Oh. My. Shit.

I had a really good day that was defecated upon about an hour ago.

Here's how it went: woke up to miserable, freezing drizzle and the type of gray day that makes time indistinguishable and eyelids heavy. Despite the weather I popped up, made tea, started doing some reading for my classes. I ended up getting a lot of work done (always nice for a Monday morning), listened to a couple of new cd's, cleaned up, bundled up, and took my ass to class. The class is on producing for independent film and documentary television and our guest speakers today were Jake Vaughan and Bryan Poyser who wrote, directed, and produced Dear Pillow, a little, low-budget nugget of goodness (and naughtiness) currently on the film festival circuit seeking distribution. They talked to us about the haphazard way they went about getting the film made (which proved quite humorous) and they showed us some deleted scenes, which made me happy because they were kind of raunchy. My joy in being shown these extra scenes stems from the fact that after the initial screening of the film (last week) some fucking whiney, mamby-pamby, wet blanket complained about the graphic content of the film. Fucking boo-hoo. You're in film school moron. Take your shit and transfer to the advertising department where you belong. Anyway, knowing that the complainer was being subject to a little more graphic content filled me with sinister glee. Because I'm mean.

After class, I walked and talked and giggled with my friend Kristen (EASTSIDE!!). We voiced our thoughts and concerns about this semester, generally looked at by both of us with an air of restrained optimism. Said goodbye to Kristen and headed to the grocery store which at 5pm on a Monday was a total madhouse. Got through it rather unscathed until I get out to my car which is all of sudden sporting a totally flat tire. Bitchin'. Luckily, moments earlier I had spotted my roommate's car as I was making my way through the parking lot. I called her (how do people live without cell phones?) and she came over and chatted with me and lent moral support while I changed the tire. We cracked up about feeling a little slighted that no one stopped to offer us help (it was drizzling after all), but then concluded if someone had stopped we would probably have gotten defensive (can't two females be gathered around a flat tire without someone thinking they are helpless?!?!). Despite the pain-in-the-assedness of having a flat tire, it really didn't ruin my day, although it did get me thinking about the shit I put off that I should deal with already. I should have gotten new tires as soon as I got back from break. And come to think of it, I need to take my ass (er, head) to the damned dentist before shit starts breaking down in there, too. Still, though, at this point, my day is officially NOT RUINED.

Back at home I gossip with my roommate while she cooks dinner. After dinner I read a magazine while reality television plays in the background, a perfectly delightful end to a perfectly good day. At 10pm (central) I turn on the Daily Show. Halfway through the show, cut for a commercial break and what comes on seriously breaks my heart. It was a motherfucking, goddamned, assball, shit heaping commercial for fucking Pringles potato chips that have goddamned NASCAR questions and answers printed ON THE FUCKING POTATO CHIPS. Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. I had a small seizure on the couch and then sat baffled... BAFFLED... that we live in a country where it is someone's fucking job to come up with these sort of asinine marketing techniques so that the Pringles overlords can pat said person on the back and that fucking jerk-off American can drive home in his or her Dodge Stratus and sit satisfied whenever that stupid, fucking, idiotic NASCAR Pringles commercial comes on. Say it ain't so people. Potato chips with race car trivia written in MSG? Is this really an option that people need? Fucking fat Americans are rotten with choices about things that are useless to their lives and yet are somehow complacent as our actual rights are being whittled away. Having a billion potato chip flavors is really only the illusion of personal choice, you lard-drenched rednecks. NASCAR Pringles do not a democracy make. The absurdity exists not only in the fact that people are going to eat the motherfucking chips because they love NASCAR, but also in the fact that we are talking about a fucking huge mass of people that are going to gather around their greasy TV sets (chips in tow) or drive their bloated families from whatever red state they inhabit to Daytona to watch the shit and every goddamned one of them probably has a fucking American flag sticker prominently displayed on their F-350's. These are proud, ignorant Americans doing what they choose to do: eat fucking chips with shit written on them as cars race around a track while our country is at war over oil.

