The Days Are Just Packed

Sometimes, I think it is possible to have too much fun. You know, to be so busy with all sorts of fun activities that you reach the point where you'd really like to be just sitting by yourself somewhere reading a book or watching TV or some other passive activity that does not involve other people. Don't get me wrong, I like other people as much as the next guy but sometimes I just have to get away.

The last few days have been kind of like that for me, with fun activity after fun activity being piled on. It all began last Thursday when I went to dinner in Echo Park with Shane Ross, John Lin, Ryan Cox, Zach Betters and Stephen Thrasher. There's this French (Freedom) restaurant on Sunset Blvd. called Taix, that John claimed was really good so we all decided to go check it out. It was indeed good but it was a little on the pricey side. Given my current unemployment status, I probably had no business whatsoever eating there but, in a startling example of fiscal irresponsibility comparable to that of the Federal Government, I tagged along. I ordered one of the cheapest things on the menu, which was rabbit. It's one thing to eat chickens and cows and other ugly-ass animals, but it's another thing to imagine that the food on your plate had once been a cute little bunny hopping through the forest, most likely picking up field mice and bopping them on the head. This image was even more vivid because of the fact that I had just finished reading Watership Down a few months ago and was troubled by the idea that this rabbit might have been like Fiver or Hazel.

At the time that I ordered it, I had the mistaken notion that I had never eaten rabbit before. However, I have since remembered that a few years ago while in Hamburg, Germany, I had eaten Hasenpfeffer. Still, the rabbit I had Thursday tasted nothing like the Hasenpfeffer I had eaten then. I'm not sure if I liked the rabbit or not. I mean, it tasted good and all but I still couldn't get past the idea that maybe I was eating somebody's family pet. Now I realize that, most likely, said rabbit was raised in horrible, inhumane conditions in a small cage but there is the slight possibility that somewhere some little girl is wondering if Flopsy is enjoying his new life on some farm, not realizing how her parents have cruelly deceived her.

At any rate, on Friday I went to Disneyland. Now, before you scold me for further fiscal irresponsibility, let me assure you that my outing at the Magic Kingdom was completely free of charge. See, a couple weeks ago while she was down in Vista, Erika ran into an old friend of mine, Kara. I had, once upon a time, had a crush on Kara but had sort of lost touch with her after I got over it. Well, Kara asked about me and Erika gave her my phone number. As it turns out, she's married now to some guy she met while they were both working at Disneyland. They no longer work there, but still know quite a few people who do. So, they invited me to join them at Disneyland on Friday. Since they knew several of the people who worked there, we were able to get into both Disneyland and California Adventure free of charge. Additionally, their friends provided us with a VIP pass so that we were able to instantly go to the front of the line on every ride. We did pretty much everything there is to do in both parks in about six hours. I'd always sworn that I'd never pay to go to California Adventure and, after having been there, that remains true. That park is seriously lame. There's maybe one or two fun things to do there. Personally, if I ever paid to go to that park, I'd be pretty irritated.

Not surprisingly, Kara and her husband spent the day playing "We Used to Work Here." You know that game people play when they visit someplace they used to work...like how they point out everything that has changed or feel the need to comment on everything about the place. Honestly, in most cases, that kind of thing bothers me. However, in the case of Disneyland it was quite interesting to hear all the dark and dirty secrets about the Happiest Place on Earth. As they had both worked as VIP Tour Guides, they made certain to point out to me the site of every tragic accident/death that had occurred at the park and provided me with all the details. A lot of them have made their way into urban legend, so you have no doubt heard some of them.

On Saturday, I was required as part of a class assignment to serve as a judge at this thing called History Day L.A. That was actually quite fun...a lot more fun than I expected it would be. I was assigned to be a judge in the Senior High School paper division. I was on a panel of four judges and had to read research papers and then interview the students about their papers to make sure that there was no plagiarism involved. There was one student in particular who cracked me up. I mean that quite literally. He came into the room wearing a full black double breated suit. We had just finished reading his paper which, incidentally, was quite bad. This boy was probably one of the biggest kids I had ever seen. When he started to talk, however, I almost started laughing. He spoke in the highest pitched voice I'd ever heard, peppered with the occasional burst of testosterone that made it squeak even more. Normally, every judge was supposed to ask at least one question of each student, but I was unable to do so as I was trying to stifle my laughter the entire time he was talking. For a brief moment, I was worried that maybe I was not cut out to be a teacher because of my uncontrollable urge to laugh. I was reassured, however, when the student left the room and the other three judges (all of whom are currently teaching) busted out laughing. It was then that I became privy to a phenomenon that I had always imagined existed but had never actually witnessed myself: teachers making fun of students amongst themselves.

Saturday evening was the last part of my marathon of fun. A friend of mine had arranged an evening for several of us at the Clippers-Knicks game at Staples. When I originally had agreed to go about three weeks ago, I did not realize that I would have so many days of nonstop activities. Had I known, I would not have signed up to go. However, since I'd already purchased the ticket, I was stuck going. It was actually my first time at a professional basketball game, and it was quite entertaining. Granted, it would have been preferable to see the Lakers but, since Clippers tickets go for $20 while Lakers tickets can sell for almost ten times that, this was the cheaper option. The really sad part is that, even with such cheap tickets, most of the seats in the arena were empty. Honestly, one would think a team would have to go out of their way to be as consistently bad as the Clippers are. Surprisingly, they did manage to eke out a victory over New York that night. While the game was fun, I was eagerly watching the clock the entire time, hoping that the game would end so that I could go home and go to sleep, particularly considering I'd only had about three hours of sleep on Friday night.

So today after class I am going to just go home and do nothing. Equally pleasant is the fact that my roommate is in Las Vegas until Wednesday evening, so I'll have the whole place to myself. I would invite the whole lot of you over but, you see...I've just had my fill of people over the last four to five days.