I have successfully pissed away another Sunday, alternating sessions of sloppy, unbathed laziness with bouts of knuckle-whitening dread in the face of having to return to work tomorrow.

There is a great deal of job-related unhappiness in the Williams household.

And it's August, man. You piss away a Sunday and that's a damned shame. You piss away seven months...actually, that's kind of impressive.

Nineteen ninety-nine, the Year I did Nothing of Importance.

Let's see here... Thursday night Sonya and I went to a Redbirds game, which was fun. But hot. Very, very hot. Just from a male standpoint, that organization hires some fly honeys. You go, Redbirds!

Kathy, Sonya's boss, was there too. I think we've got a tailgating plan with her and her family for the Memphis-Ole Miss game Labor Day weekend. Avoid the rush; hate Ole Miss now.

Friday? I may have worked, I may not. Who can say? The big deal Friday was Cats, Now And Forever. My mom got me the seats for my birthday, which was sweet of her. And they were really good seats. They were on the Grand Tier, above the mezzanine - our own little box, with brass rails and everything. You look down and BAM! there the stage is, right under your languidly dangling fingertips. Those seats also include admission to the lounge during intermission, with it's own bathroom and free drinks.

It pays to know people.

As for Cats itself, well...if it were on TV, I'd change the channel.

"It's amusing," Sonya said at intermission, "barely."

Gotta agree with the wife on this one. I kept giggling at inopportune moments 'cause I'd realize that there were actual grown people down on the stage, dancing about, dressed like cats and singing T.S. Eliot poems. Funny stuff, man.

Maybe if I liked cats (the animals, not the musical) it would be different. To their credit, the actors had the cat-mannerisms down (playfully batting at one another, grooming, licking their own genitalia). If you liked cats I imagine that kind of thing might appeal to you. And there were more than a few backhanded comments (and a song or two, I think) about dogs. I'm a dog person, though, and as a rule I find cats hateful, unlovable beasts. So that could have colored my view from the outset.

Saturday we spent some quality time in West Memphis with the families. Last night we got all dressed up (basically like this, except I wasn't wearing eyeliner and Sonya wasn't wearing a wig) for a big double-feature: The Blair Witch Project followed by Frankie Goes To Hollywood at Newby's.

James spiked his hair and Jen put on the freak-clothes, too, so we had a nice little posse goin' out last night. At the movies we met Jody and Leia, theater-friends of Jen and James', Christy the Good Witch and her sister Rebecca and most of the staff from Cole-Haysten. We had nearly two rows halfway up the theater.

The Project was just as good the second time around, I thought. I knew what was coming this time, though, so I wasn't constantly peeking around interlaced fingers. The final five minutes were just as harrowing with repeat viewing. Opinions from the assembled group ranged from outright terror to puzzled disappointment. The movie doesn't ring everyone's bell, I suppose.

It was neat, too, to see it in a crowded theater that didn't have as many preconceptions as I did going in the first time. I've never heard that many people laugh nervously. It was the public-gathering equivalent of whistling past the graveyard, I think.

After the movie Jen and James and Sonya and I went off to Newby's for a bite to eat before the show. We were joined by Jody and Leia (for the food and drink, not the show) and Christy and Rebecca, who made a pit stop at Christy's house for Rebecca to put on her "slut clothes" (Christy's phrase, not mine). We got there first and piled into one of the big round booths. We were mightily entertained when we watched Christy and Rebecca crossing the street. Christy got stranded in the turning lane while Rebecca strutted across the street in a bustier that all but exposed her nipular area, a little skirt and strappy heels.

"She knows traffic's gonna stop for her in that outfit," Jen observed.

Se we were all sitting at this big round table, having drinks and eating, right? And Sonya had ordered an appetizer platter, so I was eating the pepper poppers off of that. I had, you know, four or five, and they were nice and spicy. I go to eat another one. I bit off half of it, chewed it and was surprised to find my mouth on fire!

Now I love spicy food, don't get me wrong. But this pepper was completely outside the realm of what the other peppers had been, and it blindsided me. Whatever the fuck it was, it was no ordinary jalepeno. I promptly ate all the ice out of Sonya's Coke and guzzled a beer. It got better, but I wasn't sure there for a minute.

Eventually we said goodbye to Jody and Leia and went to the performance side. There, we hooked up with Glen, a coworker of mine and '80s music junkie. We've also been trying to play matchmaker with Glen and Christy, so this was their chance to scope each other out.

Folks, I know Frankie Goes To Hollywood. This was no Frankie Goes To Hollywood. A pale, flabby guy who kept grabbing his crotch did the singing, and the rest of the band was even sadder. They opened with a few Frankie songs, true, but then they decided to play a Hootie song. My little group left in a hurry.

We decided to regroup at Backstreet and boogie down, but we were brutally rebuffed when we found out the cover was $10.00 because some obscure dance diva was performing there. We left, regrouped again and went to Amnesia. The cover there was also ten bucks, but it was magically lowered when we threatened to leave there, too. Hell, there were seven of us. I guess they wanted us inside.

The drag show was in progress when we arrived, and was to be followed by some other obscure dance diva. We made like we owned the little cocktail bar overlooking the pool and proceeded to hang out. Several people asked us about the goth scene in Memphis. We had to tell them that we were pretty much it. Finally all the performers got done and we managed to get in some boogie-time before it was time to go home. A nice night, if a little hard to get started.

I'm not sure if Christy and Glen made a love connection, though. They did get to dance together, so I guess that's a start.

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