer. I know the food would've been good, but... I think, for right now, it's best that the two of us take things at a slower pace than usual. It's all happening too fast, you know?

I met up with the guys from Funkin Pie, and we funked until midnight. I bassed out and blissed out and we grooved until we were sore. Then I drove home and took an hour-long nap before coming to work.

So that was my weekend.

How was yours?