The tent diaries 5

Just before I left Florida, my friend Ricci gave me a dragonfly, with this message written on the wings:

“All that glitters is not gold. All who wander are not lost.”

I’m sleepy now as I write this. Uninspired for the most part, sneezing in an auto repair shop, where I’m getting the oil changed in Joe’s car. It’s 9 a.m. on a Wednesday and I’m drinking Timmy Ho’s out of a plastic travel mug. Mechanic's coffee is always too black and too dank for my taste buds, so I usually bring my own. 

I’m listening to Ani as usual, and to the woosh of power tools ripping lug nuts off tires in the shop. It’s sunny out and what I really want to do right now is curl up like a cat in the light cast by the vertical blinds hanging in the front window. 

I brought a book and my laptop – the laptop so I could write an intro to this last installment of tent diaries and a book so I wouldn’t have to write.

Life is banal and beautiful no matter where you are. That’s what the road taught me; what staying with strangers and friends taught me. People's lives are no more or no less glamorous than your own, whether you live in Athens, Ill. or Sisters, Ore. 

Nature is nebulous and left entirely to interpretation. I fell in love with the trees in Oregon. I fell in love with the sky in Idaho. I would have married a sandwich in Wyoming had a notary been present. I got shitty directions from a boney hag in the Ozarks and shitty directions from a plump doe-eyed girl standing beside a fly strip in southern Oregon.

I was flagged down on a highway somewhere between Wyoming and Utah by a 40-something couple, whom I lent my cell phone to and pathetically my tire iron, which of course was too small to help change the flat on their empty horse trailer. 

Before I even opened my mouth they told me they were from Sarasota, Fla., heading to Oregon to pick up a horse, which of course was laughably surreal given that I was coming from Sarasota and heading to Oregon too. 

I had driven thousands of miles, met dozens of people, mowed through three loaves of bread and an entire jar of peanut butter and here I was, on a desolate stretch of brown highway somewhere between Utah and Wyoming, handing my cell phone over to people from Sarasota. Processing this information caused my mind to explode into stars. I coughed and laughed and stomped my feet. It was the most understated well-I'll-be-damned moment of the entire trip. 

Not a single vehicle passed us during our 45-minute exchange. 

--

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Bear Lake, Utah
Knocked my socks off.

--

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Twin Falls, Idaho
There was a three and half hour traffic backup on I-84 outside of Twin Falls, Idaho. People were moseying about their parked vehicles, truckers kept getting out of their cabs pounding the sides of their tires with hammers to make sure they were what — not leaking (I don't know.) It was 6 pm. The sky was starting to fade from baby blue to watery pink. The clouds looked like taffy. The moon cocked curiously to my left as the sun did that thing it sometimes does in the summer— it gave an encore performance. The night wouldn't settle on Idaho and I wondered if it was because I was so close to (but not in) the Pacific Time Zone. Sprinklers lined the fields in straight ghostly patterns, water arching like colorless rainbows across the green. I rolled down my windows to a cool, sweatshirt-y night. The couple in the Toyota Tundra in front of me said it was a major accident two miles ahead. We'd be stuck for several hours. Jesus. We'd been at a standstill for over an hour already. I was about to ask if they knew any other way to get to my campsite but I looked at their plates and saw they were from Montana.

The girl in the Hyundai behind me had Idaho tags so I asked her if she had any suggestions. (The last time I set up a tent in the dark I hammered my thumb numb with a Dollar General mallet.)

"No other way to your highway than to stick it out here til this accident clears," she said. "That's what I'm gonna do."

She was so sweet and peaceful, on her way home from work. She was wearing black work pants and an undershirt. An hour later I walked back to her car. She was sitting with her windows down, contentedly listening to the radio. I offered her my bag of Oreos.

"Really?" She asked.

"Really," I said. "Take it. I've got plenty of food in this car. I've kind of been living out of it."

Feeling like I'd slighted the couple from Montana I walked up their window with my box of banana bread from Laramie, Wyoming. They too were starving and graciously accepted. They thought Cubbie was cute and well behaved considering the traffic backup. I was very proud of him and when I got back to my car I pieced up some banana bread for Cubbie too.

As the sun fell it peek-a-booed behind the sprinklers, the ch-ch-ch of the water hitting the fields put me at ease. It was the most beautiful summer night I've seen since leaving my home in New York. The stars looked like someone flicked them into place. The sky spread so seamlessly flat it looked like my mother had hung it out to dry. Two miles further up the interstate two people died on the side of the road. A semi truck was on its side. I was reading a book; the couple from Montana was eating banana bread, the girl from Idaho was eating Oreos. I covered the moon with my thumb. The horizon, unmistakable, moved me to tears.

--

Friday, July 06, 2007

Klamath Falls, Oregon
This is a story of expectations, highways and disappointments:

When I reached Klamath Falls, Oregon at 9 o'clock in the evening I was deliriously tired. I had gained one hour of daylight and I was ungrateful for it.

My day had started in Jerome, Idaho with a blueberry muffin, scrambled eggs and a long hot shower. I had shaved my legs for Oregon. Wore my favorite dress for Oregon. And then I'd driven for ten hours through Oregon.

