Anonymity

One thing about blogs: the more people in your life who read them, the harder it becomes to write about your life. If, for example, I wanted to review the show I saw recently, I might stop myself for fear that friends in the show would stumble upon that review. Not writing the review, then, IS a review -- but it ain’t good reading. I can, of course, write about myself without fear; but then I run the risk of publishing the Narcissism Chronicles, which limits my readership to a very narrow and specific field of interested parties who’ve missed their morning doses. There must be a middle ground. Somewhere.

I pondered the possibilities this morning while simultaneously running my name through the myriad of online name generators. One of the last things a Nashville agent told me, upon hearing my Polish-jumble-of-letters surname, was that I needed a stage name. A performer whose name is difficult to pronounce, spell, or remember is less likely to be hired than other performers, and my name takes the prize in all categories. Unless I am present to do the demonstrative “lap – chin – ski” dance. This involves bending a little at the knees, first pointing toward my thighs, then upward toward my jaw, and finally whipping out a pair of air poles for an imaginary launch down K2. After such a display, my name remains difficult to pronounce and spell but becomes infinitely more memorable. My sanity, however, is soon questioned.

And so the internet search.

Online name generators came up with options like these: Emily Wilkinson, Kimberly Williams, and Gabrielle. There is also Eunice Dimples, Lily Moonshine, and Slut Bun Walla, but none of these names seem quite… me.

First of all, I don’t see any reason to change my first name. Short, easy to spell, difficult to mispronounce, and mine for more than three decades, “Kelly” works for me. Besides, I think I’d have a hard time remembering to respond to someone calling me “Eunice.” So, it’s the last name that I need to concentrate on.

Now, I happen to like my scribble of a signature, which consists wholly of two letters. This means, if I want to keep it, I have to choose a last name that starts with an “L.” Thus my fun-loving plays on the sound – Ells, Ellis, and Elski – are right out. The jazz world claims a “Kelly Lancaster,” and a Google search of “Kelly Lapp” and the odd concoction “Kelly LaBeth” find folks I’d rather not be confused with. And still, those names are not quite… me.

To find a name that felt more personal, I tried to circumvent the element of fakery by trolling through old family names: Kendall, Tisdale, Brooks… but nothing was working for me. I was stuck; the only name that fit was the one I was born with. After all, if the best revenge is living well, one should probably keep a name the bastards recognize.

And so my wasted morning solved neither problem: neither a stage name nor a blog perspective was found. Unless….

Hi. My name is Josephine Bloganski, and let me tell you about this show I saw this weekend….

Fantasy Life

Save one, my fantasy cast was dead on. The cast of Boy Gets Girl met Wednesday night for the first reading of the script. One by one, faces I had hoped and expected to see filled the room.

Boy Gets Girl will mark my third foray into San Diego theatre, and in each production I've played opposite what is now a very familiar face. Rett Becker, who was one of the Costazuela brothers in The Odd Couple and my tryst-to-be in Move Over, Mrs. Markham, will be playing my boss, Howard, in this show.

I met with photographer Tony Eisenhower on Thursday to get a jump on publicity photos. I sat at his wife's desk as he shot me through the office window to give the picture the proper stalker perspective, then I sat behind him at his desk while he zipped through the digital files on his home studio equipment. We picked the four best photos to send to the theatre and he burned copies for me onto a disc that he then ran through a special printer to label. Looking at all that cool techie stuff with envy, I was struck by an overwhelming need to marry a doctor, stat.

On the other hand, there are plenty of things to enjoy for free. Tonight I've been comped into a show in Chula Vista, where two friends are performing at OnStage Playhouse as a married couple in Prelude to a Kiss. The Artistic Director there, who offered the comps, laughed when she heard from me. "I talked to Chris the other day after auditions." (Chris will be playing the stalker in Boy Gets Girl.) "He said he read with this girl, Kelly, and she rocked the house! I knew it was you! You've been in town, what, five minutes and you've already got a part!"

Yeah, I'm kinda loving that, too. And, through another A.D., I've already got a lead on another show after this one. She'll be throwing a script my way soon.

Yep, I just hate it here. Just... hate it.

Audit and Audition

This week, I drove halfway across the country for an audition.  A juicy part; a role I really wanted.  I wasn’t required to attend the first round Monday night, but met some stiff competition on Tuesday.  Even so, afterward I felt optimistic: I knew how I’d cast the show and (not that I’m biased) I was in my fantasy cast.  My fantasy casts, however, rarely match the director’s vision.  Fortunately, I won’t have to wait too long to discover how close this particular fantasy comes to the real thing: I meet the full compliment for the first read Wednesday.  I got it!

