So after Reginald and I got done falconing, we toweled off and headed to the Olive Garden for some applesauce.

First of all, Miss Georgia (in the Miss Universe Pageant) is...not that hot. Definitely attractive -- especially when she's not wearing so much makeup, because from the photos it seems that her preferred makeup style is "prostitute with daddy issues" -- but not in that caliber of super-hotness that would portend a country full of saucy nymphs just waiting for me to arrive, sweep them off their feet, and confuse them with a reference to "Georgia peaches" that will only be funny in my head. And, frankly, this is what I was expecting when I signed up for this. Who wants to head around the world to volunteer his time if he's not going to be met by a half naked seductress with strawberries who wants to peace HIS corps? Serious doubts, readers, serious doubts.

Second of all, there is no second of all.

There's not really anything funny about the final preparations I have to make before I leave. For instance, I have to buy some shirts and pants. Hooray. It's more complicated than it seems; I'm utterly uninterested in purchasing four pairs of black Dockers, even though I'm supposed to be packing "business casual" clothes, because I think I would end up feeling like I was eternally on my way to a high school band recital. So I have to figure out what the hell else falls under the category of "business casual." In MY business, I'm allowed to show up at work in sandals, dirty jeans, and a t-shirt reading "deez (picture of some nuts)," so I have little practice at "business casual." We have no need for such terms in Hollywood (at least, those of us who work for laid-back production companies); "Casual Friday" at my office would mean you could probably show up naked. These are the concepts with which I will liberate the Caucasus. They are sure to be extremely receptive. The nymphs should be, anyway.

I also have to go to the Army Surplus store to buy comically oversized winterwear, in case I get stationed in the mountains. In the winter months in places where it gets really cold, all you basically have is a wood stove in the kitchen and a sleeping bag in your room, from what I understand. So you have to pack accordingly. The problem is, though, that I am not necessarily going to BE in a place where it gets so cold. I could be in a city/town near the beach with humid summers and merely damp winters. But I'll still have used a significant portion of my limited luggage space, in the luggage that it is my responsibility to haul everywhere I go, on thick and ultimately useless winterwear! Because they don't narrow your final destination down even a little bit before you get to your in-country training! The US Government! It's MMM-Tastic!

Besides shopping for clothing, there are various other things I need to accomplish before I leave. I've now been here for more than two weeks. I haven't done a lot, and my circadian rhythm has reverted to the ridiculous 6am-6pm wake cycle that I always struggle against when I'm home and lacking in structured responsibility. Mostly I've been watching a lot of television. It's like a summer in high school or early in college all over again. I don't know why I never apply any of my mature life lessons to my actions when I'm home. I act like a pretty proper grown-up when I'm NOT here, and I'm not THAT concerned about my ability to keep from embarrassing myself in Georgia, but when I'm here I might as well be a sullen teenager. I can't figure this out. And I'm not getting as much work or studying done as I could be. But, on the bright side, if anyone wants to come over to watch MTV, talk about AP Calc, and snicker about things that shouldn't be funny if you're sober, I'll be up.

Piece. (snicker)

13 days until departure.
15 days until Georgia.

Sorry, I Forgot I Had A Blog

Ok, not really. But I was too busy being drunk and/or working (often at the same time!) to really post from LA once those last few weeks started ticking down. Tick, tick, tick, they said to me, often angrily. I spent my days at work and my nights at bars with friends (we probably spent more time at bars in six weeks than we had in nearly five previous years, which was terrific), and it was good times. It would have been an enticing permanent option -- that is, a reason not to leave -- except for the fact that 1) I was getting paid very little and had no benefits, 2) I didn't have a long-term place to stay, 3) I had no long term plan, and 4) many of my friends are leaving LA soon. I would have ended up alone in some $2000 Hollywood studio apartment, bemoaning my lack of money and the fact that my friends were all over the country and the world having fun. Hooray Peace Corps!

Truthfully, I had a terrific time in my short Return to Los Angeles, but leaving was much less difficult than I thought it would be. I knew I'd miss my friends -- and I do already -- and I knew it would be difficult leaving everything I've known for five years. It usually takes me a while to get used to something new. Perhaps it still will, since I am not yet experiencing something new. Rather, I am sitting, in my boxers, in the room I have inhabited, off and on, for many years. The Change has only begun to happen. But I am not dreading it, I'm not becoming riddled with anxiety, and I'm not counting down the days until departure with any trepidation. I sort of wish it would get here already; there's no fun in sitting at home, away from my friends, with no two year clock yet ticking.