If you've even driven through Oregon or plan on doing so know this — there is only one interstate in Oregon and it runs north to south. Its only concern is getting you to Portland and then finally Seattle. That is the objective of I-5. It begins (or ends, whichever way you look at it) in San Diego, California and goes as far as Blaine, Washington. It takes you from the Mexican border to the Canadian. It does not take you through the guts of Oregon. That is the burden of the highway. The highways (and there are a few) will take you through the fibrous, pulpous, and at times mystical region known as central Oregon. These highways are fantastic and frightening. They make you feel infinitesimal. They cut through desert, through forests, climbing the sides of mountains and spanning valleys. They remind you that you are composed of water. That people need people. That you could scramble up the rocks, reach the top of a plateau, crawl into a crevice and disappear. Those who pass through would never know you existed and it would mean nothing to them if you were to ever emerge again. If you're feeling lonely these highways will make you feel lonelier. If you are looking for vindication these highways will not vindicate you. If you're feeling lost these highways will not find you and they will not lead you to a place where you are found. If you are looking for answers to questions you've not solved in years, these highways will not answer them. They will however roll out before you like a tattered scroll as you drive 90 mph and they will let you doggedly work things out in your head. They will absorb the things that have plagued you. That is what they do. They run east to west and they absorb you, cleanse you, and wring you out like a wet rag. Highways like the Outback Byway, the Volcanic Legacy Byway, the Central Oregon Highway… They will crawl inside your head and claw at the parts that make you feel safe and warm. Every fifty miles a town will appear along these highways and you will take that town with you wherever you go. The people who live there will ride with you wherever you go because that is the only way some of these people ever leave. On more than four occasions I asked for directions in south-central Oregon.

"Can you please tell me the best way to get to Bend?"
"No clue."
"How about to Crater Lake. How far am I from Crater Lake?"
"Sorry. Can't help ya."
"Are you familiar with Oregon?"
"Yeah. Born and raised in Klamath Falls."
"But Crater Lake is supposed to be close to Klamath Falls."
"Yeah, beats me."

I was 45 minutes from Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States. I found it easily using my maps, my books, my compass, and the northern star. I exhausted every navigational tool I had in the state of Oregon.

In Klamath Falls I checked into my campsite. I was still wearing that goddamn dress. Cubbie was restless, buckled into the passenger seat. The Klamath Falls campground was also the Klamath Falls gas station and liquor store. I was cut in line by a man and a woman buying two 40 oz Budwesiers. They reeked like smoke and booze. They had six teeth between the two of them and I wanted to say, excuse me I'm waiting in line here. I've been driving all day to get here. I have a date with Oregon. Can't you see? But I didn't speak up, just backed up, gave them their space and let them cash out. When their credit card was declined I didn't roll my eyes. I was patient. I picked through the Oregon postcards on the wall.

"Just run one through," the woman slurred.

The clerk ran one bottle through. The card was accepted. The drunkards rejoiced, walked away with one brown bag, six teeth and in the case of the woman — no shoes.

I asked for a tent site for one night please. One night in Klamath Falls and then I'd be off in the morning.

"How close am I to the Oregon coast?"

"Umm … I'm not sure."

"Any suggestions on the best route to the coast?"

"Mm. I haven't been to the coast in years."

"Are you familiar with any east-west highways?"

"I uh, don't know. Maybe the people at Walmart might know."

--

Friday, July 06, 2007

Bubble Burst, Oregon
The things I did not photograph are the things I cherished the most.

I'm home now. I'm in St. Pete. Sitting in Joe's apartment. The pug is asleep next to me. His fur matches Joe's couch. Joe's at work. I'm watching the Cartoon Network. I'm wearing the green sweatshirt I bought in Bandon, Oregon.

The drive home cost me some fingernails, a flat tire, a dented muffler and one sleepless night from one end of Nebraska to the other. When, at 6:30 in the morning, I could not find a motel with any vacancies in the entire state of Nebraska, the kid working the front desk at a Holiday Inn said, "Sorry, no rooms left." I snapped, "You have got to be fucking kidding me," I knew I just needed to get myself home.

It was actually Joe's idea to go to the coast. I was defeated. I'd reached Klamath Falls and I was defeated. I'd driven as far as I could drive. Two drunks in a campground underneath a highway overpass had cut me in line. I had not eaten properly in days and anytime I attempted to eat properly the food wouldn't go down. I was homesick. Homesick and too stubborn to admit it … until eventually I did and it came pouring out.

"I think you should drive to the coast."

"I had a picture of Klamath Falls picked out in my atlas. It looks nothing like the picture. It looks nothing like the picture because the picture was of Multnomah Falls. I had the wrong friggen waterfall."

He told me to calm down. (He's good at that.) I calmed down. He'd mapquest the coast for me. I was only six hours from the Pacific. I should get some sleep, go see Crater Lake and keep going west. I should pick out a place on the ocean and just calm down. I should relax because it would all work out. These things always do. And then, he said … I should just come home. He missed me.

