03/11/2005 - 12:25 a.m. | texas trip recap (from ages past)

Here's a weird thought: I woke up today and thought, "OK, better write about six months ago when I went to Texas." Yep, better do that. But it's so long ago! How will he remember? Hahaha, bitch, you don't know me at all, do you?

Wednesday, September 15, 2004.

What do I remember of this day? We took our asses out to Bennigan's, yeah, with Dank and Kay and Jason Kahn. He had only a milkshake, bitch. What else you got? Afterwards, Shelly taunted me, and I gave her the last of my idle threats before I tackled her ass, hahaha. She moaned the whiny universal phrase of all girls who are lightly trounced upon when the rough housing gets too rough: "I'm gonna get a bruise there!" Perhaps this might explain why she bit me a few months done the road. In the mean time, it was decided that I would try pot for the first time, and Spritz went to work constructing a device. "Chew some more gum," he said. We went out on the porch and tried it. End result was Spritz getting giggly for about 30 seconds and then sick as death for the rest of the night. All I got was a daylong headache, and I could not follow the plot of stupid Bound (starring Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly!) at all. Lesbians try to outwit a mobster for a sack of money. Made by the guys who did The Matrix, so lots of unnecessary camera work. I'll just hit the hay then.

Thursday, September 16, 2004.

Did what little I had to before I could get out the door, all the while assuring myself that this was probably not a terrible idea, I would not be raped and eaten, etc. And then the drive. More than likely the longest of them all, just because I didn't know where I was going (GO WEST!) as well as the fact as the roads were under construction every 20 miles or so, so suddenly traffic would grind to a halt, and I'd have to slam on the brakes to not hit the car in front of me, even then weaving insanely into the next lane so as to buy a little more time. The sights are a little more familiar now, and it's a hell of a lot easier to piss in the Gatorade bottle while driving, but I had no idea if I was making any progress at all, and I thought, "God, what an insane venture. Maybe she doesn't even want me there." But on I went.

The eight plus hours passed (Fireworks and porn as far as the eye could see), and I was getting very close to Manhattan, KS, my final destination. Did you know that Kansas has a turnpike? Haha, what bullshit. Kansas don't need no turnpike - it's just trying to be all high and mighty like New Jersey. Well, hell, you smell like egg farts the second I drive in, so you're nearly all there now, baby! So, I was close, but my gas needle was down well past E, and I had not seen shit for miles and miles. Finally, I got on the turnoff to Manhattan. 9 miles to go. I start talking to myself (and the car). "Just keep it up, baby! Nice and easy! We're nearly there now, girl!" But suddenly speed starts dropping rapidly. From 70 (which is the speed limit there, Mom!) to a lurching 50 mph, and that's with the pedal to the floor. Old Girl's shuddering and slowing every minute. Signs of civilization, houses and whatnot, are coming up, but what I really need is a gas station. Speed's down to about 25 now, and I'm rocking back and forth, trying to get the car to go just a little bit further. Not the grand entrance I wanted, calling girl up to make her come and get my stupid ass. I could walk to the nearest gas station and buy a tank for some gas, but they'll prolly charge me up the ass and God only knows how far I have to go. We're about in Manhattan proper by now, down to 15 mph or so, and off in the distance I spy a Phillips 66. Sweetest sight I ever saw. I rock even more frantically, chanting, "Just a bit more, just a bit more." Drop down to 5 mph, and I'm practically leaping back and forth in my seat. "Nearly there, girl! Come on!" And just as I'm turning in to the entrance, I finally lurch to a stop. Car won't start, and it won't let me shift into neutral to push it forward that last bit. Ten feet away from the pump. Store's closed, and I am pissed off as hell. "Just a little more, you bitch!" I yell, smashing the gas down again and again. Finally, the car hiccups to life one last time and gets me over to the pump. Success.

