n e n i e

8.10.04:8.13.04/Glenwood Springs, CO/
8.14.04/Glenwood Springs, CO to Lawrence, KS/

Our first morning in Glenwood Springs, Nena asked me a question that'd been burning in her mind ever since I picked Glenwood as our honeymoon destination.

"Why here?"

As I switched off the day's edition of Sportscenter OldSchool and we walked downstairs for breakfast I realized I couldn't keep the truth from her any longer.

"Because this town has my favorite rest area in all of the interstate system."

Continue reading "Fin del Camino (Traveling XXX)" »

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8.9.04/Cubero, NM to Glenwood Springs, CO/

The original idea was pretty easy, drive 480 miles from Cubero to the Western Slope of the Rockies. But, this was 480 miles mostly off the interstate, through the mountains and up over Independence Pass. As we loaded up the car, we the sheer amazingness of the drive that we had before us began to click.

But before we could go on an amazing adventure, we had to deal with money. We'd been given a decent chunk of cash as wedding presents and we figured it wasn't a good idea for us to travel with all this cash on us. There was just one problem, our bank had no branches in New Mexico. No problem, we thought. Nena still had her bachelor account, and while that bank had no branches in Kansas they sure as hell had branches in New Mexico. Sure, we'd just hit a branch on our way out of Albuquerque, deposit our checks and deal with everything when we got home to Kansas. Simple, right?

Wrong.

Continue reading "The Continental Divide- Pt. 2 (Traveling XXVIII)" »

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8.8.04/Cubero, NM/

My first morning as a married man didn't start all that differently from any other morning ... only I was in a casino in the middle of nowhere next to a sleepy, sleepy Nena.

The first thought that went through my head was, "damn, I think I'm going to like this whole being married thing."

The second thought that went through my head was, "damn, Nena's going to make me help her clean up after our wedding."

Guess what? I was right on both counts.

Continue reading "The Continental Divide (Traveling XXIX)" »

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8.7.04/Cubero, NM/

When one fantasizes about their wedding, you never spend any time speculating about the mundane details. You know, those little things that have to get done, like waking up, showering and eating, that spell the difference between reality and fantasy. I guess that's the key, then, isn't it? The wedding of your dreams is fantasy, that is- reality with the mundane excised in the name of art. The wedding of your reality is much less poetic- it requires waking up next to your high school roommate in a hotel on The Rez.

Continue reading "The Most Important Day of My Life v1 (Traveling XXVIII)" »

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8.6.04 /Cubero, NM/

The story of Friday really begins Thursday night, for as I tried to doze off in Big Papi's guest room for the last time, ever, my phone kept ringing.

It was Underdog. The airline had called him earlier in the night to inform him that his flight to Phoenix had been cancelled. However, he'd called to assure me that come hell, highwater, sledgehammers and WIVES he was going to make it to my wedding ... and he still needed me to pick him up in the morning.

Continue reading "I'm So Happy to Be Here With All Those I Love Most (Traveling XXVII)" »

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8.5.04 /Cubero, NM/

Thursday was the type of day where seeing a carload of clowns extracting themselves wouldn't have seemed out of place.

People, we're at WedCon 3.

When Nena and I began planning this whole wedding craziness, we had a lot of things to think about. The most important of which was location. Let's look at an abbreviated version of the scorecard we used to decide where to get married.

Continue reading "Arrival (Traveling XXVI)" »

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8.4.04/Cubero, NM/

There is one constant to life at Nena's parents' house- there's always something to do.

The funny thing about constants, is that they're the barebones expectation for life as you know it. Add in a wedding reception to be held in the front lawn in a matter of days and the normal steady buzz of activity that is Casa Fria reaches a deafening level. More than anything else, this buzz makes it almost impossible to sleep when I'm there. It's not that I sleep poorly, because I don't. It's just that I need less sleep when I'm there, I'm up and ready to dive into the hazy light that seems to permeate this place at 6a.

Maybe I enjoy being up that early at Casa Fria because it's the only time when I can get some waking time to myself. Maybe it's because in those moments, the house is still for the only time all day. Maybe it's because my body is afraid to leave me unconscious for long stretches of time with such thin air. I'm not entirely sure.

Continue reading "Male Bonding (Traveling XXVI)" »

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8.3.04/Chicago, IL to Cubero, NM (via Denver, CO)/

My alarm went off entirely too early, but I guess that's the way life is when you're geting up for a 10a flight, isn't it?

I tried my best not to wake the Gunders and for the most part I succeeded- except for Solaris. I was happy to have the company and since I could get it without waking any of the humans, I took what I could get. Little six-toe was my shadow through the entirety of my morning routine; stretch, eat, shower, dress... Thing is, nothing's been that easy these days. Everything feels so much more important, so much more charged, so as I walked out of the shower, to feel my stomach turn yet again in protest of last night's pizza I realized exactly how much I had to do today ... and how little sleep I'd gotten last night to get it done on.

I guessed I'd just have to get it all done on adrenaline and nerves.

Continue reading "Melding (Traveling XXV)" »

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(This is long, under the cut are the stats from my trip to Santa Fe.)

Every morning I get up and think "today I'm going to update the blog."

Seriously, that's what I do every morning.

Then I eat breakfast, hang out with Nena before she leaves for work and sit down to work on the mammoth blog entry that will herald my return to the universe.

But, that never happens. I'm just not feeling the post. It was going to be a long one about driving down from Chicago to Santa Fe and all the things I thought and felt along the way. Maybe I'll finish it some day. But I don't really think so.

The drive down from Chicago was amazing and cathartic. I spent the first day thinking about high school and the person I was when I was an 18 year old kid who didn't know shit about shit. I passed exit signs for hometowns of people I used to know and who used to know me. I thought about things that didn't matter 10 years ago and matter even less now, like who I went to prom with and people I was nice to and mean pranks we never did pull off on people that deserved them only because they were teenagers like us, occupying the same histo-industrial space as we did.

I drove that first day thinking about who I was and who I've been during my time in the Midwest, and who I was as I left this region of the country that I've always called home.

By the time I got to Fesser's place in Springfield, it felt good to be there. Good to be spending time with an old friend that'd never disappear like those exit signs along I-39 or 55. We spent the evening doing things we've never really done, but should have started doing long ago. We sat around and drank beer and watched the Home Run Derby (one of my favorite sporting events of the year) and talked about things that didn't really matter.

The same way I spent much of my month in Chicago hanging out with Gunder and ChückGünder talking about nothing important and everything that matters, I spent a night in Springfield making up for lost time with a friend I don't spend nearly enough time with.

When I left in the morning it was raining, not a hard rain, but one hard enough to make the drive out of town an adventure. As I sped up, the rain began to pick up speed to match me and by the time I was wondering what the hell kind of directions Fesser had given me (really good ones as it turned out) visibility was a luxury I couldn't really afford.

I made my way across St. Louis, cursing my lack of familiarity with the city and the way it killed my chance to stop and fully take in the beauty of New Busch and the Arch. I know I'm a Cubs fan and I'm supposed to hate all things redbird, but I'll be damned if that isn't a beautiful new stadium.

And on and on across the Mississippi Valley one more time. On this day I found myself wishing that someplace, somewhere I'd taken the time to read a geologic history of the United States. Something that explains how things got to be the way they are and what things were before they were what they appear to be today. Something about glaciers and pressure and time. I think I'd like that book, though I don't think I'll ever be in a position to write that book.

By the time I got to Springfield, I was amused with myself. Two quick drives down in as many days and a nice place to stay in another town named Springfield.

It was good to see Cheryl and meet her new friends and sample her new life, but I couldn't help but feel slightly out of place the entire time. This isn't a knock on Cheryl or her hospitality at all, but, well. Springfield wasn't where I wanted to be. A bar in downtown was even less where I needed to be. I'd much rather be home with my wife, or catching up with old friends and this was, in reality, neither of those things.

That's why I went to bed mentally preparing myself for one last day on the road, a non-stop shot from Springfield, to Santa Fe.

I got up the next morning and drove. I drove it like I stole it, I drove like my life depended on it. Artoo was in fine form and Maxi proved himself a fitting successor to 'Turo, though I still missed him dearly the entire way.

As I made my way across Oklahoma I found myself thinking "wow, this place is really beautiful." And it is.

I stopped in Tulsa at the sketchiest Citgo on the planet and bought a few Snickers bars and Monster drinks and some salty snacks meant to get me to Santa Fe in one piece. An hour later I was stopped at a Cracker Barrel in OKC for my only real meal of the day before heading out across the plains again.

Western OK, The Panhandle, Amarillo where I stopped for gas one last time and decided that this was it, I was ballsing it all the way home. It was early in the evening and I could be home before 10p if I hustled.

And I did. Into New Mexico and up the gut to Santa Fe.