My funds were running out. Totally running out. I needed two days in one place that did not involve ten hours in a '97 Honda Civic that smelled like a Dutch oven. I picked out a dot on the Oregon Coast. Bandon, Oregon — a coastal town as far west as I could go. My heart filled with blood. Blood poured through my arteries, and like a nest of sleeping spiders, my veins and arteries perked up, carried the blood to my brain. The same surge that compelled me in Sarasota to pack up my car for Oregon compelled me to quit fucking complaining and keep going. I was almost there for god sakes.

In the morning I ate what was left of my stale banana bread. I spread out a sheet under a tree and read my Albert Einstein book until I reckoned it was time for Crater Lake and then I took down my tent, rolled up my sleeping bag, fed Cubbie some Alpo and buckled us both back into the Dutch Oven Civic.

--

PS. The first picture is of Crater Lake in Southern Oregon on the crest of the Cascade Mountain Range. Below it are my sneakers, all wet and sandy from running into the Pacific Ocean for the first time in my life. 

I'm still here!

This is my 100th post. It's a post I started at midnight about two weeks ago but fell asleep in the middle of writing. When I woke up the next morning, I was 27 years old, had a 9 a.m. phone interview with a mathematician from Maine, a cover story due about a ballet dancer from Houston and plans to go to the beach (see left) with my best friend Ro and sister Heelya.

I didn't know I had it in me to stick with the Lance. I figured I'd get bored with it. Tire of writing about myself, my friends, my family, the odd ducks and lovable strangers that cross my path and make me laugh, cry, whisper and cuss.

I thought I'd get distracted. Find a new way to spend time while Joe was asleep. Take up abstract painting. Join a knitting circle. Volunteer at a nursing home. Start trading stocks online.

But here I am. Still Lancing. Truth is, I can't shake it. I find a story in everything. So much so that's it's annoying. If you were to ask me to write 500 words on the sound a potato chip makes when it's chewed, I'd give you 600 words and a sidebar on the texture of french onion dip.

In the picture above you'll find me on the left, Ro in the middle and Heelya on the right. Joe took it the night the girls arrived from Buffalo, just before we unfolded the pull-out sofa in his Man Cave and the girls fell asleep in a cocoon of down-filled blankets.

Ro and Heelya like nests. They like to burrow and they like to snuggle. I know because I spent many nights curled up beside either one of them, prattling on about things girls prattle on about.

Ro sleeps with her mouth open and Heelya talks and eats in her sleep. One night, when we were teenagers, I heard Heelya murmur something about French fries. Another night I caught her in the refrigerator, rummaging through the crisper for cheese slices.

Growing up, Heelya and I slept in bunk beds, alternating between the top and bottom bunk every few months. Whenever Heelya slept on top, I'd lay on the bottom with my feet planted on the planks of her bed, kicking her up in the air a good three inches just to aggravate her. One night when I was on the top bunk and Heelya was on the bottom bunk, my mattress fell through the weakened planks and landed on top of her head.

Basically Ro, Heelya and I spent the weekend laughing, catching up on nonsense, drinking beer and telling old stories around the campfire. There's much more of course, but I'd be here all day if I were to write about it all. So I guess I'll write about April 10, my birthday.

We had plans to go out to a Japanese steakhouse – me, Joe, Heelya, Ro and my sister PK – when around 7 p.m. PK, who lives an hour away, called to tell me she got in a car accident.

"Don't freak, Heid. I'm fine," she said, explaining that her car was towed from the scene and that the cop gave her a ride back to her apartment, and that for every day her car was in impound she would be charged a grotesque $100.

To avoid this monetary raping and to get PK up to St. Pete for my bachelorette weekend, I had no other choice but to load everyone in my car, drive an hour south to Sarasota, free the crinkled Escort from the impound lot and pick up PK – birthday or no birthday.

So at 9 p.m., with Joe in the front seat and Ro, Heelya and PK in the back, I pulled off a desolate street in North Sarasota, into a gravel parking lot guarded by angry dogs with no manners, where a Bubba with a belly like a bass drum unlocked a prison-high fence and mumbled that my sister's car could be freed for $250 cash.

(Note: Heelya is in a Sophia Loren sun dress. Ro is in a Doris Day skirt. And Joe is wearing the faux suede gentleman's blazer he reserves for television appearances and birthday parties. Remember, we were supposed to be at a Japanese steakhouse, sipping sake and watching a chef chop onions in the air using a Hattori Hanzo samurai sword.)

So at 9:15 p.m., with dapper Joe in the front seat and Ro, Heelya and ATM card-less PK in the back, I pulled into a SunTrust bank and withdrew enough money to recover a bent 1998 Ford Escort.

PK was pouting. I was bitching. Joe was deciding whether we should refuse to pay the after-hours fee. Ro was insisting the charges be itemized and Heelya was bitching about my bitching, suggesting I should just be happy we were all together.

And to be honest, though I was irritated and driving with night-blindness through a ghetto on my birthday, I was, actually, ecstatic we were all together.

When we returned to the impound lot with money in hand, the Bubba behind the gate barked at another Bubba to, "chain up the Escort and move 'er out," at which point Joe lost his cell phone in the dusty abyss.

As we followed the tow truck driver back to PK's apartment, and as Joe began frantically searching the car for his cell phone, I remarked that my 1997 Honda Civic was dogging it with so many bodies weighing it down.

