And before that...

I just realized that the sweatshirt I'm wearing is over ten years old. That's fucking insane.

So anyway... I don't normally talk about anything too incredibly personal up here just because, even though it's top secret, i've found that sometimes people sneak in and read it, which is so lame but whatever, I am too suave and sophisticated to let it bother me.

But there's this somewhat personal thing that happened, this event, it's more like... this story happened, i lived through this story, and it's such a good story that i can't NOT tell it, but it's more personal than the stuff I usually put up here in my very private top secret diary, so... I suppose that makes this a special entry. So I hope you enjoy it, you nosey bastard.

Friday night, Ann "Rocktastic" Jaeger called me to let me know she had a free plane ticket to anywhere in the U.S. that expired on the 25th, and one night, which happened to be her 29th birthday, free between then and the 25th, and did I want her to come to LA, or did I want to meet her in Vegas. And, let's be realistic, you don't do one night -- certainly not Ann's Birthday -- in LA; you do one night in Las Mufuckin Vegas, my friend. So we decided to meet up there. Which was a fantastic idea. Ann has those a lot.

I asked a few friends if they wanted to come along (so's I wouldn't have to drive 5 hrs back and forth alone), but no one could make it, to which I said "feh, oh well, i will survive." Then Monday night (the night before I was to meet Ann in Vegass) I was... well, I was looking through some personals online. I've been known to do that. They're pretty absorbing; even if you have no intentions of actually responding to any of the ads, if you're ever bored you should take a look, if for no other reason than it's sort of fascinating to see how people choose to market themselves. And then of course if you're single there's always the reluctant but very real hope that you are going to stumble upon Something Fantastic, that person who, even though they're as suave and sophisticated and eminently datable but somehow still single as you, actually sensed that someone as suave and sophisticated and eminently datable yet somehow still single as themselves was probably flipping through those ads, just like them, and said "what the fuck," am i right?

It's sometimes tempting, if you're particularly itchingly single, to kind of get drawn into the ad that's the closest to what you'd be looking for and respond to it, rather than realizing "just because this particular pile of sand is the most appetizing out of these 800 piles of sand does not mean I should eat a pile of sand" (author's disclaimer: i have never in my life eaten a pile of sand. perhaps they are delicious and strangely satisfying. but you get the idea.) I did that once a few years ago, and while the date wasn't disastrous, it was pritty goddamn pointless, and I promised myself not to look for any more Most Compelling Piles of Sand. Which means I haven't responded to any more ads. (and i should mention, on the offchance that the person i went on that date with ever reads this, i do not mean to compare you to a pile of sand.)

But well, this particular night I saw a personal ad that sort of made sense. It was an ad I liked, that just had a couple of deft (but not showy) turns of phrase, it had a photo of a cute boy, and among other things, it mentioned collectible skateboards. The boy in the ad lived in San Diego though (which is about 2 hrs from here), so I thought I would just respond and say that i didn't really know what I wanted out of responding, but maybe we could become nice pen pals. Cause I like pen pals. And he's a writer, and writers make great pen pals. And it would be nice 'cause we could meet if we wanted, it would be like me going to philly. I wouldn't date anyone that lived in philly while i was in DC, just cause it would be frustrating as hell, but it would add some niceness to the penpalship if he was within weekend distance.

Then i noticed the line about him liking to travel, "sometimes on a moment's notice." And i thought, hahaha... i'm traveling in a moment. And then i laughed at myself and threw a glass of water on that thought. But then it recurred, and I thought about how I was going to be driving alone 5 hrs each way, and that this person had executed enough deft (but not showy) turns of phrase to probably be a good conversationalist, and shit, i've been meaning to live my life more... More lately and this certainly would qualify as an adventure, and I thought maybe it wasn't the worst idea I'd ever had. I mean it was not a terrific idea in terms of taking concrete steps to avoid being ax murdered, but in terms of making an already pretty impulsive trip into what could really only be described as an unmitigated hootenanny, it was a right up there with bringing along some midgets. In fact yes, it was PRECISELY right up there with bringing along some midgets because in both cases, there's the distinct possiblity that it could turn out to be one of those "wow, what the FUCK was i thinking?" moments. You could order up some midgets and they could be horribly boring, humorless midgets with whom you disagreed on many many things, or who knows, they might be violent midgets, or gambling addicted midgets, or midgets with halitosis, or midgets that justifiably really, really resented the fact that you had just written the phrase "order up some midgets." But once one has had the idea of bringing midgets along on a trip to Vegas, it's sort of impossible to un-have. And the pay-off, if the midgets turned out not to be boring, humorless, violent, gambling-addicted halitosis-addled midgets, would be pretty high: you would have a story to tell about the time you drove to Vegas with midgets. You know, not to get too far into any sort of Vegas Theme, but it basically seemed like a 35:1 pay out kind of action, like Roulette. And I was only betting 24 hours. (well, if you take ax murdering into account, i was betting my life, but come on, what is the ratio of ax murderers to non-ax murderers in this world?)

So i asked.

And he responded with an intelligent request to uh, learn my name and maybe a few more things about me before he agreed, but with an also intelligent realization that maybe this would be a pretty interesting thing to do no matter what. So there was some IMing, and it soon became apparent that we actually had a friend in common... kind of, in that neither of us has ever met him in person, but that we both have corresponded with him. In fact I realized that I had read and admired this personal ad boy's words before on that friend's site without really thinking twice about it, for instance, i didn't read them and think "i should email this person and invite him to Las Vegas." I just thought, "wow, what nice words." But I need to make clear that that commonality was more than just your average type coincidence, cause I feel kind of strongly about Bend Press and Andy Jenkins' and his friends' work in general, and it's somewhat important to me and certainly a primary influence, and for this person whose personal ad i just responded to to have not only been familiar with that but to have been involved in it in any way was pretty much the voice of god booming down like, "Bitches, get in the car and go to Vegas. For real."

Oh and... as it turned out, he's moving to LA in a few months, for work.

And as it also turns out, he wasn't faking with the "moment's notice" bit, 'cause he agreed to go to Las Vegas with me. He's a fucking nutcase. But that's ok, cause i'm a spaz.

So I picked him up in San Diego (which was kind of out of the way, but come on, MIDGETS IN VEGAS) and he got in the car, shook my hand, and five or so hours later when we got to the airport in Las Vegas to pick up Ann, I had a mean old crush.

I won't go into The Ann Jaeger Vegas Birthday Debauchery except to say it was all pretty spot on how you might expect one night in Vegas with Ann Jaeger to be, except we never did get to get those massages. It. fucking. rocked. Drinks were imbibed, money was won, money was lost, and the sphinx at the Luxor is a lucky, lucky sphinx for having met her. Hopefully, photos to follow at some point.

In fact now I'm actually pretty much done with what I'm going to reveal of this story. I'm not so much into PDAs (well, clearly that's bullshit cause my friendship with Mars is one big PDA, but I guess I'm shy when it comes to jinxing my boylife in public). I will say that I got kissed in the lobby of Circus Circus, that the drive back and everything since then has been just as good, and that we will be seeing each other again, quite a bit if I'm not mistaken.

So there you have it. 2001 picks up some steam. Hop on.