Oklahoma in pictures (going back a week or so)

How one eats in Oklahoma. I can't imagine why there's an obesity problem:

Chili, covered in chili, covered in cheese, covered in chili. Oh, and a couple of fries underneath. God bless America.

Ron's Hamburgers (& Chili): the gooey-ist, yummiest burger in all the land.

You can order pretty much anything on the menu 'spanish style,' which means fried onions and jalapenos. I thought when I ordered my cheeseburger spanish style, these items would come ON the burger, but the waitress decided that it was cheaper just to deliver it as a SIDE. Like anybody's going to dive in with a fork to a side of onions and jalapenos. But then again...

I unfortunately did not have the pleasure of having Pappy's chicken fried steak special, but boo howdy!

I know you were up all night wondering what Cherokee Gothic was, so I'm here to reveal the answer: it's a style of architecture! Welcome to OU.

At this point in the afternoon, I did not have an OU shirt on. And on a game day, that caused  me to stick out like a sore thumb.  I was reprimanded pretty quickly for calling the school color 'maroon,' which was apparently like spitting in a fan's face. It's CRIMSON, PEOPLE. CRIMSON AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT. LIKE THE COLOR OF THE BLOOD WE'RE GOING TO SPILL ON THE FIELD TODAY. BECAUSE WE'RE SOONERS.

This may LOOK like Chicago-style pizza, but you'd be wrong: the crust is actually really light and puffy. And it was DELISH. Thank you, Louie's. I owe you my hips.

Yes. Football is a way of life; a religion; a fanatical cult. And in Oklahoma, you pretty much worship at the Sooner throne.

Cherokee Gothic by night. With what appears to be a large spaceship in the background. If that's not the clashing of two cultures, I don't know what is.

Day 3: Austin is Awesome.

I arrived in Austin yesterday, after what had to have been The Most Boring Drive of All Time on the 1-35 south from Dallas.  The three hours somehow elongated into two weeks. There was just no other explanation for the shimmering hallucinations, time warping, and zoning that occurred. I left at 10 a.m., which put me in Austin in time for lunch. But in that time span, I aged. I grew a beard. I pondered the meaning of life. I spaced out, revived, slapped myself in the face, hallucinated, and aged some more. The wavering heat the wind the dry grasslands the brown trees all stilled the hand of time. My car stayed in place while the road rolled under it. By the time the Austin signs began to appear, I had forgotten how to read. I was a different person, a worn person, a person who had wandered for years in the desert and didn't know how to speak or comb her wild, ratted hair. And when I pulled up to Central Market where I was meeting Jeremy for lunch, I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing: green grass? a park? organic food? people not in pick-up trucks? Where did this civilization come from? And is that lavender soda??

One delicious beef shawarma later, I had been restored to a former semblance of self. And as I sat blissfully on a sunny picnic bench surrounded by trees and heat and carnivorous black birds, slurping my organic orange-and-cream soda, I patted my wild, ratted hair with content. This is how it was meant to be.

I've got a fantastic to-do list while in Austin this week:

Sunset dinner at Oasis

Fall Festival at Boggy Creek Farm

Lunch at Flip Happy Crepes (thank you for the recommendation, Lez!)

Gourdoughs

Nau's Enfield Drug Store

And last, but not least...a movie at The Alamo Drafthouse. For a little something called Master Pancake Theater, described as "the Alamo tradition of pairing bad movies with live comedy (and beer)! It's smart, fast, and bust-a-gut funny. Master Pancake has twice been voted BEST COMEDY TROUPE by the readers of the Austin Chronicle (2008, 2009)."  And what movie is playing on Friday night? E.T.! I know. I KNOW.  I made it happen with the power of my mind.

Oh! Dallas! I spent a (too short) day there, full of food and old friends and family. It started with lunch with my cousins (one of whom lives in Arizona and was also temporarily in town) who I found out were PIMA Indians. PIMA. How cool is THAT? WAY cooler than Cherokee, which is what I've got. It turns out that  the name Pima comes from the phrase 'I don't know' or 'I don't understand you,' which is pretty much all they had to say to the Europeans back in the day. How awesome is that as a way to be named? I know I find myself in situations all the time in which 'pima' would be the appropriate response. Or rather, 'PIMA.'

Needless to say, I'm definitely making it a point to stay with my cousin on the reservation when I pass through Arizona. (Don't tell her, she currently thinks I'm kidding.) I'm totally gonna rock it native-style. Per a conversation with Joy, who referred to me as 'lil platinum pocahontas,' "One piece of Indian frybread and a pair of spandex leggings and you're all set!" I asked her if I needed a scrunchie, too, to which she replied, 'Yeah, so your hair won't fall in your bowl of beans.'

I also had dinner in Dallas with an old high school friend and his mega-rad fiance, which was wacky crazy cool. It's funny how in ten years, nothing really changes. The people you liked are still likeable and the conversations are easy and  good. This friend I saw was as hilarious as always, with the added fun of his-and-her-joint-storytelling when he and his fiancee got rolling. It was fantastic.

