And I am almost officaially a week behind. It's Thursday afternoon, and I've only blogged about stuff through last Friday . . . And I'd just say fuck it and move on, but importnant stuff has happened. Damn my inability to blog every hour!
Well, Scott woke me up promptly at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. I hadn't been able to sleep the night before, so I probably only got a couple hours of sleep. At least we didn't sleep in the car like Scotthad wanted to, or I would've been lucky to sleep at all. We got on the road pretty quickly and Scott forced me to listen to country for most of the trip. Country is ok . . . in moderation. I can stand a country song every once in a while. I don't like country, but I don't despise it either. It's just not a style of music taht I care for, and being forced to listen to it for two hours is . . . irritating to say the least. But I didn't say anything, because he'd probably just be pissy anyway. Scott refused to stop anywhere for breakfast because HE wasn't hungry, so Ibroke into the box of Honey Bunches of Oats that Joe gavve me before we left. And it was really frigging good. I've never before had cereal that was good without sugar! It's healthy and yummy! So, yeah, that was nice.
So we get to Detroit and guess what. Yup, NO TRAFFIC WHATSOEVER! Yeah, no traffic at all in Detroit, around Detroit, or anywhere near Detroit. As a result, we got to the ticket place by 10:30. 4 and a half hours before neccesary. Granted, it's always good to be early, but I'm sure that breakfast with Nick would not have taken 4 and a half hours . . .
So, we got the tickets from the guy, also named Nick, and then Scott asked him for directions. Even thuogh we had already printed directions to where we were going. Even though all we had to do was take 2 turns! The guy looked at us and told us it really wasn't that hard. We just had to take two turns . . . so he wrote those two turns down on a piece of paper and handed them to us. Then we proceeded to go back to Detroit.
On the way back I saw the funniest road sign ever: "Prison Area. Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers." That made me giggle. A lot. And Scott thought it was funny to, but he didn't go into convlsions over it. I find the oddest things really hysterical.
Well, we got to the concert grounds around 11:30. And guess what, they were exactly where BOTH sets of directions said they would be. Honestly, just because Scott is incompetent when it comes to directions, doesn't mean that he has to assume that I am as well. I'm actually very, very good at directions. I always have been. I remember I was in elementary school and I was directing my family to the front gates of an amusment park because they had no idea where to go. And this was before I could read a map. My sense of direction is pretty damn good. The only times I ever actually get lost are at night, or when some moron tells me to turn the wrong way because he can't read printed directions. But that was at night too . . .
So we got to the place. We checked it out. And well, we had 7 hours to kill before the concert, so I suggest that we go find something to do. Scott says no. He thinks we'll get lost and not be able to find our way back to the concert grounds . . . which is really frigging ridiculous. We do have 7 hours, so that in the EXTREMELY unlikely event that we get lost, we have more than enough time to get back. Then he said that we should just relax and try to take naps to rest ourselves for the ride home. And that sounded like a good idea, actually, seeing as how I got very little sleep the previous two nights. So I laid down and slept like a baby for a couple hours. Sometime around 2:00 Scott wanted to go get food. And we went to Arby's because that was the first place we saw, and he wasn't willing to look around for other places b/c we would get lost . . . So I plunked down another $7 at the most expensive fast food resaurant ever . . . We went back to the grounds, and I slept some more. An hour later Scott woke me up because he was bored. Go figure. So we drove around the same two blocks surrounding the grounds for a half an hour, wasting precious gas, doing absolutely nothing. There was nothing to do on those two blocks, so we went back. I slept, Scott stayed up and did nothing.
