My Dumb Vacation

Click here if you missed Part One | Click here if you missed Part Two

Part Three: The heady froth of Midwestern Culture. Plus, infant expectorations.

There are fewer things more depressing than approaching the darker side of your mid-thirties wearing a Cult Rocks! t-shirt, cutoff jeans and sporting three days' worth of stubble, only to throw up on yourself.

Trust me on this one.

We'd made the Black Keys concert by 10:30 p.m. Had a few beers. Had dinner. Had a few more beers. Had a breath mint. Had another beer. And at this point, I was steady as Senator Kennedy during a floor vote. I could have piloted a B-52 stealth bomber while playing chess with a chimpanzee.

But then Dewey (without whom there can be no late-night trip to a Black Keys concert, I might add) suggests we should eat something.

"Why the hell should I," I slur confidently. "What I really need is another drink."

Dewey tries to explain the concept of solid food absorbing alcohol, thus acting as a catalyst for its entrance to the bloodstream and further enhancing the pleasures it has to provide. I wave away his suggestions as if they're a swarm of gnats, but finally give in when he offers to pay for my 35-cent cheeseburger if I pick up the next round of Jim Beam on the rocks. I eagerly agree. Sucker, I think to myself smugly.

An hour or two later, we're taking what I like to call the Drunken Royal Express: the Blue Line to Cumberland, where my car sits, waiting like the world's most patient wife after Last Call. The landscape outside the windows is suddenly swerving and dipping alarmingly. It's not the beer. It's not the lateness of the hour. It's not the Jonas Brothers currently playing on the speakers (probably). It's Mickey D's, angrily battling with my gut for domination. I forgot how lousy their food is once you're not an undergraduate any more.

I get up, grasp onto a nearby pole, and try to fix my eyes on a stationary point: the floor. Which also, as it turns out, dips and sways alarmingly. When the train stops at Montrose, several stops away from our final destination, I turn a pleading gaze on Dewey. He sighs, gets up, and we exit. I just barely manage to make it to the platform edge, my 35-cent cheeseburger charging like the Germans at the Battle of Stalingrad. I pause, fighting for control. I concentrate. I summon every ounce of willpower and self-control.

Brap. My Cult t-shirt has definitely looked better.

Dewey stands ready behind me with an ace up his sleeve: a Black Keys Rock! t-shirt, newly purchased at the Metro a scant few hours beforehand.

"You're true blue, pal," I say, drawing a hand across my mouth.

Dewey shrugs modestly. "The day I don't help a pal," he says, "is the day I can't remember where he parked. And you're not sleeping on my couch tonight, so don't even ask."

Is there any substitute in this world for a good friend? You tell me.

-----

The last I left you, Dear Reader, I was standing in my aunt and uncle's front driveway, teetering from exhaustion, ready to embark on a two-day binge of theater and Michigan culture. Which I did. I saw Julius Caesar with my family, fighting the urge to drop off for the first two acts, then watching wide-eyed as the remaining players in the tragedy ran themselves on their swords. My favorite scene: Brutus tells Lucius to hold his weapon, leaps upon it, and yells, "Sweet, merciful crap! I said the sword with the black handle, dumbass!" The blood spouting from his gut looked like Buckingham Fountain during the Taste of Chicago--how in hell they get such great special effects is beyond me. I also liked how Lucius managed to turn pale--how did they do that? with trick lighting or something?--and retch visibly as he was hauled away. I don't remember that line, though. Probably they cribbed it from a Baz Luhmann unused script or something.

That night, while my aunt and uncle stayed home and went through my bags for their New York gifts, I went back for All's Well that Ends Well. I got to see them rehearse a bit beforehand due to a special Discount Rate that I purchased without even knowing it. When Helena comes out to do her repartee with the Count, it got pretty entertaining:

HELEN: You have some stain of soldier in you: let me
ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him?

PAROLLES: Keep him...uh, wait a minute, I know this line. Keep him...out! That's it!

HELEN: But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

PAROLLES: There is, uh, none: man, sitting down before you, will...uh, do something nasty.

HELENA: Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up! Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

PAROLLES: Uh, forsooth...thou...Hah! I get it now! "Blow up men," that's good!

