The Trenchcoat Mafia Goes On Vacation (Part I)

My Living Legendary in February marked a huge change in my life - bigger, I think, than I knew at the time. In reality, this started in September with my decision to travel to Seattle to meet Abi and spend time with my brother Iridanum. This entry is the start of a new kind of blogging for me - that of a serious writer and as an industry professional - as well as the odd religious musing. Livejournal will remain my blog for day-to-day bullshit and randomosity, but anything I consider of import will also be mirrored on Blogger and my new Wordpress account. I've dabbled with serious blogging in the past, but this is the first time I've actually had, you know, a plan. Some of you will think this silly or arrogant...well, too bad. I'm a writer, and you can't be a writer without thinking you have something of substance to say.

None the less, I acknowledge the chances of anyone reading this entire thing are slim to none.

Preface: Back in 2004, my life had a significant change when my fiance left me. This turned out to be a good thing, for both of us, despite the unpleasant drama that resulted. Soon after, I was given the moniker 'The Trenchcoat Mafia' and associated with the Republican party. A lot has changed since then - I'm not Republican (or a member of any party) and I'm no longer so desperate for social interaction I'll go with any group that will have me. Although I now think of myself as a member of the Knights in Slightly Tarnished Armor, I am still the Trenchcoat Mafia and tend to use this in posts when I go walkabout.

So without further adieu -

The Trenchcoat Mafia goes on Vacation: Part I:

Two Knights Ride on Dayton

I had no idea what I was doing. I never do, when I leave Autin. I don't travel well - food allergies, (being) fat, fibromyalgia and a lack of desire to be out and about with people make me a cranky and unfun traveling companion. Yet, there I was - two weeks off work, my bags packed, only two pairs of pants without missing buttons or holes in unfortunate places, very little money and a two-day car ride staring me in the face.



The afternoon of Valentine's Day, two Knights in Slightly Tarnished Armor climbed in our faithful steed Hondo, the Honda CRV that probably didn't want to.

My traveling companion and native guide, Ben, has been one of my closest friends since 2003. We met when we were both working as accomplices to legalized murder (at the Attorney General's Office in Post-conviction Litigation, which included death penalty appeals) and a couple of years ago, he and his wife Bri moved to Dayton, OH. I've been trying to find a way to get up there and visit them ever since. I've always been able to come up with the money to travel up there, but not get home.

Finally, everything fell into place. Ben was down in Austin for a few weeks doing some job hunting and was going to drive back to Dayton. His plan was to kidnap me when he left and Fed-Ex me back to my boss (who would send Orange Ninjas to kidnap me if I didn't come back.)

The plane tickets home were bought, I had a bit of cash in my pockets, time off of work and we were on the road.

As we started driving, two weeks seemed like an eternity in which to rest, write and catch-up on some of my reading. I would get to relax, not worry about things like shaving, combing my hair, or getting up on time. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was a plan.

I should know better than to make plans. Or to think I could really just sit around and do nothing. I am really, really bad at doing nothing. I'm always doing something, even when it's not what I should be doing.

Doing nothing is probably a skill I need to develop.

* We drove out of Austin listening to a Celtic band from Dayton; Ben was excited to get to see his wife again after a month apart. (Ben is proof that my theory about adult love and teenage love are different only in what adults will let themselves express has some basis in fact.) However, as with most adventures I have with Ben, our course wasn't a straight line - it was a journey with a few stops along the way.

Our first stop was in Temple, TX to see Ben's old buddy Homer. One of the few friends Ben has had since middle school, Homer is a character. He's had a varied career which included being a highly-paid and highly-trained painter of vehicles. I'm sure there's a real title for that job, I'm just too ignorant to know it.

We met at a Chili's and had dinner with his friends Ani and Tim. Conversation over dinner was pretty intense, full of Ani's stories of growing up as a Romanian in America and her family's hatred of Gypsies and of Tim's time in the army serving in Iraq. (What of it he remembers; a pretty severe head injury involving an IED has his recollections a little fuzzy.)

After eating way too much, we decided to head to Homer's place to hang out for a bit, where Homer, Ani and Tim partook of some (surprisingly) legal herbal intoxicants and we met Bruno - a huge black lab with an impressively small brain. This dog was very affectionate, very large and very dumb, but was one of the sweetest dogs I've met in awhile. Bruno made me wonder if us humans aren't missing the point, sometimes. He didn't mind jumping at shadows, playing with toys, and generally begging for affection. I wonder what life would be like if we all decided to play games we think are fun, regardless of what everyone else thought, ask for hugs when we want one, and cuddling with our friends when we felt like it.

We might all be a bit happier, even if awkward moments would happen more often than they already do.

