“I couldn't live a week without a private library
- indeed, I'd part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor
before I'd let go of the 1500 or so books I possess.” ― H.P. Lovecraft

Friday, October 21, 2005

I just realized that I left out the best part of the psychological profiling story.

See, with the papers I had recived in the mail from the government of these United States I stumbled out into the daylight at the obscene hour of about noon. When you're an insomniac that can't sleep before 5 AM noon is a big deal. Noon to me is like three hours before you usually get up for work.

So it's lunchtime, and I'm knocking on the door of the church on Liberty street as per the instructions on my letter. I'm knocking because the door is locked. Had my brain not been addled by the earliness of the hour this might have struck me as odd. As things were, I continued knocking till an overly-happy person in a dress shirt with 'Liberty Street Church Of God' embroidered over the pocket opened the door.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but churches make me nervous. They make me tense and itchy and I sometimes even break out in a cold sweat for no reason. Add to this an overly-happy guy and you have a recipe for hilarity.

So happy-boy lets me in the door and there in the entryway are three other happy people engaged in some church activity or another. I must have stood a foot and a half taller than the tallest of them. In fact, I daresay I could have killed all of them with little effort and completely consumed at least one of them if properly motivated.

Making me wake up before noon is proper motivation in my world.

So there I stood. Black pants, black shirt, black shades, bloodshot eyes, a copy of Hunter S. Thompson's "Hells Angels" in hand (which I have since finished reading and it kicked ass) and let's not forget the all important papers from the government. Oh yeah, I was also wearing the pendant Mike D. got me for my birthday. This is relevant because it's a cross made of tiny silver skulls.

So this group of tiny happy-happy religious people ask me, the black clad infidel, what they could do for me and without missing a beat I say "Yes, I'm here for the psychological screening." and I present my paperwork from the government that informed the reader that they thought it was a good idea that I get psychologically screened.

To say that the mood in the room took an abrupt turn would be one of the biggest understatements I ever uttered.

It seems that there is more than one church on Liberty street.

I should have known that, but I had to wake up before noon and I can't think straight till after 2 in the afternoon at the earliest. I'm good to drive, but complex thought is a bit beyond me at that hour. Hell, before 10 AM I couldn't toast a Pop Tart without supervision.

But I digress.

So I find myself confronted by five faces that have been taken over by sheer terror. I take the papers from the guy and he jerks his hand back like he'd just dropped a live mouse in a snake cage. The vibe had definitely turned ugly. As the door was drawing to a close behind me I heard the woman behind me dial three numbers on the phone, so unless she was calling information I was fairly certain that the authorities were on the way.

Bear in mind, I did nothing more threatening than show up and be huge. Alright, I guess I did kinda also provide evidence that I might be mentally unballanced, but I thought "How many churches could there be on Liberty Street?".

Well aparently one more than I goddamn thought.

I should have known though. You can't throw a rock in this town without hitting a fucking church. I know, I've tried.

Many times.

Fucking Parkersburg.

Fortunately they couldn't see my car, because it is NOT hard to describe or recognize, and started down Liberty street. Fortunately, I picked the right direction and the very next church was the right one. If I had gone the other direction it would have taken hours and I undoubtedly have spread mass panic. And I would have been too tired to properly enjoy it.

So what else has happened? Oh yeah, I still haven't seen or heard from Patience. This is due to the universe's sick sense of humor. It's all like "Get it? Her name is Patience and you're waiting for her and she's not showing up. Get the irony?" And I'm all like "Fuck you universe! That's not irony, that's coincidence!" And from there the argument would get really ugly.

Anyways, I've long maintained that anyone that has paperwork that says they're sane only succeeds in proving that they made someone with the power to send them to a psychologist doubt thier sanity.

Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you about some other odd bits of things I've been meaning to write about that I never really got to fit in anywhere.