Well, I've reached a place of quiet contemplation. Time to remember the last few days.

When did I write last, anyway? Tuesday? Y'all must be feeling so deprived!

It's not like you missed anything, anyway. Nothing of interest happened during the work-week. Sonya and I did bathe the dog Thursday night, and there was so much hair in the water it was a little disturbing. She's just a little dog, you know, but there was a sheepdog-sized amount of hair floating around. It was kind of gross, but now she's not shedding nearly so much and she's quit scratching all the time, too. Interesting? No. But very necessary.

Before I forget - I'm sure some of you out there have heard the TLC song, No Scrubs, right? At first I thought it was about a dislike of small bushes, but that's beside the point. Here's what I'm getting at: in the song, there's a line that goes "if you have a shorty but you don't show love..." Maybe I'm showing my age here, or just a lack in up-to-the-second pop culture knowledge, but I have no idea what that means. What's a shorty? How do you show love? If you know, please write in to us here at wonderland 2 at saints@midsouth.rr.com and enlighten me. I'd appreciate it.

Friday night after work Sonya and I went to Best Buy and got a new stereo - with a turntable! We've had several record players through the years, but they were all cheap, old or both. This one is a brand-new beauty from Aiwa that should hold out for a while. Sonya got me some 12" Tori Amos dance mixes and she got some new Duran Duran on vinyl, too. So we really needed the turntable to enjoy all this stuff. It's been a scratchy wax festival around this house this weekend, let me tell you.

We were considering getting a rack system and starting to buy components, but Sonya found the only system they had for sale that came with a turntable and started yelling at me.

"Harold Harold Harold!" she said.

I looked at it, then flagged down one of the salespeople.

"I want to buy this stereo," I said, "and I want to use one of your credit cards. I don't have any money."

"Right this way, sir," he said. Bam! Three-thousand dollars credit, on the spot. I should have cleaned out the store and ran for the hills.

Got the new Harry Connick Jr. CD while we were there, too. Harry is my role model. He's coming to town, too. Sonya done got us tickets. Third row! It's going to be me, her and every damn yuppie from out east who can find their way Downtown. It all right, though. Harry's worth it.

Funny Story: So we buy this stereo, wrestle it into the back of the truck, and then go to IHOP to have a late-evening breakfast. At the IHOP we thrust the big ol' stereo box into the very nearly too small cab of my truck.

So the hostess leads us to our table, in the back with a convenient view of my truck. This eases my mind. There was only one other table of customers in that section...but they were impressive.

Picture it, if you will: fifteen or so people, all bigtime, overflowing the chair fat. All dressed in their best white-trash duds. I thought to myself, fat family. Then I sat down.

Sonya and I order our bacon and pancakes and were hangin' out in our booth, chillin' and what-have-you, when I start to overhear bits and pieces of the conversation from these people.

"So what are you doing for a living now?"

"I'm still in the smut business," one of the women says.

Hmmm? I perk my ears up and listen more closely.

I hear talk of corsets, and the various means of being strapped in to one.

"I was so afraid of that before I tried it," one chick says.

"What?" another chick asks.

"Fisting!" the first replies brightly.

I notice that all the girls are asking all the guys before they do anything.

"Can I start eating, please?"

"May I order another drink?"

"Please, can I go to the bathroom?"

"You know what you need when we get home?" one of the guys said to one of the women.

"What?" she asks.

"A warm soapy water enema."

My god. Only I would choose to dine at the same place where the members of the alt.bdsm.memphis.fat newsgroup were having their monthly dinner.

(But what's this? Check out this page - note that they gather every Friday night for dinner or something. I believe I may be on to their secret meeting place. How can I exploit this information? Help me out here, people.)

Yesterday morning I ran the Gibson 5K - it was neat! Down Fourth Street to Linden, Linden to Front, down Front, through South Bluffs and all the way down Riverside Drive to Beale, then up Beale and around the corner back to Fourth and Linden. I was hot and sweaty at the end, but I felt pretty good. My time? A respectable (for me) 37.20. I thought I did good, anyway.

Afterwards, I staggered into the tent across the street from St. Patrick's - after getting my goodie bag from where I had stashed it behind the porta-potties. I saw lots of people drinking All-Sport, and I wanted a bottle. I started working my way through the crowd, looking for All-Sport...

...when I came across the beer stand.

I was hot. I was thirsty. I could see the kegs, frosty in their buckets of ice. People were walking by, grabbing cups of beer, the condensation dripping over their hands and off the the cup, to the ground...

I had several. At nine in the morning. After running three miles and having no breakfast. I was happy.

Strolling down Beale Street on my way home, a go-cup in hand, I was passed by a sharp-dressed gentleman who grinned at me.

"I see you've got your breakfast!" he said.

I cleaned house for the rest of the day. Sonya came home and helped me clean, then we went to Seessel's to get the ingredients for our dinner party. We had salmon, pasta, Armenian salad (mouthwatering) and lots of Hawaiian bread. An excellent meal.

In attendance at the dinner party were:

• James, who lives upstairs,
• Jen, who like James a great deal,
• the other James, who lives in Midtown,
• Shawn, who cuts the hair of the Williams family, and
• David, Shawn's friend, who had a certain Jack-from-Will-and-Grace quality. He was cool.
  "Just David!" I said to Shawn late in the evening, framing my face. I'd had wine.

We all horked down Sonya's excellent meal and then sat for hours, shooting the shit and drinking wine (let me recommend the Chateau St. Jean 1997 Chardonnay; it's excellent). It was really very nice, though by midnight everyone looked a bit droopy and the party broke up (Jen, in fact, lost consciousness on the couch). Several bottles of wine ("We got all three colors," I declared at one point, "red, white and pink!") and a good-sized fish died so that we could have a good time last night - thanks, guys!

Co-winners, Best Lines from Last Night's Soiree:

Jen, discussing Europe with someone, said "I've been to England but I've never been to France."

"I've been to paradise but I've never been to me!" I piped up.

And James, discussing hick sayings, said his friend Jennifer says of particularly cute guys, "I'd eat the corn out of his shit."

That upset everybody.

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