nebel

'eeerry buddy in the club getting TRIP-sy......

I'm not going to apologize or warn you of a long rant....it is what it is....but I kind of just did what I said I wasn't going to do, didn't I?

sitting here feeling kind of sheepish for returning home, and hoping I can remember what it was that I was supposed to remember...I knew I should have been writing it all down on my hello kitty scratch-n-sniff stationary....

I guess if there was a place where it all started, I'd say it all started when they bought the car in Arizona. I'm sure they didn't know that it was stolen when they bought the car...but there was still enough of a feeling of discomfort, that they should have been aware of something.

On the plane I finished reading American Gods while I made faces at mean stewardess and laughed at a ballerina and a man dressed in tails on the back of a safety manual.

Later I rode on a luggage cart and looked up girl's skirts

Being with family, for any amount of time is weird. Chasing easter bunnies and laughing at rude business names like the Kum Hair Salon, Dr. Wang's, or the Fukui Buffet.....family man....I tell ya.
We ate at all my favorite joints....belly dancing and dim sum. 50's cafe and our asian waiter singing non-karaoke songs.

The two of us walked farther than we should have and met a woman who talked of cancer bubbles and followed us for blocks....the man who was camped outside of our hotel, who only had one arm (which was decorated with neon and black ribbons) told us that we made a cute couple and kept talking as we walked out of his sight....

I remembered what it was like when I lived there, and was happy to be visiting and removed from what I had while I was there....but when the tide rolled out it hurt to remember surfing, and it hurt to have sandals on while the beach was so close....even walking barefoot couldn't bring back that same since of satisfaction.
Sitting on the fishy smelling docks while pigeons got it on and pelicans looked on in disgust, it hurt to remember how cold that water always felt even in the summer. I can't say why I wasn't out there or even why things are the way they are, but I can say that one day when the time is right, just before sunset and not before it starts to get dark....I will be there, with the sea on my skin and burning in my eyes...and I will lick the salt off my fingers and feel nothing but the smile on my face.

Disneyland was more packed than I have ever seen it....in fact I have never seen so many people anywhere, in one place, in my whole gawd damn life....it was actually really disgusting in a funny-tickly discomforting sort of way. Like at any moment a bomb could go off and wipe out half of the population on earth.
But my Disneyland memories were well matched regardless, with sword fight adventures, fortune telling pirates, and encounters with abominable snowmen.
But I'm still pissed that they replaced the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House with Tarzan. It can suck my royal nuts.

Once Jordan and I saddled up and hit the road, it was like saying my piece to the man I shot, while he lay at my feet and spit out droplets of blood and rage and forgiveness.
Taking the roads that the pioneers never had and watching the trains run through their settlements, the Donner party rested on the bluffs and laughed at my Helen Keller jokes. Sweet Nothing was on the cd player, and we had forgotten about getting lost trying to find Hollywood. Which is more than ironic. I was done looking for people picking their noses in the not so private privacy of their cars and I was on the verge of tears being happier than a pig in a poke....doing what I have spent most of my life doing, but I was doing it with someone that loves those hidden parts of me. The parts that make me forget about seeing my childhood through a windshield. The parts that fight for acceptance, the parts that ache to make everyone happy with unsatisfactory results. Maybe I am getting off track....but that is the whole point of a road trip....time travel and aliens. I wrote that with a smug shrug, while wearing too much perfume....

I don't usually wear perfume.

We got to Vegas late....while passing several small oasis of casinos and one burning car. We got the tail end of Viva with much rejoicing by all!! There on the parking garage roof top this little salt lake city posse took us in and bought us drinks that we drank out of big plastic boots. They took us for spins and spit out booze while talking about swinging dick and shared their scar stories. It was more than anyone could ask for....the snobs looked down their noses and their eyes rolled into the back of their heads as we shouted in rude beautiful fits of laughter, and the bad-ass old guy in the jean jacket bobbed his shaved head to what ever pop song was floating out of the casino.
I woke up groggy and giggly as Jordan ran down the hall naked as a jay-bird.

The rest of the trip took us through Nebraska....which isn't worth driving through in the first place, let alone talking about.
Jordan visited his old teacher and I feel asleep while a man dressed all in black paced the hotel balcony.

It was quiet the rest of the way back....with three dollars left, that I used on a slushee that didn't result in a brain freeze....I felt sleepy and homesick for nothing in particular...except maybe my cats.
We had an awkward good bye and it struck me that I have never kissed anyone before who makes me feel like I am inside their brain in such a way that I can never unstick myself.

we have moles in all the same places.

We went on with our daily rituals and still hold hands like we mean it.

Trips of any kind are something fierce....coming home feels like you're admitting something you're ashamed of.
Something regular and not quite there, but comforting none the less.

I've forgotten what i was talking about....but then again...

what's the last thing that runs through a bugs mind when he hits a windshield......


his butt.