The past few days have been pretty awful.

The (second, maybe, though the point is currently under contention) best point in days -- days, I tell you -- was a damn picture. Not even a naked picture (though it was oh so close). I'd wanted to see a picture like this for a long time and was quite shocked when someone directed me to it.
I think it may be the only picture I've ever seen that actually lived up to the anticipation (up to and including the 1996 Fox tele-movie, for those who even know what that little abortion was). It was divine, to use an old Southern word.
Not only was, you know, the goods advertised absolutely, stunningly perfect, it may well appeal to every prurient, deviant desire I hold. The best bit was an abandoned school tie in the corner.
I haven't quite gotten the balls to actually download this image, but I imagine I'll get over that little hang up tout suite.*
And Brian, should you ever read this: I'm re-considering that whole "You are not my lord and saviour" bit. You may be after this.

Despite the fact I paid some off last week, they turned off the cable the other day. Not that I watch that much television, but still that stung.
Fortunately, I've managed to (just) pay my rent. It means no cash till next pay day (two weeks): no gas, no Diet Coke, no milk. The only food is what I toted home from a last-second trip to my parents (pinto beans and vegetable soup). O what a way to lose those last five pounds.
However, this is the hump. I'm working 35 hours a week, will pay rent on time next month and start paying off bills. It's just a matter of getting through till payday.
I also heard a new (independent) bookstore is opening up round here. I'd love to work there. I need the money and would be good for that sort of thing.

I'm worried about the little red car. She needs an oil change badly and to get this year's state safety inspection tag. But I can't afford those. Her "Service Engine Soon" light is on as well as the oil light and she's a but jerky. I don't what I'll do if she conks out. I did spend all last winter with that "Service engine soon" light on (yes, I know bad) but I need her to pull through a few more weeks.

I wanted to see Harry Potter tonight, but no dice.
I want to see James Bond next week, but no dice.

I'm just frustrated that I can't do anything I want right now. Money exists as an opportunity to do things and right now I've got sod all opportunity.
Except to read and listen to music and watch old videos.

I keep thinking the lyric "Full of woe and further to go..."**

Tries to think postively: my show last night was great. I played the new Saint Etienne I'd heard a lot of and loved it, ditto a new group called El Gato. More Stitches, as well -- Pure Poppy Goodness, as I said. I played back to back versions of "This Charming Man", by Death Cab for Cutie and the Smiths.
I played a killer Classic Country set: "Barbara Allen", Hank Williams, Sr's "Kawliga", Johnny Horton's Battle of New Orleans, " Johnny Cash's "Get Rythym!", "La Golondrina" and two songs from the Soundtrack of O Borther, Where Art Thou?, "And the Baby Made Three" and "Big Rock Candy Mountian". All but the last two were on vinyl -- cued flawlessly.
I also played Man or Astro Man and Beulah, which I had wanted to for a while.
There was a Llew set, "Sexy Ankles" by Superchunk, "We Dance" by Pavement, "Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise" by Trembling Blue Stars. The Smiths/Cutie double play was a part of that, as well as was "This Is Just a Modern Rock Song."
I still need to play Sleater Kinney and Magnetic Fields.

Warm and fuzzy feeling have not appeared as needed ot desired.

Today's Reason Laura Llew rocks: "Hello! I have a crush on you! You can't just walk up to me and start talking!" I have never expressed myself as well ever.***
In related news, Nate, BWWiSMID, actually talked to me today. I refilled a sweet tea urn for him. I also found out he's in a band.****

Book of the Day: I'm still reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

*I'm not worried if you know who this picture is of, really. If you actually are this person (an off chance, admittedly, but not strictly impossible), the evidence of a picture from the A&F Quarterly posted on the wall gives me complete license to pursue you. And you know I'm not as scary as that bit would make me seem. Probably.

**"The Chalet Lines", Belle and Sebastian, "Fold Your Hands Child, You Look Like a Peasant." Glasgow, Jeepster, 2000.

***Promised Llew quotes shall make up forth-coming 'Reasons Laura Llew Rocks' entries.

***I found out today that Darren Jessee, one of the me*mbers of Ben Folds Five, frequently hangs out in our little cafe. Go fig.

From previous entry

*This only increases my attraction.

So... It's late.
I've spent much longer than I anticipated talking to someone on #sinister.
It was quite nice, like a restaurant after it's closed and everything's quiet, and the wait staff is pointedly ignoring you.
Like a big public space shrunk down for two.

What is #sinsister, you ask? I'm sure I've mentioned it before.
However... I've just decided to go to my warm, snuggly bed whilst I still feel warm and snuggly myself.
So yeah...

Tomorrow:
Scary girl from work smooches me!
Just what is this #sinister anway?
Addenda from past two entries descried ( *, **)
The same damn quotes from Llew I've been meaning to post for a week!

I have a show tomorrow night, at 3 am (8 am GMT) for two hours. Follow the link above to 88.7 FM.

So the past few days have been sehr boring.
The Fun Hang-over continues.
I'm low enough on funds that I can't do much.

