2 + 2 = you're clueless, dude

a weekend at home.

thanksgiving was good. came back to the apartment and cleaned up, prepped for a certain someone's birthday, and worked on the script some. cleaned and prepped and sat and watched and other things. i sang some ray charles, an important point given that i had shelved him for a few months now and i was due for a little sonic purification.

i rushed some things, spent about four hours trekking between ikeas, and managed to see more family again on saturday. it seems that the vast majority haven't seen me in some time; mind you, 'in some time' may mean something like a month, maybe up to a year or so. but the consensus was clear and all the fault thrown at me. practically stained my sweater.

and fair commentary on the look. growing out the hair and shaggin' out the beard for the film. such classicaly cliche anti-cop tools...but like any fool, i'm liking it. the thing with longer hair, though, is that there's a month or so where it's just in the middle, a nexus where the hair isn't long enough and isn't short enough. just sitting there, waiting for me to grow more or cut it down.

as for the film, we're getting down to the equipment. all the lights and DP equipment is picked out by the director/DP himself, so i'm ordering that soon. as for the audio i have to talk to some audio guys though i don't know when that will happen. but the lights have been chosen and we're all set to order. mostly.

the slowly changing look. i wanted to for a myriad reasons, some for film and some for myself. this weekend my parents saw what the last couple weeks have done to my style-wise.

"you look like a...a...poh-it"

a what, i asked my dad.

"a poh-it"

oh, i said. a poet. a poet.

"yeah. you look like a guy with a broken heart, walking around and not cutting his beard or his hair and being depressed. you look like a poet."

there are times of insight when you simply have a hard time understanding how someone could peg you so well. there are times when someone with all the history and resources to actually understand you actually understands you, though without realizing the import of such.

there are times when you have just been coasting along and taking yourself for granted. all while everything is changing. all while your definition of self is so fargone as to be obsolete.

well after that we went to the family gathering, listening to the adults play their hindi music games, laughing with my brothers and somehow feeling comfortable without thinking.

i'm a fool, it seems. how awesome is that?

i try to give more than thanks

the weekend.

we all know what i'm talking about: food and family and friends and fondue and feeble feeble flibbity floobopbam. the question is whether we are in the middle of teenage angst, the middle of twenty-something confusion, thirty-something desperation, fourty-something disillusionment, or fifty-something passivity. the question is how we treat a periodic celebration, vaugely identical year after year, after time drips by.

i walk down the street and hear it from perfect strangers, let alone friends. that i am so much older than the skin on my face. that those older and younger are in tune with me and that i seem to attract those of the fairer sex with those years which make me seem all the more palatable.

along with this presupposed veil of adulthood, i figured out that if i'm not older in spirit i at least know how to fake it. maybe not consciously, mind you, and maybe not with the flare of someone who seems adult because they actually are adults. but still, the commentary gets to me. but not now, these last months of a year. familial socializing, laughing and being that which i've spent so very long keeping bundled up behind psychological camoflage.

point is, people, that i like thanksgiving. i liked it before, and i liked it this year. i revel with christmas and divali and thanksgiving and halloween and birthdays and even valentine's. a chance to do something drastically stupid and over the top (hallmarks of myself of course) with the chance of applause, or at least just not being asked if i have a psychological problem or something.

presents and gifts. jokes and cooking and sweaters. mocking brothers and then punching out a guy that starts talking trash about them. blankets and coats and gloves and fireplaces.

mistletoe and games of chance, betting with food.

the weather outside is frightful,
but the fire is so delightful.
and since i've no place to go...

...that's right...

let it snow let it snow let it snow.



say a few thanks for me, folks. i'm sure there's plenty i haven't had time to say.

Week of Silence '05: Day 7

the thing about sleep is, it's very sneaky. like a wily fox all ready to pounce and bite you when you're too distracted by something shiny in the corner. it's that pretty girl, comforting and kind, whispering hot breaths and silent imagery into your head when your guard is down for just two seconds. it's death without the finality.

it's friggin awesome, the way you can get high on sleep like that.

so, of course, this is what i did. sleep. and sleep. alarm, flailing arms, muted alarm.

more sleep.

now this isn't the ideal situation for a guy who, say, needs to return a rental car by 7:15am or else he'll get charge a whole other day's worth of usage. and it isn't the ideal situation for a guy who's spent a week throwing himself about the greater fifty-state-area and, as such, has a whole bunch of stuff to finish up before returning to work.

psssst, that guy i was talking about? just me all over.

but since when have i been the fellow that swims in ideal situations, when have i drunk anything but spilt milk. when have i ever given up sleep (in a bed with just that certain warmth that should never be taken for granted) to do something as uncharacteristically me as return a rental car? on TIME, no less. so enough with that train of thought and hopeful fantasy, you. we all know what happened and that's the end of it.

sleep sleep sleep.

now it wasn't over indulging, it wasn't dionysian in the least. it was simply settling and warm and heart poundingly calm. and then i woke up.

the thing about waking up during the week of silence is, you're always afraid the night before. this kind of subtle and riptide-like fear that you'll wake up and forget for a few seconds that it's the week of silence. that some stupid commentary like "man, am i thirsty" or "bloody hell it's cold in here" or "damnit. honey, i think you threw my back out again last night" you fall asleep with the pinprick haunt in the back of your mind that nags at you to remember and not let it all fall flat because of a stupid ten seconds of being drunk on sleep. so i woke up and probably was as close to saying something as i ever get. why? because it was damn cold in there, i was friggin thirsty, and i definitely have a problem with my back. this close, i think. this close.

the day passed rather quickly. what exactly happened, i don't remember. at least not right now. roomate gone for most of the day, food to be cooked and scripts to be polished. emails and phone calls and emails and other things. a few minutes, here and there, to think about the letters and the emails and the phone calls i didn't make. and wouldn't make. a few minutes laughing out loud with every ounce of air in my lungs for the first time in a week. a few minutes of singing out loud and talking out loud.

but, all in all, it all lead back to ending the night with a few minutes of simple, silent silence.

lesson for day 7: getting back into the swing of things usually doesn't involve any swinging, the daily grind is rarely a daily grind, and sometimes the best days come after the best days.

Week of Silence '05: Day 6

it's the driving. it's the driving the driving the driving that's the key. key to what? whatever, that's not the point.

the point is the driving.

denver. after denver comes kansas. after kansas comes missouri. after missouri is illinois and after love comes marriage.

then comes the baby in the baby carriage.

anyway, the reigning commentary on kansas seems to be the following:

"it's flat. like, really flat."

"yeah. flat."

but the reigning commentary was silent for this leg, mostly. the journey through kansas was mute and matte, pitch black outside with light chance for plains. no prarie dogs. no twisters. no green witches or funny lookin' flyin' houses. no sparkly red shoes. no monkeys, flying or otherwise. no curtains and no men behind them.

instead it was fairly quick and to the point. kansas has left no indelible marks and basically holds no particular imagery in my mind. it's a state, and that's about it. what a sad set of affairs...but then again you can't have every state be memorable. because then they'd all be memorable. and if they were all memorable then they wouldn't be different, so instead of states they'd just be 'that place over there that's not over here but could have been over here.'

so from 5:30pm to 9:30am i drive and drive and drive and drive and then i hit missouri.

missouri. old roomate lives in missouri, though i didn't know if it was st. louis or not. i was gonna take a shot to just stop somewhere randomly in st. louis, somehow find an internet connection, hack and crack and find out where his school is and see if there's a way to look him up. nevermind that i'm not talking all week and that me showing up randomly at his front door like a walking smile that hasn't bathed in a notable amount of time would be kinda weird. nevermind that i haven't got a clue how to start looking for him and that it would just be a stupid way to inevitably waste my time. nevermind that there's no way to confirm if he's even at home, were i to find out where that is.

so, st. louis, although arch-tastic and shiny and respectable as you are, i'm afraid this is a passing interest. another time will lead to arch inspection, another day will lead to plumbing your urban depths. but for right now i want to get home.

so i go home.

from st. louis back to chicago the traveling fray is most ripe. driving in the afternoon and basically winding your way back up the midwestern countryside, full of corn and land and land and land and land and land and a couple trees and a silo and some other junk in the corner over there and land and land and land.

but going up into illinois just beat the band. it's things like 'soy city.' what a place, that decatur, don't you think?

