I feel like I'm in Jurassic Park. My screens aren't actually attached to the windows, so all manner of horrors creep in when the lights on. A beetle flew into my face twice until I decided to hit him with my guitar, then he stopped and rested on the wall. I can't just crush him. I noticed it looked like he was taking a shit on the wall and oh my god he's molting. Have you watched a beetle molt? Its horrible. Just pumping his new body out of his awful shell.

Then I got back to work modifying a poster I made for Steve's band Talk Modern (up now on matthewgiuffre.com) and I looked at a different part of the wall to notice a daddy long legs hanging out there. Then the shitty beetle fell off the wall and near my shoes so I said "keep away" and kicked them across the room where they landed next to another beetle.

Nothing beats the horror of a week or so ago. We were watching that awful horror movie and noticed this buzzing in the room. When the movie was over, on went the lights and there he was. Tim thought it was a "spider cricket" except that it had terrifyingly long antennae and MANDIBLES. Which it gnashed at us. We caught it in a cup and threw it into the yard.

I think the beetle died giving birth to itself.

Good night.

Its been a while and I've done a lot and I'm really tired, so I'm not sure how much I'll write. Why am I tired? Well. Saturday I drove 150 miles to Columbia where we stayed at an abandoned apartment that one of Tim's friends stopped paying for, but the landlord was ok with him still using. I don't know. That night we went to a great bar called The Whig. It itself was allright, $2 pbr's, etc, but the thing about it is it used to be the basement of a bank, so there's one room that's a converted vault and it just feels like a victorian hunter's lodge. There was a deer head (for some reason painted black), a stuffed fox and an entire wall of antelope scull caps with antlers, those of which Tim's friend Will was convinced were fake for no reason. There were end tables with glass tops and beyond that glass were cow skulls surrounded by fake flowers. It was a strange, great place. The owner apparently worked as a chemist (no shit?) for three years to save up money to open it. It sounds like a good plan. It's what I'd like to do at least.

The next day we didn't do jack shit. It was something like 100 degrees in Columbia so we got Keanne got on her bus to Raleigh (I forgot to mention I had to stay up all night to bring her to the Greyhound, only to sit there from 4-6 while she missed two buses since the workers were entirely unable to tell her which bus to catch) went to breakfast, checked a record store (I didn't find anything worth getting, but Tim got some old George Thoroughgood records) then just sat in the air conditioned vagrant's lounge of an apartment and watched Cowboy Bebop. 7 episodes. That's a lot. That night, though Will invited us over and made some insane pasta and cream sauce and afterwards we stopped at The Whig again since the paper said it was soul night, but when we got there there was no soul. That's every other sunday, but they advertise every sunday just because. So we had a few drinks and rolled another 100 miles to Charleston. The next day it was 102 out and Tim's parents had some friends over who developed marital issues while they were visiting, which made everything go very smoothly. They were nice, just, separately. We went to the beach then sat around, Machaela's flight got cancelled so she'd have to come in the morning at like 8, so we went to the water and shot off a shitload of fireworks. The most surprising was a sweet little fellow called the Colorful Wheel. not so interesting on his own, he's just one of those fools you nail to a post and he spins, but we kicked it into the water and it spun and smoked and screamed. Awesome.

Today we woke up and went to the beach. I'd aparently been laughing in my sleep again. Oh well. The waves were a lot stronger than the last three times I'd been there and the ocean finally stole the sunglasses I stole off the front porch off of my face.

Then I headed back to Asheville. I lost one of the lenses to the pair of shades I stole from Dad a few years ago but I wore them anyway. What happened is that my eyes sort of evened themselves out and when I took them off, my left eye saw fine and right eye saw brown. They're fine now. Also it was unkindly hot in South Carolina so I drove with my shirt off like a winner and I now am the proud owner of a seatbelt tanline. Could be worse. Could be lace.

Last Friday I got shamefully drunk and wound up puking, but felt instantly better. I still slept on the couch in shame. What I had was another 32oz beer at that place, then another beer, then three white russians. That's enough for anyone.

Earlier last week I spent on a mountain. I'll go more into that later, but there's not much to tell, really, so I might not bother.

Good night.

Yesterday was great. I wound up going to a derby game. The teams were relatively new, less than a year old, I think, but they were brutal. it was a lot different than games in Boston. For one thing it seemed more of a novelty than the actual sport the dames up north treat it as. For example, the anouncers kept saying things like "Don't they look great, folks?" That shit would never fly. It was like a throwback to the staged games in the 70's, when it was more about cute girls getting in fights (which happened) than actual serious competition. The first game kind of sucked, it was I guess the Asheville B-team, and the final score was like 50-40, but there was plenty of spills and injuries and two girls got ejected for starting a fight after two pig piles brought both teams entirely to the ground, I just don't think they've realised the full intent of the sport yet. The second game however, was the Asheville allstars vs Charlotte and that was great. It was close the whole time, yet again there was lots of spills, but the Asheville jammers were really good, definitely on par with the pros. We left with ten minutes left and apparently during that ten minutes Charlotte caught up to pass Asheville by 3 points, but then Asheville made an insane 20 point comeback.