Past 12:30 already, and I still have no idea where I'm going. Mapquest tells me I'm looking for some road called Ehlers. I just keep saying it over and over again. "EH-lers. EH-lers." I figure since Mapquest always makes you take main highways and such, that EH-lers will have to be at some big intersection, but I seriously underestimate the chaos that it is Mapquest's navigational system. For this one rare instance, they want me to take the most hidden shortcut path of all time. After looping around mysterious Manhattan for another half an hour, I finally find the road tucked away behind some forest of trees, halfway down a hill, some fake road next to a Sav-a-lot or something. Down this crazy steep hill of doom, a few random zig-zagging turns, and I'm finally on the right road. No house numbers, though, so I have to run up the mailboxes of likely candidates and dig through for junk mail to reveal clues. Finally, I'm there. Oh. This is a little nerve-wracking.

So I walk up, and I knock on the door. Am I holding my bag? She answers. Do we hug? I don't think we hug. It's past 1 now, and we're all a little nervous. Me, Missy (in her String Cheese Incident t-shirt lol lol lol), and Ashley, who I am assuming was there to provide some sort of backup in case I was a psych killer. It would seem I passed the test, for after watching some weirdass carousel opera, Ashley went out to go grab Julie, who was apparently drunk beyond reason at a party. She might be crying, I was warned. It was cool, though. She was a happy drunk and kept tackling Missy and tell me how adorable I was. "Nathan, you are adorable," she would slur. It sort of ruled. Anyway, I was given the all-clear, and eventually it was just me and Miss. She told me we pretty much had to leave at like 5 the next morning, which really meant we should have gone straight to bed, but I think we were much too eager to hang out with each other. We talked about God knows what and then went outside for our long-contested hula hoop contest (I had brought mine along, incidentally). I kicked the girl's ass. Hard. Let that be a lesson to you bitches. I am King Swivel. Eventually, we went to our respective areas (I had no illusions about sharing a room with her that first night) and crashed for about twenty minutes.

Friday, September 17, 2004.

Now firmly established as not mentally disturbed (either of us), and with fourteen or so hours driving ahead of us, we talked an awful lot that day. Too much to even begin to guess what we talked about, especially since I consider myself such a subpar conversationalist, but then, I guess we didn't really know each other all that well either. We'd been e-mailing back and forth for 2 months, every couple of days or so, but only so much information can be conveyed. Did I think I was winning her over? Yes. Frankly, I think I could get just about anyone to like me with a couple weeks of e-mails, and over half a day in a car together. It's too bad the system does not often work like that. I'm not bad at first impressions, I guess, but I'm pretty much Jesus at extended intervals of communication for some reason. I learned after the fact that Missy's friends liked my e-mails even more than she did; she thought her best friend Tracy all wanted up on my ass. Hahaha. Girl's even paranoid just like me!

We arrived in Lawrence, KS, to pick up Tracy (of the Big Boobs) at her res hall. She reminds me of a sad puppy for some reason, but she stole a sack full of crap from her lunchroom, so at least we would have things to eat. With the addition of Tracy began the interesting dynamic where Missy and I began to give each other shit all the time. And people say that doesn't count as flirting! Of course, I never actually stopped, which some might count as a flaw, but horseshit on them! I'm just interesting! We drove and drove and drove and drove and drove. I rode shotgun pretty much the whole trip, and Missy drove most of the way. She went in the back to sleep, but I had more luck passing out in the most horrible, hot, uncomfortable position ever. Texas is the biggest state ever. Austin is pretty much right around the middle, and it still took all of forever. We stopped pretty much only for gas, rotating on who paid. Got me some candy necklaces and glass-bottle Dr. Pepper. I have nothing if not classy tastes. The bridges in Kansas are numbered; why is that? And along the way, I spotted this 20 foot tall dilapidated old wooden can of Coors Beer, which I made Tracy and Missy stand in front of for a picture on my tiny disposable camera. "Every giant beer we shall take a picture of!" I yelled. We found a Starbucks once and were relentlessly happy. I too-loudly made fun of the sorority bitches in front of us in line, thus alienating them from me forever. "Damn it!" I cried. "Now I shall never have the pleasure of gonorrhea from random Podunk, Texas, bitches!" We were all a little punchy, I guess.