I, for one, am completely embarrassed.

Holla' Daze.

Made it back to Austin in one piece. Four weeks of lunacy have finally caught up with me in the way of some gruesome flu-type bullshit that caused me to go deaf everytime one of the flights I was on went into initial descent. Yesterday, my head would throb everytime I coughed or sneezed or laughed or blinked, but that has (thankfully) subsided and today I could and did sneeze to my heart's desire. Still have a constant buzz in my head that I'm beginning to think is being caused by billions of dead brain cells having nowhere to go.

A rundown of my hollerday break:

Started it off in Austin, naturally, with my COWP muthaRTFers. Drinking felt bag after felt bag of Crown Royal (what the...?). Watched the rap videos Elliot made in Africa. Fucking genius, I tell you. Seriously amazing. Bid my colleagues a fond see-you-soon, packed my shit and headed to Chapel Hill, NC.

Almost cried when I saw Melis and Mike at the airport waiting for me. Man, I've been homesick. Went straight from the airport to the new bar Mike is a partner of. Some sort of communist republic motif going on in there. Very masculine. It took the place of GO! Studios, which was a little surreal. It looked familiar, but also wasn't. Anyway, it's not like I've never gotten drunk in that space, so it didn't take long to get comfortable. All the familiar faces made their way into my blurry sights at some point. It was comforting. For awhile before I got there, I was convinced that I missed everything about Chapel Hill. I guess that's not really the case. I miss very specific people and the type of spontaneity that exists around going out when you live in a small town and you know all the people that live there, too. You never really have to make plans. Just go to one of the bars that one of your friends owns or is employed by and poof!, you're out with friends.

It was so much fun though. Got a couple of wacky emails while I was there (...I love your silence). Threw down with my ladies Yeu-Li, Kristen, Isa, Amy Jae, Shannon (who I didn't see enough), Melissa, and the one... the only... that's right folks, Upper Decky Mormino. Are you kidding me? She might be one of the best ever created. Then, of course, there are the girls: Lyle, Mike (Peanuts) Ellis, Luke (where the hell were you?), Jebbie Downer, Richard and goddamned Jesse Paddock who intolerably lives up to his reputation as being one of the best people everyone who knows him will ever know. I laughed so hard, I seriously thought I was damaging organs. Had one of the surliest (and most delicious) holiday brunches ever concocted. Drank myself blind. Almost had a hernia watching the SNL hosted by Donald 'Wonk' Trump. People kept asking me the same questions, which I always hate, but I guess that's to be expected. I got some face time with the ones I wanted to (mostly). And when it was time for me to go, it didn't feel like I was being uprooted from home (although I am completely at home there), it felt like I was leaving the town where a bunch of friends that I love live. Left Chapel Hill and landed in Florida.

I accidentally purposely burned some bridges the last time I was in Florida, so I spent the entire 6 days hanging out with my family and driving around hunkered down in the car seat so as not to be noticed by anyone who might recognize me. It was actually really fun. The women in my family tend to be ab-surd including my puberty drenched 14-year-old cousin who is now taller than I am (fucking bizarro). There are so many inside jokes schilled out between all of us that words usually aren't necessary, just a look or a sound will suffice to have all of us rolling around like idiots. My dad is dating a doctor who just bought some swank digs right on the ocean. That didn't suck. Drinking wine in a fancy house, falling out the back door onto the beach. His lady is cool as shit, too, so I'm happy for the old man. It was good, old-fashioned, quality time with the family. The kind that needs to happen once a year. Once my time was up in Florida, I headed to NYC.

