Caustically Optimistic

astronaut diapers

In preparing to visit Texas I've made a list because I have to plan to plan because planning is succeeding and also terribly annoying.  I first needed to list what I'll list and then fill in the attendant lists then type the lists and check them for accuracy and then print them and hand serve them to anyone I've deputized on the lists and also email the lists so they're forever burned into the memory of the internet and this step also removes the ability to claim plausible deniability.

The list to prepare for this trip includes: pre-flight checklist, what to pack, itinerary, contacts and blessings, provisions, maps, worst case scenarios, in-flight entertainment, and structured activities for free time.

 A pre-flight checklist is pretty self-explanatory: what needs to happen to the car before we take off for Texas?  I need to get an oil change, tire rotation and complementary pre- trip inspection at the dealer.  It's important that I give he dealer a good chance to fleece me before I leave town.  If they didn't go over one hundred twenty points on the car they might miss out on hundreds of dollars of unneeded service work.  I also need to get the car's interior cleaned because it's pretty filthy.

Then, I have to consider what to pack.  I am going to need to bring underwear, lots and lot of underwear.  My first college roommate lives in the same city as Amy – who is traveling with me – and that roommate has a fetish for my underwear and I need to have enough underwear for him, and for me.  The last time I went to see Amy we had to buy underwear in the middle of the trip.  I may also need extra clothes to change in and out of, pajamas for sleeping and for the Hugh Hefner party Kevin is throwing in Oklahoma, City.  While I write this I realize that underwear was a huge fetish at my college, not just for my roommate but also for others.  My friend Tracey lives in constant fear that a sasquatch is going to steal her panties and advised me on more than one occasion to split my underwear up and hide them around my room in case it was raided.  What is wrong with you, Concordia?  Even Alex Vance is setting this aside in the list of, “no one wants this Photoshop!” 

Our itinerary is another issue. We like to stop along the way and have our photo made by the strange and horrible things that towns set up to lure people away from the interstate.  We also need to plan our trip along a reasonable route where we’ll get there quickly and with time to see our friend Kevin along the way as well.  While in Dallas we will also need a way to fill our time that is not spent visiting our sick friend, as she’ll need to rest and her husband works – whatever that is.  A co-worker suggested taking in a Dallas Cowboys game and as I know so much about football the idea seems as exciting as witnessing a live birth.  Also, I’m not an expert in how the National Football League schedules its games but I positive they don’t do things on demand.  That’s Gail. 

Before we leave on any trip together, because we cause mayhem wherever we are together, we need the blessing of our RA: the mighty Candace of Jurchen.  I have sent an offering to her and requested her blessing, I even sent a token of appreciation to her sister who is formidable but not quite as powerful.  We also had to ask Matt permission to visit and find out how to contact the people we need to along the way for our trip to be successful.  I also arranged the day off at work, which has put out a lot of people who I now owe favors or have called in all my chips.  Nicole and especially Matthew are absolutely any offering unto the Jurchen and any concession to the conglomerate that employs me.  We also petitioned the State Department for permission to leave the United States.   

We also needed to be provisioned for the trip.  Unleaded Dr. Pepper for me, leaded for her and a host of snacks that will remain unopened.  We always get a bunch of stuff and never touch it – and by ‘we’ I may have meant ‘I.’ Amy and I also stop to eat so we can stretch and use a bathroom we think is clean.  We have very strict rules about where we eat.  The chicken, if we eat chicken, must be white meat and they must serve Coke products.  Exceptions are made for Star Wars kids meals as they almost always come with Dr. Pepper (an exception to every rule!).  We tend to prefer Cracker Barrel but we eat at Denny’s because it’s free.  Amy and I enjoy Chinese food but you can never trust it; it’s a long trip and we don’t have Astronaut diapers – Bryan took those, too. 

In flight entertainment means that I have to come up with corny mix tapes of music for the trip, while Amy finds a book on a tape for us to listen to (or not).  We also need games to eat our time on the hours and hours between corny roadside attractions, and seeing Kevin.  Our mission isn’t a happy one and it’s essential that we don’t make the trip a crescendo to a very hard good-bye.  Mad-libs and Harry Potter on CD might lessen the fostering anxiety.  The most important thing we always do is maintain a record of every important event and present it to Matthew upon the completion of what we’re doing.  Amy and I have been doing this for over ten years and somewhere Matt has all these records treasured up in case there is ever a shortage of toilet paper. 