I thought that I would be more emotional when I left LA. I was really anxious about this decision several months ago, when I made it. Maybe over the last few months, in the course of preparing for it both mentally and physically, and after telling everyone I know about it, I came to accept it more than I ever accepted any such decision in the past. I wasn't particularly excited about the entire endeavor back in February. I thought this was something I'd have to convince myself into doing all the way until I got there. But I'm actually excited at this point, which is really encouraging for me. I'm excited to get there, to see the country, to see what I'm going to be doing there, and to see how different my life will be for two years. It seems fun now. I left LA excited not only to be spending a weekend in Vegas, but to actually be embarking on something. Two years doesn't seem as long as it used to. What's everyone else going to be doing for two years? They'll all be doing their own things. Nobody's life seems like it's going to have changed dramatically by then (except for Jon's, and that is something that This Blog refuses to discuss). So it's really not such a big deal. We'll be in touch as much as we can be, and we'll all just keep on keepin' on until I get back. It's something all of us can look forward to.

My last week in LA was spent working, navigating a Significant Work Crisis, and drinking in celebration with friends. Oh, and being LATE to my own SURPRISE PARTY. In fairness to me, I'm a retarded idiot who is late to everything (Have you guys heard of this new music coming out of Seattle? It's crazy. It's going to change rock'n'roll -- so much flannel and angst.), so it's not like this was surprising, except for the surprise party part. That was surprising. See, I thought I was going out to dinner with two (two!) friends. Because I'm retarded, I put laundry in the washer, hoping it would finish before I had told them I'd come meet them. Because I'm that special short-bus kind of retarded, I put all of my pairs of jeans in said load of laundry. So when I started getting frantic texts like, "leave it!!!!! come over!!!!!" I could do nothing, because I wasn't wearing any pants. Finally I get to their apartment to "meet" them for "dinner." It turns out there are at least a dozen people there, watching basketball while the pizza got cold and wondering if I was ever going to show up. Hooray! Cue me, feeling about as bad as I have ever felt about anything in my life. I am forgiven once I strenuously assure everyone that, no, I wasn't lying about the laundry situation so I could watch the basketball game, and, yes, I do have painful burn marks on my thighs from throwing on a scalding hot pair of pants. Everyone has a good time. There is a banner for me, and cards that people have written on, and cold pizza. 'Twas a splendid time after all, and quite touching. I don't recall having a surprise party thrown for me before, and I was really struck by how sad everyone was to see me go. Not to get all gay on you or anything. Football chicks beer breasts crossbows beef jerky. Anyway, the banner is hanging outside my room. A picture is potentially forthcoming.

The next night I went out to a bar with many of them and had more merry adventures (these particular adventures were documented with mine own camera, and are on Facebook). It was a great sendoff. Then I drove to Las Vegas, spent three nights with my brother and two friends from high school (I will not divulge what happened during this particular weekend. It was one of those kinds of weekends. I lost a lot of money, got a henna tattoo that I particularly regret, lost a lot of money, did at least five shameful things, and lost a lot of money.), then drove from Vegas to Champaign in 25.5 total hours because my brother is a freak who enjoys driving alone at 3am and wanted to be home in time for his birthday.

I leave very soon, and I'm going to try to start posting every day -- a practice I hope to continue in Georgia, if I have enough internet access. I need to find the right voice for this damn blog; I'm either introspective or funny but I haven't figured out how to be both at the same time in a blog format. I can do it in a newspaper, but not on this, yet. I will try to get better. Perhaps I will become mildly famous, like everyone else who has a blog. All of you with blogs -- people link to you and Digg you and do whatever the hell it is that del.icio.us does, right? You go on talk shows to discuss your thoughts, and such? Whatever it is you do, I hope to start doing it.

Tomorrow I will post some intricacies of my pre-trip preparations and what I have come to know about the very early stages of this....Thing.

19 days until departure.
21 days until Georgia.

Post 2: Less interesting, WITH update! Also, Get Rich Quick tips

The last post was much more interesting, but I suppose that the entire PURPOSE of this blog is to chronicle my journey such that, after I am gruesomely killed by Chechen pirates, there will be a narrative device in the eventual film to be made in my honor and memory. This post will be read in the film by Morgan Freeman, who will play me.

MORGAN: I suppose that, in this process, I've really discovered how alike we all are. We all share space on this blue orb of a planet, all breathe the same air, all shoot the same black market Soviet rifles at each other. It's enough to make a man want to cry. Either that, or the pain in his mouth. Ask me tomorrow and I'll know which.

That's right -- it's wisdom tooth removal time! I came home to get it done because I didn't want to be sitting for two days in the apartment that I sublet with two (relative) strangers, popping painkillers and drooling soup and spit on the furniture. So I'm here and hopefully it goes fine. Perhaps I'll update WHILE I'm on painkillers, just for yuks. "DFSDFSGZFRZRF, SDDZSFG$#$$$$$$!!!!!" I'll say.

