November 3, 2009

I was out and about one fine evening, and I had been drinking. I was walking around town, and I decided to visit a friend of mine who I used to work with. He's the head chef of a very nice place in town, and it was about midnight. I went in, shot the shit with him, and we agreed to meet up at a bar nearby. I'm not 21. About an hour later, I go into the bar, and he's not there. I have no money. On a lark, I decide that I'm going to get drunk at this bar. I have no money and I'm not 21. My goal is to walk in, under 21, no money, and get drunk. Mission accomplished.

I sit with a couple older dudes, who just happen to be musicians. We talk about Old Crow Medicine Show and how Nickelback sucks, they buy me probably about six drinks. I eventually work my way over to a group of people playing pool. I used to play pool for money a lot, so I challenge these guys to shoot for beers. If I lose, I'm fucked. Luckily, I win and they buy me beers. The guy I won against, his sister is there. I told her I was 22. She said she was twenty years older than me. She's drunk, so am I.

I end up going with her and her brother to... somewhere? I don't remember why I went with them. The brother was driving, and he went to make a drug deal or something. He got out, and it looked like shit was about to go down, people were stepping up behind him. I knew the signs, and I jumped out of the car. I was wearing a jacket, and I made moves like I had a gun or something. I went to the people who were encroaching on him and told them "step back, this isn't your business" and then tapped him on the shoulder and said "finish off here, we need to move." I did this because I knew that he was in some sort of trouble, and I'd been making out with his old (but still pretty hot) sister all night. I felt like I owed him one. He couldn't stop thanking me. He thought I actually had a gun, and asked to see it. I told him I was bullshitting, and he couldn't stop laughing. He said I was the craziest motherfucker he'd ever met, and if I wasn't there, they would have beat the shit out of him. Glad I could help, I guess. I'm not a big guy, and I don't look like shit, but I'm insanely confident and I honestly do know how to handle myself in a fight (I was a boxer for a while), which is funny because later in the night I got knocked out. Straight up cold on the ground knocked out.

We drink more. I'm totally wasted by now. We go... somewhere? I think it was some friends of the driver/brother. Anyway, some dude rolls up, and for whatever reason I hate him. He's some peacocking piece of shit, wearing tapout/affliction/whatever. He talks about how badly he wanted to fight those guys where I was.

Me being drunk and in the mood for some competition, I ask him to play taps with me. Playing taps is this: you don't hit hard, you try to break guard and touch the other guy with your hand. It's a sort of retarded version of sparring. I'm tapping with this guy, next thing I know, the older hot chick is lifting me up off the pavement and this fucker is apologizing. Everyone's pissed at him. Apparently, when I put my hands down and said something like "that was fun, I'm going to grab a beer", he clocked me in the mouth as I was turning around. I was still dazed when the hot older girl walked me to her car, and I last remember that guy having the shit kicked out of him by about five guys who lived there. I guess they liked me more than him.

My nose was broken, and my face was crusted with blood. Older girl and I start hooking up in the car. We go back to her place, I fuck her, she says I should leave. I agree. It was pretty awkward. I walk home about two miles.

I avoid those bars nowadays, but whenever I do find myself there, I always see the brother and sister. I guess they're regulars. The brother loves me, he thinks I'm the shit. The sister just looks at me, with eyes that say "we had our fun, go have yours."

Actually it's November 4, 2009.

Yesterday I was thinking that I'd never had anything nuked as Lizardinlaw. Practically everything bloodworm wrote got nuked. Makes it hard to find poems when they were all resurrected under log dates, but I do not care. I thought I would get nuked for poems as Lizardinlaw during iron noder, but not so far. However, today I think I fixed that by posting How to Post a Writeup: Noding for Poets. I suspect I didn't go through proper channels. Also, my fuzzy language pissed some people off. E2 folks often bemoan the dearth of new writeups in the catbox, but the E2Help FAQs don't help unless you know computer lingo, which I didn't. Some of it is sinking in, but it's a slow process. I used HTML on the writeup for the first time ever, ha.

The existing E2 made EZ write ups remind me of my orthopedics books. As a family practice doctor, I don't describe fractures very often. Now and then, I'll have someone come in with a broken bone and I end up having to describe what I see on the x-ray to the orthopedist. It isn't very professional to say "Um, that lump on the end of the arm bone, uh, ulna, uh, the outside part, is broke and sticking out from where it ought to be." So I have an expensive fracture book where I can look it up and use more formal language. Then the orthopedist can tell what the hell I'm talking about and is more likely to see the person that day or really soon. And I can be confident that if they have me splint something, it is okay. It isn't worth my time to memorize it all because I don't use it enough. More precise language also helps me with the stupid coding/billing documentation. There is definitely a place for precise language about how E2 works, but computer language is off-putting, incomprehensible and/or scary to major portions of the population. You may scorn anyone who feels that way, but tell me there isn't some lingo that makes your eyes roll up in your head and your brain shut down. Literary criticism. 6 year old boys discussing power rangers. Unicorn anatomy. Memes.

Yesterday was an exciting day. Worked like a beaver on the business plan to get ready for my first bank loan meeting at 2:30. No, first I avoided the business plan by drinking tea and posting a poem and a prose on E2. There. Then I dinked around in the catbox. Then I dressed up in banker-appropriate clothes and makeup (except for the underwear. You'll have to use your imagination). Then I went out and got a mocha.

Then I got to work. I ran projections for income over the first 36 months and for expenses, six different ways, on paper and with a calculator. I know, I know, a computer could do it faster but frankly, it would take me longer to find a program than just do it. I went with the conservative pay for the doctor/ceo/business manager, which lowered expenses, and conservative income projection based on Medicare. I got acceptable numbers. A friend was helping and pushing me to get done: he typed it up while I hammered out the Executive Summary, Mission Statement, Business Environment, etc. The income projections are hooey and the expenses are more hooey. Some things I've priced and others were based on a business plan that we found on line. I didn't like the way that plan calculated the income/debt calculations so I changed it to make sense to me.

The really big thing is that I've actually convinced myself that it will work.

And took it to the bank. I liked the bank loan woman. We spent an hour going over things and she had an office person photocopy the massive pile of supporting documents. I'm excited about my medical office and could talk about it ad nauseum, which is probably what a banker likes to see. She thinks it will go Small Business Loan, which is what I expected. A private practice ain't worth beans no more for primary care.

I went home a bit high and spacey as hell. The calendar swore that the Introverted Thinker had a dental appointment but we went to the dentist and the orthodontist and they denied it. I left my water bottle at the dentist and then at the orthodontist. Didn't want to cook so we had a pizza when she got home from synchronized swimming. I think I went to sleep at 8 pm.

Maybe I ignored proper E2 channels because I needed to be bad to balance all the bank/business stuff. Maybe I've been in Simulacron3's aura too much. Maybe being irritating just comes naturally.