I skipped worse case scenarios because we like to dream those up on the way and in the car.  We’ll report back with the top ten horrible things that could, and should, have happened.  This will be in the record. 

In fact, we’ll be making a list on the trip of things we need to tell you about immediately and after we return.  Stay tuned.  

balenciaga ski masks

Or, 'there are no black people in the state of Maine,' 

Sunday at Lunch, my friend Erin and I decided to kidnap Richard.  We haven’t seen him in years and Erin misses him.  Just going to his house, calling him up, or showing up unannounced at his place of business isn’t our style.  We plotted how we’d go about it; we have it all worked out.

First, we’re going to stalk him because we don’t have any idea where he is.  We’re going to have to do some good old-fashioned police work and find that out.  Then we’re going to road trip there and have a stake out in the town in Maine where he was last seen and we believe he lives.  When he’s at work one day we’ll show up and take him.  Amanda won’t actively allow herself to be an accomplice in a crime so we’ll have her drive the get away van. 

Getting him out of his office will be the hard part.  This is what we think will work, tell us what you think: to distract any coworkers or clients who’d get in our way we’re going to have Foxy De sing the song and do the dance for Beyonce’s Single Ladies, Christian and Kirsten can do backup for her because they know the words and the moves.  Christian, don’t even deny it.  There are no black people in Maine so no one will be able to tell the difference between Foxy De and Beyonce.  Erin and I will snatch Richard while everyone is entranced by Foxy’s dancing.  We’ll have to borrow Christian’s Balenciaga ski masks and throw him in the van.  Kathy will be around in a minute in a chase car to retrieve the dancers.  It is the perfect plan.  The only flaw in it would be if Foxy De and Christian got into it on who got to be Beyonce. 

These, children, are the things you do for your friends.  You kidnap them in ski masks and throw them into vans.  I’ve done it before; it’s not that hard. 

Having lunch with Erin was fantastic and the perfect cap to a weekend themed on friendship.  On Friday another friend capped my need to be needed by calling with a problem that needed solving or a vent that needed venting.  Being needed is a vital part of a friendship – at least for me.  On Saturday another friend called with the same need during the day and I realized while this friend shared their tribulations with me that I was lucky to have this friend.  She is the person who’d do anything for you whenever you needed her to.  I only wish I weren’t such a taker when I should be more of a giver.  She was also going through the painful experience of divorcing a friend.  

The second friend reminded me of the fact that I too had recently been divorced by a friend – several in fact – because of my support for President Obama during the campaign.  Being dumped from a romantic entanglement is painful but being divorced from a friend is worse.  It hurt, it was the lamest reason to lose a friend and I certainly didn’t ditch them when I disagreed with their politics.  I counted one as a ‘best friend’ from childhood and I am steadfast in the fact that I do miss them and I am glad I will never see him again.  I have reached a point where I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that we’ve divorced and I no longer resent the time I spent with them in my life or the sacrifices I made to be their friend.  Normally I look back on time spent with awful human beings with a mix of bitterness, rage, and wistfulness but in this case I will maintain my antipathy for my friend but cherish the time we spent together and value what I learned from them about being a human.  As dreadful a person as he is and while his reasons for divorcing me are inane I did learn a great deal about how to be a friend and how not to be a friend from him.  I don’t know if it’s some strange level of maturity or wrong because it’s charming and incongruous all at once.  

There are no steadfast measures of friendship.  One story I could tell you would be this: I had sushi this weekend with Paul and Christian.  Paul was late so Christian and I walked around the mall waiting for Paul’s slow ass to arrive and we ran into one of my former students – which is always a fiasco – and the student pointed out that I had a shirttail sticking out of my zipper.  Christian had noticed and not told me and I knew this and said, “You betch!” and shoved him and then Christian shoved me back – all in play – but I didn’t realize there was a low fountain behind me and I fell in.  The manager from Godiva came out as I was splashing around and asked what I was doing.  Christian said, “That cheap bastard is trying to scrounge enough change up to pay for his dinner.”  Then when the mall cops came to see what the commotion was Christian claimed I was his retarded older brother who fell a lot.  That is what friends do for each other: cover, cover, cover.  Later, when we were finally met Paul at the sushi place and he asked why I was sopping wet Christian said, “you make people wet, it can’t be helped.”  That is also what friends do for you: they memorialize your stupid moments, never letting you forget them and they make sure everyone else gets to enjoy them as well. 