Two days out of the car, I’ll be working for the same director who cast me, one day off a plane, in The Odd Couple last January.  If I’d gone in Monday, I could have kept the one-day parallel alive.  Maybe it’s sequential: one day the first time, two days the second…..  Anyway, can I (nick of) time my vacations or what?

That said…

A few days before I left Nashville, I sent two boxes ahead of me, via UPS.  On Monday I did not leave the apartment at all, waiting for delivery.  The parallels to my last visit just keep coming -- the packages, however, do not.  Though I was here to accept anything that might knock, ring, or explode, nothing did.  Online tracking, however, said otherwise.

Déjà vu.

Tuesday, when I called to be sure that the second attempt would reach the correct apartment, I was sucked into the automated-system-corporate-customer-service-system-from-hell.  Wanting only to make sure that my personal effects weren’t being delivered to Immature Jock #47 in apartment 22B, I felt I was instead getting a delivery driver into trouble.  If the state of my things when they arrived late that afternoon is any indication, that’s exactly what I’d done – and he wanted revenge.  Ouch.  Joke’s on him, though: I sent very few breakables.

With my goodies delivered, I could finally de-sequester myself for my first San Diego outing.  Thrill-seeker that I am, I went to gas up the car so that I could complete my trip records.  You asked for stats.  Here they are:

Gas: $183.50
Food, souvenirs, & sundries: $124
Lodging: 3 nights = $191.47 (includes one desperation double)

Total time between points A and B: 74 hours
Total Mileage: 2083 miles
Gallons of gas used: 77.7
Miles per gallon, highway, in the new car: 26.8

Average price per gallon:  $2.36
Lowest price: Calumet, OK at $2.169
Highest price: San Diego, CA at $2.699

Beating professional delivery drivers across country by 4 days: priceless.

Take Off Your Hobo Shoes, Part II

Gila Bend. You’ve heard of the Gila Monster?

Yeah, he’s from here: the western Arizona desert. And maybe, to the Gila Monster, the Space Age Lodge– a 1963, pre-moonwalk vision of the future with a flying saucer on top (click the link, please, I beg you) -- still seems futuristic. Too far removed from Route 66 to be pleasingly kitschy and too thin-walled to be pleasantly sleep-inducing, the best I can say for my experience there is that I was, at least, off the road for a few hours.

Sunday morning, in the room, I wrote the first draft of Part I of this story. Uploading pictures and links, I was working online when my connection – and the post – was lost. Leaving no time to start writing again before check-out, it was a bad beginning to what was, fortunately, the last day of the journey. There were only 283 miles to go.

With the difficulty finding a place to stay, the number of disturbances that kept me from sleeping, and the morning inter-net-ruption, I came to the conclusion that Murphy (he of the law) is from Arizona. The rest of the day confirmed it.

By this time I’d learned that in the western desert, you take ANY opportunity presented to you for a restroom, gas, or food, but I failed to notice the Outer Limits Coffee Shop attached to the hotel until it was in the rearview. I found myself searching for something to nibble on the wilds of I-8 when I came upon a rest area with vending machines. My eye landed on pretzels and I fed the machine my dollar in quarters, watched the spiral mechanism turn, and gaped as the pretzels hung, unreleased, in the machine.

If you haven’t traveled in a while, or if you have but avoided rest area vending machines as a rule, then you might not know that these things are locked and bolted down behind bars. There’s no jostling your item loose. So I did the only other logical thing: I put another dollar in quarters in the machine, hoping the second bag would push the first forward to drop. I might get one bag or two, but I would have my pretzels.

Or not.

If you happen to be driving by a rest stop in western Arizona off I-8, there are two bags of pretzels hanging there, waiting for you.

In time, I stumbled upon Dateland and the Dateland Palms Restaurant, home of “world famous” date shakes. Dateland is where they grow dates, eat dates, and love dates. Murphy must have taken a lunch break, too, because I really enjoyed this stop. I bellied up to the lunch counter, where I found another Ben Goode book waiting to be thumbed, and ordered a regular old burger, fries, and a Diet Coke. On the way out, I ordered a date shake to go. Well, it IS world famous, after all. And, oh my GOD, was it good!

After lunch, I was thankful to have only a few hours left to the drive. The extent of my human interaction in the three days I’d been on the road had been limited to “do you have a room?” and “I’m ready for the check,” and though I was happy to be making the trip alone, by mid Arizona I was dying for conversation.

