Born in Kentucky

Lincoln & Bourbon

B bought me that Lincoln pencil sharpener on our trip, I bought the Lincoln Cabin postcard (coming soon to my parent’s mailbox). I stuck my finger in that vat of yeasty fermenting alcohol and nearly passed out when I tasted it. It was 90 Kentucky degrees outside and we were too close to the steam heat and still left-over-sick from a greasy spoon breakfast in Bardstown, KY.  I would do it again just to have the right to be able to walk up to someone ordering a Maker’s Mark and say, “You like that? I had my finger in that six years ago.”

Some of the best scenery on the trip was what I call the Whiskey Prisons. Because the big ol moldy barrel aging warehouses look a lot like the medium security penitentiary where I teach. I also have it on good authority that there is fermenting, aging booze in both places.

Lock Me Up in a Bourbon Bunker.   That’s the title of my new hit song. More tunes to follow. Bourbon is a singer’s drink.

For those of you confused about the aforementioned MOLD: All distilleries “inspire” this kind of black mold around the site – the buildings and surrounding fences and trees turn black. It is quite lovely looking and the tour guides try to tell you that it is harmless – although I had just read THIS article in wired and I was a little skeptical.  I wasn’t about to run off the property before the tasting though. 

Been Busy With The Colonel

Bourbon sampling is very hard work. It's not for mambypambies.

TTYL (check the tumblr whilst I'm away)

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An Old Roll

Got these pics back a few days ago from a couple rolls that were quite old – one came back with nearly all blank frames. I especially like the ones from the quad camera. I could color correct them but that would be a shame. I prefer everything to look like it is in the desert, even if it’s my sister practicing her fast-pitch in the back yard of a Michigan small town home.  (Other photos are from the Salton Sea)

Things I Tried to Fix With Krazy Glue

Worked:

Didn’t work:

 

I need to know where to get colored cellophane and duct tape. I can’t afford a car repair until the 1th of next month.

Five Stars

We are back. I got sick but not before getting ill! Really, I’ve been out of commission for two whole days, drowning in my own sickness and having sweaty daydreams of the weekend blur.  Did I really see a greasy German in a blue speedo try to pick up a perfect stranger by eating an apple six inches from her face? No words. Just fruit: the international language of sexy time.

My cab driver to the airport told me a story about how his ex-girlfriend was from Detroit, well actually Bloomfield but she acted like she was from the center of the damned city – she had a lot of ghetto in her. Well anyway this chick had a run of bad luck: a drive-by that wrecked her car and gave her a closed head injury, year of migraines, a lost job, a sister who committed suicide…she took it all out on him until one day he lost it and that’s when she called the cops and Nevada doesn’t take domestic shit lightly so he lost his job at the Wynn and had to drive a cab. This was just two weeks ago and ever since he has been driving the 12 to 12 shift (that is midnight to noon). Most of his runs are from the strip clubs which is crazy because he has to hear all kinds of stories about the stuff that goes on there. It is always guys coming out of the clubs really late and really mad that they got taken for all kinds of money. “But she bought me drinks and gave me her phone number!” The cabbie shook his head, “They don’t know these girls are smiling at them cuz it’s their job! And a lot of them [the guys] are from NEW YORK… I just don’t understand.”    Why? I think that explains everything.

Headed Back.....

Listening to two fellas behind me discuss their hopes for Palin in 2012.

I'm obviously headed back to the south.

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And I'm Off (again)

I'm heading out with the early morning party crew to Las Vegas. Expect nearly zero updates.

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Tone Deaf Records is now a reality

I’ve recovered from jetlag sure - who wouldn’t after a week being back in the office (and I am known – or want to be known - for not unpacking or recovering from trips for days, weeks, months and even years), but it took a few days longer than anticipated to recover from what I call the Sephora Lip-plumper Tester Incident. A terrible event that left my mouth attractively pouty (swollen) on the outside and burning with the fire juice of a thousand bhut jolokias on the inside - for days. Days!! I tried everything from vitamin E caps to transmission fluid to counteract the irritation. I would have rather had on of those in-office blow-torch treatments you can get in the OC.

I am here though, really back in Memphis. Not out west. I’m surrounded by enough water to put out any kind of accidental lip-plumping fire, but we (here in midtown) are not exactly under water. The national news is making it sound like the entire city is tippy-toed on rooftops, breathing through straws while crafting rafts from twigs.

