March 25, 2004

Adventures!

Understand, before I begin, that when I say "adventures" I clearly refer to situations that others might describe as "nuisances," or even "ordeals," but not me . . . It's all just more anecdote fodder . . .

So, for the rest of my Spring Break in Lubbock, stuff happened. I watched movies and played Risk and went to fun places like Barnes & Noble a lot. You don't want to hear about this stuff. Oh, yeah. And Doug and I spent an entire afternoon trying to get new windshield wipers. (I know you want to know all about that.) After mulitple attempts to acquire the proper size and configuration, we gave up on Walmart and found another place, which, by complete coincidence, happened to be right next to Krispy Kreme.

So after the wipers were on and properly . . . ummm . . . wiping, I decided that I wanted a donut. As I was standing in line, the cute girl behind the counter asked us if we'd had a *cough, cough* "hot sample." We hadn't. So I got a free donut. And I didn't feel quite right about not ordering anything after all, so I used that as an excuse to get three chocolate donuts. And Doug got one as well. I suspect he just wanted an excuse to continue speaking with the girl who was distributing "hot samples." Moving forward . . .

We left at about 9:30 the next morning, after Andy had arrived from his granddad's house. Doug got himself pulled over within an hour of leaving Lubbock. It turned out to be merely a minor confusion. Doug thought he was going 73, The Trooper thought he was going 78. We're just lucky I wasn't driving, I'd probably have been doing 88. Maybe 83. Doug got off with a warning.

Clearly, life is not fair. It is extremely rare for me to be not speeding, even if only slightly . . . having lived for quite some time, as I did, in a country where there are no speed limits, I tend to enjoy going the speed that I, personally, feel is appropriate. But I've never ever ever been pulled over at all.

Anyway, we stopped in Abilene for a nice, relaxing lunch with Andy's grandparents before continuing down the road. I had suddenly gone on a kind of sugar high on the way into Abilene . . . without actually having had any sugar, and had Doug and Andy concerned about my behavior at lunch (which was entirely within appropriate bounds, thanks to a supreme effort from me). On the way out of Abilene, I bought three boxes of Nerds and consumed all of them with startling rapidity. And immediately fell asleep. Go figure.

I took over the driving about half an hour away from Ft. Worth and proceeded through Dallas traffic. I found myself behind a car that was going down the highway at about 85 mph at any given time, and mercilessly tailgating everyone in its way until they changed lanes. I don't condone that sort of behavior . . . but I kept up with him and let him blaze me a trail deep into the heart of Dallas until he finally peeled off and went his own way.

We arrived in Longview and it was horribly hot and humid. My room was a sauna, and the AC (I use the term loosely) was blowing hot air. I wound up staying out of my room as much as possible, and sleeping on the couch in the lounge that night and the next. Martinez, of course, was here and had been here, and Ardith got back after we returned from supper, so we went and watched A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Sidenote: I am quite glad of this, as I am "performing" it on various levels some five times in the next week.

The next day, after I had slept suitably late, I played racquetball with Adam and Doug and Andy. That was fun, but we need to figure out some way to handicap Uncle Doug . . . *shakes head* . . . These old guys and their crazy racquetball skills . . .

To make a long story as short as possible, I left on Saturday afternoon at about 4:00 to take Andy to the Greyhound station in Dallas. His bus was leaving at 6:45. Very little incident on the way, but I was highly amused to see a vehicle owned by this company, based out of Andalusia, AL (pronounced, no doubt, an-duh-LOO-zhyuh). Special.

Traffic was, as I expected, rather horrible when we got to Dallas. Driving a manual through heavy, crawling traffic SUCKS. We finally got out of the bottleneck and found that an accident had taken place. Interesting sight . . . looked like a minor fender-bender, really. On the side of the highway I could see a small, middle-class African American family gathered together in a group hug, looking shaken, but undamaged. Their car was mostly blocked by police vehicles, so I didn't really see it. About five yards away there was a large, red pickup, with the back dented in. A young, blonde girl (16-19 years old) was leaning up against it, arms folded, looking extremely pissed. I didn't see anyone else near the pickup.

We arrived safely at the bus station after getting lost only once, and attempted to find a place to park. I finally parked at the McDonald's that was about half a block away, but as I climbed out I couldn't help but notice a huge, bald, very scary looking personage dreseed all in black standing outside the door. He had "STAFF OFFICER" on the back of his shirt, and he glared at us as we walked by, as if daring us to leave the truck in his parking lot if we didn't intend to stay inside the restaurant. I ordered myself some supper, for good measure.

