1) Pot smoke should not be smelled anywhere on the premises.
2) The guy who makes your funnel cake should not have a lip ring.
3) Wooden sticks should never be given to kids between the ages of 12 and 16; they hit each other with them.
Feel free to add whatever observations you’d like.

Because the world is small and I never end up knowing who’s going to cross my path, I had the pleasure of talking to a college crush of mine for a story today. He was a rather short-lived crush, at least by my standards (from, like, January to shortly after school let out for the summer), but he was definitely one of the more fun ones—tall, gangly, goofy-looking and a bit younger than me; he was 18 or 19 to my 21? no 22, I would’ve been 22 when we hooked up. He was also the author of one of, if not the only, cartoons we ran in our college rag that wasn’t syndicated, so he ended up spending a crapload of time in the newspaper office with the rest of us misfits. Anyway, my favorite memory* of Slick, as we used to call him, involved the wonder wagon, a fifth of Rumplemintz and a tattoo.

Yeah, I know that has the classic markings of drrrrrrrty, but it wasn’t salacious at all. Seriously.

It was a Wednesday, and Slick, me and another doofus we used to hang out with took off for lunch. We were in my car—the illustrious 1985 Ford Escort Wagon I totalled three different times between 1988 and 1993—and I seem to recall that I was letting Doof do the driving for some reason, or maybe he was driving on the way back because I’d had a few beers at lunch ... Anyway, at some point on the way back, I pointed out to the two of them that I had an unopened bottle of Rumple left over from the Indiana College Press Association weekend from which the paper staff had just returned, and they were all “Sweeeeeeeeet,” so we cracked it open and started swigging.

(I should mention here that this was during the semester I almost drank myself out of college forealz, so that there was an unopened bottle of anything alcoholic in my car is a miracle, especially since ICPA was basically a giant hotel party for college newspaper nerds and my room had the hospitality tub. I didn’t even drink that weekend at all, probably because I was away from home and thus away from my “stress.” Whatever that was at the time.)

So we get back to campus, and Slick decides he needs to have his tat re-inked. I, needing very little in the way of excuses to ditch class, decided I was going to go with because I’d never seen a tat done before, but Doof had Calc or something that he just couldn’t miss (which I wasn’t the least bit upset about because, hello! Crush!). It was just me and Slick and a bottle of Rumple, of which he maybe drank the equivalent of the bottle neck while I pounded the rest. In about an hour. And I lived to tell the tale, without throwing it back up or anything. I remember being in the tat shop and watching the artist hit his tat with purple, of all colors, and going, “Wow. If I weren’t so drunk, I’d be completely freaked out by that.” I also remember stopping at the corner of Ridge and Wisconsin in Hobart and calling the newspaper office from the payphone while Slick threw some gas in the Wonder Wagon’s almost-empty tank. We just drove around all afternoon, talking and laughing about whatever. Of course, when we got back to campus, everyone knew what we were doing because I smelled like a giant candy cane (Tara can attest to this). And then I went out to Wad’s Wonder Wagon and started crying hysterically about something, and I sobered up. The end.

Slick’s a commercial painter now who focuses on high-end remodeling jobs, happily married with three or four daughters. Good for him.

so I direct you over to New York comic Banterist, who takes a cheeky stab at the latest journalism fuck-up: Lookit.

The Zionists laughing at Gallagher is my favie.

Parts 4 & 5: “14 hours of unadulterated Zook. Ain’t that going to be fun!??”

If there was ever a time when I should’ve been blogging things as they happened, it was when she was here because I’m so over it, I’m like, I don’t even want to talk about it anymore. And I probably shouldn’t, except I have to get to the part where Mer, on her last night spent with the town clown, got robbed of all but $40 plus all her sleeping medication she takes for Epstein-Barr.

Yes, yes she did.

After various and sundry stops (and after he yelled “Hurry up!” like a fucking fool outside my crib because it was a frillion degrees and I wouldn’t let him inside), they ended up at the bar we were at the first night she got here. During that time:

1) Zook tells her he’s running short, would she mind picking up the tab?
2) One of the guys who hung out with us the first night (who I knew from my days hanging out there but only remember as Scott B.) saw inside Mer’s purse (when she was getting money out to start paying for her and her “date’s” drinks) and asked her about her medication. She tells him their sleeping pills and that she’d give him a couple before they left;
3) Scott B. decides he’s not going to wait and ganks the entire bottle along with all the money;
4) Zook has Mer pay for his dinner at McDonald’s as well as a round of drinks and a six-pack to go before ending up back at the shithole;
5) And then, when they get back to the shithole, he tells her he’s “tired,” so what she came out there for, she wasn’t getting.