Now I'm home, wondering what I'm going to do now, what comes next and how long we can afford to have me unemployed. The answer is not long so we're working on that. I don't think I'll be teaching again this year, but hope springs eternal. And now that I have the monkey of this entry off my back maybe I can get back to other blogging.

Continue reading "Traveling. A New Start." »

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As with everything I do, it started with a brilliant plan.

Or, at least I thought it was brilliant. Nena, of course, had another word to describe it: insane. But, after some serious discussion and a few quite shitty and underhanded guilt trips on my part, she began to see things my way.

We were going to reunion.

Continue reading "Dispersal (Traveling X)" »

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Sometimes, just sometimes, the hardest part of the trip is getting home.

However, getting home is even harder when you aren't exactly sure of where home is.

Continue reading "I Passed Out. On Someone's Couch, In Someone's House (Traveling XX?)" »

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Sometimes, the best part about going home- is reinventing what it means to have been there before.

Continue reading "Reinvention (Traveling XX?)" »

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Sometimes, the strangest thing about a homecoming- is realizing that it isn't home anymore.

Continue reading "I'm Hopeful (Traveling XX?)" »

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8.2.04 /Chicago, IL/

I woke up to find my parents' house in constant motion.

Drieg was groggily getting his act together while Mom and Dad went about their early morning business when it dawned on me. For the first time in possibly ever, my parents were preparing to leave on a road trip, without me. A road trip that would take them to my wedding.

I don' think there are the words to describe how surreal this morning was.

Figuring out where I grew up isn't the easiest task. My parents purchased the home that all the craziness was transpiring in when I was in Kindergarten. We moved there on the third to the last day of that particular grade and I spent my entire life there until I moved out at 15- only to move in with Gunder, Fesser and Mente. The next ten years, yes- ten years, would find me dropping by for the holidays and brief visits in the summer: never to actually live in this home again.

While the facts may contradict the emotion, my parents' home is, in my heart, the place where I've done my most substantive growing up. It's an amazingly magical place to me and on this morning, watching my family prepare to go to my wedding ... I could tell that there was still a lot more growing up to be done in this home- because I was doing it right then and there.

Eventually my family was gone, piled into their rental and off to drive to my wedding. Leaving me behind to catch up with them in 30 hours. When they left the house, they took with them my time and space to revel, it was now time to say some goodbyes- on my own terms.

I spent the bulk of the day driving around my hometown. I visited the parochial school where I spent every day from K-8 as a student. I drove around the perimeter, noting all the changes to the buildings over the years.

Within a few minutes, I found myself laughing at the sight of the parking lot where I'd learned my first lessons in life and love during recess. The place where I'd bummed around with Ed and Sean and written notes to Heidi or Erica... It's really a lifetime away from the world I live in now. Yet, there I was.

After that trip down memory lane I got out of the car and went into the church to pray. I don't talk much about my faith on this blog and I'm not going to go much into it now. But it just seemed like an important detail to put into this narrative. In the midst of all this, I stopped at my boyhood parish and prayed.

On my way out of the church, I walked by the parish bulletin board. Tacked up to it were the pictures of all the parishioners who are currently overseas with the military. While I didn't recognize the majority of the names that were on that board, enough of them were familiar enough to warrant a quick shudder.

These were my classmates, the friends who surrounded me during recess in the parking lot I'd just driven through. There's Mike, the class clown with the biggest Napoleon complex ever. He's a Marine now. And there's Tim- an older brother of sorts from band rehearsals in the basement of this church. He's in the Navy...

Looking at all those names, realizing how much had changed, how much was going to change and how little choice I had in the matter. For one of the (surprisingly) few times on this trip, I stood at the back of the church and cried a little.

Back in the car I blasted some Modest Mouse to get me back into the present day and drove off to Zippy's for a cheesy beef and lunch. Mmmm, Zippy's. I swear, the money that folks affiliated with St. Hubert's put into that place between 1989-1993 put it on the map. When I was in junior high, there was nothing cooler than going to Zippy's after school for pizza or a cheesy beef. Hell, there was even that one time we went there before a school dance and almost died. But that's another story for another day; today's story is that I had a sandwich with a side of nostalgia.

After lunch I hit the mall for a while before driving off to see my godfather and his wife.

Uncle Sal ... It's entirely too easy for people to underestimate this man's influence on my life. He and Aunt Angela are two of the most amazing, caring, beautiful people I've ever known. Their generosity knows no bounds and their faith is an inspiration to me. So it was with a relatively heavy heart that I drove to see them, since I was visiting because Uncle Sal's cancer has come out of remission and will keep him from making the trip to the wedding.

We had a great visit in the kitchen and I was reminded of how truly blessed I am to have these two in my life. I can only hope that I live the 40 years ahead of me as they've lived those 40 that lay behind them. I know in my heart of hearts that Uncle Sal is going to fight this thing with everything that he has. I only wish that I knew it was going to be enough.

Uncle Sal left for chemo so I decided to go for some bonus visitation and I dropped by my Godmother's place for a glass of wine. Aunt Pat and Aunt Angie have been friends since grade school and in my mind they've always come as a packaged deal. My father lived with Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim for years before he got married and for the longest time they (along with Sal and Angela) were the only extended family I knew.

Yeah, they're just as important to me as Uncle Sal and Aunt Angie are.

This meeting was a much happier one than the one just previous. Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim were in the midst of preparing to fly down to my wedding when I stopped by for my glass of wine. It was a good visit, and one that I cut short to run home and meet up with Gunder.

By the time I got back to my parents' place Gunder was sitting in his car waiting for me. We ran into my parents' house, grabbed my stuff and did a quick once over to make sure that there wasn't anything I was leaving behind ... other than an entire chapter of my life.

Then, I left my parents' house for what felt like the last time.

After that, it was time to stop saying goodbye and time to start saying hello.

Gunder and I picked up a pizza at Malnati's on the way to his place. We ate, watched TV with Belle and sat in quiet amazement at the idea of my wedding being less than a week away. It was strange enough when they'd gotten married two years earlier. Now ... it was my turn.

One by one we all turned in. I had a big day tomorrow. Another trip on a Triple Seven, my return to Albuquerque and reunion with my parents. As I fell asleep I realized that no matter how late it was to turn back now ... it really was too late to turn back now.

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8.1.04 /Chicago, IL/

The second thing my friends asked me when I told them I was getting married was "when's the bachelor party?" Having to outdo the party I threw for Gunder two years ago, lots of planning went into last night's party. Planning that decided it might not be the worst idea to try and squeeze in a Cubs game. That's how we came to the conclusion, a conclusion we hammered home last night at the Cubby Bear, that we would re-descend on Wrigleyville the next day and see if we couldn't score ourselves some tix to the 1:20 against Philly. Thing is, we were all too drunk last night to realize that Sunday would bring Nomar to Chicago and Maddux would be attempting win number 300.

Yeah, we didn't get to see the game.

It was just as well, since it was a pretty warm day and I woke up feeling like ass from the night before.

You know I'm hung over when I get up and don't want to eat. I knew I was seriously fucked up when food seemed like a really disgusting idea all morning long. But, I had errands to run with my mom, so I showered, got dressed and headed out to the mall with her. It was nice to hang out with Mom for a while and we spent more than our allotted time wandering the mall looking for shoes for the wedding. My shoes, for my wedding. It was a bit surreal, but it didn't take nearly as long as I think she was hoping it would. To be honest, I kinda wished I could have stopped time and spent the entire afternoon with my mom, too.

Oh, and my mother proved that she still knows best. She forced me to eat a 9" Combo Beef and Sausage from Buona Beef. Yes, 9" of Italian sausage covered in Italian beef. It's an amazing cure for a hangover.

After the sandwhich I was on the EL to meet go meet Fesser, Mamajlo, Pete and Almejor for the game. While I was waiting for Fesser at the Addison Blue Line stop, a tourist couple came up to me. The saw the Cubs hat on my head and proceeded to ask me questions.

"How far is the stadium from here?"
-3 miles
"How hard will it be to get tickets on a day like today?"
-This is an important game for many reasons, so it'll he hard, but doable if you have the money
"How much money are we talking? $25 a seat?"
-This is where I suppressed a laugh, after all these folks were Belgian and so they deserved the benefit of the doubt. I explained scalping to them and they seemed to get really dejected at this point. In the end, they declined my offer to give them a game-day tour of Wrigleyville and got back on the EL to see a museum or something else instead. Oh well.

Fesser showed and we boarded the next bus to Wrigley. When we got down there Pete explained the situation. The scalpers had gone apeshit with their pricing due to the importance of the day and the situation wasn't looking good. Tickets were plentiful, but the prices were sick. With the ticket situation as grim as it was looking, we decided to walk the perimeter of the park looking for a Nomar shirt. Along the way we introduced Al to Wrigley and I think they got along decently well, which made me happy, I like it when my friends get along.