"Shit," Joe muttered. "I must have dropped my cell phone in the parking lot."

"You sure it's not under the seat?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "I checked there."

"You sure it's not in the glove box?" Ro asked.

"No, I checked there."

"What about in my purse?" I asked.

"I looked through your purse."

"Did you check in the door?" Ro asked.

"It's not there."

"What about under the seat?" Holly asked.

"IT'S NOT UNDER THE SEAT!"

And then the car fell silent until we got to PK's apartment ...

Around midnight, after PK's car had been towed to her apartment and after we had returned to the impound lot for a third time to comb the dusty abyss for Joe's cell phone, and after we had returned to St. Pete, ordered two large pizzas, nibbled on leftover ice cream cake and opened presents, I settled into bed, exhausted, content and three years away from 30.

You see, I've been a little stressed lately. I'm not exactly sure why. I seem to be working things out in my dreams though, because every day I wake up a little less wound. I wonder if it's wedding stuff. Work stuff. Money stuff. The fact that I just paid the government $1,400 in taxes – half of my pathetic life savings. Or that I still can't clear up the pug's eczema, or stick to the novel I suck at writing or finish the novel by my bed I suck at reading.

One things for sure. My friends, my family and my fiance keep me grounded. Without them, I'd lose my head.

I tend to digest life better when I'm driving. I think it's because it's the only time I sit still and concentrate on getting from point A to point B. On my way home from the Tampa airport after I had dropped off Ro and Heelya at Southwest Airlines' curbside check-in, I started sobbing so much my temples hurt.

When I got home, Joe walked with me to the bike shop to pick up my Bianchi and I cried some more. I told him my heart breaks every time I have to say goodbye, and he told me to keep my chin up and sang me a stupid pop song to make me laugh.

And it worked I suppose, because on the walk home I saddled up my Bianchi like Lance Armstrong and pedaled fiercely from point A to point B; Joe running like a bull behind me with my purse slung over his shoulder, trying to keep up, looking hysterical and lovely at the same time.

--

PS. Ro & Heelya – I miss you and love you. See you in June when we ride 62.5 miles in The Ride For Roswell.

PPS. To my succulent readers – I'm alive and well. Thank you all for checking in on me! I received e-mails, Facebook messages, TWITTER greetings, younameit, wondering where the hell I'd gone. Thanks to yesterday's deep tissue massage, I'm back to my narcissistic self. I plan on catching up on all your blogs this weekend from my new Sky Chair.

Luck, faith and benevolent Canadians.

Glorious sleep. Glorious, frothy dream-filled sleep! Keep it coming, Mr. Sandman.

After spending both September and October fending off nightmares, I'm thrilled to report that November has been less cruel to my fretful unconscious.

Employed as a nanny for seven sniveling children, I would dream horrible things. Dreams that would wake me in the middle of the night and cause my head grief the following morning.

In one month I pounded an entire bottle of Advil.

Mostly, I had nightmares about the woman I worked for - the stay-at-home mother-of-seven, who spent her days in spandex exercise gear, scribbling grocery lists on the back of her kids' stick figure drawings, rattling off demands hurriedly and with a tight, cold scowl that pulled her tanning-bed skin into a kind of leather hide that reminded me of the bottom of moccasins that sell for nine bucks on Indian reservations.

The Friday before Joe and I closed on our house, Wall Street collapsed and our pre-approved mortgage was almost denied. Why? Because I quit my job as a staff writer at a newspaper so I could freelance from St. Pete and moonlight as Mr. Belvedere for one humiliating month.

The day the mortgage broker called to tell me my career switcheroo was about to cost us our house, I calmly provided him the name and number of my new spandexed employer, swallowed two Xanax and rehearsed between snot-sucking sobs, how I would break the news to Joe.

Later that day, while doped up on anti-anxiety medication, the mortgage broker called to tell me to breathe. He would use the jaws of life to secure our loan. Staff writer or disgruntled nanny, he'd find a way to approve our mortgage, of course not without first using the phrase, "by the skin of your teeth."

When we closed Oct. 3, and the subject of my employment came up, the woman who owns the title company kicked me under the table, and without making eye contact said to Joe and I, "If anything has changed with anyone's employment situation, please by all means don't tell me."

I never stopped writing for the newspaper. Juggling both jobs, I banked my Belvedere money for furniture and scribbled notes at night about how the protagonist in my novel would never be a nanny, because to subject her to such tyranny would be to limit the depths of her character.

Four years of college and four more years of reporting and here I was, folding some woman's thong underwear into a silk square smaller than a postage stamp. One night, while putting her children to bed, the 6-year-old turned to me and snapped, "You use a lot of big words for a first-time babysitter. What are you a scientist or something?"

"Well," I replied. "Before I was your babysitter, I was a reporter. My job was to write stories for the newspaper."

"Like the St. Pete times?" She asked.

"Not quite," I said. "But something like that."

Two weeks later, on a Wednesday afternoon in mid-October, after Joe had assembled my new pine desk and we'd scheduled our first trip to Ikea, the spandexed mother-of-seven fired me.

Who would have thought that in these piss-poor economic times that getting shit-canned would feel so good?