We finally, finally made it into Austin, right around rush hour, so it was crazy as hell, and we could not find our hotel because someone had only printed out directions from hotel to the concert and not how to get to the hotel at all. We kept seeing the sign pass by - damn Econolodge! - but we could not figure out how to get there, so we get sucked into this cycling loop of slow angry traffic over and over again. Worse still, we all had to pee. Worse still, Missy's Ford Contour was making some scary as hell noises every time she hit the brakes. Pretty much sounded like the lord coming down from on high, thunder and explosions, pigs squealing, babies bursting into flames, that sort of thing. No one else seemed to be noticing it, though, so we feared the worst: Cabin fever. OK, not really. There was some sort of argument about the year this one particular car model was made, culminating in a final effort as we yelled at a very confused Asian guy about his Grand Prix or whatever the hell it was.

We eventually did find the hotel through an intricate maze of lane changing and random turning. I hid in the bushes while Missy and Tracy checked in because, as I might have mentioned, I jumped on board for this thing sort of late. Did I mention we would all be sharing one bed? Yep! We made amazingly good time, as Missy is somewhat of a speed demon, such that we could catch the closing act of the first night of the festival: SHERYL CROW! Well, darn it all if I only bought two day passes instead of the three-shot deal, so I couldn't make it. I guess I'll just have to miss out. Shucks. Took some convincing, but I got them to go, and I collapsed on the bed and read about serial killers for a while (I know how to make a good impression). As I was downing some of the junk food from the ride up, my parents called. "What are you up to?" "Ah, you know... same old stuff... I'm in Texas, by the way." It is fun playing these sorts of tricks.

Missy and Tracy came back, and I don't think I missed very much. It was crowded as hell, and Sheryl kept making ham-fisted references to her boyfriend. Yes, dear, we get it. Yellow guitar is like yellow bracelet is like living strong is like cancer-fighting bicycle superstar. I had one question: "Did she play 'Strong Enough?'" "Closing number." "Awesome." We hit the hay.

We all slept sideways on the bed, me next to Missy, Missy next to Tracy. I tried to keep my legs scrunched up all fetus-like, but I left them dangling for most of the time. I also tried to keep the far-fuck away from Missy, so that she would think I was some stalker pervert and was rather here purely for the music. Ha ha ha. Remember how I told Kay like two months prior I was going to this shit? Oh hell yes. How weird I was right.

Saturday, September 18, 2004.

The next day we went, blurry-eyed, down to the continental breakfast. They had something about alligators on the news. Fascinating stuff, Austin. As I ate my donut and raisin bran and tried to make drooly conversation, I noticed that Tracy seemed sort of put off by something. Missy noticed it, too, and we talked about what it could be on the walk back up to the room. While I showered, they had words, I guess, and it would appear that Tracy thought Missy was giving me some blowjob loving all night long. LOLOLOLOLOL I guess the mind does tend to play tricks in situations like that, so every yawn and shift in position probably sounded completely horrible to her, and I'm really sorry she had to deal with it (having gone through similar hell myself), but it is still funny as fuck, especially considering it took me the whole damn night just to put my arm around the girl. Which we did not speak of during the day, resuming our policy of pretending to hate each other. Missy tried to set Tracy straight, but I don't think she really believed her, and I was not allowed to talk about it at all, so it was more than a little awkward for a while. Oh, the jokes I could have made!

While the other two showered, I watched the local news. Los Lonely Boys, singers of that horrible radio hit "Heaven" and headlining performers from the evening before, came on with their zany Hispanic joshing around and told me I should drink some water. "Guys!!" I yelled through the bathroom door. "Los Lonely Boys told us to drink water! They know about this sort of shit!" Silence. "HEY! This is important!"

The duo had done all the work the day before, so there was no trouble navigating to the shuttle bus thingie. None of us opted for sunscreen, a stupid, stupid error in the longrun. But damn! I tan! I thought I'd be all good! While waiting for the shuttle, I grabbed a program for the festival, the back page of which I kept in my pocket all weekend and now have in front of me so as to remember the order of things. It is in a bad shape from my sweaty ass. We rode the shuttle off to the main area, me sitting next to Tracy very awkwardly (for obvious reasons), and then I ran to get my tickets and to get two more pictures of the pair in front of giant beer! Yes! We weren't sure of their policy on bringing water in, but we figured with how hot it was going to be, there was no way they would turn down the two rinky-dink bottles we had. Wrong-o. Gotta finish those two now so you can buy our $7 16.9 (not 20!) oz. Aquafina bullshit for the rest of the day! Tanks.