A funny thing happens to the radio somewhere around New Mexico. There are fewer and fewer stations to tune to and as you continue west more and more of those have Spanish programming. There is no talk radio to be found. Sports talk, money talk, right wing nut job talk… nothing. (The latter is particularly surprising as it seems that the farther west you go, the more right wing nut jobs you find). And I don’t care how great the music you packed with you is, after almost 30 hours of it, your ears need a break. I was thrilled, briefly, to catch the last 15 minutes of Car Talk on a fading NPR station, but when The Thistle and Shamrock was scheduled next, I measured my desperation against Celtic warbling and silence won.

On the stretch between Gila Bend and the California border I noticed an inordinate number of bumper stickers on cars and trailers that read “Got Sand?” Upon crossing the border, I knew why: the Imperial Sand Dunes. I stopped to take a picture, but Murphy ate my camera batteries. (I knew he'd stopped for lunch!) As it turns out, though, you don’t need the picture. If you’ve seen the Star Wars movies, you’ve seen the dunes.

For the bulk of the drive from Nashville, I played a driving point of reference game with myself. In Tennessee, I know Interstate 24 exits like the back of my hand: 178 is Chattanooga, 134 is Monteagle, 105 is Manchester, 81 is Murfreesboro. Around exit 66, there’s a patch of rough road that will from here on be known to me as “Oklahoma.” Exit 59 is Nashville’s Bell Road, 53 is the 440 split. I know the exits between and beyond these; I can tell you where the speed traps are; and I could almost drive the road with my eyes closed. So, when driving through any state on I-40, I used 24 as my ruler: if I was Chattanooga-away from my goal, I’d stop for coffee. If I was Murfreesboro-away from my goal, I’d drive on. Once I got past the sand dunes in California, however, I wouldn’t stop at all until I was homeless no more.

The rest of the drive presented another elevation roller coaster, this time only reaching 4,000 feet from sea level. Though I’d driven on the 8 during my last visit to San Diego, I’d never approached the city from the east; when San Diego appeared, it was an abrupt ending to a long trip.

I parked the car, grabbed only my computer and overnight bag, and entered the apartment to find a birthday present waiting: a scrapbook of my life so far. Thanks, Mom.

And thus begins the next chapter from San Diego….

Take Off Your Hobo Shoes, Part I

Beginning the third leg of my journey after turning in my room key Saturday, I paused for a short tour of Albuquerque, stopping first at the Model Pharmacy for lunch. Yes, pharmacy. Behind the hair clips and bath salts lurks a full soda fountain and lunch counter recommended by Roadfood afficianados Jane and Michael Stern.

Although the Sterns had suggested the green chile stew, the BLT on the menu caught my eye. When I asked the waitress for her favorite, it was decided: the BLT it was. While I was waiting for the pig strips to crisp, I attempted to snap a few pictures, but the camera seemed to make the natives restless and was soon tucked politely away. I wouldn’t leave without putting that milkshake equipment to good use, though.

At a table, reading the local weekly fish wrap (the Alibi) I had to fight the urge to spend a few matinee hours in a dark New Mexico movie theatre when I discovered one was playing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in second-run. I reminded myself that that was no way to enjoy my limited time in Albuquerque and promptly decided to burn a bit of daylight at the Jiffy Lube instead. It was well past time for an oil change and I still had 800 miles to go.

Route 66 passes through Albuquerque, so I took the scenic route out of town.






Stopping along the way for gas…















…and a photo op at the Continental Divide.






That Frank is such a camera whore!


I’d love to spend more time in New Mexico someday, visiting Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, and that great big starlit sky. The state drove like a launching pad to heaven.

Conveniently near dinner time, I reached Holbrook, Arizona, where I planned to stop to eat at Joe & Aggie’s Café.


Joe & Aggie’s is an old, cozy, little café on the old Route 66, ideal for eating alone. I could kiss the Sterns for this one. When I asked the waitress what she’d recommend she told me “we sell a lot of the combo platters.” And no wonder: that taco and two -- er, tortilla thingies -- were very tasty.

I ordered a Miller Lite I’d seen on the menu, but when my waitress yelled from the kitchen “we don’t have Miller Lite. We’ve got Bud Light or Coors Light,” I took the Bud. When it arrived, I was amused by its blue aluminum bottle. I was further amused that it came with a wine glass. I thumbed through the humor book perched on the table while I waited for my meal – a book called “How to Make People Think You Are Normal” by Ben Goode. I somehow doubt that taking a picture of a stuffed rat in front of a wine glass full of Bud Light is a recommendation anywhere in that book. But here it is:


My waitress brought a small paper bag to the table along with my bill, telling me to keep the beer bottle. Then she took it to the kitchen, rinsed out the beer smell (“you never know nowadays”), and handed it back to me with another empty – this one red – for collecting dimes and pennies. It’d hold $6.50 in pennies, she told me. She hadn’t filled her dime bottle yet.

And that’s where the fun ends in Arizona. I hopped back on 40-W, headed for interstate 17. Headed for San Diego rather than LA, I would be correcting my route southward and leaving the old Route 66 parallel behind me. The new road should have come with a warning: “Abandon all hope ye who enter here. Steep grade, no exits, 124 miles. No gas, no food, no lodging. Gas up, get coffee, and pee now. That means you!”

There was no such sign.

Now, I didn’t mind the mountain grade (I once regularly enjoyed driving Monteagle Mountain in Middle Tennessee) but if New Mexico was a launch pad to heaven, Arizona was a sinkhole to hell -- if your version of hell is a place where you can't get anything you need and you can't escape.

I had hoped to stop for the night outside of Phoenix so that I could enjoy the city by daylight, as I had done in Oklahoma City and Albuquerque, but it proved impossible. Although I could see paradise by the Days Inn light looming seven miles ahead on I-17, the exit I needed to meet I-10 came first. So close to the city, I figured, that 101 loop and interstate 10 would offer plenty of opportunities to stop on the outskirts of town.

Well… I wasn’t WRONG, exactly. There were hotels along the 10. Several. All booked solid. Margie, a clerk at the Best Western where I all but broke down in exhausted frustration, mentioned something about a NASCAR race and the Phoenix Speedway, but even with the benefit of the web, I can’t figure out what was going on this weekend. Whatever it was, though, kept me from getting a room anywhere near Phoenix. In fact, Margie feared that, going west, I’d have trouble finding a room even in California.

Now, Margie required no special skills or mind-reading powers to know that I needed a bed, stat, so she went to work calling other hotels around town. Finally, she found a place with one room left. It was an expensive double room and I’d have to drive another hour south to get there, but it was available and I needed it, so we booked the room and I drove on to Gila Bend. Even after struggling to stay awake through the backwoods drive to the hotel, had we not already charged my credit card, I would have pushed on right past the Space Age Lodge.

The joy that would be Gila Bend… and the rest of my journey into the Pacific Time Zone… in Part II. Coming soon to a monitor near you.

On the Road Again

Interstate 40 West is an exceptionally unremarkable drive, so I haven’t minded burning a bit of daylight before getting back on the long and boring road. Yesterday, I spent an hour touring Oklahoma City. Downtown, I followed the signs to the Oklahoma City National Memorial, but the signs gave up too soon and in time, so  did I. I backtracked to Bricktown, home of the Oklahoma RedHawks, took a couple of pics, and headed back to the interstate.







Now, before we go on, you should meet my travel buddy, Frank Sinatrat, pictured here outside our first overnight stop: the Shawnee Super 8.

We stopped for this pic...

...but even ol’ white eyes couldn’t withstand the wind.

The next stop would be in Elk City, home of the National Route 66 Museum and Billy’s, a recommended Roadfood restaurant.

I found Billy’s first. Dubbed the “Best in the West”, the little roadside joint boasts onion-fried burgers and fresh cut fries. After Billy had put the goodies on the grill, he asked me where I was from, handed me a pin, and pointed to the maps on the wall: one of the US, one of the world. People had come from everywhere to visit his place. Mine was the second pin from Nashville.

Although I am on a lifelong quest for the perfect chili dog and Billy’s serves coneys, I ordered the famous onion burger and a side of tater tots. Soon after I began my meal, Billy dropped another basket on my table. “I just want you to try my fries.” Soon, other customers arrived and I shared my bounty with a toddler who was waiting for his own order of fries.

Then I made my way to the Route 66 museum.




Admission is cheap, which is fortunate because the museum is disappointing. It looked more like a cleverly arranged antique store than anything else. Having been to Bell Buckle, I was unimpressed.

A Corvette with a drive-in tray on the window caught my eye, but the museum – the size of an average 1 bedroom apartment – was little more than a detour to the gift shop.

From Elk City, I was racing the sunset to Amarillo, where I hoped to find the Cadillac Ranch. I’d say we tied; but Texas roads have an inconvenient you-can’t-get-there-from-here way about them. From 40-West, you’ll end up on Arnot Road going north. You need to go south. Which you can only do from 40-East. Looking for a way to cross the interstate as the sun settled behind the horizon, I put enough road behind me to save that detour for another trip.
I had, however, taken another detour on the way. Though I knew I'd be pushing it to Amarillo, when you pass a sign that reads “Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere!” you are obligated to stop. It really doesn't matter whether it's a cross or not -- it could be a spitball, I don't care -- if it’s the biggest anything in a whole HEMISPHERE, you stop. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. So, I stopped at the cross in Groom, Texas. By the Blessed Mary American Tex Mex Restaurant.

I’ve discovered a new phobia. I had no clue this was lurking in my psyche, but this thing scared me witless.



I did walk the Stations of the Cross beneath it (to give you an idea of scale, the stations are life-sized), but I did it quickly, irrationally afraid that the structure would at any moment fall and crush me. The twelfth station, where Jesus dies on the cross, is removed from the base by a distance I could not bring myself to traverse in the cross’ shadow.

The fear of large objects is called Megalaphobia, but I’ve never had a problem with skyscrapers. Then again, they don’t tend to stand alone in fields. For now, I’ll simply say I was utterly Crosstrophobic. I rushed to my car and sped out of the radius of the cross, then waited a few miles for my heart rate to stabilize. No sir, I didn't like it.

I’ve since learned, on the Roadside America website, that this is the second largest cross. Guess what I will NEVER be visiting…. And to think, I thought those windmill things were spooky!

After two days of driving through lands so flat and barren that I could actually envision dinosaurs as SMALL things, I drove into New Mexico. Just shy of Albuquerque, I could tell that I was missing some landscape in the dark. Mountain ranges and … and… TREES! Also knowing that the land ahead in Arizona and SoCal would be mostly desert, I decided to stop for the night and take a good look at New Mexico in the daylight.

Here’s a morning shot from my hotel window.



No Frank, I know. But somebody had to keep an eye on the car.

I’m going to kill some daylight today in the Albuquerque area. I might even stop in at Model Pharmacy for lunch. Then, as the sun goes down, I’ll be back on the road.

A few more thoughts and observations before I turn in my room key:

If you’re drinking coffee on the road, avoid Citgo. Shell coffee is generally good. TA Travel Centers have the best coffee and a nice selection of coffee condiments. If you prefer Equal to Sweet-N-Low, buy a box before you get in the car.

All hail VISA. Unless you carry a Phillips 66 card, forget all of the gas cards in your wallet throughout Oklahoma and Texas. I knew I’d returned to civilization in New Mexico when I saw the shining Exxon sign on the horizon.

Driving west has its advantages. Twice during the drive, you gain an hour. And if wake up on Central Time and return your room key on Mountain Time, you can feel like you’ve gained the same hour twice.

Where the Wind Comes Whipping

Oklahoma… where the wind comes whipping up the plain. Plain is right.

I’d never been to Oklahoma before. OK-LA-HO-MA Oklahoma! My goal today: to get the hell out of it.

My journey began, wheels to the interstate, at 4 pm Central time. I turned in the keys to my apartment and began the long journey west from Nashville to San Diego. This time, I’m driving.

The sun set early in the drive. Memphis is pretty at night. Unfortunately, about the same time you realize that, you’re on the bridge crossing the Mississippi River and crossing the state line to Arkansas. You can’t stop for a picture. For the next several hundred miles, there'd be no other reason to stop.

On the other side of Little Rock, I decided that I could put the whole of Arkansas behind me before calling it a night. By 11:30, I was gassing up in Roland, Oklahoma. Soon after midnight, I began looking for a bed.

If there’s something I’ve learned in my time in the Cherokee Nation, it’s that they don’t want you to spend the night. You're not welcome in the Creek Nation, either. Not that there isn’t ANY place to stop, but here's my thinking: when your horse has wheels and a rather expensive saddle, you don't stay at a place called RODESIDE INN. It may be very nice (my legal department asked me to say that) but, having never heard of it and having no idea the next opportunity would be in Brazil, I drove on. And on. Lord, is there ANYTHING in Oklahoma? One hundred thirty miles later, just short of Oklahoma City and more than 600 miles from home, I found a Days Inn. Finally, something I’d heard of! I stopped and asked for a room, only to find that there were none. The Oklahoma draught has caused serious wildfires, and the hotel was full of firefighters.

Across the road, I found a bed at the Super 8 Motel. Though not as familiar as Days Inn, at least I’d heard of it. And I wasn’t willing to cross another hundred miles of barren terrain looking for something else. I paid my $52 dollars for a smoky room -- the only single available -- and attempted to update my blog, full of observations. Again, no dice. I hadn't known to ask for an ID and password when I checked in.

