today zachary’s dad’s friend tried to get the door unlocked. then zachary and i went on a boat ride, to turn off his dad’s houseboat. (on boat remember saying ‘remember when I talked about how I remembered easter egg hunts were fun to your mom,’ zac saying ‘yeah something like that, it was bad’). when we came back a AAA truck was parked in the driveway and a man was doing things to my car.

the man got my car open and an alarm started honking. my keys were not in the car.

the keys were peeking out of a couch cushion.

now i am going to take zachary out to a steak dinner in atlantic city. this will probably be only update until very late tonight when i’m in baltimore and can use dad’s computer.

6:00pm: Z: ‘Meg’s being annoying so she’s driving,’ he says to parents as we leave.

Driving:

me: ‘What’s your favorite hip hop noise thingy?’

Z: [pause] ‘The kind of question you ask because you just want to say what your answer would be.’

me: ‘is that why you ask questions like that?’

Z: ‘yeah, mostly I ask to be polite.’

me: ‘interesting. Yeah, sometimes I ask knowing I won’t be interested in the answer.’

Z: ‘you could do that as an article, like, add something quirky after, like ‘kinds of questions not to ask in a graveyard.”

Signs for ‘lucy the elephant: a national monument.’

Z: ‘this is a national monument, we’re about to see a national monument.’

Walk quietly to fence, make matter-of-fact anticlimactic declarations like ‘Lucy,’ walk quietly to car.

Z: ‘I’m always thinking of questions for yahoo answers like ‘is lancaster nice?”

Merging onto highway:

Z: ‘how close is the nearest dildo to us, do you think?’

6:30–8:30pm: Seated at Knife and Fork fancy restaurant. Ordered $14 manhattans, lobster thermadore.

Z: ‘Did you feel douchey going to places like this with Tao’

me: ‘No, we were both just weird, it didn’t matter.’

Z: ‘I’m weird but I feel like a douche here.’

me: ‘I don’t know it was fine.’

Z: ‘Yeah haha you guys were on drugs all the time.’

me: ‘I don’t know, maybe,’ restraining saying ‘just Xanax, usually, if we went out to eat.’

8:38pm: me: ‘Are you supposed to give your kids what they want, or do you buy them things you think will be good, or what? How do you know what to give them?’

Z: ‘Just, TV does it.’

me: ‘Oh, yeah.’

Z: ‘TV raising our kids is sick.’

me: ‘But no, maybe it’s like that thing, ‘it takes a village to raise a…”

Z: ‘Interesting.’

8:53pm: Entering Bally’s casino. ‘Lust for life’ playing and I bounce around like a maniac having the time of my life on a Royal Carribean cruise commercial.

me: [Iggy Pop voice] ‘drive a G.T.O.’

Z: ‘You got a real lust for life.’

me: ‘He goes, he’s like, ‘drive a GEE TEE OH.”

Z: ‘Yes that’s right.’