So anyway, two weeks off, and no official goals accomplished, which should have me feeling aggravated with myself, but it doesn’t. I had a great vacation, lazed around, drank too much, hung out with my friends and cuddled my chihuahuas. And that’s enough for me.

The other thing I have done with my vacation is learn to shoot stuff. Which I like surprisingly much. I’ve always kind of been interested in having a gun, but didn’t have anyone to show me safety stuff, and how they work, and advise me on what might be the right type of gun for me. As such, I didn’t think it would be a good idea to just go randomly buying a gun and try to figure out on my own how to use it, nor did I have any idea how to do so even if it had been a good idea. Luckily a friend of mine’s husband is a giant gun geek, and leapt at the opportunity to  have a new victim avid trainee. He’s taken me out shooting several times, and it’s really very fun. I was intimidated at the prospect of shooting a gun, sure it would blow up in my hand or knock me down, or both. But before we ever went out shooting, Pete had me over to handle his guns (not a euphemism) so that I would be familiar with what we would be shooting. The amount of firepower he had laid out on his kitchen table made me feel vaguely as if I was attending a militia meeting, or doing something of a covert, anti-government nature. And then he showed me pictures of people with their thumbs blown off, to emphasize we’d actually be doing dangerous things, in case I had not realized.

So the first time we went out we went to an outdoor range. There were a variety of people there, of all flavors of crazy and undesirable, so that was kinda weird. There was a guy shooting one handgun in each fist, really quickly and really badly. There was a guy with a neck tattoo who was surely fresh from prison. I shot a bunch of different handguns and IIRC two rifles and a shotgun. The shotgun was cool in how it decimated the target, but uncool in how it whacked me in the shoulder, so that was my least favorite. But overall it was not bad, and nobody shot their eye out, and it was not unpleasant and I was not retarded at it, so that was good.

Then we progressed to shooting handguns only, at an indoor range much closer to where I live. (Climate control, FTW.) Anyway, it turns out that the simplicity of a revolver is appealing to me over the complexity of a semi-automatic pistol. It’s comfortably old fashioned in some way. Open the cylinder, put the cartridges in, shoot the gun, eject the casings, not a lot to go wrong with that. The one I liked best was a Taurus 686 with a 6″ barrel. To look at, it seems a little over the top and vaguely Dirty Harry, but to shoot it’s really nice. I liked some other handguns, but that was my favorite, until last week when I started shooting 9mm. I liked a Glock 34 that Pete had, but I fell in love with a Springfield XD, which was extremely fun to shoot. So anyway, shooting stuff is cool and pretty fun and I do not suck at it.

This is my target from the indoor range. I think this was with the Taurus.

So the next step is to go buy a gun, right? Or at least go window shopping for one. And that’s where my experience of guns and my experience of gun culture run afoul of each other. Because seriously, we went to three gun shops, and the first two were full of such a variety of inbred felonious-looking miscreants, I could barely stay in them. The third one was better because I refused to look at or listen to anyone else there. But seriously at the first one I was with both Pete and our other friend Chris, and they were both “Hey look at this gun.” and I was all “Hey no, look at that GUY.” Seriously. It was all neck tattoos and camouflage coveralls. At the second place there was a St. Charles sherrif’s deputy who felt no compunction regarding making anti-gay comments, while in uniform. Really guy? That’s awesome. So that was difficult to deal with, and made it hard for me to pay attention to guns we were looking at. And really, after awhile it does become kind of, ok here’s a gun, here’s another gun, oh my, look at that gun, yeah here’s another one, and it’s just a big blur. The other thing is that I’ve been able to shoot quite a variety of guns by this point, and I know that until you actually shoot it, you don’t know if you will like it. It might feel OK in your hand, but you don’t really know if it’s right for you until you fire it. It’s like buying a car solely by kicking the tires. You need to test drive it, to really make a good decision.

Of course then we went to the third place and I fell in love with the Smith & Wesson version of the Taurus that I already liked, and now have my sights set on a rather expensive gun. Which I will probably buy if it’s still there when I go back. (Fate, right? It’s like handbags and shoes – if you’re still thinking about them a week later, you’re allowed to have them.)

She is very pretty, no?

But now I have gone from being someone who has no guns to being someone who’s pretty sure she needs at least three. And that feels mildly strange. I don’t know if that makes me a gun person necessarily. I do not plan on purchasing any camo coveralls or getting a neck tattoo. But maybe I need to change my definition of what a gun person is, to include myself.

I would absolutely love to see Oingo Boingo one more time, that was one of the most energetic shows I’ve ever been to in my life. October Project I would love to see again, just so that I could properly appreciate what I was experiencing, they’re one of those bands I got much more into once I had seen them live, then never had the chance again. Anyway, here are the rest of the results from this week’s Friday Five, thanks for playing along! (see what I did there?):

• superbadgirl (that’s me!) Mine are Oingo Boingo, Dead Can Dance, October Project, Nirvana and Cocteau Twins. #fridayfive
• tungmobi - @superbadgirl Pale Saints, Lush, Cocteau Twins, Catherine Wheel,Genesis (with Peter Gabriel)
• gw10101 – @superbadgirl, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Jesus Jones, Soul Coughing, Depeche Mode (wilder years), The Cure (disintegration era)
• The_Cyr – @Superbadgirl Skynrd (original band), Led Zep, Kansas, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Guns n Roses (original band)
• narcise – led zepplin, django reinhardt, janice w/big brother & holding company, pixies (just missed reunion), jesus and mary chain #fridayfive
• H_Wallbanger – @superbadgirl The Clash, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Thin Lizzy, Massive Attack
• stevodarkly – @superbadgirl #fridayfive The Police, the Beatles, Dead Can Dance, Led Zepplin and … I do miss local guys Todd on LSD.
• UnclePilot – @superbadgirl #fridayfive The Seatbelts, Led Zepplin, The Miles Davis Quintet, Crowded House, Soul Coughing
• El_Dickman – @superbadgirl Ummm… Queen, Led Zepplin, Collaborateur, Bel Canto, Beatles #fridayfive
• cbellers – @superbadgirl Morphine, Pale Divine, Dance Hall Crashers, Chemical Brothers, Lords of Acid
• trmink – @superbadgirl New Pornographers, The Kinks, Harvey Danger, Sleator-Kinney and a second on Thin Lizzy
• _bunny_ - @superbadgirl Gang of Four, AC/DC with Bon Scott singing, Queen, James Brown, The White Stripes #fridayfive
• sub_english – Dead Can Dance, Joy Division, The Clancy Brothers, Billie Holiday, Cocteau Twins. #fridayfive

A few months ago, some of the local St. Louisans I’ve met via Twitter told me about a project of theirs, known as The Grand Conspiracy*. Since they’re almost all artists and writers—and many are both—they wanted a collective place/way to share their work.

The Conspiracy was apparently originally conceived as a one-sheet of short fiction and artwork to be distributed in local bars and shops.  Since then the project has morphed into an electronic one, centered around a collectively updated blog, with a print version to eventually be taken from the best of its posts. The other Conspirators kindly invited me to play along, and I was really happy to accept. It’s much easier to write when you have an intended outlet in mind, and it’s easier to keep to a deadline if you know someone else is depending on you to do so.

Of course, people and their schedules being what they are, the blog has taken quite some time to get off the ground, but I am excited to announce that we’ve got our collective asses in gear, and will begin (hopefully daily) posting at The Grand Conspiracy today!

As luck would have it, Thursdays are my posting day, so there’s a new piece of mine “Make Your Selection” up now. I’d love for you to have a look and let me know what you think of the blog overall, and of course any critiques of my work are always welcome.

(I mean, I am not saying I won’t punch you in the face for daring to dislike my writing, but I certainly welcome the opportunity to punch you in the face.)

Anyway, have a look, add it to your feed reader, check it every day. If I know these people at all, there will be some stellar work there for your edification and delight.

*For those of you who are not St. Louis natives, this name refers to the the street, South Grand, where all our favorite bars are located. Not that this is a group which centers itself on drinking at all. *ahem*

So the lovely and talented Narcise finished my Dave McKean bracelet and pendant set last week, and they could not be more perfect! I love them beyond all reason, and most of all because I know that no one in the world has them. They are mine all mine.

The bracelet is fabulously chunky and makes really satisfying sounds when I flail my arms about. It’s also extra-strong to keep me from breaking it.

See below:

Bracelet. I scanned this, and it came out a little blurry, but I think you get the idea.

Pendant. This was the only warm-toned image of the bunch, and as such it stands alone very well as a pendant.

Bracelet on my arm, to give you an idea of the scale (they're very large stamps)

If you’re interested in your very own Narcise creation, you can get in touch with her via her Etsy shop. She makes many lovely things that you can purchase and (obviously) also does custom work. She worked with me to make sure that my pieces fit my needs exactly, and I am very pleased with them.

You can also see her September 26th and 27th at the Strange Folk festival in O’Fallon, Illinois.

In other news, another friend of mine is doing some landscaping work in the front of my house, and it looks amazing. So neat and tidy! I was totally overwhelmed by the hot mess of dirt and weeds out there, and he was able to sort it out within a matter of days. I think he will finish tomorrow, and totally change the look of the front of my house. And he even put up with a hornet attack, and the random weirdos who wander up and down these city streets pushing lawnmowers.

Still another friend of mine is going to come over and install some ceiling fans for me – another task that seems insurmountable, and yet he considers no big deal. And today MyTodd sorted out a longstanding personal problem of mine in two sentences. Just listened to the story, explained the issue, and there it was. Crystal clear. Why didn’t I think of that? It’s like free therapy, so I bought him lunch.

Honestly, there’s no end to my friends’ utility, and I don’t know what I would do without access to their skillz.

From time to time we get some random tourists in the bar. By three signs do we know them:

1. They ask for Bud Light. (No AB products at all are available at the bar, and we like it that way because we’re snobs.)
2. They try to pay with a debit card, credit card, or any form of legal tender other than cash money. (That’s when Matt/Eric sends them to the skeevy gas station for cash.)
3. They ask what the drink specials are. (There are no drink specials, everything is fucking cheap, and really strong.)

So two tourist girls walk in last night and sit down next to us at the bar. They’re not wearing all black, which is a strong indicator that something hilarious is going to happen, but not a certain indicator. So we knew to watch carefully. They then asked what the drink specials were. *sigh* and then when they heard there were no drink specials, they both wanted a Bud Light. *sigh again*. Then they finally ordered some PBR or something, and sat there being trampy and talking nonsense. Other than Hotpants and I rolling our eyes a little bit, I mostly ignored them, because they were ridiculous. Hotpants was trying to convince a friend of ours to try to get both of their numbers, I think there might have been some casual betting on that likelihood. But mostly we were busy with our own business. But then after 15 or 20 minutes, brunette tourist grabs my arm. I am not a fan of being grabbed by random strange chicks, as hot as that may sound. “Hey” she slurs at me. “I really need to introduce myself to you by name.”

I think “Whaaa?” and stare at her blankly.

“What’s your name?” she asks. I tell her. “Well, I needed to introduce myself to you, because I am sitting here, and I think you hate me.”

I think “Whaaa?” and stare at her blankly.

I then assure her that I rarely hate people I don’t know and pat her on the arm, hoping she will fuck right off again to hobag land, or wherever she came from. But no such luck. After now being assured that I do not, in fact, hate her, we’re apparently besties. Now she has to explain that she thought I was looking at her funny (maybe I was, but not for long) and that I was talking about her (maybe I was, but not in a very intent way). So she thought that once I got to know her personally this would change? I don’t know. Drunk girls are weird. So she wants to go to the bathroom. I REALLY really want to her to go to the bathroom too. Firstly because she would then be gone from my immediate presence, and secondly because she needs to experience the bathroom at this bar in order to be sure she doesn’t really want to be here. But she won’t go. She just wants more reassurance that I don’t hate her. But at this point I am starting to. Then blonde tourist with the ponytail interrupts us, and urges brunette tourist to go to the bathroom already, because “Jason” is on his way, he called and he’s on his way to pick them up, and it’s rude to keep him waiting. Brunette is all Wah wah you hate me! and blondie is all wah wah, stop making Jason wait for us. Finally the girl fucks off to the bathroom, comes back, slurs at me some more, and then leaves. Well, I think she leaves. No. In 15 minutes or so she’s back. With Jason. Jason is wearing a knee-length white tshirt with, I shit you not, some kind of bedazzling all down the front. Dooooouuche! So he fucks off back outside, and then – for some reason this is the funniest part of the story to me – the brunette is standing there again, talking about how her friend told her that everyone at this bar hated her, and why would her friend do that? I replied something about meh, you know drunk girls. Then she starts lambasting our friend Jeremy for “whispering” about her. Jeremy replies firmly that he was not whispering. She tells him it’s mean to whisper about her, just because she’s not from there. Jeremy replies again, most emphatically, that he was not whispering about her. I am afraid he’s going to start talking some shit right to her face at that point. But then Eric delivers her three shots in plastic glasses, which distracts her. So then she’s standing there talking to me about how that girls is her best friend, no matter what kind of shit she talks, and she loves that girl 4-evah! then she looks down at the three shots, declares “I’m making mine bigger!” and pours some alcohol off the top of each of the other two shots into her own cup!Then she toddles off merrily on her way.

Fucking drunk girls, seriously.

In other news, I think I am going to have a party for my birthday. Surely I can’t hate a party at my own house, where I control the guest list, like I hate other parties – can I? Stay tuned.

Coincidentally, my friend Jenny twittered something around the same time about a new jewelry technique she was trying out, and like your chocolate getting in my peanut butter, and your peanut butter getting on my chocolate, a great idea was born in my noggin.

See Jenny does these lovely custom jewelry pieces, and has the technology to make me better, faster stronger… wait no, that’s the Bionic Woman. What Jenny has is the talent and know-how to take my lovely, lovely stamps and create a beautiful one-of-a-kind bracelet for me! I talked to her about it, and she knew just where to order the settings she would need for the project. (And she also knew to make the links extra strong since I have a tendency to be tough on my jewelry in general, and bracelets in particular.)

The stamps arrived in early June, and earlier this week I dropped them off with her – and I got to see the setting they will be in! She ended up deciding to make a bracelet and a pendant from the stamps, since there are 6 and the bracelet was the perfect size using only 5.

Here are the stamps, the dragon is the one she’s using for the pendant, the rest will be used on the bracelet.

In case you can't see, it's a unicorn, a dragon, a giant, a mermaid, a fairy queen and a pixie.

She’s working on it now, and I can’t wait to see it finished! Stay tuned and I will post pictures when the pieces are done.

After that the day got better. We chilled on the beach, and Dave discovered that the cast cover is suitable for swimming in the ocean, as advertised. We all got a little pink in the sun, then had a pretty bad lunch at The Crab Shack. (Stale kaiser roll with some prefab shrimp salad, microwaved hot pecan pie from a plastic wrapper – bleh.) Also the lackadaisically indifferent waitress seated us as far back as possible, despite Dave’s gimpitude. Rude. Oh and the bathroom was really dark, dirty and spider-y. We all thought we’d like it better if it were cooler outside, and we were drunk.

Dinner wasn’t much of an improvement, we ventured down to the main strip here and tried one restaurant – but no one ever came out to take our order at all, and they kept misting us down with water of questionable origin. We moved on to some Applebee’s wannabe type of place, and the food was OK, but the wait to get in there was quite ridiculous. We left the house at 7pm and we didn’t get food until 9. And the place was about four blocks from here. I guess they don’t have to have good service if they deal with primarily a touristy crowd. Anyway, we did have plenty of time to people- watch while we waited for a table, and that’s where I saw a girl who was maaaaybe 13 years old wearing incredibly short shorts and a very tight black t-shirt that said “I’m Fun Sized.” Good going parents, way to pay attention. She was with a whole cadre of other pre-teen/teen girls, all of whom looked ripe for sexual abuse and drug problems in later life. Once their adult minders showed up, it all made sense though. Todd spotted a super-geeky 14 or so year old boy wearing a “Tell Your Girlfriend I Said ‘Thanks’” tshirt, which made Todd want to give him a smack.

