As the road carried me away from College Station this afternoon and toward Wichita Falls I had the strange feeling that something was wrong – or, that everything was wrong. It would be a while before I realized that this feeling is my normal state, that I hadn’t felt it all weekend. I felt as if I had somehow grown a new heart over the weekend and remembered, even if just a little bit, how to live. As my car carried me away, however, I felt like my new heart was dying – I would be dead again by the time I reached home.
I got to College Station Thursday night just a short four hours after I left Wichita Falls, around 10:30. I met Jay at Fox and Hound where he was having a drink with Eric and his fiancée and some other guy, Clayton I believe, who left as I was getting there. We soon left and drove back to Jay’s apartment, but only to park so that we could walk to North Gate.
Once there we went to a shot bar where I had a White Spider and Jay had a Flaming Dr Pepper, which seemed pretty interesting (maybe I should have had one of those?), anyways. After the shots we went over to Dudley’s and sat down to talk with some Coronas. Jay has been trying to get me to like beer since we are moving to the Czech Republic, the beer capital of the world – it hasn’t been going well for him.
After Jay finished off his Corona and I forced down about a third of mine we headed back to his place and crashed. I did, however, remember to set my alarm clock (I mean, cell phone) to go off at eight o’clock in the morning, which it did.
I got up a few hours after the sun Friday morning and went to see if any professors I wanted to see (two or three out of my five years) were at the school, but they were not. One professor, who advised me not to move back to Wichita Falls, I wrote him a letter telling him how I ignored his advice, and thanking him for it and most importantly telling him that I am moving to Prague.
Jay and I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning up his apartment for his funeral themed going away party (that, yes, he threw for himself) that evening. It took us a good 7 hours, which involved removing almost every piece of furniture from his living room, borrowing a vacuum cleaner from Michael and strategic (and if I do say so myself -brilliant) placement of some Christmas lights and rope lights.
After removing most things nasty from Jay’s apartment we went to buy a keg for the party. Neither of us had ever bought a keg, so any new experience is usually a nice experience, in some way. I have no problem with and don’t feel strange about buying a keg, but when we got to the liquor store and we were buying a keg from frat guys I have to admit that I felt a little silly.
Let me warn you, if you do not already know: Kegs are heavy. Two people with a break half way up the stairs heavy. That is a lot of beer.
Also, at the liquor store, I bought some vodka and rum – you know, just because.
Soon, people were showing up for the party and it was about to get into full swing. The music came on, the lights went out (except for course for the brilliantly placed Christmas lights) and the keg was tapped.
The party went amazingly well, I thought. Lots of people danced – not me, however. And it seemed like everyone had a great time.
Highlights?
- Faces painted like zombies, a coffin and an organ.
- Gyna showed up around 10:30 or 11 and we got to talk for a good while. She also gave Jay and I cards, but I will get to that chronologically.
- Lots of other people there that I haven’t seen in forever, including Michael Minor (whom I guess I had already seen from the vacuum cleaner borrowing), KC and Beverly.
- Watching everyone dance and make fools of themselves, but in a good way.
- Also, this:
Clifton: “Do you have a um… throwing star in your pocket?”
Beverly: pulling an object out of her pocket just long enough to reveal the dark form of a toy throwing star whispers, “I’m a ninja princess.”
The party was a big success, I think. After everyone who was leaving said their goodbyes, we headed for bed, with KC staying the night also. This night, however, I set no alarm. Jay and I had already agreed to sleep in as late as possible.
Turns out as late as possible for me is around ten o’clock. I got up just in time to say goodbye to KC as he went to eat breakfast with a friend. I grabbed the trash bag from the night before and started to gather up all the empty beer cups and half empty soda bottles from the balcony and soon realizing the bag had a hole in it. I got another bag and finished doing the same in the living room, and picking up all the toilet paper that ended up on the living room floor somehow.
Jay and I got ready for the day and went to each brunch, followed by a two o’clock screening of X-Men Three. So it turns out College Station has a new theater since I was there last, a little less than a year ago. So, of course we had to go to it. The movie was good, but not all that well directed – too big for its own two-and-a-half hour britches, really.
