On Friday I decided to throw caution to the wind and drive to Portland to see Mike, against my better judgement regarding the condition of my car to make such a drive. It went remarkably better than my last trip to Portland to see him perform, as there was no torrential downpour to cause me to skid across the road.

I found Dante’s without too much trouble, and gave hallucinas a call as soon as I pulled into a parking lot. She wasn’t home, so the best I could do was leave a message and hope she got it before I left the city.

Dante’s was a really nice venue–good atmosphere, plenty of seats, eager-to-please staff–if I lived in Portland, I could easily see myself spending a lot of time there. Incidentally, it was one of the places where the Comedians of Comedy recorded part of their DVD; I recognized it the second I stepped inside.

The people there were very friendly, and I got to chat with quite a few before the bands started performing. After the first set, I saw I had a voicemail–Relish had called and said she wasn’t going to be able to make it out, but that her couch was open to me, should I need a place to crash.

Mike’s show was even better than the previous evening, though personally a majority of that had to do with the absence of the Most Annoying Couple In The World. Again, I got to spend some quality time with him afterwards, but cut it a bit short as it was already 1:30 and I knew it would take me approximately 2.5-3 hours to get home, and I was already starting to drag.

In retrospect, I should’ve taken Relish up on the couch offer, as my lids started to get heavy the second I got back onto the highway. It didn’t help that I absolutely, positively did NOT want to stop at a rest stop. The reason behind my resolve was due to a movie I had rented a few days earlier–a french family drama (A Ma Soeur), which I felt was fairly decent…up until the point where they are all senselessly murdered/raped at a rest area. No purpose to it, whatsoever. When I watched it, I thought surely it was a dream that someone was having, and that they’d wake soon, but the scene kept going and getting increasingly uncomfortable to watch. Now I knew I couldn’t go to a rest stop because even if I tried to get some sleep, it would be fitful and in my mind I’d see someone with an axe coming at the windshield the whole time. I also remembered all too well the semi-prophetic, mostly terrifying dream/reality thing that happened the last time I slept in my car.

So I drove straight home from Portland. At one point, a car in front of me slammed its brakes–I snapped to, hit my brakes, and hit my turn left turn signal to avoid an accident, only to find that there WAS no car in front of me. And also, that there was a state trooper on my left. I mentally prepared myself to be pulled over, but for some reason, the cop passed me, got into the far right lane, and exited. I expected him to come screaming up the onramp behind me, but apparently this cop had bigger fish to fry.

The really scary thing–the trip was about an hour shorter than it should have been. It seemed like an incredibly fast drive; I’d look up and 30-40 miles had passed in the blink of an eye. This points to two things: 1)Alien abduction, which only exists in the pages of the Weekly World News, and 2)I was sleeping behind the wheel for a large portion of the trip, and was apparently speeding an insane amount as well.

It’s scary to think that I could’ve easily killed someone or died behind the wheel out of pure stubbornness. Next time, I’m taking the couch, or risking axe-death, rather than taking the lives of other people on the road into my careless hands.