on periods of transition and so on...
and so it's summer '09...
Yesterday, after coffee at Jim's and lunch at the Thai House, Jack and I drove Mike Sage to the San Antonio International Airport. His delightfully plump frame disappearing into the terminal signaled the end of "Summer: part I," or the ten days during which I willfully destroyed my routine and honed an all-around motto of "I-might-have-work-to-do-but-I-don't-give-a-fuck." Shortly after Mike's departure, Jack made his own, leaving me here at my mother's house, where I'll remain until mid-August. As is often the case when a protracted stint of fun comes to a halt, I'm feeling a bit bored and bluesy, but rather than the typical heartache of a vacation's end, these negative, sad-pants emotions, I'm sure, are more deeply-rooted in my being exhausted, bloated and without any concrete plans for tomorrow--never mind the next few months. As of now, my abstract goals are to find a part-time job, begin cranking out forty thesis pages, quit smoking cigarettes, and resume my recently-neglected lifestyle of healthy eating and exercise. In other words, I need to re-establish my routine. Until that comes together, I'll continue to feel lost and generally worthless. But here I am jawing on and on about where I am at this very moment in time, when I've yet to clue you in on how I got here in the first place, how the summer began and I made the long voyage back to the city of my birth. If I remember correctly, my last update dealt with how things were wrapping up in Milledgeville, so I guess I'll try to pick up there.
The spring semester ended not with a bang but with a whimper. Though nothing too devastating happened, my last few weeks in Georgia saw me dominated by laziness, boredom and too much drinking. In lieu of any productivity--i.e. reading or writing--I elected to waste time obsessing over my nearing trip to Baton Rouge, a strategy that managed only to prolong my already dragging days and leave me open to an old-thyme bout of self-destructiveness. This mummery reached its boiling point at the MFA program's '80s-themed, end-of-the-year bash, at which, donning Magnum PI's signature short shorts and mustache, I managed to get blackout and act a fool. Taking into account my history, this all seems less than surprising, but it was pretty embarrassing for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that, for those five or six colleagues of mine in attendance who graduated the next day, their final picture of me will be one of seedy facial hair, asynchronous dancing and a whole heap of nonsense yelling. The details of this night are, at best, blurry, but I'm nothing if not dead sure that I made a real ass out of myself. Thus, my final day in Milledgeville saw me hiding out at my house, citing packing and an early departure the following morning as my excuses for skipping graduation and missing out on some goodbyes. Perhaps this doesn't even need to be mentioned, but it was a day filled with abject shame, and the only solace I took came from knowing that I was about to vacate town for several months. Anyhow, not exactly the classy exit I'd envisioned.
Early the following morning, I bid John farewell and made the nine-hour drive from Georgia to Baton Rouge. Car trips have never been my speciality, but, thankfully, this one wasn't nearly as maddening as I'd imagined. I chalk this up to my last-minute decision to burn eight CDs, a first-rate playlist that, from Animal Collective to Yo La Tengo, carried me across four states and home again to LSU. As I exited I-10 and drove toward campus, I became overcome by emotion. Baton Rouge is where all of my life's major changes took place, and any return I make feels keenly weighted with importance. I don't mind admitting that nostalgia for college plays a major role in my daily life, and as I stepped out of my car and gazed up at the Pike house's white facade, I couldn't help but feel like some sort of time traveler, a wayward sojourner, back from a hiatus in his pseudo-adulthood.
After reuniting with a very tired, post-finals Mike Sage, he, Jimmy and I headed over to Hax and Jacque's condo, where we were greeted with ice chests full of free beer and crawfish. That night, after Will Dunn came in from New Orleans, a big group of us sat on the back porch, drinking and chatting and laughing until our bodies gave out. I slept on an inflatable air mattress with Mike Sage, whose snoring was so violent that, on a number of occasions, I considered his death by asphyxiation a distinct possibility. The next morning, we all headed north on I-12 to Denham Springs, LA, for a daylong tubing adventure down the Amite river. Tubing typically involves junk food-eating and excessive beer drinking, and Sunday's excursion proved no exception. I consider it entirely possible that everyone in attendance drank upwards of twenty-five pony-sized cans of Coors Light. Thanks to the reapplication of spray-on sunscreen, no one incurred any bad burns. After that afternoon of Tiki Tubing, the trip slowed in pace, but not in fun. For the next few days, I found myself in the constant company of Sage and Dunn, and together the three of us drank gallons of $1.50 PBR pints while playing trivia at the Chimes, played several rounds of mini golf at Celebration Station, and generally caught up and enjoyed each other's company. One afternoon, I made the short walk from the Pike house to Highland Coffee and spent a few hours chatting with my former professor, Randolph Thomas. We discussed our writing, my future plans, his band, and so on. He and I hadn't seen each other in over a year, and it was nice to catch up. Even though it sounds a bit lame to say, RT is basically living my dream. He teaches creative writing at a big southern university, has the summers off to write, and generally seems to be enjoying himself. He's also a dude that I respect a great deal, and my thesis, once completed, will be dedicated to him.
