Abriged
Spring Semester, 1999
So what's happened since last time we spoke? I drove across the country... I became a WWF fan... I realized my dreams of being a rap superstar... that other thing... just too much to write about. I guess the road trip thing is the most interesting part. Oh, I know, I'll list every place I went, and then tell you one story, and we'll all be happy.
All you need to know is that I went to the Orange Bowl with the Cheerleading team, and then I met Sue, Melissa, Thor and Kristin in Denver to start the road trip:
December 31: New Year's Eve in Miami, on South Beach.
January 1: 1 am. Swim in Atlantic.
January 2: Orange Bowl. We lost. Terribly.
January 3: 5 am. Get on a bus with NO sleep and go to the airport. Change in Atlanta. Fly to Denver. Meet Thor at airport, hear about how the group just hit a deer the night before. Wonder what I'm getting myself into. Leave Denver early that evening. Drive to Santa Fe.
January 4: Dawn. Arrive at Grand Canyon. Watch sunrise. Sleep in car. Hoover Dam. Vegas, baby! Sleep in Circus, Circus Hotel. Eat. Gamble. Win a stuffed pig, and a whole bunch of nickels.
January 5: Sleep. Eat. Drive to Auburn (outside of Sacramento). Sleep.
January 6: San Francisco. It rocked. Sleep in Auburn.
January 7: Drive to LA (sleep in Murietta).
January 8: LA sucks. Swim in Pacific. Sleep in Murrietta.
January 9: Drive to El Paso. Sleep in desert, outside of Hueco Tanks State Park.
January 10: Wake up, get hassled by State Park Ranger. Drive to McAllen (in Southern Texas).
January 11: Sleep in McAllen.
January 12: Visit South Padre Island and Progresso, Mexico. Buy whip and Tequila.
January 13: Leave McAllen early in the morning. Visit Alamo. Find cheapest gas in the world (.77/gallon). Arrive in New Orleans.
Well, the best story I can tell you begins in New Orleans. We had decided to stay in the Prytania Inn in the Garden district. There were five of us, but two went in (Sue and Melissa). They admitted to four occupants, and Sue paid with her credit card, after getting a glance at the room. We grabbed our things and went upstairs.
The room was a hole. There were two king size beds, foot to foot in the middle of the room. They were made up. The quilted headboards each had two huge grease stains on them, probably from hookers heads being slammed against them. There were four pillows. The windows were falling off the walls, so that they could not be locked, or even closed all of the way.
We were going to have to rough it.
I used the bathroom first. I don't have a problem with roaches. There were roaches in the laundry room of the DoubleTree Grand at which I stayed in Miami. However, most roaches run for cover when you turn on the lights.
One of the Prytania roaches actually looked up at me as I turned on the bathroom light, gave me the finger, grumbled, "Fuck you," and went about his business. I was appalled.
Oh, and the bathtub was full of dead ants.
So we tried to get our money back, as I tried to make reservations at Emeril's Restaurant. The man on duty at the inn said to come back in the morning when the manager was around, and we could get our money back, no problem. The woman at Emeril's said that they were booked for the evening, and we should try another day.
In order to get a cheaper rate at the Ambassador on Tchoupitoulas, Thor and Kristin posed as a "professional couple" who were arguing. They used Sue's AAA card, and we got a room for $80. This Ambassador used to be a coffee factory, and it still has the same brick walls and glass doors. It was the prettiest hotel I ever stayed in. Aww.
Bourboun Street.
We started with Po' Boys and raw oysters and beer. Not bad. Then came the Hurricane. Boy, that'll mess you up quick... if you drink it fast enough. Of course, they don't ID you at the Hurricane stand. There's no bathroom at the Hurricane stand. If you wanna pee, you've got to go into a bar, or risk getting arrested. The bars card you. (I'm only 20). One bar doesn't card. I go in and ask for a Coke, since I have to buy something to use the bathroom. The bartender says:
"Soft drink is $3.25. I can give you a shot for $3 even."
"Okay... Umm... give me a shot of Jaegermeister."
"$3."
"Here you go." Slam. Pee. Pee. Pee.
January 14: Get up. Go to the Prytania Inn to try to get our money back. Of course, it wasn't easy, and the manager accused of us stealing sheets and pillowcases from the room. We hadn't. I asked him why we would steal linens from a room we hadn't felt was clean enough to sleep in. Of course, he had no answer. Sue is still working with her credit card company to refuse payment. They're on our side. Head to Knoxville, Tennessee. Sleep.
January 15: SUNSPHERE! No, there's no wig shop. Yes, they've been asked. I did find out you can rent out the banquet hall for $100 an hour. Guess who's having a party in Tennessee. Drive to DC. Georgetown party.
January 16: Quick tour of DC, and head back to Syracuse. Melissa gets a ticket an hour before we get home, right after Thor turns over Rosie, the stuffed pig I won in Vegas.
January 17: Bring the car back to Boston with Sue and Kristin. Come back to Syracuse with Kristin's brother, Lee. Return to normal life... basically.
Anyway, I'm taking a little break from my regular publishing schedule (as you might have noticed). I've been named Editor-in-Chief of Orange Source, so I'll be spending most of my time working on that. I wanted to get this up, though. So I got together some poems, got The Captain to write, and finally got that K2 scheme up over at Metallus' Link Page. So that's an issue. Number 15, and the last until the summer. Don't cry. Just read Orange Source. It's what I'll be doing. * * *Oh, I almost forgot. The HB Taxonomy was mentioned in the back of Timothy and Kevin Burke's Saturday Morning Fever, so I put it back in its rightful place. I don't like broken links.