I'm not gonna tell you about the dance epidemic.
I got home from my Christmas/NY adventure last night at a little after midnight. The short of it is this - we took off from Austin on the 23rd, stayed in the KC area till the 28th, flew to Chicago, drove to Grand Rapids Michigan, stayed there for NY and are now back home. The cats have not let us leave their sight since we came in the front door.
We weren't really too sure how this would play out, honestly. The plan had been to stay with Jake for a few days, then my brother for a few days, then the Porters up in Michigan for a few days. We even bought tremendous luggage in anticipation of this event, hoping that the sheer size of this set showed our commitment to the travel gods and they would be merciful to us.
This, of course, did not happen.
I kicked myself out of bed at 4am after being up till about 1am to catch our excessively early flight (this set the tone and pattern for the next two weeks) and rolled into the shower. Kim's phone went off, which I had assumed was either her brother, who was picking us up to take to the airport, or her alarm, so I thought nothing of it. After trundling down the stairs to cram all of our baggage into Jon's car, we were on our way. Jon had, for reasons I'm not sure of, decided to bring his kid along with him on a day there was neither school nor work to get to. Possibly because he figured good parented started with the burning hatred of his children.
Anyway, Kim decides to check her messages and it turns out our flight was canceled, so we freak out a little. Our travel arrangements are resting upon the timetable equivalent of complex, delicate pulleys and levers, so now we wonder how this will all end. Fortunately, our decision to arrive grossly early to avoid problems paid off, and we made our way to Kansas City.
See, when we got there, the ground was brown and it was just raining a bit. However, it's possible that once again my ability to piss off God and catch others in my smite radius came into play. The snow that fell pretty much destroyed the week. I was able to see most of my family, but getting down to Truman Lake swiftly became a farce, and my mom had a minor episode regarding a movie and scheduling and whatnot. Staying at Jake's was cool and all but holy fuck I had planned on doing other freaking things, you know? The snow kept us trapped in his place for about 75% of that leg of the trip, which threatened to become a cross between Lord of the Flies and Alive as we realized that there was no food and no way to procure it on Christmas Day. We ended up at a dingy, stinky bar that served burgers(?), so it wasn't a total loss.
I managed to see Jon, Tyler, and Joe, but that was pretty much it outside of my immediate family and host. There was an incident with Ian who apparently ditched his car on the way to come see his kids at mom's (and later told me if he knew I was going to be there he would have tried harder to make it, make of that what you will), and Daniel has apparently vanished into the wind or some such thing. We visited Grandma Houser on the day Matt and Marlena got back into town and Kim/myself were exchanged to them like so much breathing Christmas gifting.
Matt's place is nice, and we spent the evening just pretty much chilling at his place. I got him Dragon Age, which he opened and got all excited because he already had it and it was just that good of a game. Hopefully he can exchange it. We did our laundry and tried to get to sleep at about midnight or 1 before having to... wake up at 4am to go catch a flight. We were not even sure we'd make it to the Grand Rapids part of the trip, since the snow had continued pretty much nonstop in the midwest since we landed, but it turned out okay.
As a side note, I later found out that while I was in town, Melissa Maxwell (a high school classmate of mine) was in a wreck due to the snow and would eventually be declared brain dead and taken off life support a week and a half later. I didn't talk with her much after we graduated, and I don't want to do the fake dramatic bit, but it was pretty shocking to hear. It's odd how tragedy can bring people together, as others I haven't spoken to in about a decade have all contacted me to let me know about it. For those of you who think that might be a little weird, keep in my my entire high school, 7-12, was under 150 people. So everyone knew each other relatively well.
Flying to Chicago was not as relaxed as getting to KC. Longer checkin lines, more snow worry, and a much more cramped flight. Also, witht he help of a nice security man, we found my missing pocket knife. Unfortunately it was in my pocket as I went through security. Haha oh uh, no sir you can totally keep that knife. Absolutely. We landed in Midway where it took us something to the tune of an hour or an hour and a half to get our luggage, find our rental, and get the f out of there.... only to run into low visibility snowstorms about thirty minutes outside Chicago.
