Nothing says summertime fun like a three day car trip with an unwashed sports psychology student and his flatulent Malumet.

After several delays, we left Boston at 1:30ish on Monday afternoon. I foolishly left my bed, my little TV, my rug, and terrarium behind because he didn't think there was enough room. There was plenty of room in that trailer.

Our fist day was utterly unremarkable. Just two not-yet-dirty strangers travelling in a car with a not-yet-flatulent dog. We made it almost all the way through Virginia before we acknowledged that neither of us had slept the night before, and probably should have a few hours rest, So we stopped at a Ramada Motel, and slept until 9:00.

The second morning was the last time either of us took a shower until we reached AZ. Ewwwwww. We spent most of the day commenting on just how long it takes to get through Tennessee. I really wish my Arrested Development CD hadn't been AndyKrackowized so I could have played "Tennessee" for the entire six weeks that it took to get through the desolate land of really disgusting public restrooms that is TN.

In Arkansas, I actually said, out loud, to another human being, that there sure were a lot of people with southern accents in the convenience stores around here. Observations like that are the reason that my parents paid tens of thousands of dollars for my private school education.

I know some eventful things happened on the trip, but because we never stopped for more than ten minutes between Somewheresburg Virginia and Albuquerque New Mexico, time and events became one big blur. I just remember switching off driving every three hours or so.

The only stressful part of the trip was driving past Flagstaff in our somewhat-not-very-large-car pulling our heavy trailer. There were several points where the car refused to go over 40 miles an hour, despite the 75 MPH speed limit. I was a very popular driver on that stretch of mountain.

Your rooommate is moving out at 10 a.m. on a Monday morning. He tells you he's expecting a call from the person he's driving with. It's very important that your roommate speaks with him ASAP. Do you:

A.) get on the phone and start yelling at your girlfriend, then slam it until it nothing more than a mess of wires and plastic? (it's all good, your roommate will be angry at you for a few seconds, then will realize there's another phone in the house, no harm, no foul, he lets you live)

B.) stay off the phone until the call comes through, since you really don't use the phone that much any way (you get a gold star)

C.) leave the phone off the hook and laugh to yourself while your roommate becomes increasingly angry and frustrated (what kind of roommate does that? Melissa Plummer, maybe?)

D.) begin having noisy phone sex with your Brazilian girlfriend, and ignore incoming calls (slightly bastardish)

or E.) begin having noisy phone sex with your Brazilian girlfriend and click over when a new call comes in, realize it's the call your roommate says is very important, then hang up on the guy until after you are done getting off, then fall asleep, then several hours later tell your roommate, "oh yea, that guy you were waiting to hear from called like, a couple of hours ago"

If you selected E, congratulations, you're Peter. Now go the fuck away.

6:00 p.m.

Derry: "Where are you?"
Me: "Walking around Mission Hill. What are you up to?"
Derry: "I'm at work, where you're supposed to be. We had four no call no shows to work today not including you. What happened?"
Me: "Ummm. I'm not on the schedule anymore, Derry. I'm moving to AZ, remember? I'm supposed to be picking up shifts."
Derry: "You're moving to AZ?"
Me: "Yes."
Derry: "Oh. I didn't know that. Well, you're on the schedule every day this week but Sunday."
Me: "Well, I can come in tomorrow, but if I leave my house now I won't get there until 8:00. You don't think you'll need me to come in tnat late, do you?"
Derry: "No. I guess I'll see you tomorrow at 4."

End of conversation.

7:30 p.m.

Ben (my other manager): "Adam, where are you?"
Me: "I'm at home. Packing."
Ben: "Why aren't you here yet?"
Me: "I'm not coming in tonight. If I left now I could get there just after we close."
Ben: "Well why didn't you come in when you were scheduled?"
Me: "I'm not supposed to be on the schedule. I quit in July, remember? I started just picking up shifts."
Ben: "Well why didn't you say anything when you saw the schedule?"
Me: "I didn't see a schedule."
Ben: "You're telliug me you didn't look at the schedule all last week?"
Me: "I was in Chicago last week, Ben."
Silence
Ben: "Oh. So I'll see you tomorrow?"

Yes, yes you will.

Like I say at the beginning of all my support meetings, I am a nerd. I have a favorite comic artist and writer, and can give you in-depth reasons why I've chosen them. I write poetry. I perform said poetry in public. I've even done a couple of low-level national tours with other poets. I spent several years working at a renaissance faire. I liked it. I am a nerd.

I am also incredibly attracted to nerds. Sure, the midwestern farm boy look is kind of hot. And who can resist a buff surfer boy. But give me mussy hair, glasses, and an IQ high enough to bake bread at, and I'm in love. And if they're multi-lingual...

Pardon me, I have to go change my pants.

