A Trip to SGJ's House on Half a Tank of Gas
First off despite my rough background I haven't spent a lot of time away from the house. And that's all it really is a house. A roof over my head, a bed for me to sleep in, and someone I know in the next room. And now the paranoia sets in. No matter what I've done I've always had a friend go with me, because there's strength in numbers and this had to be one of the few times where I was doing something without a friend. It gets into my stomach and feels like a beaver I was fucking built a dam there. I'm usually frying the synapses and nerve endings just existing, but this put them in hyper mode. Anyway so let's get onto the trip and how it progressed.
Friday
Get a late start, leave about 3pm when I should have left closer to noon, because it's a five hour trip and the sun still assumes it has to go to bed at five. Arrive in Lubbock around 8.20 [delay due to gas stop and piss break] and check into the fun loving Ashmore Inn & Suites which isn't a bad place, just not 100% aware of what's going on. My first room turns out to be someone else's that wasn't put on hold when it should have so I have to lug my bags back to the main desk and then back to the room I'm reassigned too. Not bad little room, but white walls and burgundy carpet will make anyone sick. They need a better interior decorator. Call parents since they asked me to, call Drew to see if there was anything he wanted me to mention to SGJ before I called him [Drew no pick up the phone], call SGJ to arrange a time to meet for lunch [12.30 at Taqueria Jaliseo [I think that's what it was called]], lay down on the bed and realize I'm exhausted, and finally talk to the girl before passing out.
Saturday
Wake up around 10 and watch cartoons till 11, I miss cartoons I should watch them more often. Get ready and head up to the restraunt a little after noon, I was afraid I might have a hard time finding it so I left super early. Turns out the restraunt is ten minutes away with a stop at the bank included and it's hard to miss. So I wait in the parking lot like a nerd till close to 12.30 red penning some of my stories I had printed up and brought with me. I thought I would have more time than I did. Walk in and don't see him in the restraunt so I sit out in the little atrium on the bench in front of the "Claw" machines. [You know the thing from Toy Story, the CLAW.] He walks in a few minutes later in black sunglasses, a polyester bomber [styled] jacket with Blackfeet Indian in red on the back, cowboy work boots, jeans, and a grey t-shirt. He's never seen a picture of me, but the minute he walks in he extends his hand and says, Hi Nick. We sit at a random table and order the same thing [chicken fajita burritos, mine with everything, his with only lettuce] and start discussing everything under the moon starting with the trip out there from Dallas, schooling at UNT, Texas Tech, and FSU. We discuss books ranging from the Da Vinci Code to Lonesome Dove and segway into movies from there. Movies ends up our topic of choice for the next two hours roughly since we both have a love for them. Then a light bulb flicks over my head and I realize him and I are almost identical with the major difference being our mothers and age. We like nearly all the same things and have similar tastes in most of what we discuss, even food, and cities [both of us have a strange distaste for Austin]. Discussion gets so good I forget to ask some of Drew's questions until later. I even had a camera with me, didn't use it, because I was too wrapped up in talking with him and our similarities. I tell him where I work and he tells me that he likes Barnes & Nobel, because everytime he gives a reading they let him have an employee discount for the day and he buys a couple baskets worth. Which I'll get into that later, because it becomes quite apparent that in the past year he's read more books than me by at least ten fold.
After about two hours of discussion in the restraunt we leave realizing that we're probably holding the table and the waitress probably doesn't like that since she hasn't refilled our drinks in awhile. Outside he asks if I want to follow him or ride with him up to his office to get the book that I trekked all the way out to Lubbock for and I say I'll ride with since that'll be easier than finding two spots on campus and I won't get lost. He agrees and I climb into his mid 70's Ford Ranger-250 burnt a violent orange, but faded. He even has an 8-track still in his truck and we jam out to Wylan Jennings all the way to his office on campus. We have trouble finding a parking spot and neither of us know why since it's the weekend. Might have been a game day we think. I just like the fact that a teacher at the school doesn't know what's going on and really doesn't care. I'd be the same way. He had another teacher pull a catalog for me since I was looking to grab one from the admin building before I left. Then we head up to his office and we start discussing all the juicy things about writing for another two hours and he lets me take a stack of back issues of The Writer's Chronicle [about 15] and he says I can have free reign on any writing books I wanted that he had doubles of [I took What If?]. Basically I got to clean out his office and keep it. He said he'd pull up Seven Spanish Angels for me to read the beginning of since he had rewritten it, but he wanted to check it first and I said he can check it while I use the restroom. He hands me a student novel and tells me to stick it in the door to keep from getting locked out.
