pt. 4: VA, MD, DE, NJ, NY, CT, MA, NH

[photo: "baseball is a simple game." whatever, i'm foreshadowing.]

ok. at this rate i won't finish this stupid trip summary before turning around and doing it all over again. here are the cliff notes of the highlights of the illustrations of the end, because i had this grander point i wanted to make (i think? i don't exactly remember) so let's just get to my navel gazing and finish it already. also, my sister got married.

VA:
maysan's husband, c., works at virginia tech, which means she has moved from her location during the last trip (MI) to blacksburg (VA) (not an upward move). she asked me if i wanted to see the monument to the slain virginia tech students, but after new orleans and the holocaust cage, i'd had my fill of tragic landmarks. then again, blacksburg is in itself sort of tragic; 4 out of 5 businesses are tattoo shops, there are $300k condos marketed for rich people who need a place to crash during football season, and maysan's building's "pool" looks like this.

we took her boys (ages 3 and 1) and went to target, petsmart and barnes and noble, aka the local art museum (lookit the artistry of the new GO collection!), aquarium (lookit fish!) and library (well, there are books). but i also provided an excuse to go to the mountain lake resort, aka, the place where they shot dirty dancing. i mean, neither one of us is a superfan of the movie, but really, you can only go to target so many times.

and it was totally worth it, because we a, discovered that the next sequel will be called dirty dancing 3: an inconvenient truth, as this here is the "lake" of the resort's name which was featured in the film as the home of "the lift." now it's no bigger than patrick swayze's current carbon footprint. "!"

[additional note on photo: the lake is the silver of blue in the back. it's every so slight, like the wind through my tree.]

and b, we went into the dining hall, stuck sinan in a chair, and literally put baby in the corner.

[additional note on photo: i thought maysan'd want to be cropped out of the photo, but you can see her hand and that she a, didn't just dump her huge infant in a chair and walk off to do the pachanga, and b, was having the time of her life.]

[ok references over.]

oh, these are maysan's kids and my dog. please note that my dog weighs less than sinan the 1-year-old, who, if maysan really wants to buy a minivan, could help contribute to the down payment by working as a bouncer, maybe at one of the local tattoo shops, if such shops had bouncers, and if sinan could walk.


but as boring as blacksburg is, my time at chez maysan did a lot to clear up the misery of the previous stretch. on the one hand, i'm annoyed that i'm giving maysan the short shrift write-up since this part of the trip was fun, while i went on and on about atlanta which was utter punishment, but after you put baby in the corner, what more is there to say? plus, at this point, i sincerely don't remember shit. which, given the 3 days of sleep i needed to recover from this trip when i got to nh, might be a good hting.

MD:
so i decided to not punish myself with an 8 hour drive directly to nyc and instead drive from VA to baltimore to cristie's house. she embraced buzzo (pictured, not so stoked as this time no groin relief was involved, but this is as close to blue steel as my dog gets). we did fun things that nobody would care about. no vermin were exchanged. we bitched about dudes. surely i've said enough.

DE, NJ, NY:
i had to be in nyc for a night to meet with my new subletter, who i liked, which is good since he lives in my house and watches his giant tv on my precious couch. i always hate writing about my trips to nyc because they're basically private friend time, but i will say that buzzo finally got a bath, and i finally got 31 corn lane merch for my birthday (that hadn't actually happened yet at that point, but since i beg for shit all the time, finally still applies), and now i'm finally including a picture of kesone's aforementioned adorable rodent (with buzz staring at him since he seems to be the official recurring motif of this entry).

CT, MA, NH:
before making the final stretch to nh, i went to a bbq at the sperber manse in bk, and i got my 31CL bags as well as a ton of food and red sox talk, and holy shit, it's such a good/bad feeling when you realize you're happy because you feel at home (yay), and that it took you so long to realize that because it's been so long since you've felt that way (christ).

i mean, i travel to see friends a lot, and those trips are always somewhat life saving in nature, but 10 years ago, after i fled an apartment in queens and was waiting to move into the place i am now resubletting to yet more mixed feelings of relief and misery, it was the sperbers who let me sleep on their bizarro couch on bleecker st for 2 fucking weeks. and it wasn't long after that that i met their neighbor, emma, who i didn't spend one-on-one time with until we were both in london months later and i suffered a allegra-induced nosebleed that lasted for our entire dinner together. i was sure my nosesplosion was going to end our friendship right there (as was she, i mean, ew), but somehow, it didn't. and now she's my lifeline in LA, and teeter's sisters still take me in, and both teeter and emma were my dates to my sister's wedding last week. that's next level relief.

what i realized sometime during the long slog of drive after texas was that maybe i wanted to see the alamo (if you don't remember that part, i'm not hurt) because i fancy myself to be alamo-like-- old (about to get older with the birthday et al) and buttressed and famous for an endless last stand that (i'm convinced) i will also lose. but of course, that's self-indulgent bullshit, or really, given that this is written on a public travel diary on the intertubes, next level self-indulgent bullshit mach 9.

