There is no resolution. Carrie is still cute as hell, and as liberal as she is cute. And while I am not... either, I seem to do fine with people as long as we keep off politics and religion. Isn't that supposed to be the "polite" thing to do, anyway? Doesn't seem to be working here. Maybe it's the DNC going on, but every conversation takes a short stop at discomfort before plowing right into anger.
Fuck this.
It's becoming less of a joke that one of us isn't making it home from this trip.
Alone at last, just nostalgia and I. We were sure to have a blast.
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As most might know, I'm currently driving across the country with Lacy. She's keeping her own record. We've made it about two hundred miles in a week. Not far, but then, we have no real schedule. I imagine this is how the rest of the trip's going to go: we know where we are, and we have a vague idea of where we'll be tomorrow. If it were me alone, I wouldn't have either, I'm sure. Which is, I guess, both good and bad.
I've never brought this up with Lacy, and I suppose this is my passive-aggressive way of doing so. Scratch the aggressive. Our reasons for this trip... I don't think are the same. When originally tabled, it seemed it was a last hurrah, a trip across the country before she moved to California [indeed, it was to get her car to California]. Over time, for her, it seems to have evolved [or devolved] into just meeting up with whomever and seeing the sites Weird [insert state here] would review, which I really have no interest in.
For me... well, I've seen too many road movies and read Into the Wild a few too many times. This is more about self-discovery for me. Self-realization. Shit, that sounds too new-age-y. Who I am, who I want to be, what I've done, and how I can get past it. Well, now it just sounds emo. Am I emo? I certainly was in college. Maybe I am now. Maybe that's just who I am.
As a Guitar Hero loading screen attests, "It all comes out on the road." What have I found, so far, on this trip? My acquaintances are just that, and I never had any closer friends than the ones I had when I was young.
But there are a few intersections between Lacy's route and mine: one of them comes tomorrow. I figured I should be sober for it, but she said I should be social, and those two tend to be mutually exclusive.
I've never brought this up with Lacy, and I suppose this is my passive-aggressive way of doing so. Scratch the aggressive. Our reasons for this trip... I don't think are the same. When originally tabled, it seemed it was a last hurrah, a trip across the country before she moved to California [indeed, it was to get her car to California]. Over time, for her, it seems to have evolved [or devolved] into just meeting up with whomever and seeing the sites Weird [insert state here] would review, which I really have no interest in.
For me... well, I've seen too many road movies and read Into the Wild a few too many times. This is more about self-discovery for me. Self-realization. Shit, that sounds too new-age-y. Who I am, who I want to be, what I've done, and how I can get past it. Well, now it just sounds emo. Am I emo? I certainly was in college. Maybe I am now. Maybe that's just who I am.
As a Guitar Hero loading screen attests, "It all comes out on the road." What have I found, so far, on this trip? My acquaintances are just that, and I never had any closer friends than the ones I had when I was young.
But there are a few intersections between Lacy's route and mine: one of them comes tomorrow. I figured I should be sober for it, but she said I should be social, and those two tend to be mutually exclusive.
Oh, velocity girl, I can't keep up with you.
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Couple of Christmases ago, when I was still involved with Odette, she gave me a small glass angel. I just accidentally knocked it off my desk, snapping a wing and its halo. It bothers me... and then it bothers me more because it shouldn't bother me.
But, as you all should know by now, I have a hard time letting go. Of anything.
But, as you all should know by now, I have a hard time letting go. Of anything.
Would you like that? Would you like to ride with Batman?
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I dreamt, last night, that I was Batman. And there was some strange shit, like me playing soccer with some kids. But near the end, I was Bruce Wayne and at home, and there was a knock on the door. I opened it, and there were some heavies, clearly looking to start shit. So I threw the door wide and kicked at the lead one.
And then I woke up, because I just kicked the wall as hard as I could.
This is a good segue into this story about some Canadian guy stabbing the kid next to him on the bus. To death. Lacy and I were talking about what we would do in the presence of a knife-wielding maniac.
Lacy's take was fairly straightforward. Rush him. Lacy's screennames have evoked superheroes such as Wonder Woman, so... it's not unexpected.
Me, I'm a more pragmatic [read: cowardly] sort...
Hello, good citizen. My name is not Batman.
And then I woke up, because I just kicked the wall as hard as I could.
This is a good segue into this story about some Canadian guy stabbing the kid next to him on the bus. To death. Lacy and I were talking about what we would do in the presence of a knife-wielding maniac.
Lacy's take was fairly straightforward. Rush him. Lacy's screennames have evoked superheroes such as Wonder Woman, so... it's not unexpected.
Me, I'm a more pragmatic [read: cowardly] sort...
[00:51:43] Lacy: I dunno man, I think in situations like that people should be able to do something.
[00:51:47] Lacy: One man with a knife...
[00:51:52] Lacy: versus fifty or so passengers?
[00:51:58] Lacy: I mean, c'mon.
[00:52:04] EGo: Sure, I'd like to think I'd do something...
[00:52:14] EGo: But realistically, I lack the bravery.
[00:54:57] Lacy: I dunno, have you ever been in a situation anything like that?
[00:55:02] EGo: No.
[00:55:05] Lacy: Even just having to run and get help for any reason?
[00:55:19] EGo: I've watched a truck go amok on the highway.
[00:55:30] EGo: And I ran up and helped the people in the cars he hit.
[00:55:35] EGo: But that's entirely different.
[00:56:07] EGo: That is a relatively calm situation wherein I am not personally threatened.
[00:56:35] Lacy: What do you mean?
[00:56:40] Lacy: I think it's similiar.
[00:56:47] EGo: I mean the truck had gone past, wrecking these cars.
[00:57:04] EGo: By the time I got to them, it's not like the big rig is going to pull a U-turn and come back.
[00:57:13] Lacy: True.
[00:57:15] Lacy: When was this?
[00:57:21] EGo: When I worke? at BMS.
[00:57:34] EGo: Some guys and I went down Rt.1 a bit for lunch.
[00:58:00] EGo: We walked out of the place and some of us started to smoke, so we were standing there when there was a crash
[00:58:11] EGo: We look over to the highway, and a truck had slammed into a car.
[00:58:14] EGo: And kept going...
[00:58:18] EGo: Into other cars.
[00:58:42] EGo: I think eventually he scraped against the concrete barrier to a stop.
[00:58:45] EGo: He was asleep.
[00:59:34] Lacy: Jesus.
[00:59:41] Lacy: DRINK MOAR CALFINEE
[00:59:42] EGo: No one was seriously hurt.
[00:59:46] EGo: Thankfully.
[00:59:49] Lacy: Yes.
[00:59:57] EGo: Cars were well smashed, though.
[00:59:58] Lacy: But still--you booked it out to see if people needed help.
[01:00:11] EGo: Yep, got the 911 on it, too.
[01:00:23] Lacy: So, still.
[01:00:36] Lacy: Not the same as stopping someone with a knife, but good enough.
[01:00:42] EGo: I would run and get help, but faced with a knife guy...
[01:01:08] EGo: I'd run and get others, probably.
[01:01:18] Lacy: What if I was there and I tried to stop him?
[01:01:21] Lacy: I bet you'd help.
[01:01:24] EGo: Maybe if someone else rushed him first, I'd help, but...
[01:01:28] EGo: See, I was typing that.
[01:02:01] EGo: But being the first to jump in there, not so much.
[01:02:01] Lacy: Yeah. Exactly.
[01:02:06] Lacy: Then you can be hero by proxy.
[01:02:20] EGo: Yay, proxy.
[00:51:47] Lacy: One man with a knife...
[00:51:52] Lacy: versus fifty or so passengers?
[00:51:58] Lacy: I mean, c'mon.
[00:52:04] EGo: Sure, I'd like to think I'd do something...
