more bus rides with friends!
I recently read Kristin's post where she notes that a lot of blogs have a very serious tone to them, and laughed because it was something I clocked too, at least in my own posting behavior recently!
I think I naturally like to reflect, but I'd noticed that whenever I came on here, I found myself endeavoring to write Thoughtful Posts about Realizations and Things That Matter1, because a lot of the posts I read were (either intentionally or naturally) Thoughtful Posts about Realizations and Things That Matter. That's not necessarily bad, but I'm happy for the reminder to unclench. Honestly, I personally prefer reading the day-to-day, thesis-less stuff myself.2
Last Sunday I went on an overnight staycation with my friends at a small villa on the outskirts of the city! It started out a little rocky – I'd forgotten to bring a number of things, and it was raining so hard the villa owners called to cancel on us because of a leak in the roof. But we were already on the way and had prepared so much, so we said we'd go and check it out ourselves and discuss.
The place was mostly fine. There was a bulging wall and water dripping down the stairs, but nothing we couldn't ignore or mop up between enjoying ourselves, so we decided to stay instead of paying more for a hotel or worse, going home.
I was honestly nervous about the trip, as we'd never gone elsewhere together as a group, and I had a lot going on that week (suddenly got sick, comic due soon, still not sleeping great) so I wasn't counting down to it like the rest of my friends.3 It turned out to be really lovely, though.
A handful of memories:
- While everyone else was out doing groceries, the two of us making dinner used the karaoke machine that came with the house (while of course keeping an eye on the food).
- The machine was oddly well-updated with new songs! I got to sing Red Wine Supernova.
- I made my favorite pasta, penne al telefono. I hadn't made this since I was in college, so I was nervous about it, but my friends liked it!
- Even the friend who hates tomato liked it, which I was so pleased with.
- One of us had a birthday coming up, so we bought them a cake and sung happy birthday!
- There was a pool at the villa and we went out to swim at around 9pm (cool!). It was not wide, but it was DEEP! My 5'1" ass was holding on for dear life to stay above water so I could talk to my friends lol.
- We played billiards upstairs past 2am while the one (1) early riser among us slept, unbothered.
- We eventually collectively decided to sleep at 4am, but not before trying to (quietly) sing Hamilton songs while brushing our teeth together..........
- There were enough beds for each of us, but two other friends and myself slept spooning in one bed. Everyone else slept in their own beds, lol.
- Was clearly very drunk when I agreed to this, because I'm not a cuddler or touchy by nature. But it was surprisingly comfortable and I liked it!
- I think it helped that I was the littlest spoon, so no dead arm (fuck that noise).
- I have a history of being the last + worst to wake up, but I was the fourth of seven to rise! And on my own too, so please clap.
- We watched cartoons (Spongebob and, of course, DuckTales) while eating breakfast, and then most of us napped again afterwards.
- While waiting to check out, we watched some of this JaidenAnimations video of her ranking the Gen 5 Pokemon Sitting Cuties plushes and got really invested.
- Tangent: I personally think the Gen 5 Dex is the worst one. I do not like most of them, and it kills me that you can't use any other Pokemon for the story part of BW!!! That's literally the only part of the game I play... hello...
- We sung more songs on the way home. A very sing-y group!
I arrived home still hungover (MAN... at the tender age of not even twenty-six, I'm already slow to recover), but no longer ill. Hanging with friends is so healing!
It reminded me of the school field trips we'd go on, just with more prep on our part and less sweaty muddiness. The bus rides were always my favorite part of the field trips, because you could just chat with your friends in air conditioning and sleep and eat snacks. This was a great trip because it was the bus ride, but the entire time. I already want to do it again. (For now, I gotta finish this comic...!)
Or whatever equivalent of that you can reach when talking about cartoon ducks and turtles.↩
Although I find that it's hard for me to write casually when I'm trying to use proper capitalization/punctuation/etc, which is a standard I try to hold myself to when I write on here, since I never do this anywhere else. Raaaah... I'll figure something out.↩
There is an earlier draft of this post that veered into Realizationposting where I feel guilty about how shitty I am compared to my friends, but I messaged one of them instead and the nice little convo that ensued nipped that in the bud, thank god. Note to self to do the braver thing of communicating instead of Self-Flagellation Via Thoughts!!!↩