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.  

Haute coiffure

To the left you will see two pictures – one taken three months ago after receiving a $50 haircut at a swank salon in St. Pete, the other taken last week after receiving a $5 haircut at a beauty school in the ghetto.

Can you tell which is which?

I'm posting these pictures for two reasons:

1. I'm no princess about my hair, but I'm very particular about its shortness. The second it grows out, I run to chop it off. Because of this urge I've had the same hairstyle for 10 years. 

2. I got an e-mail recently from one of my editors asking where I get my hair cut. I responded with, "funny you should ask ..." followed by a brief explanation of how a girl goes from cutting her own hair with the kitchen scissors to forking over $50 for a more professional job. 

From that e-mail:

When Joe and I first met I was cutting my hair with the kitchen scissors. On especially indulgent days, I'd fork over $12 at Super Cuts and call it a day. I remember he URGED me to make an appointment with J.Con (a fancy St. Pete hair salon.) I remember he told me it would, "change my life." It was as if I had been cutting my hair with a Flowbee. Eventually he bought me a gift certificate for Christmas, and for a year two years thereafter I only got my hair cut at J.Con – and I only made appointments with Cara, the chick who cuts his hair.

 

J.Con is hip, modern and smells like Aveda hair products, which is what I imagine Jennifer Aniston smells like on windy days.

J.Con stylists are hot. Seriously, seriously hot. They dress in only black and white and at first glance resemble Victoria's Secret model Ana Beatriz Barros. Cara, my old stylist, is no exception. She looks like a brunette Julianne Hough from Dancing with the Stars. 

Usually I bring in a picture of Sienna Miller. Something like this.

And Cara, who by now doesn't need to see my grubby magazine tear-out, chops at my hair like Edward Scissorhands and I usually walk away feeling like Sienna's less attractive younger sister, which is great. 

Now, before you get the wrong idea, it should be said that Cara gives absolutely fantastic haircuts. I recommended her to my editor, as well as other J. Con stylists, because frankly they are all stellar.

Problem is: us girls with seemingly short low-maintenance hair need to get it cut every five to six weeks, which wasn't a big deal until I moved to Florida.

Back home my mom would just cut it, or my sister's friend Laurie, who on one occasion buzzed my mop off with an electric razor. 

It's hard enough to make friends in a new state, let alone friends who are willing to cut an asymmetrical bob. The J.Con haircuts were making my Liz Claiborne wallet whimper. The more I thought about dropping fifty bucks on my hair, the more I thought about how else I could spend the money, which was when I discovered J.Con's massage therapist, Stephanie, who unbeknownst to Cara was the real reason I reallocated my hair fund. 

To cushion the blow, I began dragging out my cuts, making appointments with cheaper J.Con stylists and cutting it myself whenever it grew too shaggy.  Joe even trimmed it once after I ran around the house ranting about how I looked like Joe Dirt. 

And then there was last week's adventures in low-brow primping after I received a card in the mail advertising for $5 haircuts at Loraines Academy, a beauty school off 9th Avenue in St. Pete.

"Frig these $50 haircuts," I told Joe one evening, brandishing Loraine's postcard. "I'm gonna see what five dollars buys me."

When I called the number on the card, a woman with a smoker's voice told me it wasn't necessary to make an appointment, instead she suggested I swing by the salon between 5 and 8 – when the students were "in class."

"Perfect!" I said, hanging up the phone. "I'll cook dinner when I get back." 

Loraines was 20 minutes away, or so it seemed as I drove a dark, seedy stretch of 9th Avenue, past vacant Rent-A-Centers, mobile home parks and dimly-lit convenient stores. When I finally found the salon, in a Big Lots plaza next door to a Chuck E. Cheese, I had to circle the parking lot three times before I found a space. Chuck E. Cheese was oozing with children and as a result, the entire plaza was a zoo.