Ahem, so...I was at a convention in Chicago. A friend of mine and I were staying at a hostel to cut down on the cost of the convention. It was the middle of August and the hostel had no air conditioning, and the free fans they supplied didn't work. We made plans to crash on the hotel room floors of other convention goers.

Why was I not whoring? Did I have a boyfriend? An STD? A sudden attack of morals? Hells, no. But in the five years I've been attending this convention I have never had the opportunity to stretch latex. Shit, I've never even been kissed by someone that I had a desire to be kissed by.

During the first day of the convention a good friend of mine reintroduced me to one of her gay friends. He was a hottie. Very punk nerd. Huge animé hair. I'd met him the year before and developed a mini-crush...until I caught him making out with my doppelganger (I have one...it's a story for another time). Note, I didn't stop crushing on him because he was making out with my doppelganger. The crush stopped when my doppelganger told me that Animé Hair was a terrible kisser.

At any rate, I spent some quality time hanging with Animé Hair and my friend (who might also have been referred to as Animé{e?} Hair), and decided he was a likable guy, but I refused to go all crush woozy. I was in fact chasing after a cute frustratingly straight attention whore who knew I had a crush on him.

At the end of the night, some friends and I ended up at the main hotel drinking and spitting words (see, it doesn't mean to speak poetry, it means you're drunk, and you're hurling slurred words at people)  in the hotel room that contained, among other people, Animé Hair. As far as I could tell, no sparks were flying. Attention Whore left the room, to watch a couple of bisexual girls make out in one of the other rooms.

Over the course of the night, I had tried to get blitzed. Alas, I have a high tolerance for alcohol, and no love of beer, so getting blitzed can be expensive, even when the fairly unkind bud began being passed around the hotel room. Eventually, though, jet-lag, lack of sleep, alcohol, marijuana, and my interaction with Attention Whore made me dizzy. So when Animé Hair took my hostel room key and slid it into his pocket I was confused. Fairly soon after he took my key, his roommates decided that 4:28 in the morning was a good time to get some shut-eye, so I asked Animé Hair if he was coming to the hostel with me. He looked confused as I was, and said "Sure."

We took an uneventful cab ride from hotel to hostel. We shot some shit and coy glances at each other. When we reached the hostel he said, "Well, I'd better get back to the hotel. I'll see you tomorrow."

"But" I stammered, as I fiddled with the door handle, "you have my room key."

"Huh?"

"My room key. You took my room key out of my hands back in your hotel room." I pulled the key out of his pocket. "See?"

"Oh. I'll come with you then." It made sense at the time. Really.

As I stepped from the cab I tripped a bit, and my canvas bag dropped to the pavement, spilling all my belongings. While I was collecting the books and papers, Animé Hair was snickering at me.

"What?"

"Progaine Shampoo?"

I turned crimson as my hair. "A pre-emptive strike against impending baldness."

He laughed some more. We went up to my room. I found out later that my roommate had crashed on Attention Whore's floor back at the hotel. We had the room to ourselves.

I'll spare you the coy boy flirtation ordeal and cut to the chase: he started talking about his boyfriend back home. Having a sense of morals that does not allow me to date people who are involved with other people, I terminated flirtation. Or so I thought.

Animé Hair was spread out on my roommate's bed (which my roommate never got around to sleeping on). After every other sentence or so, he'd give me this incredibly flirtatious smirk. Finally, I could bear it no longer.

"If you've got a boyfriend, why do you keep looking at me like that?"

"Cause, hon, your dick is hanging out of your boxers."

At least twice a week, for the past year, a man and his mother come into The Outback for dinner. If they like you, they leave you a saint trading card and a decent tip. If they don't like you, you get a pamphlet informing you about how Jesus can save you.

So far I have Saint Jude, Saint Peter, and Saint Augustine (no one will trade with me), and have never been the recipient of The Pamphlet.

One of the Jesus People's (JP) biggest pet peeves is having people say "Hey guys, how you doing tonight?" The first time I heard about this was nearly six months ago, when a fairly new server was compltelely chewed out by them about how "you guys" was offensive. I paid no attention, except I spread the word to never call them "guys."

Tonight, our resident wiseass, Steve, had them, and as I was talking to some friends at the table next to Steve & the JP I heard him say "Hey, guys, what's up?" I thought the man's head was going to explode.

His rant began about how young people these days have no respect for their elders, and words like "guys," "dude," "what's up," "dawgs," and "word up" are the devil's words. I wasn't paying strict attention to everything he said (I had to pay some attention to my friends), but I heard him say at one point: "It's expressions like those that lead impressionable girls to take coat hangers and end the lives of the perfect souls in their wombs."

????

Who knew "What's up guys?" was a slogan for the pro-choice crowd. I certainly didn't. I think that wins my Most Surreal Overreaction Ever Award. I will never be able to wait on them again without bursting into laughter. Does this mean I'm going to hell? If so, what will I do with my trading cards?