PARTIES AND THINGS

Another great party last night. Not the same friends as the Castro party. Basically a lot of indie rockers.

In the first part of the evening, I was dragged aside by a friend who hasn't seen me in a while and who demanded that I tell her everything about my life for the last few months, since we haven't had a chance to dish before. She used to live in London, and she gave me a long talk about how crappy it was and how depressing all British people are, and how angry about not being the world's leading empire in spite of being so bloody smart, and that sort of thing. Explained in detail just how bad of an idea it was to move to London. She was very nice about it, of course, because it was a very obvious "stay here with us" conversation.

Actually, before that I had been cornered by the cat, who was very intent on making me feel welcome. Her name is "Felix," and I feel kind of guilty about knowing her name but not the name of one of the cats I'm 'sitting'.

Anyway, the three hosts dressed up as the main cast of Three's Company (Jack, Chrissy, Janet), and some others (boyfriends, etc.) came as other minor cast. tack came as a flasher, which was excellent. We commisserated about having no money, and it was kind of funny to have that kind of conversation with a really skinny guy wearing nothing but a trenchcoat.

Hmmm...what else. Wine flowed like, well, wine. Hard alcohol and beer flowed like hard alcohol and beer. The hostess dressed as Chrissy made some phenomenal food (tapenade, baked goat cheese, etc.). The music was loud, the talking was shouting.

Conan's band is going to be touring the UK next summer, and I know he will drop in for a visit if I'm over there at the time, which is kind of cool. Someone, possibly tack, told me that Th0rsten (that's really how he spells it) is in Camden, so I'm thinking we might have to do something. It would be nice to have some sense of continuity.

Kind of interesting talking to everyone. So many people are out of work, and we talked a lot about what we were all doing to get by. One friend (seems like they should remain anonymous at this point) said he'd thrown away all his scruples and applied for a job at Chevron. Another is working four smallish jobs in addition to running his record label. You know, it occurs to me that the worse times get, the more important these parties are.

And everyone is upset over politics, of course. There's an election in a couple of days, and it will be interesting to see if Willie Brown's cronies still manage to get into office with the current mood. I mean, there's a lot of awareness about so many of the financial problems people are facing being due to the ties between political and corporate corruption.

A lot of the ad campaigns focus on that sort of thing. The positive ad campaigns basically say things like "This guy ran a successful business for 20 years!" and the negative ones say things like, "He ran an S & L into the ground--what's he going to do for California?"

The Chronicle ran an article yesterday that mentioned that foreclosures have jumped 21%. I'm thinking, no kidding. There are so many jobless, more people getting laid off every day, and the television is full of Emperor's New Clothes reporting. People talking about how our economy is recovering, even as you hear about Xerox laying off thousands of employees. Lots of pundits going on and on about the stock market being in great shape, even though it's obvious that things are dismal.

I remember before I left experiencing this ominous feeling every time another friend told me s/he was laid off. It was like hearing about the Holocaust, and people talking about how another family had disappeared.

Anyway, enough of that. It was a great party. I eventually left and came home.

Less than an hour after I crawled into bed, I had one of those hallucination things, I think. It wasn't exactly a dream, but I couldn't have been fully awake, because I saw something that wasn't there. I looked up, and I saw a man standing next to the bed. It was too dark to see his face; he was mostly in outline. He had longish curly hair.

All I know is I screamed like I've never screamed in my life, and I kicked up at him, and then he was gone. It was a really weird scream--I think because I was half-asleep and didn't have any conscious control over it, so it wasn't checked in any way. It was just pure, animalian sound. Very weird. It was kind of reflexive, because I sort of blacked out while screaming and kicking upward, but then I kind of came back to consciousness and was fully awake. My heart didn't slow down for quite a while, although strangely enough, I wasn't really frightened once I stopped screaming.

Then there was a gunshot outside, and a bunch of sirens, so I wonder if maybe I heard something that my brain interpreted some other way.

At any rate, that was like nothing I've ever experienced. I've had half-waking hallucinations and that sort of thing, but this was weird and different.

Anyway, the cats are bugging me for attention, so I'd better go. Yes, these are the cats that nobody sees because they hide under the bed when anyone's around. They have now decided that I am the Bringer of Food, and they won't leave me alone.