Mid-trip notes (updated)

Just jotting some stuff down for the moment — while I’m technically not entirely cut off from the ‘net while I’m visiting, I’m not spending a ton of time online. I keep bouncing between the “it’s vacation, you don’t need to jump on the computer every minute” thought and the urge to know EVERYTHING THAT’S GOING ON EVERYWHERE RIGHT NOW urge that comes from being connected nearly 24/7 at home. ‘Net addict? Me? Naaaaaaaaahhhh…

(twitch)

Friday: Decent flight into Anchorage. Parents picked me up and ran me home, then I went out to hit VINL. Chatted with a few random people (including a group of late-teens who liked the kilt, some of whom were visiting Anchroage from Seattle and actually knew the Utilikilt brand). Home, bed.

Saturday: Realized that while I had a lot of e-mail and IM addresses, I had very few current phone numbers. Went to Title Wave to find Stacey, who gave me James’ number, which led me to James, Marc, and Laura. Hung out with them for a bit, then home. That evening, out and about to Mad Myrna’s (Anchorage’s one gay bar) and ‘Koots with James, Marc, Laura, Matthias, Wolfie, Moose, Erika, Erika’s brother, and Sue.

Sunday: Church in the morning with my folks, then going through lots of old family pictures in the afternoon. Evening spent at Royce’s apartment with Royce, Stephanie, Rod, and Brian. Much fun was had, including a few moments of sheer and utter absurdity leaving Royce and me with tears in our eyes from laughing, while everyone else kept chatting around us, waiting for us to get done. Man, I’ve missed that.

Monday: Random around-town wanderings to take pictures. Chatted with Dan “The Man” LaPan, owner of Subterranea, for a while about his difficulties making money and possible plans to close the store — which would suck. Subterranea is hands down the single best goth/punk/industrial “underground” store I’ve seen, for both price and selection, easily beating any of the places I’ve poked around in even in Seattle. Unfortunately, it’s the same old story: everybody loves it, everybody wants it to stay open forever, nobody will actually spend any money there. More ranting on this later, quite possibly. Evening at home, then coffee with Erika.

Tuesday: Still in progress. Took mom to work, and got more family history documents. Figuring plans out for the rest of the day. More to come…and here it is. Ended up heading out to Wasilla to meet with Christina for lunch, then back into town. Bummed around the house for a bit…and, y’know, while I’m sure I did something later on that evening, I’ll be damned if I can remember just what it was. I’m sure it’ll come back to me eventually.

Wednesday: My dad’s 58th birthday. Spent most of the day here at home, doing various projects that mom had lined up for me — moving things around, emptying out storage containers, and consolidating a lot of old family pictures that had been collected from mom’s parents when they moved to a smaller apartment in their retirement home. Also dug up a ton of old photos of me, and — most frighteningly — a whole stack of letters and notes that had been passed back and forth between my friends and I back in high school. Eeep! Birthday dinner for dad at Lone Star, then off to VI to chat with Richard. Ran into Crystal (of the White Truck) there, gave her a ride home after she got off work, and then home.

Thursday: Took mom to work, then bummed around home again for a bit. Met up with Mary for a while and caught up on her life after she got home from work. Picked mom up from work, home for dinner and attempting to help dad install a new mouse and a slide scanner on his ‘puter (mouse worked fine, slide scanner seems to be junk). Off to VI to kill a little time, and ran into Jimmy, who let me know that Kayt is back in town &dmash; will try to hook up with her tomorrow. Then down to meet Laura at Myrna’s, where Adri usually shows up for karaeoke…and, of course, she never showed, though I did get her phone numbers, so I can try her tomorrow too. Watched people slaughter songs fora while, and now I’m home again. Two more days to go…

Last update…

Friday: Another mostly-at-home day, listening to a good portion of the family vinyl collection. One of my major PROJECTS at some point will be shipping a veritable ton of this stuff down to Seattle, getting a turntable, and encoding it all. For now, though, sitting at home and listening to it made for a very pleasant afternoon. Evening with Erika, Deven, Luann and Ethan, first with dinner at VI, then just hanging out and chatting at Erika’s house.

Saturday: Finished up some of mom’s PROJECTS here. Got things packed up and ready to go, then over to Marc and Laura’s to meet up with them, Richard, James, Chris, and Mercedes for general hangout time, complete with games of Cranium and Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit. Again, much hilarity. Headed home, made sure I really had everything packed (doing things in two sweeps is the only way I have any chance of remembering it all, and even then I’m likely to leave something behind), and now I’m just waiting for Laura to come pick me up and run me out to the airport.

It’s been a great vacation…but I’ve got to admit, I’m definitely ready to head home and have a quiet day before heading back to work on Monday. I may sleep through most of it — my flight leaves Anchorage at 1am AK time, arrives in Seattle at about 5am Seattle time, and I generally can’t sleep on airplanes — but at least I don’t have to go straight to work directly upon landing!

So, that about wraps that up!

(Oh, and on the off chance that someone reads this in the next few hours and has nothing better to do, I’ll be coming into Seattle on Continental flight 1548, arriving at 5:09 AM, and wouldn’t refuse a ride home…)