…

i can’t even begin to tell about how beautiful a day this was.

but i know i have to try sometime.

-brian.b

hello via facebook

this is an app very much worth downloading, if you want to interconnect your life. if you want to be not interconnected, or disinterconnected, then don’t get this app.

moving to florida: day one

(all times pst)

7:00pm. i manage to pack everything i am taking to miami in this car:

if you remember how my car used to look, then you’ll notice it’s been painted/retinted/re-tired/re-hubcapped. oh, and you can call that color desert twilight. i chose it and made up its name.

11:30pm. the first speedbump in our plans was that starbucks was closed, but we needed caffeine. however we met darly at the circle k and she gave us free coffee. all in all, a good start.

12:00am. we get on the i-10 freeway, and officially begin our trek across country. i put on demetri martin’s hilarious stand-up/musical album these are jokes. nick laughs.

1:30am. i realize that i won’t see my parents again for at least three months. it hurts.

2:00am. we are now the farthest east that i have ever driven: blythe, california. it smells like the spa water from this gym i used to use. it smells bad. we go inside a denny’s to use the restroom and grab some soda. on our way out, nick tosses his straw wrapper at the trash can and it sticks to the side. it becomes clear that humidity exists in most of the usa.

3:00am. the two of us reach the arizona border.

3:30am. i have my twelfth-ever interstate cigarette. tastes good.

4:00am. nick and i pull into buckeye, az – his old resenting-grounds. i’ve driven for 300 miles by this point, and the world looks like this:

so nick takes over at the wheel and takes me on a tour of all the buckeye hotspots: the grain silos he used to jump off, the water reclamation canals he used to surf, the grocery market, the post office, the new high school, the intersection where a lady plowed into him at 50mph and pushed him into oncoming traffic which (on that day) was a big rig that broke his neck… you know, typical kid stuff.
7:30am. the desert gets beautiful with a sunrise:

i am now very tired, and nap for an hour or two.

10:00am. we hit new mexico, and come across a series of signs:
- WARNING: blowing dust may occur
- DO NOT stop in lanes of traffic
- ZERO visibility possible.

creeeepy.

10:30am. we pull into a chevron to refuel. i find these photo opportunities in the men’s bathroom:

so, the sinks are for decoration only?

12:00pm. two trucks take turns trading lanes. that seems like a fun game, but i do not want to be behind them. so i start to pass on the right. when i’m halfway through one truck’s box, he starts to merge into my lane. if i go the same speed or slow down, i will absolutely get hit. so i speed up.

i have to go from 80 to 90mph NOT to get hit. i maintain this speed for about thirty seconds when i realize i’m no longer on cruise control and decelerate to speed limit. however, that thirty seconds was enough for a police officer to tag me in a speedtrap. i get my third ever ticket. i really don’t think i deserve this one, but i’ve damn sure deserved them when i didn’t get nabbed. still, not fun.

1:00pm. arrive in las cruces, new mexico, a city with very bendy streets. i get lost looking for a restaurant a friend recommends. after twenty minutes, i find it. i say this with confidence: corrella’s is the best mexican dive ever.

1:30pm. another customer at said mexican restaurant tells us where we can get hour-long massages (albeit on roller beds and automatic massage chairs). nick and i both enjoy the stress relief. costs $5. five. best $5 ever spent.

3:00pm. arrive in el paso, and bed down at the radisson for the night. applebee’s long island iced teas are some of the best ever.

5:00pm. change watch to mst and finish blog. plan to hop in pool/spa, have a clove, and crash.

tomorrow: the drive through texas and some/most of louisiana.

[keeping it real in any state but arkansas]
-brian.b

hard choices

i will begin the drive to miami in 19 hours. since i am only taking one carload full of stuff (and since my best friend nick is coming along for the drive), packing was quite an ordeal. in the end, though, i only had to leave behind my mr. coffee and about 30 books – which, if you know me, is about 1/10th of all the books i have.

it’s weird. when i was 13, and packing a backpack for a day trip, i never would have thought of taking a book. now at 23, it’s hard to part with any of them.