After this, we didn’t have a damn thing to do until seven o’clock (about three hours) when there was yet another get together for those departing College Station soon. So Jay and I went back to his place and crashed for a few hours and had a pretty good talk.
I don’t remember all the things we talked about over the weekend, but I remember that I could write an essay on many of the topics. For example:
I don’t know about anyone else but I have done some dumb-ass things in my life time. However, I realized the other day, while looking back, that I really don’t regret anything I have ever done. Sure, I regret the consequences of many of my actions – I regret hurting people and hurting myself. However, I hope that I have learned and that I am learning from all those past mistakes (though sometimes I am a rather slow learner). Looking back on my life, however, the only things I regret are the things I did not do.
Regrets from this weekend? Only one.
Once the time came to head over to the “get together” (note: this is not a party, this is a get together) we started to make that way. We obviously did so a little too quickly, I guess, because we were the first ones to arrive. So jay and I stood around for a few minutes before more guests and VIPs started to show up.
I really wish I was better at remembering names at this point, but alas, I never have been. After a brief affair with fruit trays and chips and queso in the kitchen we were slowly allured into the living room when Beverly stole the desert (chocolate chip cookies) and headed that way.
I don’t know if the girls got exactly what they wanted out of this party, but I personally had a good time. There was lots of story telling (mainly horror stories about local “Christian” originations) a general chit chat.
Towards the end Jay started to be seriously effect by Janet’s cat (allergies, you should have seen it) so as the party began to wind down everyone wanted to take last pictures. I took the first picture on automatic timer, which was quite fun, since I had to set the camera on the back of the couch, and Matt had to run outside to look through the window at the view finder to make sure everyone was in the picture. It went off rather painlessly, except that I don’t really like being in pictures.
After that, however, Beverly gave me her camera and I attempted to take a picture of the group. However, I screwed several of the pictures up, only to find out that I had accidentally pushed the timer button on her camera too, so I kept moving the camera before the picture would take, wasting several of her pictures.
This came to matter a few minutes later when we tried to get a picture of the two of us with her camera, and something similar happened, wasting her last picture and ending with nothing to show for it.
Highlights?
- The horror stories about local churches were good, as usual.
- Jay and John told the story about Big Joe who almost stabbed them in the chest one night when they offered him a ride home.
- And this:
Clifton: “That’s a very interesting necklace, what is it?”
Beverly: “These are fertility beads!” just loud enough to quell all other conversations in the room.
(It should be noted that these were not in fact fertility beads, that was merely her story for the necklace. I guess everything needs a good story, even those things without a good story.)
So, to save Jay from any crazy cat allergy reactions we departed. Luckily, though, the night was not over, because there is just too much time left in a day at ten pm.
Not long after we got back to Jay’s apartment, and he separated from his cat infested clothing John and Janet came home, soon followed by Beverly. We all sat around and talked as John and Janet were lulled to sleep by our rather deep and philosophical conversation. They just couldn’t keep up, I am sure.
We discussed how we don’t really know, any of us, what we are doing with our lives at this point - but the way I see it that is going to have to be okay, and it may take us all some time to figure that out. I do hope that none of us are afraid to figure it out, though. John and Janet, however, they have a pretty good idea where they are headed, so they decided to sleep.
When Sunday morning came around Jay and I headed out to have breakfast at Denny’s and ended up at Barns and Noble to sit and read, which we did after collecting books from across the store. In the next four or five hours we scanned several books and magazines and travel guides (Dublin as well as Prague) and I even settled in and read the entirety of Kurt Vonnegut’s newest book, A Man Without A Country, which I recommend to anyone who likes to sit down with for a nice relaxing time with twenty-six letters, ten numbers and around eight punctuation marks arranged on pages for the enjoyment of all man-kind.
After around four-and-a-half hours of sitting around reading, one becomes rather fidgety, as we did, so we left. We then ended up at a Mexican food restaurant that I cannot remember the name of with Eric and his fiancée. The food was excellent, as was the queso, but most notable were the five dollar thirty ounce margaritas (if purchased before seven o’clock).
Good food, good conversation and we retired to the apartment for some inane music conversation during which Jay tried to convince me that *rrarrrr rrarrr* heavy rock is listenable music because it is tough, to which I merely laughed. I was soon rescued from the hands of Norma Jean by a phone call from Beverly when her Life Group ended (thanks, a lot), but not before being tortured by the likes of Frodus and Strong Arm.
