As I mentioned the other day, I’m heading home for 8 days on Monday night. The prospect of traveling back east isn’t quite as exciting as it usually is because I just saw my folks and a couple good friends back in April. Still, my schedule is already packed with a lot of cool things that will certainly make this a unique trip. Since I won’t be blogging about my travels, I’ll be sharing updates, thoughts and photos via social media outlets (Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Path, whatever). If you care enough to know what’s going on my daily life you’ll use those tools. Otherwise, for the lazier people in my audience (which I imagine is at least 95% of you), I’ll give you a brief rundown of what’s in store for me when I return to my homeland.
The Top Ten Things I’m Looking Forward To At Home
10. Mom’s Home Cookin’ – When I’m not out in the city fine dining (or loading up on Shake Shack) I’ll eschew local restaurants for mom’s home cooking. She’s actually a pretty accomplished chef with a personal recipe book that’s to die for. I made one of her pasta dishes for a “family dinner” with my LA friends a couple years ago and Landon called it the best pasta he’s ever eaten. And that was my preparation. Hers would blow mine away. Since she pretty much lives to make me happy maybe I’ll tell her I want her to put her Indian training to use and make a traditional dinner. Something from Madhya Pradesh. No biggie. Not for her. She’s a Top Chef.
09. No Work – There’s nothing better than looking forward to 10 days without having to wake up and go to work. Sure I’ll have some annoying tasks that require attention (doctor’s office, dentist’s office, etc.) but it’s a small price to pay for NOT HAVING TO WORK FOR 10 DAYS. Am I being clear enough about how happy that makes me?
08. Amelia McDick Party – I’m going to drink with the Editoress of the worst website on the Internet, The Frisky, again! Since we last caught up with Amelia and her bumbling staff of doltish “writers,” she’s moved into a new office and composed articles on such Pulitzer-worthy topics as the smelly unidentifiable stuff that formed in her belly button, a not-at-all-shocking expose on women who cheat, and I think there was one article where she basically just told the world how her flow was on a given day during menstruation. You don’t even have to ask if she turns me on, I’m already worked up to a semi just thinking about her writing.
07. Book Of Mormon – My sis and I scored tickets to see this Broadway show (you’ve heard about it, right? Trey Parker and Matt Stone?) right before it won all the Tony awards this year. Every single one. I think it even won awards for things it wasn’t even nominated for. We’re sitting in the third row or something ridiculous like that. The coolest part is that an old classmate of mine is in the cast, so it’ll be fun to see her on stage. I know you’re all wondering why I’d want to see this over the Spider-Man musical but truthfully I’d rather a) not give money to a product with Bono’s name attached to it, and b) hating from afar is so much more fun than hating up close.
06. Balaboosta’s Goat Cheese-Stuffed Lamburger – If you think I haven’t already made a dinner reservation at Balaboosta you’re nuts. 8.5 ounces of Pat LaFrieda (the meat purveyor who supplies the beef for The Black Label Burger) grass-fed lamb stuffed with goat cheese. Is that the classiest Juicy Lucy burger ever? I don’t even care that I’ll probably be having this for dinner a few hours after eating a Shack Stack. Fucking awesome calorie overload. This is part of the reason why I run so much, people.
05. Wegmans – There are maybe three things in life that could happen that would drive me to move back east. One, I could get a job in the city. Two, I could finally meet a girl with a tongue in the back of her vagina and I’d blindly follow her anywhere, be it to the East Coast or the farthest reaches of the globe. Three, I could finally break down and realize that it’s impossible for me to live more than 20 minutes away from Wegmans. Hell, I had a hard enough time getting my Wegmans fix when I lived two minutes away from one in Allentown that was open 24-hours. “What do you mean there’s 10 minutes left in this class. I WANT MY 7-INCH BUFFALO STYLE CHICKEN SANDWICH COMBO NOW!”
04. A Break From LA Is Always A Good Thing – It doesn’t matter where you go. Sometimes it’s just nice to get away from the city for a while. Don’t get me wrong, socially Los Angeles is awesome right now. I’m mostly excited to not work for 10 days, and I have so many friends back east and my entire family. Any opportunity to spend time with the people I’ve grown up with is going to be fun. Oh yeah, plus there’s that whole 405 closure that’s going to totally fuck the traffic situation while I’m gone. The rest of you fucks would be wise to skip town as well.
03. Good-Old-Fashioned Alcoholism – The best thing about my sister still living at home is that she has used her time since graduating college to meticulously meet and befriend every bartender within a ten mile radius of our mom’s place. Which means every time we go out, we’re pretty much drinking for free. Each night of the week she knows the best spot to eat and drink for pennies, and of course she only takes me to bars with Photo Hunt and Tic-Tack-Trivia. Oh, and she custom-built a karaoke machine into her Jeep (which I thusly dubbed Car-eoke) for optimal late night entertainment. Anticipate lots of Tweet typos and pictures of me at various levels of intoxication. I love my sister.
02. The 4th Annual [redacted] Beer Classic – And while on the topic of alcohol…Technically I think this is the fifth or sixth time I’ve had a welcome home party at my favorite New York City watering hole. But only four have had official Facebook event pages, so that’s the counting system we use now. Ian called to tell me how excited he was for this because a couple years ago he watched me pick up a cute little blonde and not act on it, so now I guess he expects me hump a bitch on the bar? I didn’t quite understand what he was talking about, but he said he was excited to “See [me] in action.” The parties are always fun, 50 people showed up to celebrate me in October. New friends are always made, friends have hooked up with each other, blog readers have joined in the fun, it’s always one of the best nights of any trip home. And this should be the best Classic yet.
01. Dad’s Birthday Party – The old man is turning 70 years old on July 19th, which is the impetus for this trip back east. He’s having a large party which will be attended by members of his family from all over the country, most of whom I haven’t seen in five or ten years. It’s weird to think I haven’t seen aunts or uncles since my parents divorced in high school, and there are so many cousins I haven’t hung out with during that time who now how families of their own. The only thing I’m not looking forward to is having to spend time talking to each and every one of them about what I’ve been doing with my life since we last spoke. Don’t worry, my sister and I will be packing flasks. Not that it’s going to be necessary, pops’ family is pretty much all alcoholics. We’ve always joked that even though our parents are super-conservatives we still come from a very long line of drunks and drug addicts and nutcases. Fuck, my father is turning 70 years old. We haven’t always had a good relationship, he and I, but the health scare he had a couple years ago helped us in a weird way. Man…70 is fucking old. I doubt I’ll live anywhere close to that long. If you’d asked me when I was in middle school to picture myself at 30 I would have told you that’s impossible because I wouldn’t live that long. Imagine yourself at 70? No thanks. I don’t think 70 is for me.
The Middle Class – Home Is Where
Death In June – We Drive East