"Well, I ain't gonna buy none of that shit," I said, and I didn't. I also did not pee for the next two days, as every drop of liquid in my body was secreted that first afternoon. I had a glass of lemonade for cancer, some warm-ass drops at the bottom of their bottles, and a diabetic-coma-inducing passion fruit Tropica Sno so syrupy sweet that it came out through my pores as little tiny sugar cubes. I also wore sandals the whole time and did not once take off my shirt, despite prodding from that little shit Missy. Why am I telling you all of this? Because I care.

The Greencards - The first act of the day we stumbled upon sort of by accident. We were killing time until something we really wanted to see started, and I spotted a guy with dark hair and a mandolin, and I said, "Let's go." He had an accent, too, I think, so more or less he was perfect. As it was still early, we got pretty close to the front of the stage, so if you wonder why photos of the trip are predominated by him, well, you've got yourself. He was hot as hell. Still, I made it a point to try and get at least one blurry terrible picture of every act I went and saw, so there you go, nostalgia. Enjoy. It was just sort of cute, twangy music, and he yelled some, and it passed the time pleasantly enough until...

Mason Jennings - Definitely won my vote as Best New Artist I saw at the festival. He was cute as hell in his green and blue striped shirt, and his songs were pretty catchy on the first listen, and the area wasn't too overly-dominated by screeching sorority girls. When he started yelling during "The Mountain," I remember thinking, "What a dark and sexy song. I shall love this man." And then I did. His bassist was sort of an artfag with his paramilitary shirt, skinny tie, and huge Jewfro, and apparently all the girls go wild for it, so I'm glad that he is gay. I also vaguely recalled at this moment that this was the guy I was supposed to be buying tickets for for Justin and Lisa. Oops. Put it on the to-do list.

Old 97's - We had some time before the Old 97's (Fuck off, Cat Power!), and we wanted a good spot, so after a break in the shade by the toilets (Mmm! Hot urinals! There's a smell you want to just bask in!), we started shoving our way forward. Course, the kids up front were the insane, die-hard Pixies fans who were willing to sit all day in the sun, listening to whatever crap was given to them, just for the chance to have Frank Black's spittle land on them, so we could only get so close. Meanwhile, 3 o'clock was rolling around, and the heat was starting to take its toll on some people. Annoying bitch who kept touching me with her bag toppled over (Can't say I was overly sypathetic), but even Tracy started to get sort of woozy and ran to get water. "Damn it!" I said. "We should have listened to Los Lonely Boys!" Not me and Missy, though! We stayed in the crowd, enduring the heat and constant human contact (Well, the latter one was more of a problem for me, I think, as I would have much preferred a ten foot cone of space around everyone of us) until Rhett and company came out. Rhett was, unfortunately, not drunk, but he jumped around, and maybe I got some good action shots, and I think the Pixies kids were sort of surprised at how good they were. We yelled and sang and jumped around, and the band kept pouring water on us. An hour was not nearly long enough.

The Gourds - We split up at this point. Missy and Tracy went off to see Howie Day, but I was not in town for no college girl soft rock! I want some stanky pervert music! Luckily, the Gourds were happy to oblige. I was sort of surprised that they were playing in the afternoon with some of the bigger gigs; up here, nobody has even heard of them. I think they're fairly local, though, so they had a big crowd, and everyone was lovin' it, all grinding and smoking weed and singing along and whatnot. The band, by the way, is cool as hell. On their website, they describe themselves as "music for the unwashed and well-read," and that's about as fitting as it gets. Their lyrics are all really clever, and they each seem to be able to play any number of instruments (The head guy uses mostly mandolin - yes!), but man, do they ever look a sight. Like a big old pack of dirty, stinky rednecks. The fiddle guy was shirtless and all fat and bobbin' around. It was awesome! Some horrid redhead girl all fat in her swimsuit kept giving me the eye, though, and following me as I slowly shifted away. I tried to give her the opposite of the eye. Have you seen Kyle's buttsex face? It was like that, but more horrified and angrier. I had to piss off so many people to shove up far enough to get a picture.

