I'm sleeping with a Llama

I hadn't done a gig in ages, not since before the whole Wyatt thing, so when Connor Frio bet me I couldn't make §500 in tips, I decided it was time to stop being so lazy and get those fingers strummin' again. Hey, at least I didn't laugh in his face. I can make §500 in tips in the first hour. I tell you, false modesty is not even in my vocabulary.

I asked Wyatt if he wanted to come with me. He spends a lot of time just looking out his bedroom window towards the Egon's house and his former gravesite, although you can't see it because the Alvi's house is in the way. I don't know if he's lonely or he just likes the view, but I thought it might do him good to get out of the house.

He had confided in me that his fondest dream when alive had been to write books. In his new in-between state of existence, he found himself wanting to take up his old life and his old desires again. So while I jammed, he strolled over to the library to use their computer and terrorize the library patrons by his very presence. He could have borrowed my computer, but I'm sure that wouldn't have been as much fun.

After I'd amassed the immodest sum of a couple of thousand simoleans (just to prove my point), I went looking for Connor, to collect my winnings. He paid off quite handsomely, matching my tip money simolean for simolean, so all in all it was a very productive day.

Yikes! This place is the bachelor pad from hell. Why is it that men's taste is all in their mouths? I never noticed it before because the only parts of the house I paid attention to were the sofa and the bed. Oh, and the shower, which may have been designed for one but accomodates two beautifully. Zayne, old girl, this house is in dire need of a little redecorating, and you are just the girl to do it. I promised Travis I wouldn't do it all in pink. I didn't make it too girly, either.

Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

Travis and Wyatt both like it. They say it improves their mood just by being in the room.

Every once in a while, Wyatt forgets that he now has human needs to attend to. I made him clean it up himself.

What Travis has mostly been wanting to do lately (besides flirt with me every time he lays eyes on me and make love to me until I beg for mercy) is work out. It's incredibly important to his career to be in top physical condition. I said nobody who doesn't live on Mount Olympus could possibly be in better physical condition, but he only smirked and gave my behind a playful swat.

Being a natural athlete, he'd been after me to get more exercise. I know I'm a couch potato. To be honest, I'd secretly been wishing I was in better athletic condition. So on one of his days off we went to the gym and stayed the whole freakin' day. I'm living with a maniac. 

 

 

 

To tell the truth, as hard as we worked, we actually had fun together.

"Do  you have ANY idea how sore I'm going to be tomorrow?! 

Buster, your massage skills had better be top notch."

"Oh, baby, you have NO idea."

"Hey, babe, how about that massage right now?"

I was just wishing they'd thought to install a peephole.

 

Didn't I predict my man would be the Llama's first round draft pick?

I thought his minor league uniform was cuter, but I wouldn't say that to him. The main thing I don't like about this one is that they make him stuff his sexy pony tail up under his cap.

I took him out for a fancy meal to celebrate his promotion. I kissed him soundly and told him how proud I was of him. When the waiters started giving us dirty looks we un-superglued our lips and straightened our clothing and hurried home to bed so I could continue showing him how proud I was of him. All night.

I get a better roommate

Wyatt's party was a howling success. For once, I didn't even feel like hogging the scene with my guitar. I hosted it at the pub because my house threatens to burst at the seams after the fourth or fifth guest (like the circus act where a zillion clowns all get into a teeny car), and beach parties have been done to death. Plus, it seemed like such a good excuse to get all dolled up and wear our finery.

I wasn't sure how many people would show up, given the short notice and on a weekday, but it was a decent gathering. Most of my neighbors and a few close friends were there; the ones I most wanted to introduce Wyatt to. Plus the inevitable gatecrashers and a few pub regulars.

Somebody snapped a photo, and I'm posting it in the blog. From left to right we have:

 

Ginny Egon with the flower in her hair

Me and Travis shaking our booties to the music
Morgana Wolff, looking like she'd rather be someplace else
Tamara Jones
Zelda Mae, my manager/agent and former boss
Leighton Sekemoto dancing with Zelda
Thornton Wolff
Wayne Garth and Dax Egon, the  two blonde guys
And finally the guest of honor, rocking out
There were a couple of others inside, including Stiles. He never does do well around a lot of people.

The party lasted until well after midnight. Eventually people started migrating inside, where the food was, and the serious drinking began. Travis and I stayed outside dancing until long after everybody else had stopped, and he remained extremely attentive all night.

Wyatt met a lot of new people and reacquainted himself with the pleasures of the living flesh.

 

And the not so pleasurable parts, too. LOL. His first day of being back in a semi-living body must have been ... intense.

 

 

The last thing I was expecting to happen in my life was to find myself with a ghost as a roommate. I have to say I'm excited to see how this fork in my road is going to pan out. It's an adventure. All of life is an adventure. I've alway been happy living alone, so I'm a little surprised at myself for coming around to the idea so fast. Could it be that the great Zayne Hunter, with all her fans and all her lovers, has been a little bit lonely?

I've always been a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl. I think a lot of people overthink and overplan. The only thing I ever planned was to become a rock star, and even that wasn't really a plan; more of a wish that I made come true. Not logically or methodically, but because I wanted it so much that it ... just happened. I mostly just go with the flow and see where it takes me, like that fateful phone call from the science lab.