Today, I plan to stop in Elk City to see the National Route 66 Museum and eat at a restaurant recommended by Jane and Michael Stern (Road Food column, Gourmet magazine). I'll stop at Billy's... if I can find a wireless connection and directions.

******

Eureka! Got the password on check out! I’m 1/3 done: 1386 miles to San Diego from the Shawnee Super 8. Elk City only hours away!

Current events in Oklahoma City: the natives are in a lather. Michael Fortier will be released today.

What A Long Strange Week It's Been

It started Wednesday with a Toyota commercial.  Not one I’d seen, rather one I’d be in.  That experience should be a post of its own.

I agreed to ten hours on set as an extra for a flat fee.  What I knew about the shoot beyond that  was limited to wardrobe.  I was told not to wear heels.  Having never done camera work before, when I heard the word “set” my inexperienced mind conjured images of a controlled environment -- bright lights, big heaters – so I arrived at the hilly Highland Rim Speedway that January afternoon without a coat.  I was not alone in my thinking.  As the sun made its hasty exit, a host of extras came to regret its wardrobe choice.  “Racing casual” had not included coats, gloves, and hats to the majority of us, but even those who had bundled themselves were asked to remove their winter garb while shooting a “springtime” commercial.  As temperatures dropped to 39 degrees, this met a great deal of resistance.  As the time edged past midnight, the half of our compliment who had not already walked off the job grumbled – particularly those who had misinterpreted “ten hours on set” to mean “ten hours from the time you sign in.”  For the next three hours, morale in the splintered wood stands was low.  Any coat, blanket, napkin, or neighbor that could be used to shield the wind was employed and not removed for the camera. At three, the true ten-hour mark, there was another mass exodus.  Those of us who stayed until the 4 a.m. wrap found that there was extra money in it for us.  Later, even those who had not yet grumbled were disgruntled to discover that the others who left at three had gotten the raise, too.  I doubt that much of what was shot after midnight was usable, given the low number of too-bundled spectators left in the stands, but when the spot airs during the Daytona 500 this February, I’ll be watching to find out.

On Thursday, my now former roommate returned to our apartment for the last of his things.  Best summed up as an adventure in time management, a flurry of activity ensued, much of which I was at a loss to understand.  Dirty dishes and rolls of toilet paper were stored, clothes were taken to the Salvation Army, and a perfectly good mattress and box spring were hoisted into a city dumpster.  When Joseph returns to Nashville, whether in 4 months or 8, he won’t have a bed or a car, but he’ll have toilet paper.  

Now, I would have opted to keep the most expensive item and replace the cheaper one, but then, as it now takes two 10x20 storage units to house what I’ve kept over my 15 years of furnishing temporary spaces, I represent the other extreme.

Oddly, though… there’s not one roll of toilet paper in either of my units.

On Friday I returned focus to my own preparations: sorting, purging, and boxing.  Readying for the weekend U-Haul; but Saturday presented another stall:  I was called in to work.  I could have said no, but it is hard to resist money thrown at you – particularly when there’s a rental truck waiting to drain your wallet.

On Sunday my brother drove in from Manchester.  Together, we picked up the U-Haul and loaded it in little more than an hour.  Though I am skilled, I bow to Jake’s ability to arrange too many items into too small a truck.  I’m not sure which one of us is due for seven years’ bad luck, though, as when we were loading an antique sideboard my question “are we going to lose this mirror?” was met with a crash. Jake drove the U-Haul to Tullahoma and I followed in his GMC, making a detour to the car I’d left waiting there with the storage keys… and then another detour to Tractor Supply for a set of bolt cutters and a new lock.

Once the unit was opened, we unloaded as quickly as we’d loaded.  Jake, who lives on that side of the journey, drove his own truck home, leaving the U-Haul to me.  It was the first time in all my many moves that I’d been behind the wheel of the beast.  I was glad that, this time, I’d gone with a smaller truck.  

I’d known when I made my rental plans that I would have to drive it home to Nashville, returning it to the store where I picked it up, and taking a beating on mileage, but I forgot all logic when I went with Jake to pick it up.  Without my own vehicle waiting in the parking lot, I was stranded when I returned the truck.  Afraid, I’m sure, that I was calling to ask them to lift something, none of my West Nashville friends answered their phone when it rang.

