October 06, 2001, 7:45 p.m.

alone and palely littering...

back & forth

At Martinmas, when it was the custom of the court to gather in high solemnity, Sir Retsilla set forth with a company of his men to seek adventure. It so happened at that time and in that country, there were evil signs and portents abroad in the land, for lo, chickens were born with three heads, and ominous green stars were seen flying over the mountains, and no operating system could function for longer than an hour without hanging. For three nights, Sir Retsilla and his men rode through the forest sauvage without incident, until they came upon a holy well guarded by a venomous pink serpent. For nine hours, Sir Retsilla rode against the serpent, and at the end of the ninth hour, he had vanquished it. When they had cut it up and served it in a white wine sauce, they all went home and changed their socks. And then they remembered about the holy well, and said unto themselves, well, what the Hell, let's see what the well has to tell. And they went back to the holy well and started asking it questions, such as, what shall we do to occupy our time? and where did my left cufflink go, and why are all these evil signs and portents abroad in the land, and, what do you recommend we do with all these three-headed chickens?

And the well answered them, with a voice like as to the voice of a very wet hole in the ground, there is a curse upon the land. And they said unto the well, no shit, Sherlock. And the well said that nobody liked smartasses, even fully armed smartasses. And the knights were sore ashamed, except Sir Retsilla, who was proud in his heart, and sat down for a long cup of tea.

And the well spake again, saying, if ye would rid the land of this noxious curse, ye shall ride through the forest backwards until ye reach a castle. There ye shall find a lady clad in Prada, and ye shall be entertained there three days and three nights. (And she shall be most entertaining through that whole time). But ye shall not trust the lady, completely, for she has funny ideas about politics, and she is under a spell cast by a wicked sorceress who lives next door. For lo, the castle is semi-detached. And when ye have sojourned there for three days and three nights, shall ye take the lady's shower-cap as a favor into a tourney with the sorceress's champion. And only when ye have defeated the sorceress, shall the kingdom be free of its torments.

And the knights said, stuff this, for it sounds like a stupid quest, and went off to get hammered on Chilean Merlot and eat sushi off of each other For they were very gentle and faggy knights, in reality, and had much better things to do with their time than faff about with sorceresses and saving kingdoms and so on.

I rehearsed today with KK and SS -- it went well, thank you, since JT went all metronome-fascist on us and upped the tempo on the gavotte-en-rondeau until we were whipped into a frenzy. Afterwards, I was supposed to meet WB in C**l*dg* C*rn*r, but his friend wasn't answering her cell phone. I gave up, famished and kind of light-headed, and went home. WB just showed up a few minutes ago, all pissy because he thought I hadn't called. I should go entertain. Love,

a