HELENA: Jesus Christ, Franklin, learn your lines already, will you?

Ah, Franklin. You put Sir John Gielgud to shame.

The next day's visit to some high school to watch Fame! The Musical is a bit muddled in my memory. I don't remember any soliloquoys. Or dramatic monologues, or iambic pentameters. I do remember my uncle grumbling, "Somebody better run themself on a sword, or I'm outta here." And oh yeah, there was something about a Performing Arts high school. I gots to get me one o' them j-o-b's. Looks like all you have to do is periodically break into song. "These are my children...please take them away." I can see the rave reviews as I close my eyes.

And then it was time to take a train ride home. For four hours. Only to sleep for four more hours, and hit the Black Keys concert. And then sleep for four more hours. And then a drive to a wedding. A six-hour drive. To Saint Louis. Through...the Midwest.



Oh dear God. Not this again.

I hadn't been to a wedding in years where I had absolutely nothing to do but show up well-dressed (check), bring a gift (...hocked it) and dance with Kim and/or assorted female relatives (hey, it's not my fault every time a good song came up I had to go to the bathroom).

But the real scene-stealer, of course, was my nephew James.

James is the first newborn into my family since my brother was born three-plus decades ago, so of course he commands a lot of attention. He's already outperformed both my brother and myself at his age: he can say "da," he can clap, he can roll his finger across his lips and make a burbling sound, he can balance a checkbook, and he can even sort of dance, provided someone else does the motions and movement for him. At his age, my brother could roll onto his back. At my age now, I can barely avoid discharging fast food onto cheap concert t-shirts.

So it was no surprise when he managed to upstage practically every setting he appeared in. But the little guy got sick, probably due to the overpowering 100-degree heat (why the hell aren't August weddings outlawed already, anyway?) and so he wasn't too happy to put in an appearance at the church.

When the sitter and Kim arrived from the hotel with him in tow, I volunteered to get him from the car. My brother, who was standing at the wedding and was currently ushering, looked grateful. His wife didn't object. The sitter, whose last nerve was quickly unraveling, readily acquiesced. The only one who wasn't apparently grateful was James, who was howling lustily from the confines of his car seat.

Poor kid. He looked like an angel. A sweaty, full-throated, red-faced, two billion-decibel-loud seraphim.

I felt my heart fill to the brim with love for my nephew as I beheld him at his neediest. No fear, dear one. Your uncle is here.

I managed to unbuckle him, draw him out, hold him close. "I know, little guy," I crooned. "You just need a little understanding and love, and that's exactly why I'm..."

Brap. The little jerk threw up all over me.

"Well of all the..." Splutter splutter. "Somebody get this kid off me before I..." Splutter splutter. "Nobody ever told me babies vomit..." Splutter splutter.

My dignity thus discarded for the time being, I tucked him under my arm, sprinted to the church and lateraled him to my brother. As I grabbed the nearest box of wipes to rescue my good suit from baking in baby vomit, James shot a smug look in my direction. And as the bridal party descended on him to ooh and aah, clucking sympathetically over his soiled clothes, James leered appreciatively at his ready good luck, and my crappy situation.

Nephew: one. Uncle: zero.

I returned to my church pew sweaty, smelling a trifle vomitus and looking like I'd just ran a 10-K. My beloved, the Woman who Holds the Bottle Opener to the Beer that Is My Heart, cast a critical eye at the puke on my lapel. "Wow, twice in twenty-four hours?" she asked sardonically. "What are you, going for a record?"

Damn it. Got to stop telling her the stuff that embarasses me.

The ceremony ran longer than expected, so once we got assorted family and friends back to the hotel, it was time for a little drinky-poo. One turned into several, which turned into dinner, which then turned into a full-blown dance floor at the reception cum open bar. Charlie and the Nostalgia Number did live music, and it was right in the middle of a passable rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" that James made his triumphant return: cleaned up, bathed and in a new set of clothes. I, on the other hand, was wearing the same befouled suit, rumpled hair and harried manner I'd had before, relying, in the absence of soap and water, solely on vodka and tonic to disinfect myself.

"He is so cute, gushed a nearby bridesmaid.

I stood up straight, puffing out my chest in pride. "I'm his uncle, you know."

"You've got vomit on your lapel," she said without even looking in my direction. James, apparently overhearing, sneered at me.

A half hour later, I borrowed my nephew and stuck a finger in his direction. "Kid, you're lucky you're so damn cute," I growled. "Or you'd be swimming with the fishes right now."

He acknowledged my riposte by grabbing my outstretched finger and dribbling on my shoulder. Nephew, two; Uncle, zilch. My heart melted.

"All right, you get away with it this time. But when you grow up, you're taking me to a Black Keys concert. I'll explain why later."

Epilogue:

Setting: New Year's Eve, 2069. Kim and I are sitting in the living room, poring over old photo albums. We've just celebrated our first twenty-four hours of wedded bliss. Yes, late bloomers are we, but you can't put a label on love, and now, as the fire on the TV screen crackles cheerily while the pollution and depleted ozone layer decimates the landscape outside, we exchange memories of Days Gone By, occasionally clasping hands and downing shots of Jack Daniels.

Me:"Look at this one. This was what's-his-name's and whosit's wedding that one summer in that city with the arch-thing, remember that place? You were so lovely."

Kim: "And you were a hunk stud. Oh, and look at James. Who'd have thought the future President of the United States would do so much upchucking on someone not working for the UN?

Superficial, worldly-wise laughter ensues here. Maybe some geriatric groping on the side.

Kim:"And here you are, warning him not to throw up on you again. Just so cute!"

Me:"And here he is, dancing with a bridesmaid."

Kim:"Is that the bridesmaid you were flirting with?"

Me:"Flirting? Me? Hell no. I bragged about being his uncle."

Kim:"Sure, to a hot bridesmaid. What about all the old ladies hovering around him?"

Me: "Listen, woman, know your place! The Marriage Santification Act, passed by President George W. Bush hours before he left office (HR 2172-2 Section Seven Paragraph 2), makes it a crime for me to be spoken to like that in my own home!"

Kim: "Your home? You damn mooch! When are you going to start pulling your weight, get a job and pay me some rent?"

Me: "I told you, I'm in a transition period!"

Kim: "And I told you, I was only allowing five decades for you to find a job singing in a musical. I don't care how senile you are now!"

Me: "Why you...you...you..." Brap.

I forgot. Nonagenarians shouldn't drink after only poached eggs and Soylent Green for dinner.

Geriatric bickering ensues. By New Year's Day, 2070, we're filing for divorce, and I'm sleeping on Dewey's couch. Guess we should have seen that one coming.

My Dumb Vacation

Click here if you missed Part One | Click here to go ahead to Part Three

Part Two: The glory of the open road...with no rest stops...

Rental car agents are retarded. Why would I need insurance? I have insurance, not to mention a license, two working eyes and a swank set of wheels just waiting for me.

"I just don't think it's a good idea to drive a convertible cross country," she was telling me for like the fiftieth time. "They're not fuel efficient, and there will be lots of wind resistance."

"What there won't be any of will be babe resistance," I said nonchalantly. "Can you just picture me behind the wheel of that Mazaratti? I'll have to beat them off with a stick."

Unfortunately, the Mazz was taken, so I was stuck with a Ford monstrosity. No matter. It's late July, there's a Michigan Shakespeare festival starting in fourteen hours, and the open road is beckoning me. As the Bard himself might paraphrase, The weight of this sad time I must obey/ Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say:

What I feel: "I am going to tear this road apart!"
What I ought to say: "Screw the festival. How about a hotel and ten hours' uninterrupted sleep? In a, what do you call it, a bed?"

Heresy. Sheer heresy. I've been going to the Michigan Shakespeare festival for nigh on four years now, and each time I go, I remain undissapointed. Oh sure, those high-ended cake eaters in the Big City can have their Shakespeare in the Park, their bi-yearly trips to England's Globe Theater, their BBC subscriptions, blah blah blah. Give me Jackson Community College any day. They know how to do it: Merchant of Venice in a 1920s motif, Henry V circa World War I style, Hamlet as a bitchy college dropout. I'm addicted, I tell ya.

Of course, no small part is feeling like a bigshot whenever my aunt or uncle leans over, nudges me, and whispers, "Who's that guy again?" If I didn't know better, I'd swear they were playing the innocent in an effort to puff my deflated ego. Ha. Not likely.

So there's no way I'm about to miss this cultural phenomenon just because a mere 800 miles or so separates me from my loved ones and the Bard. Which is why I'm renting a car to drive the distance in a marathon ten or twelve hours' time.



The car rental place is dubious about whether or not I can make it. I've got three days' worth of Manhattan living weighing me down; I hate driving; I can't remember which states border Michigan; and my hand is visibly shaking as I sign the rental contract. "We've got road maps available, you know," the agent tries again. "We can even tack them onto the cost of the rental. You won't be out anything extra."

"Look, honey, this isn't rocket science. As long as I drive towards the setting sun, I know I'm going west, right? Nuts to thou."

Outside, the sun is glaring into my eyes, and a parkway looms before me. Oh crap, I thought to myself, which way is it to the turnpike? No, can't show weakness in front of these schmoes. Got to hit the road with confidence.

Getting out of New York City, as it turns out, is a lot less complicated if you avoid the city altogether. For me, this meant a leisurely detour northwards on 678, past Yonkers, losing the freeway in Connecticut (Highway 15), reconnecting with 80 way up north, and recontinuing westwards a mere three hours after I left the airport, all the while passing deformed banjo players grinning at me and pointing towards river tour trip signs. What, me worry?

I managed to keep a more or less consistent log of the journey in hour form. Of course, they tell you writing anything while zipping along at upwards of 80 mph is dangerous, but I think the record speaks for itself in proving this a bunch of crap:

Hour One Feeling good. The sun is out. The grass is green. Never traveled cross-country solo before. Only on those Florida road trips with Tso and Todd and all them. Hmm. Wonder what those guys are up to? I should call them. Anyway, I'm off to see America!



See? Isn't it grand?

Hour Two: Hmm. Sun being out not such a great thing when it's right in your eyes. No matter. I'll play the radio to distract myself.

Hour Two point Five: God, radio sucks out here. Didn't Debbie Gibson retire her career a decade ago?

Hour Three: What the hell are they talking about, no Starbucks drive-ups? This is the East coast, right? It's not? I'm in rural country? Then why is Debbie motherfucking Gibson still playing so much?

Hour Four: God, my back is killing me. Must keep driving, though. Got to escape...Debbie Gibson.

Hour Four point five: Am I even on the right road? Bah, what am I, a sissy? Men blazed trails out here without any maps! Of course, a lot of them wound up eating each other to survive...

Hour Five: I should probably stop over and eat something. Bah, no time. Running out of time before the first show starts. Maybe I can rehydrate with the windshield wiper fluid. Got to stay sharp. Revel in the glory that is the open road:



Hmm. Seems sort of monotonous. Hope I'm not lost.

Hour Six: That bastard Tso. "Oh, you should go out East." "Oh, you should go to New York." Now I'm driving this ridiculous trip. It's his fault. Everything is his fault. I'm going to kick his ass when I see him next. And what does he mean, the news is left-leaning? I'll lean on your left, asshole.

Hour Six point five: If I had to, I could eat Tso to survive out here. Better not tell him that.

Hours Seven: God, the Midwest is so boring. Can't believe there isn't a landmark or a theme park or something.

Hour Seven point two: Wait a minute...what's that in the distance?



Hallelujiah! Something to actually say I saw while seeing America!

Hour Seven point two two: Almost there...



Erm. That can't be right. Maybe I need sleep.

Brief interlude for sleep in Youngstown, Ohio, where my mother and uncle were raised. I haven't been to the town for about fifteen years. The last time I was out here, I was a whiny teenager with a face full of acne. Now I am approaching my mid-thirties with a back built like a child's tower of blocks. While I should be sleeping, I examine my hairline to see if the drive is making it recede. As near as I can tell, it is.

Hour Eight: Going on three hours' sleep. Fueled by coffee. Drink it in lieu of food. Go go go.

Hour Eight point two: Damn. Need to pee.

Hour Eight point three: Gah. Too much coffee.

Hour Nine: Oh Christ, how much longer? And how much longer until I can get some more coffee? This sucks.

Hour Nine point one:



I hate this place.

Hour Ten: "Hello, Tso? When I eat you? I'm starting with your eyeballs, fignuts." Click. Showed him.

Hour Ten point five: Standing in aunt and uncle's driveway. Seeing double. Need to pee. Need to eat. Need to sleep. Five years taken off my life. But I made it. Victory is mine.

Aunt: "Nice to see you. Now shake a leg. Your uncle's car isn't going to wash itself."
Uncle: "You drove all that way for a lousy play? What a rollicking social life you must have."

Okay. All right. Vengeance will be mine.

Next: Part Three! The exciting world of Jackson Shakespeare! A beach bar with no beach! A Broadway musical in a high school auditorium! And I suck out Tso's eyeballs and eat them with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

My dumb vacation

Click here to read Part Two | Click here to read Part Three

Part One: Brooklyn- and Manhattan- and Staten Island-bound

I leaned over to the cabbie in front of me. We were flying down 49th Street, and while the streets were hustling and crowded, it looked suspiciously bereft of hookers. And bookstores with cheap and alternative titles readily available. But mostly hookers.

"Where can you get a little action here?" I asked innocently. "I mean, I'm just wondering. Say a guy wanted, I don't know, a light spanking in cooking oil while a Rachel Ray impersonator cooked broccoli pasta in front of him. How would that happen?"

The cabbie turned a little to glare at me. "Linguini broccoli pasta?" he barked.

"Well, duh. Is there any other kind?"

"You want Otasman's place," he said, turning his attention back to driving.

Well, I should have seen that coming. I paid him, got out, and immediately jumped into another cab. "Where to, pal?" came floating from the front seat. Ah, New York cabbies. Such a wonderful versatility with the spoken language.

"I'm looking for a place where the missile can go into the silo, if you know what I mean," I said cheerily.

Silence.

"You know, I'm looking to plant my flag. Preferably in virgin soil. Right?"

"...."

"Um, I want a taco to put some beef into? A kaiser roll for my big salami? Taking the beef bus to tuna town? Any of this ringing a bell?"

"Are you Otas's friend, by any chance?"

Damnation.

Three cabs later, still no luck. This time I got a Hindu with a heavy accent. Cultural references to tacos, burgers, hot dogs and hoagies were lost on him, so I immediately demonstrated, with a handy Barbi doll I keep for just this sort of situation, what exactly I was after.

He asked me a short question, with a rising lilt to the voice. It sounded like a request for confirmation, so I nodded in the affirmative. He nodded back, produced a Ken doll from an inside pocket, and pulled over. "For this one, I just made varsity," he explained, "and we're both going away to college in the fall."

Well, I thought, any port in a storm...

.....

Ah, New York. Like an adulterous relationship with a tempestuous mistress, I return to her city streets guiltily and furtively, remembering work to be done back home, a house that needs work, a girlfriend that requires listening-to, bills that need paying. But all too late to think of duty. I walk these streets confidently, assertively. I am no tourist. I might as well be a native, I thought to myself. I wear the same Hawaiian shirt, the same cutoffs, the same I Heart NY t-shirt and the same city map and tour guide. I fucking blend, people. Now, where does Winona Ryder shop, again?

Today, though, there's no time for asinine rubbernecking. I'm on my way to Staten Island, to check out McKee Vocational High School, where the legendary Frank McCourt taught for eight years almost half a decade ago. After reading his memoirs, I know the route like my own name: subway to the Staten Island ferry, ferry over to the island, up the hill three or four blocks to the school. I want to retrace these steps, see the city and its duties the way he saw it. I want to see the window he stared out of while wishing he could write a Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, become a household name, and then write subsequent memoirs extolling and condemning the perils and pitfalls of public school teaching, which is why, I'm told, he now has a glass of wine every first day of school in the morning, instead of schlepping off to preach to the masses about the values of literature, dodging spitballs all the while.

Not that I'm looking for a similar roadmap to success, mind you.

Staten Island is a virtual cultural mecca, completely overlooked by those snotty Manhattanites. Neighborhood bars with $2 PBR, corner groceries that sell beer By! The! Bottle! A lovely industrial section, with railroad tracks going every which way, and a refreshing breeze bringing in industrial smog and city carbon dioxide from across the bay.

I tromped around a bit through the neighborhood, snapped pictures of the school (anyone who gives a damn can see the rest of them on Facebook, I suppose) and walked into the loading dock. A maintenance worker glared at me as I explained to him (with just a pinch of falsehood) that I was a former student who wanted to know if I could get a look in the building itself. "I'm not from out of town," I assured him. "I hate it when out-of-towners come here to gape at where McCourt taught, don't you? Not like us natives. Those damn tourists are a pain in the ass, yo."

My feet touched the floor a couple of times as I was escorted out, but not before I saw a hallway. Mammoth. Absolutely mammoth. The damn school is built like a prison. Classrooms with what looked like iron doors. Gates keeping them from escaping. I made a mental note to talk to my principal about a new building plan.

Back to the city then. Matt and I ate and drank our way from mid-town to Brooklyn, and the next couple of days were more or less a haze. To be fair, he was more or less productive in the mornings: a leather suit, glitter on his chest, and he was off to the "office" to "earn a buck." I asked no questions. Safer that way. But the evenings, those were spent seeing the occasional friend (Wiggo, one memorable evening, where I learned of his evolving social/romantic/professional life), Mary another. The last night there, I of course forget my jacket at a bar. My flight leaves in an hour, and I'm suddenly frantic.

"I don't think you have time to get it and make the flight," Matt commented, glancing at his watch for perhaps the tenth time in as many minutes. He'd been making such concerned remarks over the past few days: "You're sure you're leaving Thursday, right?" and "If you want, I'll kick in for an earlier flight." Such compassion.

"But it's my lucky jacket," I whined. "It totally works with the ladies."

"What ladies would those be?"

"Waitresses, hostesses, strippers. People who are generally paid to make me happy. But besides that, it's all the jacket. Plus, it's got my Ribfest sticker on it."

A brisk ten-block walk to the South Street Seaport (another cultural mecca, by the way, and it's so not a tourist trap, which is why I go there all the time to drink ten-dollar Amstel Lights), a hurried exchange with the manager, and my jacket is back in my hands. But the flight leaves just ahead of me, so I weather another night in Brooklyn ("There are flights tomorrow morning, right? There are. Well, what about a red-eye? You could go see Nova Scotia!") and then back to LaGuardia, where, it turns out, the nine a.m. is sold out. And the ten. And the eleven. And...oh dear, the standby list is over a hundred, and the ticket agent is handing out lottery tickets for a Fight to the Death for the next available flight. I don't kid myself that I'd make it past the first contestant: a forty-two-year-old mother of three headed for her brother's wedding.

I call Matt. Get his machine: "I've moved. Don't call here any more. And I want my glitter back."

I call Wiggo: "Oh yeah, 'evolving' social life, is that what it is? Go screw yourself."

I call Mary: "What? Who is this? Listen pal, I think if I'd spent a wonderful evening with you, I'd remember."

Out of immediate options. No other flights, no buses, trains, no car pools. And the Michigan Shakespeare festival starts in a matter of hours. Time for plan B:

"Hello, Avis Rent-a-car? Do you have anything available for today?...You do?...Great, that's great. I'll be right there. Oh, by the way, have you ever heard the expression, 'burping the worm in the mole hole'? ...You have?...Great, I'll need directions and a couple of alligator clips. The safe word is going to be 'Puck.'"

Next: Part Two! Cross-country driving! The majesty of the eastern states! A triumphant return to my roots! And I pull over to use the restroom and eat a candy bar!

I could write an ode to the days gone by. The usual work mess and then some. A hospitalization (everyone is fine now, thanks for asking). Self-medication (I made another trip to the liquor store, thanks for asking). Babies galore visiting.

But it's spring break. So your noble blogger is taking a week to tour the East. D.C. Baltimore. Virginia. Nothing but a backpack and a smile on my face. (And some papers to grade, which I may or may not lose in the Potomac.)

So long, losers.

NYC-49th and 6th-TROPIC zone bar is a lounge-type place with pounding yet manageable disco music, plenty of space, and waitresses in string bikinis. Journey's End turned out to be an outstanding play chronicling the pathos of the Great War. But it didn't have any waitresses with string bikinis. So I think it's only fair to turn my attention back to the excellent service I'm receiving.

I like this blackberry. This could be a problem.

NYC-88th and 1st Ave--Blogging from Matt's Blackberry. He tells me it's a work-related device, which means it's not to be used frivolously. So hopefully, this is costing his shit company money, and I'm getting the bastard in trouble.

46 degrees. Off to Battery Park. Then Broadway, then the bars. As the Black Keys sing, You just got to be.

JACKSON, MI--Stand-alone condos are da bomb. My aunt and uncle took me on a driving tour of several of the structures--imagine having a house with three bedrooms, a cellar, glass panels on the garage door, ample garage and parking space and a lush green lawn...without having to do any lawnmowing, exterior maintenance, interior maintenance, painting, repairs or anything else encompassing work beyond a minimal screwdriver-twist. There's the stand-alone condo. No wall-to-wall neighbors. No shared common property. Your own mailbox at the driveway end.

The catch? About half a million, give or take.

Off to Jackson's hosting of Midsummer Night's Dream.

Texan Indian Nuptuals:

Spent the weekend more or less bombed. Ajay's wedding was a blast, but I still have no idea what half the memorabila I walked away with the ceremony is for. Normal Indian weddings, I'm told are upwards of four hours long. This one was about an hour and change; after that, a ceremony with three open bars and no lines. I kept looking around for Saint Peter.

The night before, I made my famed toast--not reveling in it quite as much as I did at my brother's wedding, but enough to make a few references to the good old days of high school and Ajay's singleminded pursuit of top grades and good references. "Now there was a guy who never had his priorities straight," I said breezily. "Always work work work, never really taking the time to enjoy being a teenager..."

The room full of doctors, lawyers, bankers and vice presidents nodded sagely, taking in my rumpled suit and bloodshot eyes. Yes, they seemed to indicate, he's absolutely right. Success is overrated.

I blathered on a bit more about what kind of relationship I thought the two of them would have together, working purely on hearsay and a first impression, given the fact that I'd only met the blushing bride some two hours earlier, and then only for about five minutes. I concluded with best wishes, got moderate applause and a bear hug from Ajay. The following morning, I would charge a modest bar bill to his hotel room and congratulate myself on being a good friend.

Before the wedding, though, I hit Dealey Plaza. Always wanted to see the site. I've mapped out my voyage in the image below:

Settling in...

This must be a first in the annals of geek history: blogging from my balcony. It's a sunny, breezy day, and the Janesville, WI trip is a few hours away. Last night, while what few friends I have were out partying, attending the Tom Petty concert or lighting fireworks in their front yards, yours truly was grunting and swearing while filling a cheap waterbed so I wouldn't have to sleep on the floor for a record-breaking third night in a row. Of course, now that I'm about to go camping, the whole task seems sort of pointless, unless, if for no other reason, I'll now have a bed to actually come home to.

I can feel elements of every nagging parent, grandparent, friend's parent(s), aunt and uncle struggling to break free. Certain waspish accents are creeping into remonstrations towards any company I've had lately: "Don't carry that over the carpet!" "Wipe the counter down!" "Wipe your feet on the mat, asswipe!" and "It's a six pack and a twenty dollar cover to get in the door." Amazing what home ownership can do to you in a scant seventy-two hours. Like turning to the dark side, I would imagine. Years ago, we made fun of people who felt tne need to clean up during a party. Years ago, we swore we'd never be so anal as to try and make vaccuum marks symmetrical on the carpet. Now, look at me. I made my bed right when I got up thie morning. Ugh.

Then again, there are still boxes and crap all over the place. A responsible homeowner wouldn't blow it all off for a day to camp, fish and drink in Wisconsin, right? Damn right. Just call me Peter Pan.

S'WOOD--In my life, there have been about four or five instances where everyone in the world but me felt that congratulations were in order. My high school graduation. Getting my first job. Buying my first car. Making sure my girlfriend didn't run screaming when she saw me with my shirt off. And now buying a home.

I suppose congratulations are in some sort of order. I mean, maybe a trained monkey could have done half as well as I did signing my life away during closing yesterday, but I doubt it. What I heard and what was said didn't always add up to the same thing:

My attorney: Now this is your tax increment form. It means you'll have an eschrow account to the tune of x dollars a year, which will cushion you from any windfalls the government throws your way.
My head: Tax...dollars...goverment.
Attorney: Understand?
Me: Taxes bad. Equity good. Where I sign?

Then, of course, there's packing up the old place (already a subject upon which I've touched to yea length). There's also the matter of the previous owner coming and going to get her riding mower, potted plant collection and various kinds of facial soap out of what's supposed to be my place. Then there's the nasty carpet stains left over, about which I had to call in professionals:

Carpet cleaner: So this stain here is either cat urine or a hairball. Been sitting a while. Nasty. You've got to get these stains cleaned immediately, not months later.
Me: (Bristling) It's not my cat. I just moved in.
Cleaner: Yeah, okay. Now over here, it looks like somebody never wiped their feet. Really dirty. This is what we call the Slob-With-Kids carpet job.
Me: I told you, I just moved in.
Cleaner: Okay, okay. Now here, looks like the previous owner tried to mix a Bloody Mary while lying down in bed.
Me: (pause) How much is this going to cost me?

All of these were obstacles I overcome--turns out the paperwork was the easy part. Tomorrow is the final move, but for the past twenty hours or so, I've been residing in my new digs. Cleaned carpets, space, central air and a balcony big enough to camp out on. Mission, as they say, all but accomplished.

So what's to be proudest about?

I'm blogging on my kitchen floor.

Tomorrow I'll try blogging in my guest bedroom. Then the balcony. Then the roof, and then my garage (where I can now keep my toolbox, where it belongs, rather than next to a pile of dirty laundry). Take it from me, folks: you can't get it any better than this.

So here's a big thank you to all the people who made this possible. They are:

1) Me.
2) Lowlife neighbors who drove me out of my low-rent lifestyle.
3) My realtor and attorney.
4) Me again.
5) Dad and DVM, who doublechecked the place and remembered to look for loose floorboards and other lemon-esque details that tend to escape my notice.

Now then, if someone can figure out how this new lifestyle is possible without having to go to work every day, come get me. I'll be the guy on the kitchen floor, with no furniture.

If I were a poet, I'd write an ode to this stinking hellhole I'm leaving behind. If I were an artist, I'd draw a picture of me hauling ass out the parking lot. If I had friends, I'd invite them all over to tear it up one last time in a completely gutted living room. If I were a musician, I'd hook up the most obnoxious guitar I could find to the loudest amp in the city and blast out all the windows. If I were tough, I'd knock on the doors of the people who've irritated me the most and shove them in the chest, driving them back into their apartments and reminding them of their drab and useless lives.

I am, however, none of those things.

I am a blogger. A mild-mannered, kept-to-himself-kind-of-guy blogger. And we bloggers are long on outrage, but short on physical voice.

So this is how I get my comeuppance:

"So long, buttwipes."

Give the local reprobates time. Years from now they'll stumble onto it while doing online research over how to consolidate welfare accounts and find the nearest AA meeting. My scorn will do nothing but eat away at what little self respect they've managed to convince themselves that they have.

Closing in 65 minutes. Oh yeah.

Go West, young man, Go West...

The search is over. I made an offer on a place and they were dumb enough to take it.

The address is 123 Noneofyourbusiness Street, but it's not far from my present neighborhood. It's spacious, clean, quiet, with a balcony, domestic applicances, room for a minibar, and two lovely working toilets. So what more could a guy want?

Maybe someone to come once a week and clean the working toilets, I don't know. Screw it, who cares. By the end of the month, I'll be out of this hellhole and into a new one where the only complaints raised will be the ones I create.

On a lighter note, one week left of school. Done teaching. Just giving finals, looking stern, policing graduation. No sweat. You could prop up a dummy made of cardboard and latex, put it in my desk and the kids would be none the wiser. Shit, you probably could have done that six months ago.