On the Road

Will spent the past week in Reno, NV, coaching a teen girl's volleyball team and staying out late gambling with the other coaches, a group of guys that he has been friends with for at least as long as I have known him.

Summer has always afforded us plenty of opportunity to travel and hang out with friends and go to baseball games and stay out late since, in one way or another, both of us have either been in school or teaching it and the summer has been at least partially free.

Tonight I got to thinking that this summer, once summer school ends and the official summer begins next week, will be my last real summer before I go back to school, real school, with real potential on the other side of it, but also the possibility of living inside a library for three long years. Or maybe not. My final decision about graduate work has not been made, and I have been known to change my mind at the drop of the hat so don't take anything as gospel, but be it law school or culinary school, I am shaking loose of this place. Or at least I am going to try. I made it out once before.

Thinking about this summer also got me thinking about past summers, particularly the deliciously cool year-round summer that is Santa Barbara and the humid and sticky summer that is Washington DC. I got to thinking about the friends I met those summers--the ones that help carry me through, academically, emotionally and even literally when I was too drunk to walk home after dancing at bars and drinking too many glasses of Dom Perignon, paid for with our college loans, credit cards, and, sometimes, our charm.

The room was thick with nostalgia when these words occured to me: Road Trip. I have friends in Sacramento and San Francisco and Los Gatos and San Luis Obispo and I think I might have to make my rounds this summer and sleep on a few couches. Maybe just for a few days, maybe just to catch up and laugh and maybe help carry a friend home from a bar after too many glasses of the house merlot. We ain't livin' on student loans anymore.

Comments

[Katey]

funny, I was going to email you this weekend and see what you thought about teaching. I am also considering a career change. To teaching, as opposed to from though.

what do you think?

K

[Zandria]

I think the road trip sounds like an awesome idea! (But you already knew I would think that, didn't you?) :)

I know that you will succeed in anything you decide to do -- whether it is law school or culinary school. :)

[Kathryn]

but you cant have one drink with me.
ok.fine.

[Laura]

I'd pick culinary school over law school - homework would be so much fun! "Hey honey, I have homework tonight - it's called dinner".

Have fun on your road trip it you do decide to go...sounds like a blast!

[Bethany]

Ahhh, a road trip that sounds like a fucking BLAST!!!!!!

[Benji]

I am going on a road trip after my orientation at Berkeley. You should come, just squeeze in the back seat with me and my little sister.

[elizabeth]

add oc to ur list please

[Benji]

I know this is out of subject, but now that June is over, what is your grand total for the June money madness?

[Janet]

Benji, I was going to put that up today....I sorta have a missing receipt, so I was waiting for the AMEX to put it online and then I can do the final update!

[Sijbrich]

Just looking at your June Money Madness - I heart Palazzio on State street. I so recognized the garlic rolls! They are so incredibly delicious and addicting. Haven't been there for a few years. Thanks for bringing back the memories.

[Neil]

Isn't it odd that summer makes us so much more nostalgic than another season? And summers were made for road trips!

[jennifer]

Umm I think you need to come to D.C. to enjoy the hot and sticky summers all over again ;) Think of how much fun we would have!! My roomie and I have a pull out couch waiting.

[Lauren]

You can come sleep on Monty's coach anytime. I Miss you too and have no idea when Im coming back to the AV. My car is still broken!