I started this post weeks ago. At first it began like: "She was a straight up rich bitch, who despised me for reasons I'll never know. She fired me because she claimed I couldn't be trusted with her children ..."

And you know what? I deleted the whole sour-pussed rant. The world is too hopeful right now to mop up my absence on this blog with negativity. The last headache I had was the result of two glasses of champagne, consumed Tuesday night during Barack Obama's acceptance speech. So in the spirit of optimism, I'll spare you the tirade and leave you with a story about luck, faith and benevolent Canadians.

I've always thought lucky pennies were underrated. If you're like me, when you find a lucky penny you forget to note which side is facing up when you pick it up.

As children we're taught (perhaps by grandparents or big-fannied aunts) that pennies are lucky. That when we find one we should pocket it. Forget the fact that Lucky Penny lore only holds true when a coin is found head's side up. For those of us who operate on whimsy, technicalities like this are easy to dismiss.

If you're a hopeless non-denominational optimist like me, you have faith in the idea that pennies can't possibly be cursed. What kind of prick universe would this be if half the pennies we found were responsible for half our misfortunes? If I could add up all the pennies - lucky or otherwise - that I've collected over the years I could probably buy Joe a nice steak dinner on the better side of Tampa. Besides, if all pennies can be used to make wishes then certainly no penny is luckier than another.

But why the subject of pennies? Specifically the crusty, oxidized one that was given to me last month by a Canadian man after my car was pinned between a concrete wall and a motor home while driving 75-mph on the interstate?

I'll spare you the details of what could have been a dreadful accident. As talented an embellisher as I am, I cannot exaggerate non-existent, non-dreadful details. I can only credit my reaction time, the fact that I was listening to The Chemical Brothers, and two benevolent Canadians.

In the nanoseconds that passed between the offending motor home to my left, and the concrete wall to my right, I somehow managed to summon a previous life as a tomboy in the sticks of Western New York, where as a teenager I drove a demolition car named The Vaginator in the fields behind an ex-boyfriend's house.

Locking the brakes on my Honda Civic, I kept the car on a straight skid as I pinballed between the RV and the wall. Had the benevolent Canadians, who were driving behind me when the accident occurred, not pulled over to provide a witness statement, the officer who responded to the crash would have cited me for failure to yield the right-of-way.

"Failure to yield the right-of-way?" Cried the benevolent Canadians. "She had nowhere to yield to!"

"Yes I understand," said the officer. "But if the people in the motor home wanted to argue the situation she would've had a hard time proving her case."

While we waited for the necessary paperwork to wrap up one of the benevolent Canadians handed me a penny.

"I found it by your car," he said cheerfully. "Pennies from heaven you know."

Funny, I thought. My godless family never phrased it like that.

On Tuesday, I got my car back from the collision shop. It looks brand new thanks to four new tires, a rearview mirror, and a week's worth of banging out and buffing up. The guys at Wulff's Collision on 20th Avenue couldn't have been nicer or more skilled.

As for the penny, it went back into circulation sometime last week when I purchased ice cream at CVS. I have no idea if the benevolent Canadian found it heads up or heads down, and I totally forgot to ask.

11 people I've interviewed in Sarasota

Divine guidance can be found in a reporters notebook.

...

"No one ever wanted to ride with us in the winter because we only had two blankets. And in the summer, when temperatures reached 95 degrees, we choked from the heat because the car didn't have air conditioning."

- Roberta Tengerdy, with husband Tom, on the 1967 Volkswagon Beetle she bought her sophomore year at Colorado State University, the same year she met Tom. 

"You're lost if you don't believe in it. It's something you don't exactly feel. You just know it's there. You know that when you die, times going on forever. It's not the end. It's the beginning."

- 100-year-old Mildred Bessie Barton Hill on heaven. 

"That's a good question. If the cheese were square it'd stick out the side of the sub."

- Subway superstar Jared Fogle on why the sandwich franchise that made him famous cuts its cheese into triangles.

"He needs his shade. He's a very spoiled bird." 

- Johnny Malone on why he sits under the awning at Whole Foods with his cockatiel, Bobby.

"Everything has changed but everything has stayed exactly the same. Often people will say to me, 'why do you still have Cathy on a diet?' And I say, look at the headlines. It's an endless turf out there. While it's redundant in a way, these are the things we keep wrestling with - our relationships with food, our relationships with the opposite sex, our relationships with our mothers, our relationships with the clutter on our desks. The things we face each day are what I love writing about and women have this fabulous capacity to keep having hope even if there's no hope to be had."

- Cartoonist Cathy Guisewite on why she's refrained from changing "Cathy," to conform to 2008 post-feminist ideals. (The comic strip, which debuted in 1976, began as a series of sarcastic sketches Guisewite would mail her mother ripping on her pathetic mid-20s love life.)

"I'll tell you one thing. He changed. I think he saw a lot of things too young for his lifetime. He came back a  man and I never thought I'd say that. He's a little more guarded and careful now. He's quiet now."

- In 2004 Sherri Vroom's then 20-year-old son, John, served eight months in Iraq. Two years later he was deployed again.

"Well, she has beautiful hair. She has a beautiful face and beautiful eyes."

