34 hours part I
I just took a trip to Arizona. It was fun.
I’ve just traveled some 1,800 miles in just under 34 hours. Usually I only travel to work a couple of times within that time span, which might add up to somewhere around 30 miles. So this trip was way more whirlwind than what I was normally used to. But in order to understand the tiny amount of craziness my little trip caused, I must first speak to the sizeable amount of craziness that is my friend the Sparkle Princess.
Sparkle and I first met some years ago. My friend, Theater Guy, had cast her in one of his plays, and I, being the friend of the director, got to hang out at all the post show’s on goings. Sparkle Princess and I talked a bit about how she came from a family of beer brewers, and how she didn’t particularly like the band Wilco, and how she’d never seen the movie Harold and Maude. I told her that she must watch that movie. “It’s required movie watching.” I said, “I’m going to lend it to you. You must watch it, it’s absolute brilliance.”
The fact that I thought Sparkle was a stunning beauty, the kind that would make men fall to their knees, didn’t hurt my decision to lend her something of my own. And my lending her that movie would give us an excuse to get back together, and then, who knows what would happen? We’d see each other again? Over drinks? We’d start to go out more and more? Then one night, we’d be sitting on either her couch, in her apartment, or on my couch in my apartment, watching something on television. We’d scoot just a bit closer to one another, under the guise that the couch just wasn’t comfortable unless we were to sit right next to one another, and before you know it we would be doing things to one another that proper ladies and gentlemen don’t talk about in mixed company. Alas, none of that happened. Actually what happened was we lost track of one another, and we didn’t speak for a couple of years. There was no falling out, no big argument, nothing Shakespearian, it was just one of those things where people fall out of touch with one another. So much time had passed between us talking, that I’d forgotten that I had even owned Harold and Maude altogether, that is, until she e-mailed me telling me her ex-roommate accidentally sold my movie in a yard sale. That one e-mail lead another, then another, then another. We started to go out for drinks here and there, I started spending time at her apartment, watching movies, listening to music, drinking cheap wine or hybrid mimosas. Still, never at any point and time during this renewal period of “hanging out” did I find myself sitting next to her on her couch, scooting ever closer to her, cause that would be the only way I could get comfortable. In fact, she didn’t even own a couch. Most of the time I ended up sitting on the floor. But even if she had owned a couch, I could see pretty early on that there would be no reason for us to not talk about what good ladies and gentlemen did not talk about in mixed company. I know this because we didn’t sit next to one another on the floor either. Still, I sometimes thought about giving it, the officially sticking my neck out there, and asking her out, the old college try. I mean, she was a little flaky (by her own admission even), but smart, and strangely nice, overly nice, but had a wry, wicked, almost perverse sense of humor, and she was indeed very easy on the eyes, so while I wouldn’t admit to instantly falling head over heels for the girl, I was indeed intrigued. But those ideas were quickly shot down when she said; “I don’t really feel like starting anything, especially since I’m moving to California in a few months.” So, we went on with our lives, as friends, which certainly wasn’t/ and isn’t horrible (just par for the course).
That was all lead in to last week, when Sparkle said she wanted someone to ride out to California with her. At first she asked one of her girlfriends, who had initially agreed to go out west, but then backed out cause she forgot to get time off from work. This upset the Princess, (“I guess we flakes keep together,” she said), but not nearly as much as the next guy she thought about taking along for the ride. She asked her friend John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. I only know two things about this guy, 1: He has more than one name (I couldn’t remember them, so I just called him John Jacob whenever he came up in conversation), and 2: He liked to party with illegal substances. The Sparkle Princess had her doubts about taking John Jacob along on the trip, and was vindicated by her thinking when he asked if there’d be enough room in the car so he could bring along two medium sized boxes of “something” he’s supposed to deliver to a friend in California.
“These something boxes wouldn’t happen to contain drugs would they?” She asked.
His answer was less than inspiring, “Maybe. It’s more likely than not.” She promptly uninvited him from the trip. It’s not that Sparkle Princess is prudish, but you know, getting caught trafficking drugs across state lines comes with a pretty hefty penalty of costly fines and prison time. Which means you’re not only out loads of money, but you also become someone’s prison bitch. And no one can follow his or her California dreams while being bent over the bottom half of a prison bunk bed.
So, after the flaky friend dropped out, and the hippie druggie was kicked out, Sparkle Princess asked me, “What are you doing Sunday through Wednesday?” (I guess the homeless man with the horrific looking open sores on his face was busy too).
“Working.”
“How do you feel about going to California with me?”
“Huh.” I thought. These types of things never happen to me. I’m used to getting my electricity turned off cause I forget or can’t afford to pay it. I’m certainly not used to being asked to go to California, especially by a girl.
“I don’t have money for that! (Appropriate response for someone who’s not used to getting asked to go to California by a girl) And I’m pretty sure that my work schedule’s already been made, I doubt I can get off work. Even if I could get off of work, I couldn’t afford the plane ticket back.” (Retail jobs, they are highly inflexible, they’re terribly unrewarding, but at least they don’t pay the bills either).
“I’ll buy your plane ticket back.”
“No, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t let you spend that kind of money on me.”
“I insist.”
“I’ll pay you back.”
“No, I won’t take your money.”
So, now I’m thinking: I could be driving out across the open highway, out west, manifest destiny and all that, with a good friend, looking out over beautiful landscapes with a big sky overhead and a beautiful girl sitting next to me (I’m a Taurus and all the astrological books say I like to be surrounded by beauty… this is true, as I don’t like being around ugly things), or I could be at work, hauling boxes of books around in102 degree weather, and looking for copies of Cold Sassy Tree, or The Great Gatsby.
“I’ll see if I can’t get off work. But don’t get your hopes up, cause honestly, I really want to go, and God doesn’t like me. Meaning I probably won’t be able to go.” I said.
The next two days were wrought with tension as I waited to see if my job could re-work the schedule to let me take a few extra days off. It turns out God must have a soft spot in his (or her) big old heart for me, because work let me take off work through the first part of the week. I was going to out west.
There was one little bump. Sparkle Princess couldn’t find a cheap flight out of L.A. to Dallas for me. She instead had me fly back home from Tucson, Arizona, (her hometown, and the one stop off point for the road trip), and she would finish the last six hours of driving to California on her own. She was also forced to book my flight back a little bit earlier than either of us would have liked, which was a bit sad since our time together seemed all to short. But, this mattered very little to me at the time, as I was just happy to get out of town.
The initial plan was to leave on Sunday night, drive through the night, and arrive in Tucson early Monday morning, sleep, and then go out and enjoy Tucson night life. Then sleep. Then enjoy the Tucson day life. Then I’d fly back home, happily having turned the road trip into a sort of mini-vacation. I wasn’t crazy about driving through the night, and was hoping we could leave mid Sunday afternoon… but as it turns out I had very little to worry about.
I called Sparkle Princess on Saturday; the day before we were supposed to leave, and found out she had barely started packing. I told her the moving process might be easier if her stuff was packed. She told me she would definitely start packing. She had friends coming over that night, to take some of her stuff (the furniture and other things she didn’t want to haul to California), and they might turn the night into a final girls night out sort of thing. Apparently it ended up being a pretty late, girl’s night out sort of thing.
I drove by Sparkle’s place on Sunday afternoon (around 12:30) to find her apartment almost still fully intact. She slept in, recuperating from the night before. She woke up, showered, looked around the apartment, and started to freak out, as very little had been packed, and we were supposed to be on the road that night.
“You’ve got to start packing!” I told her emphatically.
“I know!” she said as she flopped herself down onto her bed, like a spoiled nine year old who was just told to clean her room. “I just can’t start. I don’t know where to start!”
I know it sounds odd, but it was kind of nice to see her like this. Just showered, not dressed up, not all made up, but completely freaking out. It made this otherworldly creature seem more human. She was now more real, and not as statuesque as I had once envisioned her. It gave me the confidence to tell her what she needed to hear.
“You need to take a deep breath, calm down, and focus.” I said. “We’re not leaving tonight. That’s okay. That’s probably for the best. We can still leave tomorrow early, if you start packing now.”
I opened an empty box and started emptying the contents of her cupboard into the box. This act motivated her to pack her things on her own. She started getting into a nice rhythm, and hinted that she’d like to pack her own things (woman of mystery). I left her alone, telling her I’d be back in the evening to check up on her progress.
I left her apartment around 1:30 in the afternoon. I returned at 8:00 pm to find that she had indeed progressed nicely, but had run out of boxes.
We drove around town to various grocery stores hoping to scam a few boxes off some young stock boys (Sparkle knows how to use her womanly attributes to get what she desires… this is what makes her dangerous). We found that people were more willing to help her when she looked as if she were on her own. It seemed as if no one, especially the young stock boys, would pay attention to us when we appeared to be coupled.
Still, even with her womanly attributes all the grocery stores told us we had to come back later, after midnight, after they got their shipments in. I offered to stick around and help Sparkle Princess continue packing after she got the boxes, but she sent me home, saying, “Come over tomorrow at five in the morning, if that’s not too early.”
“No, that’s fine.”
“Good. We’ll finish packing, then we’ll mail my stuff to my address in California, and we should be on the road by 8, 9 at the latest.”
I said, “Alright.” And went on my merry way.
My alarm woke me up at 4 a.m. the next morning. I took a shower, packed a small pack with some clothes, music for the drive, a toothbrush and other toiletry items, a book for the plane ride back, and borrowed camera. I drove over to Sparkle Princess’s apartment. Sparkle lived in one of those Dallas (or in this case Addison) fancy urban development apartments. The kind that like to try and recreate walk-ups, having store fronts on the street level and apartments on the upper levels. All the apartment windows look out onto the streets and alleyways, and Sparkle’s is on the ground level, which allowed me to walk straight up to her window and knock whenever I went over to her place. So, there I am, at Sparkle’s apartment knocking on the window, to know answer. I peered into her window to see all her lights were off. I called her apartment.
“Yeah,” she answered in a groggy voice.
“Morning.” I say.
“I need more tape, and a few more boxes still. And the mailbox places don’t open till 8 in the morning, so…”
Knowing that she was stalling cause she wasn’t even awake yet I told her I’d go pick up more tape, and be by her apartment at 6:30. There was no reason to tell her I was there already.
So I occupied my time by walking around the 24 hour Wal-Mart super center. Now, I hate Wal-Mart, but it was the only place that was open at the time. Even with my hate for Wal-mart, I felt there was something kind of peaceful walking around the store at 5 in the morning. It was almost, almost nice. I chalk up that feeling to my still being asleep though.
I went by Sparkle Princess’s apartment again at 6:30. She was still asleep.
This time I let her know that I was standing outside her apartment, forcing her to wake up, fearing that if we didn’t start soon, we would have never left town.
We spent the early morning wrapping breakables in newspaper, packing things into boxes, taping the boxes shut, eating breakfast, buying food things for the trip, and figuring out the most efficient way to fit as many things possible into her very small two door Honda Civic. Early morning became late morning. Unfortunately late morning became early afternoon, as we started hauling boxes over to the postal center to mail them off to California.
Sparkle was a little scared of how much it would cost to mail boxes to herself. Her fears were multiplied by the mad man who had been working behind the counter at the Eagle Postal Center. He was a well-groomed aging hippie, (as opposed to one of those long-haired, bearded hippies who look sort of like a second year art school college student). He kept relaying that he was going to Cozumel to snorkel and look 40 ft. straight down into the clear waters, while we were driving to Arizona, and we should be sufficiently jealous. Will he still be thinking he’s getting the better vacation while a shark is eating him? I hope so. This crazy man would dance along to the music that played overhead, and would yell at his computer when it slowed in printing the shipping slips, and would be a little annoyed if we tried to hurry the process along in any way. He had a little ritual of taking off the backing of the shipping sticker, placing the shipping sticker on the box, and then patting the sticker down, with the backing of the sticker. We couldn’t help in this part of the process (We couldn’t pat the sticker onto the box, that was his job), nor could we take the box away until he had completed this ritual. Finally, after all the boxes were mailed off, and the cat (Bella) was placed in the kitty travel case, and the car was packed to the brim, and Sparkle’s apartment key was turned in, and my car was safely parked at my dad’s house, Sparkle and I were on the road to Tucson. It was 1 in the afternoon, and depending on who you asked, we were anywhere from five to twenty-two hours behind schedule.
I’ve just traveled some 1,800 miles in just under 34 hours. Usually I only travel to work a couple of times within that time span, which might add up to somewhere around 30 miles. So this trip was way more whirlwind than what I was normally used to. But in order to understand the tiny amount of craziness my little trip caused, I must first speak to the sizeable amount of craziness that is my friend the Sparkle Princess.
Sparkle and I first met some years ago. My friend, Theater Guy, had cast her in one of his plays, and I, being the friend of the director, got to hang out at all the post show’s on goings. Sparkle Princess and I talked a bit about how she came from a family of beer brewers, and how she didn’t particularly like the band Wilco, and how she’d never seen the movie Harold and Maude. I told her that she must watch that movie. “It’s required movie watching.” I said, “I’m going to lend it to you. You must watch it, it’s absolute brilliance.”
The fact that I thought Sparkle was a stunning beauty, the kind that would make men fall to their knees, didn’t hurt my decision to lend her something of my own. And my lending her that movie would give us an excuse to get back together, and then, who knows what would happen? We’d see each other again? Over drinks? We’d start to go out more and more? Then one night, we’d be sitting on either her couch, in her apartment, or on my couch in my apartment, watching something on television. We’d scoot just a bit closer to one another, under the guise that the couch just wasn’t comfortable unless we were to sit right next to one another, and before you know it we would be doing things to one another that proper ladies and gentlemen don’t talk about in mixed company. Alas, none of that happened. Actually what happened was we lost track of one another, and we didn’t speak for a couple of years. There was no falling out, no big argument, nothing Shakespearian, it was just one of those things where people fall out of touch with one another. So much time had passed between us talking, that I’d forgotten that I had even owned Harold and Maude altogether, that is, until she e-mailed me telling me her ex-roommate accidentally sold my movie in a yard sale. That one e-mail lead another, then another, then another. We started to go out for drinks here and there, I started spending time at her apartment, watching movies, listening to music, drinking cheap wine or hybrid mimosas. Still, never at any point and time during this renewal period of “hanging out” did I find myself sitting next to her on her couch, scooting ever closer to her, cause that would be the only way I could get comfortable. In fact, she didn’t even own a couch. Most of the time I ended up sitting on the floor. But even if she had owned a couch, I could see pretty early on that there would be no reason for us to not talk about what good ladies and gentlemen did not talk about in mixed company. I know this because we didn’t sit next to one another on the floor either. Still, I sometimes thought about giving it, the officially sticking my neck out there, and asking her out, the old college try. I mean, she was a little flaky (by her own admission even), but smart, and strangely nice, overly nice, but had a wry, wicked, almost perverse sense of humor, and she was indeed very easy on the eyes, so while I wouldn’t admit to instantly falling head over heels for the girl, I was indeed intrigued. But those ideas were quickly shot down when she said; “I don’t really feel like starting anything, especially since I’m moving to California in a few months.” So, we went on with our lives, as friends, which certainly wasn’t/ and isn’t horrible (just par for the course).
That was all lead in to last week, when Sparkle said she wanted someone to ride out to California with her. At first she asked one of her girlfriends, who had initially agreed to go out west, but then backed out cause she forgot to get time off from work. This upset the Princess, (“I guess we flakes keep together,” she said), but not nearly as much as the next guy she thought about taking along for the ride. She asked her friend John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. I only know two things about this guy, 1: He has more than one name (I couldn’t remember them, so I just called him John Jacob whenever he came up in conversation), and 2: He liked to party with illegal substances. The Sparkle Princess had her doubts about taking John Jacob along on the trip, and was vindicated by her thinking when he asked if there’d be enough room in the car so he could bring along two medium sized boxes of “something” he’s supposed to deliver to a friend in California.
“These something boxes wouldn’t happen to contain drugs would they?” She asked.
His answer was less than inspiring, “Maybe. It’s more likely than not.” She promptly uninvited him from the trip. It’s not that Sparkle Princess is prudish, but you know, getting caught trafficking drugs across state lines comes with a pretty hefty penalty of costly fines and prison time. Which means you’re not only out loads of money, but you also become someone’s prison bitch. And no one can follow his or her California dreams while being bent over the bottom half of a prison bunk bed.
So, after the flaky friend dropped out, and the hippie druggie was kicked out, Sparkle Princess asked me, “What are you doing Sunday through Wednesday?” (I guess the homeless man with the horrific looking open sores on his face was busy too).
“Working.”
“How do you feel about going to California with me?”
“Huh.” I thought. These types of things never happen to me. I’m used to getting my electricity turned off cause I forget or can’t afford to pay it. I’m certainly not used to being asked to go to California, especially by a girl.
“I don’t have money for that! (Appropriate response for someone who’s not used to getting asked to go to California by a girl) And I’m pretty sure that my work schedule’s already been made, I doubt I can get off work. Even if I could get off of work, I couldn’t afford the plane ticket back.” (Retail jobs, they are highly inflexible, they’re terribly unrewarding, but at least they don’t pay the bills either).
“I’ll buy your plane ticket back.”
“No, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t let you spend that kind of money on me.”
“I insist.”
“I’ll pay you back.”
“No, I won’t take your money.”
So, now I’m thinking: I could be driving out across the open highway, out west, manifest destiny and all that, with a good friend, looking out over beautiful landscapes with a big sky overhead and a beautiful girl sitting next to me (I’m a Taurus and all the astrological books say I like to be surrounded by beauty… this is true, as I don’t like being around ugly things), or I could be at work, hauling boxes of books around in102 degree weather, and looking for copies of Cold Sassy Tree, or The Great Gatsby.
“I’ll see if I can’t get off work. But don’t get your hopes up, cause honestly, I really want to go, and God doesn’t like me. Meaning I probably won’t be able to go.” I said.
The next two days were wrought with tension as I waited to see if my job could re-work the schedule to let me take a few extra days off. It turns out God must have a soft spot in his (or her) big old heart for me, because work let me take off work through the first part of the week. I was going to out west.
There was one little bump. Sparkle Princess couldn’t find a cheap flight out of L.A. to Dallas for me. She instead had me fly back home from Tucson, Arizona, (her hometown, and the one stop off point for the road trip), and she would finish the last six hours of driving to California on her own. She was also forced to book my flight back a little bit earlier than either of us would have liked, which was a bit sad since our time together seemed all to short. But, this mattered very little to me at the time, as I was just happy to get out of town.
The initial plan was to leave on Sunday night, drive through the night, and arrive in Tucson early Monday morning, sleep, and then go out and enjoy Tucson night life. Then sleep. Then enjoy the Tucson day life. Then I’d fly back home, happily having turned the road trip into a sort of mini-vacation. I wasn’t crazy about driving through the night, and was hoping we could leave mid Sunday afternoon… but as it turns out I had very little to worry about.
I called Sparkle Princess on Saturday; the day before we were supposed to leave, and found out she had barely started packing. I told her the moving process might be easier if her stuff was packed. She told me she would definitely start packing. She had friends coming over that night, to take some of her stuff (the furniture and other things she didn’t want to haul to California), and they might turn the night into a final girls night out sort of thing. Apparently it ended up being a pretty late, girl’s night out sort of thing.
I drove by Sparkle’s place on Sunday afternoon (around 12:30) to find her apartment almost still fully intact. She slept in, recuperating from the night before. She woke up, showered, looked around the apartment, and started to freak out, as very little had been packed, and we were supposed to be on the road that night.
“You’ve got to start packing!” I told her emphatically.
“I know!” she said as she flopped herself down onto her bed, like a spoiled nine year old who was just told to clean her room. “I just can’t start. I don’t know where to start!”
I know it sounds odd, but it was kind of nice to see her like this. Just showered, not dressed up, not all made up, but completely freaking out. It made this otherworldly creature seem more human. She was now more real, and not as statuesque as I had once envisioned her. It gave me the confidence to tell her what she needed to hear.
“You need to take a deep breath, calm down, and focus.” I said. “We’re not leaving tonight. That’s okay. That’s probably for the best. We can still leave tomorrow early, if you start packing now.”
I opened an empty box and started emptying the contents of her cupboard into the box. This act motivated her to pack her things on her own. She started getting into a nice rhythm, and hinted that she’d like to pack her own things (woman of mystery). I left her alone, telling her I’d be back in the evening to check up on her progress.
I left her apartment around 1:30 in the afternoon. I returned at 8:00 pm to find that she had indeed progressed nicely, but had run out of boxes.
We drove around town to various grocery stores hoping to scam a few boxes off some young stock boys (Sparkle knows how to use her womanly attributes to get what she desires… this is what makes her dangerous). We found that people were more willing to help her when she looked as if she were on her own. It seemed as if no one, especially the young stock boys, would pay attention to us when we appeared to be coupled.
Still, even with her womanly attributes all the grocery stores told us we had to come back later, after midnight, after they got their shipments in. I offered to stick around and help Sparkle Princess continue packing after she got the boxes, but she sent me home, saying, “Come over tomorrow at five in the morning, if that’s not too early.”
“No, that’s fine.”
“Good. We’ll finish packing, then we’ll mail my stuff to my address in California, and we should be on the road by 8, 9 at the latest.”
I said, “Alright.” And went on my merry way.
My alarm woke me up at 4 a.m. the next morning. I took a shower, packed a small pack with some clothes, music for the drive, a toothbrush and other toiletry items, a book for the plane ride back, and borrowed camera. I drove over to Sparkle Princess’s apartment. Sparkle lived in one of those Dallas (or in this case Addison) fancy urban development apartments. The kind that like to try and recreate walk-ups, having store fronts on the street level and apartments on the upper levels. All the apartment windows look out onto the streets and alleyways, and Sparkle’s is on the ground level, which allowed me to walk straight up to her window and knock whenever I went over to her place. So, there I am, at Sparkle’s apartment knocking on the window, to know answer. I peered into her window to see all her lights were off. I called her apartment.
“Yeah,” she answered in a groggy voice.
“Morning.” I say.
“I need more tape, and a few more boxes still. And the mailbox places don’t open till 8 in the morning, so…”
Knowing that she was stalling cause she wasn’t even awake yet I told her I’d go pick up more tape, and be by her apartment at 6:30. There was no reason to tell her I was there already.
So I occupied my time by walking around the 24 hour Wal-Mart super center. Now, I hate Wal-Mart, but it was the only place that was open at the time. Even with my hate for Wal-mart, I felt there was something kind of peaceful walking around the store at 5 in the morning. It was almost, almost nice. I chalk up that feeling to my still being asleep though.
I went by Sparkle Princess’s apartment again at 6:30. She was still asleep.
This time I let her know that I was standing outside her apartment, forcing her to wake up, fearing that if we didn’t start soon, we would have never left town.
We spent the early morning wrapping breakables in newspaper, packing things into boxes, taping the boxes shut, eating breakfast, buying food things for the trip, and figuring out the most efficient way to fit as many things possible into her very small two door Honda Civic. Early morning became late morning. Unfortunately late morning became early afternoon, as we started hauling boxes over to the postal center to mail them off to California.
Sparkle was a little scared of how much it would cost to mail boxes to herself. Her fears were multiplied by the mad man who had been working behind the counter at the Eagle Postal Center. He was a well-groomed aging hippie, (as opposed to one of those long-haired, bearded hippies who look sort of like a second year art school college student). He kept relaying that he was going to Cozumel to snorkel and look 40 ft. straight down into the clear waters, while we were driving to Arizona, and we should be sufficiently jealous. Will he still be thinking he’s getting the better vacation while a shark is eating him? I hope so. This crazy man would dance along to the music that played overhead, and would yell at his computer when it slowed in printing the shipping slips, and would be a little annoyed if we tried to hurry the process along in any way. He had a little ritual of taking off the backing of the shipping sticker, placing the shipping sticker on the box, and then patting the sticker down, with the backing of the sticker. We couldn’t help in this part of the process (We couldn’t pat the sticker onto the box, that was his job), nor could we take the box away until he had completed this ritual. Finally, after all the boxes were mailed off, and the cat (Bella) was placed in the kitty travel case, and the car was packed to the brim, and Sparkle’s apartment key was turned in, and my car was safely parked at my dad’s house, Sparkle and I were on the road to Tucson. It was 1 in the afternoon, and depending on who you asked, we were anywhere from five to twenty-two hours behind schedule.