Vacation Stories, Part Two

It is 8:00 PM and Katy and Matt are picking me up from the airport. Katy tells me what they've eaten that day. McDonald's. Salads. Famous Dave's. Meatballs from Ikea. She says she's gassy. I tell her I am hungry. I tell her I had some Fiesta Pretzel Mix on the Plane and we better get me some food from Blue Bricks right quick.

Or maybe it is 12:00 AM and JP is shoeless and under a table at McGoff's. Maybe Nate is playing Weezer and substituting JP's name for lyrics. Maybe someone at the table is writing a limerick about me. Maybe someone at the table is writing a limerick about JP. Maybe JP is going into the bathroom without shoes on. Maybe she's touching all the boys and giggling. Maybe I'm drinking vodka-crans.

It could be 9:00 PM. It could be a Thursday. It could be that I'm sitting in one of my former professor's kitchens. I'm eating homemade hummus and homemade bread and homemade soup. The people around me—professors and MFAers and ex-MFAers alike—are doing their best impressions of professors who aren't there.

Or maybe it is 7:30 PM, and maybe I'm at PG's house. Over by the record player JP and Liz are going through crates of old records. I want to play "Crimson and Clover." PG wants to hear "Ballroom Blitz." She ropes JP into singing it with her, but JP does not know the words. Katy is mixing chili into a giant vat of cheese sauce. Or maybe Katy is pouring rum into a giant pot. Maybe I am downstairs and one of my former professors is singing me a folk song while Greg strums his guitar in the background. Rachel is up in the living room and she's strumming her own guitar. She's showing us what she's learned. Later she will ask if we can watch the Paris Hilton sex tape.

It's noon. I'm at the best Chinese restaurant in Mankato, in Minnesota, maybe in the entire world. I am unfolding fried wontons. I am letting the cream cheese melt on my tongue. I might be wondering how I can go on living now that my apartment isn't across the road from Yu's.

Maybe it's 8:30 AM. I'm blinking awake because I think I hear Katy crying and saying, Matt. Matt. I'm going to puke, Matt. The dogs bark. I go back to sleep. Later, when I ask, Katy will tell me I'm dumb and that I hallucinated and that she never said any of that. Ever.

It's 11:30 PM. Katy is on the back of a giant Midwestern boy. He's giving her a piggy-back ride. Now he's giving Katy and JP a piggy-back ride. Now he's whirling them around. "I've had a lot of practice!" he says. Or maybe that's what I think he says. Maybe I'm a little too giddy to understand him.

Whatever it was and whenever it was, everything just felt normal and right and regular. The town seemed so much the same—except for that new restaurant called Johnny Beefcakes—and I felt so much the same in it. I kept expecting Katy to drop me off at my apartment. I wanted to run up the steps, dash into my room, flop on my big bed and watch out the window as the sun set, as it sunk into tilled-under soybean fields.

Luckily, though, the pangs I had were few and far between—I am thankful that I was kept always-busy—and that the whole vacation was a whirlwind of fun and familiarity. And stuff that looked like this:



The girls have a champagne toast




JP has a quiet moment by the legs of men.




Megan demonstrates things on the mustard bottle and a salt and pepper shaker. Bad, Megan. Bad.




He said to me, "I want to play you some music. Here. Listen."
I listened. I said, "Is this Christmas music?"
"Yes," he said.
"Okay," I said. "Just checking. Continue."




This was probably taken was Nate was singing about JP.



Jer demonstrates how he's going to win the Minnesota Strong-Man Competition.