Home sweet home.

Jul 12, 2001
I just flew in from Austin, and boy are my arms tired!

I got to the airport right on time, checked exactly zero bags, and boarded the plane. I sat next to the nicest Indian lady with the cutest little Indian boy. Indian like India, not the pow-wow kind. His name was pronounced "Dan-Yan". More like "Don Juan" than "Daniel". He was nine months old. We made faces at each other. It was too cute.

There was about an hour layover in Atlanta so I picked up a New York Times to read on the plane. I thought that it might pacify my growing anticipation of being in NY again. It didn't. What it did do was stir up a whole lot of political consciousness that I didn't know that I had. I read articles on campaign-finance-reform, a proposed missile-defense base in Alaska, bison-grazing vs wheat-growing in the nation's grasslands, and others. It got me real stirred up. I started to realize just how much goes on that I have absolutely no idea about. It was very upsetting... so I decided that I will start writing political and world news factoids and editorials on this site. I think that people should be much more aware of what is going on, and secondly, I think that they should care.

So stay tuned for that... here is a quickie: Who is the leader of the Russian Federation? (the answer is at the bottom of the page. If you didn't know it - I didn't before yesterday - then you should be upset. Every educated american should know that.)

I met Tim at the Albany airport. I gave him a big hug, then walked out the sliding glass doors into fresh Albany air. Mmmmmm. I was emaciated from the long-ass plane ride, so we swung over to an old favorite hangout: Western Avenue Dennys. We ate and talked and talked and ate and ran into Mike from LaSalle (my highschool), and some friends of Tim's. Albany really doesn't change. The same sheep run with the same herds, and the same wolves run with the same packs. And they all eat at Dennys.

We crashed at Tim's place and the next day he dropped me off at home (in Schaghticoke). My mom gushed all over me, and my dad showed his love in his own way, and I met all the animals, and I started sneezing. After talking to them and catching up on life news my head turned into a giant ball of mucus from all the dog and cat hair around. So boogied on out. The car wasn't much better. The hair was EVERYWHERE, and sneeze I did.

I made the rounds, driving here and there, revisiting sacred places, and not-so-sacred places.. just dusting off the memories. I ate at the Famous Lunch in downtown Troy... my grandparents used to bring me there when I was young. The last time I was in NY I brought Soy there. We ate hot dogs and rice pudding. It was cold and snowy. We sat and talked. The taste and texture of the food brought the memories back strong and lucid. I missed her. We should really keep in touch better.

After that dream-sequence ended I meandered back to Dennys for a cup of coffee. I sat and sipped and read Wired. Justin, Doug, and a friend of theirs were sitting in the corner. They're buddies of mine that I met through Rich. They all do software development. We shot the shit, caught up, swapped numbers, etc. It was good. I love it when I run into people that I know. That is what I missed about Austin for so long. That is starting to change, thank goodness.

I went back to Tim's, did his dishes, watched him flirt with some internet girlie, then crashed on his futon. The next day I finally met Rachel. We ate at the Brandywine diner, which is just down the block from Tim's pad. She then proceeded to show me around the finer parts of Schenectady (OK, finer PART). I picked up a "Metroland" newspaper, which is an Albany-version of the Chronicle. It's about one-third the size, and it's full of full-page ads. The car began making my eyes puff up almost as badly as my parent's house did, so I headed home to clean the car.

When I got home there was a huge truck in the driveway. As I pulled in a little Indian girl scampered into the house. An old friend of the family was inside, Billy Arsenalt. His son was there too. The little girl was Billy's other son's step-child. She was as sharp as a tack. She was nine years old. She asked me to tie her jump-rope into a cowboy lasso. In my best Texas accent, "I was happy to oblige...". I vacuumed the car out and windexed the windows and cleaned the leather seats. It no longer reeks of dog-ass. Good. I'm gonna be practically living in it for the next two weeks.

I was dressed kindof nicely, so I thought I'd go dancing. I went to this one club that I saw advertised in the Metroland, "Sneaky Pete's". It was supposed to be the hottest club around. It turned out to be pitiful. Austin just eats it's lunch. An old, fat, balding man spun far-too-repetitious trance beats. The guys looked like they popped out of a cookie-cutter. The girls were homely or aloof. The scene was SO SO dead. I danced a bit, worked up a sweat, thought alcohol might help the situation, discovered that it still sucked buzzed, and left. A 21yo birthday-girl puked on her shoes in front of the place. Mmmm good times.

Then I stayed up all night writing this, because I love you all far much more than I love my health. I hope you can appreciate that.

Bitch.

;-) Answer: President Vladimir Putin