Anyway, I have also been dealing with Peace Corps stuff tonight. Finally sent in my updated, Peace-Corps-Georgia-relevant resume and "aspiration statement," in which I had to answer questions about my "strategies for working effectively with host country partners to meet expressed needs," or, essentially, try to stretch "I learned good in school and that's really all I know about that" into an erudite several paragraphs. I also had to decide whether to fill out Peace Corps' ridiculous "press kit questionnaire," which is a fill in the blank press release that has "(your city here) RESIDENT JOINS THE PEACE CORPS!!!!!" in big letters at the top and gets worse from there. You're supposed to insert your personal information and have Peace Corps send it to your local newspaper and even, IF YOU WANT, your COLLEGE PAPER, as if having either (a) your small-ass local newspaper fawn over you, or (b) ignore your press release completely and consider you to be a self-promoting asshole sounds just super awesome to you. I decided against filling out the press form. But I did send an e-mail to some editors at the News-Gazette explaining that I'm from Champaign, that I'll be going to Georgia with the Peace Corps, and that I am a Classically Trained Journalist who wants to write a column for the N-G from Georgia so that I can (a) educate the central Illinois populace about the world and how we can help it, and (b) make money. We shall see if they respond. I think I pitched the idea pretty well, but who knows how the N-G deals with such things. I've seen them print much stupider things. And you know you'd read it. You're reading THIS, for God's sake. And I don't even put any EFFORT into this.

Post 1: More interesting, sans update, or, DAN'S UNCOMFORTABLE ENCOUNTER WITH AN UNDERAGE ARGENTINIAN

This story needs to be told. In public, on the internet, where everyone can see it, because that's the best way to tell stories. Everyone says so.

Anyway, I alluded to this in my last post (which doesn't matter, because this blog continues to have a readership of 1 -- zero if you don't count readers whose names rhyme with "couth killer") (damn, I just came up with that, but that's a badass phrase to rhyme with your name...I wish "fan batherton" had the same panache), but it deserves its own.

*clears throat*

So some friends and I were at the apartment where some of them live, drinking and playing Cranium. "Game Night," in all its unoffensive glory. One of my friends who lives in the apartment we were occupying had a visitor -- an unspecified (to me) relative from Argentina. A 17 year old girl. I shall leave her name out of this post because a large portion of my audience is Argentinian, and I wouldn't want to be the cause of any embarrassment.

Anyway, this girl was drinking with us, since in normal countries you can drink openly at that age, and she was being quiet and demure during the game. Asking questions about English idioms, and such, since Cranium requires knowledge of what, for instance, the phrase "on thin ice" means. Everything was going swimmingly until a bunch of our other friends showed up. The group immediately outgrew the game being played, and we started just drinking and talking to one another. Also perfectly fine. Until.

Until I am minding my own business, drinking a beer and vaguely paying attention to a game of Kings that is being swiftly abandoned because people have had enough to drink that they don't care anymore. Suddenly, I turn around to find the Argentinian relative THISCLOSE to my face, thrusting a new beer at me. My thoughts, verbatim: "Whaa-?"

"DRINK THIS NOW," she yells at me. Okay, I think. Fine. I smile and say, "What are you going to drink?" She points at another drink. Fine. I chug what she's given me, only to see her hand what she pointed to to another guy. She's cheating.

I point out, grinning, that she's cheating, because I'm drunk and at this point having fun with the whole encounter. She gets back in my face (LIKERIGHTHEREINMYFACE), with a new beer, yelling the same thing at me. Fine. I drink the beer and the same thing happens. She's SO cheating. She is TAKING ADVANTAGE OF ME.

I point this out more strongly this time, mostly out of bewilderment at why this girl has suddenly decided this is a fun activity. Someone tells me I'm being drunk under the table by a seventeen year old girl. I state firmly that that is not at all what is going on. The girl shoves ANOTHER beer at me and says -- swear to God -- "DRINK THIS OR YOU'RE A FUCKING GIRL." I have to admit that this would be sort of hot in any situation other than this. Namely, a situation in which the girl in question is not A) underage and B) related to one of my best friends. And C) Argentinian, because I hate South Americans. Okay, no I don't. Okay, just Bolivians. The fuckers.

Anyway, my brain decides that I will keep drinking what is put in front of me, because why not. So I drink at least one more beer and a full glass of wine. It should be relatively clear by this point why I don't know the exact figure. I'm hammered harder than a nail at a ballpeen convention. I decide to lie down on the floor, because, again, why not. It seems comfortable.

At this point, I think the worst is over, though I still have no idea why this demure girl suddenly started getting all up in my bizzzz. Suddenly, the seventeen-year-old Argentinian girl FALLS ON TOP OF ME and stretches herself across my back. Alarms go off in my head as she starts SNAPPING PHOTOS OF US. "Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa," my brain says to any other brains who may be listening telepathically. "Look at my hands they're over here over here over here over here I am not encouraging this." But I'm too hammered to really do anything about it. Until, that is, she murmurs, "My stomach feels funny." I rush her to the stead of her relative/my friend in the bathroom, where she starts to do what I would have expected her to do had she ACTUALLY consumed all the alcohol she claimed she would. She must have actually consumed some of it. I have no idea.

That's the last thing I remember. I woke up on the couch I initially laid next to late the next morning. Apparently I was found passed out in the other bathroom, though I have no idea why. I relate this story to you because I think people tend to be drastically and tragically unprepared for the possibility of being inexplicably taken advantage of by underage foreigners. Consider this tale my warning to you. Just say no.