A bit of a saga, really.

Indeed they do, and they're far superior to anything that Greyhound has to offer. The past two weeks have been extremely eventful and extremely computer-less as Areli and Sam came to town, Kyle’s computer broke, and I left my little laptop alone in Eugene when I buzzed off to Portland last Sunday. So I’ll regale you with excerpts from the real journal, which is probably more accurate anyway, since it was along for the ride the whole time.

I want to be a line drawing. A simple, transparent line drawing. Actually, I'd like everyone to be line drawings. Maybe then I'd feel more sure of what few pen strokes I have.

Areli and Sam arrived in the thick of dead week -- really, the weekend before, but I had tons of work to do [I go on to list the papers and crap that I had to wade through the previous week, that week, and through finals. --e] We looked for salvia unsuccessfully; I'm not too keen on jumping through hoops to get the stuff, but I'm still curious. Their first full day involved University park (the one with the demon merry-go-round that always manages to fling me off and get sand in my underdrawers), Prince Puckler's ice cream and a tour of campus. They wandered Eugene. Fred Meyer! A movie or two. Dinners: flying dog, ziti bake, awesome quesadillas, pizza, and a cake. The cake didn't have long to live. We demolished it in the fullest sense of the word. Friday: I blew off all my classes (kyle handed in my paper) and went to PDX. We did some general wandering and hit a really great show: The Velvet Teen and Crosstide, with the New Truth (a lesser band, I thought.) The show was really good, but for some reason I hit a real energy lapse -- I was exhausted by nine. I stuck it out and got a second wind, but I considered (and I can't believe it in retrospect, and see it as a real moment of weakness) changing my bus ticket and going back to Eugene seriously. That was a wussy-ass low point, and I feel a bit guilty. We hit a Denny's after a 15-20 minute meander through a frontage road drug bust in industrial north portland. I saw some sketchy parts of stumptown that I wouldn't have otherwise seen, but we needed to ask a cop (who was blockading the road because of the aforementioned bust) for directions to I-5. Eventually, I got my milkshake and Areli and Sam got their fried stuff. Our main problem was a lack of a place to crash. At 1:00 or so at Denny's, our standing plan was to just stay up all night. Vetoed on the grounds of Areli and Sam having 4 more hours of driving. Roberta's [the woman I stay with in Portland -- a friend of my parents and a super cool gal] was ostensibly not an option; she was out of town, and, though she's told me to use the place and not stand on ceremony, I hadn't called her beforehand AND there was a not-Roberta's car in the driveway. Just moseying in would disturb any housesitter, though maybe not Bert. Later I found out that the omninous Trooper was a neighbor's. We had tried the hostel and a couple motels earlier to no avail, so we ended up shelling out for the Thrifylodge on E Burnside. Scuzzy, but acceptable. The room had a queen and a twin like the rooms my parents could sometimes finagle when we all road tripped together. Adam and I would alternate turns on the bed to prevent fighting. We were usually pretty good to each other on those trips, just cranky for autonomous reasons. anyway, the night was fairly uneventful, despite our proximity to bars, strip joints and the Doug Fir (a concert venue/lounge that gets good shows that I naturally can't see stupid 20...grr). The morning was smooth, if early. My bus left at 11:30 or so, and I had to be there an hour early. The Dynamic Duo dropped my off a couple of blocks from the bus station and right next to this little bakery I know -- we parted and I missed them almost immediately. It's nice to have old friends in a new environment. My posse was there -- they had my back. I got myself a muffin and a coffee and a coke for the road to settle my stomach in case of a motion sickness emergency --I was going dramamine commando. Seeing as my motion sickness can reach epic proportions, this was major. but somehow I managed not only to be a-okay the whole time, but I even read and wrote a little. As the Greyhound pulled onto Coburg, it occured to me that what took longer than a feature length movie (the bus ride) would stick in my memory as a montage, complete with iPod soundtrack, if at all. The contraction of life like that bothered me, but I supposed that if we carried every moment of our lives with us 24/7, no one would live to see 20. Destroying our recollection helps us collect more, snippets on snippets.

Okay, that should tide you all over until I get to finals week and spring break. Bear in mind I did omit some banal things without noting them.