I know a guy that has paced his life into rut after rut of worry. For any fun thing he has a hundred excuses not to do it, and, sadly, a lot of them are valid. He worries about everything, doesn't have many people to hang out with, and suffers from loneliness within the walls of an apartment that are beginning to resemble some kind of mental-puzzle-jail. That guy got left in Seattle this weekend.
I had been dreading Kristy's wedding, for reasons that included my hatred of flying commercially and the fact that I was getting distracted by a ton of other things and hand not quite conquered the hassle of travel. It started with me missing a rent payment, because I ran out of checks, because the check-reordering part of my banks website sucks, and the check-sending feature of my other bank was designed to prevent you from knowing if your check arrived by any means other than finding a 10-day eviction notice on your door, and I've been relying on money orders from the Post Office for the past few months, but since the post office is only open during--I could go on, but I think you got the point. Anyway, I arrived in Wilmington, NC unable to remember which hotel I was staying at, without a clue on how to get there, unaware that it was labor day weekend, and unconcerned about the fact that if I didn't get back to Seattle in time, my apartment complex in this here "renter friendly" state would probably evict me and sell all my stuff. I'm sharing all this becuase everyone I talked to thought it was ridiculous and incredible.
There is something about vacations that just makes me a different person--often, the person I want to be. Here, I define vacations as pretty much any travel unrelated to school or work and undominated by close family. All of those trips up to North Jersey during my last job, or that family trip to london--they were not vacations. Pretty much all weddings, though, are. Anything I can let my guard down and say whatever the hell I want, like "thats really gay" or "thats a nice shirt, does it come in men's?" to someone like Adam, without worrying about losing my job or a [Seattle] half-friend or getting a lecture from someone I can't ignore. Room keys, luggage, cheap hotel sheets, old friends, and credible possibilities of making out with someone attractive. Thats a vacation.
For me, the switch occured during a stopover in Atlanta when I ....blah blah blah, smaller jet, PRC 200, went outside and up a starcase, super exciting, Kristy's wedding was awesome, she was beaming with joy, I have cool friends, the thing about introverts get drained by social contact and extroverts get recharged and I experience both depending on who I'm with, and hiding from the lame 80s/90s/pop/hiphop wedding music dancing so I wouldn't get falsly accused of scowling, spending the night hanging out with Stephen King instead of this one cute blonde, spending $800 to change flights and give me one more day with old friends (I had originally planned to fly back sunday because I didn't know about labor day), Kristy's friends thinking I'm a player because one of them decided my shoulder had makeup on it, a few things I can't mention in writing, the awesome rooms at the riverview hotel, the rooftop sunset race, go karts, Braskey's pro-party attitude, trying to ask two girls if they wanted to join us for dinner (and the resulting argument with Adam, and a comparison to the girl I met on the balcony at the salsa club) and rehashing old, unimportant dramas and unfounded generalizations over italian food. Ah, and tentative plans for a sweet vancouver/blackcomb vacation in January/February. I told them pretty much everyone is invited, excepting Betsy's new boyfriend. And I'm sure that if I attempted to invite her in such a way that made that clear, I'd never hear the end of that either.
Yeah, I could have written like pages on all that, but if the mere act of writing it bored me, I'm sure in couldn't be that interesting to read.
I have little time to rest; this Las Vegas thing for Kev's bachelor party starts in a few days. I haven't yet taken off work, or scheduled plane tickets or a hotel room, or figured out ground transportation, and I need to figure out some way to like magically transfer money from my bank account to this stupid apartment complex before I get evicted. Oh, and my suit really, really needs to get drycleaned, or something. Maybe I'll just buy another one in Vegas.
Oh, and I love girls with southern accents.
[Edit]
Note to self: invite Kip. And Laura. Like, possibly Kristal...maybe not.
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