After one lap around Wrigley, we decided to give up on both our search for a Nomar shirt and tickets and headed down to Goose Island to watch the game and grab lunch (all for less than what the tickets would have cost us had we bought them.)

I still can't get over the lack of entrepreneurial creativity down at Wrigley, yo. Everyone wants to make a buck off of tickets, no one's thinking outside the box. Had I not been drunk off my ass the night before, I would have been busy printing Nomar shirts left and right, yo. It was really sad, a whole lot of people dropped the ball.

Lunch was great, and it was fun to watch the game with this group of friends. Worlds colliding, yo. I'd better get used to it. . .

After the game we all went our separate ways with me getting home just in time to head out with my folks to the rental car place. They picked up their car for the roadtrip to my wedding- a white Chrysler Pacifica. This thing is awesome. . .if it didn't get such craptacular gas mileage, I think I'd be in love. Oh well.

We went home from there and hung out at home for the rest of the night. My family was leaving town for my wedding in the morning .. this whole trip just took its millionth, but not last, turn towards the surreal.

Posted by nenie at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

7.30.04 /Albuquerque, NM to Chicago, IL (Via Denver, CO)/

I'd really rather not think about how early I was up to make my flight to Denver because it'd make me cry. Crying or not, I made it up and onto my plane this morning in one very mixed piece. I was thrilled to be headed home for a few days, but sad that I was going without Nena. The flight from Albuquerque to Denver is perfect for light contemplation, really. It's just long enough for you to sort out your feelings, but not so long that you have time to revisit your conclusions. Suffice it to say that by the time my plane landed in Denver I knew that it would be good for us to be apart for a few days.

The flight to Denver was pretty uneventful- save for the karma I scored by trading spaces with this guy so he could sit with his wife and newborn rather than two rows away.

Karma, as it turns out, decided to repay me in small bits as the day progressed. The first installment came in the form of a native southsider seated in front of me who insisted on calling me "North Side." For example, "hey North Side, you guys gonna get anyone before the [trade] deadline?"

"I'd really rather not think about it. Don't want to ruin my breakfast." I replied.

"That's a Cubs fan, baby. You're for real. HA HA."

We became decent single-serving friends and by the time the plane landed I was helping the DIA newbie find his way to a beer and a smoking section at 8a.

South Side might have wanted his beer and smoke, but I was dying for a fucking scone and a chai. That's when I realized how bougie I'd become- here was guy jonesing for a cig and a beer; while I wanted Indian black tea with milk and a Scotish breakfast pastry.

I managed to escort South Side to the smoking lounge on the second floor, which also happened to be the only actual, honest to God bar in the terminal. He was so happy, he gave me $5 to go buy breakfast. I thanked him, wished him well (since we were flying different flights to Chicago) and headed off to the only Seattle's Best in the terminal.

Because if there's one thing better than Indian black tea with milk and a Scotish breakfast pastry for breakfast, it's having a Sox fan pay for it.

After breakfast I boarded my plane for the rest of the ride home: a Boeing 777. This plane is freaking amazing. I remember talking to Ed when they came out back in the day; in our adolecent world riding one of these would have amounted to the greatest sexual experience in the history of the world. Being a bit, ummm, wiser I realize that this ride wasn't the greatest ever, but it was pretty amazing for an airplane.

Having been unable to give me a seat on the same plane as South Side on my connection to ORD, Karma decided to give me an even more interesting single serving friend- Stone Cold Steve Austin. OK, not really, but this man was/is Steve Anderson's inspiration for Stone Cold. I knew I was in for a good time when I saw a mossy oak ball cap rising above the seat next to mine.

Before I could even get situated, Austin's showing me the Dan Gable autograph he'd scored on this trip. It didn't really matter that I didn't get settled, since he spent the next few hours regaling me with tales of what it's like to be not only a redneck, but Italian. Every once in a while, he stops talking about wrestling or his life story to talk about trying to score a blow job from the flight attendant working our section.

All in all, he was a pretty amusing character and a nice guy to spend a few hours on a plane with. Between him and South Side, I began to wonder what else Karma had in store for me on the day of my bachelor party.

We land in Chicago and we go our separate ways- him to his flight to continue his flight out east, me to arrivals to get picked up by my mom and Tia Lili.

As I'm waiting for my mom to pick me up, Karma treats me one more time as I'm witness to one of the coolest things I'd seen in a really long time.

There's this little red car sitting, turned off, right in front of my in the arrivals area of O'Hare. Within a few minutes this Streets and San tow truck shows up, drops its boom, and these two arms extend and wrap around the front tires of said car. The boom raises and the driver jumps out of the cabin of the tow truck to make sure everything's good to go- and he's off. Total time: 25 seconds. It took them 25 seconds to tow that car, it was awesome. A few minutes later the owner of the car comes out and looks puzzled. After a few seconds of looking around he talks to me.

"Excuse me, did you see a red car that was parked right here?"

"Yeah, the cops took it."

"What?!?!"

"Yeah, it was parked in the no parking area, so they took it."

"Do you know where they took it to?"

"Nope, I don't park where it says 'no parking,' so I've got no idea where it went, sorry."

And with that the guy started walking towards the nearest person in a uniform to start figuring out where his car was. As he left, I looked up at the no parking sign to read it. Apparently it's a $100+ fine just for parking there (I want to say it's $190, but since I don't remember the exact amount, I won't say) PLUS the tow fee. Poor guy, he probably lost a lot of money that day trying to get his car back.

The funny part in all this is that while I was waiting in the line for security in ABQ, there'd been an announcement over the PA. "Excuse me, will the owner of a Silver Pontiac parked in arrivals please move your car. It's in a no parking zone and we may have to tow it, so please come move your vehicle." I remember thinking at the time that there's no way they'd be that nice at O'Hare, and as it turns out, they aren't.

My mom and tia showed up right after that and we grabbed a quick lunch before heading off to get my hair cut. Sandy's been cutting my hair for over 20 years, so it was kinda cool to stop back in there a week before my wedding and say hi to everyone while getting what turned out to be the longest haircut of my life. Sandy wanted everything to be PERFECT for the wedding, so every hair on my head received personal attention that day. It was really cute, actually.

After my haircut I went home, showered and took a nap.

My dad got home from work around 6 and we packed up to head out to the bachelor party. In the midst of all the preparations we stopped to talk about Dreig's planning skills. At this point, I'd like to point out that I'd like someone to remind me, in my next life, to trust Drieg to pull off my bachelor party. Because in the middle of all this planning my father and I weren't and I feel like an ass in retrospect. However, at the time, doubt seemed reasonable.

Drieg had told everyone to meet at the Cubby Bear at some time or another. Thinking about traffic and whatnot my dad and I trusted that Drieg would be responsible to be there in time to greet everyone. Based on this assumption we decided to hold back a bit and leave so as to hit traffic and have to make a fashionably late, grand entrance. As we get on the expressway, my cellie blows up: it's Drieg, his date was running a bit long and he wasn't going to be there in time to greet everyone. Was there any way I could be there in time to host my own bachelor party? ... I love my brother, really I do.

But the night was awesome. Gunder, Fesser and Mente were there pretty early and we were all (except for Mente, Cicero boy and lifelong Sox fan) ecstatic about having picked up Nomar just before the trade deadline. Yeah, the thought of deadline deals might have ruined my breakfast, but they made my bachelor party.

After Almejor showed up and I introduced her crimsonness to everyone we started joking that she'd been traded to the BoSox for Nomar and and undergrad to be named later. Even my cousin Azu was laughing at our lame Cubs humor. Granted, she is a bleacher bum from back in the day. . .but still.

The night was truly amazing, Nicepersonality was there for a while as was Maxwell, whom I hadn't seen in entirely too long. Yknow how they say that good people attract good people? Well, for the first of many times in the week that would follow, I started to get the idea that I'm actually a pretty decent human being, because I know some really, really good people.

The drunker I got, the more people showed. Mamajlo and Pete showed up eventually and then Red and Tori. It was Red's appearance that signaled the end of my night. See, most of my friends know when I've had enough. . .Red doesn't believe that you reach this point until AFTER you puke. Next thing you know, I'm staring down the barrel of a triple shot of Jaeger and I know this night isn't going to end well. . .then Gunder and the boys picked up a Three Wise Men (Jack, Jim and Johnny) for me. At that point, it was all she wrote. I was beyond drunk and I'm just not a puker. . .as a result I found myself wishing for soothing death for a great while to come.

Seriously though, the party was amazing and it was really fantastic to hang out with my friends for a while and just hang out. Hell, Gunder even got me to play Golden Tee. . .which I found oddly entertaining. I think I may need professional help.

Posted by nenie at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

What can I say about Vegas that hasn't already been said?

Nothing, but that isn't going to stop me from trying.

I very well may be the first person to have a life-affirming moment while sober in Las Vegas and for this moment of clarity, I am thankful.

