(i'm going to go drive)

i'm about to hit the pavement, but wanted to assure you that you won't be getting a week off from me. oh...you wanted a week off from me? well, you're going to just have to make that happen yourself, kiddo. flip that macbook closed and go outside.

i have one of those moments this morning when you're being very friendly to someone and their cold look and matter-of-fact-ish response looks to you like sarcasm which is putting a bigger smile on your face until you realize that no...actually this person is really being a total dickhead to your big, smiling, friendly self.

i pulled a quick about face and was a dick right back, of course, and figured he was just pissed he's not about to take a 1000 mile road trip with music that his faithful blog readers recommended.

it would totally suck to not be doing that, so i understand his position.

it didn't ruin my generally good (albeit entirely stressed) mood.

i left this post for last...i'm going to close my macbook (practice what you preach, people), drag my bags down to the car, come back up to get the puppy, and i'm OUT.

i'll talk to you when i get to new york, mkay?

(san diego revisited)

the edward hopper exhibition ends on saturday, and i haven't seen it.

i want to. i'm thinking friday sometime after lunch. join me.

the main concern this weekend, however, is the arrival of my dear friend SauSau from san diego. you may remember the band's trip to san diego.

Sau took us all over san diego, first to pacific beach then to del mar and she's the reason i stayed another day and switched my flight while i was standing on the beach.

my buddies fell in love with her and decided she needed sunglasses so they bought her some, because she wouldn't buy them for herself.

when we're all together we tend to wear our sunglasses.

so she's in town saturday, and we want to take her to a delicious and fun dinner, followed by a deliciously fun after-hours venue.

i want your help.

what are your favorite spots in chicago for entertaining out of towners?

(ninja fish)

my youngest sister is moving to japan.

i'm pretty sure i mentioned that in january when she had a birthday, but as the world turns this whole other side of the world thing is looking a lot more likely.

it's not a done deal, by any means, but having pursued certain programs over there and waiting to see what her choices will be, i think the 'decision' at the top level's been made.

which is crazy cool.

but it completely and fully necessitates a trip to japan, which isn't something you decide to do without planning it way ahead of time.

right?

last night i had some killer sushi with couch, and she mentioned two must happens during my time over in japan.

first, a restaurant staffed entirely by fully trained ninjas. as in, it takes years to become a ninja and this restaurant hires them to serve food. assuming you haven't had food served by a group of men who could take over the world if they felt like it, this seems like something worth paying for. as couch put it, "i'd eat cheese and bread the entire trip to make this happen".

second, a spa in which doctor fish eat the dead skin off of you. it's called fish reflexology, and i figure that after eating a meal served by ninjas, making myself the meal should round out the trip nicely.

what else is there to do in asia?

(sunglasses at night)

as i alluded to yesterday, i made a last minute decision to stay in san diego, and actually called the airline while standing in the sand and sunshine. from decision to confirmation the whole thing took about four minutes, and all of a sudden i didn't have to go to the airport.

our entire weekend was fun with side of fun, and even though the weather wasn't exactly gorgeous until yesterday, we spent most of our time outside and (ahem) drinking or eating.

we met some truly awesome people, some truly crazy people, some old friends, and some new friends.

the people in san diego truly took care of us, in a way that as i think back is really surprising...they opened up their homes and vip access and gave us hours of their time to show us their beautiful city.

i want to include pictures with the stories i have, mostly due to the fact that some of the pictures we took are almost the entire story in and of itself, so i'll walk you through the weekend when i'm back in chicago.

right now i'm in san diego airport, and you guessed it...i'm watching people.

a little kid just walked by wearing a space helmet, and another three year old is jumping up and down two seats away from my buddy brady, jabbering away nonsensically...and i'm pretty sure brady's doing all he can not to seriously injure the toodler permanently.

three days of four hours sleep will make guys like us dangerous, kids.

(i fly swa)

i was standing in the sand wearing sandals with a mexican branded beer in hand, calling customer service.

"can i help you?"

"i just found an old friend of mine in pacific beach, california, and i need to stay here until monday."

"okay, sir, what time would you like to fly out?"

"i like you already."

