A Very Long Drive...

UPDATE: You will have noticed the "Suggested Soundtrack" part of my posts. I will now attach a youtube video (when applicable) just below that part, just above the actual post, so that you can actually listen to the intended music without doing any work on your end. I love you all.

Suggested soundtrack: "Castaway" by Green Day



It's been a while, but I've been busy and I have limited internet access.

Anyhow.

You are probably aware that I drove to Texas. This is the story of that drive.



What was originally supposed to be a two day drive instead became a grueling all-nighter. To start, here's the trip by-the-numbers:

Total miles traveled: 1385

States traveled in: 4

Hours on the road: 22

Of that, hours spent napping at rest stops: 1 (two 30-minute naps)

Average speed, in mph, for the trip: 70

Torrential downpours featuring thunder and lightning driven through: 1

Average speed, in mph, for the duration of said downpour: 35

18-wheelers that sped past me during said downpour, going at least 80 and scaring me even more: 3

Fast food sandwiches consumed: 3 (1 burger, 2 breakfast)

Bottles of water consumed: 7

Cigarettes smoked: 18 (not proud of this, but it gave me something to do)

Red Bulls consumed: 3

Bizarre scary energy drinks consumed: 2 (more on those in a minute)

It was a long and sometimes surreal journey. I started in Palm Springs, at my dad's, waking up at 8am. At 10am, I left and drove to San Diego to pick up some crap that I left. Left San Diego at 2pm, determined to do the drive in one go, but unsure if I could or, for that matter, should. But then I figured: "Fuck it."

So I drove. I drove through desert, across rivers, up mountains, and down them. I drove past billboards for "The Thing?" which was "400 miles ahead," then "200 miles ahead," then "100 miles ahead," then "only 50 miles ahead," then was sped by at 75mph, then was forever behind me, thank goodness. I drove until I needed gas, or a bite, or to stretch, and then I'd stop, do whatever it was I needed to do, and then I'd drive some more. I drove past cops, and cows; through counties, and states; on good road, and bad; while singing, and silently; through good weather, and poor; with windows down, and windows up; while smoking, and eating; from sunset, to sunrise. Drive is what I did.

I was armed with Red Bulls, which I knew from past driving experiences would not be nearly enough. The sun set on me in Arizona, and I was starting to get tired as I crossed the continental divide. In El Paso, with a Red Bull coursing through my veins but doing no good, I found my solution:



I had seen an ad for this stuff on TV. Let me tell you: it works. It works like I assume meth works. Holy Shit. About as much caffeine as a cup of coffee, but it had other stuff in spades. 8333% of my recommended daily allowance of vitamin B12, for example. Only 2000% of my RDA for B6. And enough niacin to turn my whole body red for 30 minutes, but that was strangely exhilarating. After that, man, I was good to go. Singing, dancing, grooving (with a special shout out to those friends of mine that made CDs for me, they were all fantastic).

All was well until I hit the storm.

I had stopped in El Paso for a refuel and for energy, and while there I noted just how filthy the front of my car had become. My windshield had claimed the lives of more than 300 winged insects, ranging in size from "tiny" to "sparrow." It was pretty gross. The station I was at didn't have the squeegie thing, so I had to go on without it. Once on the road, I knew I was headed into trouble. I had seen the lightning from many miles away. It seemed like I was headed right for it. Then, it was all around me. But still no rain. I pulled into a rest stop to pee and stretch, and marveled at the situation. It looked like I was in hell. Or Mordor. It was 4am or so, and it would have been pitch black except that lightning was illuminating the clouds all around me. The air was full of static energy, the thunder was booming, and the wind was blowing hard from the east. It was coming my way. Amazingly, no rain. I stuck around for a half hour seeing if it would hit and I could wait it out in the car, but it stubbornly refused to come my way. Fine, I thought, I guess I'll have to drive right through the fucker.

So I did. When it hit, it hit hard. The raindrops must've been the size of golf balls, because that's what it sounded like was hitting my car. The only thing I could hear above that noise was the thunder, which boomed at such a volume I thought my teeth were gonna shake out. Lightning bolts were no longer visible - instead, the whole sky would just light up, super bright, kinda like being INSIDE a lightbulb. When this would happen I would not be able to see for a moment or two, which somehow made things even scarier. I was hydroplaning when I was going the speed limit so, white-knuckling the steering wheel, I slowed down to 35mph and moved into the slow lane. Visibility was about, I dunno, from my eyeballs to the inside of the windshield, occasionally the hood of the car. I had my eyes glued forward, frightened out of my wits, when WHOOSH, a semi rolled by going about 80, splashing even more water (if that's possible) onto my car and making my tiny vehicle shudder in its wake. Two more big trucks went by like this. Why, I thought, are they not worried? Granted, I never drive, much less in the rain, but holy hell, this is a shitstorm and a half!! Thirty minutes later, though, it ended. Quick as that. The good thing was, I noticed, is that my windshield had been hammered into crystal-cleanness, along with the rest of the car. Sweet! Plus, the sun was rising in a most dramatic fashion, letting me know that the worst was over: I had made it through the night, and through the fiercest of storms, and now only the bleak brown expanse that is central Texas stood in my way.



I still had three and a half hours of energy left, according to the bottle, so I got another one at the next refuel. To my surprise, Texas was no longer brown. What I found out was that there has been rain in the region for a record 35 days straight, lifting the state from the worst kind of drought possible and turning it into a kind of flat Ireland: Green as far as the eye could see, without any hills, so pretty far indeed. The trek through nothingness was actually quite beautiful. Plus I was a twitching mess from my third red bull, second 5-hour energy shot and my 16th cigarette.

I was close, but I was hurting. Immense alertness allowed me to fully appreciate the pain that had spread through the entire back side of my body. Anything that rested on anything else was sore. From ass cheeks to elbows, I was in agony. I knew that when (if) I got to sleep, it would be face down.

22 hours from when I started, I rolled into Dallas, triumphant, exhausted, but strangely alert. My new family greeted me warmly and fed me a delicious sandwich. After getting into my new room, and eating dinner, I swam for an hour or so and STILL couldn't get to sleep until midnight, meaning I was up for 38 f-ing hours. The 5-hour energy drink saved the day, but at what a cost! Let it be known, residents of the city of Dallas and the Dallas metroplex: I have arrived.



Until next time...

Next time: Where I live, where I work, and the ill-fated first bike ride.

Last Days and First Legs...

Suggested Soundtrack: "Niktionary" by The Wrong Trousers (You kinda had to be there)
Zero hour is approaching. I am no longer a resident of San Diego. Really, now, I'm a resident of nowhere. I'm staying at my parents' place in Palm Springs and everything I own is either in my car or on the floor behind me.
"Isn't that depressing," Papa asked, "Being 28 and having only a carload to your name?"
"I think it's pretty exciting, actually," I replied.
...and it is. Exciting, I mean. Look to my previous post for my exact reasoning. He doesn't understand, I suppose, because he has worked hard many times to acquire loads of shit only to have it taken away in divorces. Three of them. So he's all about his shit. Understandably. He didn't have shit growing up, he worked hard for his shit, and has had it taken away, one-half at a time, by three fleeing women. If I were him I'd be holding onto my shit (and my current wife) as tightly as possible.
Moving on.
Last days in SD were at the same time wonderful and terrible. Let's get the shitty out of the way so I can tell you about the magic mushrooms.
It sucks to leave a place that you, a) love, b) have a lot of dear friends at, and c) don't have a super-fucking-cool reason for leaving: "Why are you leaving a paradise of sun and beach and relaxation and beautiful women who want to have sex with you? Did you get a job as a cabana boy at Hugh Hefner's Dallas Retreat?"
It sucks to have to say bye to every one of those people you love. They'll miss me. That's one person. I'm gonna miss dozens. Son of a bitch, this is gonna blow.
Finally, it sucks to move. The only real benefit is the "purge" aspect. You realize how much crap you have that you don't need. The downside is the stress, the selling of extra stuff, and the packing itself, which, if you are like me, is done at the last possible second the night before you are supposed to visit your folks in Palm Springs and which leads your father to get pissed because you didn't get there fast enough. But it's all done. The Roomies have been left with an epic mess to clean up, the mess itself about 20% moving mess and 80% going-away-party mess. More on the party later. Chronologically, there was funner stuff before the party.
On to the good times.
Sunday. Woke up really fucking early for a garage sale that was pretty much a failure. Thank goodness I was up at 7, since the best customer all day got there precisely at that time. Took a quick nap, took care of some business, ate a burger, blah, blah, and then!!! Jason got home from partying hard at Pride, and he, Nick and I set off for Windansea beach to eat some 'shrooms. We split an eighth three ways and went for a pitcher of beer at The Shack to wait it out. Then...
Holy Shit.
This was the first time for Nick and I (though I did a lot of acid in my early teens), and all I can say is that if you've not done 'shrooms before, hurry the fuck up and eat some. The setting is key, good company is crucial, and if that is settled competently, fun is most assuredly going to happen. Fascination, laughter, joy, and a little bit of confusion. We took a case of beer, a pipe, some nugs of reefer, a pack of cigarettes, and set off up the beach. It was like we were 10 years old, exploring a whole new world. We found some sort of phosphorescent glowing blue sand in these tide pools that we stuck to our faces so we were glowing blue (can anyone tell me what the fuck that shit was? I'm almost positive it was science of some kind, I'd hate to think we were all that high), we meandered, and talked and logged some serious Roomie bonding time. I will miss those guys. The few people we came across that night must have been startled to see three shirtless grown men with cuffed jeans and glowing noses wearing capes. Did I mention the capes? We had capes. All three of us. Like I said, it was a blast.
Then, the going away party. Many showed up. Many. There were some tears shed, there was laughter, there were two live music acts on the front lawn: The Wrong Trousers...