'soy city'

seriously, what kind of name is that? is it cool? is it dorky? is it lame and, as such, effectively dorky cool? is it just something that bears repeating, a contemporary 'cellar door' for all you darko fans? maybe it's that i'm making way too much out of something that is basically a two word phrase. basically.

and i don't know about all of you, but pseudo-country music is just somethin' else.

"i like my women
a little on
the trashy side."

honestly now, how can you not think that's the coolest kind of redneck-country-boy-son-of-the -soil-kinda-jive line? it had a good beat, too, i thought. then we move on to the country singer guy goin' on about his dream woman and her entrance into bars, gettin' in there and just grabbin' a beer, shouting at the bartender to "play somethin' country." that one had a beat too, boy. there's some knee-slapping times right there, i tell you what. good stuff, good stuff.

but it was the rush home that rushed me home. just wanted to get home, clean up, comfort up, settle up. so i drove and i drove and i drove. up through the bottom and middle of illinois, highway to highway to highway and jumping lanes as i went. i actually made a pitstop over by normal, a notable town mostly because i was there for about four days a while back.

normal coffee (in that it was coffee bought in normal, il), normal gas, normal air and normal tracks. i head back home.

so the question is whether to return the rental car today or just keep it and return it tomorrow before the corresponding rental time from a week ago? either way it's charging me a whole day, it's just a matter of wanting to return it now or later. the question, it seems, was willing to wait.

so i get home. right about 5:30pm, i get inside, roomate all a busy getting ready for a thing. i get in, plop down the bags, rush to the bathroom and shower like a madman (or, like, you know...myself).

and then, my friends, the day was spent in silence amidst my city once again. i decide to return the car later and basically crash.

oh crashing. what a pleasant way to end the day.


lesson for day 6: there's no place like home, there's no place like kansas, and there's no substitute for putting an end to things.

Week of Silence '05: Day 5

okay, so where are my glasses.

seriously, where are my glasses?

i was wearing them last night; i went to sleep in my car, wool coat all blanket-like and warm with the car heater buzzing away into the oily hours. so i wake up, right? right. i look around, smack my lips and get out of the car to stretch.

so really, where are my glasses? come on, i left them right here. look in the front, look in the back, look in the coat pocket.

okay this totally isn't funny. where the hell are they. look in the other pocket, look in the first.

second, third, fourth and tenth (lots of pockets, if you've ever met me). front seat, back seat, other seat other seat.

trunk. I LOOKED IN THE TRUNK. this is totally not cool.

a thousand miles from home, no glasses, a rental car, no glasses no glasses no glasses where the hell are my glasses this is so not cool.

okay this is messed up. where the hell are my glasses. under the front seat, behind the front seat, glove compartment cushion spaces.

on top of the car. underneath the car. this totally is not cool at all.

okay, seriously, seriously, really this is just what the hell. where are my glasses?


where are my glasses?
where are my glasses?
where are my glasses?
where are my glasses?



where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses?

front seat back seat front seat under over behind inside outside. tenth pocket fourth pocket seventh pocket.

...first pocket.

oh hell no. hell no. the fact that i find my glasses in the first and last place i look...i'm surprised i don't get free stamps in the mail with LOSER embossed in red rubber on the front, $12.99 for ink. free shipping.

i need food. coffee and food. but not too much, i'm not dying or anything. so get out of the car (for the eleventh time, but now with glasses secured to my face as they should be) and get back in (after realizing i wasn't parked as close to the gas station as i thought) drive about fifteen feet (because sometimes it's okay to be lazy in colorado or wherever the hell i am at this point).

utah, right. utah. anyway, i get out and go into the gas station/diner (how in the world can you not just burst into awesomeness over such a little amalgam). first, peruse the menu. second, wait about half an hour for a waitress to actually look at me for more than five seconds before heading back into the rear of the kitchen. third, think 'to hell with this' and go buy cheap coffee and powerbars inside the gas station half of the gas station slash diner.

fourthly, the coffee was alright. so now, awake and with a proper ability to actually see things (20/20, suckas, in your face) i mosey on down the block to the

MUSEUM OF WESTERN COLORADO'S DINOSAUR JOURNEY

and then think 'crap' for not even knowing what state i'm freaking in. seriously, what's up with that.

but to be brief and summarize the museum: friggin awesome. scratch that, i want to be brief-ier: awesome.

there is a T-Rex {short for Tyrannosaurus Rex for those not in the know [Tyrannosaurus Rex meaning "tyrant lizard king" for those further not in the know ('terrible' being a word meaning "awful: causing fear or dread or terror" for those of you who never graduated...oh, let's say third grade)]} leg standing by the southern wall of the place, just sitting there upright and with a cross sectioned musculature.

seriously, friggin awesome.

moving on we go past the velociraptor info, the stegosaurus mockup that moves and gyrates his hips like a sugar-doped five year old elvis presley with a nervous disorder. moving on, and this is the best part, a utahraptor RIPPING THE HEAD OFF A SMALLER VELOCIRAPTOR! i'm talking bloody little veins and muscles, ribbons of red and weird sounds, the full effect just there on display, easily seen by any two year old who happens to waddle on by. i'm talking bloody teeth, tearing out organs with visceral splunges of destruction. f-r-i-g-g-i-n a-w-e-s-o-m-e.

oh and the people, reader. the people were the best. a few choice quotes from the trio that tailed me:

"it's creepy."

"really, those eyes and the way it looks at you, it's creepy."

"what do you call those things? the ones with the beaks, the flying ones? oh, they didn't fly? but they have wings. but maybe they did fly. well how do you know, are you an ornitheologon?"

"that one is still so creepy, no matter how many times i keep going back to it. it's the eyes."

"okay that one is too creepy, let's go to the next one."

and like any red-blooded whosits, the final stop was the giftshop. the giftshop where i ponder and pine and pour over all the gifts that can be bought. all the little googaws and giggitygacks that i was never able to gawk and giggity over as a kid.

which little piece of re-plasticised bone fragment should i buy, i ask myself. which fiberglass claw or paw or fossil or dropping should i pay up for and throw into some hidden corner of my new apartment? not only that, where are the patches? seriously, where are the patches?

right, so i'm not going to do all that again. needless to say there was much patches-searching and many fossil-pokings until after about an hour (bite me, yeah it was an hour. so what.) i picked out a fiberglass allosaur claw and a pterosaur pin. there were no patches, i'm afraid, so it was about all i could manage just to get a pin. it'll still be able to stick into my canvas bag, though.

gifts pour moi in tow, it's back to the car. funny thing, seeing clearly what with having your glasses and gifts and all: you tend to not want to drive and junk. call me crazy, but it took me, like, almost a whole minute to get over wanting to stare at fake dinosaur parts and not oggle the researchers who're working in the back of the museum on their day off. those researchers, honestly. why do they wear white coats? no clue. why do they seem incredibly cool when we all know that they really really really really really really really really really aren't? even less of a clue. but still, the dreams of oggling are hard to fade. so very hard.

driving. listening to the last vestige of comedy-on-cd. some nameless pieces of work that don't deserve repeating. well actually they do, if only to describe how only i can manage to find awesome stuff that isn't awesome. laurel and hardy, abbott and costello. the greats, the bestests, the legends. radio sitcoms, suspense and drama packed into a voice. everything you could hope for in a car, right? well, maybe? come on, not even a little? well fine then, who asked you. sheesh.

laurel and hardy? a cd of interviews with them. badly recorded interviews. abbott and costello? not actually on the cd, more promo material, the way steven segal was plugged for Executive Decision and who, we all know, had so little to do with the film that it makes you want to protest if only because everybody deserves a chance in the movies. even a less-than-popular steven segal. (no offense, stevo; big fan, honestly. honestly, big fan. huge. just huge.) so after the whithered attempts at comedy i sigh and put in the inevitable...

physics. on cd. brian greene's latest, if you are familiar with the man's prior publishing gems. mostly because i can't actually finish a broad-audience physics book these days without wanting to see the math and scratching my head then buying a math book then reading all of that without understanding what i just did just so i can go back to the physics book and read it again and realize that he was using said-maths in an illustrative context only and that it didn't really apply to the problem of that particular chapter. so, book on tape. cd. whatever.

the final verdict? brace yourselves...i liked it. finished it and everything. didn't actually learn anything new, mind you, just kind of filled in a few historical holes (progress of string theory, the whole hour spent over the fact that nobody knows what the M in 'M-THEORY' stands for, etc.) the important part, though, is that i had ideas. oh sweet sassy molassy does it feel good to roll around in the mud of theoretical physics again. college does nothing for the dreamer; it sucks away all life from the starry-eyed physicist. it takes questions and points them to actual numbers rather than outcomes. it throws you at a problem and says

