2004-05-06 - 9:14 PM

Last night, at a bar nursing sorrows with Eddie and Nikki, over coronas. I wasn't a fan of Corona. Nikki put a slice of lime in the bottle and handed it back to me, and it was better. In front of Eddie I grinned and very emphatically stated, "Hey, contratulations. You've officially converted me." She didn't get it, but laughed in a wincing kind of way.

Sometimes I still gotta get my digs where I can.

Around then, Coral called. A friend of hers from out of town was going to be in Pheonix, and she wanted a road buddy for the trip (Basically SB -> LA length), and would I be interested.

In a road trip?
Do stoners eat cheetos?

6:30, she said. She'd have to pick me up at 6:30 in the morning. I winced slightly, but I had finals week ahead. I needed a taste of travel, just a taste, even if it gave me withdrawels a little down the line. Just to get me through the now.

So at 6:34 this morning we were off. I made an exceptionally dorky travel mix for the occasion, including some of Rockapella's radio jingles, Me First covers, tv theme songs, etc. We clapped along to the Fraggle Rock theme, and talked about various memory triggers certain songs had for us.

Example of reason I absolutely adore Coral. The song "Counting Blue Cars" came on. We listened. And then we did. 112 blue cars, round trip. Not counting Teal or indigo or other nebulous ones. Just straight blue.

In Phoenix, we met up with her friend. His name is Pete, he's a gorgeous sort of personality, totally nerdy and a little eccentric, absolutely genuine and enthusiastic and affable. When he shakes your hand he does so with enthusiasm, briefly glancing down at it in order to aim, then raising his hand up high, looking you in the eye, and swooping his hand down like a dive-bomber to meet yours, almost in a wave motion. It's that incredibly fake car-salesman handshake, but with him it's real.

We went to see Hellboy. I dug on the irony, seeing it with two hardcore christians. I highly recommend the movie, it's my favorite comic-book based movie so far, because they understand that comic book stories are meant to be hammed up almost to the point of ridiculous, with a totally serious zeal to them. The villians, the big kiss, it's all... it's more Hollywood than, well, even Hollywood.

Afterwards, in Tucson, Willy Wonka was playing at the campus theater. Free! So, of course, I got some red vines and we went in. And holy crap on a stick, it was like I was home again. The other 7 people in the theater besides us were all dorks, so we sang along to the goofball songs.

Ever since the end of spring break, when the workload set in with a vengeance... I've had okay days, I've had days that started crappy and got better, but it had been so long, so long since I was able to genuinely say, I had a good day today.

Travel, comic book movie, Wonka movie. A swooper.

I had a good day today.

-Alex

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