At 5:00 we went to go get gas so we'd be able to leave right after the concert. I had been dreaming about ice cream, and there was a Dairy Queenright across from the gas station. So I tell him to go there so I can get something to eat. He looks at me like I'm stupid and says no because we don't have time . . . And I lost it.I started ranting about how it's right across the friggin street, it'll take 10 minutes at the absolute most, and the gates don't even open for another hour. Then I ranted about how we'd done absolutely nothing all day when we could've been having fun, and making this trip more interesting, but because of him, we sat around and did absolutely nothing for 7 hours. Then I procceded to tell him h ow ridiculous his getting lost fear was, and after about 5 minutes of be bitching at him and telling him that he can get the fuck out of my car if he's not going to drive over there, he took me to Dairy Queen. And it took us a grand total of 5 minutes (Not counting the rant) and we got to the grounds incredibly early and had to wait a really frigging long time before we could go in.
So we went to the concert, and . . . IT WAS AMAZING. I had never seen Third Eye Blind live before, and I was very, very impressed. The amount of energy they put into the show was incredible. I don't know if it was the proximity to the stage, or the excitement of the fans around me, but that definitely tied John Mayer for the best concert I've ever been to. I am definitely a born again Third Eye Blind fan. Scott and I took tons of pictures. Most of them are a little blurry, but a good portion are really really nice. It's so hard to describe how great the concert was, but it definitely made up for the brief time seeing Nick and the largely wasted Saturday. It was that good. Scott didn't seem to get into it much, though/ I thought that was odd since he's the biggest TEB fan I know. But after the concert he just went on and on about how cool it was and how glad he was that we went and that he was a moron for trying to get out of it and that the trip was definitely worth it and it was really great, etc. He's really cute when he's excited and happy . . .
So, we started heading out of Detroit on a really huge high, and started listening to all three TEB cd's. Scott took the first shift, and I took a nap. Scott woke me up a little while later saying he was lost . . . He claimed he was just following the road and suddenly he was on the wrong one. Well, once I found out where we were (We were on a road that doesn't even connect with the road we started on, so go figure that one out) I made him stop so I could get something to eat. The first place we saw was MacDonalds, so we went there because Scott was driving . . .
And they didn't give me enough BBQ sauce. I started to complain but Scott told me to deal with it and that we had to get home. I was planning on dealing with it anyway, I just wanted to see if he actually was willing to go back for more BBQ sauce. He wasn't, and even though we had nearly 20 hours to get home, I decided to not rick the boat and ate my McNuggets with the bare minimum sauce available. Surprisingly Scott didn't get us lost at all after that. And once we got to Chicago I took over and drove the rest of the way home, noting more dead deer than I ever imagined there would be. So we got back to my house around 9:30. Scott left for home pretty much immediately and I took a really long nap until my brother's graduation.
Graduation was good. Long, but not as long as I thought it would be. It actually went by faster than Skutt's. At least it seemed to. Go figure. Went home and did absulotely nothing. Later in the evening I spontaneously went to Lincoln with Steve. It was interesting. And then Steve thought he knew how to get back to the interstate better than I did . . . silly people doubting my sense of direction . . . so we probably got out of there 15 minutes later then we could have. But I wasn't complaining. It was fun. Of course it would've been more fun if Steve had stopped at the porn barn like I suggested, but oh well.
And the rest of this week has mostly been work. Now, when I went back to work, I expected to get reamed. I mean, I was supposed to work on Friday and Saturday. Not only did I not work, I didn't tell them I was going out of town. Not a smart move on my part. So, they had every right to yell at me. I was just hoping I wouldn't get fired. So, I go in and of course my head manager is there. The first thing he says: "So, how was the concert?" But he said it all smiley and nice . . . like he was really wondering. So I told him it was great. And he responded by saying that he went to a Third Eye Blind concert once and it was so bad they got booed off stage . . . Ummm . . . that must've been a different band, b/c they definitely kicked ass. My manager, Chad, says really weird stuff sometimes. My brother and I think he's a pathological lier. Because according to him, his brother works at NASA, his cousin owns "all the banks in Colorado" and numerous other things that sound very, very doubtful. He's an odd guy. I still can't decide whether I like him, or he's creepy. He looks like a not-very-fuzzy teddy bear, but he gives off an aura of creepiness, like he's hiding something. It's hard to describe and I can't quite put a finger on it, but he's an odd guy.
