November 7, 2005

• The Bell Tolls for Me, Biotch
  © The Author, 2005

  Vacations are bliss. Especially when they don’t involve cuddling up with mutant dust bunnies on a friend’s decrepit apartment floor or sponging room and board off relatives even though you suspect you may be getting a bit too old to be pulling that kind of crap. It’s nice every once in a while to simply be like Jake, bite the bullet, and pay whatever bill your search for happiness may rack up. (Jake lives in Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises and he is immensely cool. Even though he is impotent. Intrigued? Of course you are. Read it. Live it. Love it. Back to my point…)

  I’ve only been privy to a few samples of a grown up vacation, but every time I get a nibble it tastes like rich chocolate and Pez candies; vacations turn me into a hopped up, maniacally happy little toddler. I get so giddy that I nearly piss myself just thinking about vacation plans. I definitely drool a little.

  Real grown up, eh?

  Regardless of whatever retardation vacationing may bring me, I am unequivocally excited over every stage in vacation going. The researching, the booking, the planning, the packing, the red eye, the strange food encounters, the subsequent bowel issues—its all a rush to me. Even lugging suitcases and heaving overstuffed carry-on bags on the subway to O’Hare makes me feel like a superstar. I like looking at all the ordinary people riding on their way to work, school, or some other boring place to rot and thinking, “I’m outta here, suckers!” I like figuring out how to manage once our plane has landed somewhere new. I like the noise of different dialects and languages clicking in my ears. I like uncorking our hotel room for the first time and peeking under the bed cheekily to check for dead bodies; I like pretending that the place is probably haunted. I like getting dizzy from seeing fresh everythings. I like feeling full from new foods and drunk from new drinks. I like talking to other travelers, even those who say things like, “Chicago, eh? I’ve got a cousin that lives in Illinois Do you know her?” (Note: Pronounce the “S” in Illinois for full effect.) When it comes to vacationing, I dig it all.

  With that said, there is one stage in the vacation process that I like to spaz out over best: The Count Down.

  The count down begins after the travel has been researched, booked, and the purchaser has made a conscious decision not to be bothered by the horrifyingly imposing numbers that are soon to appear on their credit card. The count down starts in earnest with a cute little drawing on the purchaser’s calendar on the dates of travel—a smiley face or perhaps something of geographic or cultural significance to the place soon visited. As time progresses, the doodles around the travel itinerary grow. Plans are traced and re-traced until they become bold, crazy balloons more fitting for declarations of love on a sixth-grader’s Trapper Keeper than in the calendar of an adult. If stickers are in close proximity, they are added to the pages.

  Once the pages of the purchaser’s calendar are thoroughly embarrassing, the purchaser moves on to nicknaming the trip. The nickname has a loose association with the actual trip—the type of free association only acquired through complete slap happiness—and it serves as a sort of bond between the travelers, setting the tone for the immense fun to commence. When nicknaming the trip, anything goes; a camping trip with strictly platonic friends could morph into a trip entitled “Sexxy Camping,” while a romantic honeymoon in Spain may suddenly be dubbed, “The Bell Tolls for Me, Biotch.”

  Once the expedition has been adequately dubbed, and all those participating in the trip are in on the joke, it is time for the count down to evolve into numbers. Depending on how impatient you are, you can either count down by weeks (it makes it seem like less time because it is a smaller number) or days. The participants email each other with updates on the official countdown, their excitement punctuated by little factoids or pictures about their vacation destination scavenged during lunch breaks. The numerical portion of the count down can be grueling: philosophical questions must be answered like, “how am I supposed to live through 14 days until I get to feel the surf gurgle between my toes?” and the ever popular, “Why hasn’t time travel been invented yet?” However trying the numerical count down may be, the explosive release that such anticipation building entices is always worth the struggle.

  The explosive release happens once you are in the seat of your vehicle of transport on the first day of your excursion. You buckle your safety belt, tear into a fresh pack of mint gum, and squeeze your travel companion’s hand tight. The smile that plasters itself on your face at that moment will stay glued on until one of you becomes dehydrated, lost, or in need of a bathroom when no such facilities are present. At that time, the smile evaporates and the issue is immediately the other person’s fault on some level. But alas, so strong are the powers of the smile of the explosive release, that once the crabby traveler has been watered, found, or waters, the smile finds its way back where it belongs with ease.

  So what has me so jazzed? Californication 05/06. The day after spending X-Mas with family in Michigan, my husband and I are off to spend thee nights of romance and hiking in Sequoia National Park . After that, we are going to hop in our rented Ford Escort or Similar Model and cruise down to LA to meet up with our good friend Allyson. (Psst! Click on her link and see what an incredible artist she is. You will be floored. I promise. I owe her a full blog later, but seriously, click on the link to see how she rocks. Hire her! She does freelance illustration and graphic design.) Our friend Beth, currently stationed in Baltimore while pursuing her masters, is also meeting us in LA. Together, we will all party like its 2006, because it will be, seeing as how New Years Eve is an integral portion of this vacation and all.

  We booked our tickets last weekend and I am undoubtedly in the Count Down phase right now. Check it out:
  
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  Where is this crazy, beautiful world taking you this winter?

  *

  ::Random Tangent::

  Why are there so many haters of the serial comma? I’m not just talking about the British who live by Fowler’s Modern English Usage guide (on page 588 Fowler calls the serial comma “otiose,” or for those of us who speak plain English, “pointless”).

  As an admirer of the Chicago Manual of Style (14th Edition, see page 173, 5.57 for details), “I went to the store to get eggs, diapers, and syringes,” has more merit to me than the un-serial comma-ed, “I went to the store to get eggs, diapers and syringes.”

  Serial Comma: For or Against? Discuss!

  • 11:17 pm
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