[My original intention was to post this last night and get you part III today, but Uncle Jason has a bit of a drinking problem and had to tie on a major load last night. While we're at it, I'd like to send a big "Fuck you" to the bartender at 2A last night, who, in addition to being a dick all night (I know you like to talk to your friends buddy, but there are ten people in the entire bar, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't look over at me, go back to talking to your friends for three or four minutes, look over at me again, talk some more, then casually walk over to take my drink order), didn't buy me one single drink all night, despite the fact that I spent around $120 on booze there. If I see you on the street my friend, I will punch you in the fucking face. I'd also like to send a "Well, hello" to the bartender at the Library, who wears eye makeup better than any woman I've ever seen and made me such strong vodka tonics that I was mere minutes away from peeing the bed last night. And no, I don't feel great today. On with the fucking story...]

When I woke up on Tuesday, February 7, the morning I was supposed to fly back to New York, I felt like crap. I had been drinking pretty heavily each of the four nights I had spent in Seattle, but that I could handle. It was the lack of sleep that was getting to me. While staying at Ben’s, I slept on an air mattress in the middle of his living room. Between all the women I had in and out of that makeshift bed each night and Ben’s brother/roommate getting up at 6am each day to go to work (and seemingly making as much noise as possible when doing so), I was getting worn down from lack of solid sleep. And that does not make me a happy camper.

So when my alarm went off at 6am for my 8am flight, I snoozed it. I quickly fell back asleep only to wake up one hour later, one hour removed from my flight. Faced with the prospect of rushing out hungover to the airport to fly cross-country, I made a decision: I was not returning to NYC that day. I was going to drive to LA.

The seeds of the idea of driving to LA were planted the day before. I was fretting about going back to NYC, where I was certain I would lounge around doing nothing, wasting my days until I returned to work that following Monday. While touring around Seattle, my old roommate Ben told me about how after September 11 he drove from NYC to Seattle and considering the circumstances it was not a bad trip. I was intrigued.

I bandied about the idea of driving back to NYC but ultimately rejected it. My concerns were two-fold: one, I had to make it back to the city by Monday for work. Six days to drive 3000+ miles is a tall order (doable, but a tall order). Two, I would be driving through Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, and other northern states. It was early February. I had no desire to be trapped on a desolate road somewhere in North Dakota waiting for a blizzard to end. So that idea was nixed.

I still had my heart set on driving somewhere though, and I remembered my affinity for Los Angeles. I had a great time out there in August when I went out to pitch my show and hadn’t been back since. I knew because of the nature of my project that over the next few months I’d be heading out there again, perhaps several times, but I had a fever. And the only prescription was driving nineteen hours down there. Alone. And horny.

But I couldn’t pull the trigger. The night before I left I rejected the idea altogether, having crunched some numbers and decided it was too expensive. As of this writing, I still have not been paid for either of my projects. I last received a full paycheck on September 30, 2005. Since then, I’ve run through my savings, quickly used up my modest year-end bonus, and racked up several thousand dollars in credit card debt, maxing out two cards (one of them a platinum card). If I were to make this trip to LA, I’d have to call Mastercard to get my credit line extended. Aside from a rarely used AmEx corporate card that I was now abusing, I had only a few hundred dollars in my bank account and my $1200 rent was due in a week on the 15th. It just wasn’t financially responsible for me to take this trip.

But things like "being financial responsible" matter not when one is hungover. At 7am, I shut off my buzzing alarm, sat up in my air mattress with my half-boner, looked around the room, and said, "Fuck it – I’m going to LA."

And so the phone calls and preparation began. First, I needed to change my flight so that instead of flying out of Seattle that morning, I’d fly out of LA on Saturday. This was easily taken care of. Next, I needed to extend my credit limit with Mastercard. I held back the urge to blurt out "I’m a writer and I swear I’m going to get two big advances very soon" as the customer service rep waited with me while the computer decided my fate. The verdict: $1000 added to my credit limit. When he asked if I wanted more, I had to restrain myself from saying, "Yes please – maybe $5000?"

