This is just hilarious.
My car is fixed and we have a vehicle so we can leave Casper! Finally! And we have a game plan to get ourselves back on track!
BUT...
We can't drive south because there's A BLIZZARD IN DENVER. The snow starts in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and just gets worse the further south and east you go, which makes sense since we need to go both south and east. OF COURSE there's a blizzard in our path. What's next? Hurricanes? Earthquakes? Locusts?
So, that means we're in Casper ONE. MORE. DAY.
It was a sunny Monday afternoon. We were headed down I-25S, on my great move from Big Sky Country to the Sunshine State. My feet were propped up on the dashboard and I was looking out the window watching the mountains turn into hills. Chris, my traveling companion, best friend, all-around everything to me, chuckled softly.
I turned to face him. "What?"
"I don't know how to tell you this," he said with a smile.
Before he said anything else, I knew where he was going. We're close like that; I don't know if he is capable of shocking me anymore. I hoped he was going to surprise me and go in a different direction with his next words, but I realized that I should have gone with my first instincts when he said, "We've got problems."
At this point we were 20 miles outside of Casper, Wyoming. My transmission (or "tranny" as Chris calls it; I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of having a "tranny" under my hood) had been acting up for the last few miles. I drive a superhip minivan and we were pulling a U-Haul trailer packed to the brim; honestly, I kind of expected my car to give out after crossing the Continental Divide. We limped off the interstate on Exit 182B, pulled into the Exxon station on the corner of English Drive and English Avenue, and popped the hood. It seemed that my transmission was dead/dying. In Chris-speak that is: "Your tranny pissed all over the side of the car." He does have a way with words.
A tow truck ride later, we were firmly situated at the Parkway Plaza hotel in lovely Casper. And that is where we've been since Monday. Yep, Monday at 1pm. It is currently 6pm MST on Wednesday. The mechanic should have called us today -- we decided to swap out my transmission, put the contents of my trailer in storage in Casper, drive to Florida, and come back here when Wyoming thaws out to retrieve my belongings. But the mechanic did not call today. I'm thinking that Room 1113 at the Parkway Plaza might just be my new home.
So, if you happen to be in Casper, Wyoming, in the next 36 hours, stop by. We've exhausted the entertainment possibilities of this town -- amazing since we've been on foot the whole time and saw everything there is to see in the span of about 6 hours. Today we walked upstairs to the second floor of the hotel...for fun. It's actually come to that.
If you can find it in your heart, think happy thoughts for us. We hope to be back in Florida by 2007, but who knows. Also, if you happen to know of any jobs available anywhere in Florida, let me know -- I was kind of moving just to get out of Montana anyway, and now I really need the cash. I'm thinking of starting my own 501(c)3 charity to benefit me. I'll let you know where you can send donations.
PS -- If you have any marijuana, you know where to find me. We're just about out and Casper is better with weed.
...Or so I've heard.
That's right -- it's true. As I type, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Casper, Wyoming, with Chris, my loyal traveling companion. We both were suddenly wide awake at 1am this morning and now we're just trying to figure out what to do with ourselves...in Casper, Wyoming. The best part? It's Chris' birthday today. I'm sure this is exactly where he wanted to be. I consider this to be my special gift to him. He's so lucky to have a friend like me.
Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll have a new transmission so we can skedaddle on out of here. Here's the big plan:
1. Get new transmission
2. Drop off the contents of my U-Haul trailer in a storage unit in Casper (my van is not to pull that trailer again -- unless I want to get another transmission in 700 miles)
3. Continue this neverending drive to Florida
4. Come back here in May to get my stuff out of storage
Somewhere in there I've got to get a job so that I can pay for this shit. Yay, I'm so glad I quit my respectable job at the museum for this!
We're making the best of it, though, because what else can you do? If you need a bar recommendation for Casper, I'm your girl.
Okay, I think I'm going to put something on other than my underwear. That's right: I'm blogging pantsless.
So, I'm on day two of my move from Montana to Florida. Everything went well yesterday -- the minivan didn't die going over the Continental Divide, we had a rockin dinner in Sheridan, Wyoming, and I never cried once (I cried often in the days leading up to our departure).
Today, is a different story. We left Sheridan just fine, but when we were 20 miles outside, Chris turned to me and said, "I don't know how to tell you this, but...your car has problems." Ah, yes, music to my ears.
We pulled off the interstate -- Exit 182B, in case you're ever in Casper -- to an Exxon station at this corner:
Yes, the intersection of English Drive and English Avenue.
Whilst pondering how a city runs out of street names, we took a little look-see to find out just what kind of problems we were dealing with.
Afterwards, a cigarette was most definitely in order.
And then a little phone call was made, and I got to wave goodbye to all of my belongings. Yay!
Apparently, there's something very wrong with my transmission. We're not quite sure what yet, but I may have to start looking through the "help wanted" ads depending on how long it takes to fix this thing. In the meantime, the Parkway Plaza on West E Street, Casper, Wyoming, is my new home. It's almost like Florida...
My roommate brought home a new dog today. He also brought this in from the garden:
That is one freaking huge zucchini. Lest you think I was shooting it from some funny angle to exaggerate its size (that's how they shoot pornos, no?), here it is on the ground; keep in mind that I wear size 6 1/2 shoes:
Why would a vegetable even need to get that big? What kind of evolutionary advantage is there for a dog-sized squash?
And why didn't the other vegetables in the garden get so grotesquely huge? Check out our cucumber -- which, by the way, I think is a much superior veggie when it is properly proportioned:
Yep, that's the cucumber basking in the other vegetable's glow. I think someone has zucchini envy.
Ever since being diagnosed with a gluten allergy a few weeks ago, my mind has been filled with happy memories of my time with that sticky bunch of proteins. Sipping a beer on the beach in Costa Rica ... sharing a pizza with a good friend ... surviving on bagels in college ... rolling in wheat flour at the local bakery ... oh, wait -- that last one was just a naughty fantasy from the other night. The point is that gluten is in everything that is good. By the same token, things without gluten aren't that super.
Want proof? Have yourself some gluten-free Annie's Mac-and-Cheese. Normally, I'm a huge fan of Annie's Mac-and-Cheese. I especially like the bunny-shaped pasta, as I am a bunny enthusiast, as is my roommate's dog, Lucy:
Alas, like my bunny Hefner, Annie's bunny-shaped pasta does not come in a gluten-free version. So, when I was searching for quick-and-easy gluten-free dinner items the other night, I had to settle for gluten-free Annie's elbow mac-and-cheese. There's nothing cute about elbows. Look at your elbow right now. Does it bring a smile to your face? I'm guessing it doesn't.
In my gluten-free pursuits, I have sampled a variety of breads and such made with a mix of potato flour, tapioca flour, and rice flour, since I can no longer have wheat flour, on account of it shredding my small intestine (note to small intestine: I'm sorry). I had some decent un-gluten-y zucchini bread, but with the other items, I noticed one common thread: none of them stick together. As soon as I my fingers touched a gluten-free piece of bread, it just crumbled into millions of tiny un-delicious pieces. Now, I'm not a food snob or anything, but I just have this "thing" where I prefer to eat my food in whole pieces that can be seen without magnification aides. I know, I'm kinda funny like that.
I should have considered the bonding powers of gluten before picking up that box of Annie's Rice Pasta & Cheddar. Not only that, I should have been alarmed by the lack of color in the pasta elbows. Elbows are boring enough -- must they be sickly and pale, too?
It wasn't until I went through the whole rigmarole of mac-and-cheese cooking -- you know, watching water boil, draining water, mixing in cheese product; it is an art -- that I fully apppreciated the gluten in all of my previous mac-and-cheese experiences. This mac-and-cheese was different...it, like my bread, had also crumbled into millions of tiny un-delicious pieces. Shredded elbows -- shredded like my small intestine, I'm sure -- lined the macaroni pot. I chopped up some tomatoes from the garden to try to dress up the meal and give it some flavor, but it was all in vain. In fact, I think I owe those tomatoes an apology for subjecting them to such an unpleasant macaroni encounter.
Luckily, my favorite kinds of food are Thai and Indian, which rely heavily on rice in the form it was meant to be in: rice-like, not rice flour-like. So, I can cut these wannabe-glutenrific foods -- the bastardized breads and sorry excuses for mac-and-cheese -- out of my diet, as there are other things out there I can eat. My cross-country move in two weeks is going to be a little tricky because I don't really recall many stop-and-go Thai restaurants near the interstate in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Nonetheless, I owe it to my small intestine to forgo the Arby's sandwich -- or really, any sandwich from anywhere since I can't have bread -- and fill up on rice cakes in the car instead.
Oh, small intestine, you are soooo going to owe me...
My doctor called yesterday with the results from my exciting night at the sleep clinic, and, man, did he have some disturbing/not-at-all surprising news for me. According to my data, I have "severe" sleep problems, to which I say, "DUH." I don't have sleep apnea, which I figured, since I don't snore, making me an excellent travel companion; remember that should you plan any trips to Belize or Honduras in the near future. Anyway, my doctor threw so many numbers my way and I couldn't write them down fast enough; I did, though, manage to retain a couple fun facts:
- My sleep is highly fragmented. I averaged 19 arousals per hour, with 241 total brief arousals.
- I woke up several other times, too -- about 300 times in all over the course of the night.
- It took me 119 minutes to fall into REM sleep; 61:40 is the normal amount of time to get to this stage of sleep.
- I spent about 13 minutes in REM sleep. The norrmal time for adults is 90 to 120 minutes.
After quickly sharing my data, my doctor concluded, "Well, it's no wonder that you feel tired all the time -- you're not sleeping!"
Shit. You don't say.
Doctor Obvious said I need to go in for a follow-up with the sleep doctor; the earliest I can get in is three days before I move back to Florida, in mid-October. The cause of my insomnia could be the particular prescription drug(s) I'm taking or possibly my depression. Hmm, that's just great...I can't sleep because I'm depressed, and yet, I'm depressed because I can't sleep.
I'm trying to get my antidepressants changed (I'm taking 20mg of Lexapro daily); my best friend, my therapist, and now my PCP have suggested a change and I'm starting to think they're right. I'm not really feeling "better" after taking it for six weeks -- if anything, I'm just really numb. The other night, Barbara Walters had a tear-jerker interview with Terri Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter's widow. I couldn't cry. Keep in mind that, previously, I have cried during the Olympics, basketball games, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and countless other really pathetic things. After a really fun sushi dinner with friends the other night, the first thing I thought when we parted ways was, "God, it was nice to feel something." It was brief and I've been so deflated lately -- I'd like to figure out how to hang on to that non-deflated (I guess that would be inflated) feeling.
Graffiti, please.
You asked, Vox, I delivered. Grafitti -- en espanol (pssst: how do I insert in a tilde here?). I took these in San Jose, Costa Rica in February.
I just returned from a museum conference in Taos, New Mexico. I know, I know -- museum folks for a whole week: how did I get so lucky? When I interviewed for this job back in February and heard about this conference, I thought it was a pretty nice perk. Until that point, I had heard nothing but awesome things about Taos -- how it was beautiful and full of artists and blahdy blahdy blah. After spending a week there, though, I can't say I didn't find the town worth all the praise I'd heard...it was like Orlando in the high desert.
I will give Taos that I had a crappy/unsettling first experience there, but, man, first impressions do carry a lot of weight. Since we were still technically "pre-conference" on Tuesday morning, we had some time to kill. My colleague invited me to join her and her friend on a trip to Taos Pueblo. We drove out of the city center a little ways, past a casino and various other hoity-toity shops and galleries where I can't afford shite, until we got to the Pueblo where we were greeted by some friendly men in orange vests. These men informed us that parking was free, but that tips were encouraged, as that was what "allowed [them] to operate." Now, living in Montana -- and even Florida -- I've been on a fair number of reservations and I've never encountered a toll system. I just chalked it up to the pueblo being in such a tourist-friendly area. The orange-vest dude asked us to check-in at the visitor center.
The three of us lined up to talk to the surly woman at the visitor center where we learned that:
(1) Admission is $10 per person, and
(2) If we wanted to bring in a camera, that would be an additional $5.
I've never heard of charging a camera fee anywhere. Maybe I'm not well-traveled, I don't know. Of course, in their literature (a glossy, poorly proofread scant brochure), the camera fee is justified as a way to help them keep their way of life. Funny, I thought that's what the casino was for out front. Whatever. People are allowed to be capitalists for a good cause.
Except I didn't find the whole pueblo experience to be a good cause. You know what lies within the fee area? Stores. Store upon store upon store selling pottery, handmade (and a lot of mass-produced) jewelry, flutes, and, my favorite -- written on the sign outside one store -- "real Indian stuff." So, here we have all of these adobe style homes in an historic area, and you know what I learned? I learned that these folks in New Mexico have access to all sorts of wholesale catalogs.
I especially liked the advisory in the brochure to ask nativesf or their permission before taking a picture of them-- yes, because I so need a picture of some dude, who happens to live near the Taos Pueblo, wearing an Adidas shirt and a gold chain. I mean, who are we kidding? I felt weird enough paying to go into a reservation to go look at how these people -- who still exist -- lived, like they're freaking animals in a zoo. Let's not fool ourselves to think that the people working inside the pueblo are totally isolated from the outside world -- they know they're not, and anyone with an iota of sense should know they're not either. They dress an talk like anyone else roaming around Taos.
What really bothered me is that the people who "run" the pueblo have a great opportunity for education -- a chance to teach people about the pueblo's history, how the people of the pueblo have changed over time, and about the beliefs of the people of the pueblo. But they don't do any of that. There's no signage anywhere that attempts to impart any greater understanding to the visitor -- just lots of signs that basically say "come buy our stuff."
More weirdness arose when we left the pueblo. The opening reception for our conference featured a performance by the Buffalo Dancers, an Indian children's dance troupe (and, yes, it IS "P.C." to say Indian). I've noticed this trend in the various professional conferences I've attended in the last few years -- all of them try to incorporate some Indian performance/ritual of some sort. I can appreciate that as they're an oft-ignored group, both where curriculum development and audience outreach is concerned. That's one thing I actually like about Montana -- they're pouring money into the Indian Education for All Act that requires ALL school students to learn about Montana's native people; the act has been on the books since the 1970s, but it's only been the last few years that the State department of education has offered schools any funding to make this act a reality.
But call me cynical -- part of me thinks we're including all of these Indian aspects to our programming because there's some "white man's guilt" -- as there should be. White men raped numerous indigenous cultures. Still, watching these kids dance (a long and intricate dance; having a short-term memory and no rhythm, I found the dancers most impressive), I felt some weird vibes from our crowd of 400 museum professionals -- I sensed some, "Ah, we must revere these child dancers BECAUSE they are Indian, not because they're damn talented kids, but because I am a white, educated, open-minded person of privilege and that is what my people do." At one point, I turned around and looked at my peers staring at the dancers -- that's when an uneasy feeling set in...wow, here we are, 400 of us, 98% white, having these Indian kids entertain us. They were bussed in to AMUSE us. Had anyone asked the adult leaders of the group afterward how they train, or what the dance means, or anything, maybe I would feel differently -- then, maybe, there would be some sharing of cultures, some, you know, "learning." No such luck.
Reading back over this, I think I sound racist when I really don't mean to be. It's just that I've always had a hard time with watching people as they (supposedly) act in their native environment -- that's why I never pursued graduate work in anthropology: it's weird to me go watch people like they're in a goddamn zoo; nonwhite, non-Americans don't exist so grad students can write masters theses about them.
What's the last thing you usually do or think about before you fall asleep?
Har, har, har, Vox -- you should know that I don't sleep. Geez, if you cared, Vox, you would have read my previous posts. Gah.