[00:52:14] EGo: But realistically, I lack the bravery.
[00:54:57] Lacy: I dunno, have you ever been in a situation anything like that?
[00:55:02] EGo: No.
[00:55:05] Lacy: Even just having to run and get help for any reason?
[00:55:19] EGo: I've watched a truck go amok on the highway.
[00:55:30] EGo: And I ran up and helped the people in the cars he hit.
[00:55:35] EGo: But that's entirely different.
[00:56:07] EGo: That is a relatively calm situation wherein I am not personally threatened.
[00:56:35] Lacy: What do you mean?
[00:56:40] Lacy: I think it's similiar.
[00:56:47] EGo: I mean the truck had gone past, wrecking these cars.
[00:57:04] EGo: By the time I got to them, it's not like the big rig is going to pull a U-turn and come back.
[00:57:13] Lacy: True.
[00:57:15] Lacy: When was this?
[00:57:21] EGo: When I worke? at BMS.
[00:57:34] EGo: Some guys and I went down Rt.1 a bit for lunch.
[00:58:00] EGo: We walked out of the place and some of us started to smoke, so we were standing there when there was a crash
[00:58:11] EGo: We look over to the highway, and a truck had slammed into a car.
[00:58:14] EGo: And kept going...
[00:58:18] EGo: Into other cars.
[00:58:42] EGo: I think eventually he scraped against the concrete barrier to a stop.
[00:58:45] EGo: He was asleep.
[00:59:34] Lacy: Jesus.
[00:59:41] Lacy: DRINK MOAR CALFINEE
[00:59:42] EGo: No one was seriously hurt.
[00:59:46] EGo: Thankfully.
[00:59:49] Lacy: Yes.
[00:59:57] EGo: Cars were well smashed, though.
[00:59:58] Lacy: But still--you booked it out to see if people needed help.
[01:00:11] EGo: Yep, got the 911 on it, too.
[01:00:23] Lacy: So, still.
[01:00:36] Lacy: Not the same as stopping someone with a knife, but good enough.
[01:00:42] EGo: I would run and get help, but faced with a knife guy...
[01:01:08] EGo: I'd run and get others, probably.
[01:01:18] Lacy: What if I was there and I tried to stop him?
[01:01:21] Lacy: I bet you'd help.
[01:01:24] EGo: Maybe if someone else rushed him first, I'd help, but...
[01:01:28] EGo: See, I was typing that.
[01:02:01] EGo: But being the first to jump in there, not so much.
[01:02:01] Lacy: Yeah. Exactly.
[01:02:06] Lacy: Then you can be hero by proxy.
[01:02:20] EGo: Yay, proxy.
« Lacy Wilson and me »
Hello, good citizen. My name is not Batman.
Christ, I'm falling down again. It happens to me now and then.
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So as some of you know, I have spent the last few months slowly cleaning out years' worth of crap from my room [and hopefully, later, I will tackle other parts of the house I have trashed]. I found a letter.
Where the return address would be, August 12, 1996. The addressee: January 11, 2008. My handwriting. I found this months ago; I wondered what I'd written. Held it up to the light, no good. I'd used a security envelope.
Anyway, I opened it a few weeks ago, on time. What did twelve-year-old me have to say?
You know that Tyler Durden speech to the half-conscious narrator? In the world I see, you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. It was like that. But more... matter-of-fact. As if it were all so obviously true.
I graduated cum laude from M.I.T. Got my doctorate. Joined the Air Force. Became an astronaut. Got married. Lived out in Washington state. I even planned out my next vacation, a road trip down the coast.
Unrealistic, perhaps. I still feel like a failure.
Where the return address would be, August 12, 1996. The addressee: January 11, 2008. My handwriting. I found this months ago; I wondered what I'd written. Held it up to the light, no good. I'd used a security envelope.
Anyway, I opened it a few weeks ago, on time. What did twelve-year-old me have to say?