I'd been rather down on myself and my life as of late. For the first time, a bout of depression wasn't being caused by the walls crashing down on me from all directions. No, this time it was coming from one identifiable source- school. As strange as it may be to explain or believe, for the first time since elementary school I didn't want to go anymore. I was sick of it, it was making me sick. I was losing sleep over going to a class and it was driving me crazy.

I'd started second guessing myself, I started to actually believe that I COULD be stressed out. All sorts of things were racing through my mind that my mind was unaccustomed to dealing with. Not the least of which was the idea that maybe I didn't belong in grad school. Maybe I couldn't hack it here and it was time to pack it in and go home. . .only there was nowhere to go but here. This was the life I'd carved out for myself and for the first time in my life I felt trapped and the only thing saving me was a wife who was always away on business.

It's not a great feeling, I assure you.

This is where I was at when I left for Vegas on Friday. Big fun, let me tell you. I was going to Vegas for the first time, by myself, to a conference where I'd know no one save for one of Almejor's old professors from Carleton. Yeah, I was SO not looking forward to this trip. I was also sure that my paper was going to suck and I was going to be laughed out of the conference. To add insult to injury, I KNOW I'm more self-confident like that. I normally storm these things with my normal take no prisoners attitude. . .and being so out of my game was pissing me off.

That's it really, I felt as if lately I'd been taken COMPLETELY out of my game. And that was because, for the most part, I actually had.

I landed in Vegas on Friday afternoon around 1p and was immediately struck by how amazingly bizarre this place is. There's a scale to the place that's just staggering to me. Everything is a game there. Unlike at other airports, the tram feels like an amusement park ride, something to speed you along towards your actual purpose for being there, whatever that may be. Soon after this tram ride, you're deposited in a cavernous pit of a baggage claim area. It's a bit like the new baggage claim at Midway, only this one is. . .amazing. Seriously, you're in this big, airy pit that is lined along the top with ads for all the different ways you can spend your money in Vegas. A large TV broadcasts even MORE ways to lose your money. . .and as I walked through it all, I just wanted to go to the Star Trek Experience. That was my first clue to how big a geek I am. . .but that's for another day.

After collecting my bags and waiting way too long for my shuttle to my hotel. For various reasons that have everything to do with the general malaise I've been dealing with as of late, I broke my usual rules and was staying at the official conference hotel- The Riviera. After and hour and a half of standing in line, I was finally able to check in and get to my room. Shit was I underwhelmed. Seriously, the Super Eight in Keokuk, IA has better rooms that this place. The room was seriously depressing. The only saving grace was the view, which was thankfully not of the vacant lots on either side of the hotel, but of the pool. Man, THAT was Vegas, baby. . .and something that started to improve my mood at bit.

By the time I managed to get to my room and get settled, the day's conference proceedings had pretty much come to a close, so I decided to call it a wash and only managed to register for the conference on day one of my trip. After getting my registration materials and pouring over them in my hotel room, I hit the hotel buffet at Nena's telephonic suggestion. (Brief digression. BOO to Nena's boss for not letting her have SUNDAY off so she could go to Vegas with me.)

My attempts to get out to Vegas had clued me into this, but my trip to the buffet totally sealed the deal for me. The myth of Vegas as hellacheap is just that, a myth. Not only was my airfare reCOCKulously expensive, my hotel room was sickly overpriced and then, the buffet that I'd expected to be ridiculously cheap? $17, at least it came with free champagne. An hour later I was pleasantly drunk and watching the debate up in my depressing room. (Seriously, would some interior lighting hurt them? They spend so much on exterior lighting. . .) After watching Kerry blow the election I hit the strip.

Holy mother of shit. The Vegas Strip is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life. I mean, I know I must sound like an idiot to anyone who's actually ever been there but DAMN. It's just an amazingly impressive thing. I wandered south from my hotel and hit most of the big names between me and the Bellagio. Circus Circus, Stardust, Frontier, Treasure Island, Paris, The Venetian. . .shit, The Venetian, I really need to go back there. It's the most amazing smelling casino ever. Like soft lavender, just beautiful. I watched the pirate battle at Treasure Island (What's better than pirates? Pirates losing a battle with scantily clad Sirens. "Yarr, Cap'n. There by a boat off the port bow and it be loaded with more booty than I've ever seen.") as well as a few fountain shows at the Bellagio before deciding that it was really time for me to head home and get a good night's sleep, I mean, I had to present my craptacular paper in the morning.

Morning came pretty soon (but not too soon) and I got up, showered, stretched, went over my paper, ironed, wandered the hotel and went out to lunch with the rest of my panel. Two of the other four presenters had bailed and not told our moderator until a few days before the conference so the mod (who was also presenting) and I had a nice lunch and talked about our papers for a while before heading up to the room to present.

By then I was warmed up, I was rocking, I was rolling and I FUCKING KICKED THE SHIT OUT OF THAT TALK. It was amazing, I was brilliant, funny, articulate, in short, I was Nenie again. I was back, I was on my game. Holy shit, it was incredible. I'd forgotten how good I am at what I do, I'd forgotten that I actually do have decent insight into some of the questions of my field. I'd forgotten that I belong in grad school. But right there, in 30 minutes of ass kicking, I'd rediscovered it all. I really wish I had taped what I was saying, because it was a truly out of body experience. I know I went way off script, but damn that ad-libbing made for a WAY better paper than I'd written. It was amazing. People laughed at the funny parts, nodded at the theoretical parts, and had questions for me after my talk. This presentation was everything these sorts of things are supposed to be but never are. WHOO!

To celebrate I decided to treat myself to a really nice dinner somewhere on the far south end of the strip. I went to my room, called Nena, changed and took a bus to the Bellagio where I started my march towards Mandalay Bay. By the time I hit the MGM Grand, I was starving. I ran in to find something to eat and came up empty. Yes, there are some amazing restaurants in that hotel, but I just couldn't bring myself to eat at any of them by myself. They were just all too beautiful to walk into alone and that's when it hit me. I'm such a geek/loser that I was alone in Vegas, and pining for my wife.

After striking out there, I ran across the street to the ESPNZone. . .one hour wait. Fuck that. I took crossed the street to Excalibur and took the tram to Mandalay Bay (the far southern edge of the strip). I went to the House of Blues and tried to get dinner at the bar. . .yeah, not happening. By now, I was starving. It'd been 8 hours since my pre-talk lunch (light and meant to get me through the next 3 hours, not 8) and I was dying. I wandered the hotel looking for something, anything. . .then I stumbled upon it. A freaking Chicago-style Greek family restaurant right there in the middle of Vegas. It ruled.

After Dinner I went back up the strip towards my hotel. Luxor, Excalibur, New York New York and then the walk was on. I was trying to catch a bus back north to my hotel so I could get some sleep before my 4a wake up call to catch a 5a shuttle to the airport for my 7a flight. Only, all the northbound buses were full. By the time I ran across a bus that would take me on it I was at Treasure Island again. . .and really, that's just too close to the Riviera to take a bus, so I walked the rest of it and was ridiculously thankful to be back in my depressing room by the time I got there.

I crashed hard and was sad to hear my phone ringing at 4a. Next thing you know I'm talking to more conference-goers at the shuttle stop and I'm at the airport and now back in Kansas. It was an amazing trip, and I only gambled $12 on assorted slots. I really need to go back. And next time with as motley an assortment of rogues as I can dig up. Who wants in?

While wandering that first night I called Chas to ask him why the hell we'd never just up and gone to Vegas while we were at Carleton. . .and reflecting on it, I now know. It was because we wouldn't have appreciated it. It wasn't time for that trip, I had to save it until now, when I needed to be alone in a strange city to sort out my issues and remind myself of who I am.

Posted by nenie at 04:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

7.29.04 /Elk City, OK to Cubero, NM/

We'd fallen asleep the night before to the sounds of Sen. Kerry's acceptance speech and awoke in the morning to find that there were, thankfully, no ill effects from letting CSPAN lull you to sleep. Methinks I actually remembered to turn the TV off before falling totally asleep, but the world may never know what really happened.

Life in the Holidome was surprisingly peaceful. However, upon awaking I was saddened to discover that there was a mini-golf course outside my door that I'd never get to play. Not that it looked like all that fantastic a course, it's just that how many times in your life will you have the opportunity to step outside your door and onto a mini golf course? Somehow, I managed to get over my sadness and load up the car before joining Nena for our free breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

While at breakfast we came to the conclusion that we'd totally made the right call the night before when we'd seen the Halliburton trucks in the parking lot and done nothing.

Seriously, yo- the night before Nena and I came back from our really late dinner and saw a bunch of red Halliburton trucks sitting in the parking lot, and for a brief moment and we contemplated doing something silly to them. Now, in the harsh haze of day we realized how bright we'd been to do nothing, for surrounding us in the restaurant were the drivers and crewmen of those Halliburton trucks.