'how many degrees/inches/seconds/kilograms/ergs/newtons/milespersecondpersecond/square meters/cubic centimeters/watts/ohms/coulombs/barns will such-and-such particle
rotate/drop/live/obtain/push/pull/accelerate/span/cloud/discharge/cause/encounter/take up?

rather than just ask

'what will happen?'

for the next few hours, i asked 'what would happen' and it was good. i pumped gas while factoring equations over general relativity, turned on the wipers while i contemplated the importance of virtual pair production in an 'intense' metric. i wondered about the lifetime of the sun but then got distracted and almost got pulled over because i kept trying to write down an equation on the windshield of my car instead of just letting the heat take over and evaporate it away.

more thinking. more gas. the last gas station i went to had, get this...a little pizza place inside. and i mean like little-little. the kind of fast-food mini-pie fare that you'd find at college campuses or mall food courts, with the little hotdog rollers filled with cardboard boxes housing ready-to-go lunch personal panned pizzas. but since when do i settle for personal pan, i ask myself. instead, i point to the "ultimate-everything-on-it-monstrosity-of-grease-and-cheese" 15inch on the menu behind the counter.

the girl looks at me, realizes i'm not going to say anything, and tells me it'll be about half an hour. here. in a gas station. in boo-bumk-town-village. half an hour now in a gas station with nothing to do (saving the cd for the road, you see). right. so after darting into the back to go through "mute boy's adventure in scary bathroom land" and walking back and forth between said bathroom and the car to get my brush and brush my teeth and junk, time passed just as easily as it should have. and i got my pizza. and bolted.

hours and hours, listening to the last of my cd. watching the mountains go by, slowly and steady and looking at all the restaurants that i didn't hit before and that had no hopes of seeing me now. more and more, mountains and mountains, highway highway rails and rails and dark and dark and cars and cars and mountains and mountains.

then, no mountains. what happens when you're going east in colorado with mountains and mountains and mountains and then BOOM! there's no more?

denver happens.

after about fifteen minutes into denver-seeing range i take a turn at the first recognizable franchise: barnes and noble. good 'ole bookstore, like that aunt that will always cook waaaaayyyyy too much food whenever you stop by in the middle of nowhere. good 'ole barnes and noble. good 'ole bookstore.

so i go in, peruse, stretch my legs. look around but still don't want anything to eat, don't even want coffee. but i'm tired, it's around 4 in the afternoon, and the light outside is beginning to go away. so what's the best course of action? sleep in the parking lot of a huge mini-mall, of course.

i get out of the store and try to find my poor self back to the rental. being a rental, i have no idea what the plates say, let alone remember anything more than whatever vague shade of color it is (on the road you only see blue, yellow, and red. green is a figment of your imagination.) so needless to say it takes me awhile to find it again. but the minutes slowed some, because there is a very very peculiar thing about all the cars in denver parking lots:

they all have colorado license plates. now hold your horses, there's even more...they're all DIFFERENT. i spot about 3 different designs so far, fifteen feet out of the store. is it a yearly change, do they offer different flavors of plate?

5 different designs. there's a lot more driving to do, but denver is a bit of a way station, a 'go any more west and you're, like, west and junk' kind of town. 7 different designs. sure, i'm probably not in the heart of denver right now, 8 different designs, but i feel like i fit in a little. suburban, still kinda midwest.

10 different designs. honestly, what's up with that. and where the hell is my car? seriously, this isn't cool.

oh, there it is. wedged between the identical buicks, one with a blue denver plate and the other with a yellow. more driving to be done, but it's all the midwest from here on out right? so i away to sleep in the parking lot and rise with the setting of the sun.

lesson for day 5: there's nothing wrong with physics, there's nothing wrong with pizza, and where there's a mini-mall, there's a nap.

Week of Silence '05: Day 4

waking up at 11am in a very tightly tucked and very warm bed in the middle of vegas after having gotten over the brunt of your sickness while not talking is...notable.

so i wake up. clean of nose and in more healthful health. to all of you following these travails:

YES, i have gotten mostly healthy. this includes the coughy/scratchy/monstrous throat and the various forms of nasal hatred.

YES, my ears still pop, though not as much anymore. such is the life one leaves, when migrating the tumultuous sea levels of the western USofA.

time reports are due for work. being on the road, though, doesn't make for ease of reporting. the trick is to find a way to get online whilst on the road, fill out my time report, send it off, and continue on my merry way. that's the trick.

back to the morning. right. so i wake up. now, i have to tell you, it did cross my mind, the idea of taking a hotel towel in case i find myself lake-bathing again before i get home.

oh yes, it crossed my mind.

but from what i can tell, the boys are back in tow-ow-ow-ow-own. the boys are back in town. i can tell this mostly because the song is stuck in my head, source unknown.

breakfast. something for breakfast. a diner, for breakfast. a good, boothy, old-fashioned, buck-tooth-waitressed diner. and an omelette for breakfast. with these requirement s in hand i promptly turned around and walked to the diner next door to the hotel.

score. Coco's, the place was called. and oh so cold, the place was. the import of this decision, though, was in dining at a place that looked like it could afford at least one pair of gloves for the cook. not my kind of place, the kind that can afford things. but given how i'm in vegas and given that lord only knows what sort of new cooties are spawned hourly in this region of the world, i'll play it a littler safer today.

my server was a scant asian woman, a kind of i-ate-something-sour scowl on her face that did nothing to dampen her laid back demeanor. irony in form, i guess. i scanned the menu, looking and looking and realizing that, not only can this place afford gloves for the cooks, the fully laminated menu complete with well photographed menu items and a dash of graphic design unmistakably signaled how nice this place was in comparison.

ugh, a nice diner.

uuuuuggghhhh, a nice sunday diner, at that.

so to hell with it, i thought. i'm gonna eat wheat and starch and all the other blood sugar hiking stuff that turns me into wheezy mcweeze. i'm gonna eat every last scrap.

anyway, i found the appropriate omelette ensemble and coffee selection and pointed my heart out as she tried to comprehend the choices. let alone when i decided that, even though i was going to throw my blood sugar into a whirlwind frenzy, it wasn't gonna happen with the sugar at least. so i found the sugar-free syrup listed on the back and pointed and underlined and pointed and pointed as she squinted to try and read what the hell it was.

i practically wore a hole into the menu. laminate and everything. she squinted for five minutes, figured it out, and off she went. she comes back in five minutes with the coffee in a funny flute-y mug and a little glass of cream. that's right, a little glass. like a shot of dairy.

in the meantime i sing along with the songs on the radio playing overhead. and to the sides. and from the floor. songs and music and classic crooning from a bygone era and blah blah blah. now, is it "so let your love flow" or "so let your love go"?? i sang both versions while some random old pop song played around me, the tune in my head drowning out a song i'm sure would have gotten me bopping along if i hadn't been focused on this flow-or-go dilemma.

and the coffee comes. sweet, great, great great great great great diner coffee. i haven't had coffee in sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long, it just hits the spot so very well. the little shot glass of cream, just enough faux sugar, just the right blend of bitter and not. she plops down the coffee pot and moves on to the table behind me. i could hear the family telling a little girl to order. the waitress awww's just a little,

'whatchagonnahavehoney?'

she asks the little girl. at this point i returned to my flow-or-go fiasco, so i didn't find out what the little girl ended up having. probably pancakes or something.

then comes the food. oh, the food. hashbrowns, pancakes, sugar-free syrup and those little cubes of butter. and my omelette, my sweet sweet wonderful brilliantly crafted omelette. two minutes in and i've finished my coffee. eat eat eat swallow eat eat eat

breathe

eat eat eat. i'm eating too fast and writing too fast and looking too fast and singing too fast and fast fast fast fast BOOM. food's almost gone and coffee's long gone and songs all a blur now. and here she comes. with more coffee.

more. coffee.

time almost slows down when you're pouring a cup that really don't need to be drunk. and i guess that applies to all sorts of drinks. look over and see the waitress smiling as she hands over another straw, the oddly preppy couple here on a sunday morning in vegas watching everyone around them (too worn out from the night to be worried about making small talk), seeing the smoke rise from the cigarette in the corner and the almost flashing equations in your brain (diffusion, then osmosis, then pH balancing, then hormonal cascades, then waterfalls, then TLC, then cyclops, then odysseus, then poseidon, then water, then diffusion again...). fifteen minutes later and the cup still half full.