Although I should be out helping fill sandbags…maybe it is the flooding river to blame for me reading lots of Twain and suffering from severe River Phoenix nostalgia, I watched The Thing Called Love last night and I believe River could have been the rich man’s Leonardo DiCaprio.

The chickflick 90s fest will continue as long as B is out of town. I’m now watching Less Than Zero which reminds me of the short-lived
Lipstick Jungle series starring Brooke Shields and Andrew McCarthy. I have only a few regrets in this life and one of them is not lobbying NBC to keep that show on the air! It all comes back to lipstick, no?

Teens-in-shoulderpads is such a I-borrowed-this-from-my-mom-for-the-recital look. It is aspirational and yet embarrassing. That is why Less Than Zero is so successful. It is all about young people performing borrowed-mature-lifestyles. What was entertainment in the past is now just a sad reality now. Sigh. 

Have I even mentioned that I had a great trip to San Francisco? Have I mentioned how many people recommended The Slanted Door as THE place to eat? At least a dozen. Is there a conspiracy? Has no one ever had just regular good ol’ mom and pop Vietnamese food? I was expecting an actual private jet (made of cool lettuce and vermicelli noodles) to Vietnam and I just got some bland bean cakes served by a tall woman with an unappetizingly masculine haircut who let us know she disapproved of our order by saying, “sounds a little light.” Save your money and take the boat to Alcatraz.

I Painter Banana Spring

Finally went through my 2010 receipts (i like to do my taxes when I feel like it). I found 30 lottery tickets, half as many tickets to baseball games, and some fortunes.

The real message was on the backs of the little slips: Plenty lettuce store. I painter banana spring.

On My Way Home

Tonight: Side of the highway in Arkansas coming back from my last class this semester. Water (from the flooding riv’) everywhere!

The other night/morning: Los Angeles at 2am. Lights (from the flooding people) everywhere!

I’ll be back after I finish grading some papes.

Blow me away, outta here

Round here, we have been doing a dress rehearsal for the storms and whatnot mentioned in the book of Revelations.

I was supposed to be in San Francisco by now but my flight has been pushed back because apparently pilots and ground crew need to rest between lifting up and landing in funnel clouds and hail.

It’s ok. Let them rest. I have obviously been resting from this blog. Would you believe it if I said I too have been landing in funnel clouds?   Well funnel cakes are more like it, nevertheless very distracting.

Check my tumblr often while I am out west. I hope to report more soon.

Happy trails to me and to the storm chasers.

Eaves-ing

Overheard at my work:

(conversation about unfit mother or something)
"...it's like if you didn't want your baby, you shoulda taken her to the fire department."

Overheard at Shell gas station in Forrest City:

“Yeah mang, I got all my sh*t taken care of. I know how to get in their heads. I get on Facebook and mess with their emotions. Yeah mang, I know how to do.”

Overheard at hair salon:

“I just saw Country Strong”

“Yeah? How was it”

“I looooved it. It was really good.”

“Oh was it? You probably saw yourself…you were just wishing that was your life.”

“I just liked watching it cuz I wish I could wear my hair that big all the time.  Haha. Oh but Gwyenth is so good in it.”

“God she is good. She’s just so…belieeeeevable.”

Mid-Sized SUVs & Baby Sheep

One time when I was just a young college gal, I had to borrow my parents SUV to move something large and I stopped to get gas and smokes or something and when we (I never traveled in SUVs alone – I had a BF with me) got out of the car, some crunchy touch-of-gray-deadheads/trustafarians started to “baaaaaah, baaaaah” like we were sheep because we were in an SUV. It was the 90s – the economy was good so people focused their hatred on SUVs and third world banking. Remember when the ecoterrorists used to blow up SUVs? I probably escaped a crazy hippy bomb homicide that day.  I wonder where they are now. Babylon?

But I confess – this week I got caught up in the herd. I let work take up all my time and I didn’t have a chance to blog about the following fascinating topics:

• The lifespan of my umbrella
• Driving with tornados
• Cylcoramas
• Boss talk (more complaining about office stuff)
• My unique eyesight ailment/disability that makes it impossible for me to read spreadsheets
• NBA Playoffs
• New computers
• First Quarter Documentary Round-Up … ok I wasn’t THAT busy – I recently watched The Bridge (suicide/landmarks), Winnebago Man (misunderstood person/found footage/stuff white people like), Last Train Home (factory work/claustrophobic journey), and A Man Named Pearl (folk art/topiary inspiration, crazy eyebrows)
• Getting my first “unescorted” badge at the priz and forgetting to shut a giant gate. (That topic is vague because I’m thinking about expanding in a special, actual blog post)
• Sally Hansen Salon Effects

A Little Civil Tourism

Where it all began. And here we (me and B) are 149 years, 361 days later.

