The tent diaries 3

Now onto part three of this adventure, in which Missouri and Kansas treat me well.

I regret not writing about Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twain's boyhood town. Folks in Hannibal say the town is the setting for Twain's most famous stories.

Tom Sawyer. Huck Finn.  Becky Thatcher. The whole wonderful lot sitting by the Mississippi riverbank in Hannibal.  

Did you know the Unsinkable Molly Brown was headed to Hannibal when she boarded the Titanic 97 years ago on my birthday?  

Speaking of famous Missourians. I camped in Brad Pitt's hometown of Springfield for three nights. It was one of my favorite (and largest) campsites, in a hayfield managed by KOA proprietors Scott and Diane King, off a stretch of rural highway, along the hot and dusty outskirts of town.  

In Springfield, I met up with a friend of a friend for drinks at a Mexican restaurant. She loaned me a book about Albert Einstein and burned me two folks CDs that carried me through to Idaho. It was the first time we'd ever met, and we got along so awesomely I was sad to move on. Every time I opened the Einstein book I thought of how happy I was in Springfield, Missouri, drinking beer with a good conversationalist, talking about books, music and Mexican food. 

Come to think of it, I did write about Hannibal but the story only ran in the newspaper.

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Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Branson, Missouri
It is Wednesday, June 13.
I'm happy to say I'm not in Branson. I'm in Springfield, MO. And I love this campsite! I praised Jesus for this campsite because earlier while intending to camp in Branson, Missouri I discovered Branson is a honky-tonk clusterfuck of rotund old people driving $75,000 RVs. A Barbara Mandrell, Yakov Smirnoff clusterfuck of bellbottom-wearing, bibbed overall, red plaided, eat-til-you-puke, Aqua netted, cake-faced hoe-downed, imitations of the imitation Donnie and Marie Osmond cabaret of overpriced performers. I could've spent $30 a night to camp on a black top slab in Branson or … I could be here — in Springfield, Missouri in a cow pasture by the railroad tracks, in my tent under the hickory tree by the white picket fence, shooing fireflies out of my tent, my pug once again snoring, filled up on the couscous I cooked for dinner and the white Sunbeam bread from Jasper County, SC I toasted on Zac's super duper one-burner camp stove.

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Thursday, June 14, 2007

Springfield, Missouri
I feel compelled to write something on the nature of roughing it. More than once I've been asked how I'm managing without bathrooms, showers, manicures, matresses, hair dryers and shopping

Let me be clear. I am not roughing it. At least not in my sense of roughing it.
I have not gone a single day without a shower. I love showers! (Ask Zac.) Every campground has a bathhouse. The facilities are better than those of the Hawkins Court cottage I lived in for a year. The bathhouse in Asheville had brass racks for your toiletries. The bathhouse in the Smoky Mountains had granite vanity tops. In Hannibal the shower stall had a shampoo/soap holder hanging from the shower head. Here in Springfield, MO the facilities are kickass. I took a shower this morning in the handicap stall, which is apparently the perfect height for me plus I could sit down and let the water pressure hit my back in all the places I have bug bites.
The worst toilet I've encountered thus far was in Branson West at a gas station staffed by a woman with black teeth and a good sense of direction. (Thank you black toothed woman for heading this lost-in-a-paper bag bozo out of Branson and in the direction of Kansas City.)

Cubbie poops in plush green mountain grass instead of dirt and gravel driveways in Sarasota. He's psyched about that.

Here's where I've had to "rough it" and hardly at that:

I accidentally grew a mullet. I promised Joe I wouldn't cut it on the road. But it's killing me. So I had Kevin cut off the mullet tail in Chicago. (I'm still growing it! And yeah rat tails in The Ozarks are like boob jobs in Miami ... but I'd rather not do the mullet.) 

I'm too cheap to purchase the following items so I steal them from gas stations:

- tiny International Delight coffee creamers
- sugar packets
- napkins
- salt & pepper packets

Rather than moisturize with Bath & Body Works Berry Bananza lotion or whatever I moisturize with OFF! Deep Woods Sportsmen bug spray.

