Years ago, I ordered a book from a publisher I like. And they very nicely gifted me a copy of another poet's book.

I didn't read it. Because I thought I remembered that, once, that poet and I had each gotten a lift home from another poet. My house was first, and I got out, and went in to my poet-filled apartment.

I noticed that the car filled with other poets in it hadn't left my driveway, so I looked out the window and saw a poet pissing on my steps. For no reason. We had no beef. But we had a bathroom. A bathroom I would have been happy to let him piss in, provided he at least aimed towards the toilet. But, no, this fucker had pissed on the steps to my apartment.

Today, I picked up the book, and started to flip through it, and thought "Oh no. This is not the same poet At All. I have made a mistake. I like these poems and this person isn't even from Boston. I'm a dick."

​Then I read further and this poet Was From Boston for a while, and they totally definitely absolutely pissed on my steps for no reason.

But their poetry is pretty good. And I wonder if they threw in the free copy of their book as a weird but welcome apology.

There's a not very interesting q&a session with Christopher Eccleston that's only notable because the closed captioning replaces the word "dalek" with "garlic", leading to two great quotes:

"Garlic comes to mind because I was able to show a very unpleasant side of The Doctor"

and
​
"Often we bully when we're terrified, and The Doctor is terrified of garlic."

If you find yourself at a funeral service, allegedly for me, and anyone mentions God or blessings or prayers, or any quotes from that book that Samuel L Jackson reads from in Pulp Fiction, or if the DJ plays "I Will Always Love You", "Tears In Heaven", "My Heart Will Go On", "At Last", or anything by Michael Bolton or Kenny G, you are either being pranked, and I am still alive and watching you via webcam, or else whoever planned the service didn't know me very well, and you should say "Fuck you. Adam never liked you." as you leave, out of respect for my memory.

Any remembrances should be kept under three minutes, probably with a turn around the two minute mark. And if they mention Jesus, it better be because I fucked a Brazilian guy by that name, and he showed up unexpectedly.

It should be self-catered, and not include anything with olives, raisins, or American flags.

Also, I'm planning on outliving all of you, so please pass this info along to your descendents.

"Maybe your roommate is from a parakeet dimension."
Parallel. Paralell dimension. And not one as terrifying as one filled with parakeets.

I just read a review for a book from 1994 that mentioned that "This was before Iphones (sic), no internet, back when you had to change channels by wriggling the rabbit ears antenna on your TV."

Did this person live off-grid in a swamp somewhere? My family was rarely at the cutting edge of any technology, but we had cable TV, and knew The Internet existed during the early 90s. My grandfather had rabbit ears antennae on his TV in the late 80s, but thats just one of the many reasons nobody liked visiting his house.
​
I'm curious to see what happens if this person reviews a book from the 1980s. "This was back before computers, no radio, back when you had to travel by stagecoach to wash your frilly pantaloons."

This past weekend was Pokemon Go Fest, and Comrade and I were in Our Diner (tm), feuling up and catching Pokemon. We had our phones out while we waited to place our order, and then the kind of thing that almost always happens to me, happened to Comrade.

Rando: You know if you put down your phone for a few minutes and live your life, you'll be a lot happier.

Comrade makes the mistake of making eye contact.

Rando: Have a conversation. Talk to him.

He points to me.

Rando: You'll learn things from each other that you ever knew before. Just talk. He can teach you things.
I nod. While still looking at my phone.

The server comes over and takes our order, and while he does, Rando starts looking at his damned phone and then texting someone.

About ten minutes later, Rando stands up to go.

Rando: "You know twenty years ago WE invented phones."

This contradicts many things I know about the world.

Rando: "And we haven't looked up since. You've got to talk to everyone. Everyone. You see a person you don't want to talk to and you TALK to them. Learn something new. Stay blessed not stressed. I'm going to put that on a t-shirt. Make a million. Two milion."

​Rando walks over to another table and admonishes them to put down their cell phones. The servers clearly see him antagonizing people and do not even react. Because this person comes in all the time. And he does this all the time. He wants people to put down their phones and talk TO HIM because nobody in his life wants to talk to him because he's afuckennoying 24/7. I realize that even the server didn't talk to him or make eye contact when they dropped the check. The owner, who greets and seats people on weekends, hid in the kitchen as soon as the guy stood up.

​I was too mad and confused to post about this last week, but here is why you should NEVER order groceries via Doordash, even if it seems like it would be much faster and more convenient than using your grocery store's app.