Modest Mouse - Man, you know, fuck Modest Mouse! They were by far the most mediocre part of the whole festival. We joined part of this huge line trying to weave its way forward closer to the band, making insane paths, leaping over blankets and people, getting stuck, doubling-back, and most of all, waiting, and eventually, as we stood there and listen to them half-heartedly bang out a shit version of "Float On," not even dancing around a little, just standing, and we said, "Fuck this," and left the line to go get some food. On the plus side, I'd been joking for some time about going to see Abra Moore and hear her hit single "Four Leaf Clover" (which they played constantly at the Buckle), and as we wanted in line for our smoothies and nachos or whatever, I caught the very last part of her act, including guess what song? Can die happy now.

Dashboard Confessional - Our choice for headlining acts of the evening were either this and the Pixies or two hours of hell from Trey Anastasio. Missy, a former Phish fan desperately trying to sever her roots, said she didn't care to see him, and the choice was made. For supposedly not liking the band so much, I knew an awful, awful, awful lot of their lyrics and screamed them from our weird transitory part of the crowd right by the sound booth. Yes, please open with "Swiss Army Romance." You've made my life. I also called up Spritz and held up the phone so he could hear the shit. Missy: "Man, I hate the guy that always does that." Yeah, me too.

The Pixies - The most I ever knew of the Pixies was a Frank Black song on my Powerpuff Girls soundtrack, but hey, I liked the song, and lots of people were being absolutely fanatical about seeing them, and it was such a once-in-a-lifetime thing for them to be back together, and Pitchfork always made awkward pretentious references to them, so we figured we'd see and say what the big deal was. Underwhelming is what it was. It wasn't so much that they didn't put on a good show - I mean, the crowd seemed to be loving it, and the band seemed like they were working hard and having fun... but I have since listened to some of their studio stuff, and I liked it a lot lot more after the fact. Let's hope I get shot for saying maybe they're just one of those bands whose stuff doesn't transfer to a live venue very well. Missy and Tracy fairly well hated it, though, and sat down on the ground to wait the rest of the evening out. Some more people passed out and were brought over behind the soundbooth and given water. We thought about pretending to be their friends because, hell, we could have used some free water by then.

We slowly filed out with the rest of the audience. The line for the shuttles was ridiculous and not moving, so we decided to hoof it back to the car. We were assaulted by street vendors along the way - Tracy ended up looking at pipes for her boyfriend while Missy strained to hear Phish's "Tube" off in the distance (Her favorite song, I'm told. Mostly I just smirked inwardly because I mentally added "steak" after the title). They had these cute little bicycle taxis, and we tried to grab one, but it was way, way overpriced, and the guy who came up to us looked like he'd stab us for the rest of our money anyway. Then we watched as an SUV ran over the back tire of a bike as it was racing across the street. Asshole SUVs. We stopped at some hotel for Tracy to pee, and I loudly began accusing those who left the hotel of being prostitutes (Much to Missy's chagrin). Found the car and then tried to find the one bar Mason Jennings was supposed to be playing at that night, road construction and a series of one way streets made the road with the bar on it completely inaccessible for miles and miles. Dejected, we came back home and crashed, all of us red as hell.

Sunday, September 19, 2004.

None of the early morning acts were really any good, so we took our sweet time in getting ready to go. Stopped at a store for a big gallon of water each as well as sack of bread and peanut butter so as to make sammiches. I bought a jar of jelly which no one else seemed to want. How do you do PB without the J? Man, I used to do J without the PB - that is some crazy shit! As we made our purchases, we noticed the front page of the Austin newspaper had a picture from the festival on the front. Specifically, it was a crowd shot from the Old 97's show. Hell yeah, we were in it! Hell yeah, we were famous! Walking back to the car, we noticed this old pimpmobile covered in these fake gold coins. One said had a woman's boobs on it and the other had her ass. We each took one.