I walked to a nearby gas station and called a taxi.  Then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

There was plenty of time for morbid thoughts before two taxis arrived – the one I’d called more than an hour earlier and the one I’d called within the last fifteen minutes, having given up on the first.  Since only the latter actually made the turn into the Mapco where I was waiting, I did not have to decide which to reject.  I climbed in and watched as the meter reminded me I hadn’t stopped paying out the wazoo for mileage when I’d turned in the U-Haul.  At least I wouldn’t have to fill the gas tank in this one, too.

In order to save my brother a degree of work, I had borrowed the family F150 and loaded it with boxes, but with only two of us on the job Sunday, the F150 hadn’t made the trip. I would have to unload the truck before I could use it to remove trash and straggling items from the apartment on Monday.  But first, I had an appointment to deliver a bookshelf.

I had bought and stained a bookshelf for Brian, Christmas 2004; then we spent most of 2005 apart – San Diego, Florida, Germany – while the bookshelf sat in my apartment.  By Christmas 2005, neither of us was driving a car it would fit in.  Having the F150, though, made it possible to deliver.  A few boxes had to be taken back into the apartment before it would fit, and despite three years’ dating, I had to MapQuest directions to my boyfriend’s house before the delivery could be made, but finally, the bookshelf had gone home.  And Brian stepped up to the plate.

Hearing my dilemma, he offered his truck and his services.  He followed me home, loaded his truck with things I was discarding, and made several trips to the dumpster that I could not make in the loaded F150.  More than that, though, when all the trash was gone he asked what else he could do.  I joked that unless he wanted to help me unload the truck in Tullahoma….

He did.  Talk about a head spinning day!  Not only had I been allowed to his apartment, but he had agreed to a 4-hour round-trip sojourn to my old hometown.  Still, he has no idea (until he reads this) how essential that trip was.

After a short but frustrating search for my wallet, whose home had moved out a day earlier, we were on the road, trying to beat the clock.  We’d left West Nashville after 4 o’clock on a deadline.  The Tullahoma storage complex would lock the gates at 6.  To make it on time, we would have to hit the Manchester exit by 5:30.  We did.  Just.  Then the real race with the clock began.  5:40. 5:45.  5:50. AAUUUGGGHH!  At 5:52, we pulled into storage, victorious.  At 6:02, we pulled away and drove back to Nashville.
I could never have done it alone.  But more than that, I might not have done it at all.  I might have waited a day.  That would have been a mistake.

On Tuesday, as I went to reload the truck I found that two boxes we’d deliberately left in the truck bed had disintegrated in the overnight rain.  The camper top had leaked; and had I not been to Tullahoma, a many more boxes would have been ruined.  I have a continuing history with flood damage, and I can only imagine what mess would have met me this morning had Brian’s offer not kept me on schedule.

The rain, by the way, has continued.  Finally!  Finally!  The daytime rain that I’ve been begging for comes – while I’m trying to move.  Figures.

Loading the truck today – in the rain and aware of the leak – has been a challenge.  And there is no doubt that another trip to Tullahoma is in order this afternoon.  In fact, though this post could use a substantial edit – it’s now 3:00, and the unload won’t take a mere 10 minutes today.  

Tullahoma, here I come.

Within Fifty Miles

If you ever want to know who your friends are there is one word that invariably separates the wheat from the chaff:

U-Haul.

Lightning Strikes Twice

In late July, I had one of those strange, surreal "small world" moments. Loyal readers may remember the post in which I wrote about the unlikely meeting of a friend of a friend a few thousand miles away from home. Matt had been cast as an actor on a cruise ship with my friend Richard and they had travelled extensively together, but I had not met him until we both signed on for a 24-hour theatre project... in San Diego. Matt lived there, but I was visiting -- my two-week vacation going into it's seventh month. What were the odds?

Fast forward almost 6 months.

Thursday night, after my roommate finished his final purging of things from our apartment, I drove him back to the hotel where he and his cruise ship cast are staying while in rehearsals. Upon our arrival, his cast-mates rushed out to help him carry in a load of goodies that hadn't made it to storage in time -- and though Joseph is one of only two men in the cast, two men who weren't Joseph arrived on the scene.

Now, I don't know -- call me crazy -- the math caught my attention. One plus two equals two? No. Uh-uh. You can't fool me: that's three. Three men. And when the third raised his head, box in hand, I knew why. This one was there to direct. Hello again, Matt.

Another "what were the odds" moment was shared before I drove away, leaving Joseph to his crew.

It really IS a small world.

After all.

