Home and Dry... or at the very least, home and vigorously toweling myself off

06-08 Note: I have made some minor changes to this entry Nothing worth rereading it for. Also, those in the know may notice that there are some minor discrepancies between the events I've described and the ones that actually happened. In reality I was, indeed, later than I've let on. However I stand by my entry (save the slight flow changes I've made). This blog is definitive. Reality is a frequent innacurate.

I had a lot of shit to pack.

I mean a fucking lot

Two days I'd spent without sleep, packing, talking to people, and surfing the web. It was the packing that pushed my normally late hours into sleeplessness. Vast amounts of things acquired in my two semesters. I thought that I'd be able to part with more of it. I thought that there was no way that I'd have more than two fullsize suitcases and two carry-ons worth of stuff worth keeping.

I was dead wrong. I tried over and over again to make shit work. I was able to stuff all clothing in one case. That helped. But the things I had that weren't clothes took up more space than would have been expected. 22 dvds. 5 Xbox games. lots of books, both textbooks and others. My computer and the implements related to it.

Other stuff. A fuck-ton of other stuff. I was able to reduce in volume. I tore out all of the pages of my notebooks that had things that I wanted to keep written on them, including the three-page interlude to the story I was going to write as well as several paragraph-length oneshots, the best of which I may post eventually, but shan't now. I even removed all of the dvds from their coverboxes (with the exception of the ones with different sorts of boxes) and put them on a spindle. After this, and several other adjustments, I was done.

Or so I thought.

I turned the corner in my apartment and was reminded that I had a kitchen.

FUCK

I completely lost it. Stress and sleep deprivation do not mix. Actually, they do. They combine to form a behemoth, a destroyer of worlds. Like getting fucked in the ear by a rusty chainsaw garnished in lemon juice and salt. While being forced to listen to N' SYNC cover Some Kind of Monster. And watching reruns of the 2000 and 2004 presidential election coverage. And also everyone who you ever loved tells you that they don't love you anymore and then you have to watch them die slowly and painfully and you never get to apopogize for whatever it was you did wrong, or even learn what it was you did.

Okay, so maybe not exactly like that. But its not cool.

not all could be salvaged. I lost a good friend. You will be missed, my sweet coffeepot. Many a morning did your I was able to salvage some silverware given as a gift by my dear aunt, and a pan from my grandmother. My dear friend Aerynn, who I hope will soon begin blogging again, was kind enough to take some stuff off my hands. She also helped me to calm down, for which I am eternally grateful. I had to leave the rest behind. If that had been the worst part I'd have been happy. But such a happy chance was not forthcoming. Had everything else gone well, I'd have been just in time for my plane. But once again, the management in my building showed its penny-pinching shittiness. I've previously registered my complaints about the air conditioning. I'll not catalogue the rest of their shortcomings in this entry, but suffice to say there are many of them. If my memory serves me correctly, Aerynn touched briefly upon the subject in her blog. When I can talk about it at any length without just making a large string of violent acts I'd like to perform upon the management, I may go more into it.

Their latest trespass involved elevators. On moveout day, they accepted money from people to reserve an elevator. There are three elevators at 2 E 8th. One of the others was broken. Those assholes are going to be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes. So I had to haul baggage approaching 200 pounds down 15 flights of stairs on no sleep and no sustinence. And I had to keep ducking into corners to let people up. For a brief instant I wished I'd never been born. After a bit of reflection I realized that it was more prudent to wish horrible suffering upon the grandma-felching fucksticks who were responsible for the situation. Were I into vodoo you'd be getting this a week from now, because I'd have spent all of my free time up until then playing with dolls. Hell, I might look into it anyways. It couldn't hurt. Well, It couldn't hurt me.

So finally I get to the bottom floor. No chance in hell of making my flight. But there was a standby that I still had a chance at. But first I needed to sit down. I collapsed in the lobby chair, and caught a breather as I took out my cell to call a cab. I then realized that I didn't have any cabfare on me, so I needed to hit the ATM. I got up.

Big mistake.

