Goodnight, New York

My last night in New York. I'm exhausted, having walked roughly 60 New York blocks today. I did some more shopping (some gifts, another pair of sneakers, a few dvds, etc), met up with Self-Service (who no longer works at my company but will always be associated with Self-Service) for awesome ramen noodles in the Village. Good times were had.

Back at the hotel, I had a minor panic attack after putting all the stuff that had to be packed on the bed. But I persevered, and now it is all packed. Yay!

I shall leave you with some more pics from my excursions.

Street art in the Village.

Basketball on an open court on 6th Street.

Playing American handball, one-wall, on asphalt. Hardcore.

"Come on! We were tied at 20!"

"We're up 20-19!"

"Oh come on! Tied at 20!"

"Fine. Tied at 20. Whatever. We'll still win."

And they did.

Scrap Yard. Heaven for graffiti artists. This is

where I bought the bag from yesterday's post.

I was so happy to stumble over this wall painting,

as seen in the mind-blowing documentary Up There.

The Dude abides.

Can you hear it calling your name, Melon?

The cupcakes, in all their glory.

Cookie dough cupcake on the left.

Oreo cheesecake on the right.

*insert Homer drooling sound here*

Sadly, the store didn't exist anymore.

A typical Nolita street.

Rack 'em and stack 'em.

Me and my homie Squeaker.

One night in Gainesville . . .

. . . and the world's your oyster!

The buffet.

Cymbals and his Woman.

TK behind my good friend Mr Macallan.

No, Cymbals is not smiling at

boobies in this pic. He's just smiling.

Woman and Devil Dog.

Room Mate appeared after a while.

Posing with Devil Dog.

The Late Night Groovers

Kiss, kiss, Devil Dog

Back in VA

My plane from Montreal to DC didn't exist anymore. It wasn't cancelled. It did not exist. I made the classic mistake of not checking my flight, which is crucial if you book the tickets months and months in advance, like I did.

So anyway. I got to spend five extra hours at the airport in Montreal. Yay... I spent it writing and reading and people-watching, which was kind of cool.

TK, my friend from high school, picked me up at the airport in DC and we went to his place in Clifton, VA. I haven't been in the vicinity since the mid-90's, when I was in high school here. My plan is to spend a few days here doing basically nothing. Just hanging out, writing and going out to eat.

TK's cat Link (yeah, that Link) hanging

out on TK's media system. Nice and warm.

He will be my inspiration for the next few days.

Quote of the day, from TK, about Swedes:

"You guys sure know how to press wood together with glue better than anyone."

Backstage America, part 2

Oh. I forgot. On the way north to Shapleigh, Maine (home of EGE and other mysterious creatures), I turned off the I-95 and took the smaller US1 up the coast. I had a lot of time and figured I wanted to see something other than a boring interstate highway.

What I did see were some people on some beaches.

I did try to smile. Really. I did.

Note Decepticons logo on hat. Win!

Evidently, these people hadn't listened to the weather report and seemed to possess no ability to turn their heads 180 degrees and look at the horizon, in the direction I am looking in the pic. Huge, and I do mean huge, storm clouds rolled in. I got in my car and rolled out of there before the panicked exodus began.

When the rain started I had to stop and wait for 20 minutes. I couldn't even see the road, because it rained so hard. Around me, throughout the small touristy coastal communities, people in bathing clothes scrambled for shelter and tried to keep towels and toys and boom boxes and whatever they were carrying dry. Not likely that happened.

So. Back to Shapleigh. We passed a church with a sign that said "Heaven and Hell are real places." Fire and brimstone, right there. EGE told me what it had said earlier. Dust on your bible will doom your poor soul. Ponder on that one for a while. Not only while it doom your soul. It will doom your poor soul.

We also passed a road called Big Ass Truck Drive. Funny.

Finally, we went to a place called Mulligan's where everything costs five dollars or less. I had a 4.69 dollar club sandwich, which was really good. EGE had a sallad. In a very small bowl. That refused to be eaten.

First quote of the day, about the fork:

It's not a bad sallad. It's just a bad delivery system.

Eventually, the food was consumed, and we went on to dessert. EGE's birthday was coming up so I figured we'd have a birthday dinner kind of thing. Chocolate cake and strawberry short cake was devoured.

Outside the restaurant, there was a big old clock on the ground, probably once the top of the tower it sat next to.

Cool clock next to Swede trying to look cool.

For some reason, EGE had the brilliant idea that we should go for ice cream afterwards. Now, as you know, we all have a second stomach for ice cream, so naturally I said yes. I figured two scoops would be enough. Then I saw the size of the scoops. Each was larger than my fist. But I persevered! Death to the ice cream!

The best of many a during

ice cream eating pics of EGE.

We basically rolled to the car. On the way back to the house a slight degree of road rage was expressed as a person, who shall remain nameless, said of the car in front:

Person 1: Move it!

Person 2: He's not in a hurry.

Person 3: But I am, because I'm full and I want to get home so I can get out of these pants.

That is all. I am in Montreal right now, which will be documented in future posts.

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.