Big guys, yo. Big guys.

It also got me to think outside my little pinko box for a minute; out here, it probably doesn't get much better than working for Halliburton. To the drivers of these trucks, they don't work for Evil Inc. They work for one of the best employers in the region. These guys, in their red jumpsuits unzipped to the gut aren't evil, they're just putting food on the table the best they can. Yeah, I'm glad we didn't fuck with their trucks, because fucking with their trucks is fucking with their families and at the end of the day, Dick Cheney's a tool, not this guy's five year old.

There was fog from Elk City straight through to TX and it lifted just before Nena and I stopped at the (seriously) Only Rest Area in the Texas Panhandle (tm). I think we disturbed some folks by making out at the ORAitTP, but c'mon, whatch'a gonna do?

Amarillo was incredibly uneventful and so our day was shaping up to be one of those brutal drives that keep people from going on long road trips so we were thankful to cross the border into NM when we did. At the very least, we had getting home to look forward to. . .but not in any kind of anxious way. We rolled into ABQ early enough in the afternoon that we were able to run a shitton of errands before heading out to Cubero for a while. (after very nearly getting run off the road by a FedEx truck between Moriarty and Tiejeras.)

The thing that always manages to amaze me is how severely Nena and I manage to lose track of time when we're running errands in ABQ. Maybe it's because I have no appreciation for where things are and how far things are from other things, but we seem to have the ability to take what we estimated to be 2 hrs worth of errands and make them stretch out into 4. It's truly, mindbogglingly, amazing. You have no idea. Seriously, none.

After losing track of time yet again, we packed up and headed out to Cubero, pizza in tow.

It was really nice to see my in-laws. I know I've mentioned this to just about anyone who will listen, but I really like Nena's parents. Yeah, we've had our scrapes from time to time, but they're incredible people and it was really fantastic to see them.

We putzed around the house for a few hours and ate the pizza Nena and I had trucked up from ABQ and then Nena and I took off to take me back to ABQ. I was flying to Chicago at 6a the next morning and if there's one thing I've learned in my few years of visiting Cubero, it's you never spend the night there if you're flying out before 9a.

On our way out of town, we stopped by the Dixie to see the rest of the fam. While there, the men tried to convince me to stay and go drinking with them. Heh, yeah, they were already drunk enough that they didn't seem to realized that: 1) What they were proposing was a really, really bad idea. 2) You can be a man and not drink until you're stupid. 3) I really have no desire to go drinking with them when I could be hanging with Nena or her parents or sleeping.

Thankfully, I don't really care what they think of me so I was able to actually walk away when their entreaties to go through their right of initiation that would enable me to join their clique got to a ridiculous point. Right. . .after extracting ourselves from the Dixie we made our way back to ABQ, being sure to take in our favorite view of the town, coming in from the west at night, down Nine Mile Hill as the whole town is lit up below you. An incredibly beautiful sight to end your day with; especially when you have to be up at fuck you o'clock in the morning to make your flight to Denver then Chicago. . .

Posted by nenie at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The trip to NOLA was good for me. Now that I'm back in Lawrence, I'm sure I'll be paying for it for quite a while. But I'm glad I went, because I wasn't going to go. A few months ago, I looked ahead to this weekend and realized that going was totally the least sane thing I could do. Then it hit me, this invitation was a chance to revisit a time in my life when I always did the least sane thing. And sometimes, sanity is definitely overrated.

I'm glad I took the path of most resistance this weekend. It's made all the difference. It was important that I be there, if not for Lux, then definitely for me.

Saturday morning continued after a few hours of sleep on Aretela's luvseat. Golly was frolicking on the floor in front of me, playing with a ball he'd located somewhere in the bowels of the apartment and The Grandmastah was sill passed out on the couch across the living room; life was pretty much the way I'd left it a few hours earlier.

Eventually the whole house got up and people took showers and made plans to go to Cafe du Monde with Wanje and Jax a bit later on in the morning. As I was in the shower I actually computed how much longer I was going to be in town and realized that I was totally running out of time to hang with Aretela. Not spending time with her this weekend seriously bordered on criminal so I broke plans with GMS and Wanje and instead headed out into into the city, so she could show me her NOLA.

"There's a whole other town that isn't on St. Charles or The Quarter," she told me as we drove off down Magazine in search of lunch, or breakfast or whatever the hell meal it is that we were going to eat. We eventually found a place, ate and were off again to see Tulane and other parts of town. It was good to begin to see Aretela's NOLA, a town I'd heard her tell me about for years now. In hearing about her NOLA over the years my map of the town just didn't overlay onto her map so well. It was nice to have that all cleared up.

I even got to look at her bridge. It was pretty freakin' cool.

We got back to her place in plenty of time for me to change for the wedding and pretty soon I was back out of the house and on my way to pick The Grandmastah up.

As different friends get married, I'm always in awe at how their services mirror their personalities, at how I see this friend of mine reflected in how they choose to get married. Alphasarah and M's, Wanje and Bear's, Notmonochrome and Nicepersonality's, Gunder and Belle's- all of these weddings reflected back so much about these people that I cared for. Lux's wedding was no different. There she was, up on the altar- getting married. Watching people I love get married is always one of the most intense experiences for me. I feel like I'm having someone decontextualized and recontextualized simultaneously in front of my very eyes.

This wedding was particularly intense for me. Being Episcopalian it's pretty similar to the Catholic Mass I'm going to be married in so I spent a lot of time in reflection during the service. I realized that I still hold a lot of anger within me. I thought I'd vented all of that away a long time ago, but I was wrong. There's this residual crap kicking around in my soul and it had to go.

Right there, in the middle of Lux's wedding- I let go.

It was one of the best things that has ever happened to me and it happened right there in the middle of Lux's wedding. Incredible.

Later that night, the wallet-less Wanje (loser stole her wallet earlier in the day), GMS and I drove to the reception. After getting turned around a bit we eventually found our way and received ROCKSTAR parking in the lot adjacent to the hall. No, you don't understand. This parking was SO good The Grandmastah thought it wasn't for us. Oh, but it was. . .it was.

The reception was nice. A nice room, a nice band and good people. I didn't get to see as much of all the people I wanted to see- but I did get to spend quite a bit of time with Alphasarah, which is all that matters. Right? I should have danced- but Nena is the only one I want to dance with these days. Whenever I dance with anyone else I get annoyed that they don't know how I lead, that they don't read my mind, that they're not built like Nena. So yeah, I didn't dance- but I did talk to people and enjoy a really beautiful night.

Morning came all too quickly and before you knew it, Alphasarah, M and I were on our way to the airport. I didn't get to The Quarter at all and the only real reason that makes me sad is because I really dig Preservation Hall. Oh well, I'll catch it on my next trip down- in May.

I sat next to Alphasarah on the flight to Dallas and as we flew out of NOLA and rode the TRAAIN together in Dallas I was left to be in awe. In awe because of where I was and where I was going. How the hell did I get here? I'll never forget the first time I met Lux, I was 18 at the time and my perfectly ordered universe was very rapidly coming undone. Between then and now is a life lived and explored which has culminated in the series of moments I'm attempting to chronicle from my desk in Kansas.

How the hell did I get here? I don't know- but it's a fucking good story.

Posted by nenie at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

There's something about this place that I'll never quite figure out. That's probably a good thing. I never mind the humidity in this town, never mind that nothing goes where you think it will and everyone drives as if they're the only one these far too narrow roads. There's a charm to the place that's haunted me for the past 9 years, a charm that's been calling me back ever since that day, when I was 16 and I saw this town growing ever smaller in the airplane's window. It's nice to be back.

Though I almost didn't make it.

Ulli picked me up yesterday and we headed for the airport with more than enough time for me to make my flight. Then, we hit traffic on I-70. Yes, there was traffic on I-70. It was crazy. Apparently, there'd been a two car accident with fatalities. As a result, they shut down the interstate in both directions so they could clean up. Eventually, some state trooper got really, really briliant and realized that it probably wasn't a good thing to keep people stuck in traffic. Not on a Friday afternoon, not at 3:30p.

After a while, they let people start turning around at one of those emergency U-Turn points and traffic started moving again. Ulli and I found a non-interstate route to the airport and I arrived a little more than 30 minutes before my flight. . .which had been delayed by half an hour.

Perfect, I thought. Yes, I was in time for my plane, BUT I had a 42 minute layover in Dallas that was now cut to 12 mintues. As my father had told me time and time again as he relived the horrors of his traveling consultant days. "Never give yourself less than 30 minutes to make a conection at DFW. ESPECIALLY if it's American to American."

