"and i miss you when you're not around..."
Monday, December 11, 2006 Filed in: my life
of course U2 was
awesome. but this may have been the most bittersweet
experience of my life. Kit was a great traveling
companion, but, as he said last night, he wasn't "as
good as the cute, Asian girl."
the trip started off alright enough. we got up at the buttcrack of dawn on Saturday and drove to LAX (both Kit and i on about 3-4 hours of sleep). we tried to sleep on the plane, but were surrounded by noise-making children. 5 1/2 hours later... we got to Honolulu.
after a quick lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise (not as good as the one on Maui), we made our way to Joe's friend's house where we were staying. when we got there, we both crashed for about 2 hours which turned out to be a really great thing. Julie (Joe's friend) was way cool and totally took care of us. in fact, it turns out that she had agreed to drop some friends of hers off at the concert (and pick them up), so we now had a ride and wouldn't have to pay for a cab.
turns out the friends of hers had asked her to drive because they were planning on partying it up before the show. by the time we picked these four girls up, they were pretty well plastered. (strangely, as we talked to them, we learned that, despite looking about our age, they each were in their mid to late 30's and married with children. yet they often referenced how often they partied together.) after a long car ride (traffic was bad) that was offset by the very entertaining spectacle that was these girls, we finally got to the show.
it was fantastic, of course. you could tell that the band was having a blast and totally letting loose for their last show. Pearl Jam was the opening act, and they came back out for an encore with U2 of Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World." Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day just happened to be there and so came up for a duet on "The Saints Are Coming" (the song U2 and Green Day recorded together recently). and all of this was awesome and amazing... except for one thing. Stacy wasn't with me.
i tried to focus on the show and on the night and everything. and, at times, i was able to do that and just enjoy it. but those times were few and far between. most of the time i was thinking about how she should be there with me. this was our show. we'd been planning it forever.
a month ago, when she and i were talking about how we needed to start having some of the "hard conversations" about our relationship that we'd been avoiding and about how we needed to start figuring things out... i was very tempted to keep avoiding it for another month so that i could be sure that we'd be able to enjoy this trip togther still. maybe that would have been wrong... and maybe a weekend/event like this is good for making me move forward... i don't know. i just know that i wish she would've been there. it just wasn't the same without her.
so, to finish up the story of this trip... this morning, we slept in until about 9:30. the cab was coming to pick us up at 11:00 for a 2:20 flight. (they thought there would be bad traffic with the marathon going on.) well, we got to the airport in about 15 minutes! so we were three hours early for our flight. Kit and i got checked in and went to the food court where we figured we'd just hang out until we had to go.
i think we both thought that three hours would be a really long time. well, we started talking and eating and hanging out and the next thing we knew, i looked down and realized it was 2:00. our flight was leaving (from the other side of the airport) in 20 minutes. so, we grabbed our things and started making the trek across the airport. we arrived at our gate just in time to see the plane pulling away. (seriously.)
so, now we're like... "crap... what are we going to do?" well, we got put on standby for the next flight. unfortunately, the next flight wasn't until 10:30 pm. also, it looked like it was full and we weren't guaranteed a spot. we HAD to get home though because Kit has a final in the morning. so, after some quick internet work, i found out that there was only one other flight going to LAX between 2:30 and 10:30. it was an American flight leaving at 3:50. so, i called my dad (because he has a million miles with American and is like platinum or something over there)... and he made some calls and got us on the flight. so, we booked it over to that gate just in time to get on the flight and come home.
anyway, that was our weekend. now i have a day at home and then i'm off to Nashville for four days. from the warm tropics to the freezing midwest in 48 hours. life is crazy and i'm going to bed. i miss my best friend.
goodnight world.
matt
"and i miss you when you're not around" - U2 ("City of Blinding Lights")
ps... for those of you who have DirecTV, they're actually showing an hour's worth of the Milan show from the Vertigo Tour everyday on Channel 101 this month. it's in HiDef (if you have it) and it's worth checking out. it's an amazing tour and different from the indoor arena tour they did here last year.