[photo: a truly shitty shot of one of the truly shitty waterfall instillations in nyc. not sure if i captured the true essence, but to me, it looked like a scaffolding taking a piss.]

so i lose by my 8-year-old larry bird-era standards, but that's because my best friend isn't a life-sized talking my little pony, i can't breathe underwater, and i don't have any magical powers (duh, because if i did, i'd be riding my my little pony to the seaside so i could go to my summer home off/under the coast of martha's vineyard where all my neighbors are all large, kindly whales). but if the watermellon thump queen, whoever she ended up being (kimmy #1!), thinks she's a winner, then fuck it. davy crockett was killed at the alamo, but he's remembered as the king of the wild frontier and wearer of a signature cap.

you spend enough time sitting in a compact car with a small dog and the threat of don henley, and perspective does seem to fade away. but. now, we remember the good friends and li'l giant babies and poop jokes. remember that we all fight, and we never win, at last according to joss whedon. remember to set your tivo in advance for dollhouse. remember where glenn danzig lives so you can take others, and remember to get buzz's rabies shots renewed next june in a timely manner, and remember how insane teeter and emma looked dancing to tina turner at the wedding. remember only the good times with manny ramirez, before things got ugly. and natch, remember the alamo. and that it's not in el paso. i might not be a loser per se, but i'm still kind of an idiot.

[photo: btw, in case you haven't noticed, that was the navel gazing i warned you about. this photo of the sunapee harbor 4th of july fireworks seemed like the best illustration of that.]

a weekish before my sister got married, cristie came up and we went to see/i photographed the manchester fishercats get slaughtered by the new britain rockcats (these are minor league baseball teams, not some sort of feline ultimate fighting ring). and as we watched more errors made than either one of us thought humanly possible during a semi-professional baseball game, we recalled our favorite line from (the movie that inspired us to go to a minor league game in the first place) bull durham; "sometimes, you win, sometimes, you lose, and sometimes...it rains. think about it." anyway, here's some cake.

[photo: from my birthday, since i love cake and hate birthdays. touche, mom.]

FIN

pt. 3: AL pt. 2, GA, NC, SC

[photo: my hotel room in atlanta, home of my blueberry night. if i broke down the cost of that room, each berry would've probably cost $50.]

AL:
funny thing about alabama and georgia-- you can't get your dog a flea bath without documentation of a rabies shot. the rabies tag, you say? could be a cheap counterfeit, purchased on the worldwide, underground black market of faked rabies identification. they need the paperwork, which, while simply a piece of paper, carries more weight than an inscribed metal tag. how i wanted to murder everyone, everywhere.

well, when i first found the fleas (i'd now found up to 9 of 'em), i started looking up dog groomers on my 'berry at 1 am (not on my computer-- i'd forgotten the powerchord in texas, or fleas might have taken it out of my bag). i aimed for somewhere near atlanta, where i was to arrive the next day, made a list, and tried to sleep, but it's hard when your dog won't sit still as he has *a handful of tiny bugs crawling around the area near his penis.*

i don't think i mentioned that, and i'm too lazy to check-- fleas are most concentrated, or at least easiest to find, on a dog's groin. needless to say, buzz had trouble sleeping, and i tried to be positive since this incident took place on our 6th anniversary, and he had fleas when i adopted him, but his fur was so thick back then you couldn't see them (or his penis, actually, but that's another story). so i slept like shit, and we left the overpriced hotel early the next morning. i tried to make the hotel worth it by taking a shitty muffin from the breakfast buffet (buffet = table with 5 wicker baskets full of bread goods on it and a toaster to make them edible). and by reminding myself i might have given the hotel fleas.