[reading is cool at village school]
-brian.b

how to have an interesting experience #19: while in the bathroom

1. attend an accredited university.
2. visit one of said university’s restroom facilities.
3. make sure the seat is down and clean.
4. put your own seat down on the seat that is down and clean.
5. wait.
6. wait.
7. notice that the small of your back itches.
8. assume it is the heat and ignore.
9. notice that the small of your back itches.
10. assume it is the heat and ignore.
11. notice the small of your back itches.
12. assume it is the heat, but leave open the option that it might be ants crawling on you.
13. scratch the itchy small of back.
14. look at finger.
15. note the dead and on your fingertip.
16. stand up.
17. find many ants are now on your toilet seat.
18. accept the fact that your toilet seat is down, but no longer clean.
19. accept the fact that your OWN seat is no longer down OR clean.
20. hurry home.
21. shower in new and unsettling postures.

[have an absolute BLAST!]
-brian.b

is this really happening?

it’s hard to believe that ten days from now, i will be 700 miles east of los angeles, and 2200 miles away from my new condo in miami.

how will i wrap it all up with you? how will this phase draw to a close when there’s only 10 days to write the end of the chapter? i honestly don’t know.

and i’m sitting at home tonight.

[it just feels like a monday.]
-brian.b

trick question

question: what weighs 8.7 lbs, measures 19 inches long?

-

- -

- – -

answer: the thing that makes me an uncle.

[that's right, my sister had her baby boy.]
-brian.b

you won’t believe what i saw today

this is simply the most incredible thing i’ve ever ever seen. today, while driving towards home, i saw a car actually PULL IN to the drive-through of a wienerschnitzel!!! i know, it’s so totally unfathomable that anyone in their right mind would do this.

if i were dying in the wild, and a hot dog from wienerschnitzel suddenly appeared and said “go ahead, take a bite. i’m quite tasty,” well… i’d know i was hallucinating. and i would cry about that because hallucinating is always a sign things are really bad.

more realistically, if i were HUNGRY in the wild, and it was a five mile walk to the nearest mcdonald’s, but someone offered me a free sample of wienerschnitzel, i’d pass and take my chances with the walk.

i dunno – the idea of fast food sausage really disconcerts me… am i weird for that?

i told my friend tim about this, and he said “you know, someday i’d like to try wienerschnitzel. just to try it, you know?”

and i said, “okay, but promise me – PROMISE ME – you’ll keep your next day entirely open. just in case.”

he promised without blinking an eye.

[pass the rotting cabbage, please]
-brian.b

like an interactive post secret.

http://www.43things.com/

-brian.b

Considering the Term “Most Embarassing.”

i can’t count the number of times i’ve either heard a conversation start with and/or begun a conversation myself with the phrase, “the most embarassing thing happened today.”

i used to balk at this idiom, thinking “that must be an exaggeration. the most embarassing can’t happen every time someone tells an embarassing story.”

but now i think i need to take that back.

consider it this way: each time you report about the “most embarassing thing” that’s happened to you, you set a new precedent for what is “most embarassing.” but you ALSO simultaneously process and deal with this new “most embarassing thing.” in other words, you learn that it’s not something to be THAT ashamed of. there are worse things to have happen than, say, taking a dive right in front of the girl you like. for example, you might just walk down the beach with your penis hanging out – all the while unaware about the peepshow.

and yes, i’ve done both.

here’s the thing… after taking said dive in front of said girl i had a crush on, i got over it. thereafter, any time i did the same sort of thing, i simply remembered, “oh, this is like that one time when i fell on my face in front of berry. hahaha. oops. oh well.”

in other words, it takes something NOT JUST EQUAL TO BUT EVEN MORE HUMILIATING than the previous embarassing experience to REALLY embarass you at all… for example, again, walking down the beach with my privates hanging out really does make any time i fell on my face look like child’s play.

but should i ever walk down the beach with my penis hanging out AGAIN, i’ll simply remember that i got through it before.

that’s setting the bar pretty high – or low, depending on your perspective.

i really wonder what it will take to embarass me next time around.

[spastic colon in the middle of church? ...shudder]
-brian.b