rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

what a fucking week it’s been.
to recant it all in a single entry would be more than I could muster right now. but I’ll go over some key events, highlighted in bold:
stayed at the original Motel 6 in Santa Barbara. it was too expensive. it is, after all, just a Motel 6.
San Francisco (in its entirety). pretty cool. ultra-liberal, mega-hip, super-expensive. nice place to visit, but I don’t know if I could live there. Alisha is smitten by it. she plans to move there in the fall for grad school in fashion design. my thoughts on this are varied and deep, and they’ll be explained at another time.
we took US 50 through Nevada, which is about as desolate as fucking desolate gets, man.
I drove halfway across Kansas in third gear. and I really have no excuse.
also, I said “motherfucker” directly in front of a Kansas state trooper when he implied that I might get a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. quick backstory: Alisha picked up a cop for speeding just as she exited the highway at a truckstop so she could pee. we didn’t even notice him. I took my belt off to go pick up a Big Gulp and some jerky, and bam, there he is, tapping on the driver’s window and we’re getting a ticket. John Law’s all like, “how long you had your seatbelt off?” and it had literally been seconds, but I didn’t think he’d believe that, and I said “motherfucker” as a reflex. nice.
ate a Dagwoods sandwich for the first time in a long time. it was pretty tasty. I missed Logan when I was there. my bad, man, we’ll get a beer next time I pull through town (couple of weeks).
Mike Smith looks like shit, but that’s nothing new. also, he has a nice apartment, with tasteful furnishings. you’re in my prayers, sweetheart. tell Megan to draw deep breaths. you’ll be fine.
at about a half a dozen different times during the trip, Alisha almost sent me over the edge. but now, I’m in Valparaiso, and I miss her like fire already. yes. I know.

so now I’m back in Valparaiso again. eight months later. just played poker over at Dave Weinberg’s house with the usual collection of idiots. he and his roommate pay a friend 30 dollars to clean their entire apartment, and she apparently really needs the money because she agrees. Dave is probably the most consistenly filthy motherfucker I’ve ever met. at one point in the evening, she came out of Dave’s bathroom with his wastebasket in hand and emptied the entire thing into a black garbage bag. this released one of the worst smells I’ve experience in a long time. it seriously cleared the room. three or four of us made for the porch, where a couple of people lit cigarettes to try and mask the stench. meanwhile, Dave actually began dry-heaving, ran into the bathroom and vomited into the toilet. not kidding.
while on the porch, the rest of us discussed what the smell might have been. I was partial to “dead animal,” but consensus gathered that it was probably shit. like, literally shit. feces. how that ended up in the wastebasket is anyone’s guess, but either way, it was one of the most awful things I’ve ever experienced.
sidenote: their friend cleaning the place didn’t even fucking flinch through the entire ordeal. I don’t know what that’s a tribute to, but it’s got to be something. also, her job is a thankless one. when she was finished and was watching television, Dave was pouring wax from the Glade scent candles all over himself and the dining room table top. that place will be filthy again in a day or two, without a doubt.

alright. that’ll give you something to think about. I leave for Europe Wednesday to meet Mar and immediately dislike her friends and be ultra-sarcastic. and that takes time and energy. so I’m out. see you in a few.