part 1: "when the shooting stops there will be a movie no one will watch but me"

Ah, Thirsty Thursday! I'm not sure it gets much better than going to the ball park to watch baseball on a temperate summer evening. Well it could have been better if the Stingerzzzzzzzz actually had a chance to win. It was a sad, sad, state of affairs. The the fourth inning they were behind by 11. Oy. The only reason to stay through the whole game, however, was that you could double-fist microbrews. At two bucks a brew, I was in baseball Walhalla, pouring libations to the mighty baseball gods.

part 2: "The birds were insane/flapping all about."

It is somewhat unnerving to hear a light tap on the screen door and then have a timid voice say "do you guys smoke pot?" at 2 a.m. Having no pot and not being a pot smoker, I think I might have preferred to ignore the strange request, but you can't really ignore a knock on a screen door, especially when whoever it is can see right in the room. We all sat and looked at each other for a moment, and then one of us with enough presence of mind went to see who the hell would be tapping on someone's door at such an hour asking such a question.

The girl, as she told us over a glass of water, was very drunk. It was her birthday. She hiked up her fishnet stockings while pulling down her white miniskirt. Under her peroxide bangs her eyes were leaded black with mascara. She and her boyfriend, it would seem, had a fight and she had stormed off, to wander the streets of Salt Lake. She was from Utah county, far from home.

There was a bit of suspicion over her initially, but it was clear that she really was quite drunk, and for her own safety it was important that we keep her off the streets. Luckily she had a cell phone, and she managed to contact her boyfriend, who, unfortunately seemed equally as drunk as she.

It is strange what goes through people's heads when they are drunk.

The night wore on and two and then one and then none kept watch over her. When I woke up in the morning to the sun beating down on me from the front room window she was gone without a note or any token to remind us that she had ever even crossed our paths. There was something dreamlike or nightmarish about it all.

It is hot. 81 degrees at near midnight.

A couple of years back I went over to visit Richelle when it was hot like this and took her some irises that were going nuts in my backyard. I think she fed me bread with apricots in it and she read me a poem about poodles that stopped using the word poodle quite quickly and substituted it with Pope. It was something like the "care and feeding of Popes." It was a classic Richelle moment, nearly as good as visiting her at her former job in the Key Bank skyscraper at 2 in the morning and mocking the Days of 47 (q.v.) parade attendees desperate for marching bands and tissue paper as we looked down upon them from 17 floors up (or something like that.) It was also nearly as good as talking to her all night way back when while watching Benny Hinn on the craptacular Christian channel.

That night with the irises and Popes and poodles and bread I promised to find Laibach's--was it K5?--album online and burn her a copy. I did find all the songs from the album, but I don't remember if I gave it to her. The irises haven't gone nuts since, but I still remember the Pope/poodle poem and think I have those Laibach MP3's tucked away somewhere.

Anyone recall the fall of the Roman Republic? Somehow I don't think that Dubya has the personality of Julius C, however. Well the analogy with Rome ultimately fails, I suppose, and I don't really think anything extreme will happen, but I am more concerned with how many upstanding Americans, hearing this story on the news yesterday said "You know, Martha, that might be a good idea!" Countries that have experienced government shenanigans seem to be much more atuned to seeing this as the first steps in a "cold coup."

Anyway, I guess we don't have anything to worry ourselves about--we have lots of things better than bread and TV is a hell of a lot better than circuses.