The Problem with Really Good Times

Post Date: March 12, 2007
Post Title: The Problem with Really Good Times
It’s partly the empty chest of a lingering hangover, but at the end of weekends like this I feel like breaking down over the fact that five years from now I won’t remember anything except for vague narratives with the original feeling all but faded. I want so bad to write well when I describe these memories, not just for your benefit, but more to freeze these moments to the page as truly as I can before the color washes out. So I do the best that I can, apologize for the long-winded accounts and any pretense of writing ability, and detail everything that was able to hold on to my weary brain all the way to 12:15 on Sunday night. No small irony that the booze both amplifies the experience and shortens the half-life of its memory at the same time.

Post Date: January 28, 2008
Post Title: New Orleans Road Trip
Tony woke up on New Year’s Day with the discovery that he had made a killing at the casino at the end of the night, quadrupling his $5 at the slots. He wouldn’t shut up about it.

After a very slow transition from pathetic lifeless mounds into animate human beings, the three of us wandered into daylight and ambled towards the restaurants of the French Quarter. For some reason, probably involving Maisa, the host at one place was really nice to us and commandeered us a table immediately. Since everyone going to the Sugar Bowl had collectively decided to eat in the French Quarter at exactly the same time, the waits were at least an hour at any place with metal silverware. The added bonus for us was that this place (forgot the name — costly) had probably the second-best Bloody Marys I’ve had (the Liar’s Club being the best, of course. Although it may not be a fair comparison because when they put bacon-wrapped shrimp in there, it leaps above the “Bloody Mary” category, and basically transcends the idea of a “drink.”) Maisa and I, feeling the pressure from wrap-around lines outside, rushed our menu decisions and ruined our first meal of the year. I should have started ’08 with crawfish, the way Tony and I started ’07 with grilled sheep’s heads. I think. It was a long time ago.

In the front of the Voodoo Museum sits the owner, a licensed voodologist and a dude that you would not want to be your randomly assigned roommate at summer camp. We walked in as he was telling a story about how, during the Katrina riots, some carjackers were scared away by the giant python he likes to keep in his backseat.

The game that night was painful to watch, but afterward we celebrated as if we were Georgia fans. Go Razorbacks! While we were watching football, Maisa had somehow acquired a new friend who wanted to ask her for advice about a girl. The guy talked Maisa’s ear off about a girl he liked, pointing to the girl (who was across the bar) and waxing poetic about her beauty. Then he turned to me and asked to borrow $15 so that he could take her home. When I denied him, he went over to Tony and offered to go halvsies on the girl if Tony had 8 bucks. It was a romance that would melt the coldest heart.

You can experience Day 4 of this trip for yourself if you want. Just buy three meals from McDonalds and a DVD of monotonous scenery and sit in a very small room for 12 straight hours. To pass the time I decided to be annoying, buying fireworks in Alabama and threatening to light them in the van once every five minutes for the entire drive. The electronic fart machine also played a major role in our lives this day. At the end of the excruciating day we rolled into an unremarkable motel in an unremarkable town where we were able to slightly adjust our body position from the “sitting” state to the “lying” state, a move that provided a surprising amount of relief. And we also knew that in mere hours the three of us would be holding hands and frolicking in the hot sunny beaches of Miami.

Miami was so cold that iguanas were falling from the trees. The newspapers, TVs, and radios spent the day mercilessly reminding us that this was the coldest day in the last five years, so cold that the poor reptiles’ cold-blooded metabolisms were shutting down, loosening their grips on the branches.

The only thing in South Beach colder than the weather was the reactions of the bouncers to four unwashed travelers in their travelin’ clothes. In reality we didn’t look that terrible, but compared to the beautiful people that surrounded us we looked like we were raised by a pack of very badly dressed wolves. Later that night, after the third velvet rope cut off our entry to high society, we gave up and hung out on the patio of our hotel with Coronas and pizza, which was better than feeling ugly and poor in some silly dark club anyway. Or so we told ourselves and happily believed.

The three-leg flight home on the following day was not pleasant, nor were the rain or the mounds of work that greeted me when I got home to San Diego. But the unpleasant return was good because it made me appreciate the vacation even more. Or so I told myself.

Title: Sqrabbit | Address: sqrabbit.com
Author: Jake Feala | Blogging from: La Jolla/UTC | Blogging since: January 2005