The bright point of the day was Boy Who Works in the Same Market I Do (BWWiSMID). I served today (a la cafeteria line, a job I have once a week) and he came by twice.
He has these magnificent dark blue eyes and is quite very cute. He's blond and tall and indie kid-esque. I can tell by the way he smiles as he walks away that he knows I'm swooning after him. I can almost but not quite look like a jabbering like an imbecile.
He's so straight, but it so doesn't matter.*

Amusing Smiths reference of the Day:
A guy freaked out when his lattes took more than 17 seconds. When he started to bitch, wanting to know what they would be ready, I was finishing up. As I turned around with the drinks, I smiled and said "I see... You want to know How Soon is Now, yes?"

It's actually been an entire week since I was at Llew's. I honestly have a hard time believing it.
Fortunately, I've been tarting around #sinister, the Undernet chat room for the Sinister Mailing list. Llew is there all the time, so there is frequent converse. I also can talk to Jayward (the original Jay to my Autre Jay), Brian (the joannou.net founder and potential dreamboat), Markelby, Ken Chu and so on and so on.
It's like a poor man's social life.

I need to start tarting around for a Christmas/New Year Llew Experience.

I've at last finished The Fellowship of the Ring and am 75 pages into Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I'm thinking of starting The Two Towers and a book of 16th Century City Comedies that is called The City Girl and Other City Comedies (it has The Shoemaker's Holiday).
I have to finish Harry Potter before I see the film on Friday and Two Towers before it comes out.
New BOND next Friday!

I've not seen any Doctor Who in the past several days, though I did watch Cybermen: The Early Years (The Moonbase parts 2 and 4, The Wheel in Space, 3 and 6) and The Daleks: The Early Years (parts from The Dalek's Masterplan and the Evil of the Daleks).
I'm in the middle of my favorite story, Pyramids of Mars.
I'll comment on these later.

Also: With Laura, when we went to Brevard, we spent some good quality time at a coffee shop called Essence of Thyme after we ate a Big Mike's. They had the best Hot Chocolate in the World. Really. And a piano.
They had these silly little blank books wherein retarded 12 year old and Brevard College students (if there's any difference) wrote in things worthy of a high school yearbook (Don't ever change!; Be where you are!) I wrote in a vomitrocious story about how Belle (who was really Lazy Line Painter Jane) met Sebastian, the King of all the Hipsters.
Llew, the Queen of all things Cool, merely wrote caustically spot on comments in the book.(Though she wants to marry the coffee store boy, I will marry Llaura.)

Before I got up properly but after I first woke up, I had a bizarre dream. I got up out of my real bedroom and went into the main room and turned on a 27 inch TV.
But it was the main room here. It was the main room of the first appartment I ever had in Kill Devil Hills. And I only have a 13 inch TV/VCR combo). That's pretty much the dream.
This apartment, though is dear to me. Like in the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's, it has memories. It was in a converted beach-house a block from the sea. The estate agent put up pulp board to seperate the old rooms into flats. We had two rooms: One had a bunk bed and a queen bed and a dresser. The other room was a little larger with three chairs, a table and a counter.
The other room was different. It had a white clapboard wall. It had originally been built as a screened in porch and was lit by a single porch light. It had also subsided a bit so one side was about 10 inches below the other, and the room listed about 12 degrees. You couldn't put anything on the counter because it would fall.
I lived there with two people for four months (at $900 a month for 250 square feet -- suck that NYC people -- AND it was my first place!).

Goodnight.

So, I've been very slack in blogging lately.
Call it a fun hang-over.
Friday and today have been sooo very boring, especially after my weekend (which was Wednesday and Thursday).
I went to visit Ms Laura Llew.
Whoot, whoot and double whoot!

I left home Wednesday morning. I took all my laundry* with me and stopped in Hickory, where my parents went. We went for lunch at Shell's Barbeque. I had a cherry-vanilla-Sundrop,** two chopped BBQ sandwiches and an order of fries. They still use actual grease there for the fries, not canola oil or anything healthy, so even though they are deadly, they are so tasty.
It was quite a coup when the original shack -- and I do mean a literal shack -- circa 1950, was demolished earlier this year and replaced with a streamliner train car replete with 50s memrobelia crap. I'm pretty neutral as to the rebuild and decor, as the food is exactly the same. The biggest deal, though was that they stopped using Coke products and started using Pepsi. This apparently made the local papers and was cause of multiple letters to the editor of the Hickory Daily Record. We also went to the Post Office, which is studded with 6 deer head, a boar's head and a stuffed trout. I counted, oh yes.

After this, I departed for the trip to Easley, SC. It felt like it took about ten minutes, such was my anticipation. Right at 6 pm, I arrived at le Bookshop de Llew.
She was right there with the faithful Flan.

We zipped through the mountians to her AMAZING home an hour away. I got to hold Flan in my lap (good pets are so great. Flan made Murph look like cold crap, dude) while being all charmed by Llew. We went through places like Dacusville (where there's a pizza place and where pigs go missing) and Pumpkintown (where, oddly, there are no eponymous pumpkins).
I so loved her house. It was big and old (in the loved and fuzzy way) and painfully charming, and far enough into the country to completely escape light pollution. It even had a mutltiplicity of farm cats. While Laura completed some work, she let me tap away on her piano. She didn't even recoil at the sight on my glasses.