[photo: i'm photoless here, so apropos of absolutely nothing, here's mike myers in a hockey sweatshirt. wayne campbell, btsh...see, this my 8-year-old self would be proud of. although wayne's world didn't exist yet. so maybe not.]

since all of the georgia groomers required rabies paperwork, i tried to find some sort of relief at a petsmart (btw, this all went down on a sunday, so my vet's office in nh wasn't answering the phone. just so you know i'm aware how fax machines work). besides, everyone i called told me that, since buzz is frontlined, he doesn't actually have fleas-- he just needs more frontline and time for the fleas to die-- but i had this nightmare vision of getting home to nh and the *5 dogs* that live here (sure, not all at once), having one pup get close to what would now be my flea-ridden car, and then watching my mother cry as we're forced to flea bomb the house on the day of my sister's wedding, killing all the floral arrangements and melting my brother-in-law's beloved ice sculpture (that he's since admitted is an incredibly stupid idea, god bless 'im).

so i stopped in the petsmart in montgomery, al, walked out with armfulls of (flea) poison (and some greenies), and, in the 90 degree heat of the parking lot and in the full view of god and all of humanity, proceeded to massage my dog's groin with zodiac flea spray. i mean, i did his whole body, but holding him in my arms baby jesus-style, rubbing poison around his doggie junk without any protest on his part (if anything, he was way too into it), watching the fleas die by my mighty, poisonous hand...if i ever had dignity, i sure as shit don't now.

i got a vet in GA to sell me a pill that'd kill the remaining fleas on buzz within a half-hour of ingestion, and that seemed like a wedding-saving fix for now. so as we left montgomery and i thought, "no fleas at last, no fleas at last, thank god almighty, we have no fleas at last," i pretty much wanted to die.

the lesson here people is that being organic is all nice and good, but you can't fight organic with organic-- vermin is organic. if nature had it's way, we'd be walking parasitic cafeterias. nick had boric acid all over the rugs to kill those fleas, but all he did was provide them with a nice grainy beach to take a vacation on when they needed r&r from making his cat insane. if you get fleas, drink a diet coke, put extra nutra splenda in it, eat some olestra chips, and then BOMB THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF YOUR HOUSE. for chrissake nick, you smoke! you inhale the equivalent of 8 flea bombs a day already! put the tom's of maine deoderant down, tell your pals you can't make it to the farmer's market, drink something strong out of a recycled jar, and unleash the vermin rambo within.

GA:
i went to decatur first to get buzz his pill, and then realized i had to find a hotel again. i had people i was going to meet up with-- teeter's excellent friends cooper and michelle-- but even if they offered to put me up at their house, there's no way i could accept since they have a dog and i wasn't going to risk spreading my cooties (well, buzz's cooties, but we are of one body and mind)(or not). so i agreed to meet up with them later, tried to thrift, was too tired/fed up by the same ol', not-necessarily fair eccentric town bullshit (see rant above), and braced myself for finding a dog-friendly hotel. sadly, the cheapest one i could find anywhere near the city was pricey as fuck, but since the past 24 hours had kicked my ass so badly, i was just looking forward to getting out of my car and the haze of zodiac fog within.

[photo: the hotel had haikus everywhere. obviously, i loved this, but at approx. $90/haiku, i could've whipped up a few myself, like, "my dog has vermin / no tears, eyeballs are sweating / someone kill me now".]

so i ended up in an insanely pricey hotel downtown. i've said this before, but why do only nice hotels take pets? how can the woman at the days inn say, sorry ma'am, we'll rent a room to 8 college kids and a keg, and to those to that nice man and his prostitute and her methamphetamine, but not to you and your dog. meanwhile, the hotel in atlanta had a pet spa, but might've also had a dress code. i consoled myself with the mantra, this is your last hotel. and besides, you're in atlanta, where the players play! and then i remember i've spent the last couple of days being completely played. visions of ludacris danced right out of my head (but jermaine dupri remained like a wiggum-esque deranged leprechaun on my shoulder. which is to say, actual size).

but then cooper and michelle rode in, white knights in their sweet standard transmission wheels, to take me to a soul food eatery. generally speaking, if a restaurant considers mac and cheese and cornbread two great sides that go great together, i'm good. so at least i got to eat well, and get delicious ice cream, and get to hear a lot of the one thing i really like about the south; usage of the titles sir and ma'am by those of us on the other side of the counter. i mean, in the service industry, you're usually instructed to kiss the customer's ass so shiny, it's amazing that the guy replacing your battery at verizon doesn't say, "and do you need help with anything else today, m'lady?" but when the woman at the drive through asks a dude if he wants sprinkles with that and he says, "no ma'am"-- to sprinkles-- well, shit.

