ROAD TRIP 2004: Go The Distance
Well, I'm back at University of Chicago, at least for another hour or two. Naturally, it's weird being back here, especially since I'm not supposed to be back here... yet. I feel like I'm here courtesty of some back door in the space-time continuum. I have the urge to go rediscover all the nooks and crannies around campus, but I have to remind myself that I'll have plenty of time to do that in a few more weeks. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that summer is my favorite season in Chicago, because it has exactly the weather I don't get during the school year. Thankfully I'm going to make a trip to the lake: I'm encouraging Thomas to offically start this leg on the shores of a large body of water so that, hopefully, we can end it on the Pacific.
The plane ride here was supposed to be innocuous, but instead I ended up enduring a 90-minute flight with Mr. Classically-Trained Pretentious Wanker. I got one depressurized earful about growing up in Roswell, NM without electricity and being read Dickens by Kerosene lamp, about how nobody understands chamber music and the pity of having to play a stringed instrument in G-flat, about how Casablanca is the perfect movie ever made and how coffee roasted in Gainesville is better than anything at Starbucks. This guy also claimed to have hyper-sensitive hearing, so that he could in fact hear baggages being arranged and loaded below the cabin and could detect the click of an overhead air-conditioning nozzle from 20 rows behind us. He talked so much that the woman in front of me shot me a few annoyed/sympathetic looks, as if she couldn't determine if I was to be blamed or pitied for this guy's interminable rants. At the same time that I agreed with her, I couldn't help feeling a little defensive in the face of her WASPy, accusing looks (I wonder what she orders at Starbucks). I mean, he would have been a fairly interesting guy if I hadn't been so tired and eager to bury myself in the Premiere magazine I'd picked up.
(I did one-up Mr. Accepted-at-Julliard-But-Dad-Wanted-Me-To-Be-An-Engineer musically once; he incorrectly identified a passenger whistling the Twisted Nerve theme that Darryl Hannah whistles in Kill Bill as an old Pepsi jingle.)
Well, once Thomas gets down from Wilmette we should be off to Iowa and leave Chicago once again. I stayed in Ayesha's apartment last night, and Jeremy and Laura (an old Rickerteer) were there, and it felt good to be around good people watching a good Simpsons episode. Good all around. And Jeremy had a really whiz-bang story about a shady guy who bought his car in Arizona for $5500 in cash the same day he saw it. So when my old roommate starts climbing the ranks of the Republican party, you documentary filmmakers looking for dirt will know who to call.
Well, I'm back at University of Chicago, at least for another hour or two. Naturally, it's weird being back here, especially since I'm not supposed to be back here... yet. I feel like I'm here courtesty of some back door in the space-time continuum. I have the urge to go rediscover all the nooks and crannies around campus, but I have to remind myself that I'll have plenty of time to do that in a few more weeks. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that summer is my favorite season in Chicago, because it has exactly the weather I don't get during the school year. Thankfully I'm going to make a trip to the lake: I'm encouraging Thomas to offically start this leg on the shores of a large body of water so that, hopefully, we can end it on the Pacific.
The plane ride here was supposed to be innocuous, but instead I ended up enduring a 90-minute flight with Mr. Classically-Trained Pretentious Wanker. I got one depressurized earful about growing up in Roswell, NM without electricity and being read Dickens by Kerosene lamp, about how nobody understands chamber music and the pity of having to play a stringed instrument in G-flat, about how Casablanca is the perfect movie ever made and how coffee roasted in Gainesville is better than anything at Starbucks. This guy also claimed to have hyper-sensitive hearing, so that he could in fact hear baggages being arranged and loaded below the cabin and could detect the click of an overhead air-conditioning nozzle from 20 rows behind us. He talked so much that the woman in front of me shot me a few annoyed/sympathetic looks, as if she couldn't determine if I was to be blamed or pitied for this guy's interminable rants. At the same time that I agreed with her, I couldn't help feeling a little defensive in the face of her WASPy, accusing looks (I wonder what she orders at Starbucks). I mean, he would have been a fairly interesting guy if I hadn't been so tired and eager to bury myself in the Premiere magazine I'd picked up.
(I did one-up Mr. Accepted-at-Julliard-But-Dad-Wanted-Me-To-Be-An-Engineer musically once; he incorrectly identified a passenger whistling the Twisted Nerve theme that Darryl Hannah whistles in Kill Bill as an old Pepsi jingle.)
Well, once Thomas gets down from Wilmette we should be off to Iowa and leave Chicago once again. I stayed in Ayesha's apartment last night, and Jeremy and Laura (an old Rickerteer) were there, and it felt good to be around good people watching a good Simpsons episode. Good all around. And Jeremy had a really whiz-bang story about a shady guy who bought his car in Arizona for $5500 in cash the same day he saw it. So when my old roommate starts climbing the ranks of the Republican party, you documentary filmmakers looking for dirt will know who to call.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home