2002-03-31
Spring Break, part one, posted at 11:59 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I'm back in Michigan. It's been good but very exhausting so far.On Friday, I left from Baltimore at around 1pm, and arrived in Michigan at 5:20am. It wasn't a straight shot; the first portion of the trip including detours to the airport (to drop off some friends) and to Alexandria, VA (to drop off Holden with Mike, who offered to watch him for the week). I got a bit lost on the way to Alexandria, and got caught in some pretty bad rush hour traffic jams.
Still, the drive was long as hell. Oh my gosh. After a night out singing karaoke on Thursday night, I didn't get much before waking up at 8:30 on Friday morning. That day, I did a bunch of errands that I needed to do - checked out some books on tape from the library, got my oil changed, bought a cell phone, packed my belongings - and finally got on the road in the early afternoon.
I am so tired of the marathon drive between Maryland and Michigan. Ugh ugh ugh. I probably shouldn't relate this information in here, since there are friends who read who I try to convince to drive down, that it's not such a bad drive. But let me tell you: it is. It is so freaking long. (Disclaimer: I also did the drive completely alone for the first time, without even Holden to talk with. This made it worse, I'm sure.)
Gale, who was extremely patient with my first phone call at midnight (I told her I expected to be there at around 9 or 10) from the Pennsylvania/Ohio border, my second phone call at 2am (from the outskirts of Cleveland, this one at her request, so she'd know I "wasn't dead"), then my arrival phone call at 5:20am at her apartment building, was my host for both Friday and Saturday nights. Saturday night was a ton of a lot of fun.
Gale, Jenni, Eleanor, Hugasoul (who is looking fantastic - congrats hugasoul! So proud of you! And, no, the Lisa Loeb comments were absolutely not making fun! :) ), Paul, and Nate all went to dinner in Royal Oak, then went to the movies, and then went to sing karaoke. Dinner was good. We ate a brewery, and the food and the beer were both good. They didn't have Red Bull and Vodka, though, as it's apparently not really made it to Michigan. We had plans to barhop all night, but ended up going to the movies next. This was a great idea, because I have spending far too much time lately sitting in bars. Anyhow, Jenni came up with the idea that it would be fun to sneak liquor into the theater. It sounded asinine to me, but also fun. I figured what the hell, I'm on vacation, and I don't live in this state anymore. Eleanor said we were acting like we were sixteen, and of course she was correct. Except when I was sixteen, I was sitting at home alone on Friday nights watching Picket Fences and not having any friends except the select few who I was on the school newspaper with.
Anyhow, back to the sneaking liquor into the movie theater... I got pangs of worry as we were doing it - I was sure we were going to be kicked out and maybe even arrested - but it turned out to not be a big deal. The rush of doing something so juvenile was a bit of a cheap thrill. I didn't drink much - just adding a bit of lemon absolute to my diet coke. I drank just enough so that I was buzzing a little - and was sober enough by the end of the night to drive if I had needed to. This was a night where alcohol was very secondary, and this was welcome.
After the movie (Panic Room, which was okay - not as good as I expected from a Fincher/Foster combination - but short enough and with enough good moments to be entertaining), we then went to sing karaoke at a bowling alley. Hugaoul and Jenni started the evening with pizzazz in a spirited version of "Love Shack," with Hugasoul doing the male part (just like she did with me the second day I met her, way back three years ago). Eleanor and I sang "I Got You Babe" for the first time since we regularly attended Monday night karaoke at the Silver Dollar in East Lansing. Gale then brought down the house with a rousing version of "Joy to the World," with quite a bit of self-groping in the "for all the boys and girls" parts. Jenni sang "Shadowboxer" solo. I sang "Thunder Road" solo. It was great fun - easily one of the funnest nights I've had in a long time. Paul took some wonderful pictures; I may try to figure out a way to anonymize them sufficiently so I can post some here. In the mean time, if you're incredibly curious, e-mail me and perhaps my people can talk with your people and we'll figure something out so you can see them.
This morning, I had to both drop Jenni off in Lansing and pick up Grandma from the nursing home for a trip to my folks' house for Easter. That was a trip! My grandma has Alzheimer's and is easily confused and very forgetful, but is laughing constantly and loves life. The trip was fun. She kept asking me why it was taking so long to get back to her place - she thought we were just going out to breakfast - and I kept telling her over and over again that we were going to my parents' house for Easter. She must have asked me thirty times the whole trip. "Are you sure you're going to right way? It seems like we should be back to the place by now." It's a three hour trip. Breakfast was five minutes away. Poor thing. At least she was surprised when we got here, though! She then swore to my parents that I never told her the whole trip where we were going, that I had wanted it to be a surprise.
The whole trip, we listened to one of the books that I got on tape for the trip. On the way to Michigan, I listened to Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees, and really enjoyed it. The trip with Grandma featured Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. I figured she'd like it because he tells lots of funny little stories and what not. (I've actually been enjoying it quite a bit, but more on that in another entry.) Grandma seemed to like it, even though I don't think she understood much of it. But she was content. I was worried that she'd get a little freaked out by the trip, but she did fine, even though she could never remember where we were going.
I finally made it here at around 2pm (I had told my parents noon), much due to the Lansing sidetrack I took to drop off Jenni. She is so good with old people, though, so it was well worth it.
This entry is starting to feel like all the driving I've done in the past two days, though - exhausting and neverending. If I'm feeling that way as the writer, I can't imagine what you all are feeling reading it. More later. Happy Spring Break!