You know that Tyler Durden speech to the half-conscious narrator? In the world I see, you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. It was like that. But more... matter-of-fact. As if it were all so obviously true.
I graduated cum laude from M.I.T. Got my doctorate. Joined the Air Force. Became an astronaut. Got married. Lived out in Washington state. I even planned out my next vacation, a road trip down the coast.
Unrealistic, perhaps. I still feel like a failure.
Over the last couple of years, the photos of me when I was a kid, the ones that I never wanted old girlfriends to see ... well, they're started to give me a little pang of something—not unhappiness, exactly, but some kind of quiet, deep regret. There's one of me in a cowboy hat, pointing a gun at the camera, trying to look like a cowboy but failing, and I can hardly bring myself to look at it now. Laura thought it was sweet (she used that word! Sweet, the opposite of sour!) and pinned it up in the kitchen, but I've put it back in a drawer. I keep wanting to apologize to the little guy: "I'm sorry, I've let you down. I was the person who was supposed to look after you, but I blew it: I made wrong decisions at bad times, and I turned you into me."
« from High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby »
Here's the bright end of nowhere. Here's the results of all our days.
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Why don't I write? Because I feel I have nothing interesting to say. I think I'm essentially still the same person I was when I wrote a lot of this site. I could write the same post pining about some girl, or despairing at being alone forever, or drinking myself stupid. But who wants to read that again? I don't suppose anyone expects this to be some ongoing saga of my growth as a person... but I don't have any particular interest in repeating myself.
Here. Status. Still living at home. No girl, no surprise. Job? I don't even know myself.
So. This is me. My life is... boring. I want it to change. I just don't know in what way. Or how to do it.
Here. Status. Still living at home. No girl, no surprise. Job? I don't even know myself.
So. This is me. My life is... boring. I want it to change. I just don't know in what way. Or how to do it.
Hustlers, grab your guns.
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It's hard. After "On the Road Again", "Six Days on the Road", and "Hit the Road, Jack", and "Road Runner", "Born to Run", and "Running on Empty", and "Life in the Fastlane", and "Lost Highway", and "Highway 1 Revisited". After "Let's Get Away From It All". After Easy Rider, and Thelma and Louise, and Lost in America, and too many road movies to name or even remember. After Jack Kerouac and Route 66. As long as we're at this, after Huck Finn and the journals of Lewis and Clark. After all that, it is hard for an America to just hit the road without some expectations.
« Ira Glass, This American Life »
Spent my days with a woman unkind
Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine
Made up my mind to make a new start
I'm going to California with an aching in my heart
Someone told me there's a girl out there
With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair
Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine
Made up my mind to make a new start
I'm going to California with an aching in my heart
Someone told me there's a girl out there
With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair
« Led Zeppelin, "Going to California" »
Any road trip is going to feel longer than you think it will. And you'll be tired, and you won't get a meal exactly when you're hungry. You never find a bed exactly when you want to go to sleep. And you're probably not going to find out what it is that you got on the road to find out in the first place. And you know all that, you know all that going into it. And you still, we all still, buy into the cliché about road trips. That what a road trip stands for is hope. Hope. That somewhere, anywhere, is better than here. That somewhere, on the road, I will turn into the person that I want to be. I'll turn into the person that I believe I could be, that I am.
« Ira Glass, This American Life »
A warm night on the right coast of southeastern America.
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So I'm, like, an uncle and shit.
Birth by C-section seemed to go off without a hitch. Sister was satisfied with the one-hour procedure versus the prospect of long manual labor.
When I left the hospital [five hours post-nativity], her parents still hadn't decided on a name. It amuses me a bit, that she has the same birthday as Lindsay.
Birth by C-section seemed to go off without a hitch. Sister was satisfied with the one-hour procedure versus the prospect of long manual labor.
When I left the hospital [five hours post-nativity], her parents still hadn't decided on a name. It amuses me a bit, that she has the same birthday as Lindsay.