Word

Spring Break ’05

I had a pretty good week. After Atom-bombing an exam in my anthropology class on last last Thursday, I spent the rest of the weekend in San Antonio for Kenneth’s birthday. Laura, Gabe, Kenneth and I spent the day watching the UNC vs. Duke game, and later had fried chicken and mashed potatoes and snow peas and other such stuff Kenneth likes his mom to make. Got back to Houston Sunday night as Kenneth had work the next morning and I rode with him. Spent the next two days preparing for the trip, running some errands on campus and around Houston in general. Stopped by Kay’s all day Tuesday pretty much stealing his mp3s and rebuilding my collection after the dreaded iPod ordeal about a month ago. I came up on some jernts, and replaced a good few of the ones I missed, but still not everything I lost (plus I have to reorganize everything which will suck shit through a straw).

Caught my flight Wednesday morning and arrived in San Diego around noon their time. Shawn, my rocket scientist turned surf bum friend (and personal hero), picked me up and we basically went straight to the zoo. It seemed the sun decided to come out as soon as I walked out the plane as I heard it was foggy outside the few days preceding my arrival. Awesome zoo. They had escalator/conveyor belt sidewalks throughout the park (woo hoo for living in the future) to go up the steeper hills which I thought was a little queer, but completely appreciated. The orangutans were particularly nasty little creatures and the lone tiger wouldn’t come out to be seen. The eagles were pretty fresh, but didn’t seem to have a lot of space to fly around in in their cages/enclosures. I think I liked the bears the most. Why are there never any foxes or wolves in zoos? We left the zoo around 4ish and the clouds came back. Sucks. I think at this point we drove to his apartment in Del Mar and played catch up, rented some movies, and bought some groceries (cereal, chapstick, body soap, shampoo, lotion, and sherry) and rented a few movies, All About the Benjamins (hilarious movie, despite the lame title) and Troy (which I didn’t end up watching before I left San Diego).

Thursday, we woke up moderately early and goofed off a few hours watching parts of Ghost Dog before going to pick up Neeli and Kris from the airport around noon. Surprising to Shawn, the girls didn’t bring a whole lot of luggage (one carry on bag and a backpack) so technically I brought more stuff than they (I cannot not overpack). We took them to the hotel Kris and her boyfriend Randy, who would be arriving later, booked for the night to check in and drop off Kris’s stuff and to change into their bathing suits. Afterwards, we pretty much went directly to the beach in La Jolla which normally has a gorgeous view I’m told, but sucked because of the marine layer, wet sand, and seaweed all over the beach. We made the most of it I suppose, but basically sat on our beach towels and read. Well, the girls read, and I mainly people watched while Shawn body surfed. After a while, I got up and walked as far down the beach as possible to see what was there. Found a cool bamboo rod washed up on the beach and basically pretended to be a ninja while walking. I eventually stopped at a set of huge rocks that separated the beach we were on from Black’s Beach, a so called notorious nude beach populated by gay men. Wasn’t fuckin’ with that so I doubled back to where Neeli and Kris were. After boring of the beach and being disappointed the sun didn’t shine at all, we went back to their hotel so they could change again and then we went downtown. We walked around for a bit, and I really loved the architecture and openness of their downtown area. San Diego kinda reminded me of San Antonio except, well there was a beach, there were hills, better looking flowers, a beach, cooler architecture, etc. How are they similar if San Diego has all that over San Antonio, huh? Ha! Well, I guess being conservative towns (by large) with a significant military presence is all that makes them similar. We walked a bit downtown and stopped at a local coffee shop for the girls. Free wireless spots all over downtown San Diego and all the locals had nice Vaio laptops. But still, no powerbook. We found a kite shop in some little tourist trap down by the navy ships and after griping all day about how I wish I had a kite at the beach to give me something to do, Neeli, Kris, and Shawn convinced me to go in. I ended up buying some $40 kite that wouldn’t even fly as I’d find out the next day, missing this awesome Pirate Ship kite on the way out. I also had my tarot cards read at Neeli’s suggestion. Funniest thing I’d heard all day was from this tarot card reader lady when she said “If you believe in God, you should have no reason believing in this!” Nice anti-theism stance dear, because if I think tarot card reading is bullshit and lentil stew, then I guess God is too. I think she assumed Neeli was my girlfriend since our little convoy was paired off with two girls and two guys, so she started telling me all this good news about my love (or lack thereof) life, you know like, I’ll have a long happy marriage, someone from my past was trying to reestablish contact romantically but she’s not the one, that I’d be taking a long vacation with someone I love, that I’d have children very soon and they would be twins (boy and a girl), and would be buying a house in 6 months. Ha, if she only knew how I felt about kids and marriage. Suzy McSoothsayer also said that I make a lot of money but spend it on others and am way too generous and asked if I know anyone named James or David. She told me to stay away from James. Ha ha. Apparently my aura is purple and that means I have a kind and gentle disposition, or some such bullshit. By this time we had to walk back to the parking metre so Shawn’s car wouldn’t get towed. We drove to Little Italy and had Italian food (although we would have had Argentinian if restaurant wasn’t closed) where I had some Chicken Parm with Canadian Bacon on it? What the hell is that about? Canadian bacon in Italian food. Good times. We dropped Kris off at the hotel to change and shower and go meet her boyfriend at the airport and Neeli, Shawn, and I drove back to Shawn’s apartment in Del Mar, we stayed up chatting for a little while, but went to bed so we could be up before noon to meet Kris and Randy at the hotel. I gave Neeli the couch, because, you know I have a purple aura and am such a gentleguy.