It as awesome.

Alabama Reality

(bottom map not guaranteed for accuracy)

I’ve been collecting state postcard maps for some time and I gotta say, this recent trip through Alabama produced some of my favorite examples of designy-y egogeography.

Back From the Palmetto State

My postcard map collection continues to grow. The bottom one is inaccurate, I found no sand dollars. Tomorrow: Alabama. The day after that: Maybe a proper update.

Whilst

I’m away you can view some photos of our trip here.

Into the Wild

Grizzlies at the Memphis Zoo

Saw these dudes the other day. Easy zoo living is making them soft!

Kick A

My ol Los Angeles chum, Heidi sent me a postcard from Thailand!  I feel that the photo represents the kickassness of a good adventure.

Speaking of adventures – as of 4:45pm today I am officially on vacation (from the land of florescent lights, not so much from this blog). Destination : the grand strand, the low country, and the Atlanta Cyclorama.

To Dig Yourself

In Arkansas, I learned that nothing sticks to diamonds. Nothing. Not dirt or water or mud or feathers or nickelodeon slime. Diamonds have no static electric charge. So when you see one in the dirt, you’ll see one. YaknowwhatImean?

To find a diamond you have to be dedicated. I read on a tourist website that the average visitor to Crater of Diamonds State Park  only looks for about twenty minutes before giving up.  We made a pact that we wouldn’t give up for twenty hours! Twenty weeks!!

 

We’d been watching a few episodes of “Gold Rush Alaska” the night before and were pretty sure these guys were working on finding their glory hole. Our technique was as ambitious but not as showy. 

Aside from the people that brought diamond sniffing beagles, everyone else was all willy-nilly – grabbing at dirt and dumping buckets of water everywhere.  I heard more than a few people say “I’d probably find something if I knew what I was looking fer!” (to which I would silently say, did you not read the sign?! We are looking for diamonds sir!) I also heard more than a few mothers yell at their kids while dragging them over the 30 acre field of turned-over earth; “I told y’all to NOT get dirty!” (to which I would silently say, this is the metaphor for how things are gonna be with her the rest of your life, kiddos)

The upside of everyone else giving up is that there is some kind of mine etiquette that says the people walking out have to stop and see how you are doing and wish you well. It’s pretty cute when some six year-old girls carrying pink buckets tell you, “Good luck!!”

We called it a day after several hours of meditative sifting. No diamonds, but I burnt the three-inch section of the tops of ankles because I had my pants rolled up just so. I vowed to purchase a healing quartz crystal at another local mine as soon as possible.

No drowning our sorrows in beer though, Murfreesboro is a dry, dry county. Our consolation prize:

 

Now a mainstream phrase, the term Tiger Blood has been around the snow ball world forever.

Turns out these really were New Orleans Style Snow Balls – the lady told us that she and her husband had moved up from Louisiana after all the hurricanes. It was just too much to always live in a state of impending evacuation. She said they had always come up there to vacation so why not? 

I kind of feel like a hurricane brought me to Arkansas too. A different kind of hurricane though - a kind of hurricane inside my soul that is feeling destructive for raw gemstones. We may have left the mine empty handed that day, but I’ve extended my search dedication time limit from twenty hours to twenty weeks to twenty years.

I will find you!!!

*the snow ball lady also has cute plants for sale.

Ol’ Five Foot and Other Headlines

I might have a travel story or two to tell if my arms ever unstiffen from the crispy sunburn I got while out digging for treasures in the middle of Arkansas. Check out these postcards I got at Coleman’s Crystal Mine.  We picked up some awesome rocky treasures in their shop to make up for the stuff we didn’t find on our own. They wrapped them in the local paper for safe traveling and when I was unpacking everything I couldn’t help but notice how interesting things are out near the Ouachita Forest:

(real headlines, as published)

• ACFG, Forest Service monitoring caves for deadly bat disease
• Greatest Shooter Contest in February
• Spike Girls Have First CFL (Cabin Fever Luncheon)
• Mature Bald Eagles still fascinate as they soar over Village
• What ever happened to solemnity?
• Paul and Eunice Luebke – work took them around the world     (profile piece about a sweet old couple)