Ok, everyone. This is it, part 10 of a 10 part series. It’s finally over. I promise, no more 80 page bulletin posts from me. If you want to keep up on my adventures, check out my live journal at: http://www.livejournal.com/users/frankichan
Los Angeles and beyond. Sat & Sun July 26 & 27
At 8:40 am my alarm clock on my cell phone goes off and I begrudgingly reach over to turn it off and slither off the chair I was passed out on. My neck hurts and I’m dead tired. I jump in the shower, get dressed, steal the keys to travis’s car and head over to the 101 to meet tammy for breakfast. She’s supposed to meet there at 10am (as we had drunkenly made plans the night previous). I wait on a bench (since I can’t get a table until my entire party arrives) for about half an hour. It’s 10:20 and she still hasn’t shown up. I feel like I’m gonna die due to the lack of coffee, so I grab a seat at the counter and order some. The waitress walks up and says, “hey, isn’t your name Frankie?” I say yeah. Turns out, she’s friends of the girl susan, who’d I’d met at our first stop at the 101and she’s in the play that she wrote. The night I’d missed was successful and now other venues and various Hollywood folk were interested. I congratulated. She told me her name, but I forget it. I waited, drinking coffee for another 40 minutes, until 11am. Tammy never showed. I tried calling, straight to voicemail. I ordered breakfast anyway, and spent the rest of the morning flirting and talking with the waitress. I was a bit worried about tammy, unsure as to whether she had actually made it home or not, but more than likely, I figured she’d overslept or forgot in her drunken stupor.
After breakfast, I went back to lexi’s. travis and I packed up our stuff and hit the road. We were forced to drive to orange county first so I could pick up my art portfolio. When I’d played with your enemies friends a few nights before, I thought I’d lost it, only to discover it had accidentally been packed into their van. We drove to luis’s house. He made up some lunch and gave us some road snacks. I reacquired my portfolio and off we went. We’d come up with a plan to drive to san Francisco and spend another night or two there boozing it up, but travis’s mother called and reminded him he had to visit his relatives who lived a few hours shy of san fran. We decided to go there. The luxury of a rich relatives house is always appealing and a nice break from the constant chaos we’d been a part of the few weeks before. We showed up. Travis and his family were old buds, but I didn’t click with them at all. I was silent for 24 hours avoiding the small town rednecks and raiding their fridges. I was scared and reminded of my worst enemies from Indiana. At least travis was able to relive childhood bonds. I spent the night zombified in front cable tv (which I never see) and eating every dessert in the house. When morning came, I encouraged an early departure and we left.
We had an 18 hour drive in front of us. I did most of the driving. We stopped only to scam fastfood restaurants (which we did twice, and actually had a hell of a time doing it in Redmond, but were eventually successful), use the bathroom and take photos at vista points (we took a photo at everyone between l.a. and seattle). It was a hot day. I only traded driving duties with travis once because I lost all feeling in my left arm because it had been hanging out the window all day and was burned to shit. At some point on the way back, tammy called, apologizing profusely. She had overslept and had a terrible hangover. We made up and have been in contact ever since.
When we were a couple hours away from seattle, I got into touch with my friend arlie and made tentative plans to meet up at the cha cha for last call. I was determined to make it. I’d been driving all day and needed that one drink. I was speeding, I was tired, and I totally wasn’t paying attention. About 10 miles outside of seattle at 1:10 am, we ran out of gas and had to pull over to the side of the road. It turns out it was good I was talking to arlie, because he was forced to come to our rescue. A few hours later we finally arrived home, no drink in hand, but happy the long drive was over. We both passed out, only to wake up to a weeks worth of beautiful weather and beach party mania. It was a wonderful few weeks and the defining moment of the summer of 2003, at least for us. I hope the rest of you had an adventure or romance this summer of equal or greater personal significance. I’ll see y’all on the dance floor.
8/28/03