What I did on my summer vacation.
9:35 a.m. || 2004-08-20
Back to 2nd grade for me! That's probably where I belong anyway, but I actually find myself submerged deep into my first week of law school. So, in order to break up the monotony that is Civil Procedure, I decided that I would write my "What I did on my Summer vacation" story to share with all the other kids.
To begin with, I moved. And by "moved" I mean I crammed all of the belongings that I have managed to acquire in my 28 years of living and crammed them into a 18 foot stock trailer (which we never did have time to clean all the shit out of) and two pickup trucks. Then, we pointed 'em North up I-35 and rolled for 10 hours to Lawrence, KS. I then made my whipping boys unload all of my crap (of course lightly coated with a fine dust of manure) into an apartment that was surprisingly big (it has been my past experience that every apartment is smaller than you imagine it will be, so this was a first!). They then made me put down a credit card for a bar tab that was very large. It was sorta like trading for slaves in the old days. A little work over here for a little rum over there. Only without the overt racism.
I then had two days in which to completely organize all of my belongings (Eds. note: I am still in this process) before I hopped on a plane to Chicago. Hmmm... Chicago... Why you ask? Because I was intrigued possibly. Maybe more because my manhood had been challenged in an e-mail. It was suggested by some that I wouldn't dare to meet someone in person that I had gotten to know on the internet. Had it not been for the sarcasm in the 'dare' e-mail I probably wouldn't have, but I decided it was important to protect the last little bit of manliness that my past failed relationships hadn't stripped me of. So I went.
...and everything went wrong...
I get to the airport in plenty of time. Check! Through security. Check! On the plane. Check! Plane takes off... Uhhh... not check. See, I'm one of those dorks that puts on the headphones to hear the captain talking to the air traffic controllers. I hear us get clearing to take off. I feel the throttle released. I'm slammed against my seat, and suddenly we slow noticeably. Hmmm... don't remember this part of takeoff. We're not going to have enough room to get up now, so we'll have to get back in line. Then I hear in the headphones our Captain tell the controller that upon our attempted takeoff, our door had come open. Someone had fuckin' forgot to shut the door!! Makes any time I left the toilet lid up seem pretty small, eh? Turns out shutting the door is one of the principle keys of a good takeoff... and cabin pressurization.... and not being sucked out of the plane at 30,000 feet and hurtled earth-ward toward your imminent death. But luckily our pilot must have looked in his rear view mirror and seen the door flapping around. Thank goodness he wasn't already drunk.
So we eventually get to Chicago. And by 'we' I mean me and my impossibly small penis. And 'we' check into the hotel. And 'we' find that the hotel has f'd up my reservation. One night only, instead of my intended two night. I'm low maintenance, I roll with the punches, I'm good. I figure I'll find a place. So I go to eat at Gino's Pizzeria. It's a good thing we don't have one of those in Lawrence or I'd be even fatter than I already am. I highly recommend it. It's the 3rd or 4th time I've been and yet I'm still amazed at how tasty it is. The I go to pay. This is when I discover that somewhere in the morass of airport security the magnetic strips of all of my cards have been rendered useless. So I pay in cash. My very limited cash.
...and then the clouds part. The sun comes out. Okay, actually it was already dark, but things definitely got better.
I met Meesh in the skeezy hotel bar for a few drinks. She didn't appear to have leprosy and she didn't once try to kill me. Nor was she a 50 year old Catholic Priest trying to molest me. After the day I have, I consider all of these positives. Then she gets a booty call and has to leave. This was probably a good thing (okay, definitely good for her, probably good for me). I'm tired and I've come close to death earlier in the day, so sleep (real sleep as opposed to the eternal kind) seems to be a good idea.
In fact, it turns out to be such a good idea that I do it until almost Noon on Saturday. Then I get a yearning for some street meat. It's not as readily available as it is in NYC, but that's okay because I eventually find a Gyro cart and scarf away. I think next to Tex-Mex, street Gyro might be the best thing ever. I'm pretty sure it's made out of sewer rat and alley cat, but I just don't give a fuck. It's tasty and it only gives me the shits about every 3rd time. This wasn't one of those times.
Meesha decides I must not be a total freak either because she calls me back and we agree to meet and head over to Bethany Jo's casa for some afternoon adult beverages prior to our foray out on the town. We (this time Meesh and I, I left my small penis in my luggage) meet Bethany for the first time. She also does not appear to be a man. In fact, as any of you who read her page know already, she is tall and beautiful if a bit of a smartass. I too happen to be a bit of a smartass, so this pleases me. One of her roommates is out of town, but Mike is nice and Chris (girl Chris) is a little hotty, so that helps me forget the little, "Ooops, we left the door open scenario" just a bit. Bethany's other friends arrive and they seem to be fun, too.
This fellow boys and girls is where the evening gets fun. We go to North Halstead Market Days. It might not be the biggest gay-fest ever, but it's the biggest one I've ever been to. It was a blast. Turns out I made the mistake of wearing nicely starched western jeans and a pastel yellow shirt. It also turns out that gay men in Chicago don't often get to see a man in starched western jeans, and they appear to like it. I now have some small idea what it's like to be a girl in a bar. You really never have to buy a drink, they just appear in your hand when you turn around. This is fabulous. Not fabulous enough for me to want to suck a dick, but it's nice to be bought for instead of doing the buying. Somehow I managed to hold off and not 'give in' as a few folks tried to talk me into. It's really impossible for little 'ole me to describe the scene and do it any justice.
At some point in the evening, my Texas belle, Jo called to ask me to meet up with her and The Boy. Evidently they had their fill of shooting each other with paintballs had cleaned up enough to make themselves reasonably decent looking, and were ready to hit the town. We headed to a place called Big City Tap Works (is that right Jo?) and had a few beers. It was nice to sit among a few straight people for awhile. I was introduced to "Benito" and was very confused when his name was really Benito. We had a slight discussion as to why Jo wasn't man enough to give him a cool nickname like, "Cap'n Azz" and decided it must be some deeply hidden insecurity. Then it was back to Bethany's where I ended up crashing on the couch (Thanks Bethany!!!). The next morning everyone outside of me was a little hungover, so I decided to go for a little walk about. I walked up to Wrigley, then over to the lake and down the lake all the way to Soldier Field. A couple of notes about the walk:
At this point I decided that shopping on the Mile wasn't a high priority, so I went to the airport. Knowing that my flight was headed for some impending doom I was able to catch an earlier flight and was back home by 8 instead of the 12:30am I was scheduled for.
And that, boys and girls, was what I did on my summer vacation.
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9:35 a.m. || 2004-08-20