Todd and Dave looking a little pink around the edges at Wannabee's.

After dinner we headed over to Tybee Time for some very strong frozen drinks and more people watching. We discovered that, among gentlemen, the “Captain Ron” look is very big here. Well, if Captain Ron had been played by Richard Dreyfuss, anyway. We saw all kinds of other interesting people, like Little Smokey, a wee man with a cigarette behind his ear, who was vying for the attention/affection of Eve, the lady in the dirty stripey dress. The main problem with this is that Eve was more interested in Captain Ron. Little Smokey got louder and louder in his quest for Eve’s notice, but to no avail. Frustrated, he ended up giving Captain Ron a smack in the mouth as Captain Ron was trying to do a shot. I think there was some blood. Captain Ron had to go to the bathroom to clean up, and Little Smokey took the opportunity to usurp  his seat. Eve was having none of it, however, and moved away to shake her braless tits at other bar patrons until CRs return. After that Little Smokey took his cigarette from behind his grimy ear, smoked it quite forlornly, and then left.

We were pretty worn out after that, and had to retire to our condo for reflection and meditation. Also bed.

Drive down was uneventful, in a good way. DaveWWT forgot both his sunglasses and his phone charger, and had to cash in 27 gimp credits not to be scorned for his forgetfulness. We stopped somewhere in Kentucky for him to replace both, and this is where we got the first awesome quote of the trip, from the gas station attendant who couldn’t price Dave’s charger and had to hunt all through the racks for one that was “sim-yoo-ler” to that one. Dear South: I had forgotten how dumb your inhabitants sound.

Made really good time getting here, and we were ready to cross over onto Tybee at about 10:30 local time. We were ready for Tybee, but Tybee was not ready for us – the only road to get here was flooded due to high tide. We were told to park it and wait an hour. That would have been annoying on a regular day, but coming off a 13 hour road trip it sucked some serious hairy balls. We pulled into a BP parking lot and prepared to hang out. That’s where we met the charming fellow we’re just going to refer to as “The Racist.”

The Racist was from Hannibal, Missouri, and he struck up a conversation with me based on my having Missouri license plates. It was hot and humid and I was tired and really just wanted a shower, so I gaped dumbly at The Racist while he told me about his grandpa (dying of cancer) his job (pipefitter, local something-or-other) the cops on Tybee Island (assholes) and his plans for the evening (taking his wife and baby daughter over to Tybee Island in order to catch a glimpse of Miley Cyrus filming a movie.) I was barely paying attention to him when the second memorable quote of the trip happened. Looking over at the line of cars waiting to cross over to this island, he saw someone moving their truck out of line. “Whoa, Mexican! Whoa!” he shouted at the dark-skinned man in the truck. I gawped at him wordlessly. As the man pulled out of traffic and proceeded quite innocently with his business, The Racist muttered after him “Awww, go back to Mexico.” His wife shushed him, but I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t really say anything. Again, South, your people do not sound so smart, nor so tolerant. Since then we have been “Whoa! <insert descriptor>, whoa!” at pretty much everthing we see.

We finally made it over to Tybee and into our place at around 12:30 or so. Not too bad, and nothing we could really do about it anyway. Place was even nicer than I expected, so that’s a plus.

Just as nice as they advertised, a pleasant surprise.

We can see the beach from our balcony :-)

The next morning I went to the rental office to pay our balance, and get some info about our wifi (not working.) As I left the office there was a man painting on a big billboard or something. He started humming at me, and then said something about could I hear the steel drums. Since there were none, I could not hear them. I said that maybe he should have a radio on or something. But then he started explaining to me how the steel drums were the manifestation of god’s voice on earth. I said “oh sure” and got in the car to leave. Just then, a large tree jumped out of nowhere, and ran behind my car, causing me to back into it. The trees around here seem to be tricky like that. Since I borrowed my Mom’s SUV for this trip, it wasn’t as small of a deal as it could have been. I can get it fixed, looks like a panel that can be replaced in the back, but still a shitty way to start the day. Fucking shady-ass trees.

