It began with a whim.

High off of another countless energy drink, shadows and wind passing by my windows, I was suddenly curious about an idea that blipped across my monitor.

Apparently, Cell and Horn were heading over to a pre-4th of July party. There would be a monstrous keg and food--home-cookin' and free booze. This appealed to me. I'd been snorting social isolation for awhile, and the Rock Man's pitch was gettin' old.

So I said I'd go. Vaguely shortly thereafter, Em, another 4-5 year long friend from this diary madhouse, wanted to come along too. We'd never met Horn or Cell, and Indie Day plans were otherwise flat. We planned, we talked, we figured. She'd drive out to my place, then I'd drive us out to Cell's father's.

This past saturday, the 2nd, was bright, cheery, and the weather wasn't an oppressive bitch. Em was these things too, as she always is. It'd been some months since she visited last, so I happy to see her again. A short hug later, I threw my crap into her car, turned off the emergency blinkers that kept the Parking Nazis at bay, and accelerated our asses toward florid rural Wisconsonia.

And damn but there's lotsa rural. Hills and banks of trees lazily swung on the great round dirt hammock. The congested streets and ass-mind drivers of the city gave way to two-lane country roads, small towns with strange sights. At one point I saw Gumbi with a ghetto-cocked baseball hat, smiling at me with a stein of beer in its hand. On a bar sign, mind you, but still. There was a tiny Ma's Diner along every community stop sign, the only one for 20-30 miles often times. I appreciate the country. It's vast, hasn't been pissed on so much, and the forests are billowing bluffs of green and concentrated like dry milk. I'd never thought about the damn fine time some elementals and various forest things must have--damn strange considering 9 FM channels of country music are dangling in the air.

Only stitch of trouble in the whole 'getting there' business was finding the right road to get from Small Ass Town to Scattered Hamlet. See, Yahell maps and MazeQuest don't do none justice to them country areas and all. So we had oral directions from Cell for the last leg. Somewhere 15 miles outside of Small Ass Town, I reckon, I looked over to Em and said, "There's no way in hell this is a 'few miles' out of town. I must have missed the road we wanted." Whistling past giant metal sprinklers the size of football fields and palatial farms distract city boys. It's a fact. So we turned around went back the way we came, and stopped at a Mobil. Em thought asking for directions was a good idea.

The male in me thought we could just find our way there eventually. But, reasonable dude I am, I swallowed my distate of initiating dialogue with complete strangers and went in. The clerk was a country gal by all reckonings. Some nameless twangy tune echoed without any bass from the speaker system. When I told her about my dilemma, she said she didn't know. Then proceeded to ask her kids on the other line if they knew. They did, and she directed us across a bridge down by Such and So's farm. She smiled very warmly, I thanked her, and she said if we had troubles to come on back. I admit, country people have us most of us city fucks beat for manners and being civil human-beings.

And finally, after having no cellphone access due to lack of carrier or massive roaming charges, after a little 15 mile detour, we arrived. I was kinda disappointed looking around the front yard, since I'd been told a giant up-ended bathtub dedicated to some saint was there (as a part of the selling agreement). But I found the bathtub in the back, along with Cell, Horn, the shuttlecock, and Mike. I'd vaguely known Cell and Horn for years, so things weren't especially shocked. Cell was just as fiery, witty, and sarcastic in 3D as 2D. Horn was tired and drunk, but occsasionally joined in what I call the "nothing is sacred" chatter. If you've been to a coastal city with drunk friends, you know what I mean. Or not, possibly. To round out the crew, Mike reminds me ALMOST EXACTLY (it's in caps, so it's really almost exactly) of Matt back at Oberlin. Same attitude, same care-free style, same facial structure. He was awesome. The Shuttlecock was of the same cut cloth as us; he just had a title.

And after initial drinks and convo. was had, I was introduced to badmington--or what everyone was calling beer-mington. The game was simple: if you knocked the shuttlecock over the net, cool. If you knocked the cock under the net and in bounds, cool. If you knocked the cock under the net on a serve, someone shouted "Ace!" and bragged about kicking ass. Out of bounds, well, it depended on just how out of bounds you were that dictated if you got pity points. And finally--and rather often--if the cock hit the net, you drank beer.

The womenfolk sat on the sidelines. I thought about gracefully asking them to be beer wenches, but decided against the inevitable stabbing. At first I was terrible at the game. Serving was even worse. After a few hours and everyone else quitting--to drink beer on the sidelines, of course--it was down to Horn and I. Cell joked, and rightly, that it was funny as hell to see the two most non-sports people she knew getting sweaty and really into swatting a shuttlecock.

There was also much, much, much food to be had. I had meat, meat, and a side of meat with my meat. Oh, and a coke. You really can feed entire villages with the array of food on holiday tables. After that--large roaring campfire and fireworks. Cell's older brother--who reminds me so much of William H. Macy that it's cool but strange--started lighting up rockets, tube fed thingies, bottle caps, and damn near anything he could get his hands on. Mike joined in the fun, and burnt his fingers. Cell also joined in the fun, and burnt her fingers. You can apparently get pretty impressive fireworks for cheap. We all got a decent show and it was only ~200.

Post-fireworks was, if I remember right, consisted of people playing beer-pong. To play beer-pong, you arrange six cups in a pyramid on both sides of a table--one on the top, two in the middle, you get it. You ideally bounce a ping-pong ball so it only hits the table once and goes into a beer cup. The other person on that team has to then drink that beer. Now, this ball bounced off the concrete floor in the basement many a time. I just watched this and couldn't help thinking, "y'know it's just like licking the floor with your tongue." True, the beer probably kills most of the bacteria, but fuck.

And after that there was alot of hanging out, about, and talking. One of the highlights was Cell drunkedly--but poignantly--talking about the many interesting wonders of the city she's from. I like museums and artsy NPR-style things, so I may force myself sometime to take up her offer to visit her and Horn. People broke into their own groups by then. I, of course, was solitary; no complete stranger Midsummer Night's Dream whatnot for me. What I did enjoy was occasionally going back to the fire, meditating about the sight. Funny enough, one time, the mostly dead thing just suddenly came back to life as I passed around it. Coincidence, but cool.

And then there was sleep on my lovely air mattress.

The day after involved eating meat with a side of meat and meat on the side, watching people play darts, and doing more of the photography thing by my solitary self. Eventually, we bid farewell to our online friends/acquaintances. We didn't get lost back in Small Ass Town, but I did get extremely drowsy at a few points on the way home. It was a quiet ride, Em beside me either sleeping or stomaching a bad hangover, and I--well, I'm usually quiet when people are sleeping or hungover. There was some confusion and scrambling back when we got into my city, since I didn't know she was on a time limit in terms of gettin' home. I ended up riding point with my car while she took up the rear. I found out how MazeQuest had fucked up her previous visits here. Apparently you're expected to turn the wrong way down a one-way street. I went around to the right, then through the one-way and on toward the lake drive. Last I saw Em, she was heading back home with the sun. Always thought she was a bright one.

And that, for the most part, is the fluffy cloud portion of our tour.

Next up: dragon-head siege engines, the minions of Hell itself, and recovering from the completely unexpected.

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