My stay in Baton Rouge closed on a pleasant note. After a superb dinner of crawfish bisque and boxed wine at Hax and Jacque's, Dunn, Sage, Sam and I headed over to Sharlo, where Sage's band mates, Thomas and Brittany, live. Shortly thereafter, we were joined by the company of little Jessica Walker and her friend, whose name sounded suspiciously similar to cranberry. (I apologize for the previous sentences' excessive amount of names.) Although it's always somewhat awkward to introduce one set of friends to another, Mike Sage did a wonderful job of it, and that night proved to be the trip's finest. We sat outside and listened to the sounds of Jig City's lo-fi reverb, smoked, drank beers and engaged in hilarious conversations, including but not limited to my very long and detailed telling of the time when, in 2004, Mike Sage shattered my collar bone. I don't know why the evening worked out as well as it did, but it did, and that was enough for me. Thomas and Brittany, who are moving to Austin in the next few weeks, are good people, and I look forward to hanging out with them more in the not-too-distant future.
The next morning, hungover and delirious, Mike and I split the 500-mile drive to San Antonio and set up shop at my mother's. We swam, ate too much, moved too little and had a nice, relaxing time. On Saturday, Jack and Lauren came by, and, somewhat drunkenly, I managed to cook everyone a pretty solid meal. Afterward, we hung out late into the night, drinking too much vodka and wine, playing spades and hearts, and, inexplicably, taking shots. Sunday morning, Lauren, Sage and I headed to Taqueria El Charro and gave Mike the chance to sample some authentic interior Mexico cuisine. Needless to say, he was impressed. Though Jack was incapacitated by a hangover, he managed to come back to life in time for dinner, and on Mike's final night in town, the three of us sat back, watched a movie and had a couple whiskeys.
And so that brings us back to the start. Last night, exhausted beyond belief, I hit the sack before eleven and managed to get my first decent sleep in over ten days. Today, Tuesday, I'm going to swing by Broadway Daily Bread and see if I can't manage to score some bread-baking employment. My other plans include going for a run, hitting up the Oak Park HEB, and catching up on some reading. As I said earlier, I'm currently in that weird stasis of having no real schedule. It's not a bad way to be for a week of two, but I'm always happier, not to mention more productive, once a routine has been solidified. I imagine things will be clicking by this time next week. On the horizon, come June 5th, I'm flying to New Orleans for Benny and Megan's posh, French Quarter wedding. This marks the first time in my life that I'm attending a wedding as an adult, and I look forward to a wild couple of nights in my favorite city. Other than that, slim finances are going to prevent me from doing too much in the way of socializing, but I'm sure that I'll make several trips to Austin to hang out with Jack, Lauren and various others. Though I feel sort of silly admitting this, aside from getting some good work done, what I'd like to happen most this summer is to somehow ingratiate myself with a righteous girl. I've been single now for the past eighteen months, and I'm beginning to grow tired of it. I realize that, in the end, a summertime relationship might only be setting me up for a depressing August, but, frankly, I think the spoils of a carefree, seasonal fling would outweigh the inevitable separation sadness. Oh well, time will tell. It's hard to meet people, but I'm willing to try.
There's more to say, of course. That I'm standing on the threshold of my third and final year of grad school is pretty unbelievable. Whereas last fall I was working at the writing center and teaching one class, this fall will see me teaching three classes, trying to put the finishing polish on my short story collection ("The Common Era"), and, above all, desperately seeking full-time, grownup employment. It's odd to consider that, just one year from now, I'll no longer be a student, the title I've held since I was five-years-old. I don't know where I'll be. I think I'd like to move to either Baton Rouge or New Orleans, but I've been around the bend enough times to know that life rarely takes you to where you think you're headed next. In the end, I just hope I can find work, get a decent place and afford to pay my bills. I have ideas now for a new short story collection ("Alamo Heights"), a novel ("Southern Gentry") and a book-length memoir ("Another Hopeless Ghost"), so at least I know there won't be any shortage of things to write about once I'm out of school.
I have a feeling that this summer, like last summer, will involve a pretty fair amount of alone time, so it's very likely that I'll update this journal more regularly. Last summer was very difficult, and taught me that I'm someone who relies heavily on the company and friendship of like-minded people. I take great comfort in the knowledge that I'm a mere hour's drive from one of my best friends, and, equally, that I have the chance to spend some time re-connecting with my mother. All right. This has been a pretty substantial entry. Tell me how you're doing. If you're in San Antonio, maybe we can get together for a drink or some coffee.