As I waited for my order, a long, black "Hummer Limo" (I have no idea what you actually call them) pulled up right outside and the driver came in and ordered something. He went back outside and started going back and forth from the front seat to the rear of the vehicle, as if performing various minor tasks for whoever was inside (i.e. with a cell phone in his hand, at one point). The Burly Guard came in and gruffly told the food crew to hurry up with the driver's order so they could "get that thing out of my parking lot." Then he walked behind the counter and stood with his arms folded, staring intently at the food prep activities. The driver got his order within roughly 30 seconds. Mine took another five minutes. We went and found somewhere else to park.

While walking back across the street after leaving Andy inside, a found it necessary to walk directly through the tightly gathered group of . . . the typical sort of people who spend most of their time hanging around outside of bus stations in major urban centers. One of them broke off and crossed the street right beside me, striking up a conversation. He was thin to the point of being quite sickly, and he was smoking a cigarette without ever taking it out of his mouth. He wanted to know if I was taking the bus somewhere, what time it was, that sort of thing. And while I waited to cross the street yet again, the real purpose of the conversation came up. Without looking at me, he casually held up his hand, cupped so that only I could really see what was in it . . . I never even saw his hand go into his pocket, the thing was suddenly just there, and asked if I was interested in acquiring the item. It was a gold necklace of at least moderate value. I politely said, "No thanks," and crossed the street. He shrugged and stayed where he was, leaning up against the wall to finish his cigarette. There was a cop less than ten yards away, darting suspicious glances in all directions . . . I found that amusing.

I managed to only get lost once on the way back out of Dallas (I couldn't go back out the way I had come in, because I got lost on the way in and only stumbled on the right street by chance, and an educated guess at the proper direction). I spent 10 minutes or so heading the wrong way on the wrong highway, knowing all along that I was not where I wanted to be. Gallagher later told me that I would have reached Sherman before very long had I continued.

No big deal, in the end, but there's just something vaguely creepy about being in the middle of the Dallas "asphalt jungle" just as it gets dark, not knowing precisely where you are or where you are going, with less than half a tank of gas and very little money to fill up. And then you start seeing all of the abandoned cars by the side of the road . . . they look so utterly forsaken, as if they have been left there for all time. One completely unmanned hunk of metal looks all the more creepy when it is lifeless and pushed to the side amidst thousands upon thousands of cars that have actual people in them who are coming from somewhere and going to somewhere. And you realize that you really aren't going anywhere, yourself, after all. You don't even know where you are. It seems, for a brief moment, pointless to continue to tear pell-mell through this huge concrete maze because you aren't going to get out, so why not just pull over and surrender to the inevitable?

Ummm . . . yeah. Twilight and solitude do really, really weird things to my head. How did you guess?

I returned to LeTourneau, safe and sound, and it was an absolutely gorgeous night . . . outside. After we watched a movie, I just couldn't bear to go back in, and I walked half the loop with Wilson and Martinez and Gallagher and Sharon. The Quad 1ers peeled off and I spent another hour and a half or so sitting in the courtyard, enjoying the cool breezes and fresh air.

Sunday was . . . Sunday. We watched Orlando, finally. Dr. Watson recommended it. Dr. Coppinger recommended it. Neither one of them would actually loan it to us. But it was so very good . . . I highly recommend. Much w00t . . .

Disturbing . . . "Orlando, to me you were and always will be, whether male or female, the pink, the pearl, and the perfection of your sex."

Trippy . . . "Same person. No difference at all . . . just a different sex."

Freaking hilarious . . . "I can find only three words to describe the female sex. None of which are worth expressing."

And all of the costumes and settings were sooo cool!

So, that was the end of my Spring Break. *waves goodbye* Until next year, good buddy . . . and let's try to keep it a little more sedate and little less full of . . . "incident" next time, shall we?

Bah. Who am I kidding? Incidents just generally tend to happen to me. I'd be awfully bored if they didn't, and heaven knows what the result might be if I had to make this stuff up . . .

It's time for me to sleep now. I'll have more to say about other things very soon, with interesting developments on all fronts . . .

Posted by Jared at March 25, 2004 02:10 AM | TrackBack