Then we went up to Asheville to eat. We wandered around downtown (just about my favourite thing, wandering through towns) looking soooo very cute we even achieved twee-ness. I had on a baby blue oxford, a shapeless old blue sweater and these to-die-for sand colored cords, with a co-ordinated scarf and perfectly-cut suede jacket. I looked old hat next to Llew, though, who sparkled and shimmered and sported a corduroy jacket and cute ebony -- not just black, Llew could never be bothered with something so simple as mere back -- top.
We *finally* found a little pub that was open and went in for dinner, after passing a sign what said Sluts and Jewels [never say Asheville is boring]. (L L = grilled chix sand and a great pasta salad, me = okayish Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich and potato salad). Maybe five minutes after we got there, I spotted a gorg boy walking away. When he walked back towards us, I saw it was my old friend Paul from Manteo!!! I'd not seen him for years, and he came over to talk to us, after he took a minute to recognise me. We exchanged info. He was the manager (dude, he's like 22 and has a better job than me!) and had to work.
Then the band (the Marsupials) started. Imagine pain incarnated as a poor man's Los Lobos and you can understand the noise. Paul came back and we caught up for a bit. They had booths there and so he sat next to me while we talked. But he left soon, frightened by the band. We did, too, though Llew accused me of pulling.
Paul is so like a little brother that I felt guilty for checking him out at first before I recognized him. I still have a mind to give Llew his digits. I still can't convince her I've not pulled, ever, at all.

When then went back to the House of Perfection. We took a walk with Flan after midnight and looked at the stars. I found Orion and the red star Betelgeuse. I couldn't find the Big Dipper. The stars were so beautiful, that far out, that I saw the Pleiades (after L pointed them out) and the Milky Way. Shooting stars were also seen. The moon was new, so it was even better to look at stars. We also talked the whole time, and faboo tales were traded, my own of which have probably appeared here.
We then retired to watch TV. We watched some old videos of Fawlty Towers, which went over well. Some old footage of me as B'rer Y'Alligator may also have been viewed. I'm not sure if it was amusing, as my eyes were covered. I did hear a giggled "This is sooo bad, he he, guffaw!" though.
After talking some more, we went to bed.

And oh, how I slept! The bed was huge and soft and the room dark and quiet and peaceful. I haven't slept as well in as long as I could remember. It was close to 6 when we turned in, we had talked so long about Sinister people and books and well, everything...

I woke up before noon the next day and after getting ready (Black oxford, black tie, black v-neck jumper, and dark khakis) we went up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We went up to the falls at Graveyard Fields, where we hung out talking on the rocks for a while. It was lovely. I wanted to curl up on the rocks and snooze, and we were on top of a mountian in November. This is how great Llew is.
At one point, I tried to suggest I was sure footed. I *promptly* fell down and busted my ass. I drank water, there, as well, but it tasted like my ring. I wanted that hour at the falls to last at least ten or fifteen years, as I can't honestly remember better time spent with someone. Giggling and smiling and mutual understadning abounded, to say the least.
We went up (down?) to Brevard for lunch, where we (Hip hurrah!) wandered around a downtown again. We went to a bizzare little record shop and looked at vinyl and old movie posters. We got directions to Big Mike's, this little place where we had lunch. (Llew = chicken parmagian sub, me = New England Fish and Chips, though the whole New England thing beat me.) We listened to the jukebox, as well! It was the worst juke in the world and we listened Toad the Wet Sprocket, Jimmy Buffett (oh, I know) and the Beer Barrel Polka. The food was quite good there at Mike's.
Then we went to OP Taylor's, a toy store and played. Then we looked for an Apple Pie, but didn't find any.

Then we went back home. Llew can drive, let me tell, sehr fast on curvy mountian roads. I'm so tempted to give her Curve by Estee Lauder for Christmas, 'cept that it reeks.
We visited #Sinister for a bit and said hello to Biodino and Brian Joannou and everybody! There was talk of a guy named Damon who lives hereabout. Oh how I hope events transpire to discuss here.
Then it was time to go. We drove back to Easley, with Flan on my lap again! Cept when she fell off around a curve.

Then I had to go home. I got a mix tapes, though, and David Sedaris tapes which made me laugh the whole way back.
The better thing was the warm fuzzy feeling I still have! I am *so* in love with Llew now and the fab life she gets to lead.
I so want to marry that girl it's unbelievable.

The Major and Mum were well pleased I was late in returning to them. Girls, and all. They fed me a joint and York. Pud. with a baked potato and green beans and sent me on my way.

I got back home about three am to find TBWWBR *smoking* in the main room. This was quickly ended, though the smell of the incense he was burning and fags is still lingering.
But we talked and smoothed out a trouble or two that been brewing and he paid his bills, which was cool.

Since then has been so boring as not to mention, though I did tart around a bit on #sinister. Llew withdrawal pains me.