I'm eating better than I did in Sarasota because I'm forced to make wise choices when I stop at Piggly Wigglys for groceries. I buy berries. I buy bananas. I do not buy chips or cookies. Chips and cookies hold me over for about an hour and then I'm hungry again. Cookies are gifted to me by all midwestern moms and dads I've stayed with so far. (Thank you Mr. & Mrs. Schnelle.) Besides, I won't buy anything Cubbie can't eat and chocolate upsets his stomach. I think.

My biggest complaint right now is that I don't have my bicycle. I couldn't fit my fat pug into the basket Betsy gave me so I left the bike at home. I'm going through withdrawls. I despise jogging and so does Cubbie. So I suppose I'll have to be content with the amount of physical activity I get from schlepping my cooler into the shade whenever the sun changes positions and putting up and taking down my campsite in the sweltering, swamp-assing heat of the day.

Anyway. Ro just called. Yeah, I'm on the phone writing emails from a picnic table in southern Missouri. I'm getting a tan and really ... I'm not roughing it at all.

When I've crapped in the woods I'll let ya know.

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Monday, June 18, 2007

Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City is posh. The shopping is upscale and chic. The houses are enormous and cheap. Everyone seems to have a deck, a furnished basement and a subbasement. Kids marry young in Kansas City. Not to suggest that marrying young is in any way abnormal or problematic. Not in the least. It's just the way it is. I'm envious a little of how every young, adorable couple I met had their lives under control. Their careers, their domesticity, their Maytag appliances … for every lapse in my judgment, for every second guess, for every fickle move I made in the past or to come … the couples I met in Kansas City were so well put together I hoped that just by brushing elbows with some of them, their clear-headedness would rub off on me.
KC was my last stop in the Midwest. Phew too! I was aching to go west. (I saw more of Missouri in one week than of my own home state.)

I arranged to stay with my friends Meg and Cory, who moved from Kansas City to Sarasota and then back again over a year ago. I miss them! I want them back! I realize now that there are only three ways around missing Meg and Cory. Clone them, visit them or insist they visit me. I love these two. Cory talks slower than anyone I know. He has an interesting vocabulary and is funny in a very understated, what's-so-funny? kind of way. He used to wear flannel pajama pants to work (European Marble.) Betsy used to ask if he was stoned. (He wasn't.) Although Cory did not make many friends in Sarasota, on the night before he moved to Kansas City he got schnokered and (almost) admitted to wishing he had. Meg reminds me of Jennifer Aniston. She walks the line effortlessly between ever going overboard on any of her hugely gracious characteristics. She listens so well and offers such good advice she should break from designing Hallmark's catalogs and write their greeting cards instead.

Cory and Meg's house is enormous by Sarasota standards. The carpet is plush and super soft on my feet even though Cory plans on ripping it out. Meg has paisley-printed dishes and dishtowels so pretty I could tie them on as headbands. They have big, comfy suede sofas that we saved one night from her cousin's "I'm OK to drive home" puking friend. We (sort of) cooked dinner for her dad on Father's Day. We lied out on the deck in our suits and read Cosmo. We (sort of) shopped. We drank Sangria. We ate Pizza Shoppe pizza with her mom. We highlighted my road atlas along all the routes I've traveled so far. We rented chick flicks and ate frozen custard at Sheridans, a custard stand that has hula-hoops hanging up for people to hula with while they're waiting for their orders. We ate pasta and drank great wine with the Kansas City Chief of Police. I played fetch with a golden retriever whose name is slipping me right now. I had such a good time I decided to stay an extra night. When I left early Monday morning Meg was heading out the door for work, Cory's alarm was going off, Cubbie was splayed out on the kitchen tile, my car was packed with Gatorade, peanuts, Oreos and Oatmeal Cream Pies from Meg's mom, Patty. I had tucked inside my wallet a business card from KC's Chief of Police.
"Take this," he said half-joking, half-not, "… if you have any trouble."