At 6:00 AM, I started putting an order together. We needed some basic things: juice, bagels, not butter, cereal, yogurt, nothing terribly exciting. I also put in some chips because you shouldn't even grocery shop online when you're hungry. I finished the order around 6:30, and DoorDash let me know that it should arrive around 8:30/9:00, which is totally reasonable.

As soon as your order is given to a dasher, DoorDash shows you a map that includes your location, the location of the store/restaurant you ordered from, and the location of the car that is supposed to bring you your groceries/meal. I was assigned a dasher within a minute. But for an hour and a half, their car did not move. And it was not anywhere near the grocery store. I sighed loudly, and clicked on the "get help" button on the Doordash dashboard.

DD: Hello, my name is <notabot>. We are sorry that your are currently being inconvenienced and will do everything in our power to help solve your problems this morning. How may I help you?

Me: Hello. I put in a grocery store order an hour and a half ago, and the dasher's car has not moved since they confirmed the order. I don't know if there is a problem with the app or the driver, but I wanted to check in make sure my groceries are on the way.

DD: I can see how that would be frustrating Mr. Stone. We are sorry you are currently being inconvenienced, and I will do everything in my power to help you solve your problems this morning.

Me: Thanks.

DD: Would you like me to contact the driver?

Me: Please.

DD: Thank you Mr. Stone, I have contacted the driver and there is currently no problem. Your order may arrive a few minute late. Is there anything else I can help you with this morning.

Me: Thank you. Could you tell me if the problem is with the app?

DD: I can understand how that would be frustrating Mr. Stone. Is there anything else I can help you with this morning.

Me: That didn't answer my question. Is the problem with the app? Has the dasher already started the order?

DD: I have contacted the driver. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. Is there anything else I can help you with this morning.

Me: Your answers aren't matching my questions at all. Are you a bot?

******Chat Closes*****

Oh dear.

I reopen the chat.

DD: Hello, this is <alsonotabot> how can I help you this morning?

Me: Is this a bot? The last "live operator" I chatted with turned out to be a bot and they closed my chat.

DD: I'm sorry. That sounds really frustrating. May I ask what the problem is this morning?

Me: I put in an order at 6:30, which is supposed to arrive between 8:30 and 9:00. It's almost 8:30 and the dasher is nowhere near the grocery store where I put the order in. Is there a problem with the app or is the driver just not doing the order?

DD: That sounds really frustrating. I will do everything in my power to help you this morning.

Me: That's what the bot said.

DD: I'm not a bot.

Me: Oh good.

DD: I have contacted the driver. It looks like they accepted the order, changed their mind, and couldn't figure out how to remove the order from their queue. I'm sorry. Would you like me to find you a new dasher?

Me: Please.

DD: Ok, Mr. Stone. I've reassigned your order. It should now be arriving by 10:30. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Me: What's the difference between a snow tire and a radial tire?

DD: I'm sorry?

Me: Just checking that you aren't a bot.

DD: I promise that I'm not a bot. But I also don't know anything about tires.

Me: Me, neither. Thanks for all your help.

******Chat closes*******

At 10:15, I receive a text from the dasher, a real human being. "The store is out of strawberry yogurt. Would you like a substitution?"

Me: No, thank you.

At 10:24: "The store is out of banana yogurt. Would you like a substitution?"

How is this person STILL in the yogurt section?

Me: No, thank you.

At 10:35: "The store is out of strawberry yogurt. Would you like a substitution?"

Me: No. If the store is completely out of yogurt, that's ok. I don't need any substitutions.

At 10:41: "The store is out of banana yogurt. Would you like a substitution?"

Me: NO.

At 11:00, my phone rings.

Dasher: "Hi, is this Insafemode?"

Me: "Yes."

Dasher: "Can you please tell the app that you do not want any strawberry yogurt? It keeps telling me you want strawberry yogurt."

Me: "Um. I've said no a few times now."

Dasher: "The app doesn't like how you said it."

Me: "I don't know how else to say 'no' other than 'no'."

Dasher: "Ok. I am going to be checking out soon, is there anything else you need?"

I debate asking the tire question, but this guy sounds frazzled. "No, thank you."

At 11:15. "The store is out of banana yogurt. Would you like a substitution?"

Me: No.

At 11:21. "The store is out of strawberry yogurt. Would you like a substitution?"

Me: NO!

Comrade wanders into the room, and I explain the Doordash frustration, and the yogurt issue.

Comrade: "Next time is asks if you would like a substitution, tell it cake?"

