listen carefully

I’m writing to you from the future.

Since today’s my last day at work, mostly I’m going back and forth between last minute work-things, and completely goofing off. One of these goof-offs has taken me into the future, where I’m speaking to you now. I should tell you that it’s pretty nice here, in the future, mostly because I’m still alive, which just a few moments ago, I didn’t think I would be.

You see, my boss just took me out driving in the car she has borrowed for the weekend.

It’s a BMW Z3.

If that sounds more like a license plate than a car to you, as it did to me, then you can find out what that is right here.

The car is fast, yo.

I think we hit 120 on the highway in less than a minute and a half. My boss was all, “I love this car!” as I’m hanging out the window, screaming for help. You see, I can understand wanting to drive a nice sports car very fast. It’s one of Eric’s dreams. What I don’t think is very fun is being the passenger in one of these little trips. Rawnda knew when she was going to veer left or yank right and she knew how to operate the convertible top, and she understood the television screen that activates the radio or the GPS or the 12-disc CD player. All I knew was that this was the original Bond car, and I was terrified that the wrong push of a button would activate the ejection seat and I’d be parachuting down the 183/ I-35 flyover.

Once we hit a certain speed, the flux capacitor took over and we zoomed into the future.

So, here I am. And I know that in a second, I’m gonna have to go back to the past, as I was sort of busy where I was when we left the present. I have to go to Pittsburgh (where I’ve been told it’s going to snow) and I get back late Monday night. Tuesday morning I’m on another flight. See, I am the master of time travel now, so I’m going to go forward about an hour tomorrow to get to Pittsburgh, travel back in time an hour to get back to Austin, and then go another two hours into the past to get to California Tuesday morning.

My grand dream and hope is that I get in early Tuesday morning, drive up to a few apartments, fall in love with the third one, fill out an application and find out Wednesday afternoon that I have a new home. I can change my return time to Thursday afternoon, and then I come home and start packing. Because I’m not sure how else I’m going to get all of this taken care of. Since I have to go two hours into the future to get back from California anyway, I’m already losing time just to get back. Sure, I go back in time two hours to drive to California later (I’ll share my time travel tips with Eric, the cats, Weldon and Martinique so we can all be in California on the same physical time plane), but since it’s a long drive, we may not feel the two hours that I’ve saved us.

Mostly I’m just sure that all of this time travel is going to get me sick. I can already see the damage the past couple of weeks has done on my body, and I’m just getting started. I’ve got bruises up and down my legs. I’ve got one on my hip from when I did a shoulder roll onto a mic cord on Tuesday. My face is doing strange things, which is because I wanted to be Pretty By Pittsburgh, which ensures bug bites on my chin, bumps on my cheeks, and a general hair revolt. I’m trying to impress, so my body retaliates. It’s near 90 degrees today and threatening to rain, with an incredible amount of humidity. Tomorrow I’ll be in 40 degree weather with cold rain and a possibility of snow on Saturday. Monday night I’ll be back in balmy Austin, only to fly to dry and sunny California on Tuesday morning. I’m sure it’ll hail or something on Tuesday, or it’ll be sixty degrees with 50MPH winds.

My stomach still hasn’t settled from the Z3. It really is a powerful machine. Here I am all “My car’s cool” and then I get into a real machine, one for people with $60K to blow on an automobile. My car is like a tricycle in comparison.

But at least I always stay in the present.

Hey, I’ll give you a tip on the year 2001. Don’t bet on the Steelers. Sorry, baby, but they’re still not doing well out here either.

Okay, I should head back. I wasn’t done with 2000 and it doesn’t seem fair to just skip over all of the things that I’m going to go through. I mean, I’ve got quite a strange twelve months coming up. I shouldn’t miss all of them. I know I’m complaining and moaning about being busy and sad and all, but it’s going to make me a better person. I’m going to experience new things and learn things about myself and I don’t want to just miss out on all of that because of this time traveling machine. It’s not even my time traveling machine. I don’t want to miss the good parts over the next year. And it doesn’t seem fair to not share them with all of you.

Hey, in 2001? Television isn’t any better, either.

Tomorrow’s update might come rather late, since I’m going to be on a plane in the morning. On the other hand, it might come earlier than usual, since there’s the whole time traveling thing. I don’t know. Ignore me. I haven’t adjusted yet.

And if someone does offer you a ride in a Z3 to get some cigarettes– don’t do it right after lunch. Good yikes my stomach hurts. And don’t forget to use that handlebar system they have over the seat. It’s there because you’re pretty sure you’ll fly out on one of those turns.