Saturday, September 18, 2004
Let me start off by saying that I do not regret evacuating per se. Nobody could have known exactly what the hurricane had planned, and I am not really ready to die as of yet. There is so much I want to do first, like start a cult, see Africa, and get drunk a few more times. The list goes on and on. However, sitting in traffic sucks. Sitting in traffic for 20 hours REALLY sucks. It took us twenty hours to get from New Orleans to Houston. Look at a map folks, that's fucking insane. 11 of said hours were getting from New Orleans to BATON ROUGE.
I was in a car with two girls and a dog. Being confined in close quarters with people for almost an entire day while fleeing for your life really teaches you a lot about other people, and also about yourself. For example I learned I could grow to hate someone so much as to wish they stayed behind in a hurricane and had taken their chances. (While letting me use their car to flee.) But then after all was said and done I feel much closer to her now and no longer pray for her demise. I also learned Adriana and I are great friends, and I would do anything with her. Including running for my life and being a refugee in Texas.
They told us to pack only the things that were most important to us and get the hell out of dodge. I took three changes of clothes, my new chucks, all of my pictures, this here laptop, and Amanda's stuffed pig and was ready for the worst. Adriana took a guitar, her favorite jeans, her photo albums, and some cosmetics and together we took what we thought might be one last look at our lives and then sat in traffic for what seemed like eternity. Vera kept complaining about the traffic, and saying she felt like just turning around and going back... Over and over and over again until I grinned as I pictured a 25 steel rod whizzing through the air on Ivan's forceful breath and easing gracefully through the front of her skull. This never happened of course. Instead we had to get off the traffic ridden interstate at least ten times, because she had to pee, or eat, or get gas (despite the fact that for the first 11 hours we had not even gone through a quarter of a tank. ).
Texas was pretty much as I expected it to be. EVERYONE had a Bush/Cheney '04 bumper sticker and every gas station we went into smelled of fried chicken and had a woman with impossibly high hair working behind the counter. Houston itself was a typical metropolitan area, and I spent the better part of an hour using the internet to try and locate good bars for us to go to. It was kind of a big let down, as most cities probably will be compared to here. We ended up randomly finding the Franz Ferdinand after party, and proceeded to go there and get drunk (except Adriana, who is not drinking anymore) You'd be surprised what a good pickup line "So, we're refugees from New Orleans fleeing the hurricane, wanna make out?" is. (for the record " Hey my name's Ivan, think you can handle this category 5?" is not as successful.) We were supposed to go to some kid's house for an after after party, but he gave us a fake number (or Adriana put it in wrong, if you're asking her). So I being the drunk boy wonder that I am, make them take us BACK to the Franz Ferdinand party to which I begin shouting at people, ordering them to tell us where the party is. Included in my victims was, you guessed it, Glasgow's IT band of the moment, Franz Ferdinand. They told me they were tired and going back to the hotel and I called them liars and proceeded to further pump them for information about "the party". That was when they began ignoring me and I made my way back to Vera's car defeated. The girls decided they were hungry and I decided I should drink more , so as they drove to Denny's I was rifling through the trunk for more INCREDIBLY hot Miller High Life that had been cooking in the trunk for well over two days. It tastes like apple cider kind of. That was when I accidentally popped off the lid to the gallon water jug that was also back there and soaked dozens of my pictures.
So to sum this all up, I drove 20 hours to save my life and my photos from a hurricane that never came, then got drunk and destroyed said photos, which would have been fine if we had just stayed home in the first place. I did however get some really cute t shirts at the best thrift store ever, along with a hand painted glass jar that has quaint flowers accompanied with the word "nipples" imprinted on it for no seemingly rational reason what so ever. I love Texas.
Friday, September 10, 2004
Ok so I am experiencing some major blog envy since Jen made Colette's
page all funky and new!! Meanwhile it took me an hour to read some intro to html page just to figure out how to make Colette's and Jen's names become links to their respective pages. I'm sure there is an easier way to do this using the blogspot software, but I couldn't figure it out. And besides, I learned how to do this.
STD's
Ghonorrea
characteristics:
burning sensation when you urinate
foul smelling discharge
And its always important to know how to make lists and sublists.
Friday, September 03, 2004
I love school more and more each day. David Sedaris is in my English book, and we read the story of the French Class today.
This morning when I got to spot where I wait for the Elysian Fields, I wondered why everyone was standing around the bench and not actually sitting on it. I briefly contemplated that perhaps someone had urinated on it or something along those lines, but then decided I was too tired to care, so after looking it over to try and avoid the wet spot that may or may not be there, I sat down. Big mistake. Out of nowhere this homeless man shoots out of the crowd and sits by me. He begins talking, I assumed, to himself but then calls for my attention. It was from that point, until seemingly the end of time, I was talked at incessantly by... Sir Cat. I know it is written out like that because he showed me the jailhouse-esque tattoo of it on his forearm. He told me countless intersecting stories that I faded in and out of attentiveness toward (as it was 6:45 in the morning, and he was, I am pretty sure, insane) . Each story was basically endless because not only did they spur substories, but included the date and address at which any item in the story was purchased by him. e.g. :
" He stole my radio, I bought that radio for five dollars over at the thrift store on West Jeff and Washington... "
Picture these anecdotes in abundant tirades, and that was the gist of my morning. When he was FINALLY finished with a story he began pointing at things in our immediate vicinity in plain sight and describing them in extensive detail until another story was spawned from the discourse. I sat clutching the bus stop bench for dear life and praying for any end to this, the single most lengthy uncomfortable moment of my life. But when it was over and the bus arrived, I still felt the need to say goodbye to him, as though we were friends and I had enjoyed his company. I really need a car.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
I suck at saving money. It is damn near impossible for me to do it. I don't even buy like fancy things or anything. I spend most of my money on food. Oh and alcohol, sweet sweet alcohol. So this afternoon I have to hide from my roommate so he wont ask me for the rent money, because I can't give it to him until tomorrow. I usually am pretty good at this, but something tells me I might trip up this time.
It occured to me that I started this blog at the worst possible time in my life, because I am so retardedly busy with work and school that I am always too tired to have anythign insightful to say. So I'll just say this. Wrap it up before you smack it up. Drive safe, God bless.