I guess what I'm saying is that I follow my heart.

 

That's why when Travis pulled me aside at the party and asked me to move in with him, I didn't hesitate.

 

I moved in that very night. One phone call was all it took to arrange for the sale of my house and furniture. As for my personal belongings, I was only moving around the corner, so we stopped by my house so I could pack a few bags, and that was that. Of course I had to explain that I couldn't abandon Wyatt and he would have to come with me. Travis wasn't bothered in the least. We'd all had an exhausting day, and went straight to bed.

We "slept" most of the next day, and Travis had to hustle to get to practice on time. Okay, okay, we didn't actually sleep much at all. But you knew that.

 

I spent most of the remainder of the day learning that living with a ghost was going to be quite an experience. Apparently, one of Wyatt's chief pleasures is sneaking up behind people and giving them a scare.

 

Again and again.

Eventually my many recent sleepless nights caught up with me and I tumbled into bed. Even then, Wyatt wasn't ready to give up his fun, but I was snoring before he could scare me again.

 

I didn't hear Travis come in, but I felt him get into bed, or so I thought. That crazy ghost. I guess he's used to having the run of the house from his haunting days.

Needless to say, Travis put an end to that idea swiftly.

 

 

I get a roommate

I had to fire another maid today for eating my cereal. What is it with these maids? If they'd just ask, they could raid my fridge all they want. Just ask permission. God. Are you people living in the stone age?

The dishwasher broke again, too. And flooded the kitchen. I can't keep anything cleaned or fixed around this place without a headache. It's damn near enough to make a girl want to learn some home-ec. NOT.

I didn't even care what kind of mess there was at my house. I was so excited about my little project that I nearly forgot to pay the bills on the way out. Hell, I'm surprised I remembered to eat.

The Landgraab Industries Science Facility is an imposing place. They've got this huge geodesic dome next to the main building, and a 12 foot robot statue in the lobby. I wanted to have a closer look at it, but they ushered me in right away.

That place is cooooool. There were all kinds of machines doing all kinds of things that I don't even want to know about, and the whole place was filled with eerie noises: roars and whooshes and hums and bleeps and bloops straight out of a sci fi movie. There were experiments and projects of all kinds going on everywhere I looked. They made me put on a lab coat and protective goggles just to be allowed into the lab areas.

They seem to do a lot of things with plants here. I bet that's what the dome is all about; it's probably a greenhouse. Or a greenhouse  slash  phytogenetic engineering lab. They have a cooling pond out back, too, where they no doubt do weird things with fish.

The head scientist on the afterlife project explained to me that they had developed an intricate and volatile machine that, they hoped, would bring a ghost back to life. Wow. They took the gravestone into a locked room where the highly experimental and probably highly dangerous contraption was housed. They let me watch some of the day-to-day goings-on in the other labs while the experiment was in progress. A guy in a lab coat and pocket protector actually asked me if I wanted to be a test subject. Ha ha!

When it was all over, one of scientists came out and told me that the experiment had not been successful. With an apologetic cough, he said I could try again later, for a price. Well, bullshit. I didn't come looking for them in the first place! They asked me! Then he dropped the bombshell. The ghost whose "remains" I had brought them was now MY ghost. Not mine as in the ectoplasmic embodiment of Zayne Hunter's immortal spirit. Mine as in hey ma look what followed me home.

That's right. He couldn't go back to haunting the Egon's, and I was going to have to take care of him. You see, they hadn't only failed to resurrect the former living Wyatt, they'd managed to mess him up as a ghost. You could still see through him, but he was changed in some ways. No longer an unadulterated ectoplasm being, he could no longer sleep in the ground. He had no "home" to go back to. He was now my responsibility.

Sure enough, there he was waiting for me when I emerged from the lobby into the bright sunlight. Hang on. Whoa. A ghost in bright sunlight? Ghosts come out at night. If Wyatt could be out in the daytime, what else had they done to him?

Did I say "a" ghost? Make that my ghost. I've just adopted a ghost?!?! Holy shit.

I felt horribly guilty for getting Wyatt into this mess, but he seemed to find it all very funny. Being dead probably changes your outlook and improves your sense of humor. I mean, you can't die again, so what is there to lose? You may as well have fun.

There was clearly only one thing to be done.

I had to throw Wyatt a party.

 

I go ghost hunting again

So, I was hanging around in the park, having my usual public love affair with the guitar and getting in some quality people watching. Damn, people are weird when they think nobody's looking.

I just about died laughing at this one guy. There were two babies crying - I mean really bringing down the house - in perfect tandem, and he stood there FOREVER bitching and moaning about the noise, with his hands over his ears, and making these loud "hmmmph" noises so we'd all know just how disgusted he was. Dude! It's a big park. You can move!

To be honest, it was pretty gross, and I didn't hang around them too long myself. Their parents had set them down and gone off to eat hamburgers or something hours before, and they didn't even bother to change the kids' diapers. The air was pretty toxic.

