We're Pretending We're a Travel Blog, Part 4

Home safe. Just to get that out there.

The morning started with us calling up Choz (motherfucking) Cunningham this morning, and meeting him at the Pfunky Griddle, aptly described as "do-it-yourself pancake hibachi". You pay about seven dollars for a plastic ramikin (God, I hate spelling that word) full of topping, and all the batter you can pour onto the griddles set into the middle of the tables. Actually quite an experience, I'll do it again if I can.

After that was a nap, which we all sorely needed, and me waking up to feel like someone had tarred my throat. I think the cocktails and the dog hair and the lack of sleep all finally conspired to get me sick. This may require working from home tomorrow and a vast quantity of tea, but I will muddle through somehow.

Then, finally, there came the airport. Security was, once again, painless, though I again made a mistake and forgot to take off my jackets. Go me. The first flight was fine, except for the vague desire to die the entire way, reinforced by the shifting out of Central and into Mountain time on the way to Denver. My experience of Denver now is patches of brown and tan Tetrads, with the occasional suture scar of a forest or gorge, and a somewhat dark, very oppressive airport. I loaded up on Vitamin C, popped some DayQuil and Airborne, and made myself ready for the second flight.

The second flight was, my friends, my first experience with getting onto an open-seating flight and not being the first group on. So my beloved emergency exit seats were taken, and I was forced to take a seat with the plebes who aren't willing to pretend to be John McClane in the event of an emergency. I discovered that Southwest seats are actually all relatively comfy. At least until the guy in front of you reclines his chair into your face and you wind up typing with the laptop keyboard perpendicular to your sternum. So, don't blame me for not getting much done on "Recess", I did my best to improve and grow it under the circumstances. I am choosing to believe that guy's seat really was broken, because the alternative is to be annoyed.

I also had the interesting experience, on board the plane, of talking to a woman who doesn't really read much--she cited John Grisham as her primary literary choice, who is not bad, but certainly not my thing. We discussed crime and procedural dramas until we both got bored, which happened about the time I realized she hated it when stories got intellectual and weird, and decided to let her live as she chooses to live. Me, I still have a mental scar of Ikari Gendo's face as he smiles and says "Congratulations!"

Then, we finally landed, and due to bad planning on my part and an emergency at a friend's workplace (let's hear it for Silicon Valley, home of the *coughcoughwe'reexempt*-hour work week!), I was forced to take a cab. The cabbie was a nice Indian man, his language skills somewhere between pidgin and real eloquence; it was like if Hunter S. Thompson had been an ESL student. I got in and we started a typical airport cab conversation that rapidly paradigm-shifted:

Him: "So, where you coming from tonight?"

Me: "Oh, Nashville, coming home. I was out there seeing friends for the weekend."

Him: "Ah."

Silence.

Me: "So, how's your night been?"

Him: "Pretty lazy so far. So far, this my third fare. I work very hard yesterday, all my arms, tired, but, good tired, you know, you work hard maybe little overwork?"

Me: "Yeah, totally."

Pause. Drink water.

Him (chuckling a little): "Also, I think I overdrank little. Have four, five shot."

I settled in, because this cabbie was officially awesome.

He got me home in record time, though not record price (thankfully), and I trudged inside, where I immediately went, charged into comfier clothes, and sat down to blog, which has taken me, thanks to discussing my epic journey into the renal system of America, an hour. So I will conclude now, on this thought: Nashville is a beautiful bustling town, working its way up to small city, like Fort Bragg with centuries more history; and I realized, as I watched the plane descend tonight, that I live in a sea of golden lights.

Thank you for reading.