I am incredibly lax

Note: videos are embedded at the end of this piece. You should have Flash enabled to view them; they're on YouTube, like all the other interesting stuff in the world right now.

Jeez, I am a slug lately.

It's now Sunday night, and I'm sitting around listening to an ancient Benny Goodman recording on the newly-revived stereo in the living room (complete with subwoofer that has not succumbed to the assault of cat whiz), having just enjoyed a cigar with my future wife out on the porch swing. The solar lamps are out there, glowing blue after a day spent sucking up sunlight and charging their little NiCd cells.

It's actually pretty damn good here these days. The diesel is getting a reliable 900 miles per tank, the cats and wabbits are all fine, the catboxes are in good care, and except for the fact I have to do laundry yet tonight lest I end up with no underwear this week, I am quite at peace.

We spent Friday evening after work having dinner with Mary (you remember Mary from several years ago, right?) and her husband Joe. I have this sense that somehow Suzanne looks at Mary as some sort of threat, like, "they used to be boyfriend/girlfriend and maybe they're still hot for each other," but I'm not sure why. Anyway, Suzanne was all dolled up, and we had a very good evening, though I was rather acutely tired after doing stuff all week. We had a good dinner and talked a bunch, and then Suzanne and I came home and fooled around until we exhausted each other.

Yeah, that's the stuff you read this site for, right?

Yeah.

No, I will not describe things in detail, except to say that my skill at determining when middle-aged women are or are not wearing underwear is not what it should be.

The cigars these evening -- CAO Moontrances, if you care -- came as an unexpected side-benefit of cleaning out a box of stuff on the kitchen table, an effort which also produced two cans of cat treats, a Sony AM-FM Walkman, and my first decent digital camera, circa 1998, an Olympus D-340.

I actually had hoped I'd find the missing volume from my set of Martin Scorcese's The Blues, a set of seven films about that subject that was done a few years ago and broadcast on public television. I knew I had that missing volume when I was with Melody back in 2004, so it's likely it's either in the bedroom upstairs or in a box of stuff she packed up for me when she decided my presence in her house wasn't needed. In any case, it's around here, and that missing volume is my favorite, the one that deals with Skip James, the Rev. Gary Davis and J.B. Lenoir.

It's around here somewhere.

Along with everything else I can't seem to find. I just have to dig through more shit to find it.

Kind of the way things go these days.

I keep thinking back to Friday, and the sense that Suzanne was a little uneasy around Mary. I couldn't see any need... I mean, she's married and we're still friends and her husband's a really good guy (he just bought a new iMac, so he's gotta be OK, right?) and I'm marrying Suzanne a year from this weekend. I just kinda got the sense she thought maybe there was something still going on between us or something. If she'd just SAY something, I'd tell her: look, if I had wanted to stay with Mary (or Penny, or Sarah, or Melody) I'd still be with them, and the fact that you're here and that I'm marrying means you were better for me than any of them. And presumably, I'm better for you.

Unless someone actually voices concerns, I can't (and don't) address them. There are enough problems in the world without me going looking for them.

Two things I learned this weekend: first, certain cactus flowers close up surprisingly rapidly when you pour water on them (this puzzled me, since you'd figure cactus would take water any way they could get it, whenever they could get it) and second, black snakes are incredibly ineffectual when confronted by a broom and a fruit-picking tong.

The Surprising Cactus:

Black Snake versus Guy: