Hey.
I haven't died or anything.
Which, I think, makes my new life on the road a roaring success so far.
I am also getting unemployment still, and that also counts as a plus.
The trip has been wild. I've been wanting to write about it, but today is really the first bit of time that I have been alone and able to write.
Here's a real brief overview of the last 14 days:
Arrived in Kansas City on Monday night (the 12th) just in time to make it for a poetry reading. My friend Alessandra (who came with me from Denver) and my friend Philip (who hosted us in KC) read. I read too. People loved it. We loved what they had to read. We stayed up late talking about the cosmos and being true to ourselves.
The next day we stumbled onto the Negro Baseball League Museum and unknowingly started up a conversation with the director of the museum. He loved that we were traveling writers so he gave us a free personal tour of the museum and then invited us to their Mardi Gras party the next night.
That party turned out to be real fancy, like senators were there, it was the annual gala for some arts association. We looked like we had been on the road far longer than we had and reeked of weed. It was great. I fell in love with a mime that turned out to be in her seventies.
We also stumbled onto this fucking awesome costume party but then quickly got kicked out because it was apparently private. Then we went to hear some real KC jazz. It was all magical.
Alessandra and I then went to Tulsa, high and giggly the whole way. We listened to aggressive AM talk radio and stopped at the Precious Moments Chapel in Joplin, Missouri. It was creepy as shit. We are going to write a collaborative horror story about it.
Alessandra's brother housed us in Tulsa. He is a youth pastor and relatively cool, but still was pretty wary of us.
We got into a lot of trouble with him for smoking pot. Like he was deeply offended by it and couldn't even be around us for the rest of the night. Coming from Colorado, I kind of forgot that weed is still a big deal in the Bible Belt.
But we got to go to the Woody Guthrie Museum, which was awesome, and got to hang out in the kind of retro rockabilly vibe that downtown Tulsa has.
We also got to tour Oral Roberts University as part of my whole quest of exploring American Religious History and blah blah blah.
Then zoom, off by myself into the desert. I was sad to leave Alessandra behind. She is truly my long lost twin sister.
I went to Albuquerque for a few days and stayed with my friend Zak, who is pretty depressed and watching his whole world burn down. I could totally relate. Though it feels like it was forever ago when things just kept spiraling down and I was unsure if I would survive it, it was actually only what? two months ago? Anyway, I tried to be a support but I also know how hard it is to receive support when at that place. But I tried to listen as best as I could.
I then went to middle-of-fucking-nowhere Arizona to spend time with my folks at their retirement RV park. I've been there the last few days. Things were dull and tense and I found myself acting like a sullen teenager because my parents still treat me as if I am one.
They do not understand the point of my project (but that's not surprising). They kept telling me that there were jobs in Arizona.
After church (where my dad is the pastor), I split and am now in Phoenix. A city where I have never been and know no one.
I sprung for a hotel because I just need a little time away from people, especially the strangers that I'd have to hang out with through couchsurfing.com.
Tonight, I will wander the streets a little aimlessly.
After a few days with some disapproving parents, I am ready to cut loose a little.
Shit, after a few years of depression and stress and existential misery, I am ready to cut loose a lot.
I'll report back if I don't go to prison.
1:50 p.m. - 2018-02-25
Recent entries:
The Changing Landscape of the Highway - 2018-05-16
Shifting Sand - 2018-04-22
At The End of Myself - 2018-04-01
Grateful, Exhausted, Lost - 2018-03-10
Orange County - 2018-03-08
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