08 December 2002 - 11:57 p.m.

It's just that you say so many things I don't hear."

And that wasn't even from the poetry part of the poetry reading.

Ok, call me a convert. I love Roanoke. I love that it looks like Bedford Falls, even if it parties like Shady Pines*. I love that there are art galleries that include fabric paintings that fuel my obsessive-compulsive side. I love the way Virginians plow snow into parked cars and make bad weather ten times worse.

But most of all, I love my fellow assholes. I love the way Jay See wants to call my fiance Gustronaut and my apartment "Mission Control," has no qualms about inturrupting a perfectly intelligent conversation with an "Extraordinary Chickens" 2003 calendar, crying, "DISCUSS!" I love the way Jay Bee's stomach rumbled throughout the reading. I love that Kay Bee is flirting with the post-modern, working hard to publicize a movie that she will never make. I love that Are goes through all the trouble of re-stapling things for me after I've done a crappy job of it, and scares babies, and obsesses over the most bizarre assortment of celebrities that I can think of to the point that I am starting to remember who was born when, who starred in what, who was tall and who was short. I even love that Kay Vee got sheepish when he said he wanted to get crab cakes when we all go to Baltimore.

All this is the only way I can account for my sudden harping on the Gustronaut to spend more time down here. I really feel like Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck, when he really wants Cher to go to the opera, because he loves Cher and heloves the opera, and he wants the two things he loves together.

It is really rare for me to feel like Nicholas Cage, but I think I'll just go with it.

*mad props to the first person to get this admittedly not very obscure reference.

What I'm wearing:

What I'm reading:

What I'm doing after this: