Bet’cha weren’t expecting to see me back around these parts.  Or maybe you were because you’re one of those chipper, bubbly, hopeful types.  In which case:  you ruined my surprise and you should feel bad about it.

All the same, this was written in the spirit of excellent news.

As of three minutes ago (when I wrote this sentence, as I have no way of telling when you’re reading this) it is June the 16th––which seems like a day of no significance to most.  Unless it’s your birthday or something.  In which case, you’ve again spoiled my rhetoric and I’m getting pretty sick of all this bringing me down, you surprise ruining, birthday-having, hypothetical jerk.  The point is:  as of midnight, I officially have a month until the tires are on the tarmac and I’m back amongst my people.  That’s right!  A mere thirty days between myself and the homeland.  Happy day, o’ happy day.

We’ve also started touring, which is semi-hellish in terms of workload, but who cares?! I’m too excited to let it bother me.  I’m now coming home in an amount of time that doesn’t seem terribly long when measured by any unit of time.  From months all the way down to seconds, a month is hardly any time at all.

In light of this, I was feeling snarky enough to spatter out a handful of further stray thoughts in celebration.  However, I haven’t done anything photo worthy, so…deal with it.

• Souvenir shopping is the biggest drag on the planet.  Maybe it’s because I don’t fully understand the concept.  “Here’s some stuff from a place you didn’t go to.  You can look at it sometimes and think about all the fun I had and you didn’t.  Suck it, family-peasants.”  Or maybe it’s my irrational hatred of snow globes.   Yeah, if you went to Antarctica, a snow globe makes sense.  Not if you went to….Melbourne, Australia or Germany in the Spring and Summer.  Gah.  Snow globes.  Stupid.
• I may have mentioned before the surprising lack of things to do in the small, suburban town I live in here.  That extends to the restaurants.  I have an established love of the Turkish “Döner Kebab” flatbread sandwich.  The only restaurant that doesn’t require me to purchase a ticket for public transportation and make a sizable trip happens to be a little kebab shop at the end of my street, as some of you may know.  What I didn’t know is that I apparently eat there enough that I’m a “regular.”  After my brief jag through Europe, they asked where I had been.  Not only that, when I walk in they begin to make my order without me actually having to say anything at all.  Think Norm from Cheers, only no one speaks the same language.  Well, that and there’s no laughter while I eat a Turkish Flatbread sandwich alone in my flat.  Wait, no, it was Cheers; the no laughing thing is the same then.  In brighter news, loneliness is a flavor enhancer much like salt.
• Thanks to being, very generally, an insomniac, I’ve watched almost all 13th seasons of King of the Hill online since being back from holiday.  I consider it a primer for my return to the States, as well as a damned near perfect television show.  “That boy ain’t right” is something I mumble to myself quite often as I wander around the streets of Dresden, actually.
• To the British tourist who stopped me to ask a question the slowest, loudest, most condescending English you can imagine:  Ma’am, I speak English just fine.  Most of what I said to you in German had nothing to do with your question.  I was simply bothered by how unpleasant you were and refused to help you on principle.  For future reference, getting louder does NOT actually help with comprehension, nor does getting frustrated with the first three or four people you ask for help that don’t speak English.  You’re in Eastern Germany, use that small supercomputer in your hand to look up a couple words.  They are not, and I quote, “bloody morons” because they don’t understand your––admittedly thickly-accented––English.
• There’s nothing stranger than riding with the business director of a theatre (who––in a coincidental relation to the previous bullet––has spoken zero English in the four months I’ve known him) listening to an American pop song from about four years ago which includes such inspiring lyrics as “Got her saved in my phone under Big Booty.”  Actually, that’s a lie.  What’s stranger than that is when he turns to you, about a minute into said song, points to the radio, and says in mirthless, German-accented English, “I much enjoy this song,” before turning his head back to the road and not saying another word for the rest of the trip.

 

The bullet points themselves were quite long, and I think I only had about 800 words worth of “jazzed-up-ness” (scientific term) to churn out this evening.  I wish you all the best from far away, and I’ll be back here again before being Homeward Bound.

Until we meet again:  fare thee well.