- Seven-year-old Caitlyn Gutierrez on why her mother is beautiful.

"I'm gonna de-bone them first. That way I'm not sitting on one wing for too long."

- Gilberto Noriega on how he planned to win the Munchies Fire-In-Your-Hole wing eating challenge. (He lost.)

"I look at the bus as a research and exploration vessel. It functions as an idea and information hub. We're researching, exploring and recording our findings."

- Roth Conrad on why he and friend Bob Downes (right) bought their old high school bus, converted it to run on vegetable oil and drove it across the country. See link.)

"I'm an outgoing person. I like to be the funny guy. I want people to notice me. If I had any other role, I wouldn't have been as funny as I was."

- Baseball catcher Connor Davis, 13, on how he knew he owned his middle school production of The Wizard of Oz when his drama teacher cast him as The Cowardly Lion. (His dream role: Dracula.)

"What I told the jury at the onset was that I was going to ask the questions that needed to be asked ... because if not me than who?"

- Assistant Public Defender Adam Tebrugge on how he handled the pressure of defending Joseph P. Smith, the man sentenced to death for the 2004 murder of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia. 

--

PS. Cathy Guisewite photo courtesy of People Magazine. All other photos are mine.

Meet PK.

My sister PK got in last night via 1998 Ford Escort with her friend Erika. Here's a Q&A with the Buffalo recruit:

What are you doing right now?
What does it look like I'm doing? I'm desperately looking for a job. [Closes the St. Pete Times.]

What was the worst part of the drive down from Buffalo?
West Virginia. Not knowing if my car would make it over the hills.

What was the best part of the drive?
The final hotel. The fact that the bed was so huge despite it being disgusting.

How many items of clothes can you fit in one of those vacuum-sealed bag?
Over 50 items.

Do you have them sorted according to item?
No I was stupid I didn't do that. Now I just have bags exploding and I have to pick through them.

What's your future apartment's must-have amenity?
This sounds really bad, but a washer and dryer in the apartment or in the apartment vicinity.

Good luck with that.
OK. Air conditioning. It must have air conditioning.

What's the most you're willing to spend on an apartment?
Assuming it's just me and depending on the job, no more than $800.

Any idea yet on how you're going to meet a man?
Networking.

What are you a CEO or something?
I know what I'm talking about.

Is there anything you forgot to pack?
Yes. My Pantene Pro-V Anti-Frizz Serum. (Points to head.)

What kind of music did you guys listen to on the drive down?
We hardly listened to music although Leona Lewis' Bleeding came on every time we got off our route. And then every time we got back on the route Leona Lewis' Bleeding would come on again.

What is your dream job?
My dream job? I really don't know what it is. Just a place where I feel comfortable and work with people who are nice. I don't care what kind of job it is.

What about Florida do you predict is going to drive you batty?
The traffic, the old people and people with that Florida air about them.

Florida air?
You know what I mean.

No I don't.
Like DeAnna from The Bachelorette.

Is she from Florida?
She's from Georgia. That's close enough.

[PK's friend Erika walks in the room and sits on the couch beside her.]

Erika, what kind of driver is PK?
I think Pam would agree with me. We had some moments. We had some oh shit moments.

PK, what kind of driver is Erika?
Erika couldn't drive because she's too long for my car and I also have lifts under my seat so she couldn't drive. I told her I wouldn't put her through that torture.
Erika: She kept saying 'those lanky legs can't fit in this car.' My legs would probably get stuck on the pedal. It would be full gas the whole time.

What's your fast food count at?
P: I took coupons with me for McDonald's and I showed Erika how proud I was to have them and she said they only take them in New York and Pennsylvania. We didn't discover that until West Virginia so we ended up at BK and she got cinnamon buns.
E: Only for a dollar though. I woofed those down. They put something in those.
P: You felt great after those cinnamon buns.
E: And for only a $1.

Spot any snazz vanity plates along the way?
P: Pretty Pam was our favorite plate.

Someone had a pretty Pam plate?
P: Believe it or not there are some pretty Pams out there.

What's the garbage situation look like in your car?
E: All our fast food accumulated by my feet.
P: It kept getting higher and higher until we returned the old McDonald's wrappers at the window of a new McDonald's.

What are your plans for tomorrow?
P: Frying at the beach.

What brand vegetable oil did you pick up at CVS?
P: It's Banana Boat.

Any noticeable differences between the north and the south?
E: Oh God everyone was so friendly. We had to get used to that, how friendly people are. People here are really big at staring.
P: Like the guys at the gas station who made animal noises.
E: We had a group of guys making animal noises in Virginia. Like farm noises, actually I don't even know if they were farm animals. I think they were wild animal noises.
P: It was like we got out of the car ... like we were being birthed. Like it was labor.
E: And we're both stretching and I see them out of the corner of my eye and I said, 'Pam lets slide back in the car.'
P: They walked out of their way to our side of the pump.
E: They were gross industrial workers.
P: And they were making animal noises.

What's the first thing you're going to buy for your apartment?
E: You need bedding.
P: Well, I need a bed.

PS. The picture above is of a space-saving-air-sucking bag packed with clothes.

Why we move.

