YESTERDAY. . . .

Dante pawed at my face in the AFTERNOON GLOOM of my bedroom . . . dark, on account of my blackout curtains, and the light shining through from the top making the place look sunken and dreamlike. I took an Adderall with breakfast (an apple and a hardboiled egg, to regulate the spleen), and I sure did turn into an absolute freak show on wheels right then and there. Within three hours I managed to:

vacuum and deep-clean my entire house
groom and walk Dante twice
give myself a haircut
pay my BILLS
go on a bike ride
grocery shop
pick up my prescriptions
GAZE INTO THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY
cook a big-ass lunch
wash / wax / fill up my car

. . . which I took a picture of, because c’mon y’all:

Look at the tires! I made them shine too. Those kids on the bikes at the top left gave me a thumbs up when I was pulling out, and I ripped out of the gas station and onto San Pablo Avenue, practically slobbering all over the wheel in a sort of amphetamine delirium . . . a freak-out for the ages, or at least right then and right there. . . .

My friends Katie and Lucy had told me, and I remembered as the world blurred all around me, that there was a gallery opening at GOOD MOTHER in downtown Oakland, right next to Wolfman Books where I had bartended back in January, and where two weeks ago I saw my friend MADDY of MANE play bass with a dude who I think was her brother, along with some other dudes who I did not perceive as having any family resemblance. Well, I had been to this GOOD MOTHER place twice before, once because Laura was showing a quilt she made by hand, and another time because . . . I don’t know. At any rate Tracey took a good picture of Laura and me outside. See both here:

I’ll bet I’m gonna wake up to a message from Laura saying she hates both of these pictures and that she misses her bangs. Hmmm.

Well anyway I went. It was pretty bad. If you had been there, and had asked me what I thought about all the stuff exhibited there, I would have said: “It’s uh definitely hung up on the walls!” I don’t know what to tell you, man . . . it’s a solid white room filled with dudes wearing overalls and little beanies who went to art school, or worse (I think): wish they had. I don’t mean to sound cynical, but yeah, it was definitely a bunch of those fuckin guys.

SO AS TO AVOID HAVING TO TALK TO ANYONE ELSE: I hung around with Katie and Lucy and our friend Sam Spano, who is (actually (lol)) talented, and who lives in my old house in North Oakland. Lucy gave us some THC GUMMIES and I sure did feel pretty good after a while. It killed my Adderall comedown, which was good because it was wearing on me by then. A few people recognized me from my stupid videos, including this girl who had tried to pull my gold tooth out of my head at Eli’s Mile High Club back in February or whatever, on account of her not thinking it was real, since she herself has a cap that she can take on at off at will.

She said, “Are you afraid of me because I tried to pull your tooth out of your head last time I saw you?”

“No.”

“OK good. I still think it’s fake though.”

“Hey baby, it’s real . . . and I got X-rays to prove it.”

I looked at her teeth when she smiled. The gold fang was gone! I thought, you know, maybe she just wanted what she did not have, and could not conceive of a world in which someone actually had a gold tooth permanently affixed to their skull. I felt a little sad just then. She’s, you know, she’s got to get that thing on there for good! It’s a nice look. I think so, anyway, though I didn’t say so just then because I desperately wanted to escape the art show.

We SPLIT the SCENE and went across the street to this place called RADIO, which is like baby Ruby Room. It’s owned by the same people apparently. There downstairs was all dates and “”friend groups””, so we went upstairs and watched them cockroaches below from within what is essentially an illuminated cage-loft:

Uh, also, it looks really cool when you’re coming upstairs. I took one of Katie and Katie took one of me:

I drank a bunch of trash, OK? And then I went home and found my friend Jenny Jiao Hsia passed out on my couch. She had on a little sleep mask and everything.

She just got home again a little bit ago actually. She’s staying with me for the week, what with her doing talks and shit like that at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. She was way drunk when she came back, and so I made her tea and gave her an extra blanket, and so on. Apparently she saw Cara Ellison, who is also supposed to come over, though where the heck are you girl!!! (I’m sorry, Cara, but I can’t link to your website. I just opened it, having not seen it in a year or so, and the fan on my computer immediately fired up like a fucking jet engine. You done got yourself a resource hog of a website, dude!!!)

NEXT WEEK

. . . I am I guess driving to Portland just to go to a party with some people I know there. I reckon I can’t say much more than that, you know, because everyone has got to have a few secrets, and this strange and stupid weekend I’m going to hurl myself into is mine. And anyway who cares what I do? I’m driving up alone Friday night. Does anyone want to come? It’s a good drive, OK?? At any rate, I’m going to fill my thermos with gas station coffee and have myself a good ol time ripping up the 5 towards P-TOWN, and hopefully sleep on my friend Margarite’s floor. She’s so cool. We swapped jackets back in November, and became each other for a little while:

Minus the whole bar part of it, that place sure did feel like some sort of Youth Group night down at the local high school. It sucked so bad that it managed eclipsed itself, came back around and was somehow cool the second time you thought about it. They kicked everyone out a few minutes later, and I tried to tuck that tallboy in my jacket but a bartender saw and demanded I give it to him, so I did. C’mon. And in the parking lot, Matt turned ghost-pale and collapsed at our feet. Once we revived him, he and I drove to Lone Fir Cemetery and slept in our rental car. It was a weird night!!!

Well, why the hell not . . . I’m going back up there, either alone or with some other poor son of a bitch, and I’m going to this Secret Party, and maybe the next day I can get the MacGilbert sisters to go to Elvis Room with me or something. And then I’ll head on back down and go back to whatever it is I got going on, which is, yes, also something of a secret.

NEXT MONTH

. . . I am renting a car and THE LA ANGELS, being Laura and Gayle and Monty and I, are driving to Tahoe, where I’m renting a cabin that has a freakin hot tub. We’re gonna have a fire and hang out and feel just fine, and then in the morning get breakfast and see the lake, and on and on, before driving that last bit to Reno, which I think is something like 50 miles away. Lord, I have no idea why we’re going to Reno. We’re bringing our fur coats and we’re going to get ripped and go insane. Well . . . you gotta do something!!!

GDC PEOPLE: I’ll seeya at some of those parties this week. Yeah?? Jenny said she’d take me to some, and Brandon Sheffield promised he would as well, so I reckon I’ll end up at one or two of them at least.

Hell, I figure everyone’s in town at this point. Today I even found my friend and New York City resident EMi Spicer on, you know, That Thing:

Whoa! I guess it’s been four years since I crash-landed in San Francisco in the Donutmobile, having just finished my delivery route, with a box full of donuts for her:

Cuuuutttteeee!!

OK, I need my beauty sleep, what with me being a sweet beautiful little angel boy. I snagged a brand new / free mattress topper the other day, which I later looked up and found out was $300, and so I’ve been sleeping real well. It’s actually maybe going to be a problem in the future, my bed being so comfortable, though yeah.

I’m sending out presents this week to some of y’all. Jess, I’m a little late on your birthday, but then you still haven’t mailed me my clay pomade, so I guess we’re even for now. Did I never post that cute li’l picture of us in Chicago on that cute li’l day we had in the diner beneath the L tracks? The one Mable took? This is a good way to end whatever this is: