The mug of ass for me had been my usual schtick over at Mt. University. All week it was fucking with applications for experiment approval, listening to endless messages on the lab machine like "Hi, this is [ivory tower animal research bureaucrat] calling regarding protocol etc. etc. It seems as if the committee still has a few (read: 14) questions on the 3rd revision of your application blah blah blah". Of course there was also the lab meeting where I'd ended up meeting myself. Slow week.

Fortunately, the lab section of friday went by casual-like. I parked the beast closer than usual, throwing a sign of benediction to street sweepers for making parking before 11am impossible; anything to make parking in Westwood less of a colluded fucking nightmare.

So time passed, people walked, body parts swayed to varying degrees and I climbed down into the underground facility, a Spartan love nugget o' dungeon worthy of any hospital. I had an animal surgery at 12:00pm. The clock mentioned it was 11:45. Great. I was as thrilled about doing this as a hooker putting coupons out in the local skin mag.

Attila and Chernobel (two of the undergrads) were weighing out the remaining rats in the holding room. We bantered, I searched for knock-out juice to do the surgery, found out we had no knock-out juice (since Grettle had forgotten to pick some up before she moved away), solicited all the labs on our floor for knock-out juice, and happily came back empty-handed. I ended up demonstrating syringe and injection techniques, which seemed to suit the undergrads just fine. Attila seems to have the injection shit down, but I worry about Chernobel. She means well, she's a nice girl, but she has trouble taking charge.

On top of an easy day, I even found out one of the protocols got approved. So as soon as we make a level 1 biohazard room on-campus, we can import a dangerous virus, inject and depress us some rats and get the research on a different (hopefully more productive) track.

----

So I arrived home like usual, shirt clinging to my sweat-soaked back from no A/C and not enough breeze on the 405. My LAN phone rang. I expected it'd be the usual telemarketer or some corporate dude who leaves confidential messages on my machine for "Bill".

It was Dorknoodle. We'd met in d-land chat. I'd seen him once before when he came out here in late May. One of my favorite people.

He was in town. There was a David Lynch movie that he and his friends wanted to see. I'd seen some of Lynch's shit care of Dork's membership to a movie site. I was stoked. I occasionally kept mentioning that my friday was free and that it sounded cool. Pretty soon it was set. Now there was just a few highways between me and there.

Traffic had decided to complicate things, oddly enough only when I got past the erect spires near the crotch of Los Angeles. The show was supposed to begin at 6:00pm. I thought that was an odd time for artsy movie shit, but all the same I tried making it. 6:15 waved goodbye from the car's dashboard. Dork hadn't returned my call so I was worried I'd kept them up. I ran, then walked and smacked myself mentally. Whatever would happen would happen.

Tony's place was just like I remembered it: sheik, spacious, brimming with spongebob squarepants and cartoon figure memorabilia along various shelves, the TV, the kitchen, a soul train of plastic wrapped in plastic that quietly chortled in the background with the comfy couches and the special swirly interactive water vase.

Dork was on the porch, cig in mouth, his familiar chuckle at some unknown comment percolating. His boyfriend sat beside him, a lanky blonde guy who reminded me of those blokes backstage at rock concerts, the ones who'd known the band from before they were born. Let's call him Weav; I liked Weav immediately. I'd also never met 'Dervidovich' before, brought to mind Joel Fleischman from "Northern Exposure" but with a pleasant personality. 'Lis' rounded out the bunch, intimating interesting comments in an eloquent voice, looking much like Trinity from 'The Matrix' but with decidely more bohemian thrown in. Eventually 'T' came out, a jovial animator with a good sense of humor and a ready smile. I was the baby of the group, but by and large I didn't feel naive or lacking in life experience.

First time I'd been with a group of people I vibed well with since college. I had a feeling this'd kick ass...

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