Lord, I was born a ramblin' (wo)man ...

Saturday, Jun. 17, 2006, 12:45 p.m.

I always say, if you're going to go on vacation, you should be gone long enough for the people who read your online journal to firmly believe that you have been chopped to pieces and/or are lying in a ditch somewhere covered in booze and chocolate syrup.

But unfortunately, I could only really get away for a couple weeks. Did you miss me?

If I break down every inch of my travels and write about every minute I spent doing Not Work, it will take maybe several months, if we allow time for eating, sleeping, dirty sex, and sporadic pining for Johnny Depp's tongue in my mouth. However, if I just go through the highlights and skim over the drunken blurs and maybe not go into so much detail about items such as TWO FUCKING HOURS TO CROSS THE GEORGE WASHINGTON FUCKING BRIDGE, I think I could get a decent entry out of it and still manage to go to sleep before tomorrow.

Thus, we begin.

Before I even left town, I had to get two new tires put on my Honda -- the Mini's not highway-ready yet -- seeing as how the previous tires were, in the words of my sergeant, "fucking shot. Dude, you will die if you don't get some new fucking tires. I will kill you myself."

That was an adventure, mainly because it's always a good idea, right before you go on a thousand-mile road trip, to spend a couple hundred bucks of would-be gas money. Which brings to mind (and I'm talking to you here, Northern Virginia, D.C., and New York State): what kind of motherfucking gas is worth THREE DOLLARS AND FIFTEEN CENTS per gallon?! Are there secret gold chips in it? Should I have been PANNING my fuel at the pump? HOLY FUCK!

Anyway, I eventually got on the road in a surprisingly good mood, considering that I had to leave Husband behind to fend for himself in the wild of our apartment with nothing but cold cuts, cheese, bread and porn to sustain him, and headed North on I-95, or as I've fondly nicknamed it, The Fucking Highway.

I stopped outside of Raleigh to see some old friends, who bought me dinner and snickered as their cat stalked me around their apartment for about an hour, most likely plotting my slow and painful Death By Nibbling. When I started driving again, approximately six hours from my first night's destination, I thought it would be a good idea to chug a Red Bull or three to keep myself awake.

I would like to state for the record that that was, ha ha, a NOT-GOOD idea. In other words, I drank three Red Bulls and immediately realized exactly what people mean when they say they are "on crack." I think that at one point, my brain actually leapt out of my head, did a little jig on my eyeballs, and then blew itself up, terrorist-style, somewhere inside my ear canal. But more on crack-like beverages later, for I digress, and visions of Johnny Depp are already beginning to dance in my head.

The lovely Nici M had kindly invited me to crash at her place for the night, so I, as a good guest, showed up there at around 4 a.m., dazed, tired, and smelling like not just the inside of a car, but like the inside of a car which has morphed into a human and developed body funk, incontinence, halitosis and really, really bad gas.

Yeah, you know it's hott. Come give me a hug.

Anyway, so we had a lovely little visit, and eventually I got back on the road, mentally checking off one more Diarylander who is not a violent sociopath.

The next part of the trip was kind of boring, so I will sum it up like this: drivedrivedrive stopforgas shriekatgasprices drivedrivedrive repeat. It only took me about six hours to get from northern Virginia to central New York, so I must say I'm pretty fucking proud of myself. I try to be pretty fucking proud of myself all the time, though, because low self esteem leads to bad clothing styles, such as leggings, which I actually saw in a normal, non-fancy, Target-type store, in the Juniors department, for sale, which scares me.

Okay, so I arrived at my parents' house just in time for dinner (it's my Italian timing), and there was happiness and eating, and the singing of "My Humps" by me (shut UP. It was stuck in my head, and the only way to rid one's mind of that kind of evil is to share it with others, a la The Ring) until my brother decided he might actually not like me anymore.

(Don't worry -- everything turned out fine. I won back his affection after a rousing drive through the ghetto while blasting Harry Belafonte's "Jump In The Line" and car-dancing in a way that made even the homeless man on the corner look at us as though we were crazy.)

Okay, this is getting retardedly lengthy, so I'm just going to go ahead and bullet-point the rest of the truly awesome parts of my fantastic vacation, mmkay?

- Enjoyed a tasty lunch with the fabulous Witty at the best hotdog place in all of upstate New York, which I believe she already wrote about and posted pictures of. I will avoid redundancy and just say that she is one classy dame who coincidentally happens to be related to one of my high-school friends, and isn't it a small fucking world?

- Attended my cousin-friend's* wedding. She is Italian and her new husband is Polish, and her mother plays the accordion. If you have never been to an Italian/Polish wedding where the mother of the bride plays the accordion, I would highly recommend it, especially if there is an open bar.

I would not, however, recommend dancing the Tarantella in heels, because what happens is your feet actually begin to cry out in pain.

*cousin-friend: friend who is one's cousin's cousin on the other side of the family, but whom one grew up with so closely that we might as well be related

- Sauntered on down to The City to visit my aunt, who technically lives in Queens. I managed to spend the aforementioned TWO MOTHERFUCKING HOURS on the George Washington Bridge, before getting off the wrong exit and driving around, utterly lost, after dark, in the South Bronx for another TWO MOTHERFUCKING HOURS.

You guys, I don't think I have ever felt so alone, so white, so female, so ... flipping the fuck out. Also, I really had to pee, and that never helps matters. But obviously I escaped with a good part of my sanity intact. Yay, me.

But that reminds me ...

Dear The Bronx,

Highway signs are only helpful when they are located near the road they claim to be pointing to. Also, street lights -- ever heard of them?

Love,
A Fan

- Made my way down to Brooklyn to visit my good buddy Doug (he used to write here on DiaryLand as discothekid, but now has become a reclusive MySpace addict with a propensity for Prince and MTVespanol) and his awesome wife Shandy, who gives great ... directions. Heh heh.

As soon as I arrived, Doug handed me a cup of what I now know to be liquid crank, and then another one, and before long, I was sitting on his couch watching purple bunnies dance around the living room. He apologized for the crank, claiming it was just iced coffee, but I suspect he was really just trying to oppposite-roofie me.

After I came down, we had a wonderful time watching old Howard Stern shows, making fun of Ashlee Simpson's new video ("You make me want to LALA! Hooray for the message we're sending to twelve-year-old girls! LALA!"), and discussing Ann Coulter's vagina for what seemed like hours (please try to hide your envy). I also got to leave a Brooklyn Legacy by nicknaming one of his friends "Jewlander."

It was mad fun, yo, and I would have stayed there forever, but cigarettes are something like eight dollars per pack and, as I believe I may have mentioned before, Holy Fuck.

Now here I am, back in JoJa. I have an assload of photos, which I will be sorting through and posting on my Flickr album (see clicky-badge, bottom of page) within the next couple of days, so check that shit out if you want a visual to go with this whole thang.

EDIT: THE PHOTOS ARE NOW UP. CLICK HERE TO SEE THEM.

To those of you I got to visit, Hi! Thanks for showing me a great time, and, in Witty's case, a great painting of Bob Dylan which I still SWEAR I am going to buy from you eventually.

To those of you I did not get to visit (even though I totally wanted to, and you know it, and don't you even think about giving me that guilt trip, you evil bastards), hopefully next time it'll work out. As of right now, I'm-a have to stay put until the Army decides to give me a 700% pay raise to cover my fuel expenses.

Oh, hey, speaking of The Man -- I now officially have only ONE YEAR left in Uncle Sam's shackles. Time to count down to June 11, 2007, bitches!