Oh, good morning, Desert. I love you, too.

I woke up this morning to the above view outside of the double glass doors of my room at A Lodge on the Desert. I didn't know I had this view when I drove up at eleven o'clock last night; all I knew was that it was very, very dark, and I was very, very sleepy, and I needed to climb into the rich, soft, red four-poster bed awaiting me and close my eyes. And then I woke, after the warmest and softest night's sleep of any room yet, and there it was. The view of a lifetime. This is all the more remarkable considering this place (complete with a kitchen) cost the same price as this place.

And then I went outside to take photos, and SERIOUSLY. Do you see the eagle in that second photo? THAT'S A MOTHER EFFING EAGLE WAKING ME TO THE DAWN. I swear the desert is trying to steal my soul with all of its scrubs and birds and mountains. It's TOO MUCH.

And now I'm off to the Pima Reservation in Arizona to rediscover my tan side! After stopping at a farm for some famous Hatch green chiles, that is...mmmm...

Oh, and more random photos from the road:

the chosen king of the fairies

“Old Ralph Rinkelmann made his living by comic sketches, and all but lost it again by tragic poems. So he was just the man to be chosen king of the fairies…” --George MacDonald

It's time to hit the road again, folks! I know what you're thinking: 'Did you just spend three days in Memphis and not tell us a thing about what you did?' Why yes, yes, I did. But I WILL be sharing with you photos of my wonderful Memphian friends and tales of all the wonderful food we ate (Peggy, I want to marry you), oh so very soon. Oh! But before I forget, I need to print a correction from yesterday's post: it turns out my use of 'memphisian' was appallingly incorrect. They are 'memphians.' Like 'amphibians,' except not. Or like 'Memphibian.' MEMPHIBIAN. Holy cow. I'm so using Memphibian from now on. You do it, too. It's the only way we can make this take off.

So as I was preparing to leave my Memphibian friends for the next great adventure (St. Louis hooooooooooooo!), this morning became Library Fox scan time for more free audio books!  And what did I stumble upon this round? GEORGE MACDONALD. Oh, yes, my friends. ONLY THE GREATEST SCOTTISH FANTASY AUTHOR WHO HAS EVER LIVED A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. I totally forgot he existed since college--which seems to be an alarming trend--but then just now I was cruising the Library Fox catalog and saw his name and right away I KNEW he was going to be the storyteller on my next leg. I mean, this guy was Lewis Caroll's MENTOR, he was all bff's with Tolkein and crap, and he's like the FATHER of effing fantasy as we know it. Oh! And per my wiki hit on him just now, he founded the kailyard school of scottish writing! I don't even know what that MEANS! Man, George. You're an outta control hot mess that is not apologizing for it. Seriously. I love you. And that wacky crazy beard. Is that to stay warm through the Scottish winter? Because otherwise, WHOA. People probably crossed the street when they saw you coming.

I'll see you all again in St. Louis, where once again I'll be posting information relevant to days past and struggling to keep up with the present. But then, that seems to be the story of my life. Will I ever enter the future on time?

Hugs and kisses,
esssssssss

Gaining weight faster than my pregnant girlfriend; the library fox begins a revolution

So currently my best friend is like a kazillion months pregnant and we spoke today and it turns out she just weighed in at 117 pounds. ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN POUNDS, PEOPLE.  THIS IS HER GAINING. So yeah...I don't think we're going to be friends anymore. I haven't weighed a hundred and seventeen pounds since I was FIVE. And on top of her teeny tiny-ness, she's all TALL and BEAUTIFUL and crap. I seriously can't handle it. Thank GOODNESS she's carrying my new nephew, or we'd have words.

I just made that up. Not about her weight gain--that's just too unreal to be fiction--but the nephew part. We don't actually 'know' the gender yet. But I'm still going with nephew because I already have two nieces from my sister and it's time to mix this bag up. Plus I'm like a gender savante. Like those old witchwomen that drop newts' organs into teacups and divine your future.

Other tales of back home: remember my super-rad downstairs neighbor of yesteryear? Well, per a  recent conversation with my sweet-sweet old roommate, he's now opened a cafe on Baker and McAllister! Can you BELIEVE it? My favorite handyman-neighbor is now a successful business owner! HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN GONE?! Also the kitty my roommate got after I left turned out to be a Killer Death Kitty and she had to sleep with a spray bottle for self-protection and then he tried to take her vet-dad's eye out and so now he is living in a safe place while they look for a nice farm that NEEDS a Killer Death Kitty, because he is very good at hunting and killing, you just don't want your small dog or child around him. So if you've got a place like that, you let me know.

On related news, I rolled around in a field today. And on a railroad track. But not in a dangerous way, not like I was tying myself down and waiting for rumbling earth or anything, but because there were photos to be taken from down there.

Other ways in which people are making my life more wonderful by the second: Treena Balds (a.k.a. TB, a.k.a. my jamaican honeybun) gave me a link to the raddest online audio library EVER. And do you know WHY it's the raddest online audio library ever? Because the readings are FREE. And why are they free? BECAUSE OF MAGIC. I call this service the Library Fox even though it's LibriVox because once my mind catches a glimpse of something and assigns it a value, that value is fixed. And I don't even bother trying to correct it, because there's really no point once my brain has decided to file something under the label of its choosing. This service will always be Library Fox, and in my mind he will always wear a black eye mask and a  black cape  too and be my little fox bandit. That's just the way it is. Plus Library Fox's byline is 'the acoustical liberation of books in the public domain.' THE ACOUSTICAL LIBERATION OF BOOKS. Does that make anybody else imagine books being freed by the Library Fox from their paper prisons with Jerichoan shouts? Did I just make up the word Jerichoan? According to these red squigglies, I did.

I selected for tomorrow's journey the following from Library Fox's bounty: 

2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonneget, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (and Through the Looking Glass), and a handful of Fitzgerald's short stories. My drive tomorrow is going to be a TRIP. Which is important, because this is the longest leg of my journey yet: Houston to New Orleans. Six hours of hot, stretching highway. Six hours of eyelid-propping, leg-pinching, heat-induced mellifluous madness.

If you don't hear from me by this time tomorrow, just wait longer.

"There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself." --Herman Hesse