This one goes out to my mom, who reads Lance regularly and whom I imagine is at this very moment standing in my sister PK’s empty bedroom crying.

My youngest sister, PK is moving to Florida this weekend. Last we spoke, PK was stuffing the remainder of her bedroom into boxes, sleeping on my parents’ living room couch because her bedroom was uninhabitable. (I imagine my mother said: “Jesus Christ it looks like a bomb went off in here,” her favorite expression for describing four pairs of discreetly tossed socks and an unmade bed.)

By this time Monday PK will be in St. Pete, schlepping her bags up my concrete stairs. Hopefully most of her crap stays in the car as I’ve informed her that the JoeHo pad is not spacious.

It takes big balls to move away from home, or at least that’s what people say. “You’re brave to just pack up and start over,” …that’s another thing people say. And in a state where the locals say Coke not pop. The blasphemy!

Blah. It’s not about the size of your cajones, or about being brave. It’s about gravity. Some people can’t help it. They move because they can’t stay. The only math problem I ever solved went something like: a train is traveling 75 mph in a southern arc. Picture you’re waving goodbye in the distance. Are you a.) sitting in the train car or b.) standing at the depot?

Me? I’d be goddamned if I was the one standing at the depot, especially at PK’s age. At 22 I was the one in motion.

Since my sisters and I never went away to college we never experienced the thrill of buying our first bottle of shampoo as an independent apartment-renting adult. I was never a very domestic bird, yet when I left the nest four years ago I barked “Bring on the shower curtain purchased at Target,” like I was a gum-snapping football coach. I got my jollies off once just buying a vacuum cleaner at K-Mart.

Back home we rarely cooked meals for ourselves, since it felt like mom catered to our individual schedules, wrapping leftovers in tinfoil in the fridge, leaving notes on the countertop explaining what tinfoil packet contained what. In college my commitments and my sisters’ commitments were split between school, part time jobs and close-knit friends, most of whom we befriended in the 4th grade.

Moving to a town where no one knows who you are is like hurling a white canvas at a painter and demanding he go to town on it in every color imaginable. “Make me something pretty out of this lily-white canvas. Or don’t. It’s up to you really. Only problem is, if you don’t you’ll feel unfulfilled, empty and nostalgic for the wild paintings of your past. You painted before. Paint again.”

I never experienced growing pains like I did when I moved to Sarasota. Was it because I moved 1,200 miles away or because I was approaching 25? I heard of the Quarterlife Crisis, I’m well aware of the annoying narcissistic mid 20s meltdown. Just when I thought my moving to sunny Florida had exaggerated this, my best friend Ro confessed that she too was feeling bat shit crazy and she’d only moved across town.

If our infant-selves could speak, we’d make scholarly observations about our bodies stretching, pulling and tugging like Gumby dolls. Going from six pounds to twenty in six month’s time. If we could speak as infants we’d say, “shit this sucks, but shit this is cool!” It’s traumatizing so we cry. We wail because after all, we’re babies.

At 23 it wasn’t much different. "Shit this sucks, shit this is cool" is pretty much how I felt for a few years. The growing pains weren't physical but my reaction to them was still the same. I was still a baby.

After one year as a reporter I quit my job and started working at a marble yard, counting slabs of granite in the 90-degree heat, making deliveries of cement and stone tile to waterfront homes. Working here I stopped pissing on the rich and feeling sorry for myself as I was scrounging away money to purchase a car to replace my broken down ’86 Civic. I knew eventually I wouldn’t have to pedal a bike to work every day alongside day laborers, who for obvious reasons didn't have drivers licenses. At 23 I knew, like my Nana says, that it would pass.

I was bloated from a diet of Reese Cups and Miller Lite; a bona fide decision maker making decisions far from home, showering behind a Target curtain, pining away for my next big move. So I bought a car, took the summer off, drove across the country, fell in love with Wyoming and Idaho and Oregon and Missouri. I returned to Sarasota in the fall and fell in love with Joe.

I didn’t know what decisions were until I moved away. I remember making a piss poor one once when I first arrived to Sarasota, agreeing to watch a coworker’s child on a Saturday evening and assuming I’d have enough time to squeeze in a mid-morning bike ride, I rode 40 miles out to Longboat Key. I realized when I reached the shores of Whitney Beach that there was no way in hell I was making it back to watch that kid. And the one person I knew in town who could pick my ass up wasn't answering the phone.

Mom, this is a long one so I apologize for that. PK is going to be OK. You remember how I used to call you homesick, crying and bitching then proclaiming happiness then wallowing in self-pity all in one day?

I like to believe I'm in the clear now. It took three years and in those three years I grew stronger and meaner and nicer, tougher and happier. Would I still feel this way if I moved five miles up the street from you? I don’t know. PK won’t know either. Sometimes you don’t know why you leave a place until you arrive somewhere else.

Please tell PK I cleaned the bathroom toilet in the spare bedroom. She knows where the key is. I’ll see her Monday night when I get out of work.

PS. The picture above was taken near a waterfall in Oregon.

Existential scavenger hunting

Distractions are everywhere.

