Raleigh phase 2 was all that I love about Raleigh. My friends make adventure.

This particular adventure was centered around the birthday of my dear friend Tim Lytvinenko. If you kept up with my blogs this summer, you know that Tim toured the country with me with Bowerbirds + Megafaun, and he takes care of Raleigh for me while I’m in California. He’s a kickass web developer and is doing some incredible work with Luceo Images (who happen to be showing in NYC right now – go find them if you’re in the area). You should check them out.

Anyway. For Tim’s birthday:

- A big group of compadres gathered at Tim’s for an epic curry feast, courtesy of his family.
- We kicked around a large ball containing ice cream ingredients until ice cream was formed. Flavors: avocado and Guinness. Yum.
- One full, we all sat down and began a white elephant gift exchange of sorts – the only real difference being that, instead of people picking gifts, ladies were picking men.
- Once men were drawn/selected, the pairs were matched up and handcuffed together. Yes, you read that right.
- All of us, once handcuffed (there must have been at least a dozen pairs), headed to the bus stop to be shipped to the one and only Glenwood South to do what we never do… go dancing on Glenwood South. Destination #1 = The Pourch. (punny, yes.)
- We quickly dominated the club, dancing in attached pairs, sometimes getting creative and find ways to interlock multiple cuffed groups of people into one giant dancing human mass.
- It wasn’t long until we all got kicked out. No big reason… just for being handcuffed.
- We then found the R-Line, which toted us to our favorite downtown neighborhood, where we only had time to run to Landmark and Busy Bee, where we danced, still handcuffed, til the bars closed. People began finding ways to disconnect, but Chad and I were determined to be the clustercuffs winners and stay hooked together until approximately 3 AM. We deemed ourselves winners until Logan and Stefanie arrived and were in fact handcuffed the longest. Assholes.
- Then we all danced around Tim’s living room until 6 in the morning.

Normal birthdays FTW!

Ok, here are some photos. I didn’t bring my camera downtown, as it’s not really possible to take photos while handcuffed… you’ll just have to imagine the chaos for yourself.

Raleigh adventures, I love you. Please don’t ever change.

As you may have inferred from my New Year’s post and wedding post, I’m in NC. As per usual, I’ve taken my travel time to extremes and am hopping around the east coast for a MONTH.

It’s cold here. I have realized how ridiculously spoiled I have become living in SF. I can function completely without a car, I don’t wear pants half of the time because it’s between 50-80 degrees all year, and coffee is as thick as espresso. Oh, and the surplus of cornerstores with awesome juice selections. And the lack of jesus billboards and general perceptions of “weird.”

I can work via le internets, so I can still maintain my projects from wherever, which is really nice. It will be nice to get back to the new SF homeland though, as while most of my projects are online, they’re very locally-intensive, and you can’t do much local bay-area work from the east coast. Well, you can, but it just doesn’t feel right. I’m ready to see real faces instead of email addresses and twitter names.

There are plenty of real Raleigh faces to bide my time, though.

I’ve just been doing what I usually do in Raleigh. Work on projects in Helio’s or Morning Times all day, then when I become restless, begin wandering around downtown, seeing and catching up with familiar faces on every corner, grabbing Lebanese food at Sitti, BBQ + Aventinus at Raleigh Times, local bands + Big Boss at Tir Na Nog, ginger ale at Foundation, greyhounds at Landmark, the sting at Busy Bee… inevitably getting into adventures that last me through the rest of the night. Wake up on friend’s couch, get up and do it all over again.

Note: I bought my entire family Luchador wrestling masks for Christmas. They happened to make their way around Raleigh before I wrapped them.

After awaking from my 15-hour couch nap, I was onward to Phase 3 of my trip: hitching a ride to my hometown of New Bern, NC.

My brother was off work for the night and offered to tote me. He would arrive at 1:00. This would all be great, if my belongings weren’t strewn all over Raleigh.

Most of my luggage was stored at friend Sam’s house, which wasn’t of much use, as I hadn’t actually stayed there at all during this trip. As many of you know, planning while traveling isn’t really my thing.

