usa travel

1. Cough syrup on the bed with Jacinta. Yes that's right, after 9 days of coughing and voice loss, I finally got me some cough syrup. Go ahead and yell at me, K Punk, but the experience of drinking cough syrup while lying on a comfy bed int he middle of the woods in upstate new york really could not be beat.

2. The young New Moon subscriber who came up to me after my talk and told me about this, her favorite magazine, which has no ads. She also admitted that she subscribed to another magazine, American Girl, but that it was kinda boring now and she might cancel it. How do these kids get so smart?

top ten things I didn't have time to do in NYC during my 20 hour visit:

1. this blog
2. interview with steve lambert
3. sleep (although i managed to squeak in the life cafe—more on that later)
4. see any of my regular people
5. meet any of the new people i've been corresponding with for the lsat year
6. tourist attractions
7. food that is not served at the life cafe (still more on that later)
8. properly hang out with the new press people, who are truly awesome
9. spend enough time thanking ad hoc arts, which is a really great space to do stuff — they even painted the place for us!

1. Alec Bourgeois showin' up and takin' questions. Hot damn! Who doesn't like having the hero of the book swoop in to help school the yunguns? And to be able to thank Dischord personally for, ummm, existing? Shit. It's like this night is the entire reason I wrote the book.

2. Sherry in the parlor. Seriously. They serve sherry in the parlor at the Kolarama Guest House, so I drank some. I believe it is an entirely new experience for me, never having been in a parlor nor tasted sherry before, and I like it so much I am beginning to wonder if I am someone's secret gramma.

Ummm, on the theory that one should refrain from saying things if one has nothing good to say, this string of posts about the Unmarketable book tour is going to take a temporary hiatus.

Instead, please watch this video of a man falling into a hole:

1. Nora Rocket. Seriously, she's even better-spoken in person. WTF, I know, but it's true.

2. An actually engaged post-talk impromptu book group I'm going to dub half-jokingly "the integrity club". It was interesting and of course flattering but also incredibly incredibly helpful talking through this stuff with a group of people I don't know anything about.

3. Ah, honestly, this quilt made out of men's used work clothing. It was so beautiful, I cannot even begin to describe it.

4. The most insanely flattering and kind introduction K L Periera of the Center for New Words was kind enough to make up about me. Apparently, I can shoot lasers out of my eyes. Who knew?

. . . so after the show we drank whiskey (Where did you go Steve? Why do you hate whiskey so much?) and then watched a Korean revenge movie which I swear to god was about this dude with kidney disease and then another movie which I swear to god should never have been made but sometimes it's just nice, watching movies. Then I got to go to Meredith's cool house and hang out with Rusty the cat and then Allegra came over in the morning and we went to a reptile zoo where they inexplicably had chinchillas, which I guess are sort of like reptiles but slightly fuzzier and we went to Meredith's v. cool art show and then Mike came over and we went to the woods where we found *actual treasure* hidden in the woods and also a small house and then drank tea.

It is true that there are a lot of great things about Troy, New York. Birthplace of Uncle Sam? Means everything has a totally inappropriate American flag on it? Which is incredible? But one far and away totally blew my mind, and I will list it below in a second, in order of preference,, one being the only number on this list.

(I'd also like to acknowledge that there is one truly sucky thing about Troy, NY, which is beiong there if you have lost your voice. It's much harder to be hilarious when you can't talk. I am just no good at physical comedy.)

OK, so are you ready for my list of the Top One list of things about Troy, NY? Here we go:

Not a lotta time to flesh this out, but I gott get it up this a.m., then it's off to Troy!

1. Zine-making workshop. Hello, a zine about hairy legs? By a basketballer? And so many other ridiculously cool things I could hardly stand it.

2. The GHS Principal helping to radicalize his students. "You don't have to buy Nikes," he says. This was even after I accidently told them about abortions.

3. Silly Walking. Barrow, K-Punk's three-year-old, wanted to teach me some silly walks before dinner.

4. Dinner at the Faculty Dining Room. I might move into the Writer's House! But first they have to make room for me.

first of all, i'm envious, josh.

new mexico:
i'd second the recommendation for albuquerque. the sandia montains and cibola national wildflife refuge are both beautiful.

the tiny, strange town of madrid is worth driving through. it's about 50 miles northeast of albuquerque, off of I-25. there's lots of notable scenery along the way.

avoid santa fe, which is a yuppified tourist trap.

a close friend of mine, who lives in albuquerque, says the sangre de cristo mountains are definitely worth visiting, as is the white sands national monument.

i've wanted to go to the partially inhabited town of hachita ever since i first read about it in william least-heat moon's blue highways years ago. (which, by the way, is a book well worth reading, even though it's now over twenty years out of date.) hachita is nearly 300 miles south of albuquerque, though, so if you're not interested in little towns like i am, it's not worth the drive. but, you'd get to pass through truth or consequences.