It's been a while since I've shared, but last night I was visiting Lake Neshonoc and took a boat ride with a girl and a kid who was like the kindergartners in Southpark. We sailed around looking for things, and found a factory on fire. Then the kid got lost. I started snooping around and found a hidden floor in the house looking out over a garden. It was set up like an Indiana Jones puzzle. There was a really tall, good-looking guy in the room at the end, cooking something in a kitchen. Then everyone arrived and was glad I made it through.

Pirates of the Caribbean: If you like pirates go see this movie. It is fun. Johnny Depp is perfect (how could I doubt?) The whole skeleton special effects thing that makes the movie into an expensive blockbuster is actually kind of lame. I wanted the scenes with the skeletons to be cooler than they were. If they had done it with real people instead of computer graphics (like the orcs in the Lord of the Rings movies) it would have been better. And Orlando should have shaved that face stain off.

I just had some Anchor Steam Beer and am lusting after another. I mine as well take this time to give a run down of some of my favorite brews. Enjoy while I fetch another bottle:

City Brewery, La Crosse, WI – Had to start with the home town favorite. Formally the Heileman brewery, in 1999 became known as The City Brewery. A group of persons formerly employed by or affiliated with Heileman as well as local investors succeeded in purchasing the brewery. They subsequently extended ownership to City Brewery employees. Choice brew: La Crosse Lager

Bodega Brew & Pub, La Crosse, WI - Have to check if they have their own website… Located in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, they recently began brewing their own beer. Great atmosphere, check it out if you are visiting.

Leinenkugel’s, Chippewa Falls, WI - Ah Leinie. Brewer of good beer (Honey Weiss, Big Butt, Oktoberfest, Red etc.) and the worst beer I’ve ever tasted (Berry Weiss - tastes like Hi-C).

Great Lakes Brewing, Cleveland, OH - Locktender Lager is my fav. The food is really good but pricey. The area has recently been renovated and you can check out Talkies cafe, City Buddha imports and the West Side Market - all within walking distance. Market 25 has more food. Just moments from the Zoo and downtown.

Buckeye Brewing, Bedford Heights, OH - Tiny brewery, brews damn big beer. Try the Hippie I.P.A. (Indian pale ale) next time you’re in a Winking Lizard tavern.

Michelob Amber Bock , National – Again, I think I finally find a beer that is mass-produced and therefore can get anywhere, but it turns out to be a “specialty brew.” One of the only beers my boyfriend and I can agree on.

JW Dundee’s Honey Brown, Rochester, NY – The problem with learning to like a beer is you always wonder if you should be asking for it at a restaurant (or are they going to look at me like I’m a snoot?). This one is sometimes available in the Cleveland area. I get it by the case from the local MARC’s grocery store.

Angelic Brewing company, Madison, WI – Good brew. One of the most fun places to drink in Madison. Some others that I was scared to go in at first include State Street Brats, Crystal Corner and the Avenue. Get over your fear and check them out!

My cabin was 7x7 foot square. People in jail get more room. It was empty of anything and the walls were pink. If that wouldn’t make me nuts, nothing would. I was allowed a cup for water, a cup for pencils and pens, paper, and the like. There was a desk and a chair with wheels. There was a ceiling fan with a bare bulb, a brown earthen jug of water. There was an outhouse out back. That was about it.

The whole idea was to lock us in, deliver food to us when necessary along with a basin of water every day for general clean up. We were allowed to leave for a one-hour walk down to the shore. We would set our dirty dishes outside the curtains of our front door when we were done with them. Oh, there was a rug on the floor for sleeping. And we were allowed one suitcase (or cardboard box in my case) with reference books in our native language.

I had brought my laptop, a small cheep, outdated thing that had been a backhanded love token. It wasn’t really mine, but it was acquired with me in mind, not so much with thoughts of my well being, but with the idea that a mollified girlfriend makes a happy boyfriend. Funny, we use to not think of each other in those terms. Where we were sweethearts…

Yes, well, the laptop. They wanted to take it, “they” being two large piles of tannish flesh with beady eyes, huge biceps and laser guns at their belts. They said that I was to write longhand. “I work better on the computer,” I countered, “I need to create with both hands.” Then they were going to wipe the computer of everything but the very barest of word processing programs. That one was a little tougher to counter. “I have research and a dictionary and a thesaurus on there. Please, take any other programs you need off it, but I need the dictionary.” They agreed, but said I had to leave my little cardboard box of stuff behind then. Since the dictionary feature was built into my favorite word processor, I agreed. I could come and get it later anyway.

When I stepped into the cabin, I realized I had a problem. There was no electricity, no place to plug in the laptop. It had a battery but it had a finite amount of power, say three hours or so. My escorts started laughing uproariously at my plight and broke a few pencils in half before they left. I tried my best to look crestfallen.

Of course when the curtains fell shut behind them, I immediately set to work. My eyes unfocused – actually, they were focused on something passed the point in the air before me. I saw the drawstring with the back reflection of my eye and reached out. My hands disappeared into space for a second as I turned that small bit of air inside out to reveal the bottomless backpack. It appeared to be made of brown canvas but there were no stitches visible on its pockets, straps or body. It was a medium sized pack, just right to contain a black hole.