enough already, i say, and chug the cup. wipe my mouth, pay my bill, and off i go to arizona.

about two hours out i decide to make a pitstop; i got the idea after remembering the roomie suggesting that i visit the grand canyon since 'it's only about 100 miles off the highway.'

honestly, how can you not get all warm and fuzzy over such incredible logic? well i mean other than being sane and junk.

right. so pitstops. i felt like making it a chock-full-of-pitstops kinda return trip. and so pitstops were made.

first stop, the first suburb of vegas that i happened across. i'd have to go look up the name of the 'burb again but i don't feel like being all specific. point is, i happened across said un-named suburb and took a veering right.

that's right, veering.

so what did i do in this nameless suburban utope? firstly, i drove. drove and drove until i found a place to quench my thirst for americana.

so i'm not sure if it's a suburb-of-vegas kinda thing or a suburb-in-the-desert kinda thing, but it was a different kinda thing either way. corrugated steel houses, the kind that look like they're made within four days and can withstand a hurricane (or at least come apart in big, solid pieces). random colors, pink and blue and purple and white. lawns of sand and gravel, neighbors to an acre of sod and clearly displaced grass.

a high school for a town of maybe 1000 people. a library, a bookstore. odds and odds and the occasional end.

secondly, i stopped. right outside the cozy almost-diner with big signs announcing the availability of ice cream and various forms of sandwich. taking ten minutes to park because of the five i spent watching the ice cream man unload his wares by the back. the air conditioning inside, the second half of the diner crowded with knicknacks because it is also an ANTIQUE STORE.

******

a quick aside: the country is erupting with antique stores. so many that i'm beginning to doubt the country is anything less than 500 years old.

******

the sugar free butter pecan ice cream, the huge scoops and the juggernaut of a plastic spoon. the cashier behind the counter whose life i try to imagine, the high school girl who may only have a couple hundred other students in her entire school. working in an air conditioned diner and then leaving into the stripped desert air.

so i ate the ice cream and then left it on the table to peruse the antique store in the other half (no food allowed, you see). this close to buying the typewriter, a portable guy that was such a staple even a decade ago. almost.

instead i returned to the ice cream, finished, and moved onward to the Lost City Museum in Overton, NV, south about one town over. more driving more driving more driving, little roads and bigger roads. and then i get there.

and i liked it. i go inside and look at the entry price but can't grasp which price applies to me, so i walk up to the cashier, let her tell me what is expected, pull out the wallet and collect my change. and then onward into the museum.

how arrogant and lame and naive, how bourgeois and pretentious to say the place was amazing. it is history, simply put, propped up and dusted off to give us an idea of what it means to be alive. be human, conscious of past and future. so i'm not gonna say all that.

carved stone and sand outside, petroglyphs carried over from other sites and embedded around the museum. just so very simply nice to look at.

the pueblos have stood stolid for so long it just leaves me in a bit of a silent awe. kings of kings, ozymandias and his ilk, all gone and forgotten. and here's a hut of clay and mud that stands taller than so many other long-gone monuments. to remember some mother and father and child, nameless and unknown, of all things.

inside i bought a patch, the start of my own future log. the way i would have bought huge stickers saying 'ITALY' or 'GREECE' back in the 20's.

and then back to the highway. what a thing, to notice shadows on the mountains themselves. trailing a valley for five miles and then seeing it curve off away from you into another direction. the driving kept up until utah and Zion National Park. by now it was 4:00pm and trying to find my way to the grand canyon would not only take about two more hours, it would also be in pitch black dark in about one hour and along some dirt road after half an hour. combine random dirt road, pitch black dark, and a really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really deep canyon and you get me not going there.

so instead i head to Zion National Park. being the tourist attraction it is, i of course travel the requisite touristy shops: places that sell dream catchers and leather wares, restaurants and trailer parks, an ostrich farm and a little bar off in a corner. i told myself i would go to the bar on my way back, but soon enough i was focused on the trip itself.

i got to the park around 5:00, minutes after the place closed down and left me unable to even get a patch. no tours, no multi-colored sunset shows, no silent oggling of countryside with seniors and hippies in an overcramped bus.

but i parked the car outside the visitor center anyway and walk around. the place is closed, of course, so i figure the least i can do is use the bathroom and fill up my water bottles using the facilities outside. walking to the bathroom, it becomes very obvious very quickly that there are no lights to be found anywhere. getting to the bathroom and finding it completely dark makes one not want to plumb the depths and hope for the best. so i head back to the car.

five seconds later, the lights go on; i can see where i am now, i can see the water fountains and the bathroom and everything between. so back to the bathroom, use of the facilities, and outside. outside and looking up, the stars smiling back at me again in one of the few places i can see them untainted.

trying to find my car with almost no light is no picnic, either. i ended up turning the alarm on and off so that the headlights would flash and point me back. go technology.

back on the road, back towards the highway. i picked up some coffee and a patch at a little coffee shop/antique store/random native american crafts store. good coffee, good patch. good all around.

ten minutes and i cross the bar i had decided on earlier.

man oh man. man. take a moment, my friend, and just sit down for this bit. it is not outrageous, not incredible, just simply without retort.

the bar was a dive without the atmosphere. the bar itself on the opposite wall when i came in, about 6 or 7 older folks sitting there chatting and socializing. the bartender standing there with her hands on the bar, straight out and supporting her when she says 'hi there.'

'what'll it be?'

i look at the wall, at the older folks' hands, and all i see is beer. beer in their hands, beer on the bar, beer bottles on the wall, beer cans in the trash.

and something told me any signals to her as to wanting otherwise would just get messy for no reason. so i point to a coors light, make it clear that i can't talk, watch as she grabs one and as she pops it open.

'i'll need to see some ID.'

so i produce ID.

'illinois, huh? we got another illinoian here too, funny huh?'

she points to an older woman at the far right end of the bar. the pointee looks up at me and smiles, we tip our drinks to each other, and i take my bottle to a table.

about three minutes later another woman from the bar comes over, pen and pad of paper in hand. she sits down, takes the pen, writes on the pad of paper. and she slides the pad over to me:

'how long deaf?'

i laughed. the third time or so that someone has thought i was deaf, the third time in ten years, all three during the last four days. after i finished my chuckles i waved my hands, a quick sweep across the throat that shows that i can't talk.

'oh, you're sick or something?'

a brief nod.

'oh, see i thought you were deaf. i used to date a deaf guy, see.'

she turns and makes eye contact with those at the bar whom she left behind.

'he isn't deaf.'

'yeah, we know,' a man and the bartender reply.

'yeah i thought you were deaf. i used to date this deaf guy. i had to break up with him, though, drove me nuts after awhile. thing was whenever we went out he always kept asking about what everybody around was talking about. i mean i can barely keep up with one conversation at a time, so he sees some people laughing and wants to know what the joke was and looks in another corner and wants to know what they're saying to the waiter and all that sort of stuff. i just couldn't take it anymore!'

i laugh. she continues on. wanting to know whereabouts in chicago i live. continuing on, about how she used to live around rockford, trying to remember the way back to chicago from Zion. asking if i went to the park, if i saw the colors in the sunset, if i took a tour. asking what i do for a living, where i work, how long i'm on the trip.

i wrote down five words or so the entire time. she kept on after i handed her my business card and wrote down the word 'computers.'

'oh i've had a computer for so long. i had a commodore as my third computer, i've been around them forever.'

she continues on, the trials and tribulations of laptops and desktops, the husband's technical skills and habits, formatting and defragging and the like.

'it's so funny though, how that sort of thing works out. my oldest, he's a little older than you, doesn't know a damn thing. last year he wanted to look at this porn site,'

oh yes, reader, we've suddenly turned in that direction.

'so he tells me he needs to use his credit card to prove his age. i told him "no, don't do that, here's another site that's free" but he keeps saying that they only want it to prove his age. about a month and $700 later he finds out what really goes on. should have listened to me, right?'

oh the laughter, my friends. the laughter and the laughter and the laughter. whether she knew that i was laughing at the absurdity, whether she instead thought i was laughing at his naivete, who knows. either way, the laughter was plentiful.

we ended some time later, about an hour, hour and a half in total. she ended wanting to know if i used ICQ.