btw, cooper and michelle did the artwork for teeter's record (hence, "cooper, thanks for the birds"), and i remember when teet met cooper a jillion years ago at sva, because she recognized him from being on jerry springer on an episode about fetishists or something where he came on as someone who likes to wear diapers. "you will never know the freedom of peeing and pooping in your own pants!" he famously said (but only for the money and chance to be on springer-- he's not so much a diaper guy). and then, when teeter recognized him all those years ago, she shouted that in his face by means of introduction. but whatever, they were ever so kind to me in my darkest, flea-corpse-y hour. bless you, sir and ma'am.

[photo: the cooper of old. he does not look like that now, even ignoring that he now wears clothes, none of which have dri-weave (tm).]

after delicious frozen treats, i was exhausted, as were cooper and michelle, so i got back to the hotel at a reasonable hour to pass out. i had the next day all planned out-- go eat breakfast at the flying biscuit (recommended by michelle, as i love biscuits, and she promised, no pork), get buzzo to a groomer since surely my vet would be ready fax me records by then, and then meet up with maysan, her husband c. (he's an initial guy, there's precedent!) and their kids, and go to the aquarium. i would also get a hotdog at the varsity, as i had planned ever so long ago. atlanta would not kick my ass. i would see the aquarium's famed whales. i dreamt of blueberries.

but when my alarm went off, i already had a message from my vet; please note that while i love my vet, her assistant/vet tech whatever seems to, for whatever reason, hate my fucking guts with all the power her novelty paw print scrubs allow her. (when i returned and shared my woeful tale to a friend in town, she told me said vet tech is like this with every "outsider," and that it took her 15 years to earn this woman's trust. and the thing is, there is nowhere that i am insider, except in the house where i write this and behind the wheel of my fucking car. so unless someone opens a veterinary clinic in my bathroom or in my trunk, you can see my dilemma.)

[photo: the view from my window; hotel room i can't really afford, flea bath i can't get buzz, tom waits show i can't go to. fuck a lot of atlanta.]

so i get a message like this: [in most wtf mean girls-y tone] [ps this woman's in her 50s]: hi, this is [hateful paw print shirt devil woman] calling from [buzz's vet], and...SIGH. first of all, i don't really know what records you need from your message, but just so you know, there's a $5 out of state faxing fee for those records, so i'm going to need your credit card number, SIIIIIGH. huh. looking here though, it appears that buzz's rabies vaccine expired two days ago, so...i don't know if you really want me to fax anything, ANYway. bye."

ok, so that part of the plan is knocked out. and no message from maysan also put the writing on the blueberry wall. see, i know maysan really wanted to go, but i also know it's long, long drive from va to atlanta, and that she has two small kids and a husband who'd just returned from a business trip, and a car that runs on gasoline, so...reality was starting to set in for both of us.

so i called her and called it off. i'd get my biscuit, see some of the sights on a list michelle was kind enough to send me (but see them fast, and park the car in the shade), eat a hot dog, and then go to charleston (i'll explain why later), then to maysan's in VA, all in one day, original plan be damned. so i'd drive completely out of my way to see one thing (not worth explaining yet), then drive back to hopefully get to maysan's before too late as not to wake up the li'l 'uns. and i'd have my fucking hot dog, dammit. suck it, atlanta.

so the biscuit was delicious, and that was a good start, but after the temperature rose, and the museum i tried was closed, and a woman at the varsity fully glared at me when i tried to ask her a question (i even called her ma'am!), that was it. i ate two meals in two hours and hit the road. andre 3000, take me away.

[photo: the famous varsity, as in, varsity-level assholes. moi, i'm 4th team travel planner/dog owner/not-moron.]

SC:
my reasoning for going to sc wasn't dramatic or anything, just hard to casually throw into the middle of all the flea bullshit-- i wanted to see a holocaust memorial co-designed by a friend of my family, robert stein. sure, i also wanted to see charleston, but the memorial was a big deal, and i didn't get to go during the unveiling, so what was another 5 hours of driving, anyway.