…to be continued when I have more energy. *yawn*

This is your own fault.

Never in my life have I witnessed such a concentration of guys with no game as those I saw last night. Honest to fucking god. There was some epic fuckwittery happening all around me, and it was a bit baffling to observe.

So here are a few hints, guys, and they may help you out!

Hint: If you’re trying to sex up a lady, do not tell that lady that there are a lot of other women trying to fuck you, and you’re considering fucking one of them. You might assume that this will put the lady in the mindset of “Oh my, I had better jump on this premium opportunity before he is snatched up by some other avaricious female-type person!” In actuality, this will put the lady in the mindset of “So why don’t you go fuck that chick up in the Niagara Falls area, then, and also remove your hand from my ass?” Women with any sense of self-worth do not respond well to your trying to play them off against each other.

Hint: Any interaction you’re going to have with a lady is pretty much going to involve talking. If you’re unable and/or unwilling to talk, you could try flash cards – but this is not likely to have a high success rate. If you walk away whenever your target lady is in the vicinity, you’re probably not going to be able to progress the relationship much.

Hint: Getting drunk and asking women to feel you up is not a path to blow jobs. It’s a path to creating a throng of skeeved-out women promptly turning their backs whenever you walk into the area. Plaintively asking “What’d I do? Why’s everyone avoiding me?” will not help your cause.

Hint: Being overly cruel and assholish in response to playful banter is not necessary. We’re not in a war, we’re in a conversation. Check your level of snap-back, and moderate it.

Hint: Giving women lectures about their behavior and/or actions is not necessary, nor is it likely to be well-received. We’re not looking for life coaches. Most of my lady-friends are competent adults, and none of them got to be the age they are without knowing how to take care of their own shit.

In general there is a progression to sexual/romantic interactions and it goes something like this:

1. Meet coincidentally (“Hey, good to meet you, what’s going on in your world?”)
2. Converse to your mutual pleasure and satisfaction (“So tell me what you do. Here’s what I do. Cool.”)
3. Do that another time or two (“Hey, so cool to see you again, how’s that one thing going?’)
4. Make plans to interact outside the original meeting place (“Hey, want to hang out at such-and-such thing that seems interesting to us both?”)
5. Exchange methods of contact (“Here’s my phone number, text me and we can arrange to meet at that very interesting place.”)
6. Interact outside the original meeting place (“I am so glad you were able to come out! Isn’t this fun?” Alternatively: “Holy shit this is a bad time! Glad I can share it with someone with your sense of humor!”)
7. Do that another time or two (“That was so cool/bad that we should do it again/do something entirely different next time.”)
8. Get sexed up (“I’ve got a great bottle of tequila/adorable puppy/comfortable bed at my house. We we should go check that out.”)
9. Keep doing that some more, or decide you’re not doing that any more and call it off. (“Hey we should totally do that again sometime.” or “That was awkward! I will see you around and we can mutually pretend it didn’t happen!”)

It’s honestly not that complicated, guys. Really. We women are familiar with this pattern, and are generally very, very gentle about interrupting the flow if we don’t want it to progress.

Additionally:

• Women who don’t seem to want to converse with you or constantly excuse themselves to use the bathroom do not want to go to step 4.
• Women who can’t seem to remember their own phone numbers or email addresses for some reason don’t want to progress to step 5.
• Women who invite you over to “watch a movie” want to skip to step 8.
• If you’re having a nice conversation with a woman and she suddenly walks away angrily and won’t speak to you any more, you did/said something wrong. Review your conversation and see what it was. Don’t do it again. Perhaps apologize or clarify. Don’t follow her around for the rest of the night trying to play it off, or seemingly not realizing that she’s dodging you.

FSM bless everyone, that was some sick shit to observe last night.

Addendum: Spilling multiple drinks on a girl, and then offering to lick the last one off? Also not ok.