ICQ. sweet googly moogly, how awesome is that? honestly.

so i left her with my business card and her intentions to email me some time later. why? who knows. these are the sort of things that i do, i guess, so let's not dwell on them.

and so i left. onward and onward, back towards the highway. by this time i was somewhat hungry but i didn't feel like a full fledged meal. so what to do? stop by the grocery stop next door to the gas station when filling up, clearly. what to buy?

pepperoni. sliced pepperoni. pizza pepperoni. a pound of sliced pizza pepperoni.

a pound in my pack and back in the car, ready to drive and snack and keep on till morning. so that's what i did. drive and drive and drive. and i come across Southern Utah University.

you see, the plan was to stop at each college/university that i could spot from the highway, randomly roaming and seeing if any parties or craziness or any collegiate activity was brewing whilst i happened to be in the state. so, seeing the signs, i of course had to make a pitstop.

first building i found was the athletics. students working out, other students working out. a couple students manning the equipment checkout counter. walking around, though, i somehow didn't feel like writing out my intention to find a party or a bar to the kids working behind the desk. so i thought about it for a few minutes, didn't really feel up for it, and left.

more roaming campus, driving about and see what's around. there must have been some sort of event, though; one of the auditorium/gym buildings was packed, people leaving en masse right around 9pm or so as i drove around. more driving. after about half an hour i come across a bar somewhere in the town. going in, it was definitely not my place for the moment. spread out, older people there, no students or revelry. just people sitting around, maybe playing pool. just not up for it. so i left.

and the rest is history. more driving, more driving, more listening to books on tape. by the end i decided on my next pitstop in the morning, a dinosaur museum. i'm parking at a rest area across the street and sleeping until the place opens at 9am. perfectly reasonable, i think.

lesson for day 4: there's nothing wrong with learning who you are, learning what you're like, or learning what spur of the moment really means.

Week of Silence '05: Day 3 - Vegas and So On

okay.

right.

okay.

yeah. so i'm trying to word this in a way that does not denote something worse than what i'm going to end up saying.

i'm not impressed.

see? it's hard. it's not that i'm disappointed or struck down from whatever imagined high i had over the glory that is vegas. or something. actually i've found things more engaging than i would have thought before.

but a few notes:

YES, i am the type to think lots of gilded paint and bright yellow lighting is lacking of tact. i'm not awed by big statues and lots of shiny gold wallpaper (though shiny-ness does have its place among things, i guarantee you). point is, most of what i saw was not like that. so i was interested in architecture and design and colors and materials. they were nice, and not over the top.

YES, i do realize that being alone is obviously veiling the appeal of the place. this is practically the definition of obvious. besides, nobody asked you anyway.

YES, i am not big on slot machines and three card poker. i came to vegas for good 'ole texas hold'em, and so that's what i did. slots were played, but with the half-hearted enthusiasm expected of them.

YES, i do realize that being alone is NOT WHAT VEGAS IS ABOUT. again, nobody asked you.

YES, i do realize that i could have had a crazier time had i been able to, say, talk. but at the same time, what other place is crazy enough to enjoy while not talking? full of enough people doing enough random things to be engaged while silent (literally and figurtively engaged, mind you)?

YES, there is more to vegas than The Strip...yeah see i can't even type that with a straight face.

YES, these notes are getting old.

this is the breakdown of every building on The Strip:

A Theme + A Hotel + A Casino + A Big Mall + Very Nice Restaurants = Some Building On The Strip

and there you have it. slots are the same, poker is the same, roulette and blackjack and cocktails are the same. the uniforms are different, the restaurants are different colors, but let's not go nuts.

so, i was not impressed. i wasn't disappointed, i wasn't depressed, i wasn't horribly lonely or bored or lazy.

i was sick, though.

remember that coughing thing from earlier in the day? yeah, well it basically mutated my throat into a pain-birthing organic factory of pain. and pain. i had two drinks the entire night: both times a mixed drink, both times ordered to cocktail waitresses on a pad of paper.

man, it would have been so sweet, my dream. the dream where i'm playing poker, sitting there, winning huge hands, gathering up the chips with a smile and muted mouth. then comes the waitress, asking if we want any drinks. i wave her over, point to the hand i just won.

in that hand would be a jack. i would point to the jack.

the waitress would say 'jack...'

i would put a finger on my nostril, pushing on it to restrict airflow, and then sniff across my palm in a straight line with the open nostril .

the waitress would say 'coke...'

"jack and coke?"

i would nod, of course, but then direct her to my left hand, with index and thumb separated a distance, as if i were saying 'i was this close to such-and-such.' i would slowly squeeze the fingers closer together.

the waitress would say "diet coke?"

i nod.

"jack and diet coke," she concludes, and i wave her on her merry way. back she comes, a chip-tip as her compensation.

...nobody said it was a realistic dream. well everything but the diet bit, i'd have to work at that one. sell it with my eyes, you see.

instead i entered the strip at MGM Grand and worked my way up north. i managed to play poker and played risky. that's it, you've found me out, you've unearthed my secret: i'm a risk-lover (all you econ people out there are licking your lips, i can tell). i play big and that's that. again, the lack of notice during the week of silence is a teacher and a heckler: nobody said a thing about me not saying a thing. nobody looked at me oddly, nodded at me oddly, asked me questions oddly. the dealer spoke at me, the players looked at me, but either they figured it was a stone-faced ploy or that i had laryangitis (not too far off, either).

i won some hands, lost some hands, but all in all threw it all down before getting a chance to even tip the dealer, all of it gone on the slim chance the guy had an Ace over my King.

go figure.

on my merry way, drink in tow. i had managed to order the drink while playing poker, writing down jack and diet to the chagrin of the player to my right. it was the only exclamation i had heard at the table, "jack and diet?"

and that was it. after losing the big hand and still without my drink, i took my time. grabbed my coat, straightened out the creases and plucked up the collar. but i left right as the waitress came back with my drink. a tip and a nod and i was off to the rest of the casino.

***********

i would like to pause for a moment here and let the reader know that i feel a certain kinship with Halls brand cough drops. they helped me that day in so very many ways.

***********

cough. yes, back to the day.

so off i went. a few more casinos, rambling around. slot machines and slot machines, win $20 and lose $5. another cough drop and another cough drop, my throat like the sahara after my drink, screaming in wretched agony over the wretched wretchedness of it all. this wandering was the bulk of my non-impressed-ness.

mostly because of the people. at poker it was frat boys and frustrated accountants, the types who live off beer bongs and delusions of agrarian grandeur. buzz cuts and big sunglasses. leather coats and shorts.

outside was no better. all around me are tourists, tshirts and old folks. no one my age, or at least no one my age who doesn't look like some stereotype i've encountered several times during the night. the teenie-bopper types at the designer retail outlets. this locale is nothing different; another gauche mall set among the myriad slot machines.

more slots, another drink, more cough drops and cough drops and cough drops. i play a 5 cent slot, win $20.

walk around some more, more and more and more and all the same. interesting, of course, and worth exploring. but lacking in...pizzaz.

then i find an FAO schwartz.

i have been in this store ONCE in my entire life. it was in chicago, during orientation for college. i noticed nothing, being worried more about the people i was getting to know and the subtleties of a newly collegiate lifestyle. so you must understand my excitement when i realize the kind of chance i have available to me this time.

the science kits. the telescopes. the stuffed animals and huge rockers. the flying toys, the dancing toys. singing toys and walking toys and talking toys. intelligent toys. messy toys. toys and toys and toys and toys and

G
A
S
P

the piano.

the piano, the keyboard, the big huge electric gather of keys arranged on the floor.

the one from Big.

gasp

i was this close, dear reader.

