On the Road

Well kids, I did it. I am on the road, just me and my fully packed, weighed-down car. I have a feeling I'm going to be stopping at the Post Office today and shipping some of the stuff in the car to my new residence in Burbank. I'm starting to feel claustrophobic, and the increased gas mileage will probably balance out the shipping costs. Besides, once I get to St. Louis I'm going to have to put Arik and his gear somewhere, right?

The last few hours of packing on Friday night turned me into an adrenalyzed, freaked out, overwhelmed panic-monger, and I apologize to anyone that had to interact with me during those moments. I had plans with friends and if I had to finish packing up and sorting through everything that wasn't going with me, I'd have been up all night and would've missed out on spending my last night in town with some of the people that mean the most to me. Let's give my mom a huge shout out for being the saint that told me I could just leave the rest and she would stop by and take care of it. This is not the first nor the last time I will say that my mom is amazing. (Thanks, Mom!) I enjoyed my last evening in town relaxing in the warm spring evening on Jayme and Joel's porch swing drinking a glass of wine and hanging out with some of my favorite people. And of course that was followed by a quick trip out for a couple of drinks and more hugs.

I wake up at 7:30 the next morning to a torrential downpour. After downing some cinnamon rolls and frantically running about Jayme's house trying to get everything together, I finally hit the road at 9am. An hour later than I'd wanted, but that should still put me in NJ at around 5pm which would mean Mike and I could catch the train and be in NYC by 9pm at the latest. On a normal day it would have been an 8-hour drive. I drove for 10 hours in a monsoon and suffered some major delays outside of DC. I get to NJ a little after 7 and we hopped the train to NYC. Of course my brain is fried from all the stress I'd been under and the Xanax I'd taken on the train, and since neither of us were very familiar with where we were going we took the wrong subway and decided it would be easier to just walk from the West Side to the East Village. We got to the bar a bit late, but it was good to hang out with friends and meet some new people. Besides, getting there late meant I didn't get embarrassingly trashed. So after taking the last train back to NJ, we had 3:30am White Castle burgers and called it a night.

I slept until 1pm yesterday!!! Go me! (If you know me, you know that my body is wired to ALWAYS wake up no later than 9am regardless of what time I go to sleep.) So after some traffic delays on the Bay Bridge over to Annapolis, I finally arrived in Southern Bay Area Maryland around 9pm. After spending a couple of hours catching up, Shannon fed me Chicken Marsala and ice cream and I subsequently passed out.

So here I am.