(gaslamp)

so far.

still lots of tasty asians. (thanks for the racist support, lovers)

beautiful day filled with working while eating fruit and granola and looking out over a foggy ocean crossed with fisherman and middle aged women walking hastily in underarmor. breakfast lasted nearly two hours and i felt retired.

i'm looking forward to retirement.

we've spent the last few hours wandering around downtown san diego, where apparently everyone is a tourist. no one lives here. we're actually the most acclimated people in san diego, by all measures, giving out directions and sharing insights into where the action might be later tonight.

now we're supposed to be at the hard rock hotel, walking past lines into their savvy little club and the newer sexy scene in town...but we're listening to spoon and dancing in our hotel room.

some very nice people have offered to give us access to this beautiful city, and we can't seem to get our asses out of the hotel.

so.

i bid you adieu.

it's time to see what southern california's made of.

(san diego airport)

asians.

everywhere.

i love airports. love them.

i know that's a slightly unconventional thing to say, especially when it's uttered by someone who actively despises flying, but airports are about as stimulating an environment to hang out in as anything else i can imagine. it's like an all-ages club mixed with a day care centers mixed with a rock concert mixed with a zoo, and you can buy coffee and shitty food and witness the range of human emotion in a span of less than ten seconds.

i just looked around and saw two people crying, a little girl screaming bloody murder, three couples kiss and two people yelling at one another.

you can't get that in a movie or a bar.

in particular i like the california airports. there's a few reasons for this, the most chauvinist one being the (possibly perceived) increased number of beautiful women sauntering around.

but there's also the asians, which remind me of my college days, which warms me up a bit inside. this is some weird form of racism, i'm sure.

immediately off the plane i bought myself a big coffee and sat down to wait for brady, who should be landing any minute. coffee at 9pm (chicago time - i just earned myself two free hours, by the way!) isn't necessarily the most nutritionally responsible idea, but what better way to kick up the rush of energy i get when my feet hit west coast soil than to chug some caffeine, right?

vacation means self-abuse, usually.

every time i'm in an airport, i buy a book.

this has been a tradition for me since the days when i'd travel around the country as a soccer player*...i think because the bookstores in airports were the only place i could kill some time before boarding flights that didn't make me want to kill myself. it's stuck with me, and every trip that's involved a flight has added a book to my collection.

i write the destination and date in each book cover. i buy the book at the beginning of each trip.

in a way it makes me feel like i've already gotten something from each trip...back when i was flying to LA each month to work on the set of a terrible game show filmed there, this was about all i got from the travel.

in another way, it sort of contains my literary purchases...i know i'll be buying books at somewhat regular intervals, and thus don't really hit up borders all that often.**

today i purchased 'in defense of food'...which looks to be a great read, based on its introduction. it's a lot of info i already knew (we'll get into my nutritional upbringing on another day), but for me it's reading like an affirmation of the way i approach what i eat. and hey, i'm all for affirmation of my own way of thinking.

now at the moment...i'm thinking it's time to get into some southern california.

if you're in san diego, get a hold of me!***




*as i was typing right here, a girl so hot she'd melt ice cream walked by.

**used bookstores are a whole different animal...if i walk in the door i'm walkin' out with at least four books.

***the sad reality is that anyone who wants to get a hold of me quickly and can't find a way to do that should cease participating in the internet.

is there any form of social media/online community/synced media/net-provided instant access on earth that i'm not listed on? all of which immediately contact me on all the other hubs and email me and make my cellphone vibrate?

i'm easier to track down than a glass of water.

(going going)

back back.

to cali cali.

so thursday i'm headed on a jetplane to the whale's v*gina.

it's been quite a while since i've hit up san diego, and of maybe twenty trips back to the pacific coast only one's been to san diego. i'm pretty sure that's because i was indoctrinated in cali culture up in the bay area. and because the bay area rules.

but this weekend i crash the southern party, where a few old friends and few kickass bloggers spend their days, and i'm wondering how to entertain myself.

you'd know better than i would, right?

where's the killer food?

where's the fun?

what's that sunny beach-laden city got to offer me?

we arrived in italy some time during the early hours of the day.

exhausted from the long flight and all the joking, nagging, and general gaming you'd typically expect of a clan of teenage boys, we piled into a coach-style bus with foreign language ads on the side for a three-hour journey out to the coast of the country.

where we were headed was really anyone's guess.

that's the way these things go when you have nothing to do with your own travel plans.

we'd been the fortunate few who'd survived a grueling week of 90-degree temperatures and three-a-day training sessions in the desert-like olympic compound in chula vista, california.

living three to a room and eating mediocre cafeteria food for a week is one thing...finding out at the end of that week that you're not actually going home is another.

it was supposed to be an honor. those who went home were supposed to be the ones complaining. and i'm sure they were; i'm sure some of their parents were complaining pretty loudly.