She didn’t discover she’d gotten robbed until she got back to my crib—all hysterical because she was so mortified by the whole evening—so we jump into the car at 2 a.m. to go to the Gary Police Department to file a police report. Somewhere around 5 a.m., she and I had a horrendous fight where I almost left her on 7th and Grant Street (that’s square in da HOOD, for those unfamiliar with the G.I.), and by 6:30 a.m. we were back at the crib crying how much we loved each other and so on and so forth.

The last day of the trip saw me working, Mer getting her meds and trying to figure out she was going to get back home with no money, and then this saucy little bit o’ business. She left Thursday morning at 7:30.

After all this, how many times did she get laid? That’s right: Once. And it wasn’t nearly as good as she remembered it.

Part 3: “I need HELP ...”

Here’s the thing I can’t figure out about EE so far: How do I save what I write without posting it immediately? I thought “quick save” did that and “submit” posted, but I’m wrong. That’s why you’re seeing posts come up in spurts these days. Also, I don’t know how to categorize anything anymore. Anyone want to help a sister out?

So now that we’ve gone over the first two days of Mer’s visit, we have now reached the point where it descends into complete absurdity. The event was Zook’s landlord’s birthday party, an all-weekend affair 50-some miles away. It does not end well, but since this is a really long, really convoluted part of the story, I’m just going to post the pictures—Lookit —and give you the highlights, namely:

1) He refused to introduce me by name to anyone, opting instead to act like he forgot it;
2) I came thisclose to throwing a bag of ice at his head;
3) he started pissing where he stood and later passed out in someone’s car (this was after I left, sadly); and
4) I inadvertently hissed at him when he dropped her off Sunday morning. (I was actually targeting my bile at her for thinking she could bring him into my crib, but he was holding the phone. It made him change his mind about brushing his teeth in my house, that’s for sure.)

Part 2: “I feel like I’m in a meth documentary.”

Remember how I was all worried about family members finding out about my little space on the innerbunny? Don’t gotta anymore, because they found me. Not sure how I feel about it; on one hand, I’m relieved, but on the other, I’m freaked out because I’m concerned that I’m going to start censoring myself, and that’s not the point of this exercise. Really, I’m hoping they’ll be like they know it’s here, but as long as I’m not talking about them (which the rule is, if someone tells me not to talk about him or her, they don’t get talked about), they’re not going to feel the need to be here. Or maybe they’ll grow to understand and maybe even enjoy my little rants against the universe. B-Dubs (aka my small brother) said he’s cool with it, and I can’t even tell you how moved I was by that. But either way, it is what it is.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming:

Not sure if y’all have noticed, but I’m now officially regionbroad.com, so if you could change your linkies accordingly, that would be very lovely of you.

That is all. G’night.

Part 1: “Ohmigod, he looks like Don Knotts!”

Do any of y’all know how the Serbs make their green beans? I covered Slerb Fest tonight over at St. Sava’s, and I don’t know what they put in them to make them so tasty, but damn! Or could it just be that it’s been that long since I’ve had real home-cooked grub, because I totally inhaled the whole meal.

Speaking of Slerbs, I guess I should tell you about the utter debacle that was Mer’s visit. On one hand, I’ve gone over and over and over it so many times in the last week that I really would just kind of like it to fade away, not to mention I don’t want to waste any more energy on fucking Zook, who’s officially proven he truly is the most worthless, useless waste of flesh on the face of the planet. But like most things in my life, you just can’t make this shit up.

Given the choice between discovering that someone you like and respect is really a complete jerk-off and discovering that someone you thought was a complete jerk-off is really someone you should respect, I’ve discovered in recent days that I’d much rather discover someone’s a jerk-off. Much, much easier to stomach. Is that weird?

I’m still gearing up for the “Zookathon” post to tell y’all about my disastrous week of utter hell, but I’m still rootin’ around in this EE business. First impression: kinda cool and totally digging that I have smileys now and shit. Much more user-friendly than MT, though I liked my MT, too.