HiBAiSHi

Since this summer happened to be the summer of the big trilogy in the motion picture industry, I thought this installment ought to have a third part. After spending my first two weekends of the summer amidst boring trips to the mall and lame barbecues, I finally decided to hop in my car and hope that I wouldn’t get my third flat tire.

Well, unfortunately I did get another flat tire on the drive down to Durham and spent an hour in a Wal-Mart in Henderson, NC. One of my prouder moments. I arrived and met up with friends who I had seen recently and found that two of my friends, Logan and Nico, called Logan’s mother while inebriated and begged and pleaded with her to send little 14-year-old Zach to Duke so he could come play. Lucky for me I showed up that weekend and watched him do a little bump and grind with the girls while they desperately tried to friend him on Myspace. Life is good as a teenager.

The following weekend, I decided to drive to Philadelphia to meet up with Norman on the first leg of his East Coast trip and found my favorite family friend who struck it really rich, Barry An. He was so excited to see me that he ended up throwing up later that night (one of many) after he couldn’t rhyme like a king. Oh yeah, Joy and her friend Lea also happened to be in the city that weekend. Coincidentally. We spent a day at Ikea measuring ourselves and a night dancing in embarrassing ways. A good time.

Two weeks later I was suckered into going to New York City for the long 4th of July weekend. I promptly called up all my friends last minute and got two confusing replies from Victor who in his sleep-deprived, investment banker life didn’t realize I was even coming. But he still managed to have an extra bed. We walked around the city the next day and found one of his friends from work and I really learned to appreciate the mindset of someone who is able to put private equity on his business card. Slightly ridiculous. The next day I ended up finding Joy in Chinatown after she subconsciously hopped on the wrong train… then walked to the wrong bridge… then couldn’t navigate across a street… Lucky I found her, she could have been lost forever.

We ate lunch in Chinatown, walked to central park and saw butterflies, went to the Met, and walked around the city that day. Swell. The next day we went to the MOMA to appreciate and understand modern art while we made wishes and were fearful of old wives’ tails. After she left, I ended up watching Les Miserables that night with my friends from work and spent the next couple days walking around window shopping during the day and going to sketchy bars and lounges at night. Ah, New York City.

Two days later I left Richmond again to take a long drive down to Myrtle Beach as one of the interns had an empty condominium that his parents just moved out of in North Myrtle. We arrived so late at night that our dinner was pizza and beer on the curb and the only thing we could do was dash into the water at two in the morning and hop into waves. More fun that it sounds, trust me. That weekend I spent a lot of time in the sun getting my skin dirty and we played a lot of Mafia. The next night, we somehow ended up eating pizza on the curb again and awkwardly went clubbing. Very awkwardly. But all in all, it was a good beach weekend and we even got to pose in the air jumping in typical beach style.

I decided to “work from home” at the request of my new editor Varun and came to Duke on Thursday night the next weekend in order to take an Indesign course, only he didn’t bother to tell me that the guy cancelled and that nothing was going to happen on Friday and I was going to waste a lot of time. For a design weekend, there was a lot of waiting around as articles and photos never really came together until I was almost gone. The good news is that I had the fake, sexy version of HP7 and was reading through all the snog-y details without suspecting a thing. Despite getting to see my friends for the last time, I went to a party on Saturday and had my drink spilled by this obnoxious black woman who danced with umbrellas indoors … to umbrella, eh? Ridiculous.

The weekend in between Lauren begged and pleaded with me to come see her once again because she had such a great time that weekend, so I hopped in a rent-a-car with four of my intern buddies and they dropped me off in the city of brotherly love where I stayed with Anand. Unlike Southern California, they make it rain on the east coast so much that it was about to flood and i needed a boat! I didn’t own an umbrella, unfortunately. But the next day it was nice and sunny and Lauren greeted me in a familiar green dress (it’s as if she was the Same Girl) as we rolled down South St. toward the Condom Kingdom. I went to the famous Pat’s (the one next to Geno’s) and unfortunately, due to being in the midst of a pescatarian diet, I followed the orders of “american, with” and “provolone, without” with my “Can I have a large fish cake sandwich?” Blasphemous.

That week at work I had my last fun day, a day at Lake Anna. I managed not to embarrass myself too much (other than having the jet ski in reverse when i backed into a boat … ). I managed to wakeboard for the first time after a few tries and tried to jump but landed on my butt, over and over again.

The next weekend I had committed to attending a convention in Washington, D.C. and decided to “make a weekend” out of it. I went to visit my friend Dave who recently graduated in the spring and is currently hobbling around in Arlington working for a top 50 strategy consulting firm. He invited me to a birthday party for a person who used to work there, whom neither of us have ever met, and I proceeded to talk to his friends as a mature, recent-grad, working as an internal consultant in nearby Richmond while drinking way too much of his Spanish and Portugese wine. I went to convention the next day getting some swag and special ribbons, then enjoyed a little bit of D.C. at night but realized that I would rather play scrabble. After a gigantic omelette at the THOP (The Original Pancake House) the next morning, I drove to Richmond finished with my last trip.

Unfortunately after all of this, I feel as if my car is on its last legs (or wheels). Shortly after a rainstorm that occurred during the night that I returned from D.C., my car no longer can shift out of park after ignition. To drive, I have to use the shift-lock and manually place the car into neutral, that way I can start and then shift gears. Also, the tachometer, heat gauge, and clock have stopped working. Unfortunately, this means that the odds of another big east coast trip is unlikely, but I’m very glad that I had the opportunity this summer.