[photo: the memorial-- that's supposed to be a prayer shawl in the middle. i say that because the five co-eds tanning nearby in bikinis must not have been aware. "hey kimmy, where do you want to get some sun?" "gee tammi, maybe by the dead jew cage?" oy.]

and really, i got there, saw the memorial (effective, right? even though it's next to a statue of calhoun. i give up). then i went to ft sumter to look at the water (and squint to see the fort) and maybe feel a breeze, got some ice cream on king st, and then off to va i went. so it was nice to spend some time somewhere with no drama of any kind, even though the purpose of going to that somewhere was to see a fucking holocaust memorial.

[photo: the memorial from another angle. i was impressed.]

and you can see why it's taking me forever to write up this trip. not just because i'm not stuck in the wedding vortex, but because of the horror, the horror, etc. no, sir. i did not have an easy trip. it has been kind of therapeutic though. in so much as i'm reminded to be grateful that i haven't had to massage my dog's groin lately.

[photo: kristen schaal's excellent daily show commentary aside, this is a photo of where teet and i will one day reside.]

NC:
i ate bbq'd chicken at a place called bubba's. they also sold t-shirts (smallest size = XXL) and bubba's bubble bath (jojoba and mesquite?). i had my first hush puppy. i got the fuck out of the carolinas.

[(shitty) photo: the heart of darkness (not really, but the photo's dark).]

NEXT: VA, MD, NY, fin

no sleep, new muxtape

please enjoy.

pt. 2 : TX, LA, MS, AL pt. 1

[photo: from the game room of the cabela's in buda, tx. redemption for squirrel blood lust is mine!]

TX (days 3-6):
one thing i forgot to mention about arizona-- it was there that i realized how so much of life in the south exists in strict defiance of god. there is no water, no good soil-- fuck, there's hardly any air!-- but people live in southern arizona...in defiance of god. (this phrase came up again in austin, eg, this bbq is practically dusty, so, clearly, this cow was prepared in a method that is in clear defiance of god [and his only son, my personal lord and savior, bbq sauce]).

austin was hot, but not "god is smiting us" hot. my ye olde friend rebecca lives in austin, and when group visits are planned by other friends she left back east, they usually take place over indie rock mardi gras, sxsw, in march (altho nobody in our li'l gang actually goes to any shows...maybe they just like creepy drunks and being in the presence of laminates?).

[SIDENOTE: at one point, and i have a feeling i'm repeating myself, when rebecca (onion), julia and i were trying to figure out what our own personal FAQs would be, mine was, "how do you afford this [nyc] apartment?", j's was, "man, are you tall!" [not really a question], and onion's was, "is that your real last name?" and since that faq'll never see the light of day, fyi, it is.]

[also, at the time, they were both working at magazines and i was attempting freelance, so we decided to one day create our own publication called "magazine magazine: a magazine for magazines," which would contain articles like, "perfume inserts; pain or pretty?", and "subscription cards, huh! what are they good for?", and "summer's here: how to bulk up for your special issue!" coming never to a newsstand's newsstand near you.]

[photo: said bbq, inorganically blessed by my condiment messiah.]

before i got to austin tho, i was warned about two things; one, nick's cat molly (nick = rebecca's fiance) had recently had fleas. which is to say, she still had fleas, but i didn't know that yet. buzzo is frontline'd, which basically means he's walking flea poison, so i wasn't worried, but still, heads up, fleas. also, and this was not so much a warning, but rebecca had just gotten a taste for friday night lights and was eager to watch more more more. i couldn't understand how anyone who lives in fnl hq could've slept on it this long, but whatever, i had the dvds in my car to further indoctrinate my parents in the ways of mr. and mrs. coach.

anyway, within hours of arriving in austin i already had a pair of cowboy boots, a bizarro housewarming present for my sister and bro-in-law, and a couple vintage battlestar glasses. i love shit shopping from coast-to-coast! please note, however, the the most liberal artsy college towns you go to, the more they start to blend together into one big austinportlandberkeleyprovidencewhatever. the landscape and climate vary, but within ten minutes of being dropped on the arty main drag, you'll find your old movie theater, vintage clothing/crap store, vegetarian slop hole, etc, etc, but some places show certain strengths (austin's movie theater [which i'll get to] is killer, but berkeley meets more veggie needs, etc). and natch, i like all these places, i'm just sayin, you seen one little liberal oasis, you seen em all. just as you see one sufficating christian conservative middle american deathtrap, you've also pretty much done the full tour.