At noon, there is a knock on the door. It is the dasher, he hands me two plastic bags and says "I'm sorry, they didn't have the bags I liked." and he walks back to the car.

I carry the bags into the kitchen. Both grocery bags are filled with ice and water. One of them is ice, water, and a loaf of bread. One of them is ice, water, and a bag of Doritos.

Comrade: What the fuck?

Me: I don't know what's happening right now.

I go back to the front door.

Dasher: I tell them I need cold bags for your groceries. You have tipped very well, and I want to make sure you have great service, but they do not have cold bags, so I had them put ice and water in all of the bags so they did not melt while I drove them to your house.

I live a three minute drive from the grocery store. Also, I didn't order anything that needed to be frozen.

Me, grabbing a plastic bag filled with ice, water, and a jar of peanut butter, "Ok. Thanks."

The cat litter is, luckily, neither in a plastic bag, nor a bath of ice and water.

"I think this is all." the dasher says, handing me more soggy bags of groceries. "If I knew they did not have the bags I like, I would not have grocery shopped. But you are very nice."

Me: "Thanks."

As soon he drives away, I click the "Get Help" feature again.

It goes pretty much the same way as before, including a bot terminating the chat when I ask if it is a bot. But I do eventually reach a live person who has the appropriate response to:

Me: "and then the dasher showed up with plastic bags filled with ice and water. Each bag had one type of item floating in ice and water. Whether it was a carton of juice, a loaf of bread, or a jar of peanut butter."

DD: I'm sorry. What? That sounds really frustrating.

Me: Every plastic bag was filled with ice, water, and one type of grocery item. It was very strange. He was really nice. I want to make sure he gets his tip since it took him two hours to buy $100 worth of groceries, but I wouldn't match him with a grocery store order ever again.

DD: I'm sorry. That is an unusual situation. I am refunding your money for this order, and adding fifty dollars in credit. Is there anything else I can do.

Me: Are those credits going to arrive in a plastic bag filled with ice and water?

DD: No. Your credits will be dry and room temperature. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience. I have done everything in my power to help you today. Is there anything else I can do?

Me: Those last three sentences are exactly what the bot said.

*******Chat closes********

​12:35: "The store is out of banana yogurt. Would you like a substitution?"

I'm on my way home and the radio is playing a remix of Phil Collins's "In The Air Tonite", and it doesn't have the drum fill. Like, why even listen to the song without that fill? They had the opportunity to make it just three minutes of drum fill, and they decided to keep the lyrics and synths?
​
Fire. The. DJ.

Comrade and I have known, almost since we first met, that we are going to get married. I think, at this point, both his parents and mine also know that we are certainly getting married eventually. And, since we somewhat quickly decided we were going to Vegas, neither set of parents stopped asking us all week if we were married yet.

We are not married yet, and have made it out of Vegas unmarried. That was never the plan. And this vacation was meticulously planned (aside from Thursday, but that entire day didn't exist, remember).

The problem with planning is that there are things you can never take into account (but, no, this post does not involve marriage of us or anyone else). For instance, we never got to see the fucken flamingos. Not a single pink feather showed itself despite Comrade dressing head to toe (and I mean Head To Toe ... he bought a flapping flamingo hat on our first night in town, and I designed him flamingo shoes before the pandemic started) in flamingo wear. We never got to see the flamingos. The only feathers were the razors in the horrid pillows that I will happily never sleep on again.

Our plan was to meet some poet friends on Thursday. Unfortunately, Thursday, remember, Never Existed. So we decided Monday would be a real day, and we'd shoot for that. In the untilwhile was The Weekend. (Also, The Weeknd, and Everybody's Working For The.) I know there were adventures. I was there. But what did we ---

OH.

I love pools (yea, yea, yea, hot tubs). Whenever I vacation, I go somewhere with a pool. Last October, the pool in the house we rented was Infested with colonies of ants on strike. They floated in massive islands of floating corpses. It was impossible to rid the pool of them. So we didn't swim as much as I'd hoped.

I'd wanted to swim at the Adults Only pool at our casino on Thursday. It's not an ADULTS pool. You have to wear a bathing suit. But no one under 21 is allowed. I'm not sure why. The pool is less than four feet deep, and filled mainly with White People drinking White Claw and bopping their heads to songs with lyrics they should never sing along to. I find a good rule of thumb to see if there is Institutional Racism afoot at your party is Are There More N Words In Your Music Than There Are People Of Color At Your Party? If the answer is yes, maybe your party is not very inclusive.