Beverly came over and Jay suggested that we sit out on the balcony and smoke cloves, which was a brilliant suggestion, it being a beautiful evening and all. Of course, we couldn’t in good conscience sit around and smoke cloves without inviting Michael over, so we gave him a call and he headed over.
In case you were not already aware, if you do not like beer and you are not afraid of the stigma that comes with a man drinking a “girly drink” Smirnoff Black Cherry wine coolers are rather good.
Honestly, I don’t remember a lot of what we talked about out there on the porch. Mainly because I was kind of an outsider in most of the conversation, but also because after about half an hour I got so fidgety that I could not sit still – after all, I had sat down for four-and-a-half hours earlier in the day and read an entire book. After a little while my fidgetiness lead me to get up and walk around, which I guess kind of broke up the gather. I felt kind of bad, but not too bad, it was getting late.
Monday Monday finally came around. My last day of my four day weekend. I slept in as late as I could, which happens to be around ten o’clock and I got up and got ready for the day.
We had lunch plans with Beverly, and we were lucky enough to be able to pull her away from Blue Baker to go to Los Cucos, which I have only eaten at three times now, but that place has excellent Mexican food. We talked about Prague for a bit and we talked about how Beverly is changing her thesis, with only three months left in her masters program, to Consumerism in Christian Culture (I can’t remember the exact wording, but it is something like that, and sure to be interesting). To help us out with our discussion of consumerism in Christian culture a group of around thirty people from a local “christian organization” showed and sat at a very long table not far from us.
I stopped by a bookstore on my way home and looked up "wedding" and "marriage" in dream interprectation books (yes, dream interpretation books in this town, but no handwriting analysis), they were all quiet negative, speaking of coming disappointments and what not. One book, however, agreed with some research I did online when I got home, which refered to a preparing for a coming change, or "joining" - maybe of a cause. Vague yes, I know, but more positive than those books at the bookstore. It is all for fun and games, though - nothing to take seriously.
After a rather nice lunch we gave Beverly a ride back over to Blue Baker, which I guess means she walked over there to begin with (… but anyways), so I dropped her off to get back to her research and said good-bye, but hopefully not for the last time.
There have been many people that I have seen lately for the last time, maybe the last time for quite a while or maybe the last time forever. It is a rather strange thing.
Once again, Jay and I headed back to his apartment, where I packed my stuff up and got ready to depart, but first there was something we had to do.
Jay got a keg for the party on Friday night, but we accidentally left it outside Saturday when it got rather warm and the beer went flat. This was almost devastating to Jay, and he performed every life giving act I have ever seen short of try to blow air into that little tube that the beer comes out of. As a consequence the beer was not going to be consumed, so we had to dispose of it in another way.
Curious to see how much beer was actually left over in the keg I suggested that we empty the remains into the bathtub, which we did. It took nearly half an hour of pumping and squeezing, but we got every last drop of beer and foam out of that giant tin can and it filled the bathtub up about a third of the way.
After that the keg was considerable lighter, and much easier to return to the liquor store than it was to bring from the liquor store.
After getting rid of the keg and getting back to the apartment, I sat around for about half an hour not wanting to head back to Wichita Falls, and this life that is barely a life and getting up every morning and going to the same damn job I care nothing about. I did, however, eventually decide to get on the road, which brings us back to where we began.
If this weekend is any indication, I believe Prague is going to be a very good thing for me. As I told Jay, "the first few weeks or months are going to seem like a vacation that we just never come home from."
This has been long, I know. And it is a strange beginning to a blog dedicated to my adventures in Prague, but I thought it a fitting beginning, for many reasons.
- In exactly five weeks Jay and I will be boarding a plane for lands not connected to this land.
- This has been my first weekend away from WF in quite a while, and probably my last until I leave for Prague.
- I was asked very kindly to start updating my blog again.
So, for the next five weeks, I hope to chronicle not only my preparations and news about moving to Prague, but hopefully (if I find the time and lucidity) to write about what it is in my past that has brought me to this point, though it will most likely be in no discernable order.
I hope you enjoy.
