{"id":2392,"date":"2009-06-15T13:16:21","date_gmt":"2009-06-15T18:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.net\/?p=2392"},"modified":"2009-06-15T13:16:21","modified_gmt":"2009-06-15T18:16:21","slug":"on-the-things-i-did-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=2392","title":{"rendered":"On the Things I Did This Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

I went to North Carolina this weekend to attend the wedding of two of my dearest friends. So what did my weekend look like?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Somehow I got out of the house Saturday morning at 3:30 without waking my grandmother.<\/li>\n
  2. I’d forgotten just how much I liked Bryan Adams’ seminal album, Reckless<\/i>. Takes me back to junior high school.<\/li>\n
  3. The Washington beltway was closed to one<\/i> lane at 4:30 in the morning. One lane!<\/li>\n
  4. I saw the worst accident north of Fredericksburg on I-95 as I was heading south. It required seven state troopers and a massive crane.<\/li>\n
  5. Aunt Sarah’s Pancake House. Broad Street. 6:15 in the morning.<\/li>\n
  6. I wrote longhand in Aunt Sarah’s and drank coffee. I felt vaguely Hemingway-esque.<\/li>\n
  7. I left a five dollar tip on a ten dollar check. The Apple Cinnamon Pancakes were just that<\/i> good.<\/li>\n
  8. I puttered around the University of Richmond for an hour.<\/li>\n
  9. I skipped stones on Westhampton Lake. God, what a rancid, smelly lake that is.<\/li>\n
  10. I reminisced about an autumn evening a decade ago spent on the hill in front of Boatwright Library, overlooking the lake, with S.M. and a six-pack of Sam Adams.<\/li>\n
  11. At a rest area in North Carolina, I saw a redhead wearing a “Team Edward” t-shirt as I was backing out to get onto the expressway. I rolled down the window, shouted “Potato Moon<\/a>!” as a lark, and sped off. She passed me twenty minutes down the road. If she paid me any notice, I don’t know.<\/li>\n
  12. I drove with the window down, my left arm hanging on the door, and it became horribly sunburned in the North Carolina sun.<\/li>\n
  13. Despite not having been there in three years, and despite coming at it from a completely unfamiliar direction, I found the GameStop in Smithfield on the first try.<\/li>\n
  14. I saw Tina, whom I hadn’t seen in nearly three years. \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n
  15. I got lost leaving Smithfield.<\/li>\n
  16. I stopped in Garner and saw Jim, whom I also hadn’t seen in three years.<\/li>\n
  17. I had forgotten how completely flat<\/i> eastern North Carolina is.<\/li>\n
  18. I had also forgotten how completely empty<\/i> North Carolina is. The only state I enjoy driving through less<\/i> than North Carolina? South Carolina.<\/li>\n
  19. I had forgotten how blooming hot<\/i> North Carolina can be in the summer.<\/li>\n
  20. I had also<\/i> forgotten how completely humid<\/i> North Carolina can be in the summer. When I got out of the car at the Wal-Mart in New Bern (because I needed to buy film), I felt like I’d stood out in the rain for an hour while standing under a shower nozzle.<\/li>\n
  21. I ironed my dress shirt, and the only injury I suffered was when I dropped the iron on my foot. The shirt turned out fine.<\/li>\n
  22. I forgot how sudden thunderstorms can appear in North Carolina. I got absolutely drenched<\/i> on my way to Target to buy a new battery for my camera.<\/li>\n
  23. I parked in a swamp.<\/li>\n
  24. I discovered how small the world is. The boyfriend of one of the bridesmaids knows Farpoint’s Renfield.<\/li>\n
  25. I tied his necktie.<\/li>\n
  26. I told the groom’s grandfather that the storm would break before the wedding and that the sun would come out. “It’s a damned certainty,” I said. “The wind gauge is with us.”<\/li>\n
  27. The sun came out.<\/li>\n
  28. The groom’s aunt looks exactly<\/i> like my mother’s first cousin. This caused me massive<\/i> cognitive dissonance.<\/li>\n
  29. I set up chairs for the guests to sit in down on the river bank.<\/li>\n
  30. Despite a dozen men setting up the chairs, after the ceremony I was only one of two men to take them down and reset them in the reception area.<\/li>\n
  31. I shot three rolls of film.<\/li>\n
  32. I cried buckets.<\/li>\n
  33. I discovered that I really like chablis.<\/li>\n
  34. I forgot that I really shouldn’t<\/i> drink wine.<\/li>\n
  35. The deejay had never heard of Elbow. Or Jaydiohead<\/a>. And instead of playing the “Imperial March,” he played the Star Wars<\/i> theme.<\/li>\n
  36. “Pork Chop Sandwiches<\/a>.” (Seriously. I instigated a conversation about that spoof video. And the one with the two kids on the ice.)<\/li>\n
  37. I was attacked by a swarm of fireflies.<\/li>\n
  38. I blew bubbles.<\/li>\n
  39. North Carolina can be pitch black at night.<\/li>\n
  40. I realized, with some sadness, that it’s awesome to live in a state where you can buy beer and wine in Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, Maryland is not such a state.<\/li>\n
  41. By complete chance I found that the perfect chaser to a Yuengling Dark Brewed Porter is Wal-Mart’s Peanut Butter Fudge cookies.<\/li>\n
  42. Alanis Morissette.<\/li>\n
  43. I started to mentally assemble a “soundtrack” for writing “THOD<\/a>.”\n
  44. I do not like Starbucks’ Pike blend.<\/li>\n
  45. I do like Caribou Coffee’s Mint Connection.<\/li>\n
  46. I gave my niece a “Care Cthulhu<\/a>.”<\/li>\n
  47. I bought Beamish Stout at Total Wine & More. And Highland Brewery<\/a>‘s Oatmeal Porter. I can’t get either in Maryland.<\/li>\n
  48. I made good time coming home. Until I reached Ashland north of Richmond, whereupon the journey took shades of The Odyssey<\/i>.<\/li>\n
  49. I cursed the traffic. A lot<\/i>.<\/li>\n
  50. I drove through downtown Fredericksburg, right past Mary Washington, because I missed the turn I was looking for.<\/li>\n
  51. Pizza Hut!<\/li>\n
  52. Did I mention Pizza Hut?<\/li>\n
  53. No, really, that was the first real food I’d had since, umm, breakfast on Saturday.<\/li>\n
  54. I hate traffic circles. Unless I’m driving around them in circles deliberately just to fuck with people. Otherwise, they’re stupid. (The intersection of US-15 and US-50, I’m talking to you.)<\/li>\n
  55. The thing that kept me awake the last two hours on the road? My headache.<\/li>\n
  56. I hit the bed and passed out.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And a whole lotta other things besides. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I went to North Carolina this weekend to attend the wedding of two of my dearest friends. So what did my weekend look like? Somehow I got out of the house Saturday morning at 3:30 without waking my grandmother. I’d forgotten just how much I liked Bryan Adams’ seminal album, Reckless. Takes me back toContinue reading “On the Things I Did This Weekend”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[4093],"class_list":["post-2392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-life","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}