What I Was Doing While I Wasn't Posting

The last week's been pretty active by standards, I'm going to run through it for kicks.

- Thursday of last week I left town to go visit my buddy Alex again. An hour after he gets off work, we're driving to Columbia to pick up his DJ equipment, which he left at a friend's (and fellow DJ) house when he was there the previous weekend for a gig. By then, another DJ has asked to first rent Alex's equipment for a gig, then asked if he'd also like to play. I didn't really want to, since it meant more driving late at night, but it gives him the chance to make a little scratch, so I relented.

- For whatever reason, Alex didn't believe his friend when she told him the gig was at a bar frequented primarily by same-sex couples, but they weren't pulling his leg. It was like every other bar I've ever been to, if you wondered. People were drinking, there was loud music, at least one TV had the captions on, so I could at least follow what was happening (though it was set to Comedy Central, not ESPN, that was different), and I was only there because I was tagging along (or chauffeuring, depending on how you look at it) with Alex. It's funny, I've never been in a bar where there's a rowdy drunk who has to be thrown out. I wonder if I'm not at the right ones, or if that's just less common than I think. I've only ever seen stuff like that at the New Year's Partys I used to go to when I let Alex decide where we'd go, which were frequently at private residences.

- Alex thinks the bartender was trying to get him drunk, but I'm pretty sure the DJs just get cheaper drinks. Either way, Alex did wind up drunk (he was at the "keep repeating the same statement" drunk, not "stumbling about" drunk, or "belligerent" drunk, thankfully), but at least held up until his set was done. He slept most of the drive home, the lucky bugger. Wish I could have slept, not that it would have happened even if he weren't drunk and sleepy. We were in my ride, and I'm the only one who drives it. Reached his apartment about 3 A.M. on what would have been Friday morning by then.

- Woke up later on Friday morning, learn from his sister (who shares the apartment with him) that she's going to the hospital to be induced, which doesn't sound good. Sure enough, "induced" means they're making her have her kid right then. Something about high enzyme levels in the liver, and the possibility of seizures. She and the baby came through it OK, though, so now Alex is an uncle. Took a while for that to sink in with him. Kid has red hair, inherited from somewhere on the dad's side, which is in a permanent mohawk (all efforts to get it to lie down having failed). He's cute, I suppose, though I'm not the best judge. Babies just make nervous.

- That occupied the afternoon and most of the evening, but on the way back from the hospital, Alex and I stopped at the home of one of his coworkers. That's always awkward, because on the phone, she's always eager for us to visit, but by the time we arrive, she's sullen. Maybe Alex spends too much time talking music and dieting with her husband, while drinking, and since he's getting drunk, she says she has to stay sober to watch their son. Which is admirable, but she gets cross with her husband really easily, and the whole thing becomes uncomfortable, so I'm eager to leave. Plus my CD player went on the fritz after 7 years. Wouldn't respond to buttons being pushed, then wouldn't shut off after the engine was off and the keys out of the ignition, which is normal for some vehicles as I understand it, but not mine.

- Saturday, Alex and I visited the Natsucon Anime Convention. I think we spent as much time trying to find the place as we did looking around once we were there. The address the gave leads to a different place in Google Maps, so we had to ask a random guy at a 7-11 where to go. Once we got there, we found it much more chaotic than the Cape Convention. I'm not sure it was better attended, since all the rooms things were happening in were smaller, but if felt more crowded, louder. More expensive, too. We'd keep finding DVD sets we were interested in, only to find we could get them significantly cheaper online. I'd made a list of stuff we wanted, plus its cheapest price on Amazon before I left town, for just such occasions, though I was hoping for a bargain. Maybe if we'd waited until Sunday? I did pick up some nice artwork, and Alex bought a nifty Captain Hook sketch, of all things, but we left inside 90 minutes. Oddly, Alex was being more bothered by the crowds and noise than me. Not that I wasn't bothered, but I was able to sort of thread my way through, or shut it out as necessary. Alex is the social butterfly, so I really didn't expect the crowds to get to him. He complained of it not being as laid back as the CapeCon, and there being too many 'young people', which makes me wonder when he stopped thinking of himself as young (I have a pretty good idea when I stopped thinking of myself that way).

