gettin in the groove...

My travel blog was wildly successful on two fronts. One being that I posted regularly and my readers got to expect stories. Secondly, my travels lent themselves to good posts. Things were always happening to me. It was almost impossible to be left with nothing to say.

And here I am, a few weeks removed from my last post on this blog, assuming that I have lost all my readers. I swear, weird things have been occurring. Honest. My road trip through the southwest United States was a blast. I ran into a strange fellow at an Interstate highway rest stop and we began talking about screenplays and pursuing the Hollywood dream of being rich and famous. I encouraged him to try acting. He gave me all his electronic info with the hopes that I would sell a script and call him when I need a short, mousy, fat-lipped New Yorker with faded tattoos to act in one of my movies. He seemed genuinly excited about meeting me. I introduced myself as a writer and his pointy little ears perked up like he had just met Scorcese or Speilberg. I guess my confidence was riding high.

I moved on through New Mexico catching some incredible views along the way. Besides the touristy art galleries and fancy shops, I also experienced life as a Sikh in Espanola, NM. My wife's sister is in tight with a small but energetic Sikh community that surrounds northern New Mexico. We had to make a quick stop at their friend's house to drop off a DVD and I was blown away by what I saw. A group of four men - all wearing white turbins and sporting long, flowing beards - sat peacefully on a couch in the living room. They all had special non-American sounding names; "Jama Baba Laba Romaba" something or other. Two women sat on a lounge chair together, engaged in a sisterly cuddle. The group of six were hanging around, essentially shooting the shit. They had their laptops open, laughing and talking. Besides the beards, turbins and weird names, they were exactly like me and my friends. We hung out for about 20 minutes and then left. It was a perfect encounter.

On my way back to the Bay area we stopped off in las Vegas where we were treated to an awesomely delicious free meal at a casino restaurant. Some good friends from our travels work at the new sushi eatery opening up and they needed patrons to practice on. Um, yes please! We scored yummy drinks, great raw fish and fine service to boot. One of the bartenders was a proud parent of two enormous breast implants. And thanks to a casino rule, she had to shake her drinks a certain way that forced all the bar patrons to hypnotically stair at her melons. It never got old.

After our road trip to see family, we headed back to our hometown to get ready for our annual trip to Quincy, CA to attend High Sierra Music Festival. It was my fifth year in a row going and I couldn't wait to get back up tot he mountains and see some live music. Everything worked out as smooth as silk and it turned out to be the best festival I've been to. Good friends, good times, good music, good weather, good laughs. It was all good basically.

And now, I am home. Sort of. We are staying with our friends Mitch and Sarah, waiting to move back in to our house this Sunday afternoon. Basically, we are doing nothing, just waiting. It's surreal to sit here, still with nothing to do, waiting for something to fill my time. I guess I could find things to do, but you all know me by now. I would rather read a book than force a to-do list on myself. I say, let's go away for a day or two and force relaxation on ourselves. There will plenty of time to stress, but now, shit, now is my time.