the trip started off alright enough. we got up at the buttcrack of dawn on Saturday and drove to LAX (both Kit and i on about 3-4 hours of sleep). we tried to sleep on the plane, but were surrounded by noise-making children. 5 1/2 hours later... we got to Honolulu.
after a quick lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise (not as good as the one on Maui), we made our way to Joe's friend's house where we were staying. when we got there, we both crashed for about 2 hours which turned out to be a really great thing. Julie (Joe's friend) was way cool and totally took care of us. in fact, it turns out that she had agreed to drop some friends of hers off at the concert (and pick them up), so we now had a ride and wouldn't have to pay for a cab.
turns out the friends of hers had asked her to drive because they were planning on partying it up before the show. by the time we picked these four girls up, they were pretty well plastered. (strangely, as we talked to them, we learned that, despite looking about our age, they each were in their mid to late 30's and married with children. yet they often referenced how often they partied together.) after a long car ride (traffic was bad) that was offset by the very entertaining spectacle that was these girls, we finally got to the show.
it was fantastic, of course. you could tell that the band was having a blast and totally letting loose for their last show. Pearl Jam was the opening act, and they came back out for an encore with U2 of Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World." Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day just happened to be there and so came up for a duet on "The Saints Are Coming" (the song U2 and Green Day recorded together recently). and all of this was awesome and amazing... except for one thing. Stacy wasn't with me.
i tried to focus on the show and on the night and everything. and, at times, i was able to do that and just enjoy it. but those times were few and far between. most of the time i was thinking about how she should be there with me. this was our show. we'd been planning it forever.
a month ago, when she and i were talking about how we needed to start having some of the "hard conversations" about our relationship that we'd been avoiding and about how we needed to start figuring things out... i was very tempted to keep avoiding it for another month so that i could be sure that we'd be able to enjoy this trip togther still. maybe that would have been wrong... and maybe a weekend/event like this is good for making me move forward... i don't know. i just know that i wish she would've been there. it just wasn't the same without her.
so, to finish up the story of this trip... this morning, we slept in until about 9:30. the cab was coming to pick us up at 11:00 for a 2:20 flight. (they thought there would be bad traffic with the marathon going on.) well, we got to the airport in about 15 minutes! so we were three hours early for our flight. Kit and i got checked in and went to the food court where we figured we'd just hang out until we had to go.
i think we both thought that three hours would be a really long time. well, we started talking and eating and hanging out and the next thing we knew, i looked down and realized it was 2:00. our flight was leaving (from the other side of the airport) in 20 minutes. so, we grabbed our things and started making the trek across the airport. we arrived at our gate just in time to see the plane pulling away. (seriously.)
so, now we're like... "crap... what are we going to do?" well, we got put on standby for the next flight. unfortunately, the next flight wasn't until 10:30 pm. also, it looked like it was full and we weren't guaranteed a spot. we HAD to get home though because Kit has a final in the morning. so, after some quick internet work, i found out that there was only one other flight going to LAX between 2:30 and 10:30. it was an American flight leaving at 3:50. so, i called my dad (because he has a million miles with American and is like platinum or something over there)... and he made some calls and got us on the flight. so, we booked it over to that gate just in time to get on the flight and come home.
anyway, that was our weekend. now i have a day at home and then i'm off to Nashville for four days. from the warm tropics to the freezing midwest in 48 hours. life is crazy and i'm going to bed. i miss my best friend.
goodnight world.
matt
"and i miss you when you're not around" - U2 ("City of Blinding Lights")
ps... for those of you who have DirecTV, they're actually showing an hour's worth of the Milan show from the Vertigo Tour everyday on Channel 101 this month. it's in HiDef (if you have it) and it's worth checking out. it's an amazing tour and different from the indoor arena tour they did here last year.