- Left the convention, visited old roomies Papafred and Tomato for the first time in a year. We had a barbecue, played some games, talked quite a bit. I gave Papafred the Texiera Ghost Rider sketch I bought for him at CapeCon this year, which was a hit. Alex showed off a bit of his music, especially to Joe, who's a musician in a band himself. Maybe they'll collaborate on something. Left there about 11, were asked to stop over at the home of one of Alex's aunts for awhile. Naturally they're all drinking and discussing the new baby. I don't care for liquor, which meant for the second time in a month and a half, someone I only know through Alex called me a wuss because I wouldn't drink. That gets really old. Not in the sense I'm going to break down and drink, but old in the sense I'd like to smack them, but know it's not a good idea. Did she his aunt fall out of her chair, when she wasn't getting massively offended at everything everyone said to her. I just tried to stay out of it, fray-adjacent, to borrow from the Buffy universe.

- Sunday, the most boring day. Woke up in the morning to a thunderstorm. Hoped it wouldn't wake Alex, so he wouldn't freak. Hoped in vain when it felt like the thunder was sitting on the house. He got us all the way to my vehicle, the idea being we'd hide in the basement of his work until it had passed, before he checked the radar and saw the worst was past us. We went to a Mexican restaurant in town, then Alex (who had slept most of the morning), slept most of the afternoon. His aunt (probably still hungover) and uncle showed up to start rearranging his sister's room to make space for baby stuff, so Alex and I cleaned up his room. This mostly involved throwing stuff away, and tossing stuff to keep on his bed as we pulled it out of the closet. He slept in a chair in the living room the next two days, because it took us that long to get around to putting stuff back.

- Monday, his two aunts and his grandmother come by to continue rearranging stuff, and bringing in baby clothes. The aunts are fine, the grandmother is a pain in the ass. For whatever reason, she has a contempt for Alex she doesn't bother to disguise, which mostly makes me want to hit her. Or at least scream at her to shut the hell up. I'm not sure whether it would be better for me to do that, or Alex. He couldn't stand to be around her long, so we left to go visit his sister at the hospital, which went well. By the time we returned to his apartment, the family was gone. We spent the evening watching the 3rd season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. No, I'm not going to see the film. Nothing I've seen or heard makes me think that would be a good idea, and I own the series, so why bother with crappy film versions? Then we watched Men Who Stare At Goats, because he hadn't seen it yet. He laughed a lot, so at least the depressed mood his grandmother put him in was alleviated.

- Tuesday, sister returns home with baby. I even held it for a bit, chatted with it. I'm not doing those baby noises, "goo goo" crap. I told him with his mohawk and tendency to keep his left eye closed, he should be a punk rock pirate. Just as nonsensical, but it makes me feel like less of an idiot. Finished cleaning his room, ate lots of chicken, tried watching Below, which he hadn't seen either. This didn't work so well, partially because he kept falling asleep (Alex is much like my dad; he can and will fall asleep any time), partially because another storm rolled through and freaked him out, partially because he won't stop texting on his damn phone. Why did I even put the fucking movie in if he wasn't going to watch it? He's the one who was all excited it to see, then he barely pays attention! At least when his 5-year old cousin pulls that stunt, you can excuse it because he's 5.

- Wednesday, drove home. CD played seemed to be working almost normally, so I theorized that in hot weather, Alex and I are are combined psychic operative, like in Men Who Stare at Goats. It happened last summer when my passenger window wouldn't work properly for a week I visited him, but has been fine since. Theory somewhat wrecked when CD player refused to turn off, after keys were removed, even 20 minutes later. Forced me to buy a new one sooner than I wanted, because I wasn't risking the thing draining my battery by staying on all night sometime. Got that done after purchasing comics, but the installation guy left one of his tools in my vehicle, so I had to drive back up there yesterday to return it. The universe seems insistent of making me drive more than I want. I need to learn to teleport.

I'm probably forgetting some stuff, but that's the big things from the last week. Not exactly the restful time I would have preferred, but Alex always draws me into random shit, as he noted earlier this month.