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*Friday*

My old college friend Emily had called thursday afternoon as I was hiking. It was late, too late for me to drive out and bowl with her. She suggested we do coffee the next day (i.e. friday). I couldn't have been more pleased. I know how to do coffee and make conversation real well.

One small complication, though. I still needed to go by Mt. University and wean a liter of rats. The plan was to get 5 hours of sleep, get to Mt. University by 10am, wean and clean, then jet to Emily's by 12-12:30pm for my just reward.

LA traffic had other ideas. I barely made it on time to Emily's by driving straight there. Ironically, Emily was visiting very close to where I'd lived in Woodland Hills (over at Gran's place). She looked exactly the same: really thick coarse hair, demure demeanor and a tolerant attitude. She was surprised that I looked "so adult" now since I'd cut my hair short and lost the beard.

We stopped by a Starbucks; LA doesn't have much else besides Starbucks. Emily was stumped about what she wanted. The barista coaxed her along by asking if she wanted caffeine/no caffeine, something sweet, etc. Her lack of functionality made me feel better. Hell, hearing that my old friend Omega Kate had nearly failed out of grad. school made me feel better. I wanted the best for my friends, don't get me wrong, but if you feel like you're not doing everything you wanted to accomplish, it's good to know your peers are having it just as rough.

I took Emily up to the top of Topanga Canyon. The clouds overhead were thin and grey, weaving patches of sunlight along the valley floor. A lizard chilled on a wood post in front of us, which lead to us talking about animal and human behavior. We yaked about gender stereotypes, views of sexual orientation and if differences in it are biological and/or social, things like that.

Mostly, though, we talked about the group we'd been a part of in college and how most of the people still there had changed for the worse (since Emily had just graduated; I graduated a year ago). One girl I'd dated, Monica, had finally slipped off into the deep end. She was unstable but very nice to begin with, just about as driven as I was if not more. Suddenly this year she convinced herself that she'd run for the Presidency and that anyone who wasn't a die-hard American patriot was a traitor; she couldn't even listen to contrary opinions without bursting into tears and leaving. This was a liberal white jewish girl from Long Island in NYC; she'd hated Bush. I guess all the stress she'd put on herself finally made her crack.

Gossip aside, though, I learned something really important about Erin, the last girl I had any sort of substantial 'relationship' with. Erin is a self-professed (and proud) slut of the first caliber. I hold no animosity toward her, but Emily proceeded to tell me how she'd seduced nearly every guy in the group into having sex with her. I was one of those guys. At the time, it seemed like she wanted to ditch her boyfriend (whom she only saw once a month) and get with me. I figured I could make her happy, so why not? I've told this story plenty of times before. I guess you don't know you love someone until you can't reasonably think when it comes to that person. So I finally found out that Erin had beeing "torturing" me and really enjoyed it. Something she once told me made me wonder if her feelings at some point had been genuine. I guess what Emily said finally drove it home for me: she'd just used me and threw me away. I keep re-reading that sentence as if to convince myself. I don't understand why she did it, but then all of us knew Erin was an unstable alcoholic and a (I swear self-proclaimed on her part) manipulative bitch.

I dropped Emily off around 3:30pm, weaned rats at Mt. University and got back to my place at 8:00pm.

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*Saturday*

I really wanted to start studying for the 'doom' test I mentioned earlier. Trouble was, I couldn't find half the books I'd bought a year or two ago. Since all of my stuff from Gran's hadn't been moved, I figured the bastards must have still been over there. Long story short, I went out there, sifted around lots of old papers and boxes of stuff, packed away most of it in the truck and finally�finally�found the books in some plastic bag on a low shelf on my old bookcase in my old room. Gran seemed�weird in a happy/off way.

By the time I got back to my place at Scott's, it was close to 11pm. Noone was there.

I have a key to the house but no idea where it is these days. I waited around for awhile then finally decided this was a sign.

It could have been a sign for two things:

1) I'd gone to Rocky Horror Picture Show down in Long Beach last week but Mage wasn't around to auction me off to his prospective female buyers. I'd toyed with the idea of going again that night, but the more I thought about it the less the idea appealed to me; he hadn't written me back, after all.

2) I was being given an excuse to go out and finally photograph a few piers down by the LA harbor.

I decided #2 was more in line with what I wanted. After recharging my camera's battery using the external plug-in on the mammoth sized RV in the driveway, I went off and tried to find some good industrial pier locations. I saw some great locations, but unfortunately I got turned around and almost lost. I finally figured out that I'd gone through and around the industrial pier section that's right before Long Beach. Somehow I'd skirted up clear to downtown Long Beach. I passed by the Art Theatre where Rocky Horror was probably just starting (after the usual hour of introductions, mutual masturbation, etc.). I figured Mage would be busy, though, so I just drove home and went to bed.

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I'll get to Sunday through today (Tuesday) later. The tests of Doom, they call.

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