Best Friends

Who has been my best friend on this trip? Is it the British blonde who I went to a Maceo Parker concert with? Is it the bickering couple that is not going out that I got lost in the outskirts of Seattle with? Is it the two guys who I went around San Francisco with at night while they played guitar and harmonica and drums on street corners? One of whose name was Starshine, but I kept calling either Moonburst, Sunstroke, Applesauce, or Slave-driver. The two guys that helped me convince some guy in a suit going into a bar to rap over our beat. The beat was similar to that song “I steal all my kisses from you,” but he changed the lyrics to “I get all my bitches from you” and changed the song into one about talking to pimps. Is my best friend the guy who took mushrooms as we were going to the science museum? The same guy I later almost convinced to attempt to eat a woman’s hair because it resembled cotton candy. Are my best friends the bearded woman I met in the park and her friend who she was filming who was eating bananas? Maybe it’s the two college students who I went hunting for Nutria – giant semi-aquatic rats – with. Maybe it’s Emma’s mom. Is my best friend the dude who, when I got up at 7 am to go to the bathroom and accidentally locked myself out of my room, grabbed me, screamed “MINNESOTA!!” and proceed to attempt to pluck out my chest hairs? Is it the dude from Atlanta who looks just like Nash Cummins who went for a 3 am donut run with me and shared a dozen donuts? Is it the guy who told me his concept for a reality show about philanthropy, and then took me to pinball bar where we played pinball for 3 hours? Is it the guy who was at my side as a bald 45 year old hit on us at a bar and then started an argument with us about gun control? Is it the older guy who told me that he likes to pretend he’s OCD at grocery stores and make the cashiers face all the labels the same way? Maybe it's the Australian punk who helped me come up with the lyrics to our new B-52s song: "Welcome to the Sauna!" while in the sauna. Is it the guy who is living with an ex-girlfriend who put up all of their old emails on her door? Emails that said things like “I love you.” And “I want to be with you always. Maybe it’s the other people that lived there, who I felt bad for. It could be the adorable Swede who I convinced his pool cue was called his rod, so that he said “How do I aim my rod to get my balls into the hole?” Or is it the guy who pointed out to me the old Chinese man trying to make a salad out of the baked potato toppings we had prepped by piling handfuls and handfuls of pepperoncini peppers on to his plate, onto which he dumped mushroom gravy. The same old man later taste-tested the salsa by taking a sip from the bowl it was sitting in. Maybe it’s the guy in the Golden Gate Park who was screaming “I represent the lollipop guild, the lollipop guild, the lollipop guild, and I want to welcome you to fucking munchkin land.”

Maybe it's me. I'm the only one who has been there the entire time.

Maybe I just really like myself. I do. I love me. I'm pretty awesome. I do cool things. I'm a cool guy.

But what I realize about all of these stories is that I'm more excited to tell these stories in full to all the people back in Minnesota, Maine, or wherever than I am to experience them in the first place. So maybe those are my best friends. The people who can help me realize my future-past.