I had today off from work for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I spent it cleaning my house and attempting to organize my life. I can only claim partial success on both counts. 

Yesterday was great though, my great friend Sibbitt was in town from Montana and we had a great time eating Mexican food and trying to solve all the world's problems. 

This is also my reminder to read The Brothers K by David James Duncan. Apparently, the first forty pages are a bit of a slog so Future Guillermo, hang in there. I wonder if it's like the director of Solaris, the original Russian adaptation, where he deliberately made the first act incredibly tedious to scare off any viewer who did not have the mental fortitude to grapple with the lofty concepts the film was purporting to explore. 

(I have seen it, and I prefer the American remake, but I don't know if it was necessary to gatekeep it that way.)

Solaris is basically this:

"Hey man are you having fun trying to figure out that crazy new planet that's impossible to figure out?"

"No. No I am not."

"Aw, man, I'm sorry to hear that. Boy, I sure miss my loved ones."

"Me too."

Fort Vine, Campfires, and Cryptids

"There's light inside your body!" the singer was saying as I walked up to the crescent of people sitting around them and a brazier of crackling fire. 

I was emerging from the darkness into the middle of a musical performance, with a group of mostly strangers, but they were talking science so I jumped right in. "That's right!" I pointed at the fire. "The same thing that's happening in the fire right now is happening inside our bodies!" 

Everyone turned to look at me. I said "Hi, I'm Guillermo! I've been approaching random campfires for the last hour and a half so I hope I've found the right one." Most of the people laughed. 

I was joking, of course. Wendy had invited me to this performance, a folk duo called Fort Vine, who were holding a neighborhood concert. I was just very late, because I had been trying to trick myself into being social. I completed my exercise routine, took a shower, then instead of just running around in my underwear afterwards, I put on pants, and shoes, and a shirt. Being dressed made me feel like getting undressed was a bigger hassle than driving a half-hour away for some reason, so I went. 

I'm glad I did. It was a lovely night. 

I met a girl named Catherine who is a literal rocket scientist, and I witnessed the moment she was given a pair of shorts that said "CRYPTID" across the butt. Apparently this was the culmination of several weeks of an escalating inside joke. She was delighted and donned them immediately. 

We talked about cryptids, and someone asked if the Loch Ness Monster was a cryptid, and I said yes it most certainly is. Catherine said she used to have a West Highland Terrier named Nessie, and I had said that's funny because I had also known a West Highland Terrier named Nessie, but this was years ago, and on the other side of town. 

Maybe Nessie The Westie is also a cryptid, existing in multiple households simultaneously in a kind of quantum canine superposition. 

The house hosting the neighborhood concert had a husky named Trillian, after The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy. I petted her for quite a bit. 

Then on the drive home, I saw The Mothman flying over the interchange of the 202 to the I-10. 

Which I didn't consider a good sign or a bad sign. 

Almost certainly a coincidence. I doubt they're interested in me, as I am more of a  hermit-monk-smart-ass caricature than an actual person right now. 

Mothman ain't got no time for that mess.