I rode with Ani and Tim to Homer's place, because I wanted my after-a-huge-meal smoke and they let people smoke in their car. During rambling conversation, Ani revealed she was a closet comic fan who missed comics - and couldn't find a shop near where she lived. I offered to find her one and send her the address.

After Ani and Tim left so Tim could sleep off his booze and herbs, Ben, Homer and I discussed Homer's recently finalized divorce and the ensuing drama (she got everything; he got to start over with nothing but a computer in Temple). Homer is one of those guys who feels everything intensely, does everything passionately, but never had the drive or desire to pursue business or college or anything like it. He's a good 'ol country boy metalhead with no delusions about his life; he started over, spent his money on things he wanted, and just kept plowing forward, no matter how much his life sucked.

Hell, a year ago, he was sleeping on the floor, because he didn't have a bed - just an empty apartment. Now, he's got furniture, a job he almost doesn't hate, a dog, and a huge TV.

What's important about this interlude, you ask? It's the realization that I met, interacted with, and had fun with a bunch of new people. A couple of years ago, I wouldn't have wanted to; as a general rule, I don't do well with new people. Also, as a general rule, I'm not interested in meeting groups of new people.

This time, I didn't even think about it. I don't know if it's my new philosophy, being on vacation or Ben's influence, but I just - went with it and a good time.

Good for me.

We got back on the road, and the fun started.

We realized Hondo had a headlight that couldn't decide if it wanted to stay on or off (and we saw more cars with one headlight out that night than we normally see in a year) and a heater that only sort of worked.

Let me tell y'all - it started a theme for the vacation: being cold. I'm not used to being cold. I'm from central Texas. I'm used to being hot, sweating like a fat man, and finding every excuse in the world to get back into the miracle of air conditioning.

I don't even own any long-sleeved shirts.

That night, I found myself bundled up in my trenchcoat, huddling down for warmth, occasionally shivering, and wondering why the skinny boy next to me was warmer than the fat man.

You know what? I'm spoiled. Austin is a college town, with several four-year universities, a huge community college, a round dozen reputable trade schools, and any number of not-so-reputable trade schools. As such, Austin doesn't really ever completely close down. No matter the time of night or day, you can always find some place that's open, has wifi, and won't look at you strange for being up at odd hours of the morning.

Well, a few hours of Temple, we needed to stop. Aside from an urgent need to find a bathroom, we needed to make plan for our visit to Nashville, TN, where we were going to visit some friends of mine. By that time, I was having trouble staying awake and Ben was getting bored talking to a half-awake, half-frozen co-pilot who was more interested in doing the pee-pee dance than making coherent conversation.

We tried to stop a few places. But Panera Bread was closed. Coffee shops were closed. Eventually, we found a McDonald's attached to a gas station. After violating their bathroom, getting gas, and buying token pastries to munch on, we did what ever self-respecting geek would do: we whipped out our computers and got on the internet.

I also learned that Ben sees McDonald's the same way he does Wal-Mart - as a
representative of the bad of corporate culture. This was our first conversation on the trip when I realized just how deep Ben's idealism runs. More on that, later, though.

Not sure when on Monday we would roll into Nashville, we did our best to figure out a place that would have the all-important wifi, the slightly less important food, and wouldn't be too offended by the fact we hadn't showered since Sunday morning. We settled on Panera Bread, since Ben likes it and because it had wifi. I hadn't ever been there before, I it sounded acceptable. And what's a road trip without the chance to eat someplace new and have my food allergies make me wish I could die?

Fortified by cheap pastries, caffeine (and in my case, nicotine), we were back on the road. By this point, the novelty of being cold was wearing off, and I was really wondering how people kept warm.

We drove for awhile longer and I managed to stay awake enough to provide almost interesting conversation, even though I did keep drifting off and dozing on him, despite my best efforts not to. We crossed in Arkansas at some obscene hour of the morning and discovered a most wonderful smell.

It smelled like the state had farted on us. I'm dead serious. No matter how far we drove, everything smelled like fart. Really serious 'I had way too much cheap tex-mex for lunch' fart. It was pervasive and pretty much disgusting.

So what were a pair of tired, punch-drunk and kinda grumpy guys to do but pull over and take an outdoor piss right on the state that just farted on us. That it was right outside Bill Clinton's hometown was just an added bonus for me. (Republican or not, he's pretty much my least favorite president. After all, he did try to change English grammar to get out of being caught getting a blowjob from an intern.)

However, this reminded me just how much I dislike the outdoors. I am an avid indoorsman, because I like being able to control my climate and avoid allergies and generally sit in my fat man chair and not have to worry about bugs and pollen and other things nature brings.