On the plane to DFW I sat next to a nice guy from NOLA. Apparently, this'd happened to him a number of times over the years and he'd figured out the quickest way to get from any point A, to any point B in this airport. I smiled at my good fortune and talked to him for most of our flight down. When we landed and waited for a gate to open up for us, the captain came on the PA and asked if everyone who didn't have to make a connecting flight could please wait for those of us who did have connecting flights to get off the plane before they attempted to deplane, we'd all appreciate it.

Surprise! People actually listened.

My new friend and I hauled ass to the TRAAIN and managed to get to our gate just before they were about to give our seats up to people on standby. Someone, somewhere really wanted me to make it to NOLA.

On the plane I ended up sitting a row in front of Sheriff Lobo, an acquaintance from undergrad who was also on his way down to the wedding. After a few minutes of talking over the seats the guy next to me asks if I'd switch with his wife, who was sitting next to the Sheriff. Word, this trip was getting better all the time.

We landed in NOLA and booked to the Hertz counter, picked up The Grandmastah and the keys to my Grand Prix. This, was going to be fun.

We rolled up on the Welcome Reception for all out of town wedding guests and I was immidiately inundated by old friends. Alphasarah, M, Wanje, Gwinnc, GZ, Notmonochrome and an incredibly happy to see me Nicepersonality were all there. It was like coming home, all over again.

I know I miss being an undergrad. Not in some strange wanting to relive my youth way, but instead realizing that the group of people amassed in that one place at that one time was pretty remarkable. An assortment not likely to be recombined ever again. Here we were, though; older, wiser and all incredibly aware of how special times like these are. We know that the time we have together is precious- so we take advantage of it.

After an hour or so of mingling with the Carls and attempting to get drinks without be stopped by some random person I didn't know who'd seen my nametag and responded with "OH, YOU'RE NENIE! I've heard ALL ABOUT YOUUUU," Aretela and her friend show up to sweep us farther into Uptown. We hit a pretty phatty hotel bar where we sat on the veranda and sucked down drinks while talking about all sorts of randomosity. Eventually, we realized that I hadn't eaten a real meal all day and Wanje needed food, so we progressed to another bar that served food.

A NOLA version of a reuben later we called it a night and headed back to Aretela's for the night. After I dropped him off and had made my way almost all the way to Aretela's- The Grandmastah called me up to tell me he'd been locked out of his hotel room. Could he crash with Aretela?

I went back, picked him up, got lost looking for Aretela's and we eventually got settled in on Aretela's pimp-assed couches. It ws 4am, and it'd been a long, and brilliant day.

There's something about this town, and these people. When you combine brilliance like that. . .yeah. It's a good trip.

Though I really wish Nena were here.

Posted by nenie at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yknow, maybe I should have stayed in San Antonio.

With a full sized tire in the trunk, I knew I was going to have to exchange Dottie for a new rental. I drove Milton to the airport at 9a and while I was up at the airport I swapped out Dottie for Esmeralda Jones. Esmerelda was a Cavelier just like Dottie, only she was white and had 13k miles on her. She wasn't as cute as little Dottie, but she got the job done.

I tried to go to one last panel, but they all sucked. The one on Bowling for Columbine got off to a terrible start. They opened with the "What a Wonderful World" clip and left the image of the second World Trade Center getting hit up on the screen. A few minutes into the talk someone asked "are you going to leave that up the whole time?" When the reply was "why, is it bothering you?" I knew that this wasn't the panel for me, on a number of levels.

I went to a panel on gender construction in the novels of Nick Hornsby and was disappointed by that one as well. It was straight up literary analysis. It was like being stuck in the most boring lit class ever, where you'd read the best books ever. After the paper on High Fidelity I took off.

On the way out of town, I picked up a shot glass for Gunder, Charlie's March Madness prize (another shot glass) and a present for Nena. The airport was pretty chill until we got on the plane.

We left early because this major storm front was rolling into town. The ascent was bumpy as hell and the sky in Houston didn't look too hot when we landed. We had to book across the entire airport to get to our new gate and along the way we ran across a big statue of President Bush I. I couldn't resist. I ran up to it and gave it a big hug around the waist (my shoulder level). Alabamagrrrl couldn't resist and took a picture of this event, much to the delight of Lilyblack. Yeah, it was fun.

Then we got on the plane.

I got to talking to the nice Puerto Rican woman next to me when we noticed that we hadn't taken off yet. Then the pilot came on the speakers. We were stuck in Houston. This wall of storms that we had escaped in San Antonio was sitting just north of Houston. There was no way through it, the path they'd plotted through a break in the storm was no longer going through a break in the storm. They were trying to find another way around it.

Eventually, they found a way. Go south and west past Laredo into Mexico, and THEN go Northeast to Kansas City. It was the only way around the storm.

I bought a ticket for a 90 minute flight home. The flight took close to 3 hours. No, they didn't offer me another drink or more pretzels.

I drove people home and arrived back home a few minutes ago. All in all, it's been a pretty phenomenal trip. The presentation went really well and I met some cool folks. But I'm still glad to be home. For better or for worse, this place feels like home now. It's funny how a trip can drive that home better than anything else. It's always good to be home.

Posted by nenie at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After Wednesday night's conclusion I figured the rest of my trip had to be much less eventful. Thankfully, I was correct in that estimation.

Thursday was pretty chill. I went to hear some interesting papers and discovered that I could get two hours of free parking with validation at the Rivercenter parking deck. All of the sudden I was heading out every two hours to move the car out of the garage and back into the garage, giving me two more free hours. It was a perfect scam, yo. I would be gone for so little the same parking spot would still be open when I returned. It was great.

As the day wore on I grew to expect the Alamo to be right there in the middle of town. For those who have never been to San Antonio but have been to Chicago, let me give you an analogy that will enable you to grasp how "in the neighborhood" the Alamo is. Alamo:San Antonio::Wrigley Field:Chicago.

Wednesday, we were walking to registration when this BIG adobe wall got in our way. Keeping us from taking the shortest path to the Mariott was this FUCKING ADOBE WALL. I was really annoyed and I remember saying "what the fuck is this adobe wall doing here?" Yeah, that was the Alamo.

On our way back from registering on Wednesday we toured the Alamo really quickly. It's a pretty amazing structure, huge old walls, and all this space. I took some time to explain why the Alamo is significant to folks in my group that didn't quite understand. I'm pretty sure my Latino-centric version of events, however, is in direct opposition with what the tourguides would tell you about the "Chapel of Texas Liberty."

I also now have something in common with Ozzy. We've both urinated in the Alamo. Granted, I did it in the bathroom and he did it ON the Alamo. But still.

I took off a session to head back to the hotel and sit in the hot tub on the roof for a while. That was nice. This conference is turning into a great chance to sit back and relax for a while.

After a few more panels at the conference we went to dinner on the Riverwalk at Casa Rio. They had green chile chicken enchiladas. Not as good as Nena's mom's but still pretty tasty. I dug it. We went back home after dinner and I sat in the hot tub for a while drinking a Woodchuck and trying to totally forget that I was presenting a paper in the morning.

Eventually, 6a came and my alarm clock got me up. I showered, shaved, ordered breakfast, ate got dressed and drove over to the conference.

8a came and it was time to present. The organizers had thrown another guy onto the panel at the last minute and hadn't bothered to tell anyone. That was OK, but the crowd. . .ouch.

I know it was 8a. But the turnout sucked. I know, I know on my CV it's not going to say that no one was at this talk. But still, I was kinda hoping to have more people there.

8 people showed up.

2 were hotel employees that were there to hear the wrestling papers. (They loved my paper, they kept nodding and clapping and laughing. They loved it.) 2 were friends of one of the other panelists, 1 was another panelist's wife and 1 was a friend of mine. This leave 2 people in the audience who came to this panel because they were genuinely interested in the topic.

I ignored this math and soldiered onward. I gave a pretty good talk, methinks and afterwards one of the 2 random attendants came up to me. He's looking for people to write a book on wrestling with him, was I interested in collaborating?

Sometimes, it doesn't matter how many people show up, so long as the right person does.

Flying off this proposition I talked to my other presenters about our research and the state of the industry for a while before we all went our seperate ways. I chilled for a while afterwards and went out for a celebratory lunch with the KU Krew. An afternoon of panels and we took off for dinner at this vegetarian place that'd been advertised at the conference. It was called Mad Dog's and the waitresses outfits can be best described as "British Schoolgirl." The place was the thinking man's Hooters, I tell you. Insane.

The food was decent and after dinner the rest of the Krew took off for the conference and I picked up the car and headed home. Only, I had a flat tire. Poor Dottie. Apparently, I'd blown out the back driver's side tire while rounding a corner on the way to dinner. There'd been a loud explosion, and I'd assumed it to be a really, really hard curbcheck. Only, the tire was blown on the opposite side to the curb. I guess it was just a shitty tire.

I waited for an hour for roadside assistance to come change the tire for me and I sat and watched the crowd.