Staying at the Porter's wasn't awkward as I had worried it might be. They seemed worried that they weren't going to be entertaining enough, but by this point we were completely cool with sitting on our asses most of the time and going to do a few things now and again. The snow and cold continued, and Grand Rapids was set in this weird dusk lightning for most of our stay there due to the thick clouds. We went out several nights to see some of the restaurants and bars of GR, and I have to say I like several of their hangout spots. We met up with Troy and Jake one night while we were there, as well as Laura's sister and her husband when we went to go see Local H and Electric Six. The show was great, and for some reason I was completely reminded of Ling the entire time I was watching their front man.
We spent a good deal of time on Seth's couch where I got to see more episodes of Always Sunny, which is a show I had seen once or twice but never remembered to catch again. So stupid of me. Also, we discovered a show called Three Sheets, which is something like a location-based Good Eats for alcoholics.
New Year's Eve itself there was quite the epic. We had made plans to go to The BOB (Big Ol Building) there - a structure that had several floors with multiple bars, dance venues, and restaurants on each floor. However, it quickly became apparent (as we stood in the sub-zero windchill) that the line was not fucking moving and my toes oh god I think I may have the frostbite augh stand in front of me to break the wind did the line move I think I saw the doors open oh God help this is cold okay fuck this back to the car.
We ended up at a gay bar called Rumors, where we proceeded to thaw, drink somewhat heavily, and watch people make out with inappropriate partners. All in all, a good time.
We finally managed to make it to the BOB the next night, when they were having some sort of dinner special at one of the eateries. By that time, though, most of us were somewhat fried, and I had been operating on an average of four hours of sleep each night for the past week and a half, so after eating, we just retreated to the Porter estate.
All in all, a good year. I managed to actually get writing done over the trip, which I wasn't sure if I would or not. I think I've come up with a few resolutions for the new year, but I'll pin them down later.
Let me tell you about the dance epidemic.
We weren't really too sure how this would play out, honestly. The plan had been to stay with Jake for a few days, then my brother for a few days, then the Porters up in Michigan for a few days. We even bought tremendous luggage in anticipation of this event, hoping that the sheer size of this set showed our commitment to the travel gods and they would be merciful to us.
This, of course, did not happen.
I kicked myself out of bed at 4am after being up till about 1am to catch our excessively early flight (this set the tone and pattern for the next two weeks) and rolled into the shower. Kim's phone went off, which I had assumed was either her brother, who was picking us up to take to the airport, or her alarm, so I thought nothing of it. After trundling down the stairs to cram all of our baggage into Jon's car, we were on our way. Jon had, for reasons I'm not sure of, decided to bring his kid along with him on a day there was neither school nor work to get to. Possibly because he figured good parented started with the burning hatred of his children.
Anyway, Kim decides to check her messages and it turns out our flight was canceled, so we freak out a little. Our travel arrangements are resting upon the timetable equivalent of complex, delicate pulleys and levers, so now we wonder how this will all end. Fortunately, our decision to arrive grossly early to avoid problems paid off, and we made our way to Kansas City.
See, when we got there, the ground was brown and it was just raining a bit. However, it's possible that once again my ability to piss off God and catch others in my smite radius came into play. The snow that fell pretty much destroyed the week. I was able to see most of my family, but getting down to Truman Lake swiftly became a farce, and my mom had a minor episode regarding a movie and scheduling and whatnot. Staying at Jake's was cool and all but holy fuck I had planned on doing other freaking things, you know? The snow kept us trapped in his place for about 75% of that leg of the trip, which threatened to become a cross between Lord of the Flies and Alive as we realized that there was no food and no way to procure it on Christmas Day. We ended up at a dingy, stinky bar that served burgers(?), so it wasn't a total loss.