I opened it up and started taking out my things. Books including the Dakotah Sioux Indian Dictionary by Paul War Cloud, The New Goat Handbook by Ulrich Jaudas, Byron’s selected poems, and Michael Ende’s Never-ending Story (which, though only 377 pages long, goes on forever starting on page 27). Pictures by Van Gogh, a diagram of the Amistad, photos by my sister and movie stills of Wayne’s World and My Neighbor Totoro. It began to thunder outside as I brought in files and stamps and Buddhist statues and a telephone table, Christmas lights and the United States flag. Other comforting memorabilia added to the coziness of the place – an old stuffed dog named Cocoa, a mobile, candles, incense, a hammock, and a box of chocolates. Finally, I pulled my cardboard box out and the end of an extension cord. I plugged in my laptop and popped in a DVD of Japanese Animation.

Just in time, my breakfast arrived. It was a mushroom and cheese French omelet with one slice of toast slathered in butter. I pulled a coffee maker from my backpack and set it to perking a cup of Organic Peruvian. I settled back in the rolling chair and watched an episode of Gate Keepers.

When it actually was time to get to work, at around 1:10 p.m. I put in a CD of Andreas Vollenweider. My first assignment was a pirate yarn. I also was expected to finish a children’s story about a tree, another about my friend Coyote, and polish up the second draft of a humor essay I had written in desperation a while back.

I started to do my research, pawing through the old files of notebook paper, drawings torn from sketchbooks, and broken glass from, I supposed, when the cover fell off the bare bulb of the ceiling fan whirring above my head. I didn’t suppose, I knew, actually. The rain outside came and left again.

It was two o’clock when he arrived. He appeared behind me, his bright blue eyes gnawing into the back of my neck. His arms were folded over his beautiful soft white vest, which fit tightly over his slender chest. I didn’t need to turn around to know this detail, he was my creation. He always looked exactly as I envisioned him.

“So, are you killing me again,” he asked. His tone was smooth, and not at all as accusing as it should have been. I had killed him a number of times. I threw him into the Impasse, the chasm between the Unknown and the dream country of Ambrosia. I had locked him away in a dungeon, and then confronted him with his highly successful younger brother. If anybody does, writers believe in reincarnation, we do it all the time. And when he was reincarnated in the form of Kabris, I killed him again, trapping him with the mold spores in an underground cave, and again when Match Firelight, Our Dark Prince, used the lessons he learned from Kabris against him.

Jael wasn’t his first incantation – there had been Jonathan and Ligion and Clutch and Ghelic before him – but he was by far my favorite.

“Nope, I’m working on a pirate story.” I said, typing away furiously as if to kill the keys.

Where in the world did I pull Wally Lamb's name? I was trying to think of that story about the screwed up chick that was written by a man and it slowly but surely dawned on me. The story was "She's Come Undone."

Hey everyone. I can't stand Harry Potter. Put that in your cauldron and smoke it. More later...

I tried to give blood on Tuesday and almost passed out, twice. I understand that it is a good thing to donate a pint of blood every 56 days or so, and in a way, it is a very spiritual occurrence. I mean, I willingly let someone stab me in the arm with a large hollow needle and then I go and squeeze my own blood out into a little plastic bag. There has to be something spiritual in that, right?

But then I go and think about that needle sliding into my vein, and that sudden hot feeling in my neck and forehead makes me tell the nice lady "no" when she asks if I'm ok. And then comes the tingling in my fingertips, and the odd wiggly feeling traveling up and down my arm like a centipede. Over rush the nurses who crank my legs up at a 90-degree angle and apply compresses to my pulse points. After a few little cans of pineapple juice, and a slow build up to an upright position, I am taunted by the cookies just across the hallway, so when I finally reach them, and sit back down, I get suddenly nauseous at the thought of Lorna Doones and Toll House Chocolate Chip.

So my head goes between my legs as the dark corners start closing in on my hot face. Out come the nurses and a bright day glow orange upright stretcher thing on wheels which I move onto, Hannibal Lector -like, then they speed me back into the room of people squeezing out their own blood into little bags, plop me onto a lawn-chair type bed and up go my legs.

Okay, so I lay there for what must be a half an hour and all I have to do is sigh and think about how stupid I am. I read the little slides off the projection screen and it begins to dawn on me, I did everything wrong. Don’t drink caffeine on the day you donate, says the slide (I only had a few cups of coffee, I think). Eat two hours before you donate (what, like at 3 pm? Who eats at three p.m. I think?). Dieting and donating don’t mix (well, I am exercising more and watching what I eat – but that doesn’t constitute dieting does it?).

“How do you feel?”

The nurse asks the perpetual question of blood donation sites everywhere. “Fine,” I answer, “except my arm hurts and I’m upside down. I’m a sloppy donator,” I admit.

Anyway, I make it home, laughing a little at the song playing on the radio:

A tisket a taskit, I lost my yellow basket,
And if I do not find it, I think that I will die.

Well, I guess it was more than laughing a little, it was more like hysterical

Up next.... killer trees and obscene seedpods! (For a sneak peak, check out http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eden/ and imagine watching some of this stuff after loosing a pint of blood)