I get back and he lets me read 7SPN's new opening and the opening to Demon Theory and then discuss his upcoming projects, his current books in limbo, the problems with Rugged Land, and why you'll never see ATBS in paperback so don't bother ordering it, get the hardcover. Basically things I'm not sure I can discuss and if I can, they'll wait till SGJ.net is up. Oh I'm a tease yes I know. I point him to a coy of GUTS online and find an mp3 of it so he can use them as teaching material for class and then he asks if I want to see a movie in the middle of the coversation. Of course. So we go to see Million Dollar Baby and finish our discussion on the ride there. We discussed other things, but my mind fails me in the glory of the whole thing. I mean I was bullshitting with a potential teacher for the hell of it.
We go back to the restraunt after the movie and the sun is starting to head south and he tells me that he needs to get out of town before sunset so the cops won't pull him over since his headlights don't work so I ask him to only sign two books [Sorry Dan I didn't get him to sign all of yours, but he personalized yours.] He signed mine "Next time we'll see a movie that's not so sad." Oh and you better bet there will be a next time.
Went back to the hotel and watched Secret Window on HBO since it seemed appropriate. Then worked on recording the events so I could better recount it for everyone.
Sunday
Drove home on the wet rain abused roads while idiots tried to make the trip as well. It was a nightmare, but it didn't dampen my spirits, just my jeans. Oh you wish you could be me for those few minutes, don't you.
First off despite my rough background I haven't spent a lot of time away from the house. And that's all it really is a house. A roof over my head, a bed for me to sleep in, and someone I know in the next room. And now the paranoia sets in. No matter what I've done I've always had a friend go with me, because there's strength in numbers and this had to be one of the few times where I was doing something without a friend. It gets into my stomach and feels like a beaver I was fucking built a dam there. I'm usually frying the synapses and nerve endings just existing, but this put them in hyper mode. Anyway so let's get onto the trip and how it progressed.
Friday
Get a late start, leave about 3pm when I should have left closer to noon, because it's a five hour trip and the sun still assumes it has to go to bed at five. Arrive in Lubbock around 8.20 [delay due to gas stop and piss break] and check into the fun loving Ashmore Inn & Suites which isn't a bad place, just not 100% aware of what's going on. My first room turns out to be someone else's that wasn't put on hold when it should have so I have to lug my bags back to the main desk and then back to the room I'm reassigned too. Not bad little room, but white walls and burgundy carpet will make anyone sick. They need a better interior decorator. Call parents since they asked me to, call Drew to see if there was anything he wanted me to mention to SGJ before I called him [Drew no pick up the phone], call SGJ to arrange a time to meet for lunch [12.30 at Taqueria Jaliseo [I think that's what it was called]], lay down on the bed and realize I'm exhausted, and finally talk to the girl before passing out.
