I can't think of a better way to kick off this beautiful chunk of Web space Jason bestowed upon me than with an update of this weekend's (8/21-8/23/98) activities. As per usual, things took a turn for the weird.

Friday night I got word that the Empire Club was closing doors and having a big "End of an Era" party to commemorate all these years of being Phoenix's answer to the Palladium (if only a partial credit answer). I went.

Um, all I can say is "Hurm." It's been WAY too long since I've done any clubbing. I think something like 8 or 9 months since I actually "clubbed" rather than "went to a club and had a couple of drinks." You know, when you don't go to a club for a while, there are things you forget - like how to dance. It took a good hour before I stopped being trapped in the body of a suburban white boy. Picture an epileptic Urkel in photo negative and you have a vague understanding of how well my feet and the beat were connecting the first hour or so on the floor. Yipes.

Then, I discovered another nasty thing that happens when you stay too far away from the scene for a while. I was able to channel the spirit of my friend Charles (even though he's not dead; merely in New York). Charles had this complete inability to talk to women in social settings. Guess what... That's right. I'm looking at this bevy of beauty all around me and I can't think of Jack to say to start a conversation. A little smiling and nodding was all I could come up with by way of greeting.

This is all rather like being trapped in someone else's body. Everything's in the same place, but it's just not working like it's supposed to. It took until well after midnight before I was able to open ANY conversations. I'm thinking it's one of two things: a) Charles actually was projecting, or, b) I'd been away from this kind of scene long enough to have temporarily lost my touch. I don't know how that could have happened, since it's never felt like a practiced thing (at least not since I was a fat 8th grader), but that's my story and I'm sticking to it. The fact that I was able to make progress leads me to believe the second choice. All it took was time, a couple brillo pads and some naval jelly to knock the rust off. Of course, that made for a some weird looks in the men's room, but what the hell, right?

Before the club closed, I was talking to a couple of guys at the bar and heard about an after hours club some people were going to. It was way the hell out on Indian School, deep in the Avenues, but what the hell. I was not ready to go home yet. I'd already given up any shot of hitting into a one night rodeo because even after I overcame most of the weirdness on my part, I was still afraid I might end up in some kind of Glenn Close situation if I did anything Friday night. I do not want my bunny boiled.

So I go to this club, and it is way seedy, especially after being at Empire all night. Still, the DJ is good; the scenery is nice; I'm able to socialize finally; my feet are moving like they're supposed to, and I have fun. I locked into a couple of phone numbers, just to make sure the edge was back. I promptly and deliberately lost them because of the aforementioned Glenn Close fear.

After I left the club I drove around downtown for a while to check out the 5:30 a.m. dregs of hookers and derelicts and miscellaneous rabble out at dawn on a downtown Saturday morning. That was interesting to say the least. I saw a middle aged hooker get into the front seat of a squad car. I'm still trying to figure that one out. I mean, cops are the masters of graft, and rousting anybody would have been better than getting a freebie from this stank. We're talking spam in spandex, here.

I got home around 6:30 or so and was too keyed up to sleep. I decided to watch cartoons and kids shows until the sandman showed up. He finally put in an appearance around 10, and I trundled off to dreamland. For about 2 hours. Kristine wasn't supposed to be back in town until around 7, and I didn't have to pick her up at the airport; so I thought I'd take down some major Zs, right? Wrong.

I woke up at noon. Wide awake. Body still in a coma, but brain firing on all cylinders. Lucky me. I futz around the house for a while. Watched a movie, Web surfed, ate - all the usual time killing crap. Kristine called and said she was, in fact, coming home, and we should do dinner out. I figure, great. I decided to take a nap for a couple hours just so the batteries were charged.

Wrong again. I sleep for all of 45 minutes and the same thing happens. Grr. Kristine gets home around 8; we go to dinner and have a couple drinks afterward. Then we head home around 11 or so. I get to sleep around 4:30-5 (never you mind why the time lag is there), and wake up at 11. I feel like I'm on some severe painkillers; it feels for all the world like I did a 3D (Demerol, Darvon and Drambuie). Everything is moving out of synch. I grab a shower and breakfast and a couple gallons of coffee to no avail.

At 3 I go climbing and have one of the best sessions in months. Go fig. After climbing, Jon and I went to dinner and for reasons I cannot begin to decipher, the waitress is in fairly obvious lust with me. I'm looking like french fried hell at the this point, but that's okay apparently. Just to make sure the vibes of Friday night were completely off me I refrained from getting her number even though she is a redhead and a waitress, two big plusses in my world. This, of course, doesn't mean I'm not going to try for her number should I ever run into her again. I mean, I'm not a moron. She might be a little larger and slightly older than I usually go for (she's my age, for chrissakes), but she was way cool and promised to be lots of fun.

Anyway, I'm so damn tired at this point that I just want to hose myself off and crawl into bed. However, Kristine is out shopping for general stuff and my birthday presents; so I feel obliged to wait up for her. She gets home around 10ish. How the girl can find places to shop that late on a Sunday night is beyond me, but it is a great gift on her part.

So we look over the non-present stuff she bought, chit chat for a while and I finally crash around 11:30. It takes me nearly an hour to fall asleep. Kristine's alarm goes off at 4:30. I get up and snooze it. My alarm is set for 6. At 6 she starts trying to wake me up. I'm feeling like I've been under interrogation with full sleep deprivation and am considering filing a complaint under the Geneva conventions. Still, she's persistent and I finally roll out, get ready and come into the office.

In closing, I feel like I've been worked over with a rubber hose, made to run Navy SEAL quality obstacle courses, drugged and worked over by some guy named Luigi. But I'm at work now, and that's all that counts, right? Dear god, don't let there be a staff meeting today.

M_