I woke up this morning first at 7:30 and then at 8:30. At 8:30 I shuffled to the kitchen. Made coffee. Made toast. Sat on the couch and opened this page. Two and half hours later I've accomplished nothing. Nothing. I blame MySpace, Facebook and random news stories about Broncos players diagnosed with diabetes, Britney's preggo sister, a story about an Asian man whose skin turned to tree bark and another story about an Asian man whose face developed gargantuan tumors spilling out from under his chin like tsunamis of yellow flesh. Freakish stuff. This is what I chose to do with my precious three hours before Joe wakes up.

(He's still sleeping by the way.)

Maybe if I go out on the porch in the sunshine.

Anyway. When I was in Gaitlinburg, Tenn. last summer I set up camp beside a 20-something couple from Baton Rouge. Their names were Rachel and Shawn. Newly engaged. I remember several key things about Rachel and Shawn. Namely that their tent leaked in a rainstorm that night and Rachel, totally pissed about this, stormed Shawn's truck like an army sergeant first thing in the morning, hauling armfuls of wet clothes into the cab, cursing in a southern tongue that their "god damned Wal-Mart tent was a piece of goddamned shit." I also remember that Shawn surveyed my car one night between bites of Smores and said, "That's a Honda HX yer drivin there." And I nodded and said yes. And he said, "Funny. I never seen an HX before." And that was that.

I think about it often. Probably every day since that night in Tennessee. Whenever I'm driving and I pass another Civic, I check out the rear model name - LX. EX. CX. DX. Never HX. I drove from Sarasota, Fla. to Coos Bay, Oregon and not once did I spot an HX on the road, in a parking lot, at a traffic light. I was floored by this, so floored that I made a habit of announcing the make and model of every Civic I passed from there on.

"LX. Not an HX."
"EX. Not an HX."

It is a lame road trip game, but one of many Rain Man-ian ticks I developed while driving and camping alone, spanning our country's most lunar surfaces - specifically northern Utah - doing maniacal things like rolling my tongue into a Tootsie Roll on the roof of my mouth, making noises I thought only my dog could hear and of course looking for Honda Civic HXs and never once finding one.

... Until yesterday on Siesta Key Beach, under the North Bridge facing the Ringling Causeway at 4 p.m. I obliviously parked next to one. A red HX. My car's hamster-like twin, dustier and littered with fishing tackle. Its owner, a Mexican kid in a Hanes undershirt, knee-deep in salt water, was futzing with a bucket of oily jacks flopping to and fro. And since I was in the middle of photographing someone for the paper, I stupidly forgot to snap a photo of the car.

Though I'll probably never see the thing again I drove home yesterday with a renewed sense of worldly order like now I can scratch the missing HX off my existential scavenger hunt. It's one of many scratch-offs on an assignment I gave myself years ago. The existential scavenger hunt assignment.

It started four years ago with a dog in the passenger seat of a truck. I was sitting in traffic at McKinley Parkway and Southwestern Boulevard in Hamburg, New York, staring at the truck parked next to me. Riding shotgun was a dog mangy from age, with a beaky face and once-crazy eyes. I remember sitting at the intersection we all called Seven Corners and looking over at Mangy Dog and thinking, shit Mangy Dog, I'll never see you again. This moment I'm sharing with you now at the Seven Corners in Hamburg, New York in one minute will be over and I'll never see you again.

At that time I had only a month to go before leaving New York for Florida. I was in that mode we all slip into before leaving a place for whoknowshowlong. It's a state of mind I describe as Steely Sadness. Before leaving a place you grow balls of steel. "I can do this. I'm cool. I'm free spirited dust in the wind. I'm the stuff you write home about. Eck. Ugh. Sigh." Which is such a farce, because really what happens is this:

You spot a mangy dog riding shotgun one day at an intersection famous for its deadly crashes and you start crying in spastic waves because you know this is It. You're looking into the once-crazy eyes of a beady-beaked dog and you're saying goodbye, out loud and in between snot-sucking sobs, you think: 'I'm 23 years old and this is the most pitiful moment I'm ever going to have. (Which we all know is not true.) And if I weren't at the wheel of this rattletrap jitney, at the deadliest intersection in Western New York, I'd be brought to my knees.' But you're wailing now like a breeched newborn slapped on the ass. And the dog is cocking its head and not blinking. And in his once-crazy eyes you see a shimmer of recognition (because glassy eyes make ghostly mirrors) and you know that in .3 seconds the light will go green, you'll grit your teeth and say buh-bye.

Thus you are born into what I call steely sadness.

Light turns green. Dog looks away. You press your foot to the pedal and accelerate. With the window down you hear the sound of your car's engine - not smooth, not steady, but high-pitched and throaty - and you shrug, because nonetheless you are moving.

I've not had another mangy dog moment. And like finding the HX yesterday (or as Joe calls it, "lampooning my white whale") I have no idea what it will mean if it happens again. I like to reckon it's one more kill in an existential scavenger hunt, though I fear it's just one more asinine thing I do to distract myself.

Ps. The picture above was taken in Jerome, Idaho. If anyone ever calls Idaho 'West-bum or East-bum' anything please dismiss it. Idaho is beautiful and solitary. Idaho sunsets cast the best pink-ish light I've ever seen blanket a field at dusk.