Check it—I have the IN-TER-NET. It was a long and difficult two and some weeks, but I have survived, and may even be slightly better for it. I’m all moved into my übercool apartment which is shaping up ship with my collage-crazy way of having my way. I also pull busted things off boulevards. The apartment has bucking hardwood floors with Burtonesque antique built-ins (doorframes don’t align and it’s impossible to hang a picture straight), and combined with my housemate Anna’s charming-bizarre taste, the space has an interesting retro broken mystique. With plants. Lots and lots of plants. For the first time ever I feel like I live in my whole house instead of just die in my bedroom as a door shut, drapes drawn, hidey-hole secret dweller. Yep. My computer’s in a community space, and that’s scary. We’ll see how it works out—if I can still be me while eyes are watching, but when are they not?

Last weekend Anna and I got floor tickets for Marilyn Manson October 16 at Roy Wilkins in Saint Paul. Anna’s a longtime fan and I just think it’ll be fun, especially if there’s an electro opening act as rumored (please please please! dear god that would rule). Adamant on avoiding Ticketmaster charges, we figured we’d drive to the Roy Wilkins/River Centre box office Saturday morning. As we approach the convention center, however, we find $10 parking signs and mobs of people. Huh. So there’s something going on. And then we realize… all the pedestrians are women, hordes and droves of women who all look alike—well-dressed middle-aged suburbanites in pant-suits and Sunday dresses, with handbags and purpose and happiness. They were just so… joyful and determined and white bread weird… what is going on.

I drop off Anna to find the box office while I search for free parking then approach the complex, not-like-the-other in beat, baggy jeans, a polyester shirt, and around my head that same filthy rag I fished out of a mosh pit two years ago, remember? part hip-hop, part my dad’s closet in a sea of…what? What is this? And then I see a sign: WOMEN OF FAITH. Sweet Jesus! I was buying Manson tickets plumb in the thick of twenty thousand Christian moms!

Deliciously giddy, I run to find Anna who is cornered by a kindly woman who insists beyond all well-I-dunnos that we take tickets to this event… at $60 a pop! I didn’t know how much they were when I accepted, “Yeah, sure,” thinking hells yes I wanna see this crap! only to later find we robbed her. Apparently, however, she had been selling a load of tickets (scalping??) and couldn’t get rid of her last bunch. She also blessed us. It felt warm.

So we get the Manson tix without a hitch then slink like sly into the Xcel Energy Center lobby amidst the holiness and happiness and a disgusting amount of commercialization of the Word and other words and a whole buncha schlock that aren’t words at all, just advertising. Feel-good thermos tumblers and self-help CDs in $30 shrinkwrap, T-shirts titled “Outrageous Joy,” “Sensational Life,” and “Extravagant Grace.” And once we step into the arena… whoa. It was wild. Mind-stopping, really, there were so many people. We listen to some contemporary god music then watch a one-woman act skit narrative… thing that could’ve been more disturbing than it was, though it definitely gets an Are You Kidding Me? award. It was like a live performance of a Lifetime made-for-TV movie, complete with dramatic mood music and renewed faith in the human (and holy!) spirit. We were standing in back at the very top, and behind us beyond a velvety curtain someone vomited most powerfully. Halfway through, just… blaaaaaugh. Naw, it’s not relevant at all, but it maximized the strangeness. We duck out after the skit, check out a couple curio shops, then call our Saint Paul adventure quits. I don’t often visit our capital fair (at least not downtown), but every time I do, something wacky happens, I swear.

… I just put in “Thirteenth Step” for the first time and immediately started to cry. I am made of easily breakables and strength that knows when to hide. A full review will likely be forthcoming once I know the album better. than I know I myself

If you contacted me in the past two and a half weeks, please tolerate yet more delay for a legitimate response—I’ve found myself engaged in unexpected responsibilities. Thank you for your patience. Do good things.