Planning our early escape (a product of the upcoming twelve plus hour drive to be done that evening), we parked on some crazy hill and walked the mile or so to the festival to explore a little. I found a huge bottle of wine I wanted to get a picture of Missy and Tracy in front of. "We only do beer pictures," says Missy. Hit the gift shop record store thing and sat around eating sandwiches until...

The Roots - Unfortunately, most of my memory for this part of the show was washed out by the horrible sight of ugly chunky goth hippie lady grinding all up redheaded shirtless bearded Amish guy. They were... pretty good, I assume. But we couldn't see so well when they did the dual-drumming, so it wasn't nearly as impressive as last time.

Ben Kweller - We ran off early to catch Ben. He was pretty damn cute and shaggy, but I think Missy and Tracy were hot and disinterested. I ran up and pushed my way through the artfags to try and get a decent picture, but we were at a really sharp angle. Instead, I jumped around and sang. I don't think that was the cool thing to do, based upon the looks I got, but I like to think none of them actually knew the words.

Elvis Costello - We split up again, so they could see their horrible Jack Johnson. I was pleased to hear he was too swamped by screaming college girl idiots to even really hear the music, let alone see him. Meanwhile, I had a great time! I was by far the youngest person willingly in the area, and my mind's still sharp, so I knew all the words, too. And, we were pretty lucky in that we got a good show, too. I mean, God forbid if he'd been like, "Well, we're gonna skip the hits tonight and play some of the heavily-orchestrated stuff I did with Burt Bacharach! How 'bout that?!" Nah, he was all cute in his purple suit (and undoubtedly chaffed as hell), and he played tons of stuff off of "My Aim is True" as well as "Uncomplicated" and a big happy closer of "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?" I got the far superior end of the stick, I do believe.

From there, we took a minute out to watch...

Spoon - ...but the crowd was getting more and more massive all the time, and though I would have liked to have stayed past "Jonathon Fisk," it was vastly more important that we get to...

Wilco - ...on time. It was crowded as hell again, and we'd pretty much given up all hope of ever getting closer to a performer, but at least at the bigger stages, they had screens set up. Jeff Tweedy was looking particularly zombie-like, as is to be expected, and his drummer looked like a sweaty, constipated Allen Wittman (or am I being redundant?) They played mostly stuff off of "A Ghost is Born," but it made Missy really happy, so that's good, I guess. And during the batshit insanity parts of "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" and "Poor Places," Allen Wittman would wildly beat on a huge piece of copper with a hammer. If that is not avant garde, I don't know what is! All day I'd been doing this annoying dry British accent going, "Hello! My name is Arthur Wilco, and this is my band, Wilco!" Over and over again. So at least that came to an end.

Cake - But there was still lots and lots of time for my Fred Cake impersonation. "Aw, no! All right! Aw, yeah!" over and over again, with occasional fake horns added in. I think Missy was about ready to strangle me. It was growing late, and this was to be our last show. Tracy summed up her hopes for the rest of the evening: "I just hope they play that song 'The Distance.' They better play that damn song, or I am going to hate them forever!" Fred Cake kept propositioning us to join his e-mail list, and he sang all sorts of songs I love to yell along with (Daria, sheep and goats - "Oh no"s included), but he did not play that damn "Distance" song. "Well, he's not getting my e-mail address," says Tracy, all indignant-like. We started walking away from the crowd back to the car when Fred goes, "OK, well, one more song that I think you all are gonna know" or something, and we got all excited, but then it was "Never There," and I think that only made things worse.

We hoof it in the direction of the car, and Tracy stupidly starts running across the super busy road with this car zooming in on her. She was like seconds away from death, I swear, and both Missy and I were just shocked. What the fuck was that? She seemed so oblivious... Shake it off. Anyway, off to Starbucks for some fuel for the road, and then the driving begins anew. Tracy crashed in the backseat presently, and then Missy and I sat listening to her older sister's wedding CD for the next long, long time. God bless you Lyle Lovett, you creepy-looking motherfucker. You sing about church and eatin', and I love it all. Her stereo was bright as hell, so I kind of ripped off the faceplate or something. Oops. The conversation took a turn for the weird as it got later. In hindsight, I think Missy was trying to determine whether or not I was the real deal ("Didja think that I was gonna give it up to you?"), but at the time I thought I had sort of pissed her off for real this time somehow. She just kept saying how weird it was that I actually came. OK, yeah, I concur.

Monday, September 20, 2004.

At some point in the conversation, topic turned to what we ate for lunch in high school. We discovered that we both loved Munchos, so the next time we stopped for gas, we got ourselves a big old bag, which we promptly devoured. In case you've never had the pleasure, Munchos are most or less chunks of styrofoam plates covered in as much kosher salt as is physically possible. In a far stranger turn, I decided it was wise to get some God damned bean dip and tortilla chips. What one might call a fatal error. All being like dog food and all cold and shit. And yet, I find myself strangely attracted.

The hours passed, and I noticed Miss was starting to drift off, leaving us in the car to sort of drift off (a cliff) as well. I volunteered to drive, thinking I was all manly and supportive and whatnot. Of course, like half an hour in, I'm more exhausted than she was, and suddenly I'm drifting crazily myself. The broken brakes and rough as hell steering did not help. Not long after, Missy reclaims her spot, and I pass out next to her.

Hours pass, and we make it back to Tracy's school. Apparently Tracy woke up about 20 minutes before we arrived and offered to drive. Missy, meanwhile, slowly descended into madness. I was pretty unaware still, though, moving to the backseat to crash after we said our goodbyes. (Incidentally, I feel it is important to note that Tracy did not actually go to her first class that morning - the very reason we had endured the hellish all night roadtrip). Missy drove the rest of the way and was enveloped in full-on dementia by the time we pulled into her apartment. Her posture was all loping and drunken, and she cackled at nothing as she tried to stumble upstairs. Pretty much the closest I can describe is like a female version of Smacko. In mannerisms, of course. Not features. Good God no. Oh - here's a strange one: I look over at my car, and the glass door on the back hatch is wide open. Freaked out, I run and check to see if anything is missing ("Not my half-full bottle of urine!"), but it all seems untouched. Talking to her roommate afterwards, Missy found out it had been like that for pretty much the whole time I was gone. Dumbass. Oh well. Good old Kansas people. Even if they do spend their time trying to lasso a sawhorse with a fake cow's head stuck on (No, I swear, I really saw a party of people doing this that day!) So we get inside, and we're both going to crash, and here comes final test time. She tells me I can sleep on the bed, and I'm like, "Well, where are you going to sleep?" And she's all like, "The floor is just fine with me." And I'm all like, "That's stupid. We just slept next to each other for two days! I won't rape your ass!" And thus, a line was drawn. So she climbed into bed, and we passed out for many hours, only to be woken by my phone.

A call from my mom in the middle of the day - and finally my fears are well-founded. Grandpa is on his way out, I'm told, and I need to get back here. "Okay," I say. That's only about 10 more hours of driving. That can be done. "I'm on my way," I tell my mom. Just a little fib. But more sleep first, as I have this cute girl next to me, and she is letting me be near here without spraying mace into my eyes. And we talk about it and she seems sympathetic, and we fall asleep again.

Then, another call. The bad one. And as soon as I hang up the phone, I kiss Missy for the first time. Why do I time these things so strangely? My first kiss with Lisa was just a series of embarrassing horrors, first with Andrea was during The Powerpuff Girls Movie (the sad scene on the moon), and now this one starts pretty much the second I learn my grandfather has died. I bet I do it on purpose! What would have happened if I hadn't crossed that line? I have no idea. Tough one.

We... footled around for a while (Something I feel terribly guilty and selfish about... that I did not leave right away. I was sort of lost and confused at the moment, all right?) and went out to eat and generally tried to stretch out our remaining time together as long as possible... We had no idea if we'd ever see each other again. And yeah, I don't know how to not end this on a sad note, so I'll just plain end it.