so we strolled around (sweating), and then had a nice dinner party with some of rebecca's friends from her dept. at UT and some old hs people, and we watched fnl protected onto a wall, courtesy of nick's home theaterstraveganza. i love this, because rebecca grew up in a rambling farmhouse in nh with no tv; they entertained themselves with parlor games and, upon the procurement of a vcr, rented troma movies. so she grew up being amused by taboo and the toxic avenger, and now she watches tim riggins three feet tall and in stereo surround. did i mention that the screen (aka, the wall) is framed by a red, beaded velvet curtain? and fleas?

the next day the plan was to go swimmin', because fuck was it hot. the main, famous swimmin hole was closed for cleaning (the local swimmin holes are fresh water from the local river-- thus, they must be flushed once a week or so), so we went to deep eddy, which is still fresh water but in a concrete pool (as opposed to an actually riverbed). the shallow side was closed, so everyone, and there were a lot of everyones due to the heat, had to share the sliver of deep side not filled with lap swimmers. so, soaking in the cold water, the topic turned, as it often does when in the presence of doctoral candidates, to a discussion of harold and kumar 2.

[photo: crowded vs. soiled. read on.]

i loved it, rebecca and friends hated it, both of our reactions based largely on the amount of poop humor. there used to be a store on newbury st in boston called kakas furs that i'd to ask my mom to drive me by when i was little as a treat so i could LAUGH MY ASS OFF (it's no longer there, but the name is still etched on their old building-- believe me, i've checked) (and, now that i'm a big girl, driven myself by there more than once). i once bought a stamp at paper jam on 3rd ave that just said "SHIT" because i was sick of walking in to look at it and laugh when spending $.50 to have that novelty in the comfort of my own home didn't seem like a bad investment (it wasn't, STILL FUNNY). recently, during one particularly long stretch of driving on this trip, i considered getting a very ornate, fillagree-y style tattoo of the word FART somewhere on my body. so yeah, poop humor por vida.

it was around this point of course that one of us asked one of the nice teen lifeguards why the shallow side was closed, and the poor girl, sick of finding discreet excuses, just said, "a little kid made a doody in the pool, ok? so we're just tryin' to clean it up." sitting in cold water, hearing someone say the word doody...mama, am i in heaven?

they finally reopened the shallow side, so we went there to sit for a while, got out when we found ourselves actually getting cold, and i had the ladies explain to me what actually happens at academic conferences. (altho, to hear nick tell it, most of the ones he goes to [film phd] have way too many buffy panels-- that's right, he thinks there's such a thing as a glut of academic study on the whedonverse. and i love this because someone like me, who's logged countless on-ass hours watching buffy (well, less so seasons 6 n'7) can write a huge paper on it and become dr. on-ass. god bless america!)

i think we were discussing how to de-sentimentalize rebecca and nick's wedding ceremony when everyone got kicked out of the shallow side again, and the poor lifeguardette had to admit that they found yet more doody, and someone was taking care of it. then that night, still feeling unclean despite showers, we watched the latest rambo at the onion singleplex, which was awesome, not just because (bringing it full circle) buffy's darla is in it and almost eaten alive by a large pig, but because the dialogue to exploding faces ratio is right where it should be (unless you could the exploding faces' last "aahahahahah!" to be dialogue, where upon it evens out some). also, i love that rebecca can totally stand behind a movie where a character just impaling someone makes him seem like a pussy (as opposed to impaling and exploding them) (and then fucking their parts pile), but will not suffer a film that displays graphic diarrhea.

[photo: on this kid's CV-- water safety, cpr, scooping up fecal mater with a long net.]

[sidenote so i have an excuse to write more about poop: at the dinner party, someone had read a book (phd people are always reading a book, even if it seems to have nothing to do with their field, don't ask) about how c-sections might be effecting obesity rates, because kids are supposed to inherit their digestive bacteria from their mothers at birth-- see, moms often poop themselves during delivery (and pee themsleves, and tear their vages...miracle of life!), and babies, who are in a sterile environment up to that point, tend so swallow just a soupscon of poop as they enter the world, but if they don't ingest said poop, their digestion might be wonky. whereupon someone else said they'd just read a book (natch) about how people who live together start to have similar intestinal bacteria/fecal flora after so many months, so i thought that a good way to keep rebecca'n'nick's vows sapless was to involve how they are as one, in life, in love, and in fecal flora. but that actually might make me cry.]

i had to stay one more day to work out the timing with my next stop down the road, so while rebecca and nick read stuff, i went to cabela's in buda, tx. i've often spoken of cabela's, so i will let the pictures do the talkin'.