Another measure of friendship would be when I left Erin today, and I will leave this at that.  We were at Erin’s office (yes, on a Sunday) and clients showed up so that was my cue to leave.  Erin said good-bye and hugged me; it was the most natural thing in the world.  I don’t hug people.  I don’t hug my mother.  I remembered to hug my Great-Grandmother when I saw her last instead of shaking her hand.  I don’t just hug like everyone else does; constant gratuitous touching is meaningless to me and probably to you as well but that it didn’t bother me is a measure of the fact that we’re friends.  In contrast the person I worked for on the campaign used to hug people all the time, including me, and it always made me want to jump out of my skin and throw myself in the Ohio River.  If we would have been friends it might have been different.  That’s what friends do for you; they reshape your comfort zones and push you to be better people. 

Fergie wanna Cracker?

Today was the first day of school; it was a success. No one went running from the building jumping for joy because he or she is a student in my class but I am the only one without any criers. I have eight students this year, and not one of them is ugly. I like to be the ugliest and smartest, person in a room. If you are any uglier than I am I cannot stand to look at you and I do not think anyone else would be too much into it either.

This weekend was spent in Boston, Massachusetts – a place I do not highly recommend visiting – with friends from college and this week has been spent (so far) getting ready for school which started today. I never feel ready for school to start. This year was a little more difficult because my house is a wreck and I am tired, cranky and worn out physically from a weekend of walking around Boston.

I am a New Yorker, and my friend from Denver steadfastly refused to understand this: the difference between New York and Boston – to someone from either of those places – is largely an issue of Nationalism. I alternated my headgear from my Cleveland Indians hat (chosen for it’s blatant offensiveness) when I did not want any crap from the people in Boston or my (yet another new) Yankees hat when I wanted to be in-your-face or was visiting the Plymouth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts where there are faux-natives (aboriginals) for you to view in their erstwhile natural habitat.

Our Weekend in Boston was carried out in three phases: Adams Family, Freedom Trail, and Plymouth Plantation. However, this was all preceded by a night at the Griswold Inn in Essex Connecticut where I made the horrible mistake of asking the nice couple at our table, after they asked us what we did for livings and where we came from, where they came from and what they did for a living. The story of the Conquest of Boston is a story for another time.

I bring out the very best in everyone I encounter, this man was a lawyer for Greenpeace and he let me have it on a number of issues that I will not recount for you here because a crazy is a crazy, but if you want an lunatic just add alcohol. I was shouted down. He had a beef with our generation, but after needling from my illustrious sister, he admitted that when he was our age he did the things that annoyed him about twenty-something adults of today. I allowed her to take the lead on that discussion because she is the liberal, let her moderate her kind.

His wife was very charming; we loved her. She was the highlight of this exchange because she tried to shut her husband up and he said, “SHUT UP, I AM TRYING TO FACILITATE A CONVERSATION” when really he needed a BLOG because he was just ranting and pontificating, then when he left to pay our tab we apologized to the woman for upsetting her husband and causing such ugliness but she said he was, “A fucking judgmental cracker” For the rest of the weekend the exchange between the participants in the conquest of Boston was, “Shut up, I am trying to facilitate a conversation,” to which was responded, “You are such a judgmental cracker.” Elizabeth cannot say the “f” word so we dropped it – or really, she did.

The best part of this couple is that the woman looked like a healthy-weighted, blonde Duchess of York and he looked like Miles from Murphy Brown.

We planned for the weekend that Elizabeth schmooze the angry liberals, I would set them off and then they would pay for our food. I considered that had I known someone would pay our tab that I might have drank alcohol (I was the DD) and more of it and let my sister drive but we quickly realized that had I been ‘lubricated’ I might have offended the liberal on purpose and paid for my own sodas. The plan was amended to include, “Chris will say nothing and imbibe no booze.”

