Paranoia is a funny thing. Sometimes even like ha-ha funny.
Maybe it was because I was traveling for work, for a relatively new job, and didn't want unknown-unknown factors potentially messing it up.
Maybe it was because the SO recommended against it, just from passive observation of this ere nut house.
Maybe it was because Seattle's highest-profile RI-er also happens to be a TI-er, and I didn't want to paint a bullseye on my face by association.
Maybe I just didn't want They to know I was Me, you know?
Whatever the reason, I privately invited just certain trustworthy-seeming characters (no offense to anyone else within range) to meet me for dinner and drinks downtown Seattle on Sunday, mainly to assuage my overwhelming jealo-curio-sy-sity for having to have missed the oft-vaunted and hopefully inaugural Art Show. I called it the PsynapZ Show, and never told the others of this title I just invented right now, ex post facto.
This is our story.
After settling into the hotel, I put on my best eye-in-the-triangle t-shirt (as promised) and headed for 82_28's suggested pub. Upon arrival, I promptly ordered a scotch and some clams, scratched out a little sign that read "R I" for the edge of the table, and positioned my big RAWian third eye within plain view of the door. You know, totally inconspicuous.
I was soon rewarded with the inviting smile of fellow webmonkey and former tortured soul, Project Willow.
We immediately set about plunging the depths of paranoia's reason, of my outsider's perspective of the forced-insider's perspective, and of the unfortunate demographics of disbelief. We also talked shop. And yes, we talked about you.
Then 82_28 eventually-yet-suddenly appears with the immediate nod of recognition, plunking himself, belovely woman in tow, into our booth. Which was funny, I was picturing a short longshoreman with a buzzcut. I don't know why. What I got was a cross between Ian Broudie and Bubba Ho-Tep, in a refreshingly awesome way. Instant bromance ensues.
Discussion progressed, digressed and regressed inexplicably, then came full circle, if I'm remembering correctly after the third single-malt, which I'm almost definitely not.
We found ourselves crawling down a bubble-gum alley into a wonderously godforsaken dive of a watering hole, again Ho-Tep's idea, where further inexplicable ideations floated like blown bubbles around our swimming heads. Shall I go into any further concrete detail than that? I think not.
Throughout, we all charmed each other mercilessly. I recall a seemingly-harmless neckrub, but I can't be certain. Ideas were excoriated as if by autopsy. The vacating of at least two acroic ledges by at least two non-penis-bearing attendees was carefully and skilllessly negotiated. At one point, at the behest of yours truly, of all things, orgonite, yes orgonite was shared, derided, rejected, consolidated, extrapolated and ultimately equivocated upon, though all in the name of love and truth, and ultimately to positive ends (and very, very negative middles), for whatever it was worth. Sort of a live threadjacking. Hugh would have been proud.
All this occurred not in this particular order, but order was called, obliterated and restored at least once, depending on your definition of chaos. Shit was stirred into murky shit soup, then distilled for purity. I can't believe the ground we covered, inside of a couple of blocks around the vicinity of the iconic farmer's market.
Are you getting the idea that the detail-enshrouded devils are none of your damn business? I don't intend to come off that way, but really you're right, it isn't. But we surely did want to break up the relentless[ly boring] throat-chopping, bitchslapping, hairpulling horseshit that's passed for general discussion this week (and last) with a heartwarming story of fear, love and seafood soaked in various concentrations of ether and H2SO4 to which you, if this story is in any way unfamiliar, were not a welcomed party, for which I take full responsibility.
Also, I may have, in my capacity as triple-downward-dog-super-double-backwards-counter-agent, implanted a mini VHF receiver in 82_28's sweetheart's visual cortex when she was focusing intently upon the whiskey shelf behind the bar. Sorry about that. Twas just a harmless flirtation of a subcutaneous clandestine sleight-of-hand procedure, mate. I mean, nothing ventured, nothing tuned, right?
But to Willow, who asked for none of this and received the brunt of it, 82_28 and I (as a functional unit for which I'm self-authorized to speak collectively and officially) are awfully sorry about all that, and glad it blew over like so fucking many mini and micro monsoons suffered upon the region in place of what you might almost call sunlight that week.
A time was certainly had by us, and I suspect it may happen again. If you're around when it does, I suspect perhaps you may be involved. Congratulations in advance, and just to warn you: we're all agents.
Glad I made it to the first one and sorry I missed the second. And what PW said about her current ability to be an "agent" made me LOL:
