Road trip.

This is going to be a really long post. So long, I am dreading writing it.

I decided last Wednesday to pick up and go to Birmingham to meet up with Megan and Bryan to eventually go to Auburn for Maureen's baby shower.

So, I pack up my shit, clean out my car, put some oil in it, clean the windows and leave. I love a good long drive so going to Birmingham was really just what I need it. I find driving down I-65 incredibly relaxing. I was running way ahead of time and knew Bryan would still be in class so I stopped at the Ave Maria Grotto in Cullman and wandered around. They have a really neat little chapel and the stations of the cross. I walked through the cemetery and saw and monk and then drove around Cullman for a bit. Cullman is so tiny, it was almost shocking that people were driving at all.

I got back on the road and was in Birmingham within the hour. I got lost in the city, well, I didn't get lost. Bryan told me he lived on 11th Street when in actuality he lives on 11th Avenue. There's a big difference and once he realized the mistake and told me what the actual location was I had no problem finding it.

I had car problems coming in. Once I was in city traffic, like stop and go, my temperature gage would spike and the car would want to overheat. I just assumed I was low on coolant and since I was not going to have to drive again until I left on Monday I just parked it and figured I'd put some water in it later.

Bryan and I hung out for about an hour before Meg got into town. Megan and I changed out of our driving clothes and went over to Andrew's apartment. This was a bit awkward at first as Andrew and I used to have a somewhat (and my somewhat I mean very) romantic relationship and he numerous times left his girlfriend because he thought he wanted to be with me or vice versa. She was there and this was actually the first time she and I met face to face even though we've had a lot of mutual friends for years. It was not as awkward as it could have been but still awkward enough that drinking a lot of vodka seemed like a really good idea.

Andrew is diabetic so like the only thing he had to chase with was diet Coke. I'd much rather chug vodka straight then have to take a sip of diet Coke. He however ended up having this disgusting energy drink that was bright green and tasted like a highlighter looks. I was too concerned with getting shitty to think of the possible repercussions of drinking an energy drink with alcohol.

So I drank and we made pizza and played Beautiful Katamari, which, if you don't know, is a game where you are basically a ball of gravity and stuff sticks to you. At first you can only pick up things like bottle caps and bouncy balls but the bigger you get the more things you can get. It's right up there with Bubble Bobble as far as great games to play when you're drunk. The caffeine in the energy drink (which even tasted hyper) made me get drunk a lot faster than usual and also kept me from sleeping and made the hangover more of a bitch.

The next morning we made biscuits and played more video games before Bryan had to go to class. After getting lunch at the Subway on campus Bryan called his friend Brandon to sign us into the dorm since he had to go to class. Megan and I took our time taking showers and getting on Facebook until Bryan got home. Then we went with Brandon and Bryan to GameStop and Taco Bell. When we got back to the dorms Bryan wanted to take a shower and Brandon wanted to play his new games. We didn't want to sit in the freezing cold dorm again so we walked around the campus taking photos of and with all the sculptures. Bryan finally meets up with us and takes us up on the roof of a building and to hang out on the green then we decide we want to see Mr. Patrick.

Mr. Patrick is like a racist cartoon character and I love it. He says things like "How ya during?" and "chillrens." He once seriously said to me, "I don't care what anybody says, I think lil' pickaninnies is just as cute as white chillren." He told me this time that, "Them things is cuter than white chillrens." Everybody who knows him says the same thing, that they can't tell if he's serious or not but at this point they really don't care. He did tell us once that he's "not racist" and that he "loves them things like they was my own." He actually owns the banned Disney movie Song of the South and let us watch it when we got back to his place. We had met up with him at this Greek place in Five Points where I discovered that I love falafel. Then we walked around the area for a bit before going and hanging out and Pickaninny Patrick's apartment. We got home really late and had to get Bryan's dorm mates to go down and consent to him having overnight guests.

We woke up at 10-ish the next day which I guess can be considered early since we weren't in bed until 3:30. This was the day we had to drive to Auburn to see Maureen. We get on the road and hit a Wal-Mart to pick up baby gifts then then head on to Auburn. The drive to Auburn is so boring, 280 is a long, desolate, empty road. Then we get there and the town in TINY. I never imagined it would be so small. I liked it, it was cute, but it was just so little. We get to Maureen's and see her and meet her fiancé, David. He's cool. He's perfect and wonderful for Maureen. Megan and I agree that he's never what we would have expected but that that's probably a good thing. We go and get some Mexican food and then see some of their friends before attempting the arduous task of getting back to her apartment.

It was game day in Auburn and Maureen and David live about five minutes from the stadium which you would think would mean it'd be easy to get home before we'd be going the direction that like nobody is going. It's not that simple. In Auburn they close down a lot of roads to let traffic out so you basically drive around looking for a chance to turn right. We finally make it back and Maureen gets in touch with my friend Dan who says we should hang out later. This is actually my rooftop friend that moved away.

Maureen, Megan, Bryan, and I get into talking about all the people we went to high school with and man, was the gossip good. I know it's childish but sometimes a couple of hours of bashing everybody you ever knew is fun. Drew, a friend of Maureen's, comes over while we're waiting on Dan and he is already drunk from the game. Dan gets there with a bunch of people who's names I can't remember and then calls over a couple of friends to meet us. I ended up talking to them later so I remember that their names were Dylan and Libbie.

Dan, Bryan, and I run into the little brother of somebody we graduated with buying beer with a fake ID when we walk down the street on a beer run. Maureen eventually needs to get some rest and Dan wants me to drink so badly he goes to the liquor store since I don't drink beer. We relocated the party to Dan's apartment. Dan starts force feeding me vodka out of tea cups until we start drinking with his neighbor who owns a shot glass. Bryan passes out on the couch and the people I don't know as well as Dylan and Libbie leave. Dan tries to drunkenly play guitar for me and Drew and I talk about 4chan. Eventually we all try to get some rest but I wake up an hour later with Drew tugging at the sheet I'm sleeping with claiming he's cold. So I give him the sheet and go to get another but when I get up to go get one I think that maybe sleeping in the living room with Drew and Bryan isn't the best idea in the world. The rest of the apartment is freezing cold though and I can't find where Dan keeps the extra linens and I really don't want to wake him because of this weird conversation we had earlier. So I decide to wait for Drew to fall back asleep and go and get in the chair that he was SUPPOSED to be asleep in the the first place. Well, I'm not there five minutes before he starts tugging at my clothes. I just push him away and pretend to be asleep and he tries again so I get up and go to the bathroom. I send Dan a text that says, "You need to fucking get up before I get date raped in your living room." I try to sleep in the bathroom but I've sobered up enough to not be able to deal with it so I get my shoes and my purse and just walk to Maureen's since by this time it's nearly seven in the morning.

I get to Maureen's and David lets me in. Megan is already awake so I tell her my horrible tale and how much fun it was walking to Maureen's. Where Auburn is a college town the party scene is amazing. The walk home was littered with red Solo cups, beer bottles, and a couple of unopened cans of Bud Light. I fall asleep there for about three hours and then we get up and go over to Dan's to get Bryan. Drew has mysteriously disappeared and Dan and Bryan are sitting on the porch. We all go to IHOP and then drop Dan back off. Megan and I take turns showering and Maureen leaves to go get ready for the baby shower.

The shower was weird. A bunch of Maureen's Auburn friends stood around talking about how they were "so jealous" and "can't wait to get pregnant." Megan and I missed pin the pacifier on the baby and hung out on the porch with some guy named Seth. We left for Birmingham that same night. After having dinner at Al's (which may be my favorite place in the world), writing on the bathroom wall, and dealing with a short practical joke by Bryan we still wanted to see some of our other friends in town so we gathered some liquor from Bryan's dorm and headed over to John and Matt's apartment.

I didn't intend to drink but this was one of those nights where I felt like sneaking drinks even though by the time I was "sneaking" the drinks I was too drunk to be effectively sneaky. Megan finally took my last shot of rum from me. It was a shot I was taking forever to take because I had to talk to it. If I talk to the shot, then I can beat the shot. The conversation goes something like this, "I know this is gonna fuck me up, but I have to do it. I'm better than this. I can take this. You're just a shot. Like, an ounce. Alright I can do this," then you have to repeat some variation of "I can do this" for 20 minutes or so. But, like I said, Megan took it from me and then I spent the rest of the night asking her if I could have my "coconut water" back. This was by far the most drunk I have been without puking and one of the first times that I truly have trouble remembering what the hell happened. Later in the night I could vaguely recall a conversation but I was sure I had to have dreamed it even though I knew I hadn't slept. Megan later confirmed that this conversation had indeed happened.

The night ends up with me and John laying in Matt's bedroom floor talking. I think I had been on the way to the bathroom but gotten distracted by laying on the floor. Matt comes in to go to bed and I realize that Bryan probably fell asleep with his shoes on and the rules are that if you fall asleep with your shoes on then you're fair game so I drew a penis on one cheek and the letter "g" on the other. I was in the process of writing the word "gay" when he woke up. I don't remember how I got back upstairs but John and I stayed up for fucking ever talking and I only got like two hours of sleep before I woke up and was confused as to where I was.

We spent the next morning getting motivated to be productive and I put some water in my car and then we hung out with Andrew for a little while before we left. Bryan went class, Andrew went home, and then Megan and I made our way to I-65 and then split up on our respective routes home.

My car was still overheating in city traffic but the amount of wind creating by driving down the interstate kept the radiator cool enough not to overheat my engine. I got it fixed today. Since my air conditioning doesn't work they re-routed the fan from the AC to blow on the radiator as well. Even though my timing is off and I need an oil change and my car is 23 years old I still got 30 miles to the gallon on the way home.

I miss it, a lot. I almost feel like I'm supposed to be in Birmingham and even though it's only a hundred miles and I already know a hundred people there, it's still a really big step. For now, I will just try to go back more often.

In case you were wondering here's an update on Christmas Carol. I got cast, with a speaking role even. But due to some theater community animosity they didn't cast Dave and the whole idea was to do it with my friends so I really can't decide if I want to stay in the show or not. It's something I have to think on.

For now I'll end here with some links of trip photos. Expect an update when Megan finally adds the photos from the Auburn portion and that Sunday night.
First night's partying.
On campus.
On campus II
On campus III
On campus and in Five Points.

I need to go unpack, I've been home for over 24 hours and I haven't really done shit.