I'll start off with a lie and apologize.

I'm sorry I haven't been updating.

It is only in these last three weeks that I've even known about the wireless access available at River Inn. Unfortunately, River Inn is lame, except for the bar. Before this discovery, I had to hike down the Pine Ridge trail across the campgrounds of Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park and then proceed into the back of the Rangers' Office. Not only has this inhibited my will to email and keep in touch in general, but I've also, most terribly, neglected this forum.

Let me get the facts out the way. The hospital was able to upgrade my condition within several days of the accident, but should gangrene set in, they'll be forced into surgery. Should surgery happen, there is some risk of death, or so they tell me. I'm not worried though; it could be worse (though in one of my waking moments I heard the doctor say “it could hardly be worse, or uglier. poor fellow. he'll be a tard', I bet”)

Anyway, sorry for the extended fib, it's just more amusing than what's really been happening. My uncle, Stuart Smolkin, Stu-art Smolk-in, or Stu-Smo' as I call him, and his family, Jeanie (not bottled) and Daniel, are staying at my house now, as are my grandparents, Bill 'Revel' Smolkin and Molley Plotka Smolkin. They, like your tender author, are from New Orleans, home of drive-through daiquiris, and the digestive ground of Hurricane Katrina, who prefers to be called Kat, or Kitty depending on the mood of the TV anchor.

The damage to their houses has yet to be fully assessed, as they have only second hand accounts. But my grandparents' house faired better. Stuart's house was under six feet of water. I've learned that if you collect antiques, you ought to do so above sea level. Each time as I leave for Big Sur, my grandmother insinuates that they may be gone when I come back, though I come back every other week. It is not known when, if ever, they'll be able to go back. Bringing this fact up to her has been a delicate issue, which I do not have to address, fortunately. She is anxious to get home. But at 80, frankly, I don't think she really wants to find out what her home looks like now.

At this moment, like most of my visiting nights in Palo Alto, I am sleeping at Laura's. They have been kind enough to put me up, as I don't myself have a bed to sleep in. Or a decent place to fornicate for that matter. The plan was, before the hurricane crippled my sex life, to move to Palo Alto, prepare salads for twenty hours a week, and do a considerable amount of research, data collection, and census work on Laura. But I've been thwarted yet again, though we're doing just fine.

I had early considered spending several months in Japan, but research revealed that it would be wiser to postpone this for the next summer. More places, schools, costs, etc. available at this later date. So I was to spend some time in Palo Alto; I felt like I owed it to Laura.

When my relatives first came, the flooding wasn't yet the issue. Several days later, after shacking up at Laura's, I was watching the tele in Big Sur. A TV woman, repugnant and gray, said it could six months before New Orleans is habitable. It was then, as this subtle message circulated in the nebulous void of my skull, that I realized they would be there, in my bed, for a while, during the time that I, your moist author, should be fornicating moistly. So I figured out a way to stay in Big Sur.

I've not yet started my job, but I will soon. I will work as a 'Park Aide' for the Multi-Agency-Facility, or as the big sign says, the Big Sur Station. I am paid by CA State Parks and the U.S. Forest Service to answer tourist questions about Big Sur. I know a lot about Big Sur. In fact, I know more about Big Sur than any other place I've ever been to in my life.

http://jrabold.net/bigsur/roadpt0650.htm

I live in a small dormitory style room. I recently moved out of my old room, still inhabited by my old roommate, Golden. This is for the best. I've just begun to decorate it. Having a single means that I alone am responsible for the vibe, so I bought a small red carpet. I don't really have much to put on the walls. I'd love some letters with stuff, or art, to put on my walls. All I have up right now are some short, tight red running shorts that a friend gave me to wear for her pleasure. You may reach me for the next several months at:

Aaron Hebert
Big Sur Station #1,
Big Sur CA 93920 USARulez

It may also be the case that I’ll be going down to New Orleans at some point. My greatest fear, and my mother’s, is that my grandparents insist on rebuilding their house, if that’s what needs to happen. Even the disruption of my grandmother’s water-exercise routine is disquieting to her. I can only imagine what she’ll insist on doing amongst the debris within her home. I don’t think she realizes, being obstinate and old, that Revel can’t get down on his knees to pick up the pieces. This is, of course, where I come in. Even my mother, for a time, considered going down there with them, whenever that will be. I can offer a whole variety of services. You may also consider me a future mate for the following reasons: I can cook several styles of cuisine with a variety of tastes in mind; I have years of construction work under my belt; I require very little in the way of affection or attention; I resent most forms of excess, excluding alcohol and other lubricants; and, I spent every other Sustained-Silent-Reading Period of my fourth grade year exchanging insults in Klingon with Jeremiah ‘the Twat’ Tribby, the most common of which was the easily constructed, ‘your nose is shiny.’