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     ## ##  ###    I S S U E   # 0 6 7        0 6 - 0 2 - 0 0   ###  ####   
    ###  # ###                                                   #######    
    ####  ###             "An Experience... Points?"               ###       
     #######                    by Phairgirl                
      ####                                                                  

        I'm carrying my book as I walk into that goddamn waste of a monument
 in my goddamn waste of a town.  And I look about, and I find what I was
 looking for, even though usually on my best of days, it's not what I would
 ever look for.  But it's late, or early, or something, and I really don't
 care.  I'm just looking for some mild entertainment.  Or conversation.  Or
 both, or neither, I don't know.

        I'm making all this up, it's all in my head.  Or maybe not, it's
 hard to keep all of that straight anyway.  It doesn't matter, it will all be
 true someday anyway.  It's fun that way.  It all happens.  I can't make up
 untruths, only presently unfound facts.  A dream?  Maybe so, but not for
 long.  Tomorrow, it's reality, and you'll be stuck in it with me.

        And yet there's something to do, people to talk with, anything to
 keep my mind just barely afloat.  There's gentle scraping of miniatures and
 kamikaze bullshitting that really does nobody any good.  And then there's
 that kickass crazy guy who forgot his medication, carrying on about how the
 whole town is after him, how the Catholics hate him, how the fucking police
 are corrupt and someone shot Martin Luther King, for crying out loud.  I can
 only respond with a slight smile and enjoy the incredibly odd surroundings.

        I'm not trying to be witty or clairvoyant, art-faggy or existential,
 empty or alone.  Just observational.  And I see the plastic slivers on the
 floor, and the pink foam bedmat, and the piles of miniatures for only $6.99,
 and my past alliances and my past bonds.  Is it an experience?  Not much of
 one, but I might still get points if my style and charm outwit the GM.

        There's geek talk.  Miniatures and Star Wars and GenCon and Pokemon.
 Internet bullshit, work, hitching, reading, whatever.  There's really not
 much to say, or to do for that matter, except guzzle the coffee and wait for
 something to happen.  Nothing ever does, that's the beauty of it.  Yet still
 I desperately wait for no reason other than curiosity.

        Nothing more than nothing, just another nothing... nothing nothing
 nothing nothing nothing.  Nothing nothing nothing, nothing nothing, nothing
 nothing nothing nothing nothing.  Nothing?  Nothing nothing nothing.

        And silence, that's all that's left now, with my blue screen in front
 of me and my big fun behind me, all wound up in a bottle of empty with some
 coffee for power.  And all the lights are out, all my connections are gone,
 it's time to find a buddy on AOL, or maybe not.  Buddies?  Me?  Sure.  I'll
 let them come to me.  Me and my silence and my blue screen.  It's either
 that or sleep, and how can I, after loading up on caffeine while babbling
 semi-coherently with semi-coherent people?  And now I'm stuck here, awake
 but somehow dreaming.

        I've got a kickass job where I get to read 50 pages a day, I say.  I
 have never seen a Star Wars flick, I say.  I've got nothing better to do
 than sit at this pathetic table and talk about pathetic nothings as my
 pathetic wallet shrinks and my pathetic brain thinks.  And it's all good, I
 say.  I like it that way.

        I want to wrap it all up and put it in my pocket, carry it around
 and smile and be happy and turn it all into a life worth writing about,
 worth envy and worth sharing and attraction.  Maybe I just did.  Maybe I
 just need to leave.

        So I guess I'm gone.

 ****************************************************************************
 # (c)2000 aNAda e'zine                          aNAda067 .*.  by Phairgirl #
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