Stay tuned for some delayed photographs I took in Oklahoma, where chili is a way of life, OU football is a religion, and Cherokee Gothic is not what you think it is...

Day 1: Dallas, a death wish, and why I'm taking the scenic route to San Francisco

I'm starting my road trip today. In about an hour, in fact.

I feel slightly nauseated. No, wait. EXTREMELY nauseated. I can't tell if I'm excited or not, as the churning in my stomach is pretty much overriding all other sensations. I feel like I should feel differently right now: like maybe a sense of anticipation, or adventure. But really, I just want to hurl. And scrap this whole idea and jump on the next flight to San Francisco.

I'm not the greatest behind the wheel in the best of times--I am very anxious, very nervous--but now adding to these is the small element of not having driven in years, unless you count that time in San Francisco. Or that time in Maui (thank you, Wendy, for being willing to put your life in my hands). And now, not only am I driving, but I'm doing it cross-country. Alone. In winter.

I don't know where I get these bursts of inspiration, these ideas of RONA YOU SHOULD DO THIS! like the one that hit a few months ago that led to the formation of  this road trip, but I swear these bursts are trying to kill me.

I will be posting again from my next stop: Dallas, Texas. And yes, I know that's only three hours away, which so far makes this The World's Slowest Road Trip Ever, but I've got PEEPS, yo, peeps I want to SEE, because I haven't seen them in YEARS. And the whole point of this road trip is not to discover America, it's to discover old friends that I haven't seen in far too long that I want to love and hug and be merry with. Oh, and to eat my heart out.

I leave you with this, from Kurt Vonnegut:

“I work at home, and if I wanted to, I could have a computer right by my bed, and I'd never have to leave it. But I use a typewriter, and afterwards I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up this woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, "Are you still doing typing?" Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say, "OK, I'll send you the pages."

Then I'm going down the steps, and my wife calls up, "Where are you going?" I say, "Well, I'm going to go buy an envelope." And she says, "You're not a poor man. Why don't you buy a thousand envelopes? They'll deliver them, and you can put them in a closet." And I say, "Hush." So I go down the steps here, and I go out to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationery. I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them. The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it's my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately. I get my envelope and seal it up and go to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of 47th Street and 2nd Avenue, where I'm secretly in love with the woman behind the counter. I keep absolutely poker-faced; I never let her know how I feel about her. One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it. Anyway, I address the envelope to Carol in Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home. And I've had a hell of a good time. And I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different.”

The expressions of rain and absolutely fabulous Halloween costumes

In London, the rain 'pisses' or 'lashes.' In Oklahoma, the rain 'pours,' often in quantities of cats and dogs. It also 'buckets.' And if there's one thing this state does, it's rain. In Tulsa, there's an average annual rainfall of 39-40" a year, compared to Seattle at 36". The difference is, ours comes all at once. In buckets. And to borrow the UK term, it lashes down. I remember school being cancelled mid-day because of flash floods, where water would accumulate so fast that you arrive when the pavement's dry and by lunch, you're sloshing to class in water up to your thighs. (Who decided to build a school on a flood plain? Anyone?) I remember sleeping in my sneakers as a small child during tornado season in case we had to make a run for it in the middle of the night. This state is INSANE.

I'm looking out the window as I type this (at 9:15 in the morning), and the sky is black and roaring and the thunder is rumbling so low you can feel it inside your body before you actually realize it's a sound. It won't necessarily be cold out--these storms don't mind the heat nor do they alter it--but you can be sure that roadside ditches will be full of rushing water and all the cars will have their lights on. We knew this storm was coming from the winds last night, nearly pushing us over when we were walking outside. That's something else Oklahoma can do: wind. But I won't start on that subject today, because one, I'm already in danger of over-talking the weather, two, I'm too lazy to look up comparative wind stats, and three, I think the phrase 'Tornado Alley' speaks for itself.

I personally love it. Violent weather, that is. Then again, I'm also not driving to Oklahoma City today; my mother is. She'll be groaning the full two hours to my grandparents' house. It's going to be great.

Here are some pictures I took on my phone of my nieces' Halloween costumes last night:

I think Hunter was going as The Morning After, although my sister insists she had a Hannah Montana wig lying around somewhere. Also, when Hunter first walked into the room, I totally did a double-take, because she looked EXACTLY like my sister at that age and I was like, 'Past? Is that you?' She also looked like my sister at sixteen getting home at two o'clock in the morning, although that could have just been the green eyeshadow playing tricks with my eyes.

This is Peyton, who is apparently going as a Demented Princess. Peyton (a.k.a. PeyPey or Peepers) is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to photograph, even when you're not using an iphone. She is living proof that a perpetual motion machine actually exists. You could NOT get her to hold still. By the time I'd kneel down with my camera, I'd be zooming in to a picture of her back running 20 yards away. This picture above was snapped with phone in a rare moment in which she contemplated the pro's and con's of entering the bouncy house to her right. (Pro's won.)

Here is what a picture of PeyPey usually looks like:

Let's check out Hunter in her Party Girl costume again. I mean, 'Hannah Montana.' Right. I know whenever I'm smearing black eyeliner all over my face (I'm not as precise as my sister was with her daughter) and dolloping on gobs of shimmery green eyeshadow, I'm TOTALLY thinking 'teen popstar.' Also, I NEVER look this good. Alissa, I hope your makeup services are for hire.

Aren't those freckles killer?! They're so perfect. Not too much, not too little--just a fine smattering across the nose! You can't DRAW them any better than that! And trust me--when I was young, I tried.

And in conclusion...more pictures of The Demented Princess:

two little girls from oklahoma

I feel like I may have exhibited a bit TOO much of the dark side of my nature in that last post. I mean, schadenfreude is something that nobody should admit to, let alone on the world wide web in front of EVERYBODY.  So now I'm thinking I should post something NICE on TOP of it and nobody will scroll down and they'll think THIS is my post, and then I look good again.

These shots are of my niece and her friend. They were both so beautiful, so 'Faces of America,' so...innocent, that I couldn't get over it. Please love them with me:

So many good things, all in one day: Tulsa, Oklahoma

I saw a girl I used to go to high school with at the Pioneer Woman cookbook signing last night and she TOTALLY got fat. I was going to go up to say hi to her just to show her that I DIDN'T get fat--at least, relatively speaking--but then I thought about how immature that would be, so I decided to ignore her altogether. As though I didn't SEE her. Or recognize her. Because, you know, she got fat. She looks WAY different. Especially in that round bit around her face.

She used to be a track and cross country star, super tall and skinny and snobby. I think that's why this development feels so satisfying. Kind of like this girl I knew in elementary school who was all long, glossy, flipped hair and all, 'I've been on STAR Search and I'm a CHEERLEADER and all the boys know who I AM,' and then at recess one day she kicks you off the monkey bars because they were the COOL KID monkey bars and you're NOT a Cool Kid, so you have to go use the NERD monkey bars, the small, bad ones way over there, and so you let go of the bar and drop to the ground and scuff over to the small monkey bars and feel like a tiny piece of dirt, but you HAVE to obey her because she's shinier and has lots of shiny, laughing friends and from then on every time you see her in the cafeteria glossing around, you feel your blood boiling with anger and helplessness, and then later in college you see her at the mall and she's  all fat and pushing a STROLLER, and you're finally validated because check THAT, at least you don't have a BABY at 18, you're actually in COLLEGE, and are those MATERNITY jeans? And also you get  to tell her that now she has to go play on the PREGNANT TEEN monkey bars because this set is for VIRGINS. Except you say it in a way that makes virginity sound cool. Except you actually don't say any of it, you just THINK it, but it still feels just as good, and then the rest of the day you swish around feeling like a million bucks.

Speaking of the Pioneer Woman's cookbook signing: Professor-Mama Gray and I pulled up to the Tulsa Historical Society about twenty minutes before the signing was due to begin, and the parking lot was so full we had to drive about an hour away and walk. And we had barely squeezed ourselves in to the standing-room-only space when the announcement came that all the cookbooks had sold out. Oh, yes. SOLD OUT. And there are women walking around holding STACKS of them and I was like, 'Hey! You book hogs!' even though I was 'technically' going to buy a couple myself. But despite that setback, we still got super cool free tee shirts and cupcakes and got to hear a Q & A session with Ree (we're on a first-name basis) and it was lovely. Here are Mama Gray and I wearing our shirts later and looking super-fantastic:

We also had dinner at Elmer's BBQ (motto: 'we be bad'), and honestly, it was the best bbq EVER, and just got  me more excited for Memphis with Dinana. I got the chopped pork and fried okra and it was INCREDIBLE. Check out the grease stains on the wax paper:

(taken with my phone; forgive the quality)

Elmer's ALSO smokes their own meat AND makes their own amazing bbq sauce. I KNOW. It was heaven in a basket.

I just got back from lunch with two high school friends who are now blissfully hitched with a gorgeous baby. It was wild. I love the sort of friends that you can talk to once every ten years and pick up right where you left off. It's trascendental.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get ready for tonight's Fall Festival with my nieces. According to the flyer, there will be 'CANDY AND GAMES! FREE FOOD! FACE PAINTING! AMAZING BALLOON ARTIST!' I'm going to see if this balloon artist can make me an armadillo riding a bicycle  balloon to match the armadillo riding the bicycle I'm going to have painted on my face. I LOVE FALL FESTIVALS.

No task but to live

You came! You really came! I love you more today than yesterday.

Here's the poem that speaks of the heart of the next few months:

And that's why I have to go back

to so many places in the future,

there to find myself

and constantly examine myself

with no witness but the moon

and then whistle with joy,

ambling over rocks and clods of earth,

with no task but to live

with no family but the road.

--Pablo Neruda, End of the World (Wind)