It would be easy to swing by and pick up my stuff, but unfortunately, Sam was nowhere to be found. So Logan and I decided to go search the establishment most likely to find her in – The Busy Bee. I decided to call brother Kane and friend Erika over to meet us for brunch in the meantime.

We found Sam, and we found brunch. I got a key, and we were on our way to find my luggage.

Upon arrival, I spend a good five minutes trying to get in the front door of her apartment with the key she had provided me, but to no avail.

I try and try and try. Kane asks me if I am sure I have the right door. I tell him he is being silly.

I was definitely at the wrong apartment. I’m sure the crowd of people cooking out outside were a bit confused to see me try to break into two adjacent apartments, successfully entering the second one. I hastily grabbed my luggage and we were on our way.

After two hours of observing eastern Carolina’s brilliantly designed storefronts and billboards, we finally arrived in the homeland to find my mother and my baby catchild, Raphael, waiting for us.

Raphael was my partner in crime in Raleigh. He was my only roommate, and we were serious compadres. I gave him to Kane to babysit while I toured the country this summer, and he soon ended up with my mom in New Bern. I had all plans to fly him over to California upon my settling in, but as I predicted, my mother has become quite infatuated with him and is not so ready to give him up. For now, it is probably for the best, as I will probably be touring and traveling quite a bit in the near future… but I do miss him so so much. He is my precious white monstrous yeti cat child.

Raph apparently has a new fun habit of climbing onto the outside edge of the second-story patio, just for shits and giggles. I’m not entirely sure how he hasn’t died yet. But there’s not much you can do other than just let him do it.

Anyway. Enough about the cat.

My one night in New Bern was great. The three of us ate soup, sat on the porch, played fetch with Raph, and nerded out on our computers together until the wee hours of the morning.

The next day I spent my last New Bern meal at none other than Carolina Bagel (yet to find bagels that compare, even in San Francisco), then took a final walk around downtown with the family, shooting some glamour shots here and there. I’m getting them to work on their sweet model poses while I’m gone. All of us will be pros by Christmas.

(PC: Annette Stone)

Goodbye, North Carolina. I love you, but west coast is calling.

Greetings from North Carolina. I write to you as I wait patiently for 4:30 AM, the time I should awake and begin preparing to head to the airport. I have just finished up a week in my glorious home state.

I arrived at approximately 9:49 AM Thursday morning. I had expected ample sleeping time on my red-eye flight, but the fact that I was situated in the middle seat prevented that. And with the token obese-man-with-gas-problem to my left, I was at the optimum level of contentment, I assure you.

Raleigh couldn’t come soon enough. My compadre Sam was kind enough to tote me downtown, and I had things to do.

Day 1: Day of Raleigh clichés.

Objective: Basically do everything I would normally do in my typical Raleigh day prior to moving.

Tasks:
- Do work at Morning Times. Probably buy an iced soy chai latte with a shot of espresso. Maybe a apple brie sandwich as well.
- Go to Sitti (bar where I worked when I lived in Raleigh). Receive back massage from Ken the bartender. Order to-go food (likely a goat cheese and orange salad, chicken kabob, hummus, maybe okra stew, bread and bread and bread) minutes before dinner hours to have access to lunch prices.
- Take to-go food to Blue Martini (other bar where I worked when I lived in Raleigh). Set up elaborate Lebanese food buffet across the bar to be enjoyed exclusively by me and Tara, my homedog/general manager. A Wednesday tradition.
- Have a Dagmar (the martini named after me) at Blue Martini while food settles.
- Go to Raleigh Times for dinner. Likely a BBQ sandwich. Greyhound may also be involved.
- Go to Foundation to check out seasonal drink menu. Pick one. Enjoy.
- Go to Busy Bee. Mandatory order of The Sting and tater tots.
- Go to Landmark for bloody mary or Kriekbeer.

And that I did.

I’m surprised I didn’t take more photos. It may have had something to do with the 80 people I ran into on every corner. I kid you not – I probably caught up with more than 150 people in the first day, just strolling around the neighborhood. Good to be back, Raleigh.