City of Legends

I was wondering how my energy levels would be this evening, with the food poisoning and jet lag.  So, I spun up my iTunes and meandered.  (Hint:  The cat has booked an emergency evacuation route with the Martians)  I hit John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band (Hey, I did not name them), better known to many as "Eddie and the Cruisers" and lit the fuse on On the Darkside.

That’s better.  I’m alive. 

I have been writing.  A lot.  Partially to purge the very ions of my irony and part to express those things that rage me major, with a little bit of amomancy thrown in to let you know that I am alive and well and resting comfortably, surrounded by the fire golems of my own defense mechanisms (you think I don’t have defense mechanisms?  you have no idea…).  I’ll leak some of the works over the next few days, here and at the Amomancer blog.

Joan Osborne is serenading me with One of Us, soon to be followed by Let’s Just Get Naked, which actually sounds like a great idea.  I should have gone camping this weekend. 

To recap my vacation:  After being compelled to take a week off.  Compelled, I swear.  I found myself helping my beloved daughter and her husband identify a worthy apartment for them to move to (they were looking to downsize after losing a room mate).  The very same first evening where we found a good spot, I was stricken with the worst case of food poisoning I can recall having had and was basically bedridden for 72 hours, except when I could peel myself out of bed to take Peri around to collect and turn in various paperwork for the apartment management.

This meant not getting to have lunch with a few select friends (food is the enemy), heading out to the high desert to commune with the desolation (it was up to 117 in the Valley, imagine what it was like in Joshua Tree?).  But it did mean I was forced to rest, to eat moderately healthy and to watch a lot of reruns on television while trying to decide which end of me would rather serve as the great egress for my spleen.

I tossed a coin and my body decided to keep that minimally-required organ for now.

I read a lot of email from well-wishers.  Some of them clever, naughty people whom I am greatly grateful for in my life.  I tend to be too grave and serious and the occasional ball of fire is what is needed to keep me from sinking into my own miasma.  Don’t get me wrong, I am who I am, but after a recent run of near-mortal wounds, something less like nuclear fusion is called for.  I love burning at my temperature, but haven’t yet found anyone else who can live in that sphere, and I get tired of talking to myself.

Running through a medley of Prince works right now.   The cat has requested refugee status in Myanmar.

I am back on the East Coast.  On MY computer.  Still slightly reeling from the whole eight billion degree weather in the San Fernando Valley and the assassination attempt by a corporate spokesman chihuahua, but keeping my sense of humour.

I will give a full, unvarnished and truly surreal report later.

Right now, I need a pillow.  To myself.  For a few hours.

It was hot yesterday, and we are due for a reprise today. I jet out late this evening. I have had an interesting time, the heat…the food poisoning, these were not great…but spending so much time with Peri and getting to do some background research on some of the mindgames being played on the web, that was entertaining.

On more pleasant fronts, here is one of the first official entries in the TVC2008 contest, which caught my attention:

That’s no typo. It was 114 degrees in the San Fernando Valley yesterday. And by reports it is that hot today.

Smelting steel on your car hood, anyone?

The food poisoning is facing, although I am left with some temporary infirmities that I am working around. I adapt, as anyone who actually knows me will tell you. I am sort of like the description that the android Ash gives of the facehugger alien after serious scientific analysis in the movies Alien:

Well, it’s an interesting combination of elements making him a… tough little son-of-a-bitch.

Barb, it has been said before…wounds are possible. Death? Unproven.

I am getting stronger. Not happy with the aches and pains and inconveniences, but maybe this was God’s way of a) making sure I did keep to my promise to modify my diet and b) get me to rest. Maybe food is now my enemy? That would be interesting.

Spent some time this morning with Peri. In fact, I have spent time with her every day since Tuesday. It has been nice. I picked up some new running shoes and got back to walking. Brutal, in my condition, but I have been easy on myself on several fronts and I am not going to hurl myself into the teeth of the world in anything less than full battle condition.

Any idea how much ice-cold lemonade hurts on a bruised stomach lining? Ouch.

Tomorrow evening I lift back to the DC suburbs. On Sunday I will complete the engineering on Evangelist and announce the final track list. Those who owed me tracks and don’t get them in by them? Screw em. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to keep moving, leaving others behind. I will see if they get something into me later worthy of release, but not on this CD.

I don’t know, based on the medical prognosis, if the damage done by the food poisoning will impact my stamina for the tour. We shall see over the next few weeks.

The heat persists. I am slowly regaining my strength (the pain is pretty overwhelming, though) and decided to drag my sorry ass to the nearest computer to check in with all and wade through my email.

I found out the following, in short order:

• Some individual wanted to apologize to me for having been mislead as to a quotation from me (someone else had told them that they were the originator). Not sure what the quote was, but if they think that’s the only case of plagiarism of my work I have been apprised of, I have news for them. Nonetheless, very classy to apologize.
• I can get a much larger penis by trusting my credit card number to someone who uses stolen email addresses to advertise their drugs and who can’t even spell my name right.
• The lady in the poodle skirt has a very, very dirty mind. This is a good thing.
• Despite a semester of Russian in college, I can’t read Russian advertisements for porn sites.
• Selkes, by their very nature, are slippery.
• Karla still likes the Braves.
• Banks I have never even heard of insist on asking me to go to a third party site and enter my account number for them, along with my password, Mother’s maiden name and zip code.
• Some childhood friend has bought into the Obama = deep cover agent for Muslim extremists conspiracy theory.
• I typo’d "sewer" in an online interview.
• Viagra has hundreds of different official sites, all of which write me under different stolen email addresses.

So, all in all, I was (for the most part) better off staying in bed and moaning.

I am getting stronger and will fill everyone in on the upside of my trip as strength allows.

Yes, 104 degrees in the Valley, with an expectation of 106 for Friday. About the only thing that could make this trip more vivid is if I got food poisoning/

Oh, I did.

I was up all last night with it and I still feel pretty wasted, but I wasn’t going to give up, so here I am, at least minimally blogging. I don’t know if I have the energy to be posting to Amomancer right now. We shall see.