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Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Quinter, Kansas
I did what everyone told me to do in Kansas. I drove in a straight line from east to west. About an hour out of Kansas City the land flattened into high plains like TV tables in the fields of wheat. It was raining when I pulled out of Meg and Cory's place in KC, Missouri. It was the first time since Tennessee that I had to use my windshield wipers. I was dreading the drive – doubly now because I hate driving in the rain and because everyone I know (with the exception of my editors) said the state of Kansas was one big drive-right-through-it-if-you-can bore.

Cory called me soon after my leaving his place.

"Just checking to make sure you got out of the city alright."
"Yeah, I'm good. It's raining."
"How far are you?"
"A little ways into Kansas."
"Good luck. There aint shit to see."

You were all wrong. Kansas is spectacular. In the same way I respect the pair of cutoff khaki shorts I've had since I was 14, I respect Kansas — for its unfussiness. Whenever I reach a place where I can see so far I have to squint things into focus, my imagination runs wild. And if there is anything in this world I want to run wild, it is my imagination.

Kansas is a canvas.

Wish I had camped in Kansas. Took me a few hours to get through it. Pulled over several times to take pictures. Ate lunch on a dirt road in between the wheat fields. Met no locals and was fine with that.

The sun popped out about half way through. I blasted my radio. Daydreamed. Felt unencumbered. Felt like I wouldn't mind living in such a place. Felt like Dorothy had a good thing going when she said, "There's no place like home."

I pulled over in Quinter, Kansas. Sat on the side of a dirt road that stretched so far into the horizon I squinted my eyes and narrowed it into one gold strand. Imagined Kansas like Goldilocks. Thanked Kansas for its carbohydrates. Sat on a folded bed sheet, leaned up against the car, let Cubbie loose into a wheat field and watched as patches of dusty gray dandelions wisps stuck to his black face. I didn't bother to pick them off at first because he looked so perfect covered in them. I asked Cubbie what he thought of Kansas and he said he didn't understand what all those people were talking about when they said to drive right through it.

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PS. It was my friend Meg who insisted one night while we were up talking for hours that I write this Lance. I remember her saying, "It's right up your alley. It's free. For godsakes just do it." Thank you, Meg. Your encouragement has always meant the world to me. Visit Mimi & Meg. She has impeccable taste in fashion and interior design. I seriously stopped buying In Style magazine when she started the site. She's what I like to call a cool hunter.  

A sucker for beautiful talented people.

I have never, ever tired of the Oscars. Even when the show crawls past midnight, I never turn the TV off.

Even as a kid, when I had no clue who the nominees for Best Supporting Actor were, I'd root for the guy, who when the camera panned his face, seemed humbled by the nomination.

Even when my father bitched that the only movies to ever win Oscars were boring ones he'd never seen, I'd righteously back the Academy's choices. Even as a 12-year-old.

Even when my mother suggested I go to bed before Best Picture had been announced, I'd weasel my way through the end of the telecast.

Even when I went to school the next morning gibbering on about animated short films no one in my rural high school gave two shits about, I never scoffed at the Oscars.

It was my Super Bowl.

I was insanely jealous of the actresses. Their dresses. Their bodies. Their skin. Their grace. Their effusive speeches. I wanted their talent. Their dates. Their doe eyes and bee-stung lips. I was fascinated by the way they tiptoed to the podium and clutched their golden barbells like freedom fighters in silk Valentino, forging forward in battle.

When I bought my first pair of high heels in 2004 – just before moving to Florida to become a newspaper reporter – I practiced walking from the living room to the kitchen by conjuring up images of Charlize Theron accepting her Oscar for Monster.

I realize the awards themselves are mostly overblown. In the scheme of sobering world affairs, actors congratulating actors seems almost bombastic. Yet I'm swept away by the industry's enthusiasm, even when Roberto Benigni clownishly accepts a Best Actor award and I can only understand two words of his speech.

