The key to happiness and a general update

I think I’ve discovered the answer to happiness.  It’s not a job or money or a meaningful relationship or anything like that.  It’s very simple: drive a convertible.

After going for a spin in my friend’s cherry red Mustang convertible last week, I decided that, in order to get what I want out of life, all I need to do is buy one of my own.  It’s that simple!  Who says material things can’t make you happy?  I was riding a wave of good vibes from that for days!

Yesterday, my friend and I took a day long road trip to South Bend to see a piano recital at the University of Notre Dame.  This might seem slightly crazy,  as it is a five-hour drive each way, but 1. I had nothing else to do and 2. I got used to traveling absurdly long amounts of time and distance to have some human contact while living in BG.

It’s much more pleasant to travel in a car, where you control the music and the climate and don’t have to worry about stinky old men sitting next to you.  Also, I-80 is freshly paved and devoid of the visibly drunk drivers I often saw in BG.  Unfortunately, the trip was missing that element of surprise that comes with Bulgarian travel.  The Ohio turnpike is sterile and predictable, with State Patrol cars sitting and waiting to catch speeders and brightly lit rest areas containing Starbucks and Panera every thirty miles.  I didn’t have to wonder if I would see a car with a goat in it or if the person in front of me be would be traveling with a box of chickens.  No concerns that the train would stop for half an hour while the gypsies fought with the ticket taker.  No fighting with other passengers about the existence of the techeniye.  (These things have all happened to me.)

Over the course of our trip, we listened to:

The Les Mis soundtrack

The Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack

three mix CDs

half of the Verdi Requiem

two Dan Savage podcasts

the Cleveland Orchestra’s radio station

Also, traveling west from Youngstown makes me feel better about the part of Ohio in which I currently live.  Once you are west of Sandusky, Ohio and Indiana are pretty much a barren wasteland, punctuated only by Toledo, an appalling lack of any restaurants, and billboards reminding you that you are probably going to hell.

The concert was highly enjoyable, as well as soul-crushing.  Enjoyable, because it contained great repertoire played wonderfully.  Soul-crushing, because the acquaintance who played it has a bachelor’s degree in organ performance, economics, and something else from Notre Dame, is now getting a Juris Doctorate from the school, and decided in his spare time (!) to put on a recital containing some heavy repertoire on his secondary instrument.  I sort of wish I had that level of genius, but until it comes, I will just rely on my wit, sarcasm, and high alcohol tolerance to get me by.

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