Speak to you soon.
Yesterday, after coffee at Jim's and lunch at the Thai House, Jack and I drove Mike Sage to the San Antonio International Airport. His delightfully plump frame disappearing into the terminal signaled the end of "Summer: part I," or the ten days during which I willfully destroyed my routine and honed an all-around motto of "I-might-have-work-to-do-but-I-don't-give-a-fuck." Shortly after Mike's departure, Jack made his own, leaving me here at my mother's house, where I'll remain until mid-August. As is often the case when a protracted stint of fun comes to a halt, I'm feeling a bit bored and bluesy, but rather than the typical heartache of a vacation's end, these negative, sad-pants emotions, I'm sure, are more deeply-rooted in my being exhausted, bloated and without any concrete plans for tomorrow--never mind the next few months. As of now, my abstract goals are to find a part-time job, begin cranking out forty thesis pages, quit smoking cigarettes, and resume my recently-neglected lifestyle of healthy eating and exercise. In other words, I need to re-establish my routine. Until that comes together, I'll continue to feel lost and generally worthless. But here I am jawing on and on about where I am at this very moment in time, when I've yet to clue you in on how I got here in the first place, how the summer began and I made the long voyage back to the city of my birth. If I remember correctly, my last update dealt with how things were wrapping up in Milledgeville, so I guess I'll try to pick up there.
The spring semester ended not with a bang but with a whimper. Though nothing too devastating happened, my last few weeks in Georgia saw me dominated by laziness, boredom and too much drinking. In lieu of any productivity--i.e. reading or writing--I elected to waste time obsessing over my nearing trip to Baton Rouge, a strategy that managed only to prolong my already dragging days and leave me open to an old-thyme bout of self-destructiveness. This mummery reached its boiling point at the MFA program's '80s-themed, end-of-the-year bash, at which, donning Magnum PI's signature short shorts and mustache, I managed to get blackout and act a fool. Taking into account my history, this all seems less than surprising, but it was pretty embarrassing for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that, for those five or six colleagues of mine in attendance who graduated the next day, their final picture of me will be one of seedy facial hair, asynchronous dancing and a whole heap of nonsense yelling. The details of this night are, at best, blurry, but I'm nothing if not dead sure that I made a real ass out of myself. Thus, my final day in Milledgeville saw me hiding out at my house, citing packing and an early departure the following morning as my excuses for skipping graduation and missing out on some goodbyes. Perhaps this doesn't even need to be mentioned, but it was a day filled with abject shame, and the only solace I took came from knowing that I was about to vacate town for several months. Anyhow, not exactly the classy exit I'd envisioned.
Early the following morning, I bid John farewell and made the nine-hour drive from Georgia to Baton Rouge. Car trips have never been my speciality, but, thankfully, this one wasn't nearly as maddening as I'd imagined. I chalk this up to my last-minute decision to burn eight CDs, a first-rate playlist that, from Animal Collective to Yo La Tengo, carried me across four states and home again to LSU. As I exited I-10 and drove toward campus, I became overcome by emotion. Baton Rouge is where all of my life's major changes took place, and any return I make feels keenly weighted with importance. I don't mind admitting that nostalgia for college plays a major role in my daily life, and as I stepped out of my car and gazed up at the Pike house's white facade, I couldn't help but feel like some sort of time traveler, a wayward sojourner, back from a hiatus in his pseudo-adulthood.
After reuniting with a very tired, post-finals Mike Sage, he, Jimmy and I headed over to Hax and Jacque's condo, where we were greeted with ice chests full of free beer and crawfish. That night, after Will Dunn came in from New Orleans, a big group of us sat on the back porch, drinking and chatting and laughing until our bodies gave out. I slept on an inflatable air mattress with Mike Sage, whose snoring was so violent that, on a number of occasions, I considered his death by asphyxiation a distinct possibility. The next morning, we all headed north on I-12 to Denham Springs, LA, for a daylong tubing adventure down the Amite river. Tubing typically involves junk food-eating and excessive beer drinking, and Sunday's excursion proved no exception. I consider it entirely possible that everyone in attendance drank upwards of twenty-five pony-sized cans of Coors Light. Thanks to the reapplication of spray-on sunscreen, no one incurred any bad burns. After that afternoon of Tiki Tubing, the trip slowed in pace, but not in fun. For the next few days, I found myself in the constant company of Sage and Dunn, and together the three of us drank gallons of $1.50 PBR pints while playing trivia at the Chimes, played several rounds of mini golf at Celebration Station, and generally caught up and enjoyed each other's company. One afternoon, I made the short walk from the Pike house to Highland Coffee and spent a few hours chatting with my former professor, Randolph Thomas. We discussed our writing, my future plans, his band, and so on. He and I hadn't seen each other in over a year, and it was nice to catch up. Even though it sounds a bit lame to say, RT is basically living my dream. He teaches creative writing at a big southern university, has the summers off to write, and generally seems to be enjoying himself. He's also a dude that I respect a great deal, and my thesis, once completed, will be dedicated to him.