On a frigid February night, in my parent's living room, on a worn sectional sofa in a Western New York farm town 2,500 miles from Hollywood, Calif., the Oscars were a glitzy portal, bloated with beautiful people applauding high stakes creativity.

I even baked special blueberry muffins before watching the ceremony; the same blueberry muffins I baked before watching Ally McBeal.

Naturally, I had crushes on the screenwriters.

I had a good hunch Quentin would win for Pulp Fiction in 1994, as I had read a profanely eloquent interview with him in Talk magazine several months before the awards. In the year of Titanic, when Matt & Ben won for Goodwill Hunting, I considered writing them a congratulatory note on my Christmas stationary set. And last year, when Diablo Cody nabbed an Oscar for Juno, I considered a career in stripping to support my novel-writing.

To Joe's delight, I did not apply for a job at Mons Venus for fear that the opposite shifts would kill our evening Rummy games.

Anyway, I'm a sucker for the Oscars ...

And if I were Mickey Rourke, I'd get me a haircut, a new Chihuahua and start baking blueberry muffins for Jon Favreau.

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PS. Killer Marisa Tomei illustration by Rob Kelly for Time Out New York.

Treading dopamine, waiting for my ship to come in.

There are eight men outside my office window sawing down a tree. The noise is sharpening all the Q-tips in my house into tiny white knives.

These clowns have been cutting down trees all week. It's like listening to 100 dentists bore 100 cavities at once.

I'm half inclined to ask them if I can have a few logs for our outdoor fire pit, but I'm sure the City of St. Pete has loftier plans ... what with its stellar reputation for recycling.

It a spectacular day out. Gray. Rainy. Sky the color of a chalkboard. Perfect writing weather. It's not that bad weather inspires me to write, it's that the break in 75-degree monotonous sunshine triggers spirited introspection, which is such an ungrateful thing for a Buffalo girl to say, so my apologies to the folks back home.

Which brings me to my next tangent. Lately I've been fascinated by the human brain, in particular the day-to-day drudgery that is pierced by darts of distraction dipped in dopamine. What triggers these stabs of bliss and ambition? And why must they hit at the most inconvenient times?

Dopamine, just so we're clear, is a neurotransmitter, a chemical produced in our brains that serves as a lifeboat for neurons. When I picture dopamine, I picture ladies in Victorian dresses treading cold blue water in the North Atlantic as the Titanic sinks slowly in the distance. I picture a sea of dopamine carrying yellow lifeboats, and I picture bustle gowns like sensory neurons, billowing out under glacial water, desperate for a lifeboat, stockinged legs paddling dopamine like dendritic cellular projections.

When I picture our brain, I picture the globe. Divided into hemispheres, our brain is not unlike the earth. The frontal lobe is where most of our dopamine-sensitive neurons sit and stew, waiting patiently, hands clasped on their laps like southern belles at the Kentucky Derby, for a dopamine breeze to blow their hats off.

Often when we think of our brain's pleasure molecules, we think of serotonin. But in my not-so-expert opinion, serotonin is fleeting. Like a bite-sized Snickers. Dopamine however, seems more enduring. Like a gallon of chocolate ice cream.

Just the sound of the word dopamine is intoxicating. First discovered in 1952 by a Swedish scientist, (who by the way wasn't awarded his Nobel Prize for this discovery until 2000) dopamine is my enemy and my lover.

I drink dopamine every day in my coffee, and I know I could get it elsewhere if I wanted, but I tell myself to buck up, synthesize it on your own.

Which is why I'm throwing every ounce of literary ambition into a novel. I want to swim laps in a sea of dopamine. The last time I attempted a novel, I was so filled with dopamine it seeped out my eyes. 

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PS. The picture is by Norbert Wu. It is not a Victorian bustle gown but the largest jellyfish in the Antarctic Circle. It was featured in TIME Magazine and published in Wu's 2004 book, Under Antarctic Ice.