Monday night I was supposed to take it easy so that I could wake up early Tuesday
and jet to Tucson. I had met this girl, Beth on myspace
and told her we would do something Tuesday night in Tucson. Wanted to have one
more night with the PB guys though so cruised down to 1669 and watched some
movies of Dave being drunk. There’s nothing more
entertaining -I promise you. He swears there will be a site someday soon …
a vast digital archive of Dave being drunk, knocking things over, being written
on, offending pretty girls, and the like. Check it out in the future – it’ll
probably be at www.devdrunk.com.I don’t know
if he’ll charge you, but he could.

Around midnight we headed over to Nick’s, the only place we ever go on Monday
nights and it’s always dead. And so it was this time. Kevin and I played some
pool while Dave and Raman talked outside.

Raman bounced and the three of us went across the street to Open Bar which
was actually kinda going off for a Monday night in winter. Hip Hop … bling
bling black guys in football jersies, dressed up blondes out of college but
still in touch with their sorority sisters, and a few scattered hipsters. A
random scene. I liked it. Good hip hop. I made my rounds … looked at the pretty
girls. The music was too loud to talk and I was in no mood to dance so I bounced.

Burned some CD’s, wrote some xmas cards, and passed out around 3 am. Crystal
woke me up at 6:30 to take her to school and I knew there was no way I’d be
leaving for Tucson. After dropping her off I passed the fuck out and slept in
until around noon. It felt good. I felt good. No more hangover and I started
packing the car, cleaning my room, organizing my shit. It’s always nice to leave
for a trip with all your shit clean and organized for when you get back. (forgot
the USB cable to my camera and Laura’s book though)

It turned out to be a really relaxing day ’cause everyone had thought I already
left so I could just chill around the house and take care of everything. I got
the Sony Vaio fixed at Fry’s a couple days before and I was still uploading
(or downloading) software on to it so I could be productive while on the road.
I just need to find a cable for the video camera and digital camera somewhere
tomorrow.

Anyway … I guess I was so productive that I ended up staying up doing shit
until 4 am. Crystal woke me up a few hours later just to say good bye and I
slept in until noon. Made some breakfast with mom and booked it around 1:30.
Before getting out of town though I stopped by the UCSD bookstore and bought
the iPod car adapter and voice recorder. Early xmas present to myself.

The drive was kinda shitty. For a while I felt really good … listening to
good music, seeing the horizon … the openness of the road. But then around
Yuma, after I stopped at Zodiac Cafe for a bagel and iced tea, I started feeling
super droopy. I pushed on though, only stopping in some little town – Gila Bend
– for gas and coffee. I think it was around 9 when I got into Tucson. Upstairs
in the hostel room I met a kid named Alex. He was a bit strange, with super
buggy eyes who was constantly looking all around, but never looked in your eyes.
"I’m 28 already" he said. Story goes he was a mechanical engineering
student at Georgia Tech where he’s from. Then he did Peace
Corps in Tanzania for a couple years (it’s in Africa he pointed out for
me) and has been working all over the states ever since. I asked if he traveled
anywhere outside of Africa when he was there. "Yeah, I went to Egypt for
a week. It’s in Northern Africa."

And that was after I had told him that I had been to Southern Africa for 6
weeks. He had an open guitar case and so I asked him if he played, thinking
I’d bring mine in and we’d jam. But he shut it like a madman, slid it under
his bed nervously like I was going to steal it, and said only a little bit.
Shady, this guy was.

So I called up Beth, left her a voicemail and hit the street to check out town.

Kinda a funny story next … but I’ll leave that for tomorrow. It’s almost
midnight … this place is closing and I need to get some shut eye before heading
out to Texas tomorrow. San Antonio maybe? Gotta see where there’s a hostel.