seven thirteen ninety-nine

"and if i fall, hold on ..." -- shooter

my vacation is over, my car has been confiscated, my best friend is leaving tomorrow, and teachers don't get paid enough. also, d has gone from being nocturnal to being employed and responsible, so i have to go home after seinfeld.

... we started in chicago. i got to see the art institute, which i just can't get over. i also got to lean on the glass of the sears tower ("the bastard's down there somewhere ..."). i rode a 150-ft-high ferris wheel, held a firefly in my hand, and ate deep-fried frog legs. (actually, that was in indiana, and it was disgusting. chicken my ass.) and chicago still hasn't gotten over michael jordan.

vegas next. the rest of my family said they were bored of "mystere" so i went by myself this time. felt like a bit of a loser but the show is WONDERFUL even for the third time and even from the crappiest seat in the whole theater which is what you get if you buy a solo ticket. still, it's nothing short of the ultimate indulgence for me. if there was no cirque du soleil, i'd just skip vegas. next time: "o"!

from vegas we drove to sf, with one stop in bakersfield ... from sf we drove to long beach to visit more relatives, mostly my mom's side. all of them came to my b-day party. (i celebrated turning 21 with a pitcher of orange soda.) from the LBC we drove to anaheim and spent a few days at disneyland, place of all that is good. churros, you know. there's nothing like space mountain first thing in the morning. and i think of all suck-you-dry capitalistic american landmarks, disneyland offers the most ... experience. for anyone. every time i watch "fantasmic" i feel like all the kids there feel -- or at least how i hope all the kids there are feeling. like it's all real. it makes me hopeful that magic and good (vs evil) and old-style romance are real and that they are the goals of everyone around me. then it's over and there's a mad, mad rush for splash mountain.

from anaheim we drove back to vegas -- on the day of the Huge Flood. "unprecedented," they said. i don't know about the rain, but i've never seen a closed casino in vegas, so that was really something.

my mom first taught me to play blackjack when i was really little. they would have these parties at our house where all their friends would come over and play craps, roulette and blackjack, and i would just watch. my mom loves playing blackjack so i think it was almost more fun for her -- me turning 21, that is -- than it was for me. for those few hours we spent together on a blackjack table in vegas, we were both adults, in her eyes as well as mine. that had never happened before, and it hasn't happened since.

i've crossed the mojave desert so many times. to vegas, from vegas. always with my family. same destinations: vegas, long beach, maybe san francisco. and i've always felt so safe, because my dad is driving and my mom is sleeping and wherever we're going is a place i know. and the time to venture past familiarity is long overdue, but i miss my family already. i live with them and i argue with them and i think every day about when i'll live far away from them, but i miss them now. i really do.