Did I ever tell you I have a cat? Hmmm.. no. She is five years younger than me.. a fifth birthday present. She is a fine product of the SPCA, and therefore a mixture of many unknown breeds. She is mainly light grey, but also brown and black and dark grey and white and a little stripey in parts, and mottled in other parts. She is very fuzzy, Persian-like. She has the most gorgeous meow, so small and rolling and feminine. She never used to meow that much when she was young, but now that she's older she does it all the time. I talk to her and call her name just so that she will meow at me. She is very small and has green eyes, and long white tufts stick out of her ears that look like feathers. Hence the name I gave her: Feathers.

Oh, the Violent Femmes concert was just excellent, superb, wonderful. I did end up going by myself, of which I am very glad. It's fun doing things on your own sometimes. I talked to the girls behind me in the lineup, who were from Abbotsford, and we ended up sitting near each other. They had started talking to me because one of them noticed I was reading a Kurt Vonnegut book. Wooo. I got a good seat, front row balcony. The Vogue Theatre's floor seats are bad. The stage, if you're standing right in front of it, comes up to your chest. You can't see anything from there. The Violent Femmes concert I saw a year and a half ago with Patrick and his mom was in the same venue, and it was just terrible. But I'd heard such good things about them live that I had to go again. And it was worth it. They talked to the audience a lot, and they only played three boring songs. They played for over two hours, with such energy. And they are definitely better live than recorded. It's the energy, the raw sound that just goes with the music they play so well. Especially the songs that involve random noise and solos. Ahhh. Bliss.

I was supposed to work on Saturday evening but the weather was shite so I went to Patrick's until late that night. We did nothing, sheer nothingness allllllll day. Later our junkie friend Alvin came over because Alvin, Patrick, Ryan, and Erin Jagger we going to a three-day free rave (Apex) in Abbotsford. I would have been there too if Ryan didn't always wait till the last minute to decide on things. I have to know two weeks in advance if I want to book time off. And there they were, three days before, and typical Ryan and Patrick fashion, asking me if want to go. Arrrrrrg. Neverending frustration. Maybe, maybe one day somebody will get their shit together. Until then, "Patience, young Patawan," says Obi-Wan in deep reverb from somewhere far away.
Oh Ewan, come and teach me to be a Jedi. We can rule the galaxy together.

We'll be back to Star Wars in a minute, o my brothers and sisters and only friends. Anyway, Alvin brought over a bottle of ammonium nitrate or some such name, commonly known as poppers and sold in sex shops as leather cleaner. No side effects or killed brain cells. Just a ten-second head rush if you huff it. We did that for a while and got bored of it rather quickly. Alvin went on and on about different crack-kid ideas he'd come up with. "You know what would be cool? A monkey playing drums."
"Humans should be equipped with an organ whose function is to smoke. Like, you could stick food in there and it would smoke it, or whatever."
"I want a maze that leads up to my house, with man-eating lions in all the dead ends. And, like, it would be all dead ends. And I would get in through an underground tunnel."
"They should invent a shark with legs to keep as a pet."
"You know what I want? A monkey that throws ninja stars."
"You know, there's evidence that shows that nobody really ever landed on the moon. I mean, how could you really know? You can't."
I mean, it was entertaining, but this isn't the old Alvin I once knew. Stupid raver drugs.

I worked on Sunday with Marly and we talked and talked and talked. And ordered pizza. It was jolly good fun. Rosa's store is fun to work at, most of the time.

Sunday night was off to Larissa's to watch Harold and Maude. I really enjoyed it. Harold was just so damn cool and mod-ish. And he drove a hearse and went to funerals for fun. And he gets it on with a seventy-nine year old crazy lady. And Cat Stevens does all the music for it. Yes, thoroughly enjoyable, it was. For more substantial reasons than those, of course. I just felt like describing it that way.

Monday I spent with recovering jib kids Ryan and Patrick. It was another nothing-filled day. I don't mind those days that much, as long as it's not all the time. I feel really awful if I don't accomplish anything in a day, though. Life is short; I don't want to waste it.

Tuesday many things were accomplished. At about 4 in the afternoon Patrick and his mom picked me up. We stopped off at Coquitlam Public Library, and I was shocked and amaze to find out that they didn't have Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I mean, that's a classic. They had it on tape, and they had a book of essays about the damn book, but they didn't have it. Somebody must have lost it or something. Sigh, and that was one of this summer's goals.

So then off to George and Sandy's, Patrick's grandparents on his mom's side who live about a fifteen minute walk away from me. That was nice. They're such nice people. I never know what to talk to them about, but I like sitting and listening to what they have to say. We stayed for about an hour and watched baseball, ate stale triscuits with melted cheese on them, and talked about this and that.

Then off to Value Village. I tried on lots of stuff but nothing fit. Patrick showed me a jacket he had tried on that was too small for him. I ended up trying it on and loving it, and it was added to my collection of ten other jackets. It's a brown winter coat, mid-length, double breasted. Very modish. I already have a winter coat that I love, but I couldn't resist. I am a jacket addict. I think this calls for a list:
long green velvet coat
silver kimono
Cowichan indian sweater
brown cotton track jacket from the 70's
brown leather jacket, those ones that all alternakids own. You know the ones. Can't think what they're called.
green reversible raincoat
black trenchcoat
brown mod coat
red chinese-style silk jacket
green vintage ski parka, the kind ravers wear
Anyway, that's all I can think of right now. You get the point.

And the best thing about the Value Village trip was this: just as we were leaving, Patrick was looking in the display case and said, "Marlo, you better come look at this." And lo and behold, there was the first Star Wars comic, circa 1978, sitting in the display case. Half of the front cover had been ripped off, but it was unmistakeable. I had seen it on TV more than once. And the price tag said $4.99. You bet I bought it and read it as soon as I got to Patrick's house. I still can't believe it. It's so exciting. I don't even care how much money it's worth. Whatever it is, it's worth a lot more to me.

Afterwards we went to Dairy Queen and ate Blizzards. (The tropical Blizzard is my favourite: Pecans, coconuts, and bananas.) And then we went swimming at the local pool late that night. It was nice, there was hardly anybody there. Patrick's mom lent me the Phantom Menace book, which I have been reading ever since I got off work this afternoon. I fucking love Star Wars so much.

This is deteriorating. I'm getting bored of writing.

Ciao.