Second verse: how Samuel Adams finally made his cousins interesting, or how alcohol works the same on conservatives as liberals.

Mission Accomplished

Fifteen states, six weeks, three blisters, eight sunburns, two oil changes, and nine academic hours ago I left Stepford in search of my master’s degree, best friend, and a new life for myself. Mission accomplished? I think so, but I am not ready to hang a banner off an aircraft carrier no matter what Tommy Franks thinks.

This summer is largely due to the generosity of others – my boss at my second job securing tuition reimbursement, my grandmother dying and willing me cash for school, my friends for having me over, my parents for outfitting the trip, my sister for lending me a car, and my readers for filling up my iPod with bad music so I could rock out on the way to Nebraska for school and then on to Colorado and Texas for my vacation.

...and then we realized we were lost

When I was a kid, my friend Jeremy and I used to fight (because wrestling would imply spandex) and he would always kick my (obscenity) – I could never win. I visited him the past five days in Texas he kicked my (obscenity) again, but in different way. I will be posting my pictures from this trip because I cannot describe how cool everything was. Photo: Jeremy/Color Inverse

The first day I saw him was really just fifteen minutes before going to bed. I had drive in that day from Colorado across New Mexico. New Mexico is charming compared to New England. In New England, as in old England, we keep our animals in zoos. I was heading down the interstate in New Mexico and there was a live Buffalo in the median. I also ran over three rabbits (two babies) and a fox. Also, they have dead plants blowing around in the wind in New Mexico instead of Burger King wrappers to gauge wind direction. It was weird but not as weird as their rest stops doubling as historic markers. New Mexico also has beautiful scenery, which made driving through it easier than a place like Nebraska. You can tell that Colleen is from New Mexico because the beauty is comparable.

The first full day I was in Texas was weird at first. I am always disoriented in the morning when I wake up. Waking up in a strange place is always a trick, every once in a while I will wig out. Despite being in the Central and Mountain times zones for over a month now I still wake up, religiously at five am, Stepford Mean Time. I did not wig out this time but it was strange because I noticed the same posters I have in my room I have in my room at my old Kentucky home and then I sat up (I was on the floor) and saw Jeremy still asleep. I went back to sleep because I figured I was crazy. At a more reasonable hour, it made more sense.

Casa Bonita!

Yesterday, Emily and I went to Casa Bonita, of South Park fame (season seven, episode eleven). If Disney World is the happiest place on earth than Casa Bonita is the gaudiest place on Earth. It is surrounded by countless pawnshops; check cashing services, hourly rate motels, and the professionals who use them.

Although the suggested fare is to eat one hundred sopapillas, and go through Black Bart’s Cave fifty times, Emily and I just ate two or three sopapillas and went through Black Bart’s cave once. There was a puppet show and a mariachi band, we could not find the dancing monkeys in costume, but we did find the cliff divers. If cliff diving is stupid outside, it is a special kind of stupid inside.

Haircut Rules

Today’s summer adventure was getting my haircut. I made the assumption that the barber at Wal Mart would be inexpensive and since I never like my hair cut I may as well get a cheap hair cut. I may as well train monkeys with down syndrome to cut hair because I am sure they could do just as terrible a job for $13.95. This time, quite literally, my assumption made an ass out of me, and hopefully you, too.

Yes, I paid two dollars more to get my haircut here than I would have in Stepford. The myth of the Great American Desert (the area of the country between where the Appalachian Mountains start and the Rocky Mountains begin) is that things here cost less. Colorado is just like the rest of America, with less oxygen.

Weekend Update

Friday after classes, I drove to Colorado to see my friend Emily and wait until it is time to go to Texas. The drive was uneventful; the people of Nebraska have turned their rest stops into sculpture gardens dedicated to peace and harmony in the world. I know I drive out to places with no names in order to meditate, at a filthy rest stop, on peace and harmony.

Saturday we woke up late, entertained the Direct TV guy and then went to Pike’s Peak where we sacrificed Emily’s car, Dale, after driving it up and down the mountain. Pike’s Peak is something that you will have to see yourself because I could never describe the feeling of being there and what I saw. We were above the clouds and the thin air added to the feeling of euphoria provided by being there.