Dividing a cloak in half.

His anxiety is more frequent. And much less specific. It used to be the impending divorce. Then the jail time. And the moves before that. And once about a job. Not getting one, but this one he had. Said he'd sleep twelve hours. But he decided to drink with friends and quit the next day. The anxiety left with that first shot.

And that is probably the day he figured it out.

Shakes. Voices. Pain.

Get it all to a dull hum, a television on in the other room, a car starting down the street, the only thing that gets his lovers off anymore.

Tell whoever sees it that its just some woman, some bill, some memory that hops on his back from time to time that he can't quite get rid of. Like this one:

His hands were covered in paint. He hadn't trimmed his nails in weeks and the paint piled up underneath them. He was drunk on wine and champagne. But mostly the way her head felt against his. She had an irregular breath pattern that he memorized. Four fifteen in the morning, mimicking breaths, watching eyes fluttering, counting stars that weren't even stars at all. They slept on an L shaped couch in her living room. He was the stem. She was the base.

He didn't shake at all.

my first party in the hills without that pesky freon addiction

Here's what I remember happening at the LA Blogger Party, a few days later...
(as close to chronological as possible)

On our way to the house, and by we I mean Bill, Whit, Tricia (thanks again DD) and I, Whit tells us LA Daddy (it's super funny to me to refer to people by their blog name) needs some plastic forks and ice. 4 20lbs bags. We find a CVS. They only have 7lbs bags and no forks. So we walk through it and out the other side (?) to a Vons. There's a VW bug in the parking lot and the sex jokes start. I exclaim loudly to my friends (and an unsuspecting woman) that I am wet. The party just started.

Oh yeah, we still had to buy 7lbs bags of ice. The count goes to eleven. (That's a Whit joke)

We find the house, we meet LA Daddy, we open beers, we tear paper to make business cards. We open more beer and the bloggers start showing up.

Red Stapler shows up, with the red stapler. If I had been on top of my game I would have made the UHF "red stapler, mmmmm, very tasty" joke. I'm kicking myself. She was way fun and way nice. Bill stapled my face.

Then we get to meet Write Write Baby. All three of them. The baby was a good baby, in that it wasn't giving out insider trading secrets and it didn't cause any physical harm to me. Two things I look for in a child. We played a little golf ball catch. I realized I am great with kids. For 30 seconds.

Then more and more and more and more bloggers show up. Super hot mom Baby on Bored showed up and I started to hit on her. And by hitting on her I said "I read your blog, the post about 10things to do instead of taking a bath with rose petals. It was funny." Smooth until the day I die. My ringman wasn't with me, but I saw it and abandoned ship. (A ringman is like a wingman, except they just check fingers for promise/engagement/wedding rings. They are useful helping continue eye contact and also not getting you yelled at for accidentally looking at a chest.) I decided not to try to hit on anyone else that night. She showed up with House of Prince, whose blog I had also read. As was revealed very early, she is breastfeeding. I made a joke that we could now make white russians, because the milk was here. Oh yeah. It gets better.

September 10th sat at a table with a bunch of people. We didn't say much to each other, but Donald and I talked about making money with a blog. It was a good base for another participant in shots later on in the evening. At the table I met Childsplayx2 who traveled up from San Diego and recommended living in New York. And I also met Andy, Kitchen-Fire's husband. We bonded over punk rock. I was excited, VERY excited. More people showed up.

I was anticipating meeting Rattling the Kettle. On his blog his sense of humor seemed like one I would enjoy, and I did. I wish we would have talked more, but at this point I had 3 drinks in my hand (beer, red bull and vodka, champagne with strawberries) and it was time to get things going.

Side note: being vegetarian at potlucks is sorta shitty, but you just have to improvise, like using a knife to scrape off all the fun stuff from the bagel bites so you just have mini bagels. Those do a good job, those and carrots.

At this point in the evening I spend most of it inside, jumping from conversation to ice chest to carrot plate to conversation. There were a bunch of people I didn't meet at this point, it happens. I did met Down With Pants (shot taker numero dos) and his wife. I wish I could remember her name, but I wasn't retaining much at this point. I had to start writing down blogs to check out on a piece of paper. DWP is huge! Like crazy linebacker huge, and just as awesome. I enjoyed the time with him and the Peruvian beer. Pretty much any beer with foil around the neck is tasty, and this one was too! DWP isn't a parent blogger, so I think we made some sort of super-hero-non-parent-blogging-world-power consisting of him Bill and I. You tremble. It is possible we formed no such group. But I do remember making fun of parent blogs. The funny thing is a parent blog is just like my blog, just change the baby name with my name and beer bottle with any drink reference. Keep the all the crazy baby antics though, I do those too.

I met 8cmdeluded and her friend whose business card is in my wallet. Things get pretty hazy at this point, but I know that party is winding down, and I think that we get into a friendly match of making fun of each other. There's the thing about letting someone come inside of you, then some stuff about owning a skateboard, then some "who the fuck is david sedaris" and something about Henry Rollins. It was good times for all, and by all I mean myself for sure, her probably, her friend maybe, and everyone else no.

I meet justinspace around the food table and we drank maker's on the rocks together, but separately. I never drink the booze on the rocks, my head explained to me why in the morning.

The shots happen sometime between the anti-mommy blogging jokes and the how to make babies conversation. It was me, Bill, DWP, Donald and When Tara Met Blog. Jim Beam, WOO! The party was great, but not so much a shot taking party. It was good to get the shots flowing, thanks again to those 3 for joining in on the fun.

Oh yeah, before the night is over, I take off most of my clothes and get in the hot tube. I almost drowned, the fucker had a crazy deep spot, like 7 feet.

I know I met some more people, but these are the things that stick out. Big Ups to LA Daddy once again for the great party.

Now I have to go read the 30 new blogs I'm checking out.

I am excited.