After 15 minutes of space-stalking, I walked into Loraines, where a man with yellow shellacked hair took my five-dollar bill and scribbled my name on a sheet of paper. 

The salon smelled like 99-cent strawberry shampoo. The waiting room chairs were upholstered in vinyl and felt clammy under the jet stream of A/C blowing down from the ceiling. As I sat and waited for my name to be called, I flipped through the pages of a Redbook magazine and nodded my head to the rap radio station that was drowning out the sound of blow dryers and gossip.

In one corner of Loraines, a guy about 45-ish stood at a station perming the hair on a plastic mannequin head, wrapping fake blond strands around curlers, chatting with the girl next to him, who was also perming mannequin hair. 

"Neidi!" I heard a woman call. "Neidi you're up."

Neidi, if you haven't guessed it, was me. Heidi. The man who took my name at the front desk, wrote it like Neidi, which was how the stylist pronounced it when it was time for my cut. Since I was the only customer in the waiting room, I perked up and said, "that's me."

Without exchanging pleasantries, Daymie (the Cuban stylist who knew very little English) sized up my head and asked in less than three words what it was I wanted. Rummaging through my purse for the grubby Sienna Miller tear-out I said, "I want this girl's hair."

She considered the picture for a moment, then said, "You have this already."

"Yeah, I know. I'm just looking for a trim. I hate when my hair grows out into a mullet."

"Mullet?" She asked.

"You know. Business in the front. Party in the back."

She narrowed her eyes and shrugged. "Don't know," she said.

The guy perming the mannequin head poked up from his client to study my magazine tear-out. 

"Cute," he said, turning back to his client. For a second it looked as if he was going to ask the mannequin if she too wanted a cut like Sienna's.

After a quick dousing with strawberry shampoo, Daymie walked me back to her station and flagged a Loraine's instructor. 

"Help," she said, handing him the picture.

After a 5-minute lesson in layering, Daymie was given a comb and scissors and told to give it a whirl. Lucky for her, I've made a career out of butchering my hair, so I barely winced when she made the first cut with a terrified oh-shit look on her face. What was the worst she could do? Give me Rosie O'Donnell's lop-sided tribute to Boy George? Bah. 

As she snipped slowly and painfully at each strand, I conversed with the teenage girl sitting next to me, who was getting her hair done for the prom, followed by a $6 Loraines pedicure. 

"Your hair looks cute," she said. 

"Thanks. So does yours."

"Thanks."

"Where's your prom?"

"Tradewinds Resort on St. Pete Beach."

"Awesome. I took my fiancé there for his birthday."

"Is it nice?"

"Really, really nice. I think it's the perfect place for a prom."

"Oh good. I was worried a little. This one is supposed to be real fancy. Like we were told to dress up super formal."

"Are you not into that?" I asked.

"Well, not really," she said. "The way I see it is, people already know what I look like. It's like who'm I tryin to impress? I'm still gonna be me in heels and sparkles. What difference does it make if I dress up or dress down? I just wanna be comfortable."

"Amen," I said, pinching at a chunk of hair and instructing Daymie to lop it off. "I like it short in the back. No mullet."

For a hair cut that was laughably close to what I already had, it took poor Daymie 45 minutes to do it. When she was through – after she had dropped her roller brush on my fingertips twice, blow dried the ends under like George Washington's powdered wig, and squirted my head with a fine mist of Biolage hairspray – I went home to cook dinner for Joe.

"It looks great!" He said as I walked through the door. "It's rounder or something."

"She blow dried it under," I said. 

"It's not much different than what you had."

"That's what Daymie said."

"It bounces though!"

"And smells like strawberries."

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PS. Last night I went out for drinks with my friend Loren, who writes this blog for the newspaper I write for. We got on the subject of hair. After I told her the details of my $5 cut, she blew me away with the details of her $180 haircut. I couldn't resist the urge. I had to take a picture. Her hair looks amazing, but $180! That's three massages!