the rest of us were left behind to adjust and prepare.

adjust to the 20-day trip we'd just signed on for...
prepare to represent the United States in an international soccer competition.

we were the USA Men's Under-18 National Team.

it all seemed very sudden. unreal, in fact; how do you represent a country, anyway?

don't i have a history paper due next week?

where is italy?

our bags were loaded underneath the bus, headphones shot onto everyone's heads, and twenty-four young guys from all over the States spread out into their seats using folded sweatshirts as pillows. i sat across from leemo and we laughed as nino yelled "THESE...nuts" after everything our team manager said.

i stared out the window at a foreign countryside, comparing it to what i'd seen in holland and england; not much of a difference when you didn't care about the details.

can't read italian.
can't read dutch.
no difference there!

i realized my peers were headed to school right then, halfway around the world. i was missing out on my real world...i had embarked on an adventure in a new world that i wasn't quite sure about yet.

they think you're one of the nation's best players, i thought.
i miss my girlfriend, i thought.


you're gonna look back and laugh at the girlfriend thing, i thought.

a few hours later, our bus pulled into ravenna (or was it pesaro?) where we'd be housed in a rather nice old-ish hotel for the week. we pulled up slowly to the grandiose front entrance as a crowd of local shop-owners and children parted our way, pushing up to the sides of the bus to peer into the window while they waved and cheered.

they help up our nation's flags and that of their own allegiances, smiling and chanting "USA, USA" at our bewildered stares.

we looked out at them, dumbfounded.
we wondered aloud how they knew of our arrival.
why were they cheering for the United States?

our manager and coach gave us our room assignments, told us to unload, and asked us to sign autographs on our way in.

autographs?!

however we'd gotten to where we were as we walked off that bus, and whatever pulled at us from our homes and our lives and our uncertainty, seemed at that moment to be The Past.

our ambivalence was gone.

this was now, and this was happening, and this was exciting.

i stepped down off of that bus with the United States Soccer crest burning into my chest.

i stood there and signed autographs and posed for pictures with young kids in soccer cleats and old men in soccer jerseys, laughing as the unequivocal response to my answers to "WHERE FROM??" ("CHICAGO!") was "MICHAEL JORDAN!!!".

i was standing tall, and feeling like a representative...i was there to represent my home.

there to represent the people i missed and my high school teammates and the friends i couldn't wait to share this experience with.

i was ready for this.

i'd arrived in italy.

when i was young, maybe 15 or 16, i went and lived in holland for a few months.

i flew into amsterdam and remember thinking i was the coolest person on earth.

earth being the mid-sized suburb i grew up in.

a nuclear bomb could have taken out the entire country

but if my little bubble of a suburb hadn't been affected

we really wouldn't have known.

anyway, i arrived in holland and this quirky, unusually skinny man named william van der wal picked myself and a sort-of friend of mine up in a car about the size of go-cart and drove us three hours out into holland into the community we'd be staying at for our stay.

william ("villum", as he put it) looked kind of like an emancipated horse. he drove fast, like maniacally fast, in a country filled with round-about intersections and sheep herds with the right of way.

he was our host/tour guide/soccer coach and every morning he would pick us up from our host family's quaint brick home and take us about our daily activities, which usually included two work outs and some hairbrained tourist excursion.

you see, much like chicago and illinois, there is holland and there is amsterdam.

we were in holland.

this is a country with more sheep than humans, more land under water than above water, and endless fields of tall grass.

three hours from amsterdam, you're pretty short on touristy excursions.

i remember some soccer stadiums (smaller than my highschool stadium) and some parks with jungle gyms.

and a bike ride involving the two of us foreigners, plus maybe four dutch kids we could barely communicate with, throwing eggs at the neighbor's houses.

a ride-by egging.

i'm fairly sure villum wasn't a part of that.

it's also surprisingly difficult to throw an egg while riding a bicycle.

either way, we made it into amsterdam just once to take in an ajax match.

i remember thinking, "AMSTERDAM! there's MARIJUANA here."

i didn't know what it meant.
but i thought i was cool just for knowing what it was called.

what i find amusing about the whole experience (and let me tell you, i hated almost every moment of this particular trip), is that a lot of people i know have been to amsterdam. they all have such funny stories about the city, it's people, and of course, it's notoriously liberal social mandates.

yet here i am with these awkward associations of a city that, for most, embodies freedom and experimentation and good times...but for me triggers thoughts of creepy bad drivers and eggs.