11. My Favorite City

I did not live in Lawrence for very long, but I think my residence there served a great purpose in my life and I would very much like to live there again. I visited in the spring of 2004 and upon spending no more than two hours there, I decided I could no longer call California my home. It was now Lawrence.

I could ramble on and on about how much I love Lawrence, but here's a semi-short list of my Top Ten Favorite Things About Lawrence.

10. Going to shows all the time, and good ones too. There were four good clubs downtown, which I mostly walked to from my house (The Bottleneck, Granada, Jackpot and Replay). I think I saw more bands when I lived in Lawrence than I've seen since. Bummer, kinda, but since most of the bands I like are from the Lawrence/Kansas City area, this was great for me.

9. Rudy's Pizza, The Mad Greek, Pizza Shuttle, and getting Rodney or Lora to go out to eat all the time. Rudy's definitely had the best pizza, the Mad Greek got me addicted to...dammit, I don't remember what it's called ! It's melted cheese, basically... and Pizza Shuttle kind of gets you high. Every time we would order it, Pizza Shuttle would give us a serious case of the giggles and/or hallucinations. When two friends from New York visited, they both remarked that Pizza Shuttle was the best pizza they'd ever had, but only because by the end of the meal something caused me to cut up the boxes with a steak knife and fashion them into a sculpture of some sort.

8. Walking. Lawrence is such a great town for walking. I would walk downtown, around the university, around the block, pretty much anywhere and for any reason. One morning I walked to a gas station on 6th street and bought a soda. On my way back, I passed a garage sale and saw a bike. It was eight dollars, so I bought it and walked it home. I parked it in my living room, where my friend from England lay sleeping on the futon, went in my room and listening to some program the oldies station was running about the Beach Boys, and fell asleep.

7. Biking. One night borrowed my roommate's BMX bike to ride downtown and drop a book off at the library (in case you were wondering, it was A Horse and His Boy). It was one of those weird moonless nights, a night I figured was as good as any to return a not-yet-due book, and 2am was the perfect time to accomplish this task. I boarded the bike and bounced over and through the cracked cobblestone on 7th towards the library, listening to Weezer on my iPod and straining my eyes to search for cars or cats in the unlit street. I arrived at the book drop, tossed my book in, and began the journey home only to find that I lived uphill from downtown. I struggled to pedal fast enough to climb the hills, but ended up giving in and walking most of the way home.

I guess that's just one of those fond little memories I don't expect anyone to love as much as I do.

6. The Journal-World. In a moment of sheer genius, I managed to get fired from the most amazing job I've ever had because I did not call in to inform them that Sherwood showed up at my house and I was going to Wichita with them. Thus I was left unemployed in a college town, which is bad news bears, and struggled to find any sort of employment (seriously: not even Target was hiring). My friend Rodney was a district manager of circulation for the Lawrence Journal-World newspaper, and before my roommate got a job with Blue Collar Industries, she worked for him as a paper boy/girl/thrower/routemaster. It was horrible pay and strange hours, but I eventually got so desperate I had to take her old route. It was close to our house, and consisted of four streets between 6th and 9th in the really nice part of downtown filled with beautiful houses with huge birches and elms, and absolutely no streetlights. The J-W is a porch paper, which means it's supposed to go right in front of the door of the subscriber, not on the lawn or the driveway or the roof, where I often threw them. Most mornings I had to call Rodney and tell him I needed a few more papers...one morning, I needed six. Even though the carrying and arranging of papers was kind of lame, I did get to work at night when I was normally awake anyway, walk around three miles a night, and spend several nights walking in the mid-summer thunderstorms. Mmm. Also, I get to tell people that I had a paper route.

5. Coffee. There is a little bookshop/art gallery/coffeeshop on Massachusetts near the Dusty Bookshelf called Signs of Life. It is a Christian bookstore primarily, and I bought a replacement copy of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe for Joann, which I left on a plane in Minneapolis. There was a really nice barista/bookseller who worked there named Anna who made great iced mochas and I think if I go back and buy two more, I get a free one again. Henry's on Eighth is where Seth the Really Cute Bearded Guy Who Loves Sunny Day Real Estate would tell me about how he Loves Sunny Day Real Estate and made even better iced mochas. Henry's is open 24 hours (or was--I think they are now open 7am-2am because I, their most loyal patron of the 2-7am shift, am no longer able to give them my mocha money) and I walked there one night to talk to Seth and tell him about how I just had the moment where I totally got what Radiohead is about.

4. I lived in the same town as Matt, Ryan and Rob from the Get Up Kids. I would see Rob and Ryan all the time (mostly at work, when I worked at Blue Collar) and I would see Matt walking his dogs and pushing his kids around in a stroller past my house. Matt has always been a very intimidating person to me, and that makes sense because for quite some time I have considered him some sort of a prophet or savant. One day I passed him on 9th street as I was walking to Joe's Bakery to get a donut, and I was listening to The Get Up Kids on my iPod. I smiled at him and he smiled back, and I realised he recognised me from somewhere (Uh, every show he's played in San Francisco since 2000 ? The New Ams show at the Replay two weeks prior ?). I walked away faster and wondered if he heard what I was listening to...

3. Coolest job on the planet: Blue Collar Industries. Sean Ingram, Burton Parker, and all the other characters that work there are the best coworkers anyone could have. Fridays were always days when not very much was accomplished, on account that it was payday and most of the employees had some sort of attention deficit disorder. One Friday afternoon Burton, Jim and Cooper took turns shooting the fluorescent lightbulbs sticking out of the trashcans with a BB gun. Burton and I gave it a lousy shot each, then took to throwing a half-empty bottle of Coke into the air. On the clock. Amazing, huh ?

2. The weather. Thunderstorms, tornado watches, tornado warnings, hail, snow, icy-snowy-clumpy sleet, rain, amazing clouds, more thunderstorms, lightning scaring the crap out of me, more rain. One time I was on my way back from a church in Kansas City when I realised I was driving into a huge thunderstorm. Most other cars were stopped on I-70 and because I am full of brazen stupidity of the vehicular sort, I drove on into it. Sean said that when lightning is really really close, it appears pink or red. I remembered this as I started to notice lightning strike in the fields which ran along the left side of the interstate, striking trees and cracking through the air with a hot, angry snap. I was so close that when it struck, I could feel the heat on the whole side of my body facing the fields, even through the door and window. It would make flashes of not pink but red, like the red of a sunburn or embarrassment or fear. I didn't know what to do so I just drove faster, praying frantically that I would get home safe. I love lightning.

1. Burton and Lora and Evie. Three of the greatest people on the planet, I miss them so much and one day I just might move in and be Evie's nanny. Someone should warn them. I'm serious.