[photo: the cabela's in dundee, MI, has two fighting bears out front, rendered in metal, forever locked in glorious combat. this has a cowboy and his li'l buckaroo pointing to exactly which game they're going to shoot in the face.]

[photo: these are towers for hunting-- you bring them one out into the woods, set it up, and stalk away. they're in the parking lot so you can practice on patrons returning to their cars, but it's not as easy as you'd think, considering 90% of the shoppers are in camo.]

[photo: also in the game room-- boar balls! that there's boar on the cafe menu upstairs worried me, given that the cut of the boar was not listed.]

that night we went to the alamo drafthouse to see the foot fist way, which was perfect, because i'd try to see this movie a million times before leaving LA just to watch plans crumble over and over, and i really wanted to go to the alamo drafthouse, not just because it's got alamo in it, but because i know they serve food n'drink during the movies, which is how it should be everywhere always, and because it's just a famously awesome place to go. and while there's nothing about the foot fist way that's shockingly innovative, it does what it does well, and i laughed many times without feeling like i was watching a rehash of anything else. and i got to eat chicken.

when i finally left texas the next day, I had to drive on some smaller highways to get back to 10, and in one town with a name like lulling, i passed all these signs by the road that said VOTE FOR CARLY! or ANNA #1! or JESSI FOR QUEEN! and then also there were banners on the lampposts that advertised something called the watermelon thump festival, and i realized that these girls were making a zillion signs-- and in some cases standing by the tiny highway with bullhorns-- in order to be voted thump queen. i wanted to grab one of these girls and smuggle her out of texas for her own good, but alas. i made my flight for freedom while they were left to fight for ascension to the the thump throne.
[photo: one last cabela's shot-- this is the camo breast cancer awareness chair. it's absurd on so many levels, but what i like best is the idea that this camo is only effective if you're trying to blend in at a forested gay pride parade.]

LA:
i got to new orleans just in time for dinner, and i decided i wanted to go to a place called mother's, because, again, as much i aim to search out regional cuisine, most of the cuisine of this region is not my favorite. years ago, my parents rented out a room in our house to a young couple, and the husband was a cajun chef, so i've done extensive research into how much i don't like spicy, shrimpy sadness bowls (tm, patton oswalt) (as is "in defiance of god," i now realize. kudos, patton!). new orleansian food is literally a casserole of everything i don't eat-- pork sausage, crustaceans, powered fire-- but mother's had a chicken po'boy and sweet potato pie, plus it was downtown, so that was my next gps'd stop.

[photo: this highway is running directly over a swamp, mere feet above the stinky water... humans commute here in defiance of god (and boats) (and patton oswalt maybe).]

but here's the thing about new orleans, and really, much of the old south, at least for me-- it's hard for me to feel comfortable in a place that is so inherently uncomfortable. not just because of the heat, but because of the history of slavery (and seeming lack of shame for said history), and, in the case of new orleans, because of katrina. i mean, the first thing i saw driving into the city was the superdome, and all i could think was, is this the overpass where cops kept people from getting to safety? is that the place where people lined up everyday for fima buses that never came while they watched their grandmas die in the heat? and can most people still come here and just think, is this the place we can drink in public and maybe see anne rice?

so i waited for a while, got my sandwich, drove around a bit at twilight to see the old buildings, the tourists, the tense-from-heat locals, and hit the road. and i kind of want a new orleans do-over, but i kind of don't. which is how i feel about most of the places i stayed in from this point out.

[photo: welcome to new orleans! see that giant white thing? tons of people suffered and died there for no reason! laissez les bon temps roulez!]

MS:
my time in mississippi was mostly spent sitting in 10 detour traffic, listening to a prince megamix on some radio station that was one fucking awesome half hour, and wondering if i'd ever get out of mississippi.

AL:
by the time i decided to conk out, i was in mobile, AL. this was unfortunate, because, IN DEFIANCE OF GOD, mobile was hosting a tennis tournament (they don't make people play outdoor sports in that kind of heat and humidity at gitmo even). which meant no hotels, ANYWHERE. i finally found a room in a way overpriced residency suites place, priced yet higher because they found out i had a dog, and all i wanted to do was shower and pass out so i could get to atlanta the next day in time for dinner, but buzz seemed...restless.

i held him by the belly and parted a random stretch of fur on his haunches.

3 fleas.

SHIT.
(except not funny).

to be continued!

also, from now on, maybe it'll be in defiance of rambo.

NEXT: AL, GA, NC, SC