Wednesday, June 13, 2007

40 hours of travel, not enough naps

I arrived in Olympia on the afternoon of June 10th, and there were sunshowers, which felt pretty epic and important. I immediately hopped on the wrong bus and was almost whisked away to some shitty place where my house is not at. Luckily, the crisis was averted and yours truly was saved. So I scoped out the house and dropped off my suitcase, got take out from saigon rendezvouz and hopped on the greyhound. On the bus, I grappled with such supremely mindblowing questions as:

Do people around me know that this is fake meat I am eating?
Wouldn't it be cool to get matching tetris tattoos with someone you're pretty keen on?
Why am I going to Los Angeles?
Should I just get off in Portland and hang?
Have I drank enough water?
Have I drank enough soda?
Do my feet smell?
I smell really bad, don't I?

Obviously, this sharp little mind of mine has no trouble grappling with truly pressing issues and concerns, even when sitting on a greyhound for 25 hours, listening to a skipping cd player and reading David Foster Wallace,who, by the way, is an out-and-out genius as far as I'm concerned, mostly because of his epic and poignant footnotes. I wish I knew how to make footnotes on the internet, as this would have been a good opportunity for an homage.

An exciting story from my vacation, actually two, and both from last night:

1. As Allison and I drove towards downtown Los Angeles, on the freeway, the car began to slow down. As I was not at the wheel, and have little idea as to how cars actually do what they do, I assumed this was on purpose. Sadly, I was wrong, and we had actually run out of gas. I also had to pee. We decided to hop out of the car and look for a gas station. We asked the first car we found, asking directions from a woman who didn't speak english, and her 10-year old son. We started walking, when all of a sudden, they pulled up, asking if we wanted a bottle of gasoline. Long story short, this awesome family totally went out of their way to lend us a hand and helped us siphon gas into a car pulled over on the shoulder of a busy freeway. I fell desperately in love, not like that's uncommon. Also, throughout all this, Allison and I looked remarkably like prostitutes, as we stood on the corner wearing dresses, trying to ignore the cars that slowed down and asked if we needed a lift.

2. The second time I fell in love was at Amoeba, where the clerk in a slayer shirt was a total babe who talked about Jonathan Richman, and instead of holding a conversation about Massachusetts, and potentially asking what on earth people actually DO in Los Angeles, I didn't. Also, in retrospect, I have absolutely no idea if he was really a babe or not, which is obviously arbitrary anyway, since he complimented my purchases, and was into Jonathan Richman and Slayer. So, duh.


My suntan is still a sunburn, but it'll fade. I'm bussing it back to Olympia tomorrow, with my darling bicycle this time. Woot Woot!

1 comment:

Joe said...

side note: i'm stealing your tetris tattoo idea when/if i get married. fantasmic.