Backstage America, part 1

Back in 2008, I had a blog. I wrote about all sorts of things and thought I was funny at times.

June 28th, 2008, I clicked "show a random blog" (or whatever the function was called) and ended up here. I started reading and found the blog both funny and interesting.

The second comment I posted was:

Your life is like...not a sit-com, but some sort of TV show where awkward moments are legion and you're not really sure if you laugh with the characters or at them. And I mean that in the best possible way.

As it turned out, EGE found my blog interesting enough to read too. We started commenting back and forth. Then Facebook came along. So we kept commenting there. We talked about The Big Questions or just spent time being snarky. Mostly she calls me a big girl. Which isn't far from the truth.

EGE lives in Maine, about an hour and a half from Boston. My class was outside Boston. So I figured what the hell. I'll swing by and get a chance to see parts of the States I haven't seen yet. And so we made plans.

So on Monday I drove my rental car north, aiming for Bentley's Saloon where she works. She had forbidden me from calling because she wanted to hear my accent face to face. She was sorely disappointed I didn't sound like the Swedish Chef.

It's odd meeting someone you've only spoken to in text, but it felt totally natural. We went to her house:

Insert appropriate Stephen King reference here.

We talked and made burgers and tried to keep her dog Charlie out of the kitchen.

Great dane/lab mix, and quite the character.

The next day, EGE went off to work. I slept in. Wrote some. Took a nap. Facebooked. Wrote some more. Took a nap. I had been sleepy all of week six of Odyssey, even nodding off in class a few times, and the days after too. After this sleepathon, I am out of the woods and back to being the energetic, cheerful Beardonaut you have come to know and love. Well . . . maybe not energetic. Or cheerful. But you get the point.

We drove around a lot that day. A tour of the roads of Backstage America. This is a place I've only passed through shortly, and often on far bigger roads than this:

EGE's 250 dollar car in the distance.

I have to board a plane for Montreal now, so that's it for now. More later.