We'd spent a great deal of time in line for the pool behind a gay couple in love with Comrade's flamingo outfit (he did not wear the hat to the pool, but the shirt, the shorts, the socks, and the shoes were present), but were angry when they were told they could not bring their "expensive" new vape into the pool grounds.

We snuck past them while they griped, grabbed some towels, and found the only two empty chaise lounges in the whole pool area. Comrade did his crossword puzzle while I, UNHOLY GODFUCKERS, dipped into the pool.

Apparently, when you don't have children to pee in your pools, they are Very Cold.

I took Pool Duck out of my pocket, and attempted to take a picture of him but he does Not Float Well. He does squirt well, though, so when Comrade entered the SHITBALLS OF BEN & JERRY pool, I squirted him with Pool Duck, and swam away.

Because the scene was Not Ours, we did a minimal amount of dancing (To The Windows....To The Walls) in the pool, decided to stay there at least as long as we'd been in line to get in, and then grabbed our towels and headed back to our room.

Other things happened. I'm sure of it. We had pizza for dinner, and I spent the night writing.

On Monday, we got up Comrade Late, which is impressively afternoon. We were too late for Der Nasty Egg (aka EggSlut), so we ended up getting really mediocre sandwiches at a sandwich place which I won't name, since part of the problem is I ordered the sandwich a way they wouldn't normally have prepared it, so it's mediocrity was My Fault.

Then we grabbed a Lyft back downtown.

You've noticed a distinct lack of gambling. I don't do it. Comrade wanted to it once. Start with somewhere between $20 and $100 and stop at Zero or Millionnaire Status.

No slot machines, though. Poker or Blackjack. Something that requires work and skill. Instead, we played Vending Machine Slots, and we Won. For $5, I bought a random Sock Pack that turned out to be Flamingo Socks. So we Won At Gambling. I took some pictures of Jackpot Duck in an art garden, and then my poet friends showed up.

Dinner was a blast. Poets are Great Poets and Great People, still. Our service was, um, well, Comrade and I are cursed, remember. But we had a decent meal at the bar where the Great Poets met, and talked for a couple of hours. It was glorious. You really should have been there.

Then, the other gamble. As I've mentioned Several Times, I don't like burlesque, but acknowledge that much of that is I haven't been exposed (ha, ha) to professionals, but some experimental amateur stuff that varied from Probably Promising Somewhere Down The Line to Vision Is Overrated.

One of my friends, who serves as a sort of Las Vegas Entertainment Ambassador, as well as a few other friends, suggested that we see a show called Absinthe. I balked. We'd done a lot of touristy things and while the museums were fun, the shows we'd chosen weren't for us. Comrade continues to be amused by how much I fucken hated that Beatles Cirque Du Soleil show, even though the acrobatics were astounding. I just enjoy either a story or No Story and their idea of narrative storytelling was middle school pageant garbage. But with beautiful acrobatics.

Still, The Ambassador was adamant we'd like it, and arranged for us to get comp tickets. It was only a 90 minute show, and it was in a tent across the street from The Flamingo. I figured it couldn't be As Bad as The Beatles.

Thank you, Ambassador. Absinthe was, along with the Neon Museum Main Tour, and Omega Mart, one of the absolute highlights of the trip for me. For Comrade, it was tied for first with the random woman who put her hand in front of his face and yelled "FUCK OFF, SKANK!" because she was either on or off a necessary medication. I don't know why that brought him such pleasure.

I'm pretty sure the emcee for Absinthe was not the usual person. His was not the face on any of the press I saw, but Hell's Jello Salad he was amazing. He was dressed and talked like the carnival barker who used to co-own a comic book store I used to work at. Only instead of being exhaustin....actually, he was The Same Exhausting, but in the context of the show, it was great. His assistant, Wanda Wheels was like a filthy Psychic Tanya from the Amazing Johnathan show. They were perfect.

The acrobatics were really on par with Cirque Du Soleil, except they were 1-3 performers at a time, instead of a dizzying and unwatchable amount of people distracting you. The narrative was spare but perfect. Yea, there was burlesque dancing. There was a couple who performed amazing roller skate acrobatics, there were three jugglers who were better than most juggling acts I've seen, there was a perfect pole dance artist who didn't even bother to set up a character because she had such presence that she didn't need to speak or have a complicated intro, she just dazzled, there was a chair stunt at the beginning of the show, and a fair amount of people contorting themselves while hanging in the air. The highlights for me were the German hula hoop guy who had no lines but exuded joy and hulaed the hell out of dozens of hoops, the Polish balancing act who morphed from a very different role to a homoerotic contortionist pair where the focus was contortion not humor. I also enjoyed the host and Wanda's banter. In particular, Wanda went on a long rant about the filthy things she was going to do the mother of someone in the audience, only to be interrupted by the host who asked the audience member about his mother who, of course, was dead. "It was sweet to think of her, though." Wanda deapanned. "Happy Mother's Day."