THIS CLOSE

this close to playing, this close to dancing and jumping and playing and playing and playing.

but those damn kids. oh those damn kids. two girls, must have been over 10 at least, both of them.

oh, those damn kids.

how can i, a 23.8333333(3) year old man walking around with 8 o'clock shadow and my damn-i-look-casual-GQ clothing, possibly get a chance at the piano when two girls (not that young, either) usurp my intentions and start on it themselves? i can't take it from them, i can't join them, i can't wait my turn. i can't watch them, i can't ask them if i can go. i can't do anything.

oh, those damn kids. this close, reader. this close.

back to the casinos. just all over the place, the blondes. too many blondes. as if being blonde makes you attractive, as if being blonde is the hip thing to do nowadays. it's not prejudice, it's saying that it's all i'm seeing. like miniskirts or alligator shoes. all over the place.

and then the one brunette that reminds me, a little too much, of somebody else. and then i start to think that maybe i should chill out and get back to meandering.

i wanted ice cream. some of you will think nothing of this, that wanting ice cream is fine, if a little out of the blue. some of you, at most two or so, will think this is 'just so typical vikas' and that for me to go ten seconds without ice cream is remarkable. to both flavors of you i remark the following: whatever. i just wanted ice cream.

so imagine the bliss when i found the one place with no sugar added ice cream. mint chocolate chip, at that. oh, and was it ever good. so very, very good. my throat threw down its sword for a time, gyrating and enjoying the ice cream i delivered unto it.

the ice cream and the walking just gets the mind to drift. i keep thinking about somebody. kinda wishing she were here. or that maybe, some other time, we can come back here together. but then i look around and finish my ice cream and get back to gawking. like everybody else.

so i retired to the lower levels, walking out and into the night. more and more buildings, casinos and themes and uniforms. no more drinks. still more cough drops. walking and walking and walking. i spot a chinese buffet, remembered my vow for the night, and handled myself as best as i could. and it was good.

with vegas i just realize that it's not my thing. i'm more into quiet exploration. i can't plan to make a day special...not to say there haven't been some more special than others. just that i'm so crazy normally that i can't go on vacation...i'm always on vacation.

wander and wander and one last cough drop. back to my room. sleep, tapped out. sick. want to actually heal before leaving.

i spent the last twenty minutes thinking about tomorrow. wondering if i should finish the drive or do that which has been the point all along: be spontaneous. return the rental here, in nevada, and hop a plane back home. or somewhere along the way, renting a car the rest of the way instead.

something else.

thinking maybe about flying home, but i'm not going to. instead i'm just going to sleep and put behind me the day's thoughts and experience. the 6 hours of swimming amongst the waters of sin city. then, tomorrow, i head back home.

lesson for day 3: cough drops can be your best friends, slots your least enthusiastic, and your muted dreams the tempestuous lovers you've known for so very, very long.

Week of Silence '05: Day 3 - Into Vegas

utah is something else.

i ended up driving about fifty or a hundred miles into the state late last night, pulled into some hotel parking lot, slept, and woke up.

i woke up to a sight i never expected.

the night had masked so much of the mountains, the dry earth and the sparse sprouts of grass. so much of the colors and the air and the sky. so much of everything around me. i woke up with a grey sky and a suddenly tumultuous landscape. jarring, to say the least. kinda jarring, to say the most.

i almost ran out of gas last night. well, not really. but there was a stretch of about 200 miles or so where i couldn't have gotten gas if i hadn't had just enough to get me past. all i ask is the maddest of props for accurately estimating how much gas i had, along with the mpg and tank size of the car. go me.

so yes, ann coulter. i'm almost finished with the audiobook and it's something else.* sure there's the rant that has nothing to do with me or anything about which i care, but there's also the rants that just settle down and have coffee with my inner logician. the discourse and arguments that i've made before, making sense now. and, even if i don't agree with the conclusion, i invariably respect the way she said it (sans pointless name-calling and scandal embellishment, however infrequently i feel they are used).

i feel this is not true of al franken. i tried listening to his book for something like fifteen minutes, mostly because i had realized in fifteen minutes that i had fallen asleep ten minutes ago. dangerous thing to happen, in car. on the road. in utah. on top of a mountain. with no guiderails.

on the sickness front, my sneezing is gone. gone gone gone gone gone gone gone. instead, i'm coughing. well less coughing than scratching at my throat from the outside and beating at the adam's apple whenever trying to swallow.

...i have never bought Halls cough drops. i have never bought cough drops. i have NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER bought coughing relief in drop form. not on principle and not out of religious observance. i just haven't.

and today? i did. i bought my halls from a little gas station/convenience store/diner/miscellaneous depot. i bought my halls and nodded my way through about fifteen questions from the lady behind the counter ('that all you need? get any gas? cold out,huh? you don't like the cherry cough drops? i like the cherry cough drops. do you have anything smaller than a five? did you try tea and honey? if you want i could look and see if we have other flavors. you don't feel cold, just wearing that thin little coat there?) to the lady behind the counter, my silence was immaterial. to the lady behind the counter, my existence was simply existence in order to countermand any illusions that she was, indeed, talking to herself. to the lady behind the counter this wayward oasis in the middle of utah is as fast-paced as any city-slickin' nightspot. to the lady behind the counter, a headset and microphone at a gas station somehow makes sense (given that she was wearing one at the time, you see).

but i soon get tired once again and decide to pull off to the side of the road atop a mountain, sans any railings, brake, park, and sleep.

i slept fitfully. or fully, whichever one means that it was good. good sleep. good good roadside i'm-on-top-of-a-mountain-with-nothing-holding-my-car-in-place-two-feet-from-a-cavernous-cliff sleep. i woke up occasionally, half expecting a police officer to be standing outside, staring through the window, chewing on tuh-backy or a straw or something, and smiling with his oversized shades, mocking me and my inability to communicate efficiently.

more driving. the road to vegas is slowly shortening, taking me closer and closer and closer. deeper into utah, further through and through. utah, nevada, state lines and power lines. so many power lines.

they came upon me suddenly: over a hill and suddenly the masse of wires and poles and safety cages ambushes you.

it was incredible.

it makes perfect sense, of course. the city needs power day and night, not to mention the quality of those lights (neon takes a LOT of power). but you don't think about it until the massive, throbbing intestine of electricity is staring you in the face. so much power, so many lines. awe inspiring, if you're like me. fairly boring and just out of place, if you're anyone else.

more driving, more isolated electric colonies, more more more. more and more and more and more and more and and and and and and

vegas, baby. vegas.

i have no idea where i am. not a clue. i haven't seen a map of the city, haven't made any semblence of a 'plan' as the hip kids call them. nothing. nothing at all.

how awesome is this?

first stop was to pull into the first exit that looked even remotely inviting. i figure out later that this exit is still about ten miles away from 'The Strip,' but let's allow for the fact that i didn't actually know where i was or that there even is a strip. such is the memory of men who dedicate their lives to physics, scripts, and simpsons quotes.

so yes, the exit. i exit, look around, and pull into a mcdonald's. i'm this close to going inside and buying something because i haven't eaten in a day or something, but instead i go inside with my roadmap (thank you, roomie!) and try to figure out where in the heckums i am. i figure out quickly that there, is in fact, a strip, that i am still a few miles off, and that i'm not hungry. so i look around, not even wanting a pop, and leave. but outside said fast-food-place there is an actual framed map of the city, so i spend some more time looking at it and searching for a hotel that might suit me for the night.

a couple things to note:

YES, i threw away the living-like-a-bum plan for my night in vegas, wanting a shower and a bed to cast away the last vestiges of my illness before hitting the road again.

YES, that was the last and only note i actually have for the time being.

back onto highway 15 and back into the world of the traffic jam. it is the middle of the day, something like 2pm, and there's a traffic jam. i half think 'hey, this is vegas, baby. vegas,' and that such is to be expected. but about a half an hour (read: half a mile) later, i find that there was an accident and people are still clearing the way, blocking off most of the lanes in the highway. the things you notice while waiting for cars to move: license plates that all hail from Nevada, Canada, and, oddly enough, Wisconsin. no joking. all that coupled with these non-chicago pansy drivers while listening to a recording of a seinfeld on stage...it was powerful, alright. mostly because i have noticed that in chicago we are all very quick to exploite the 'bottleneck mystique' as i like to call it.

you see, the 'bottleneck mystique' is the assumption that two lanes merging ahead of you means you should start to merge as soon as possible, often leading to one lane being empty well before the actual point of merger. but in chicago we jump and jostle and run full force into the merge, clogging up the other lane and driving as far as possible before being forced to merge by the road. this is how we drive, and this is how we treat such situations. but alas, there are no chicago drivers here. they simply wait back, merging hundreds of feet before the lanes themselves merge, leaving open that left lane. wide and clear, with almost as many holes as a liberal argument (ouch, did that hurt). onward and upward, it seems. after about an hour i make it the ten miles to The Strip, and start to traipse around for a super cheap place to sleep for a night.