I managed to see Jon, Tyler, and Joe, but that was pretty much it outside of my immediate family and host. There was an incident with Ian who apparently ditched his car on the way to come see his kids at mom's (and later told me if he knew I was going to be there he would have tried harder to make it, make of that what you will), and Daniel has apparently vanished into the wind or some such thing. We visited Grandma Houser on the day Matt and Marlena got back into town and Kim/myself were exchanged to them like so much breathing Christmas gifting.
Matt's place is nice, and we spent the evening just pretty much chilling at his place. I got him Dragon Age, which he opened and got all excited because he already had it and it was just that good of a game. Hopefully he can exchange it. We did our laundry and tried to get to sleep at about midnight or 1 before having to... wake up at 4am to go catch a flight. We were not even sure we'd make it to the Grand Rapids part of the trip, since the snow had continued pretty much nonstop in the midwest since we landed, but it turned out okay.
As a side note, I later found out that while I was in town, Melissa Maxwell (a high school classmate of mine) was in a wreck due to the snow and would eventually be declared brain dead and taken off life support a week and a half later. I didn't talk with her much after we graduated, and I don't want to do the fake dramatic bit, but it was pretty shocking to hear. It's odd how tragedy can bring people together, as others I haven't spoken to in about a decade have all contacted me to let me know about it. For those of you who think that might be a little weird, keep in my my entire high school, 7-12, was under 150 people. So everyone knew each other relatively well.
Flying to Chicago was not as relaxed as getting to KC. Longer checkin lines, more snow worry, and a much more cramped flight. Also, witht he help of a nice security man, we found my missing pocket knife. Unfortunately it was in my pocket as I went through security. Haha oh uh, no sir you can totally keep that knife. Absolutely. We landed in Midway where it took us something to the tune of an hour or an hour and a half to get our luggage, find our rental, and get the f out of there.... only to run into low visibility snowstorms about thirty minutes outside Chicago.
Staying at the Porter's wasn't awkward as I had worried it might be. They seemed worried that they weren't going to be entertaining enough, but by this point we were completely cool with sitting on our asses most of the time and going to do a few things now and again. The snow and cold continued, and Grand Rapids was set in this weird dusk lightning for most of our stay there due to the thick clouds. We went out several nights to see some of the restaurants and bars of GR, and I have to say I like several of their hangout spots. We met up with Troy and Jake one night while we were there, as well as Laura's sister and her husband when we went to go see Local H and Electric Six. The show was great, and for some reason I was completely reminded of Ling the entire time I was watching their front man.
We spent a good deal of time on Seth's couch where I got to see more episodes of Always Sunny, which is a show I had seen once or twice but never remembered to catch again. So stupid of me. Also, we discovered a show called Three Sheets, which is something like a location-based Good Eats for alcoholics.
New Year's Eve itself there was quite the epic. We had made plans to go to The BOB (Big Ol Building) there - a structure that had several floors with multiple bars, dance venues, and restaurants on each floor. However, it quickly became apparent (as we stood in the sub-zero windchill) that the line was not fucking moving and my toes oh god I think I may have the frostbite augh stand in front of me to break the wind did the line move I think I saw the doors open oh God help this is cold okay fuck this back to the car.
We ended up at a gay bar called Rumors, where we proceeded to thaw, drink somewhat heavily, and watch people make out with inappropriate partners. All in all, a good time.
We finally managed to make it to the BOB the next night, when they were having some sort of dinner special at one of the eateries. By that time, though, most of us were somewhat fried, and I had been operating on an average of four hours of sleep each night for the past week and a half, so after eating, we just retreated to the Porter estate.
All in all, a good year. I managed to actually get writing done over the trip, which I wasn't sure if I would or not. I think I've come up with a few resolutions for the new year, but I'll pin them down later.
Let me tell you about the dance epidemic.