The last piece of the puzzle was the rental car. Having used Enterprise before and having been pleased with them, I rang up the dealer closest to Ben’s apartment. I explained my situation to the gentleman on the phone – how I needed a car to drive to LA – and he said that yes, he could help me with that. The one catch was that they were actually out of cars, so would I be willing to take…a minivan? I thought about it for a moment and imagined myself speeding down the highway in a Chrysler Town & Country as I threw my piss bottles out the window, blasting "Born to Run" from the stereo, singing it at the top of my lungs with tears pouring down my wind burned face. Fuck yeah I’d take a minivan. I headed over to the office and spent thirty minutes with the employees there, talking about how my plan was to get down to LA in three days, leaving Seattle on Tuesday and arriving in LA sometime on Thursday. I would return the car on Saturday morning. They all agreed it sounded like a good idea. Paperwork has signed, credit cards were charged, hands were shook, and I got the keys.

I printed out some directions and after getting a solemn promise from Ben that should anything happen to me on the road he, my roommate Brian, and our friends Jeremy and Nevin would serenade me at my funeral with a heartfelt rendition of "It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye (To Yesterday)", it was on. Road Trip 2006 had begun.

There are several great myths about me. While most of these revolve around my genitals (or lack thereof), one of the main myths is that I’m not exactly a "strong" driver. This myth started because yes, maybe I did fail my driving test twice. But the truth is that this myth is more self-created than anything. When I finally got my license, my friends were reluctant to let me drive anywhere, thinking I was a bad driver when really I failed my driving test because of parallel parking (not entirely true, but just go with it). But I saw that this worked to my advantage. In high school, I never had to drive to parties or worry about picking people up. Instead, I got chauffeured everywhere. This continued into college. I never had to take someone’s car to make a beer run because, hey, I suck at driving. And now even in NYC, where none of my friends have cars, I never have to drive the U-Haul when moving, for fear that I might lose control of it and crash it right through the front window of a Tasty D-Lite. Sweet.

Another thing about me that is actually true is that I am not a spontaneous person. I like to have everything in my life ordered and under control. All my life, I’ve eschewed things presented to me "at the last minute" for the safer route. Not this time, sucka.

So to prove to the world and to myself that I’m a competent driver and in order to do something that I never would normally do, I hopped on Interstate 5, where I’d spend the next three days driving down the West Coast.

***

I should take time now to thank all the readers who wrote in offering to meet up with me on my travels. I should have been clearer when I wrote on here about my plans. I never had any intention of doing a slow road trip, where I’d stop at interesting places along the way to take pictures and whatnot. My goal was to get to LA as quickly as possible. So when I asked if any of you all lived along I-5, I was hoping that some of you lived in the towns near where I’d spend my nights. For example, many Portlanders emailed me and offered to buy me a beer, but Portland is only 3.5 hours from Seattle. I didn’t think it would be wise to stop 3.5 hours into a 19 hour road trip for a ton of beers. At that rate, I’d be in LA in about a week. But because I had no idea where I’d be stopping for the night, I couldn’t plan it out properly and so didn’t meet with anyone whilst traveling. So I both apologize to those who wrote in and thank them for their kindness, even Nate in Longview, WA who said if I wanted, I could watch him and his girlfriend have sex. I’m going to have to take a rain check on that Nate, but thanks.

I think I was about 50 miles into the trip when I started asking myself, "What the fuck am I doing?" as my minivan sped down the interstate. [Editor's Note: I was going to name the minivan, but decided not to because that would be lame. Also, I couldn't come up with a cool name. The best I could come up with was "MOSS", which stands for "Minivan Of Sex and Sexuality", but that didn't stick. And I was completely alone, so I don't know who I'd be telling that the minivan was named MOSS, but I digress.]

