Posts Tagged travel

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

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CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

I just got back from an ultra-busy weekend touring Milwaukee and Madison to visit friends/exgirlfriends that live here. After all, how often do I make it out to Wisconsin?

If you’ve been reading lately, you know that I was ready to write Wisconsin off completely. It’s a “blue” state, but that’s all it had going for it. But it turns out that that’s just Green Bay!

Milwaukee actually seemed like civilization. Coffee shops, ghettos, and good record stores. I won’t bore you all with the details, but I had a great time. Great vegetarian food. I had a vegetarian Reuben. Great googly moogly was it fuckin good. And I found a Smiths shirt!

Madison has been called the Berkeley of the East and it deserves the title. Beautiful architecture, brick buildings, neat bars and headshops. Lots of (hot) students. I found a shirt with my favorite Kozik design on it, Bitches. And I got a bunch of drunk pictures.

It was a very worthwhile trip, despite the 350 miles of driving. But now that I’m back at my hotel, I have this to say, if I may be miserablist for a moment:

There’s nothing like seeing someone who used to love you to remind you how ultimately alone you are. I have so little in common now with the people that, at one time or another, meant everything to me. To see someone who knew you well and “knew you when”… well I can’t think of anything that more severely points out just how much everyone changes from year to year… and just how many of those years have passed. This must be why most people don’t stay friends with their exes. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a longing-for-a-past-relationship thing at all. This is a holy-shit-everyone-has-moved-on-but-me thing. No one remembers. No one cares. Including me. Yes, go on… twist the knife.

[amtap amazon:asin=B00000K3I2]

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Remember what I said last time about static cling? Well look at this shit!

Turns out it’s the cold, dry weather that’s causing this staticky bullshit. So even this is Green Bay’s fault!

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Well I’m back again.

So apparently Wisconsin heard that I was downplaying its weather. And when I came back this week, it was waiting for me, the chilly bastard. It’s been freezing temperature more or less around the clock here. When I got to the rental car, it was frozen. Solid. I love you too, Green Bay.

“From California, eh? Is it cold enough for ya?” Yeah, yuk it up while you can, Bitches. In two weeks I’ll be back in California. You have to live here.

The concierge (ha!) informed me that my suite on the far, far end of the hotel lot (the BFE of BFE, if you will) is great because “you can see the stadium from there. Across the bay, that is.” He failed to mention that my suite more closely overlooks a huge Catholic cemetery less than a block away. I need a shotgun.

It’s Tuesday night and everyone in this city is STILL talking about the football game. The big sports story on TUESDAY? The Packers from last weekend’s game of course! I’m not kidding. In the airport before I left for here, I overheard people freaking out, “let’s hurry this up… I have to be home in time for the game!” On the plane, the pilot periodically announced the score. And nearly the whole plane cheered. This morning on the news, every third story was last night’s football game. The ticker across the bottom of the screen alternated between two stories. Last night’s game and the hunters killed last weekend. At work today, every cube was buzzing about the football game. Every time I saw two people pass in the halls, there was some comment about “some game last night, eh?” Like I give a shit.

I don’t know if you all heard, but last weekend, just after I left Green Bay the first time, Deer season opened. One hunter apparently went nuts and shot down eight other hunters. If you don’t recognize the supreme and just irony in this situation, then you can count yourself among the Packers fans who wore orange hunting jackets to the game as a tribute. Here is a group of 10 people dressed in camouflage and armed with rifles planning to hide in trees and shoot unsuspecting passing deer. And what happens? They are instead shot unexpectedly by someone in camouflage, with a rifle, hiding in a tree. If that’s not justice, I don’t know what is. If you ask the people around here, you’d think it was another 9/11. I say, if you get shot while in the middle of trying to shoot something yourself, you got what you deserved. Next time pick on someone your own size.

I ate at an Olive Garden tonight. Jessica would have had a fit… the waitress offered us some award winning Italian wine… and pronounced it “aye-talian.” Let me just repeat that. The WAITRESS at an ITALIAN restaurant pronounced it “AYE-talian.”

And in closing, what the fuck is with all this static cling in my clothes? Anyone know how to fix it?

Bitter cold = bitter Benjamin

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Most of you don’t know this, but when I was in school, I once took a temp job as a secretary at a landfill in Livermore, CA.