This weekend I hit the road so that I could experience "the [VOID]" (tm)
that is Rohit's life first hand. I also attended Jay's awesome BBQ Bash in
Boston. I have just now arrived at work, 2 hours late and looking like
something the cat dragged in and not at all like my normal divine
Diva self ;-) I ended up spending last night in a dive of a
motel along the the NY thruway due to the horrendous weather that swept
through the northeast yesterday. I was driving through Albany yesterday
afternoon when the tornado watch came into effect. I made a valiant effort
to reach home, but after crawling along the thruway at 10 miles an hour
with close to zero visibility, and after having to stop several times for an
hour or more, I gave up and checked into a hotel around 7:30 p.m. last night.
I had left Boston at 11 a.m. that morning with only 4 hours sleep from the
night before. After 8+ hours on the road, I admitted defeat. I am too
exhausted to type and think properly, so what follows is the AP newswire
version of the weekend (I am sure that we will receive the full novella
from Rohit when he lands back in CA).
Facts and Figures:
Total travel distance round-trip Geneva to Boston: 1,212 kilometers
Travel time from Geneva to Boston in the sunshine: 6 hours
Travel time on the return trip due to tornadoes: 14 hours
Skankiest Truck Stop between Boston and Geneva: Herkimer,NY (where I was
stranded for 3+ hours without power while tornadoes and thunderstorms
shut down the NY Thruway)
Number of Hall of Fame Museums between Boston and Geneva: 3 (baseball,
basketball and boxing). Why does every little backwater town along I-90 feel
the need to build a sports museum and call it a Hall of Fame?
Number of Guests at Jay's BBQ: ???? -- I would guess somewhere around 60
Number of FoRKer's at the BBQ: 8 (this is the number I met, I think -- it's
all a bit fuzzy)
Estimate of the number of beers consumed at Jay's: 250+ (8+ consumed by me)
Number of cows killed to provide the meat for the BBQ: at least 2 (oh, and a
pig provided some of the most delicious ribs I have ever tasted)
Weirdest moment: Being at a rave/loft party in So. Boston with Rohit and Joseph
Reagle and having some young stud try very hard to pick me up (even offered
me some LSD as a bribe and gave me the offer of providing crash space
at his place if I wanted -- I accepted neither, but my ego was nonetheless
stroked immensely, esp. considering the fact that I was most likely at
least 10 years his senior).
Strangest conversation: A tie between the dildo joke session hosted by Kate
(Jay's wife) in the living room of the house around 10 p.m., which was followed
shortly by a masturbation conversation in the backyard led by Jay (and someone
name Kat). Draw what conclusions you will from this tidbit.
Most nerve-wracking moment: Walking into the backyard when I first arrived in
Boston and not knowing a soul and wondering if I was nuts to drive for 6 hours
to attend a BBQ with people I had never met. I actually had to ask some of the
guests to point out to me Jay and Rohit so that I could go and introduce
myself.
Most embarassing moment: Talking to some FoRKs and laughing about Greg's post
from last week in which I was called an ignorant slut and having some other
people overhear only the end of the conversation so that their impression was
that I am proud to be an ignorant slut (when, in fact, I am neither and am not)
End of newswire.
In closing, I would like to thank Jay and Kate for hosting a supreme BBQ! I
had an absolute blast and it was well worth the long journey. The critters were
definitly crispy, the beer plentiful, the tunes kicking, the conversation
interesting and eclectic in nature, and you even managed to provide plenty
of sunshine. Jay, you are most definitly the "Master of the Meat"! Your BBQ
skills are second to none!
Thanks also to Jay and Kate for providing me with a place to crash --
otherwise I would have had to go home with the LSD guy from the loft.
And now that I have managed to waste 45 minutes of my already abbreviated
work day, I must exit "the [VOID]" that I have been in for the last 72 hours
and return to my normal daily duties as an information diva -- the students on
our campus are about to start finals (we are trimestered and have an extended
school year) and things are tense in the library today.
Signing off,
Janie (who is considering a name change from Diva to Ignorant Slut ;-))
"Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the
creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it."
-- G. K. Chesterton