This town is part of Latin America. It's amazing. I hear Spanish everywhere and I see people that look like me everywhere I go. I'd never thought that these sorts of thing swere important to me. As I age, as I travel, I realize that in some way, on some level: these things matter. I don't want to move here, and I don't want to raise my children here, but there is something beautiful about not being ashamed of speaking to my parents on the phone here. I don't have to hide it, or think I'm proving something by taking to my family in Spanish. I'm not strange here, I don't have to prove my Latin-ness, I'm just another guy on the street.

As I told Nena today- "There are so many brown people here, even the gay people are brown. Everybody's brown. Brown like me."

Eventually I got home and got sucked into the 15 inning Cubs win rather than the hot tub. I turned in at midnight or so. It'd been a good few days. It was time to go home, though. Because as welcoming as this place was. It wasn't home.

Posted by nenie at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Wednesday morning flight out of Kansas City, beginning the long trip to San Antonio. Flight to Houston, switch planes, flight to San Antonio. Fitting that I'm in Houston again the week before Alphasarah's cousin's wedding. She being the reason I was ever in Houston to begin with. But that's a story for another day.

The humidity in Houston is just as I remember it and I was thrilled to be rid of it when the plane took off taking me farther south.

There was something different about this place and I knew it as soon as I stepped off the plane. Walking through the airport, making my way towards the baggage claim. . .there was something different about this town. Out the windows of the plane and now the airport, I could see palms and piñons and cottonwoods. Three trees that just don't go together in my conception of any region's foliage. All around me, as in Houston, I heard Spanish being spoken. But unlike in Houston, the people speaking ths Spanish looked like me.

I met up with Rebecca at baggage claim and we got on the shuttle to pick up my rental car. Freakin' National. I know this is the way the industry works, but it's still pretty shitty to quote me one price and then jack it up $50 when I get to the counter. What the fuck am I going to do? Go someplace else? I should have done that, but alas. . .

The car, however was pretty amusing. Brand new Chevy Cavelier. Sucker was bright red, smelled new and had 230 miles on it. Upon seeing our ride for the first time Milton would christen her Little Dottie Rojo. It was a fitting name, she was a cute car. Too bad Caveliers handle like dumptrucks, on ice, at high speeds.

We got to the hotel pretty quickly and met the proprietor of The Painted Lady Inn. A wonderfully sweet man who runs an amazing little B&B in the middle of San Antonio. You'd seriously miss this place if you weren't looking for it. But it's fabulous. Milton and I were in the Liberace room for the week, while our other friends were in the DaVinci and Warhol rooms, respectively. A brilliant place, yo. I'm totally going to have to go back to San Antonio just to stay there.

We lounged around for a bit and then wandered over to the conference itself. Registration really killed any sense of Latino empowerment that being in this city was causing, however. The organizers of the committee proved their complete and total Anglo ineptness in being unable to decipher my surname. There are two of them, no hyphen. Why is this such a difficult concept for Whitey to grasp? Whatever the razon, every time they needed to find my name at the registration table, they couldn't find me.

"Mr. X? Sorry, no X's here. OH, here you are under Mr. Y."

"So now we need your other registration information. Hrmmm, you're not listed here Mr. Y. You're going to have to get into the complaint line and deal with it."

See, the problem here is that on THIS list I was listed as Mr. X. The stupid professor managing the line was unable to think "Wait, he said he'd be Mr. X on this list and he wasn't. He isn't Mr. Y on this list, so he might be Mr. X." Thankfully, my KU compadres are capable of such higher order thinking and the stupid professor in charge called me back out of the complaint line to give me my registration packet. No apology however, for messing up my name.

We wandered the Riverwalk after registration and headed home to get ready for our cookout up on the roof that night.

Once the rest of our group returned from the conference we jumped in Dottie and drove off to buy food for our gigantic BBQ up on the roof. It took us entirely too long to wander through the H.E.B. but it was a revelation to entirely too many of us. We did get out of there in one piece, though and back home where the grill had been started up for us. I started grilling immediately since it was 8p or somesuch by the time we got home.

Time passed and we gorged on chips and the fresh salsas we'd bought at the market. I went to flip the burgers and chicken only to find that no cooking had actually transpired. We called down to tell them that the grill wasn't working and waited for someone to cume up to fix it.

We waited for 20 mins or so and eventually the owner came up. He took one look at the grill and noticed the pilot light was off, so he relit it.

BOOM!

An enormous fireball came flying out of the grill, knocking the cover open and sending all the grill tools on the table next to the grill into orbit. It was an amazing site that should have done a lot more damage than it did.

That was scary.

The food never did get cooked. Even after this episode, with the grill working, cooking never really happened. At 11p I packed it in for the night. Confident that the rest of the trip couldn't be as eventful as this first day had been.

Posted by nenie at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two updates for the price of one today- such a deal.

Yesterday Nena left for MPLS. We managed to get out of the house at a decent hour and hustle into town early enough that we introduced my parents to lunch at Loyola's.

Chicago is home to the Greek family restaurant. All the Chicagoans reading know what I'm talking about. These omnipresent open 24 hours, breakfast anytime, everything on the menu's good and terrible for you, family owned diners are an institution back home. I know I've talked about these suckers ad nauseam in the past, but they're just emblematic of home for me. Loyola's is a southwestern version of this institution. Instead of Greek, the owners are hispanic and while the menus seem eerily similar, there is too much "New Mexican" food on there for you to even begin to think you're in Chicago.

Did I mention that everything at Loyola's comes with red or green chiles?

After lunch with the my parents and Nena's mom, it was time to actually get Nena to the airport. We all stood behind her while she got her boarding pass and then proceeded to herd her to the security checkpoint where we stopped for a few minutes. No one wanted anyone to go anywhere, but that just wasn't the deal. It was time for Nena to go back to her life and time for us to be left alone with her parents. With a few tears and a million hugs, Nena was gone and through security.

On our way back out of town I stopped to buy some dehydrated green chiles and then went to show the assembled representatives the dish patterns that Nena and I had picked out. We got back home and immediately headed off to book a room for the rehearsal dinner. That went pretty well, considering how difficult it'd been to get this appointment to talk to someone about the whole thing.

We got home a bit before Nena's dad got in from work, so when he arrived he found us drinking out on the patio. Ahhh, drinking on the patio. When I look back at this trip I wonder what percentage of my memories are going to involve Nena's and my parents drinking together out on the patio.

We had a nice dinner and opened up a bottle of wine Nena's brought her parents from France a million years ago. Before you knew it, it was bedtime. We were getting up at fuck you o'clock in the morning and driving straight to Lawrence. We needed our sleep.

As a rule, my familia doesn't eat at Denny's. Why? Because no matter where you go, Denny's sucks. It's just one of those rules of dining. It sucks because it's so close to being decent that the discrepancy pains you. And since you know that Denny's sucks, you have no one else to blame for your lack of a quality dining experience.

My father and I kept deciding to forgo breakfast in lieu of getting farther along before we ate anything. First, Albuquerque went by. Then Santa Rosa. By the time we got to Tucumcari we realized that there was no way we could get Mom to Amarillo without feeding her. There are a few exits for Tucumcari on I-40 and at each my father told me to keep going on to the next one. Sure enough, when we were down to the last exit, the only place to eat, was Denny's.

Yeah, it sucked. We lost over an hour at Denny's because they lost our order. To make up for it, they took 10% off our meal. WHOO! 10% of $15. Great.

The Denny's was really surreal, though. It has been redone in the "classic diner" motif that Denny's is going with these days. To invoke Americana, they have aluminum everything in the place and then pictures of great jazz musicians. Oddly enough, if you don't think too hard about the actual historical context in which many of these pictures were taken- it works. I know I have more thoughts on the matter, but just not today.

We left Tucumcari after spending more time than I ever thought I'd spend in that town and headed onwards. Amarillo brought us another chance to snap a picture of the Big Texan.

Did I mention that the state of Texas is cheap? They have "picnic areas" every twenty miles or so along I-40. These picnic areas are a chance to rest and sit pull off the road. Great right? Only none of them have bathrooms. We stopped at the ONLY rest area in the Texas panhandle sometime in the morning/early afternoon. Mom left her breakfast behind at the rest area- once again, Denny's blows.

On and on we drove, the miles flying by. Mom slept some, talked some, and stared out the window a lot. I really hope I can be as wide eyed at everything as she is. We joke about my mom a lot in my familia, hell- we joke about each other a ton in my familia. If you don't have a decently thick skin, you're just not going to last very long. But for all of our joking about my mom's wide eyed amazement at the world around her- it really is an incredible attribute. I really hope to carry that with me as I get older.

The trip back brought more of the jokes and conversation that the trip down had brought. And a lot more silence. By the time we stopped at a rest area in Oklahoma we'd pretty much run out of things to talk about. It'd been a long week and we were ready to be home.