...seen here in Balboa Park, where I first fell in love with them, and Trent Hancock...

...seen here on the night of.
It was a fantastic evening, and the mood was jovial, and even the cops that moved the music indoors weren't total pricks. People brought CDs for my road trip, and I got a pop-up book of sex, and I even had a confessional booth set up with a camera so people could leave me a video bye-bye. Haven't watched those yet as they'll probably make me sad. Er. Sadder than I already am.
But it's a sadness tempered by the excitement of a new thing.

Final Countdown...

Suggested soundtrack: "Here we go" by Jon Brion



Well, last night was my last night at work, and now I sit unemployed on the front porch of my house, running a largely unsuccessful yard sale on an hour and a half of sleep. Most of the shit I'm taking with me is all packed, and the only issue now is the shit I'm not taking with me. It amounts to quite a lot of shit. Hopefully I can get a bit more cash for all of this crap so I don't have to trash it all or give it to needy children. It's wild to go through everything I've accumulated over the years and decide what makes the cut. Last night I found a box containing what appeared to be every goddamn piece of schoolwork I'd done since age 6. Crayon drawings of dinosaurs eating schoolbuses, collages, pages and pages of that triple-lined brown paper we all had to use to practice our printing. Cute, but now it's compost. For some reason I had also kept all of my notes and essays from senior year until college graduation. With a few exceptions, those went away too. What in the hell had possessed me? Did I think that someday down the line I'd actually want to relive my education? I don't even remember 1/100th of what I had in those pages. I'm not a terribly sentimental person, so why all the clutter?
The whole process is therapeutic. When I'm done, everything I own will fit into my small car. That, to me, is almost magical. Unemployment, minimal possessions, a tank full of gas: that is freedom. The crazy thing is, I don't actually have to go to Dallas. It is a wise decision, sure. But if on the day of my departure, I just decided to go north, or south, who would be there to tell me no? All of the possibilities...
In a side note, I'm currently rereading "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt. I've read the book probably four times, and at this point I'm not reading for plot (of course) but just to spend time with characters that are like old friends to me. I've been doing a lot of reminiscing lately, doing things I did a lot of, you know, "one last time" and all that. In-n-out burger, bronx pizza, the zoo. I think I'm clinging to the familiar in the face of all this uncertainty. It makes sense to me, at least.
Until next time...

The situation...

Suggested soundtrack: "My Old Ways" by Dr. Dog (pirate it, it's great)



Before I get started on this thing, let's take a moment to talk about things at this point. I'm a 28-year-old college grad (SDSU, Communications) living the easy life in sunny San Diego. I've got a rich and satisfying social life, and a job that pays the bills and leaves enough to allow me to get rip-roaring drunk on a nightly basis. Which is nice. But, really, I'm treading water financially. I say I want to open a bar or restaurant of my own, but there's not a chance in hell of me doing that on a waiter's wages. I need a better income, sure. But even if I were to double my income in San Diego, I've got a social network set up that gives me an excuse to party nightly, and like a Koi fish's growth rate relative to pond size, will grow as expensive as my income allows. So I gotta go.
Opportunity knocked in the form of my great friend Mike and his great family which, for some reason, seems to like me more than my own family. I've been given a job (Persoanl loan consultant) in a good company (Countrywide Home Loans) and a free place to stay in the meantime (with Mike's sister, brother -in-law, and their three kids). My job is performance based, so it is up to me to kick ass, income-wise, while I live for free and don't know anyone. I will have my own room and share a bathroom with JD, the 8-year-old son. I will go from sharing a house with Nick and Jason, where dinner is ramen and it is eaten from the pot and chased with a Miller High Life, to sharing a house with John (Dad) and Kim (Mom, soccer mom actually) and Hailey (15, girl, hardcore soccer player) and Hunter (10, girl, also an avid sportswoman) and JD (8, boy, aspiring scientist this week, changed from aspiring ninja last week), eating dinner around a table, and dropping the kids off at practice.

From Party Nik to Uncle Nik.

Can I do it?

I'm kinda curious about that myself.