I guess I took a little journal vacation, huh. It wasn't even because nothing was happening but because what was happening was so much more interesting than writing it down. I didn't even mean to take a 27-day break (thanks for keeping track for me, Diaryland) it just snowballed. I didn't even think about quitting in a huff and crawling back later. (I love it when people do that on the internet and then you can have fun placing bets on how long it will be this time before they crawl back.) I've always wanted to do that but never had the opportunity. Damn. I need more drama in my life or something. I need hate mail.

Anyway, I'm back in the saddle and I hope you, my pony, still want to ride. Let's ride! Come on, you lazy bastard pony! RIDE.

**********

Adventures with Crazy at the last craft show.

It was unreal. Like, I wish I'd had a camera so I could document the crazy. The crazy? It loves me. It sees Kate and I, two attractive and youngish females all alone and it thinks:

"There is my destiny. What shall I say? I have no social skills but certainly there is some way I can woo the young women into loving my brand of crazy."

I should point out that the craft fair was actually a Craft Faire and that added E says a world about the kind of event it was. We were stuck between the lady selling Hostas (why does everyone love these? Boring.) and this super, super, super annoying guy hawking sand art and hemp jewelry. He kept trying to chat us up and I think got the hint the eighth time we gave him a blank look. Take a clue, honey.

Other items for sale at the Faire: frilly toilet seat covers, Red Hat Society gee-gaws, painted saw blades (I don't know either), jewelry in the shape of confederate flags (I couldn't kid about shit like that) and these GOD-AWFUL fucking pop-guns. The pop-guns were wooden and formed in the shape of various semi-automatic weapons (nice). They popped. They were loud. Every kid had one, I swear to fucking God, I was ready to start confiscating the damn things.

Anyway, highlights:

This one super-loser Miltonesque guy told a long rambling story about his girlfriend who had a pin that spelled out "Allah" in diamonds and rubies. It had been a gift from a Middle Eastern boyfriend of hers who was hoping she'd become his third wife (but his only wife in America - so really it's a compliment or something). She wore the pin one night in NY and the Arabian driving her cab apparently saw it and got upset. The guy then decided it would make a great murder mystery (Dude. What?) and (drum roll...) tried to sell his grand idea along with the pin itself to Patricia Cornwell for $5,000. You can not make up crazy as good as this.

There was a guy selling birdhouses two booths down that we named Central Casting Cowboy. He had it all - beanpole figure, worn jeans, cowboy boots, ten gallon hat, AND he had that shy head-down Lyle Lovett thing going. I adored him. He was not crazy.

This girl came up and talked to us in a vague way, asking lots of odd personal questions but never said a word about the jewelry. Then she asked if we wanted to make some extra money and tried to sell us into her pyramid scheme.

The best crazy ever:

An elderly hillbilly couple. The husband was tall and rail thin with a bushy beard. He was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and cut off shorts. His wife was short and round, had a housecoat on and was clutching a dirty white purse. They looked like they'd just rolled down from the mountain and they made a beeline for us. Then! The husband started telling stories and it was like a Lee Smith book. He was amazing, people.

His first story was about this box his mother used to have back in the 1930's- it was a laquered dildo box (he said this and Kate and I looked at each other like "Did he just say dildo?") from Japan and she kept her hairpins in it. He continued on with the story and said that his mother didn't know what it was for and he wasn't going to be the one to fill her in because he wanted to live. I was shaking from trying not to laugh out loud. Shaking. He was priceless. His wife just stood by him with a look on her face like, great, he's telling the dildo box story again. He told another story about how he'd made this wooden bracelet for his wife before he married her in 1945. It was made of apple wood from the tree in her yard but it looked like it was made of horn so he told her this enormous lie about what it was made of just to see if she'd fall for it and she did!

Ha! What?

His final story involved a topaz ring that belonged to his mother until she died. He inherited it and gave it to his wife. There was a busybody woman at their church who liked to tell people what different colors signified and when she saw the ring she pointed and said:

"Topaz is yellow and yellow stands for DEATH."

He looked right at her and said:

"This ring belonged to my mother and you're RIGHT. SHE IS DEAD."

She never said a word to them after that.

He then told us that our jewelry was beautiful and if his wife had worn it back in the forties she'd have been labeled a harlot. Uh, thanks? ...I think? He then said he was glad times had changed. Me too, Mr. Hillbilly. Me too.

I mean, damn, right? Final story of the crazy:

I went to Fredericksburg last Sunday with my mother, aunt and uncle and we did a riverboat lunch tour. The riverboat was a family affair - the father was the captain, the son was the live entertainment and the mother yelled about napkins.

When I got on the boat the captain took my ticket and said:

"I SEE WE HAVE SEX AND THE CITY ON THE BOAT TODAY."

Oh, brother. I think I stood out, what with my lack of short-shorts and fanny pack. The actual river tour was really nice but when we got called down for the buffet lunch, the wife stood right behind us and yelled:

"DON'T FORGET YOUR NAPKINS - THEY'RE ON TOP OF THE BUFFET!"

She yelled this over and over and over again while we filled our plates, like it was a crucial life-and-death message and BY GOD, she was going to get her message out! I think she'd personally have offed herself if a napkin had been forgotten. I should have forgotten my napkins on purpose and then once upstairs, threatened to throw myself overboard due to the lack of napkins. ALAS, THE NAPKINS ARE NOT HERE. WHAT SHALL I DO? I SHALL CAST MYSELF OVERBOARD AS I CANNOT LIVE IN A WORLD WITHOUT AMPLE PAPER PRODUCTS.

After lunch the son played guitar and sang clich� cover songs by Jimmy Buffet, Neil Young and Dave Matthews. Fan...tastic.

I became fascinated by another passenger - a woman with the clothing choices of a 17-year-old and the face of a hard living 50-year-old. She was wearing short-shorts and a cropped top and her belly was a-hanging out, people. She was drunk, naturally, and was missing most of her front teeth. When we got off the boat I walked past her table and she grabbed my arm and slurred "Didanyone effer tell ya yoou look jusht liak that girl from Shex ina City?"

The crazy, it loves me.

6 chatty monkeys