We got to OKC and made our hard left to get north as the skies threatened rain. Nothing came down and we started looking for a tourney game on the radio as soon as we were clear of OKC. No games yet, just lots of OSU pregame chatter. We passed Stillwater just before tipoff and kept on going.

The end of this drive is brutal. You keep wanting Stillwater to come up over the horizon and it never does. After Stillwater, you've been on the road 10 hours or so and you're anxious to get off. Only, it's only three more hours to Lawrence, so stopping for the night makes no sense.

You press onward, getting over the border into Kansas and then praying for Wichita, then Emporia, then Topeka, then Lawrence. In retrospect, hanging a right at Emporia to Ottawa and north to Lawrence might have been faster, but we were too tired to try anything new. We just wanted to get to Lawrence, which we did around 9p or so.

We rolled into L-Town and had dinner at Jefferson's, introducing my parents to one of my favorite places in this town. We watched basketball, ate burgers and stumbled home. It'd been a long trip and I'm going to enjoy having my folks around for a few days. Yeah, it's good to be home.

Posted by nenie at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I am never going to be on time for anything ever again.

When I was a kid, my father continually beat punctuality into my head. "If you're on time, your late" was the mentality in my house growing up. Nena, however, doesn't have this strict a sense of time. For her, time is much, much more fluid. She means to be on time to things; it just never happens that she is actually on time. I have come to grips with the fact that I am going to spend the rest of my life waiting for her.

Nena and I had an 11a appointment to get our engagement pictures done. Being that it's 40 minutes to town- we had to be out the door no later than 10a. Yeah, that didn't happen.

I hauled ass into town and we were only like 20 minutes late. Good thing our photographer is supercool. Have I mentioned how much I love our wedding photographer? Kyle rocks my socks off. Besides having a brilliant sense of aesthetic, she's a full on Mac user and a supercool human being. Stopping into Kyle's studio always turns into me geeking with her over Mac hardware and photography, which always ends with us comparing our Mac phalluses. Han normally holds up pretty well in these comparisons, but I think Kyle's new dual G5 is going to beat my boy up sumfin' FIERCE. Oh well.

The pictures were a lot of fun and some of them turned out pretty decent, too. Nena looked incredible as always and Kyle even managed to make me look like not an idiot in some of those pics. If nothing else, it was nice to spend time with Nena, just the two of us. . .and a photographer. The great thing was that Kyle is relatively unobtrusive, she just sets you up and tells you to run with her instructions. Yeah, after all this running around to get things done and worrying over our parents getting along- it was nice to just spend time with each other.

We'd left the 'rents back home with instructions to meet for dinner in town. This wasn't the original plan, but suffice it to say that outlining the original plan would take entirely too much time. Suffice it to say we had two dads trying to band together to make plans for their children when the outside world got in the way. You can only imagine what the subsequent negotiations with reality were like.

After the pictures Nena and I went to meet up with my other mother MaModz for lunch. Thing is, she was an hour late for lunch and so our very carefully constructed schedule went out the window. We'd managed to make up the time we'd lost coming into town late in getting to lunch and now, we were so behind that there was no attempting to get back on schedule.

Lunch was brilliant, as any time spent with MaModz is want to be. I honestly think that MaModz likes Nena more than she likes me, which for those of you who know the dynamic between MaModz and any of her kidz, is saying something. BTW, she says hi to all the Boys of 04A.

We'd planned to run across town and visit out friend Zee who'd gotten married last Wednesday. With our list of things to do and the time we had left to get everything done heading across town to Zee's didn't seem like the smartest idea- but then again- the smartest idea isn't always the best plan.

While at Zee's, the skies opened up. It was amazing. First the clouds rolled in, it got really dark in the middle of the day, then drizzle sent as a warning shot across your nose. Then, the onslaught. Freaking intense. Not quite as cool as an old fashioned Midwestern Thunderstorm, but damn cool nonetheless.

The storm validated our visit and we headed off to take care of the last of our errands when our parents called. They'd changed the timetable for the day and wanted to meet us for dinner RIGHT NOW. I don't know if Nena sensed the dynamic here and I only had a clue about it in realtime. But right then, we decided to take a stand for us and our time right here, right now. We'd made a plan and we were going to stick to that timetable. Nena and I were going to take the time we needed to get our things done.

So we told our parents no, we were busy and we'd meet them at the pre-appointed time.

There wasn't a protest. Just like that, we'd asserted ourselves. It was one of those big moments, in retrospect. At the time, though- it was pretty mundane.

At that moment, a tumbleweed rolled in front of our car. It was the first tumbleweed I'd ever seen. I'd like to think it was an omen of good.

When we finally did catch up with our parents in Old Town, they'd spent their extra time wandering in and out of the shops and talking. It was pretty amazing, rounding the corner and just happening to find them in Old Town. If you didn't know any better, you'd swear you were running into four old friends playing hooky from work on a beautiful March afternoon. There was no indication that these four were barely more than strangers the day before.

Once inside the restaurant for our big farewell dinner we began to trades stories of our day. My dad was sunburned, which meant his story was going to rock. Nena's mom had taken my folks up to Sky City for the day. Sky City is thought to be the hemisphere's longest continually lived in city. The Acoma have been calling this pueblo home for almost 900 years. Though I have yet to actually visit Sky City, all of my reading on it has led me to believe that it'd be a pretty freakin' cool place to visit. My parents fed into this assumption as they told me their story.

When I asked them how it compared to Monday's trip to La Ventana my mother answered it pretty quickly, "no hay comparasion." I'll let y'all figure out what it means from context clues.

My mother has a newfound passion for Acoma pottery and my father an appreciation for how hot the sun gets when its RIGHT THERE on your head.

We've seen some amazing things over the past few days. Monday's trip to La Ventana is a good example of all this. We had some time to kill before Nena's birthday party so I loaded my parents in the Maxima and headed out here. I'd wanted to visit since my first trip out here but Nena, having grown out up here, didn't really see the attraction. There's a story here that I'll spare us all.

La Ventana is a rock formation where the winds have literally blown a hole in the rock. Driving up to La Ventana, though you're inside of El Malpais National Monument. In and of itself, El Malpais is pretty amazing. Incredible views all around you. You can see forever from any point in the area and the whole drive left us all speechless. Granted, it's my family so even when we're speechless- we have something to say. The entire drive, though, we kept thinking how simultaneously good and bad it was that Drieg wasn't with us. It was an amazing experience that we really wish he could have shared in. But at the same time, it was pretty boring unless you're geeky like my parents and I are.

Dinner was wonderful and at the end Nena and I bailed while our fathers argued very politely over who was going to pick up the check. Nena's dad won, which means that he and Nena's mom should expect a really nice gift in the mail in the next few weeks. This Cold War of hospitality is definitely going to keep me entertained over the next thirty years.

After dinner, the parents headed home and Nena and I wandered Old Town by ourselves. We were silent for a lot of that time, but it was the kind of silence that's so reassuring. The kind where silence says more than words could ever do. Whenever the there was a lull in the silence, we'd speak up and talk until we were ready to pick up our conversation again. This really is a beautiful place, one I wouldn't mind someday calling home. But that day is a long while away. There are still too many other places and roads calling us to try them out for us to consider coming back here- or to Chicago, either.

On our way home we swung by Tryst's to say goodbye to him and his gf. Nena's leaving in the morning and it's doubtful that she'll see her brother between now and our wedding. It was a nice visit. Tryst and I have had our differences over the years, but we've come to the point where we actually really respect each other. Dare I even say we like each other? Yes, I do. I really like Tryst and the feeling is pretty mutual.

It was a quick drive home from town, much quicker than the hurried drive in. It'd been a long day, but a good one. Nena's gone in the morning and then my parents and I are gone Thursday morning bright and early. It's been a good trip, sad that it's ending, but it's definitely time to go home.

Posted by nenie at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's funny, whenever we're preparing to travel with my mother, she spends an inordinate amount of time before the trip worrying about how the change in climate is going to effect her. If we're going to be at higher altitude, that's an issue. If we're going to be in a more humid location, a hotter, a colder, a brighter or darker climate- it's an issue. Imagine then a desert in the mountains.

Funny thing is, my mother woke up this morning more rested and relaxed than I'd seen her in forever. It was pretty cool. I think the arrid surrounding are doing her some good. I think, and this is only a supposition because she would never admit this to me or anyone, that she's finally understanding why people retire to the desert. It's not a bad deal- all in all.

Granted, it is March and this is hardly a barren wasteland. But we take these things as they come.

The morning was spent acclimating my family's morning routine with Nena's family's. Her parents went about their business, offering my parents coffee and breakfast while my parents went about their own business offering Nena's parents what they were making. While in most situations this would be a recipe for disaster, it worked incredibly smoothly this morning. Everyone gave each other the space they needed and was actually appreciative of the contributions everyone had to offer to the group. I just sat there