It’s a rhetorical question, of course, but one I’m sure both exsulis and Jezmon (hey, by the way, nice to see you here…now where are the other two?) would have answers for in spades.

The prescribed “method” for the way things are supposed to work around here are, I post on Monday, I post on Wednesday, I post on Friday and “tada!” we put up a comic. Erratic is certainly a word one could use to describe how we’ve been doing things. Much in the same way big is a word one could use to describe the universe.

But do not despair, with help from the ever gracious exsulis, we are slowly but surely stumbling toward a real website, instead of our url slapped on top of a wordpress template (thank you, wordpress, for your free template!).

And in my defense, I did have a post written, or at least started, that was going to go up on Tuesdayish, but I didn’t really finish writing it. Plus it was on the “serious” side, which is a side I find quite perplexing and disorienting. Also, the article it referenced is something like 5 days old at this point, which in internets years is like 20,000. That shit may have already become fossilized!

So’s anyways, work continues, as it tends to do. And I thank all of you (or, maybe I should say, all 5 of you) for your patience.

One last piece of miscellaneous information. I’ve really been into the new Spoon album of late, and while checking out their site I came across an old news post that said they were playing a show on July 12 at “Cafu Nord” in San Francisco. I assume they meant Cafe Du Nord

which is a pretty small club, literally, a ten minute walk from my old apartment in San Francisco. Don’t believe me? Well see for yourself…

Sometimes, and by that I mean, often. I fucking hate living in the god-damned suburbs! Sure, we own a house, which is certainly better for the kid, but fuck I miss being able to drink heavily in the full confidence that I can, probably, stumble the quarter-mile necessary to reach my bed. Hell, I miss being able to drink heavily, period!

For a major metropolitan area, San Francisco is quaint in a lot of ways. One such way is the fact that it is very difficult to find food after the bars close. I’ve only been to New York once, but Manhattan seemed to have no problems delivering mediocre quality food to me during the wee hours of the morning. But if you’re drinking in, say, the Sunset and you want something to eat at 3 am, you might have to trek your ass over to the god-damn Marina just to get some Jack in the Box.

North Beach, however, has long been a bastion of multiple late night eateries that specialize in pizza. North Beach is also a bastion of pretentious literary landmarks, strip clubs, and ridiculously crowded breakfast places, but I digress…

So now The City is apparently considering a proposal to force all business, including the pizza places along Broadway, to close at 2 am.

So there was this one weekend when the wife (then, the girlfriend) was out of town for work. It just so happened that one of the guys from my soccer team was also “off-duty” as he called it, because his girl was back in Texas visiting her family.

So, of course, it was decided that we were going to get drunk. Steve came over and we went to get dinner at The Sausage Factory (and don’t bother pointing out the ridiculous irony that there is a restaurant called “The Sausage Factory” in the heart of the Castro…) before heading off to North Beach to meet up with some of the other guys from our team.

I think I had a beer with our meal.

I know that when we got to the first bar, I had two (more?) beers. This first place was pretty nice, but located in an alley, for some reason. We didn’t stay there long and headed off to another bar a few doors down. Once here, Steve says something like, let’s do shots. I’m pretty sure I convinced him to do a round of Jaegermeister, because that’s one of the few hard alcohols I can tolerate in shot form. So at this point I’m pretty buzzed and Steve says let’s do another shot, but something different than Jaeger. I was probably open to suggestion at this point because I only half-heartedly opposed, even when Steve ordered Wild Turkey…

And the next morning I woke up somewhere that I didn’t know…

Luckily, it turned out to be Steve’s apartment. My recollections of a majority of that night are so insubstantial that the term hazy would be a gross exaggeration.

I know at one point I had my arms around one of my teammates and was saying something like, “I love this team!”

I was told, though I don’t remember, that I threw up in the middle of a crowd outside a pizzeria at 2:30 am.

So what I’m asking is, if San Francisco shuts down the North Beach pizzerias at 2 am, what will drunken amateur footballers do with themselves when they are so drunk that they can’t stand on their own accord?