There were also many audience interaction bits that bordered on or widely stepped over Offensiveness. Some things I would have crafted differently, but it mostly punched up, and the character being misogynist and homophobic at points fit with the rest of his personality. And most of it made me laugh, as it was intended. So it was easily the best Show we saw. We got back to our room, talked about it for a bit, and then packed for our Tuesday night flight.

We got up Tuesday earlyish, stored our luggage for the day, and wandered back to Der Nasty E...EggSlut. Still as good the second time. We caught some Pokemon. Then we hit The Saddest Capitalist Portion Of The Trip. The M&M Store, where you can spend too much money making your own assortment of mediocre chocolate that all tastes the same no matter what color it is, anyway. We didn't buy anything.

Then, the Coca Cola store.

Long time readers might remember that Twice, I've gone to the Coca Cola in Disney Springs. Once downed the alcoholic flight of Coke drinks, and once downed the non-alcoholic. I ordered the non-alcoholic one (I'm not sure they sell the alcoholic one in Vegas)  to split with Comrade, and we sat by the window and did Everything Wrong.

A Coca Cola Flight is two trays, each containing twelve quadruple shots of various International Coca Cola flavors. If you do it (don't do it), start with Tray #2, which is mostly terrible, and end on Tray #1, which is at worst bland, but often good.

Tray 1 starts with I Don't Remember, and winds its way to That Was Pretty Good. Tray 2 starts with Beverly (actually, its name) which tastes like someone juiced a Christmas Tree Air Freshener, stopping occasionally to spit in it. It's followed by something that tastes like cherry mouthwash, which is actually a Welcome Change despite it being otherwise awful. The third drink is a cucumber soda that really does wash away the terrible taste of the first two. It's not good, it's just cleansing. Then there are various okay to mediocre flavors until you hit the end.

Sour Plum Cola tastes like someone is peeing barbecue sauce into your mouth. I can not, for the life of me, understand why they'd inflict this on people who Gave Them Money To Enjoy Themselves. If you have to drink it because you're at gunpoint or you need to atone for accidentally tossing someone's grandmother into an angry nest of Murder Hornets , do it all in one gulp. DO NOT SIP SOUR PLUM COLA, you will vomit.

We stumbled our way to The Venetian, which we'd been meaning to get to. Along the way, people tried to sell us their CDs (who stil has a CD player in 2022?), complimented our shirts, and that one aforementioned woman called Comrade a skank for some reason.

Our plan had been to do the gondolas. I expected it to be Disney ride cheesy, but it actually just looked sad. Want to ride a gondola down a fake canal in the middle of a strip mall designed to look like a generic town in Europe (seriously, if you can tell the difference between Las Vegas's Venice, and their Paris you deserve some sort of degree). We decided to just go to a food court, put something in our bodies that wasn't carbonated garbage water, and then go back to the Flamingo and charge our phones.

Instead, we headed to the airport early, charged our phones there. And then grabbed something to eat. We went to a nothing bar place with eight food items, somewhat akin to the terrible place in JFK. But they had lobster bisque on the menu. I'm a sucker for it. Most place serve you a cream and sherry concoction, whisper the word "lobster" over the top, and send it out of the kitchen. There were Huge Chunks of lobster in my bisque. I was shocked. My salad was just a salad, and Comrade's pizza was just a pizza, but that bisque, while not some five star dazzling bowl was the second biggest positive surprise of the trip, after Absinthe.

We paid our check just in time to board our flight, and y'all there was no third person in our row. We put Comrade's bag on the empty seat, and my bag under the empty seat, and we both have legroom, and neck pillows (seriously, these stupid neck pillows are more comfortable than seagull feather pillows at The Flamingo), and the wifi is free, which is why I prefer JetBlue to American, whom we had to fly on the way to Vegas for some reason.

All in all this was a fun vacation, and the first one I've taken without poet friends in this millenium. While I would have enjoyed their company, and I still believe that renting a house is cheaper and more fun than staying at a hotel or casino, I'm glad we did this. And that we Did Not get married while we were there.
You know how much I hate cliches.