I just realized I left something out of my previous entries regarding my time with Granny Bernadette. Occasionally I would get bored with staying at Granny’s and I would come up to Lexington for a few days. Sometimes I drove myself, but I think after I sold my car to a childhood friend, I rode back and forth with Bill on his occasional trips to visit his family. I would usually stay with my brother for a couple nights and Erin for a couple, and I would do various enjoyable things while I was there, that I couldn’t do while I was at home with Granny.
I remember one time Erin went out of town and left me alone with the computer that used to be mine, and I spent almost 16 hours a day on that thing, chatting with my online buddies, listening to MP3’s, and playing ROSE Online. Al had also recently defeated the original Xbox game Fable and loaned it to me, so I played a good deal of that while I was there, as well. I would drink coffee and boil ramen to keep me up at all hours of the night. I would later state unequivocally to Erin that it was “the best time I’ve had since before my breakdown.” And I guess it was true, although I’ve had better times since.
I was something of a night owl at the time, and at Bro’s I would also stay up extremely late, once again messing around on a computer that he owned. I still didn’t have one of my own, and I had given Bro an extra $60 toward this computer, so he would put an actual GPU in it (instead of relying on an integrated chip) so I could play games with it. I distinctly remember playing Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude to 100% completion. I also experimented watching a few animes in the “moe” style as recommended by the Internet, but they both sucked unimaginably. I vowed never to take anime recommendations from Web forums ever again because of this. There was a pop machine down by the laundry room that was usually out of everything but Diet Mountain Dew, so I drank an inordinate amount of that during my nocturnal adventures. I would also chat with my usual online buddies.
On the few times I was flush with new income, and right after a night of gaming, watching, browsing and chatting, I would walk up to Waffle House (which was less than 25 yards away) and order myself a full All-Star Breakfast, come back down to Apartment 69 and crash on the couch, and sleep like a baby all the next day. Scully, my Bro’s mixed-breed Chocolate Labrador, would often sleep throughout the day right next to me, and I have to say that’s sort of when I began to develop a bond with her.
Anyway, those formed some great memories for me, and it was sort of a “low budget” way of having fun.