Summer Grab Bag #8

Completely back to our regularly-scheduled program starting tomorrow, thanks for bearing with me, everybody.

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the first pic when you type "austin" in google images

I was originally leaving space below so that I could write some quick words while on a drunken plane ride back from Austin, TX, and figured I would copy and paste here sometime over those next 72 hours. I think that was too bold of plan, honestly. Oh, I wrote some stuff, or at least tried to. But writing on my phone was extremely arduous in that state—coming off some hard drinking at an Austin dive bar, stuck on the tarmac for over an hour, in the middle seat, with nothing at all to drink. Here's what I wrote, without typos fixed, before I gave up:

First I'm thinking about how to maximize my dollars' worth on the airplane and I'm landing on "Big Snack" which could theoretically include 3.4 oz of Tito's vodka and 1 can of club soda ("seltzer" in NEast Philly venacular) and one "Snack" (again, trying to maximalize my vakur here, amd for some reasin I'm leaning toward the Cup o' Noodles (Chili Flavor) because I feel like that's gobna fillbme up more than a bag of goddamn peanuts or whatever and they are the same price.

Next I'm thinking about the fact that we are flying away fron Austin, a town i certainly dont know from four days, even long days, and I'm mixed with regret amd wirh appreciation, how the fact that I'm sitting on this plabe seat and appreciating the weekend means thay everythinf went according to plan, that the best men knew what they were fucking doing, that we jad a great weekend in ofher peopkes terms, that we had a great time inbexactly rhe way that other peopke did and didn not wantt to enioy theie bachelor,

That im on a plane now and so i can day: greatjob gang. Very fun. Eveeythint that i fkgured could go wrong did NOT go wrong. Very good. Exceeding all expectations, and then some!

Now I'm listening to Sufjans "Casimir pulaski day" and trying not to cry in the plane. Cry 1 because we haven't left fhe tarmac uet, cry 2 becausd rhe stoey is so genuine, cry 3 because others were told that this is too "lMe" for me.

Oof. Update: they did not have any of my so desired ingredients of the Big Snack, neither vodka nor club soda nor Cup o' Noodles. So I settled for having the steward sneak me a single bottle of Bacardi and a single can of apple juice. Not good, gang, but them's the breaks when you're an alcoholic. Plus, I didn't have to pay. Plus, I kept listening to Sufjan Stevens, and ended up writing something else about Illinois, which I was convinced by the end of my Bacardi-and-apple-juice was the best album of all time:

Best because it lives not in the present but simultaneously in the past and future. Plus you don't know whether he is fucking around with the IL bit or being sincere. To consider the possibility of a bit being stretches this far is almost too painful to conprehend, and yet there he is, chorus in background, harmonizing "oh Illinois Ill-"

Hmm, perhaps that sounded better at the time. Maybe we'll parse through that one eventually. I also wrote some stuff about the new Linklater joint, but I actually might be able to turn those thoughts into a review for next week. We'll see.

In any case, the trip is over. As of this writing, three of us have contracted COVID, including one person who literally slept in my bed this weekend, so I don't have high hopes for myself. I don't have symptoms, I have taken three negative tests for so, but you know how these things go. Fingers crossed, and all that. See you around, gang.