"now vikas," some of you are asking, "why a cheap place, and just for one night? come on man, it's vegas, baby. vegas."

oh just shut up.
honestly.

it's mostly just because of the trip mentality. living like a bum all week and wanting to stay as low to such as possible. not that i haven't packed the damn-do-i-look-GQ clothes, of course. but that doesn't mean i should drop money on a room that will only be slept in and that i am not sharing (wink wink, nudge nudge). i'm the only one on the trip, i'm sick, i'm not here for the room, and i'm alone. so what's the point? i'd far more enjoy an incredibly cheap set of digs for the night, meander about the town, and drop money in stupid pursuits of chance. the american dream, really.

to summarize: hotel should be inexpensive and for one night, food during the stay MUST include a buffet at some point, and the vast accountancy of funds will be lavished on lady luck.

so first comes the first hotel. the rates on the incredibly huge sign outside say something about rooms as low as $19.95 a night, plus some food prices that make a buffet look regal.

i'm practically drooling.

so i go in. of course the requisite mini-casino in the lobby, the waitress and the registration guy who looks like a trucker that fell off his truck and into this job. the odd look and feel of the place just didn't sit right. i felt like being a bum; this place was more for someone trying not to be seen at all. so i left.

i spotted a small chain hotel a couple blocks over, a block due east of the south end of The Strip, right by the MGM Grand. i go in and try to figure out my strategy for reserving a room. you see, the thing is that when you have a reservation, it's easy. you walk in, flash your ID and a credit card, and in you go. standard week of silence stuff. but i had no reservation, and the chance that the person behind the desk would want some colorful promulgation of intent is thus higher. so what to do?

i turn my head to ponder the question and look straight at the two computers on the right wall of the lobby. the sign posted says something about the internet rates, two dollars for ten minutes or some silly thing. but this makes no sense if you want to see the hotel's own site, right? so i take a chance. i get out of line, go to the computers, and pull up the hotel's website. after a few minutes, i manage to make a reservationf for the very same hotel. i click on the internet rate.

and i save 25%. that's right, i save 25 percent on my room because i made my reservation on the computer in the lobby as opposed to trying to mime at the staff member behind the desk. i save 25% by simply turning around. so i make my reservation, flash my ID and my credit card, point to the floor i'd like, nod politely at the questions the girl behind the desk has while securing my room, and BAM! i have a place for the night. a cheap place, at that.

i go to my room, shower, clean up. i warsh away all the oils and buildup from a day or so of coughy-ness and lack of 'small lakes.' i trim the scruffy shadow, shave off the excess, and brush my teeth. i clean my hair. i trim my fingernails, change clothes. i groom myself with a modicum of effort.

after finishing all this, i look at the clock. 3:30pm. and then i remember that i'm two hours ahead of chicago (it being 5:30pm there, you see). something in me thinks it's lame to walk around the strip at 3:30, but there is nothing left to do. so i go online.

check my mail, jot down a few notes to blog later, and watch a few minutes of television. i drink water, i rest my head on a pillow. i rest there, clothed in only one article (three guesses as to what). breathing slowly, letting my eyes close a little and my thoughts wander over the last three days.

this gets boring quickly. very quickly. "alright, vikas," i say to myself.

"...let's go." and off i go.



*NOTE TO LIBERALS: i'm not one of you.

Week of Silence '05: Day 2

i've been subsiding on the car-made sandwiches, meal-shakes, and chili.

all three flourish in the halls of convenience marts and gas stations, you see; given the sickness and the opportunities along this road we call 'the highway,' it's just the type of straight-'n-narruh thinkin' i'm stickin' to.

but that doesn't mean i haven't wanted to stop and eat and drink and be ever-so-merry with the other gravel warriors along the way. i have wanted to so badly, passing by those signs:

"TRUCKERS WELCOME "

"WHATSHERFACE'S DINER "

"OPEN 24 HOURS "

sigh. any attempts toward eating or drinking or even flopping about around other folks would just end up being wasted on me. i'm so stuffed up and weak that i can taste nothing, let alone enjoy the mindless conversational spittle that shoots at me every week of silence. but such is the luck of the draw, i guess.

double sigh.

but the scenery and pockets of terrain i've been passing are fully interesting; coupled with the audiobooks (oh no, the conservative is enjoying himself, man all the battlestations...) i'm practically singing in the car whilst listening to rants and watching barns and silos pass me by. without the singing, of course.

so to answer a few questions:

YES, i have been sleeping in my car. roadstops, hotel parking lots, various other venues...all provide a cozy little alcove i call "the sleepy-time car spot"

YES, it has been something like two days since i've showered. more like a day and a half, though if you know me at all then you know how phenomenal this is. given my penchant for showering at least once a day, if not more frequently, this information might have scared you a little. rest assured i have found an immediate solution, though: natural bodies of water.

after finding an exit to rest my weary bod, i drove into a 'rest area' that turned out to be a camp ground. prices were listed and apparently i had to go through some big process to rent an area for a night. but i didn't need a night, i just need a few hours to catch some sleep and then be on my way. so i start driving through the camp, hoping to see another sign to let me know if i actually had to go through said process just to crash for awhile.

that's when i came across the ponds or, as i like to call them, 'small lakes.' a quick look around (the kind where you look from side to side as if someone is going to come across your newly undug gold) and i stripped down, walked twenty feet across really really really really really pointy gravel rocks, and dumped myself into the 'small lake' that looked the cleanest. swashed around a little bit, a fast rubbing over various areas of skin, and i was done. whether or not i used shampoo is something best left to the imagination. the bathing cleared up my sniffle-ly-ness enough that i felt good enough to throw away my hopes of sleep from ten minutes previous.

YES, it's been an indolence-fest just sitting in a car for howevermanyhours at a time. but i did manage do run a few laps upon my entrance into colorado.


all in all, i've been feeling better after meds and swimming and running and driving. the current plan is to run down to vegas quick as i can; given my sicky-ness it makes sense to run through the roads that i can't enjoy as much, spend however much time i like in vegas, and then enjoy the road on the way back. very sensible, i'm sure you would agree. but the plan is a little splotchy, only because i've been sleeping a little more than i would like and so it's screwing up my timetable.

also of note is an addendum to the list from the day previous of things that invariably become important after you've decided that they will not be:

-chapstick (when you're absolutely sure that you've moisturized the hell outta your lips, enough to last for weeks, stickin' away till the cows come home, you find out that getting the flu dehydrates you to no end)


not only did i leave a perfectly good little tin of INCREDIBLY awesome lip balm at home, i inevitably needed to go and buy another one from a store along the way. but c'est la vie, as the germans are wont to say. but on the plus side i totally know which are the best lip balms so i ended up buying some totally great stuff that totally satisfied my totally crappy flu-induced chappiness. but lip balm wasn't the only kind of medicine: i ended up buying flu pills by the dozen when i bought the balm. plus some candy or straws or something, i can't remember.

throw in lip balm, flu pills, chili, car-made sandwiches, and the occasional 'small lake' and things start to brighten up. i did manage to get into one diner so far, a kitchy little 50's imitation place in the middle of colorado. a quick point and i managed to order some hot tea from the under-worked waitress, plug in this computer, and check my mail with the little-wire-thing-that-connects-the-cell-to-the-comp. the tea was good and soothing, the computer finally got turned on after a day or so (minus whatever email checking i did at the rest areas in iowa), and i at least got to see a diner. not too bad.

the problem, though, is driving through utah. see, the terrain is something else, to be sure, but i won't be able to see it. it's darker than dark outside and i'm driving through a lot of the state tonight before i sleep. i will get a chance to look around in the morning, though, so i'll do what i can.

it's the stars, that's what gets me. driving around in pitch, looking up from my the inside of my car every few seconds to catch a glance upwards without the interference from a city full of lights. i've never taken the chance to look at the stars like this before, at least whenever i've been out of the city. not in india, which is the last place i can think of where i had an appreciable chance. i've been driving down the road and waiting until no one is ahead or behind and turning off all my lights to catch a glimpse, i've been stopping at exits periodically and looking up, trying to mark off as many constellations as i could despite a lack of any astronomical knowledge (as much as my studious ilk tend to know these things by the volume). i saw my favorite constellation every time i looked up. made me feel better. made me feel a little more grounded. made me feel good.

lesson for day 2: don't leave the house without some lip balm, swim and run and jump as much as you can, and never be afraid to turn off every light in your car to feel a little starlight before you move on.

