Day 24- June 12, 2006 - leaving San Diego

I set the alarm for nine, but didn't need it. I barely slept last night, a combination of Doug pinning the blankets underneath him, and my own neuroses. I kept thinking about how a month is such a long time to be away and worrying about all the things that could have changed in the time that we were gone, all the changes that will have to happen once we're back. Instead of feeling more prepared for the future, the trip has reinforced the fact that I am not at all ready to be a grown-up.

So I was up early, and ready to go early. Doug, of course, was not. "Let's just stay," he said into the pillow, as he's said on every checkout day of the trip. But I know he means it more this time than most, and I want to agree with him, crawl under the covers and barricade the door with hotel furniture. "We can't," I tell him, wondering if he can sense my hesitation. He groans, makes weak arguments and eventually succumbs to my nagging- which has proven to be a much better weapon than the physical attacks I used earlier on the trip- and heads for the shower.

He comes out soaked, towel in hand. "What are you doing? Don't you ever dry yourself?!" As though I don't already know the answer to this. Twenty four days straight, twenty four hours a day, and you get to know the ins and outs of a person, the things you aren't supposed to see. He snaps the towel at me and it doesn't hurt, but I yell an exaggerated "OW!" hoping it will deter him from future attacks. It doesn't.

He jumps on top of me, pinning me under his weight. "Stop, I'm ready to go, you're getting me all wet." And he laughs like a teenager in health class. "Not like that," I roll my eyes, putting all my strength into pushing him up by his shoulders.

"Ugh, I'm dead." He relaxes his muscles, so I feel the full force of his body weighing on me.
"No, you're not," I argue, trying to navigate my fingers towards his extremely ticklish armpits.
"Yes I am," he says, keeping his eyes closed and letting his tongue hang out the side of his mouth for cartoonish emphasis.
I get my hands up to his ribcage and he squeals a little- in a way that will always make me laugh- and gets up, finally to finish getting ready.

We check out with twenty minutes to spare and in my still rushed state, I forget to take a picture of the sign outside our hotel room that warns that the area is contaminated with all sorts of hazardous chemicals.

Our flight's a red eye, leaving just before 10 and we have the rental car till 7, so we have the entire day to spend. We get breakfast at an IHOP, which I haven't been to in years, and when we sit down, I think about reciting a joke Stacey told at work the week before we left- "If girls with big breasts work at Hooters, where do girls with one leg work?"- but I resist, sure that it will elicit eyerolls and headshakes rather than laughter.

We go to the beach, because it is close and free, both of which are key drawing factors at this point in the trip. He, self conscious, refuses to put on a bathing suit and lay out on the sand, and I, not wanting to be the only one tanning, carry mine in my bag throughout the day. We sit at a picnic table, with our notebooks in front of us. I can write in public, and I do, but he is distracted people watching, and his thoughts don't make it to the page.

We talk loudly about going home, planning out a movie night welcome home party, confirming it through a string of text messages. We talk not so loudly playing the "Am I as big as her game" which is exactly what it sounds like, except that sometimes it is genuine concern and sometimes it is exaggerated silliness.

A woman asks if she can sit with us, and I say yes, sounding overly friendly, and she sits at the opposite corner staring out at the shore. I lean with my back against the table, facing Doug, and we talk about the things we've seen, the things we've done. I lean my chin into his shoulder and it smells like smoke, and I think about how I may start to associate this smell with him instead of my father, and though the sun is beating down on me, I shudder, thinking about how this seems like the sort of transfer that Freud would have a field day with.

We count down the hours, walk through the amusement park area, Doug still trying to convince me to go on the rides with him, I laughing at his proposals. He stops at a quarter machine and gets a couple of rings, hands me one and makes fun of me when I put it on my left hand, and hold out my arm, mock admiring.

We find the Simpsons video game in the arcade and camp out there for a dollars worth, feeling young, feeling like a team.

There was still time to kill when we were done, and part of me regretted booking such a late flight, but a bigger part of me wasn't ready to go home. We walked around outside, our arms deepening in the sun, and got dinner before heading to the airport.

We dropped off the car and the exchange was so quick I barely had time enough to grab the bags out. Doug had been worried the entire way there, about the scratch on the driver's side panel and I had tried to shrug away the problem because it was already too far out of our hands for it to do much good worrying about it. We expected the guy to lap the car, inspecting, before giving us the okay to leave- this is what we saw the woman handling the car in front of us doing- but our guy was not interested in such formalities and hopped into the driver's seat waving "see ya" to us, and we hurried onto the shuttle, feeling like we'd gotten away with something, knowing that we wouldn't really.

there was extra time at the airport, enough time that the ticket gate wasn't even open yet and we used the spare hours studying the other passengers, guessing about their lives. when we check in, the guy behind the counter is super serious, and though I want to address him by name, the way my brother does to anyone wearing a nametag, I resist, sure that he would not appreciate such gestures. "He's a serious Cyrus," I tell Doug, walking over to the metal detectors. "You're such a dork," he says, eyeing the sign that says he can't bring his lighter on the plane.

I have to take off my shoes, but Doug doesn't, and the guys working the conveyor belt don't seem to know what they're doing. The guy at the metal detector takes a long time looking at my license and then says "West Hempstead, huh." and I say yep and he tells me his sister lives in Bellmore and I say, "Oh, that's right there," trying to sound interested, and he says, "I know" in a tone that old men use to prove they know what's going on, and tells me he's a New Yorker too.

We sit staring out at the runway, half listening to the passengers next to us, showing each other pictures of their kids, their grandkids, and I will never understand such interactions. Doug and I are far more interested in speculating loudly whether or not there will be snakes on this plane, making many jokes that have probably been made before.

When we board, Doug is angry with me, because he suspects that I have put him in an unnecessarily uncomfortable situation by booking the window and aisle seat for us, and leaving the middle one open between us. Despite my explanations that should someone show up for the seat, no one would argue about getting an aisle seat over a middle seat, he is sure that the seat assignments are strictly followed and he will end up in an all out brawl over the technicality. No one shows up, we have the whole row to ourselves, and I resist the urge to say "I told you so" over and over again because he is in a sour mood, not wanting to go home, and I know better than to poke the bear.

"What's that movie? With John something." "Cusack?" "Yeah." "Say Anything?" "Yeah." We don't even need to talk anymore, I think, as we're taking off. Then we hear the ding.