My stay in Baton Rouge closed on a pleasant note. After a superb dinner of crawfish bisque and boxed wine at Hax and Jacque's, Dunn, Sage, Sam and I headed over to Sharlo, where Sage's band mates, Thomas and Brittany, live. Shortly thereafter, we were joined by the company of little Jessica Walker and her friend, whose name sounded suspiciously similar to cranberry. (I apologize for the previous sentences' excessive amount of names.) Although it's always somewhat awkward to introduce one set of friends to another, Mike Sage did a wonderful job of it, and that night proved to be the trip's finest. We sat outside and listened to the sounds of Jig City's lo-fi reverb, smoked, drank beers and engaged in hilarious conversations, including but not limited to my very long and detailed telling of the time when, in 2004, Mike Sage shattered my collar bone. I don't know why the evening worked out as well as it did, but it did, and that was enough for me. Thomas and Brittany, who are moving to Austin in the next few weeks, are good people, and I look forward to hanging out with them more in the not-too-distant future.
The next morning, hungover and delirious, Mike and I split the 500-mile drive to San Antonio and set up shop at my mother's. We swam, ate too much, moved too little and had a nice, relaxing time. On Saturday, Jack and Lauren came by, and, somewhat drunkenly, I managed to cook everyone a pretty solid meal. Afterward, we hung out late into the night, drinking too much vodka and wine, playing spades and hearts, and, inexplicably, taking shots. Sunday morning, Lauren, Sage and I headed to Taqueria El Charro and gave Mike the chance to sample some authentic interior Mexico cuisine. Needless to say, he was impressed. Though Jack was incapacitated by a hangover, he managed to come back to life in time for dinner, and on Mike's final night in town, the three of us sat back, watched a movie and had a couple whiskeys.
And so that brings us back to the start. Last night, exhausted beyond belief, I hit the sack before eleven and managed to get my first decent sleep in over ten days. Today, Tuesday, I'm going to swing by Broadway Daily Bread and see if I can't manage to score some bread-baking employment. My other plans include going for a run, hitting up the Oak Park HEB, and catching up on some reading. As I said earlier, I'm currently in that weird stasis of having no real schedule. It's not a bad way to be for a week of two, but I'm always happier, not to mention more productive, once a routine has been solidified. I imagine things will be clicking by this time next week. On the horizon, come June 5th, I'm flying to New Orleans for Benny and Megan's posh, French Quarter wedding. This marks the first time in my life that I'm attending a wedding as an adult, and I look forward to a wild couple of nights in my favorite city. Other than that, slim finances are going to prevent me from doing too much in the way of socializing, but I'm sure that I'll make several trips to Austin to hang out with Jack, Lauren and various others. Though I feel sort of silly admitting this, aside from getting some good work done, what I'd like to happen most this summer is to somehow ingratiate myself with a righteous girl. I've been single now for the past eighteen months, and I'm beginning to grow tired of it. I realize that, in the end, a summertime relationship might only be setting me up for a depressing August, but, frankly, I think the spoils of a carefree, seasonal fling would outweigh the inevitable separation sadness. Oh well, time will tell. It's hard to meet people, but I'm willing to try.
There's more to say, of course. That I'm standing on the threshold of my third and final year of grad school is pretty unbelievable. Whereas last fall I was working at the writing center and teaching one class, this fall will see me teaching three classes, trying to put the finishing polish on my short story collection ("The Common Era"), and, above all, desperately seeking full-time, grownup employment. It's odd to consider that, just one year from now, I'll no longer be a student, the title I've held since I was five-years-old. I don't know where I'll be. I think I'd like to move to either Baton Rouge or New Orleans, but I've been around the bend enough times to know that life rarely takes you to where you think you're headed next. In the end, I just hope I can find work, get a decent place and afford to pay my bills. I have ideas now for a new short story collection ("Alamo Heights"), a novel ("Southern Gentry") and a book-length memoir ("Another Hopeless Ghost"), so at least I know there won't be any shortage of things to write about once I'm out of school.
I have a feeling that this summer, like last summer, will involve a pretty fair amount of alone time, so it's very likely that I'll update this journal more regularly. Last summer was very difficult, and taught me that I'm someone who relies heavily on the company and friendship of like-minded people. I take great comfort in the knowledge that I'm a mere hour's drive from one of my best friends, and, equally, that I have the chance to spend some time re-connecting with my mother. All right. This has been a pretty substantial entry. Tell me how you're doing. If you're in San Antonio, maybe we can get together for a drink or some coffee.
Speak to you soon.