Multi Cultural Asheville

Y'all are just going to have to put up with a bit of posting diarrhoea while I use up the excess creativity and happily return to my computer centric post vacation ways. I had this surreal night anyway, and I need to write about it while it's fresh in it's own bizarre reality.

I went downtown to meet my friend J who has been a bit blue lately & just to have a couple beers. My friend H appeared not long after, dragging his (we think he is a vampire) strange and freaky older dad and his dog (who is a perfectly lovely Chesapeake Bay Retriever and if you have a bitch he's looking for a mate. Aren't we all? but seriously, he is and has all those champion bloodlines and stuff. Email me.) That is a whole David Lynch film of a William Faulkner story in its own self, and not integral to the following narrative. But it is a bit too weird for words. H is sweet, and brought me books to read, and punk rock CDs to listen to. Which I haven't yet, but I will. I swear. Any day now. But not our old friend C's band, because we have all known C since high school and look, it's been like 20 years and his bands have, um, not improved. Not that the Colombian Neckties weren't integritive to the development of DC punk in the 90s. Yes. Yes they were. C is a dear friend. You couldn't pay me to listen to it.

Then A showed up all excited because her friend M was coming with a blind date for her. So J and I metaphorically tightened our metaphoric seatbelts for the coming turbulence and I drank more PBR.

Meanwhile, Asheville was a-hoppin' tonight. We couldn't figure out what the fuck was going on but the streets were insanely full of people, the usual drum circle in Pritchard Park but much more populated, I mean it was busier than the Lower East Side. A schizophrenic street kid named Matthew bummed a cigarette off me - I tried to just give him a cig but he said he was paranoid and took my wish cigarette instead. I said, "Make a wish then," and he said, gesturing to the sky, "The truth is up there! Nobody looks!" So I looked, and I guess that yeah, okay, the truth is in the leaves and smog, but whatever. The truth was not revealed in letters of flaming fire or a fortune cookie. Damn.

Then A's friend M and her Arab friend S showed up and they were both very nice, except for the way M disappeared now and again and came back even more wired. Also, you don't see many Jordanians here, with various real estate dealings in Jersey and Jordan. He bought us a bottle of champagne and waxed generally enthusiastic about the house he's just bought. So I nabbed A in the bathroom and told her stories of cokeheads and Arab moneymen who want to get married from my own past. And she gently, coolly, reminded me that she is 22 years old and perfectly competent and capable of taking care of herself, and is, moreover, nobody's fool. Which I know she's not, but when they went off to the disco I shook S' hand and said, "You take care of my daughter," and thought, jesus, when I was her age I had an entire life behind me and survived it quite well, so get over it Mom. However I mentally made notes of some various guys who owe me a favor, so, by the way, if you are planning on fucking with my daughter I would advise you not to. He's a nice guy anyway. So far. The guys are on call.

Then J drove us home, and I insisted that we stop at the Hot Spot for beer. At the Hot Spot most of the beer comes in 40s and I ended up in a long line where I was the only woman and the only white woman at that. People kept coming in and saying, "There's a grand opening party on Wall Street" and the people in line kept saying, "Where's Wall Street?" So I started giving directions. Unfortunately for all that I used to work on Wall Street my directions sucked royally, because I don't really know the names of any of the streets, and saying, "Well, you go up there, and you kind of hook a right at the jewelry store, because Wall Street is that funny cobblestoney kind of half assed street that's only a block long" didn't cut any ice really. Except everyone started laughing at me a bit. Actually the whole atmosphere loosened up and it was pretty cool - and also, the guy in line behind me was beyond gorgeous. That was, of course, probably why I started talking. Well that and the Arab possibly cokehead champagne. God I did used to love being dissolute.

So I bought my beer and went on home, discussing with J the fact that we, as white girls, don't drink 40s. We have never drunk 40s. Why not? We drank 40s one time, at the old Ebony Bar and Grill, one night after a gallery opening and we had a grand time where we all sat with the owner who is one of the single coolest ladies I have ever in my life met and also played this extremely dangerous game of truth or dare where we talked about the strangest date we ever had in our lives, round robin, which was extremely interesting but I'm sworn to secrecy, as are the rest of you who were there and you know who you are, please, but as a general rule girls like us do not,repeat not, ever buy or drink a 40. Which is, obviously, hideously racist, yes, but is also involved with the fact that while we might well and in fact do drink 40 ounces of beer on a semi regular basis, we don't want to drink it out of one bottle where, god forbid, a man might see it and think we are beer guzzling non ladylike type drunk chicks. It would also involve admitting to ourselves that we drink more than 40 ounces in an evening, and that is, obviously, a terrible calumny that shall never be uttered.

It has come to my notice that I never have anything resembling a workable conclusion to these blog essays, which would horrify Mrs. Paslowski, my 3rd grade teacher who taught me through fear and intimidation how to write an essay, no end. I do not want to horrify Mrs. Paslowski, because I believe her long dead self fully capable of coming back in the form of a bat or other unpleasant night being and shrieking hideously in my ear one night, right before she drags me off to the closet. Therefore I say, conclusion: Asheville is weird. Cokeheads are dangerous. Money comes from strange sources that should be fully questioned. Being a vampire is tough. I still won't drink 40s, and any punk band that has C as a guitarist and lead singer should just hang it up.