Wednesday, January 7, 2009

CA to OR: i don't remember.

here's the deal-- not so long before xmas, i drove with teet and emma to sf, left emma in sf, went on with teeter to eugene, then portland, then CB. stayed there for a bit until we ran into teet's awesome hippie friend at the SSS (sad seaside supermarket) who told us a huge coastal storm was coming, and then started to drive south as to outrun weather that threatened to punish us from the coast to portland to mount shasta.

[photo: shas-tuh! shas-tuh! or mall co-muh! mall co-muh!]

i still have ptsd from trying to get my prius through the rockies in a snow storm, so i literally planned our return trip south as if we were future rebel leaders being chased by our would-be robot overlords sent back in time programmed solely for our elimination (the sarah not-conor chronicles). basically we drove all day until getting past the mountains, then ate the grossest meal i've ever had (congrats, chico, ca-- this says a lot since i used to order take out from cha khan on 8th and university even after my friend found a bandaid in her food. rock me, cha khan, indeed).

long story short, by the time i got back to LA, i had to ready myself for traveling to the east coast for a month+ stay. and btw, while i'm touched that everyone thinks i'm grizzly enough to drive east at this time of year, for the record-- negro por favor. 'sides, even if i did have a death wish, i still wouldn't waste precious holiday family time in my car, alone, shivering with buzzo at a sonic drive-in ordertron 2000 somewhere in biblebraska (because no matter how cold, 'tis always the season for a ddp float).

and then when i got back east, i got sick. literally, within 24 hours, i got saddled with a consumption-like cough that still hasn't entirely gone (and i found out today that a handful of older women in town have had this cold since september and had to be hospitalized, so i guess i should just be happy that all i had to deal with was 3 weeks of waking up and hocking up a large clump of a substance that one usually never sees outside of the nuclear plant where homer works).

whatever, now the holidays are over, and the sickness is contained to a bad sore throat every morning and frequent sneeze pairs (always in pairs! i have the doublemint twins of projectile phlegm!), but my camera with trip pictures is in the shop, and now i'm distracted by preparing for the big DC trip in two weeks for the big-au inaug. as most of you know (since i know most of you), thanks to a simple email to one of my elected republican representatives (who i didn't vote for, and whose local republican colleague i just helped to vote out of office), i scored two tickets to history/pure anxiety/freezing my ass off. tomorrow, no joke, i am going to the local sporting goods store and buying a full body carhartt jumper so that i can be as warm as cordura allows (and ugly and lesbiany-- yes, i can...die alone).

anyway, i have no trip pictures, not even google image search, just a place holder until i can upload the picture i took near cb of an elk herd by the highway (wtf!), or the magazine rack at my friend michael's house in sf containing the latest issue of natty dread magazine (excuse i!), or all the swastikas drawn on the walls of the wrecked house/teen hideout on the beach near teet's house (8 by my count!).

what i do have is a picture of the channukah present from my mom. see, mom's a needle point pro and makes pillows for those she loves for special occasions. eg, she's made 2 pillows for family friend jenny to celebrate the birth of each of her kids, and 3 pillows for my sister with each graduation, but until now, as someone who's accomplished almost nothing (unless you count winning 90s trivial pursuit or remembering to buy trash bags at hannaford, and please don't), i've gotten none. so this is the pillow my mom finally made me, which i like to think is of me. hope everyone else experienced such satisfaction over the holidays. and didn't cough up anything that glowed.