Friday, we met up with Randy and reintroduced (I’d met him once before in Novemeber) and we went for Hawaiian food in Encinitas at a spot Shawn likes a lot, then went to the beach. Weather wasn’t any better then, but I was determined to get in the water at some point. I think I was bitching and moaning a little too much and annoying Neeli with it some, so I shut up after a while. We hit a volleyball around a little bit, the five of us, and then Randy had to go meet his sister at her apartment, so he left us all there and we were to meet up later. The girls, once again disappointed by the weather sat on their beach towels and read books while I threw rocks as far as I could into the ocean. I got armspeed like whoa! After a while, the kid in me came out and I went down to the water with Shawn and ran around a bit. He was trying to fly my kite as I was too annoyed to but the wind wasn’t strong enough, so he basically sprinted back and forth along the beach dragging the kite with him. After a while we started a little kite flying relay running down the beach and hanging it off to each other. After being winded pretty quickly, we decided to get in the water a little bit. I mainly just got my feet in, and threw rocks some more, but when you’re only ankle deep you’re actually knee deep, and when you’re only knee deep, you’r actually waste deep. Yeah, that water was pretty cold and I thought my balls were gonna freeze and fall off, so I pretty much chilled on that. I founded another bamboo rod on the beach here and was goofin’ off trying to pole vault and that shit snapped right under me. The girls eventually came down to the water, but it was still pretty chilly, so they didn’t strip down to their bathing suits, but just rolled up their jeans. Darwin Award candidate yes, but bamboo ain’t as touch as they say. After calling it a night with the water, I went back to where girls had returned to read on their beach towels. They were kind enough to let me bundle with them to keep warm because I was freezing and my teeth were chattering. Around now, Shawn went out to body surf (theguyisinsanethatwaterwascold) and we sat and watched a bit. Looked fun, yet mad dangerous. About a mile or so off the coast we saw a bunch of dolphins jumping out the water and that was cool. After the beach, we went to a bar/saloon so the girls could watched the Duke vs. Virginia game and got a few drinks and waited for Randy to show up. Shawn had to drop off some high school English papers he graded for a teacher friend of his, but later returned to scoop me up as we both had to pack and get ready for trips the next morning. Exchanged hugs and handshakes with Neeli, Kris (cool girl), and Randy (good guy) and said our Spring Break goodbyes and we headed out.

Saturday morning, another of Shawn’s friends drove the both of us to the airport so Shawn could fly to Davis for a Grad School interview/kiss his ass session, and I could take the shuttle to Amtrak to meet some Yayhooray person named Charlie (henceforth referred to as Chuckie Chulo or Charlie Cheddar or Charlie Upchuck). On the way there some young teenage (I think, I’m horrible at gauging age anymore) girl in a Volvo parents buy their young teenage girls spun out on the highway above us and started down the side of the hill elevating said highway above the access roads—actually, I don’t feel like talking about the rest of it.