The NYC experience for me always happens before even getting to NYC. This trip was no exception. I get to the airport in Jacksonville, kiss my mom goodbye and head to my gate. When I get there the flight has been delayed so I go to sit in the bar and read while I wait. I order a drink(s) and after awhile I am lured into the conversation of the people next to me. I throw in my two cents and immediately this guy sticks out his hand and asks me my name. I shake his hand, tell him my name, he tells me his, and proceeds to keep a firm grip of my hand. Uh... what are you...? He says, "Put it together, girl." I study his face, turns out it's someone I know but didn't recognize (he had a beard last time I saw him), so OF COURSE we start flipping out, laughing our faces off, and taking shots. We figure out that we are on the same flight to New York and decide to head to the gate. When we get there the terminal is empty, departure gate door is closed. We pound our way onto the plane, which ends up being a 50 seat commuter and, of course, we are the last ones to board. And we're straight drunk. We come piling on the plane all swimmy eyed and swervy foot, I am almost positive that I used the tops of a couple of people's heads to keep my balance going down the aisle to our seats. Our steward talks like a talk show host and loves us immediately, cracking up into the mic as we throw the goat to him from the back of the plane. He doesn't even announce having booze in his drink cart, but we're pretty sure he's got some. And he does. By the time we get to New York we are fucking dopey drunk and somehow my buddy fanagles a limo to Brooklyn. So we cruise into Brooklyn in a fucking limo? I finally get to Lauren's in Chelsea, where I was staying, about four hours and many, many drinks later. I am there long enough to tell her about my flight and run-in with our mutual friend before one of our best friends, Brian, shows up ready to go out for, well, drinks. I was game. We end up at Tortilla Flats drinking 16oz PBRs while random, weirdo drunk dude (like I should talk) holds up tortilla chips end to end, trying to explain to us how tall our beers were. Oh, the antics. I had been in New York for about 3 hours at that point.

The two weeks in New York were a blur, but when thinking about it certain things pop clear as day into my mind: Brian doing the pant chaffing walk and imitating a Japanese cowboy waiter; the third degree burn on my hand (no recollection of doing it); me and Lauren dancing to Puerto Rican polka music on the street in Williamsburg on New Year's eve; the Ralph Ellison inspired photograph at the MoMA and the drop of blood on the floor that Brian and I found more perplexing than the exhibits; Indian food and heartbreak talk with Casey, Sara, and Leia (we're all better off); the hilarious yoga class I took with Lauren where she accidentally sat on my head and someone started snoring during meditation ("Breathe deep," SSSNNNNOOORRRE); Aaron Pollack, the charming, teapot carrying, felon who apparently owns most of Lower Manhattan and is NOT afraid to hug strangers; a fucking hilarious game of 90's Trivial Pursuit with Katie, Trevor and Brian (fucking floptical... so 1990's); buying prom dresses with Katie... because we need them; god damn $8.00 scotches at Amateur Night at the Apollo (hell yes!); drunken 'I love you, man' talks with Katie; Casey stumbling in drunk and proceeding to show us her goods; Katie's pre-birthday bash where our waitress bought us a bottle of wine for being so damned cool and then a night of debauchery ensued ("oops, I just ran into Chelsea Clinton and she's ugly." "Where is CBGB's at? We out looking for slits and cunnilingus." Then I think you need to be going thataway); serenading our cab driver with 'I Just Called to Say I Love You' cause he told us he liked sentimental music; OC marathon hosted by the eyebrow farmer; and the fucking HorseTray in the Ashfriend that will never, ever not be funny to me.

I didn't feel ready to leave New York. I guess I had just gotten used to being around my old peeps. About half-way back to Austin I started getting really excited about coming back. Flight arrived at sunset and certain things were obvious from the sky, the UT Tower, the Capital building. I have to say, despite my deafness, I felt a tangible happiness. It got even better when I saw my roommate's smiling face and then our sweet little abode. When I walked into my room my bed seemed like an old lover I had unknowingly been dying to see, causing me to crawl onto it and writhe uncontrollably as sounds of pleasure leaked out of my face. It was good to be gone, and now it's good to be back. Home is where the heart is, but sometimes home is where your shit is, too.

Austin, TX Bound.

After a month of what can only be described as shenanigans, it is time to head home.