Brad and I got to bed around 2am and he didn’t have classes until 11am today which I thought gave me plenty of time to sleep. This calculus failed to consider that he had three other housemates all on different schedules and the first rev of the burr grinder occurred at around 7:30am. Whoops. I formally woke at 10am, showered, changed, and chatted with one of Brad’s house mates until near 11am when I was supposed to pick up Suzie. I thanked Brad again, offered fudge, and was off.

Outside Suzie’s house I shot her a text message that I had arrived and I was invited to park in the driveway. The garage door opened and I was invited in. I have known Suzie for a little over two years and we’ve covered about 20,000 miles together. We’ve shared a lot of the same spaces but never before did this include one of her parents. Suzie is much younger than I and there are moments where this surfaces above lake Friendship and never has this been more apparent than when I came face to face with her father. He was a visage of shriveled sternness. I was waiting for a “be careful with my daughter” line but his reserve didn’t allow for such an obvious display of feeling. This was a man that would never let me know how many rounds were in his revolver forcing me to keep track. He stared at me, reached to shake my hand and it was soft leather. He warned us of rain and I commented that I was only worried about dust storms or prairie fires. He bid his daughter goodbye as a part nod and part dismissal. I don’t know if it would have been more affectionate in my absence but “reserved” seems an appropriate description.

I hadn’t seen Suzie in seven weeks which despite an almost exactly 600 mile gap has come to feel like a while. My standard conversational paralysis set in and we exchanged short sentences until the front left tire of my car blew out spectacularly. I’ve had four flats in my life and both that occurred in Wanda have been within 30 minutes of Suzie’s house with her in the car. The side wall had gone out completely around the tire and there was a pile of tread shrapnel when I finally got the tire off. The tire was very hot to the touch and after an illegal turn we headed to Walmart to have it changed. This explosion proved the catalyst we needed and conversation picked up.

We met up with a friend of Suzie’s in St. Louis and then continued on to Columbia, MO to meet up with John and Zane. The stretch from St. Louis to Columbia is one I’ve tread before and the Jew Flinger seemed to be intact.

Who We Are

No one died.

After Thought:

We know each other because of video games but after that we are unavoidably people.  Some people were there for friendship, some were there for escape, some were there for romance and I’m not sure entirely why I was there.  Not to say I didn’t enjoy myself or didn’t want to be there but to a certain extent I felt like my presence was right.  Team Interrobang is something I helped found and I would have a hand in its social life for as long as I could manage.  One of my core values is to promote human connection.  It doesn’t take a lot for me to feel alone and part of me thinks that if I create a social group large enough that feeling will simply disappear.  Either I haven’t or it doesn’t but other people are ultimately the source of all my avenues to happiness.  This is something that I don’t believe I can re-tune in the same way I won’t be able to convince my lungs to work on methane so I will continue to hold out my hand and say “may we have an adventure?” to those in my life.  Chad, Alex, Ryan, Ken, Suzie, Dallas, Cody, Ty, Mike, Steve, Rachael, Chris, Ben, John, Audrey, Marcus, and Peter took that hand and for that my life is richer.

22 people came from various places for various reasons to get together as Team Interrobang in St. Louis.  Of those that stayed the whole weekend, only one was new to me and most I had seen in some capacity since our previous giant get together last year in Cincinnati.  As Suzie commented to me “Cincinnati was the meet-up, St. Louis was the reunion” And I think this was an astute observation.  Most had driven in with the closest being St. Louis residents and the most distant being Steve and Rachael McMackin from Tucson, Az but we were all in good enough spirits to go out to dinner, and then go swimming, and then do a bit of drinking.

At the hotel there was a bouncer in a rather nice suite guarding an elevator.  I was waiting to meet up with someone who was late, so I asked the bouncer a few questions:

Me: So, what are you doing?
Him: We have a rooftop club, and I keep out people who shouldn’t be there.
Me: Like who?
Him: People that are already drunk, mostly.  Tonight, we have a special guest and I want to keep out the riff-raff and gawkers.
Me: Who’s that?
Him: One of the Kardashians.
Me: I thought you said you’re goal is to keep out the riff-raff?
Him: *smile* Unless you’re famous for being riff-raff.  But I didn’t say that.  Hey, you like to take pictures?
Me: I do.
Him: If you get some slacks and come back later, I’ll let you in.
Me: *text message from someone who’s lost* Thank you, but I’m here for other reasons.

I stood around for a bit and I saw the bouncer reject some seemingly sober, very well dressed people.  I don’t know if he was being nice or just trying to keep the club full but the consideration was flattering.

I went to bed early that evening.  It had been a 40-hour day and I tend to wear down quickly at meet-ups as there’s a constant Do-While loop running asking “is everyone ok?”.  Team Interrobang had made it to St. Louis, and we had made it to 4 years old.