I had noticed Pauline Wan indulging what must be her newest hobby, fishing. The whole time I was in the park, she kept right on fishing - but apparently didn't have the good sense to stop for a potty break.

Anyhow, while I was hanging out wondering what to do next, I got the weirdest phone call ever. Some guy at the science lab told me that they were doing some kind of super secret experiments. If I would bring the "remains of a loved one" to the lab I would, he promised, see some truly amazing revelations regarding the afterlife.

Okay, my first thought was if this is so super secret, what are you guys doing making telemarketing calls? In light of my recent fascination with ghosts, however, I paused with my thumb on the delete key. It wasn't as though he was asking me to buy anything. What if I really did get to see something nobody's ever seen before? Even if I just got to stand around and watch a bunch of scientists fool around with beakers and stuff, well, that's something I've never done. Reason enough right there.

Problem was, I didn't have the remains of anybody, loved one or not. I had some very elderly acquaintances, but that wasn't exactly helpful. Say! Maybe I could borrow one of Dax and Ginny's ghosts!

I didn't know just exactly how I was going to contrive this; I had no idea how a ghost was likely to take the suggestion that he have experiments done to him. I mean, you'd think a ghost would have nothing to lose, and would be eager for some new experiences. But I don't know. I only knew one ghost personally, and we'd certainly never talked about experimenting on his dead, errr undead, body! But I was getting ahead of myself; first I had to catch one.

I went home and got cleaned up, stockpiled some pb&j, and settled down for night one of Project Stakeout.

I woke up with the moon high, my head in my plate, and no ghost.

It took three nights for me to hear that eerie laughter and spot the glowing mist across the street. I ran over there so fast I'm lucky I didn't stumble and lose a couple of teeth. I was in luck! It was my music loving ghost buddy, Wyatt Acosta.

We headed over to my house because even ghosts like to sit down and be comfortable. There was an astonishing amount of activity for 2:30 in the morning. I saw Tamara's latest conquest, Elisha somebody - I can't remember his last name - dashing out of her house as if he'd been caught in flagrante delicto. And Lisa Bunch was just coming out of the Kennedy's. She sure is out late. They don't usually let guests stay that late. She must have come home from school with one of their kids and stayed late to finish homework, or something.

Tamara's new guy looked pretty cute, what little glimpse I caught as he sprinted past. I wonder what his hurry was? I'm glad Tamara and Wayne are still friends and still roommates even though they date other people now instead of each other. They're pretty good next door neighbors.

 I made us a bite to eat, but Wyatt said no thanks, he didn't eat anymore, and he headed straight into my bedroom and made my bed. I thought it was kinda cute. All these ghosts certainly are helpful around the house. I suppose the one I saw making sandwiches was just making them for the Egons. Maybe it's habit from when he was alive. Maybe he enjoyed cooking.

 Next thing I knew, Wyatt was sound asleep on my bed - on top of the covers. I didn't get mad, though. It can't be too comfortable sleeping in the ground all the time. Well, what would you have done? With nothing else to do in the dead of night, and being quite sleep deprived, I crawled into my own side of the bed and sacked out. Now I can say I've slept with a ghost. Cool.

I heard him get out of bed after only a couple of hours, so I got up too,  hoping he'd feel like enlightening me about the whole mortal remains thing. We had only the briefest of chats, then he abruptly got up and went over to the refrigerator. I thought he wanted something to eat after all, but suddenly he just went POOF in a puff of blue smoke. It was sooooo cool. I guess the dawn was breaking and his time was up, or something. I thought that was vampires, but what do I know?

Okay, so here's the point. Wyatt was quite amenable to a new and different experience, as I'd hoped. He said that as much as he'd enjoy accompanying a charming young lady anywhere in pursuit of scientific advancement and adventure (don't you just love the way he talks?), the lab would only be open in the daytime, so he'd be unable to accompany me.

 Furthermore, the wording of the request had been for a loved one's mortal remains, and that meant the actual bones or ashes out of a coffin, not the undead spirit wandering forever between worlds. Me? Dig up a body? YUCK. Wyatt shrewdly suggested that I just dig up his gravestone and take it. I clearly hadn't planned this very well on my own.

I made quick work of it - it wasn't as hard as I expected - and headed back to bed for some long overdue sleep. On the way I saw Cycl0n3 on the Kennedy's porch. Wow. What the hell are they doing over there, selling drugs or something? They used to be so reclusive, and now a visitor at 2:30 am and another at 5:30 am?

I didn't stop to talk to Cycl0n3. He doesn't have much to say to me any more. Oh, he doesn't cut me dead in the street or anything, but we're really not friends any more. I think it sucks. I don't care that he has a new girlfriend. I'm sure Demetria's nice, and I don't hold it againt either one of them. Tamara and Wayne stayed friends, didn't they? Maybe she's just really possessive. Maybe he's actually serious about her and doesn't want any entanglements.

I don't get out of bed for two days

I haven't blogged that much lately.

I've been busy.

Sometime around 4:30 in the morning, we got hungry ... for food, I mean.

How about a little serenade while you sleep?

He liked it so much he didn't stop to get dressed.