Week of Silence '05: Day 1

ugh. with a bug and a shrug and no hug.

and a tug. maybe a mug.

basically traveled something like 650 miles today and nothing monumental to tell. why, you ask?

because i'm sick, jerk. that's right, what i thought was some sort of nasal-allergy-cayenne-pepper mutant of an affliction actually turns out to be something more akin to, say, the flu. not just any flu, THE flu.

so tick one more on the list of things that invariably become important after you've decided that they will not be. other things on this list include:

-umbrellas (when you're absolutely sure you don't need one, it rains)

-swiss army knives* (when you're absolutely sure your glasses have no chance of getting a screw loose, you need that little screwdriver from the corkscrew)

-that little wire that connects your cell phone to your laptop (when you're absolutely sure you don't need to go online in the middle of boonie-mc-boonland, you need to check for a reply to some mindless email from three months previous)

-a pen (when you're absolutely sure you won't do any writing, you need to make a pitstop at some diner for five hours with nothing but a notepad and your own psychoses to keep you company)

it was interesting, though, the kind of mentality that sprung up during the day. given my sickness, the plan is to rush to LV as fast as i can, stay however long i like, and then take my time on the return trip and make up for whatever was missed currently. thing is, the definition of 'missed' depends on whether the thing in question is worth not missing. for most people, the random diner (announcing itself with only the word 'diner' on a sign, with the best locales) noticed from a highway will not inspire an urge to suddenly eat some sort of greasy meat.

since when am i most people?

but with my plan in tow, i had to turn a blind eye to these places and focus on the sneezing/thirst/chappiness incurred by the sickness.

so the day consisted of driving, a gut wrenching apprehension over entering iowa (i won't go into it here), actually entering iowa and being all, like, "whatever, this is whatever." more driving, stopping at convenience stores for any soups that i could handle, stopping at some out-of-the-way grocer and buying sandwich materials enough to last me about ten wraps or so (tortillas, cheese, meat, and a good dijon spread), and checking my mail at the numerous rest areas equipped with wi-fi all through iowa.

the foremost entertainment on the road was due to a well planned foray into the audiobooks at my suburban library. i rented roughly thirty audiobooks or so (don't call me on that number, though). leaving chicago threw me into the comedic stylings of lewis black, bill cosby, george carlin, and something-or-other. the magnitude of the trip after chicago, though, was devoted to ann coulter.

oh no, did he just say ann coulter? ANN COULTER?

relax. first off, don't get all liberal on me. second, i brought along some al franken, too. i have books ranging from The Complete Idiot's Guide to: The Bible to a gaggle of old-tymey radio sitcoms. for the purposes of politics, i got ann coulter and al franken.

and for the record, i like ann coulter. that's right. you all know i'm conservative, and you all know that i stand for the fact that i'm conservative. i might not staunchly agree with every word that launches from her mouth, of course, but for the most part i find myself mentally agreeing with them. this might be due to her skills to persuade through logic, or it might be due to the lack of a dynamic landscape outside my window. this requires further investigation.

not too many interactions with people today; the most eventful was with a lady i met in the parking lot of some department store. i was entering a spot with a shopping cart smack at the end of it, but there was enough space that i could park up to the cart and still be fairly well within the spot. so i did. as i got out, a woman started apologizing to me for leaving the cart there. she couldn't get it over the little concrete median that separated my spot from hers, so instead she left it in the spot i was currently taking and took everything out by hand and put it into her car. as she took the last item from the cart she apologized, all without making too much of a face at the fact that i just nodded along for the whole exchange. i went to help, grabbing the cart and pulling it over, taking about a minute or two to actually get it over the median while she watched. all without responding to her thankyous.

an offshoot of the week is always to realize just how much i talk about nothing. every year there's this forced pause whenever anyone is around because there's always something going unsaid, commentary and jokes and questions and other jabber, pointless or imperative, doesn't matter.

a few brakes at restaurants and rest stops to sleep, and the day ends. getting some sleep, waking in the morning, and then off to more miles in the morn.

lesson for day 1: the plains don't bore me, conservative thoughts just make sense to me, and i really can manage this whole sleeping-wherever-i-want-like-a-bum approach to my day.


*swiss army knife mishaps are to be excluded, especially those involving airports and certain state laws with certain no-tolerance statutes. certain crappy state.

it's the waiting

i haven't been this excited about a week of silence in a long time. maybe even never this excited.
one obvious reason is the format this year: roadtrip. i've had my fill of sitting around in my head and home the last couple years, not having any stimulation revolving around silence other than to get used to it. incredibly used to it.

but now the impetus and the drive, the complete and utter lack of planning...it's the itch i've had for over a year now that developed into a rash, never getting scratched.

random diners, trying to order food without saying a word. random strangers, all taking in my mute meanderings with so very little surprise that it makes me always believe in the adaptability of people in general. but that's probably because it's more intriguing when i tell someone that the silence is intentional, rather than just miming some minimal gesture to cut me off from a verbal conversation.

las vegas, 1-3 days depending on my whims along the way. poker, drinks, interaction without a single sound. i'll be entirely out of place in the one place where it's not so out of place to do so. most likely nothing will come of it but, damn it all, i can't wait to just see for myself.

30 minutes and then i'm on my way.

like sands in the hourglass

memories are a funny thing.

they make you want to stop what you're doing, they make you welcome the crutch of nostalgia. they make you think you've been forced into a mental reverie when in fact you've wanted the distraction for some time.

i've been remembering and reliving and, yes, even rehashing. what specifically, you ask? old grades, old test scores. women come and gone, friends won and lost.

recollecting all the notions i held about life. the principles i promised i would maintain, the attitude i swore would never falter. for the most part these things haven't left me. it's the endurance of it all, the mettle requisite to make promises and swear by things. the strength behind that will is gone and, as such, the will weakens.

i'm remembering how i used to react to people and their approaches towards life/themselves/me. so involved, so invested. i would live or die with the look on another person's face. and that's not entirely gone...it's just far more selective as to who those people are.

i'm remembering what it was like to search the library for an hour to find that one random physics book, scouring and scouring to pick out words like time and parallel and dimensions, quantum this and hyper that. and of course, above all, that pantheon of titular words:

theory

because any physics book with theory in the title is clearly far above par.

everywhere you look

there's something about family sitcoms.

to know me is to know that i take swan dives into the pool of television. renting entire seasons of sitcoms and dramas and miniseries, watching them, nay, shotgunning them like a sailor with a bar tab. the last weeks drew me towards the familial situation comedies with which we all grew up.

full house. who's the boss? ellen (less formally familial, but nevertheless).

the cosby show.

there's something about family sitcoms. sitting there, watching them, analyzing them, structuring them, my screenwriter's ambition tugs at them with a trained hand. but something isn't right. i'm enjoying myself too much.

full house. we've all seen it. we've all noticed it. we've all aged with it. i sat there, watching, forgetting all about act breaks and plot runners, all about comedic timing and seeing the lines on the page. instead i watched this family of actors and felt the same way i felt however many years ago. with all the years, with all the strife and distraction and ambition and dreams and disasters...there is a point in your life, whether to come or long gone, when you had a home. a life, self contained, a little bubble of interaction and happiness that somehow got you through a day or two.

somewhere, sometime, somehow, there's family. the household of kin, through blood or other bond, that bear the loyalties and trust and simple love we all need. a living, breathing edifice. a foundation that lets us venture out into the world and still hold our bearings. it's the home you want to see at the end of the day. it's the people you want to see. the broken fence or crooked faucet in the kitchen that whispers "i am familiar" when you reach for the handle. it's the place where you can cry and the place where you can sing, all without missing a beat.

the one place on the entire planet where you are the definition of yourself.

and that's a powerful thing. there's no reason to rant over all the hats and masks and fake smiles we throw on the second we walk out the door. the show we put on. it's behind that door that's important, it's what we are before those things are riveted to the skin. it's that person inside that we used to let roam free. it's the person that family would remember and hug and praise. it's the person who was too self-aware to let anybody mould them; not here, not at home, not at home.

what in the world has happened to this little bubble, that you cannot even feel comfortable in your own bed? what happened to wanting to trek back to your door, taking out your key and plopping your things down onto the couch. what happened to forestalling your own ambitions and goals because you're genuinely interested in another person's day? what sanctuary is there left, without a home full of life?

things take time, i'm learning that. comfort and familiarity and loyalty and trust take time. mostly because they're worth it. with any luck the time passes quietly and quickly, and you're left staring around you at all the things that you've grown to keep in the back of your mind, now realizing that they're just what you wanted for so long.