We talked about it after and if they get sponsored, they could be great. I guess they only have each other to play right now, since they don't have the funding to travel anywhere. Greg, who's house we had the q at the other day, said he'd build them a bank track. Awesome.

After that we went to the Frog again and it was awesome again. Eric caught me impersonating him, which was funny. I went to the bathroom and they had repaired the stall door which had been ripped off the other night. Eugene was right.

Then we went to a marvelous party. It was luau themed, which didn't really mean anything, but there was a trash can filled with ice and pbr's and a percussion jam going on in the basement. For a while we sat and drank in an old VW minibus parked in the back, which was surreal. The beers were wearing little Hawaiian shirts. The best part, other than getting hit on which is always nice, was upstairs. In the living room this guy and girl were playing old timey hits on banjos. We sat around and sang along, they played all those southern songs you know some of the lyrics to somehow. "I was born in east Virginia, North Carolina, I did roam..." Then out of nowhere, this guy showed up with hard face, goatee, ripped carharts and fiddle and made everything perfect. He knew so many songs and was so amazing he could have been born during the civil war. Then someone kicked over a lantern and the whole place caught on fire and we had to run home.

Just kidding.

I caught a white moth and threw it at Tim.

Afterwards we had gin and tonics at Tim's, Keanne went to bed and Tim and I investigated a 24-h coffee shop on Merriman. There was almost no one there, except for some nerds upfront arguing about which class is best in Neverwinter Nights. Obviously its rogue, since rogue is the best class in any game. I can't stand nerds who can't also be cool. Its so easy. In a lot of ways I'm a lot nerdier than any nerd I've met, I just do a lot more. Oh well.

Then I went to bed.

So thursday was spent at a BBQ at Tim's brother's friend Greg's house. Ha. It was great. We sat around, drank, ate, played with the pitbulls, played Hot Dice and listened to the Pogues and The Dirtbombs. You can't picture anything more appropriate and neither can I.

Yesterday we drove around West Asheville, I got my car looked at and rather than being totally screwed with a transmission problem, the rattling was just a rusted heat shield that the guy at The Organic Mechanic would later grind off. No more problem other than that I can't park on dry grass or it'll set on fire and blow up my car, like, as Dad told me, on the Sopranos. Keanne found me the perfect job here working for the city as exhibit Curator at all the museums, so i'd basically go from museum to museum see if anythings broken, take it, and fix it. Also, I'd get to design the exhibits as they happen, all in all a great job. The description was exactly what I am. They were looking for someone with experience in exhibit design, sculpture, photo, web design, carpentry, pretty much everything I know and am good at. Only problem is the deadline was last week, but I submitted a cover letter anyway, you never know. I might call next week to check the possibility.

Then I got really drunk. We went to this place that had 32oz Dos Equis for 3.50. So we all got on and Keanne only had half her's so Tim and I split it. Then I came home and passed out on the porchcouch for two hours, woke up, Tim brought me a 40, drank that, then we all split another. That was fun though, we just hung out on the porch with a couple of the people who live in the house that I hadn't met yet. Then we went to the bar. Tim bought me a glass of whiskey but I couldn't finish it. I dropped them off at another bar and went home.

Then today I got my hair cut! At this great place where they gave me a free beer with the cut. I talked to the chick about Asheville, how its better than Raleigh (no way!). Not much happened since. Tonight we're going to see a band comprised of three cute girls, so that should be fun. Everyone's at the Falls right now, but I didn't feel like going. When I'm new to a place I don't really like doing doubles, as we already went like two weeks ago.

Oh yeah. Yesterday we watched a horrible movie. The DVD said it was called Burial Ground, but when the title came up it was called The Nights of Terror. Either way it was stupid. And this horrible thing is in it:



But this also happens:



And that's all I'll say. Don't watch it. We didn't mean to.

I wish I had kept a more attentive record of what I've done this past week of travelling, but I didn't. We started out Sunday morning and met up with Jess in Providence for breakfast which was great. Moved on to New York. Keeping with tradition we saw a horrible accident on route 15. First there was traffic, which I thought I had avoided by opting to take 15 instead of 95, then I saw the dead dog on the side of the road. A real cutie too, little fox. Then I saw the car that tried to avoid it, still killed it, then drove istelf through the guard rail and almost down a hill, but got caught by some trees. Comepletely destroyed. I love animals of all shapes and intellects, but I tell you, I will kill a dog if it keeps you alive. I'd feel bad, but not as bad as if I'd killed you. I love you.