Saturday
Wake up around 10 and watch cartoons till 11, I miss cartoons I should watch them more often. Get ready and head up to the restraunt a little after noon, I was afraid I might have a hard time finding it so I left super early. Turns out the restraunt is ten minutes away with a stop at the bank included and it's hard to miss. So I wait in the parking lot like a nerd till close to 12.30 red penning some of my stories I had printed up and brought with me. I thought I would have more time than I did. Walk in and don't see him in the restraunt so I sit out in the little atrium on the bench in front of the "Claw" machines. [You know the thing from Toy Story, the CLAW.] He walks in a few minutes later in black sunglasses, a polyester bomber [styled] jacket with Blackfeet Indian in red on the back, cowboy work boots, jeans, and a grey t-shirt. He's never seen a picture of me, but the minute he walks in he extends his hand and says, Hi Nick. We sit at a random table and order the same thing [chicken fajita burritos, mine with everything, his with only lettuce] and start discussing everything under the moon starting with the trip out there from Dallas, schooling at UNT, Texas Tech, and FSU. We discuss books ranging from the Da Vinci Code to Lonesome Dove and segway into movies from there. Movies ends up our topic of choice for the next two hours roughly since we both have a love for them. Then a light bulb flicks over my head and I realize him and I are almost identical with the major difference being our mothers and age. We like nearly all the same things and have similar tastes in most of what we discuss, even food, and cities [both of us have a strange distaste for Austin]. Discussion gets so good I forget to ask some of Drew's questions until later. I even had a camera with me, didn't use it, because I was too wrapped up in talking with him and our similarities. I tell him where I work and he tells me that he likes Barnes & Nobel, because everytime he gives a reading they let him have an employee discount for the day and he buys a couple baskets worth. Which I'll get into that later, because it becomes quite apparent that in the past year he's read more books than me by at least ten fold.
After about two hours of discussion in the restraunt we leave realizing that we're probably holding the table and the waitress probably doesn't like that since she hasn't refilled our drinks in awhile. Outside he asks if I want to follow him or ride with him up to his office to get the book that I trekked all the way out to Lubbock for and I say I'll ride with since that'll be easier than finding two spots on campus and I won't get lost. He agrees and I climb into his mid 70's Ford Ranger-250 burnt a violent orange, but faded. He even has an 8-track still in his truck and we jam out to Wylan Jennings all the way to his office on campus. We have trouble finding a parking spot and neither of us know why since it's the weekend. Might have been a game day we think. I just like the fact that a teacher at the school doesn't know what's going on and really doesn't care. I'd be the same way. He had another teacher pull a catalog for me since I was looking to grab one from the admin building before I left. Then we head up to his office and we start discussing all the juicy things about writing for another two hours and he lets me take a stack of back issues of The Writer's Chronicle [about 15] and he says I can have free reign on any writing books I wanted that he had doubles of [I took What If?]. Basically I got to clean out his office and keep it. He said he'd pull up Seven Spanish Angels for me to read the beginning of since he had rewritten it, but he wanted to check it first and I said he can check it while I use the restroom. He hands me a student novel and tells me to stick it in the door to keep from getting locked out.
I get back and he lets me read 7SPN's new opening and the opening to Demon Theory and then discuss his upcoming projects, his current books in limbo, the problems with Rugged Land, and why you'll never see ATBS in paperback so don't bother ordering it, get the hardcover. Basically things I'm not sure I can discuss and if I can, they'll wait till SGJ.net is up. Oh I'm a tease yes I know. I point him to a coy of GUTS online and find an mp3 of it so he can use them as teaching material for class and then he asks if I want to see a movie in the middle of the coversation. Of course. So we go to see Million Dollar Baby and finish our discussion on the ride there. We discussed other things, but my mind fails me in the glory of the whole thing. I mean I was bullshitting with a potential teacher for the hell of it.
We go back to the restraunt after the movie and the sun is starting to head south and he tells me that he needs to get out of town before sunset so the cops won't pull him over since his headlights don't work so I ask him to only sign two books [Sorry Dan I didn't get him to sign all of yours, but he personalized yours.] He signed mine "Next time we'll see a movie that's not so sad." Oh and you better bet there will be a next time.
Went back to the hotel and watched Secret Window on HBO since it seemed appropriate. Then worked on recording the events so I could better recount it for everyone.
Sunday
Drove home on the wet rain abused roads while idiots tried to make the trip as well. It was a nightmare, but it didn't dampen my spirits, just my jeans. Oh you wish you could be me for those few minutes, don't you.
elijah:
wow. its always cool to meet someone who you have a lot in common with, it feels like you met a twin or something. i know that sounds dumb, but im sure you understand what im trying to say...