As I mentioned, I was very hungover that first day. If at 50 miles I started doubting myself, at 150 I was losing it. About 200 miles into the trip I had to pull into a gas station to regain my composure. This is where having a minivan came in handy, as I was able to lay down in the back of the minivan for over an hour, resting, getting over my hangover, and dreaming about a hitchhiker breaking into the van, only to find me in the back. Alarmed, I would tell him that it was safe, that I meant no harm, and I’d ask him to join me. Then I would say, "Would you like a massage?" English not being his first language, he wouldn’t understand, so I’d show him my hands and start caressing his soft Vietnamese shoulders. Abruptly, we would begin making love to each other, like two mental patients on hallucinogenics. Afterward, we’d lay there together in the back of that minivan, panting heavily, and he’d stab me in the ribs, grab my cell phone, and run out of the van, never to be seen again. You can imagine that with fantasies such as these floating around my head it was hard to focus on driving.

Being alone with my thoughts, whether they involved a Vietnamese hitchhiker or not, was the main theme of the trip. Three days of driving in a van is a lot of time to spend without interacting with others. Sure, I called a lot of people to help pass the time, but it was largely me, the van, and the open road. To make matters worse, my iPod was not compatible with the radio (the newest iPod, which I have, is not compatible with iTrip). Therefore I had to listen only to local radio stations the entire time. I heard "Bohemian Rhapsody" three times in the first 78 miles. I heard the Train song "Drops of Jupiter" about 20 times altogether. But the new kings of radio are undoubtedly Maroon 5. Good lord. I probably heard "This Love", "She Will Be Loved", or "Sunday Mornings" about 100 times total. Ugh.

[The coolest song I heard while driving goes to Robert Palmer's "Sneaking Sally Through The Alley". And I'm not talking about the four minute popular version, but the "Put on Your Sailing Shoes - Hey Hey Julia - Sneaking Sally" medley. I don't know what station that was, but I was very happy to hear it. Anytime a song starts with "There's a lady in a turban/In a cocaine tree", well, that's going to pep the drive right up.]

But though it may sound trite, I really got some shit sorted out while driving. After the rough start, it was smooth sailing. It’s not like I learned anything new about myself, but I made some important decisions. For example, I decided that I am going to give up any homosexual inclinations that I have. I need to stop with that shit so that I can focus solely on heterosexuality. Perhaps, I reason, this will help me get laid (by women) more. But only time will tell.

I also learned that friends and family are overrated. I was alone on the road for three days all by myself and I did just fine. Sure, maybe it was a little lonely, but each night I did rent some pornography from my hotel, so that fixed me up right quick. I’m convinced that I could live the life of a hermit, so long as I had somewhere to put all my semen.

I learned many other things as well, about life, love, and fire. But I don’t want to reveal them all here. I’m going to save them for my second book, "Jerking Off At The Wheel: 115 Thoughts I Had While Driving and Fuck You Too." Look for it September 2008.

I could go into specifics: how I did 450 miles the first day, spending the night in Medford, OR, and 550 the next, staying in Kettlemen City, CA; how driving through the mountains of Southern Oregon in the dark was probably the most frightened I’ve ever been in my life; how breathtakingly beautiful the lake in Mount Shasta is; how the speed limit on I-5 in California is 70mph, and in one hour I traveled a record 81 miles; how I survived solely on Lunchables and diet coke; how I spent enough on gas to buy a small home in Kansas; and how my colon was surprisingly incredibly cooperative during the drive; but that’s not the point. The point is that I emerged from the trip a new man. A better man. I was able to take a break from the craziness of my life – all the women and the blowjobs and the alcohol and the beating off in the public bathrooms – and step back and reevaluate everything. I gained a clarity that months of therapy could not deliver and a peace that no amount of narcotics could give (well, maybe the part about the narcotics is not true, but you understand what I’m getting at). And for that I am most grateful.

On the third day, Thursday, February 9, when I pulled into Los Angeles in the early afternoon, the sun was shining, the palm trees were swaying, and it was 82º. When I gave my keys to the valet of my hotel, I looked over at MOSS, tipped my cap to him/her/it, and thought that if given the choice, I’d gladly do it all over again.

Boy was I fucking naive.