So, I THOUGHT I was in the clear. Then I went to look at the schedule. I got 24 hours. I was expecting 40. I needed 40. But I understand why Chad did it. I mean, if they can't count on me to come in, then they shouldn't schedule me as much. But, yeah, I needed those hours. So, when Chad left, I went to my good friend Jen, who is an assistant manager there. And she hooked me up with hours. So now I'll probably actually be getting overtime. Yay for extra hours!!! Next week I'm scheduled for 31, but Saturday hasn't been posted, so I'll probably get 40 then. Thank god.
So, yeah, I need money. Very, very, very, very, very, very badly. I'm only going to get one paycheck before I go to Europe. The next paycheck after that comes in the day after I leave . . . Grrrr . . . so, yeah, I'm going to have a 48 h our paycheck to pay for another trip to Ohio and a 3 week trip to Germany. How's that going to work? It's not. Not at all. So, what the fuck do I do about it? Well, I have one $61 paycheck that I haven't chashed. I have $10 left over from the first Ohio trip so far, but that's quickly being spent on food. Joe is selling my school books online, and may be able to send me some money that way. There's a chance I can get my parents to deposit my second check for me so I can use that money in Europe. I sent away for a credit card yesterday, and hopefully that wil come in before I go to Europe, so I can use that there too. It's going to put me waaaaay far in debt, but oh well. I'll deal with it later. But I still need more money. I'm going to check out donating plasma and sperm and see ho much I can get from that. Oddly enough, no one wants to donate sperm with me . . . go figure. Personally, I like the idea of having a bunch of little Erics running around. I've got some damn good genes. Hell, my kids'll probably take over the world. You never know. If they don't commit suicide or die of a heart attack first. Damn genetic diseases. Everything else kicks ass though. I plan on having as many babies as I can. Babies are fun. And cute.
I had a dream about a baby the other night. But I don't remember anything else about it . . . oh well.
Anyway, this money thing is real difficult. I'm having to restrian myself from spending and it is really, really hard. I can't buy more RAM for my computer. I can't go to the Gadzooks sale. I can't go to any movies. I can't go out to eat. I can't buy clearence clothes from SuperTarget. I can't replace my PS2. I can't pay my brother back. I can't afford to buy more memory cards for my camera, so I'm only going to get to take 70 pictures during my three weeks in germany. I can't do anything. I'm still not sure how I'm going to get to Ohio again. I sure as hell can't afford a rental car. And I can't afford a hotel room once I'm there. I either sleep with Nick or sleep in the car.
That's another thing. I haven't seen Nick online at all this week. Not once. I'm kinda wondering what happened. I need to talk to him about this, and get it all planned out. Maybe there's a chance he can help me pay for gas on my way home or something. But I need to talk to him soon. I should probably call him tomorrow night. Yeah, I'm gonna do that.
I'm really worried about how this is all going to work out. I really am. I mean, I HAVE to go to Ohio. I have to. I have to see Nick again. If I have to go to Europe with $2 in my pocket, I'm going to do it. Why is this so important to me? I really don't know. I don't understand it at all. I've never felt so compelled before. I've never felt like something was this important. And I've been seriously thinking about his offer to live with him next year. That's one of the reasons I have to go back so bad: so I can get to know him. So I can finally talk to him and pick his brain and find out what kind of person he is. I still really don't know. Hell, I don't even know his last name!
And what if it doesn't work out? I mean, what if I go there and I find I totally can't stand him, or something worse. I don't know what I would do. I can't stand being that wrong about somebody again. It doesn't feel like that's the case. But my paranoid mind still enjoys torturing me by reminding me of the possibility that things won't go perfectly. Stupid paranoia. That's why I wanted other people to come with me so bad before. So that incase things don't work out I have people there I can fall back on. So I have someone there to support me until I can make it back home. Now that I'm going by myself . . . I'm really not sure if I'll even make it home if things go badly.
Eric 5/30/2003 01:40:00 AM