However, not even cold can keep a fat man off his feed. Not 30 minutes later, we were pulling into a Waffle House for breakfast. At about 3 AM or so. Now, despite being a southerner my entire life, I had never eaten at a Waffle House before.

This one was...cold. So very cold. It was sub-freezing outside and these crazy folks had the air conditioner on. I think they were trying to cryogenically freeze the customers to re-sell our organs on the black market. The coffee got cold almost as soon as they poured it, and the grease on the food congealed faster than anything I have ever seen. I could scrape it off with a fork.

Now, I'm no stranger to greasy food. But this was a bit ridiculous, even for me. None the less, it was food. We ate our cold food quickly and bailed. The food did little to revive us. It sat in our stomachs like slimy rocks, churning away as our guts did their level best to digest what we had unfortunately consumed.

By then, even Ben's strength was waning, moving us inexorably towards sleep. Somewhere outside Nashville, we found a gas station where I went in for an energy drink (unfortunately, it was Red Bull) and Ben took a nap. I smoked and froze and marveled at the white stuff on the ground and tried my best to wake up enough to help keep Ben awake.

I felt by that time like we had fought our way through a war. Despite it being a fairly easy, smooth, quiet drive, I felt like we deserved a medal for all that we had been through and for my frozen, shivering body.

After about half an hour, we were back on the road. We made it into Nashville just after sunrise (and seeing sunrise from inside a car while half-asleep and half-frozen is not nearly as much fun as it is from your bedroom or back porch) and we found another McDonald's to get me some coffee at.

I drank coffee and Ben napped. We finished our trek at Panera Bread and sat down for food (it took me awhile to find something cheap I could eat) and internets.

We could not log on to their internet. So after we ate, we trudged down a frozen sidewalk, through falling snow (cold white ice falling from sky! It looks prettier from inside the car.

Starbucks internet was just as much of a pain; after buying a Starbucks card and working with one of the baristas, Ben was finally able to get some internet access and get us the information we needed. We chatted with my friend Crystal and came up with a plan and a place to meet and went to our hotel.

We set our stuff down.

Then promptly took naps until it was time to go out for dinner.

Feeling somewhat better, though still tired, we visited Five Guys Burgers. It wasn't bad for having such a limited menu, but was the first bacon cheeseburger I'd had since leaving Austin more than 24 hours before, so it was a good thing.

It was awesome seeing Crystal and Matt again; I hadn't seen them since 2007 when I'd gone to Nashville for their wedding. (Why, oh why, was it colder in February than it had been in December just a couple of years ago?)

Even better was meeting Sariah, their daughter. She's a beautiful kid; very curious, very intelligent and very stubborn! She ran Ben, her parents and I around the
restaurant like a pro - she didn't eat much, but I think that was because she was way more interested in trying to steal sips of my coke (which she never managed to do) and trying to drink all her Dad's lemonade.

Also: she is the warmest baby ever. I was carrying her as we walked outside and she was like a little heater! After eating, we drove out to Crystal's parents' house to hang out for awhile after. Just in that drive, we got all the bad weather we'd been thus far avoided. Snow came down heavily, traffic was backed up, and visibility was a joke, but Ben is skilled in the art of driving in that kind of crud and got us through with ease.

Just like last time I was in Nashville, I felt completely comfortable and at ease there; I sat in the same place in their den I did before and chatted with her brothers and father like I had never left. Alan Rhodes is an amazing man who can tell a tale and talk with anyone about anything.

Since everyone was watching the Olympics (which haven't interested me since I got old enough that the women's gymnastics stopped being full of hot girls and started being squicky), Ben and I ended up sampling Alan Rhodes' homemade beef jerky, drinking tea, and chatting about faith, God and following God. Once again, I was reminded of some of the conclusions I came to while I was up there the first time: that Mormons can be Christians, too (not all Mormons are Christians, just like not call Christians are Christians.)

It was a great evening. Ben and I headed out for our hotel, grabbed me a couple of cokes at a convenience store, and after chatting for a bit and letting me get an internet fix, we crashed and slept like the dead.

The next morning, we were off again. We had a much better experience and much better and much warmer Waffle House. After a brief stop to see a few sites in Nashville, including the Grand Ol Opry. I was more awake on this leg of the trip and, with the sun being (sort of), out and I could see the sights. The Arkansas farts and Tennessee's lack of internets behind us, we drove through Kentucky and through to Dayton. (Really, Kettering, but the Dayton area is kinda odd in that it's all these little towns.)

If you feel bored, tired and a little drained by the time you finish reading this, then you have an idea of how we felt when we arrived.