{loud churches and french cafes}

_News: I took a vacation. See below for details._

This is going to be another journalistic post but at least time it won't be preachy so sit back and enjoy if you wish. About three months ago (give or take) my best friend moved from Chicago to North Carolina with her Aunt and Uncle. And so, two months later, I bought a ticket to fly out and visit her, which doesn't seem like such a big deal but it was for me.

June 11th in the evening, I hop on a discount airplane where I share a row with two lovely women who are as much strangers to each other as they are to me. As such we spend our flight in a respectful silence. I mentioned it was a discount airplane, there's a reason for that. The tickets were a steal, and it was all to good to be true. So I was convinced it wasn't. During take off I was overcome with the sudden realization that the reason the tickets were so cheap was because the plane skimped out on some important parts. That wing looked awfully wobbly, didn't it? Was it just me? Just...I should keep an eye on that wing. As the plane lifted off all I could think was I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory. Is this where it gets me, in a plane, several feet below my feet. (side note: YEAH MAN HAMILTON CLEANED UP AT THE TONYS!)

Believe it or not, I was wrong. The plane was in working order. As far as I know anyway.

I touch down a half hour before schedule and walk outside and GOODNESS GRACIOUS the sun, it's working overtime like it's trying to put a kid through college or something. And then my friend who I haven't seen in months pulls up in her car and security is about to shoe her away but as soon as he sees us tackle each other he waves it off and smiles at us. It's a good moment for both of us.
It's a bit of a drive back to her place and we spend all of it grins like idiots and laughing. We don't need to catch up because we talk to each other every week anyway. But it's nice that, for once, it's not through a screen. I can't help but notice that North Carolina is saturated with trees and churches, which is something I'm okay with. We get to her place and I realize that I'm actually exhausted, so I pass out.

Next morning we drive into Charlotte to help set up the church she goes too. Set up, because the organization is three years old and they don't have their own building yet. They set up shop in a school. I meet a lot of people and shake a lot of hands in a short couple of hours, and if that didn't do me in energy wise then all the running around did. One of the first people I meet is Tyson, which I later found out is the Head Pastor of the joint. And the best way I can describe the service was part Hillsong concert part loud and boisterous improvised preaching. I loved it. Friend was also running media shout and rocked it, so there's that. I'm really underselling it here, there are so many things I wanna talk about with this service, but that'll have to be saved for another post because this one's already going to be a long one. (See it here, by the way.)

After take down Friend and I are trying to find a place to eat when Tyson comes up and invites us to lunch with the rest of the crew. It's very flattering, especially considering I'm just a visitor and yet I'm already exhausted and can't even think about sitting down for a couple of hours where I'll have to actively make conversation, so we pass. And I feel bad about it. And Friend wacks me upside the head and reminds me this is a vacation, I'm not obligated to do anything. Instead, we grab pizza in a vintage gas station with really great cinnamon knots like we're a couple of hipster punks from a 90s movie. Then we go to Friend's games life group, where no one else could show up so it's just us and the guy who ran the lights. We all face off in #idrab and it's brutal. As Christians we put on a shameful display. Late in the evening Friend and I head out to her Aunt and Uncle's place, which we have agreed to house sit. We are realize upon arrival that they have taken their DVD player with them on their trip, they have neglected to give us the wifi password, there is no phone service, and the fridge is completely empty.
I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory.
We scrape up all the adultness we can muster in ourselves to fix these things.

Next morning we head into town, she's got work and for the first time in a month I have the opportunity to sit down, relax, and write. And I do so in a completely and utterly charming french cafe that makes me wanna plan another trip just to come back to this place. It's so flipping nice it makes me wanna move in. This is the cafe love of my life. In a day I write 2500 words and it pleases me to no end. I also spend a good amount of time talking myself down from eating all the pastries, a thing that was too good to be true. A work day later Friend and I are on our way back to the house, we watch Psych and talk about really intense things of which the nature I cannot disclose in public. I will say though, the chance to talk to her about those things alone was worth the cost of the trip and more.

Day three finds me back at the cafe drinking that. Fun untrue fact, it was because of that drink that #blessed was created to begin with. I try Chick-fli-A for the first time and dive into Nintendo's E3. (Who is else over hyped for video games this year? Yeah? YEAH?) I also clock in some mileage with my novel-in-progress, 1000 words and gearing up for the climax. Friend and I head back up to Charlotte to shop and pick up a cousin from the airport. The ride home is treacherous, the rain coming down on us is unreal.
Day four finds me staying home, watching the full Nintendo E3 livestream to get whatever juicy Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild facts I can. I get 4 hours through the stream before I fall asleep.

The trip ends with dinner at a fancy Chinese place in Charlotte where I pour all my E3 geeking onto Friend, who is all to willing to let me. We talk a lot about Zelda, I talk a lot about other games, we eat food that's decent but nowhere near as good as our favorite place in Chicago. And, sadly, their fortune cookies are not magic. We somehow find a way to press on. She drops me off at the airport and that's that. Trip's over. Back to talking through a screen.

My flight gets delayed for an hour which I'm okay with because there was a very social one in a half year old who kept coming up to people and speaking in babble. It's hilarious. When I grow up I wanna be that kid. When the plane's boarded I sit next to a literature professor from North Carolina who is heading to Chicago so he can use the Newberry Library for a Dante's Inferno course that he's going to teach not only using the text BUT a video game that recently came out that was based on it. We spend half the flight talking the teaching potential in video games and what a multi-faceted medium it is and kinds of other good stuff. I point him in the direction of the pop-culture academic community on Youtube (Idea Channel, Stachbag's Goods, Extra Credits, Game Theory, so on.), he gives me a couple of great authors to read on digital literacy (Kurt Squire, James Gee). We part as unlikely friends. Brother picks me up from the airport and tells me that my cat is a monster. I tell him this is not news to me. And so, I'm home.

'Til next time nerds.

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