Not much is likely to be coming from me this weekend.  I've got a brief amount of time at home and to myself before diving into my schedule for the weekend.  The time spent alone will mostly be spent sleeping ...

Early this afternoon, I'm going to see Transformers (yay!!!); tonight, I go to my sister's birthday dinner and then we go see Transformers (yay!!!); tomorrow I spend an hour or two on the road with my mom to visit my estranged grandfather who has been in and out of the hospital for several weeks now.

I've got the workings of a quick Zaphod comic going and maybe I'll get to it late tonight to post it tomorrow.  Until then, enjoy the story after the break:

It is not necessary for me to ride the Ferris wheel, which is to say that my return to the dark lair is not contingent on this action. Riding the Ferris wheel is one of those surface pleasures that I've been having an increasingly hard time coming to terms with. It's a giant wheel, after all. It spins in a circle. It doesn't actually take you anywhere (other than around in a circle) nor does it do it particularly fast or with any kind of particular style.

And yet, for some inexplicable reason, these surface-dwellers seem to love it. The truth is that a short time ago--about three months actually--I would have been right there with my fellow surface-dwellers. Sure, there would still be a tickle in the back of my head, poking and prodding me, demanding to know "really now--what's the point of this, Peter?"

The me from three months ago would have ignored the tickle, squashing it, as it were, like an annoying bug.

But that was three months ago.

Now, I stood beside the woman I had been fucking for the past five days--I think her name was something silly like Joy or Patience--and I stared up at the slowly turning Ferris wheel in the middle of the Golden Bay annual carnival, a smile taking hold of my features as I marveled at the simplistic delight the surface-dwellers took in such a contraption. I could see it in the faces of those riding the wheel in the colorful compartments. When they disembarked from the ride, their eyes glittered with the kind of meaningless satisfaction that only surface-dwellers can appreciate.

And I could also see it plastered all over the face of Patience. Or Joy. Her name might have also been Christy, but truthfully, I think that honor belonged to her friend who had insisted upon accompanying us to the carnival. At any rate, they both were thrilled to be taking a ride on the Ferris wheel.