MarxLennon's Gratuitous Image Page

Okay, so the question is what happened with Angel.

As you recall, I started receiving packages of pictures of her. At first it seemed they were coming from her husband, Tony. I abandoned that idea by the time the third package arrived.

I hadn't been able to reach Angel or Tony for weeks. Most likely due to some paranoid tendencies inherited from some member of my family, I began to develop complicated plots concerning what was going on.

Finally, I got a call from Tony. Angel had left him. Obviously he wasn't going to go into a lot of detail, but the gist of it was that Angel had met someone on the Internet. One day she just up and left.

Angel had moved to Omaha, Nebraska. She moved in with this guy she met in a chat room.

Tony got served with divorce papers about four months later.

This past spring, I got a letter from Angel, with another picture enclosed.

Things were fine. She had gotten a job with the DA's office in a nearby county. She and her new beau, Roy, and bought a little house together. She was happier than she'd been in years.

She apologized for sending the mystery packages. She was feeling neglected and unappreciated and sent the pictures just to stir things up. Apparently Roy convinced her that I'd put them on the Web, and what better way to stir things up.

She invited me to stop and visit her any time I was in the neighborhood.

Angel was all happy and cheery. I didn't get much information on this guy Roy, but, according to her , he was a great guy.

As the fates would have it, I would end up in the neighborhood not too long afterward.

As I mention on the front page now, I've gone into semi-retirement. The grind of working the vampire shift began taking its toll. Amazingly enough, it turned out that Chrissy and I had made some sound investments over the years (that was mostly due to Chrissy and plain dumb luck. Buying stock in Apple, for instance, was sheer luck. I had thought I was buying into the company the Beatles started.).

ANYWAY, that meant I could try new things. For the past couple of years, I'd been doing things, mostly behind the scenes, with Press the Button. This past summer the staff invited me to go to Burning Man with them. For the first time in I can't remember how many years, I actually could take a week off, so I went.

"Too strange" is, however, an adequate description of the trip I took with the guys from Press the Button. I knew riding cross country with three guys in their late 20's would be something to remember, but I'm not sure I was ready for the special vehicle we would be travelling in. At first they planned on a bus, a cross between the Further Bus and the Partridge Family's bus. What we ended up with was far more bizarre.

Look closely, ladies and gentlemen, what you are seeing is a 1978 AMC Pacer station wagon stretch limousine, complete with flame job and racing wheels. This sucker was laid out with everything you can imagine. You could comfortably sleep five people in this thing. Riding across the Great Plains in this thing was one of those experiences one doesn't soon forget.

Angel was suitably impressed when we pulled into her nice little driveway in suburban Omaha.

Burning Man itself is somewhat of a blur. I know I overindulged in things I hadn't overindulged in for years. There are three images that stick out in my memory.

First, the promotional posters for the animated film the guys have been working on, "Showdown at the Midnight Nickedrom".

Then there was this cartoon from an anti-drug pamphlet someone was handing out to anyone who walked by them. It's from the National Child Safety Council. The title is "A Snake in the Grass."

And lastly, our final picture. I only remember it as a picture, not as an experience. I believe Paul Ryan took the picture, but he refuses to give me any details concerning it. He showed me this on our way home. Granted, we were already in Illinois by the time I knew we were heading home. It's not a fake. I have the tattoo to prove it. I'm not sure I need to know any more details than that.

Well, I think that's about all we need to go into at this point.

Until next time.