Bloodflow leaves my head, which remembers once again how little rest its had and reminds me painfully. A haze floods my vision and I'm wondering where exactly would be the best place to collapse, but my eyes aren't helping. I emit a "woah..." and several weird-looking, out-of-focus heads turn my way and flash me even weirder looks. I try to explain, but the words don't come to mind due to the state of things cerebarally. I doubt my mouth would have been up to the task anyways.

Eventualy, I even out and walk out to the ATM. There should have been at least eighty dollars in my account. But due to a bank error, there wasn't enough to get me to Midway. Due to my own error, my credit card was not going to do the trick either. So there I was. Stuck with only twenty bucks and no way to get to the airport save one, the 'El. But with the orange line station blocks away, my baggage heavy as hell, the sun beating down on me like frat boys initiating new blood, and myself exhausted as I'd mentioned, this was not a happy prospect. I later realized that I could have walked a block to the redline and switched for the orange, but as I said beforehand, I was not in top mental condition. So I dragged it all I forget how many blocks (it felt like a mile) to the Roosevelt station, up the stairs, and eventually onto the train. After a brief respite, I dragged it to the terminal at Midway. I was late for the standby, and there were no other planes going to Boston until the next day.

Not fucking cool. I had to give the 'rents a ring, as they were the ones who reserved the ticket and who had to be the ones to rebook me. However, due to some serious bullshit I wasn't able to merely hand the ticketing agent my cell and have them sort it out there. The Midway staff seemed to be made up of shitheads. Take this exchange with the woman at the information booth.

"Hey, the United counter is closed. Do you know where I can find one of their agents?"
*says something I didn't quite hear*
"I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"There should be someone in the office down there (pointing)"
"Ok, thanks. Sorry about that, I'm a little out of it"
"I just told you, the office is over there"
"No, I understood you that last time, I was just telling you why I didn't get it the first time"
"I told you its right over there!"

Don't know why I felt the need to explain myself.

Anyways, my parents had to find a way to pierce through United's impermeable customer service system (the assembled hordes of Ghengis Khan couldn't get through. That was the real reason he never conquered the whole world) I was, therefore, put in suspense for some time. Moreover, I was getting a lot of weird looks due to the fact that I was wearing pajama pants with a maroon T-shirt, aviators (even though it was by then 8pm), a black fedora, and my trenchcoat draped over my backpack, giving me the image of some hunchback given orders to move his master's baggage. Also, I had my Xbox Live headset on, which I use as a hands-free device for my cell phone as I spoke with some friends as I waited it out. I would like to thank Beaky, Aerynn and Matt, for doing me and my sanity a great service by talking to me through the night, and I would like to apologize if I ever freaked you out. Not sure I could have managed it without you three. If there's someone I forgot, I apologize. Given my day it would have been easy to forget.

So anyways, they kicked me out at 12, and thinking of nothing else I boarded the CTA and headed towards O Hare, where I knew I'd be able to crash if needed. The first good luck of the night came as I was passing the building I'd just vacated en route to O Hare and my father called asking me if I could make it to O Hare by five AM. I told him yes that wouldn't be a problem. So I got to the station, lugged my stuff around for a few final yards, an collapsed on the bench in front of the terminal. There were no more problems. In fact, despite my aforementioned sketchy appearance I didn't even have to pass an additional security check, and I always get selected for those.

The only thing that went wrong the rest of the day was me not sleeping. I didn't sleep on the plane because I was engaged in conversation. I didn't sleep once I got home because I went to my cousin Conor's birthday party. I didn't sleep after that because I went watching my brother's little league game. It was halfway through, while I was sitting and watching in a rather comfortable camping chair, that I realized that due to the nature of my shades I could sleep without anyone noticing. Luckily, I awoke in time to figure out how the game had gone and greet my brother accordingly afterwards. That was fortunate, as when I got home I like an idiot stayed up late into the night. Also, I got up sort of early in the morning. Go figure.

Anyways, I am back, and I'm ready to start chilling out with old friends like you wouldn't believe.