The Wilds of Madagascar

I was surfing familiar blogs when I ran across this. It turns out that a friend from years gone by is now, like I am, an Eddie Izzard-ite. Not a major surprise there. Not a leap of character, that. In his blog, he alerts us to the fact that the Edster is voicing a character in the upcoming Disney movie The Wild. Hey. Sweet. Good to know. But should you follow his link to IMDb, you would read this plot outline for the movie: "A teenage lion is accidentally shipped from the New York Zoo to Africa. Now running free, his zoo pals must put aside their differences to help bring him back."

Does this sound familiar to anyone else?


"When one of the animals [from New York's Central Park Zoo] goes missing from his cage, the other three break free to look for him, only to find themselves reunited ... on a ship en route to Africa. ... the friends, who have all been raised in captivity, learn first-hand what life can be like in the wild."

Yeah, yeah, you're right: it's a ZEBRA that gets shipped to Africa with friends who've gone searching for him in this movie. That makes all the difference.

The Wild has Eddie Izzard, but will it have plotting penguins and dancing lemurs, I ask you?

Quiet Enjoyment

It is a well-established fact that I have little tolerance for noise pollution.  Barking dogs, mewing cats, screeching children, jiggy-with-it neighbors, chewing-gum champers, and people who sing in my air space drain my patience.  But what always takes the prize, cake, and biscuit is the noise – whatever it is – that disturbs my sleep.  Like the 8 a.m. under-the-window weed-whacker.  

Apartments are unfriendly places for the audio-sensitive.  Too many pets and people crammed too close together, separated only by paper-thin walls.  It is a given that there will be disturbances; but when management – the monthly bank account sucker – is responsible for them it begs a question….

When one signs a lease, one agrees to abide by the rules of Quiet Enjoyment.  Usually, whether it is expressly stated, this is accepted to mean that one must keep the noise to a minimum after ten p.m.  What is never expressly stated, however, is when, exactly, quiet enjoyment hours end.   The result of which is that, though sundown was not the cue for silence, sun-up is the cue for all manner of unfettered aural activity.

Someone must be punished.

I blame “the man.”  See, “the man” works a 9 to 5 job.  “The man” gets up at 6 or 7 and is out of the house by 8.  Thus, “the man” has convinced the other men, also early to work, that everyone is awake and running around fully clothed and coifed a mere eight hours after midnight.  So thinking, the men collectively begin the tribal chant of industrial life at an hour unmistakably designed by God for sleeping.  

They are all going to hell.

That’s right.  Hell.

Now, you might think that eternal hellfire and damnation would be punishment enough to please me, but, see, I just don’t have that kind of patience.  I mean, by the time Mr. Morning Weed-Whacker feels the first warm tickle, another anonymous Joe will have taken his place in making some ungodly ante meridiem noise.  As stated in BeelzeBubba’s Evil-Doer Replacement Policy, Section 69, Article 42.   And so, rather than waiting for the retribution of a vengeful God who never intended anyone to see his sun rise, I propose another means of ridding the planet of inconsiderate clods brainwashed by “the man.”  Unfortunately, my proposal pre-supposes the availability of several X-Men and a few mafia dons, none of whom have returned my calls.

So, while I continue working on a solution that is satisfactorily annihilitic, I suggest that you write your congressman – or my landlord – and demand an addendum to Quiet Enjoyment clauses everywhere.  I’ll be quiet after 10 p.m. for you, if you’ll be quiet until 10 a.m. for me.  Deal?

Audio Interface

I've been saying I'd do this for years. Since I left the radio station. There had to be a way. I'd tried before and failed. Now I've succeeded. Just in time to put the whole thing into a box.

Roughly 20 days before I'm due to return my apartment keys, I've finally completed my home studio. The last piece, the audio interface that allows my mixing board to communicate with my computer, was the key. That, and having a computer that plays well with others. At last.

Not that they were immediately friendly. Despite a certain amount of savvy, I could not convince my machines to mingle. It was as if I'd introduced Dell Hatfield to M-Audio McCoy. Someone was going to get hurt. So I called in a negotiator.

A young man working the counter at Corner Music was at first intrigued by the problem, but as the minutes dragged on to an hour, he found that the sweet nothings whispered into his ear by the Marlboro resting behind it were getting harder and harder to resist. When finally he achieved a signal though the device, he hurriedly tagged up at the plate and ran for home (or, more accutrately, the parking lot) where he could smother the chatty weed with kisses.

But in the end, my jonesing friend had been able to replace the stolen hog before several digital family members were killed. And someday soon you may hear the patter of little HatCoys and McFields.

It's a beautiful thing, man.