So yesterday was my father-in-law’s birthday. Those familiar with the situation know that this means little to me. But since we had “grandpa Heap” over last month for his birthday, the wife felt compelled to invite “grandpa asshat” over. Sharing in the “festivities” were my sister-in-law (who I like) and her two sons, and my brother-in-law (who I get along with, but really despise) and his four sons (his daughter, I guess, was busy…). So the wife and I decided that we’d do what any rational, level-headed person would do in such a situation…we ordered pizza.

I’m still of the belief that the best pizza in the world can be found, not in New York, or even Italy, but San Francisco (which may relate to my irrational love of all things The City, I’ll admit). Blondie’s, for instance, gives you not only huge slices at a resonable price, but also affords one the experience of eating one’s food on the top of a garbage can, right in front of homeless people (they do have a dining room downstairs, but that’s mainly for tourists…)

My wife’s preference was always Deja Vu, in part because they delivered to our house, but it was really good pizza. The one time we actually went into the place, there was a 60 year old asian guy and a 60 year old white hippie working, which seemed totally appropriate. Once, they delivered a pizza to us with broccoli on it (I said, black olive) and didn’t charge us for it, and gave us our next one free, so that was cool.

My favorite was Mozzarella di Bufala. Not only was the pizza the absolute greasiest, tastiest ever, the place is run by a bunch of Brazilians, so they have a ton of Brazilian food on the menu which is, as the kids say, the bomb.

So, anyway, as with most food down in So. Cal. (particularly Indian food) we haven’t really found a pizza place that compares with any of the three above. Zito’s is decent, but we don’t even live in the OC anymore. The place that’s become the default pizza at our house, since moving back to Crown Town, is Marcello’s. Now it’s not great, but it’s decent, cheap and pretty close to our house.

So I roll in there yesterday to pick up our order and one of the guys says they messed up one of the pizza’s and it’ll be 10 more minutes. No big deal, less time I have to spend with people I don’t like too much. Then another guy comes out to ring up my order. I didn’t immediately recognize this guy but as soon as he takes my credit card he says, “Holy shit, it is you ‘kilian heap’ from miscellaneous private elementary school.”

And I stare at the guy…

And he stares back…

“Chris?” I say, because I really can’t place him.

“No,…” and then he says his name and I say, “Ooohhhh, right.”

What I remember about the guy is 1. we went to the same school for a number of years 2. he was a year behind me (I think, I’m pretty sure it was a year) 3. we played on the same AYSO team one year…that’s about it. I slightly remember that he was, I guess you’d say, odd.

That’s it.

If he hadn’t recognized me, I certainly wouldn’t have recognized him.

So I’m sitting there waiting for my pizza and he whips out his phone and shows me a picture of his kid, which is fine because I pull out mine and show him…

Now that’s all well and good until I (stupidly) ask if he has any more kids.

“Naw, but I have one on the way.”

“Congratulations.”

“Oh it’s not mine. I’ve been taking precautions, my girlfriend might have pulled a condom out of the trash, but that would be giving her too much credit in the intelligence department. I think she’s been f***ing some other guy.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah, and she keeps complaining that I haven’t fixed her car in 6 months, but she just sits at home and doesn’t do shit. So I’m like, why the hell should I fix your car when we have other bills.”

“Right.”

See that, that’s me wishing I had either A. had the pizza delivered, or B. not asked any questions. That’ll teach me.

He talks for a while about his son, which is fine, but I can’t help comparing in my mind how much better my kid is than his. His son is a few months older than my daughter and is only starting to talk, whereas my daughter is articulating complete sentences at the age of 16 months.

It probably has a lot to do with the fact that this guy has done some serious drugs at some point. He might be sober now, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I’ve know WAY too many speed freaks, and he was one at some point. I’m also skeptical of any woman that would have a kid with this guy. At some point he mentioned they were living in a motel for a while. He also goes on about how he works 60 hours a week and doesn’t have time to find another job.

I finally get my order and as I’m walking out, saying “See you around,” all I can think to myself is, damn, I’m going to have to find another pizza place.