Kick up the stereo, kids

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but I'm very annoyed by movie kisses. The vast majority of them are wholly unbelievable; too much dramatics, or maybe the attention to detail and motion is the fault of the cinematographer. Most of the time you think, people don't kiss like that, and if they do, it's certainly not in public like it always is in the movies; it's in the privacy of their own homes, or hotel rooms, or otherwise away from prying eyes. That never happens.

Well, in walking around Dublin, I discovered that they do, in fact, happen. People do actually do far more than peck each other on the lips in public. The most obvious examples I saw were the couple making out in the back of a taxi-- something I imagine must have created some awkwardness had the driver been forced to interrupt them upon arrival-- and the couple falling all over each other-- into a wall.

But I am right. Things like that are completely different from how they're portrayed in the movies. Only, I've learned... sometimes they're not.

~

Home. As Zach Braff said in “Garden State”, maybe all it is the same imaginary place people miss, and maybe all family is, is a group who miss that place.

So I’m on the plane headed back to SFO, and I have no idea where we are specifically. Judging that it’s about three and a half hours before we land, I’d say we’re somewhere in Canada. Hi, Canadians! My head hurts like you wouldn’t believe—I think it’s due to sinuses as those are being fucked up as well—and I seriously need to stretch my legs. Airplane seats are TINY.

I’m currently listening to Green Day’s “Homecoming” off American Idiot, and it’s hard to believe that this album came out four years ago. My freshman year. So much has changed since then, and yet it feels like nothing has. But nothing can make me enjoy this song less. This is my early adolescence here. My life.

And that’s what everything I’ve taken from this trip is as well. Not to be all melodramatic and say “oh ye gods my life is changed forever after two weeks” because it isn’t. I’m still me, only with a lot of swag and memories and photos. But at this moment I’m smiling because I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Even if I didn’t enjoy every minute and sometimes I just wanted to curl up and sleep the day away, it’s still mine.

And nothing’s gonna change that.