After that it was pretty easy and by driving slow I got beautiful mileage. We got caught in Mets traffic simultaneously with the most beastly storm I've ever driven though just as we were getting into Brooklyn. Not too bad. We then met up with Alice unloaded out stuff and rolled out to meet Alan at some bogus heavy metal bar that wasn't. There was $2 pabststststs but whatever thats still like paying to drink unattractive water that also smells. After that we met up with Jack and his silent crew at a nice bar where I spent 7 bucks on a white russian but oddly didn't feel shitty about it. I talked to Alan about fantasy novels, games and relationships, talked to Jack and James about comics, basketball, and relationships and talked to Alice about everything else. My friend Mollie was there and she made a great new comic. In the morning we got up, made breakfast and Alice and I recorded a song. around 12 we hit the road.

The trip down was pretty uneventful since I just drove in a straight line for 14.5 hours. I got a horrible cough that I'm just now getting rid of. We stopped at a Hottle House in either Virginia or West Virginia where we got a brutal, greasy breakfast for 4 dollars tha I would later shit out in the morning in a swirling brown shotgun blast. Other than the retarded (literally) cook, there was the 300 lb 14 year old (why are you here at one in the morning?). Child Abuse I say!

Asheville is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a beautiful. The parkway on the way in constantly goes up and down hills, with big rig brake failure ramps at every turn. I almost tried one, but they're made of sand and I was too tired to deal. We stopped at an advertised scenic outlook and for the first time in my life, I saw the Milky Way. And a shooting star. They might be old news for you guys but I didn't see one until I was 20, they're still magic. We sat there for a minute then made it into town and my car started making a horrible noise that I've yet to investigate. A few days later it all but vanished, but I'd still like to get it looked at before I go anywhere of consequence. If that transmission dies, I'll die with it.

We stayed up watching Nightmare on Elm St V at Tim's brother's house until about 5 or 6. The next was spent wandering around downtown Asheville, having Tim point things that are neat and things that no longer exist. We visited his brother's roomate Eric at the bar he works at, The Flying Frog, and he gave us about ten beers and several shots for the price of three. We got trashed by 3. We think its the altitude. We stumbled around and eventually found our was back to his brothers house and passed out on the porch couches. Around 8 I got a call from this girl Emily who told me if I still wanted, I could move here:


My room is second floor, left

The place is great with a massive old stove with a built in deep fryer (obvi), piano, guitars, ukeleleleles, garden with blackberries, nice roomates who are rarely around and sweet when they are, big old yard and no smoking, which is nice. My room is massive with enough empty space that Keanne and I can both do workouts. We've been doing lots of pushups and stretches and aerobics. I feel like I've gotten weaker lately and I need to work on myself. I think it might be my proximity to Tim since he's basically my height and build, just thicker. I think I'd look wierd if I wasn't a stick, though. We'll see.

Also, Asheville's great since its hot during the day and cold at night. Perfect. We leave the windows open and get to sleep with blankets. The closets big enough for us to change in so we don't have to keep telling each other to turn around and close our eyes.

Thursday we went to Tim's parents' giant house in Charleston, SC. It was a couple days of painful leisure. We did nothing but sit around in the AC and drink and eat and read or play video games until it got dark, then we'd go out onto the porch and play cards and listen to music or go tot the beach. The water was so warm and was made out of tiny bioluminescent buddies. When you popped out of the water you could see little sparkles on your arms. Universe Arms. Standing in the water and letting glowing waves hit your chest is something you could do forever. We pretty much did. We went at night and it took over an hour for us to get cold. Kids on the beach shot fireworks over our heads. It was so nice.

But it was unproductive which bothered both Keanne and I. We understand we're not here long, but we'd rather do something with our time than sit around our lovely house, playing lovely guitar, on the filthy, horrible porch couches. So the second we got back here today we started looking for jobs both in Asheville and Boston, just to do it. I'm not sure if I'll stay. Of course, if I get a wonderful job I'll stay for a few months but I can see this place getting tired pretty quick. Unless I meet an excellent girl or something like that, but its unlikely. But yeah, odds are I'll be back in August, ready to pick up where I left off, nowhere.

Menu for tomorrow:

Walk around looking for jobs at record stores, cafes, and galleries.

I guess that's it. Maybe record some of the songs I wrote on the porch. They're pretty cute.

Okee doke. Also, if you haven't done so, go to my website and give me feedback. OK. Goodnight.

So I guess things are going well when you live in a town for two days and you already know how to drive your friend's blackoutdrunk friend back to their house in the middle of the night from across town. And you wind up driving them to another bar first. I think I'm doing well.

More later. Asheville's great.