Tuesday, June 7

haphazardly, from the road

The road to Missouri (MO) is a long one; 12 hrs long to be exact(ish). It involves rounds of driving of about four to five hours, which are juxtaposed by rounds of sleeping haphazardly while the maniac sitting next to you drives like he's in a race car.

It's a crew cap truck, Sweet. There's no pit crew and you're not going to get sprayed with champagne when we get to the next checkpoint.

I deal with it best while I'm sleeping haphazardly. It's during those times that I can't feel the truck swaying as he changes the music on the eyePod.

Currently we're in Guthrie, OK which is about an hour north of Oklahoma City which is the least likely place I thought I'd run into Vancouver Canucks fans. Turns out that there's a few anti Boston fans. Had I* been in OKC three weeks earlier I might have been invited to a basketball game, "the city nearly shuts down, as I'm sure these two can tell you".

She was motioning to the two sitting behind her, the pair of reception like people sitting just behind the board room table her and I were standing at. The man looked up and nodded eagerly in agreement, the woman didn't look up from her computer but smiled politely, nonetheless.

"would you like another coffee?" he asked, equally as eagerly. I remembered back to when I first sat down and he offered me the first.

"no thanks" i said, i'm still wearing most of the original "I should get going."

I know none of them had seen me cross my legs into the cup of coffee he had so generously offered me. I was glad because I went as red as the couch I had just spilled it on, and I hoped that it was coffee heating my leg.

Leaving meetings like this one have made this trip worth while. I know I enjoy talking to people, but having to sell myself is stressful, and I've learned that I don't know if I could do it all the time. At least not this road trip version. The road trip itself is going well, but it's such a rough ride emotionally all day. We stopped at more than 15 places in the morning and I got a different feeling about each one. The good feeling lasts until the next place we stop, but the bad feelings last the whole day.

But hey, I've crossed three states to my list (though I haven't found a badge for any of them yet) and there's a chance I'll get another two if the trip goes the way I think it might. (However in truth I don't have a clue where the trip will go from here. Sweet and I have been sitting at this cafe for two hours now waiting on orders from base camp.)

When I learn how to make the good feeling last all afternoon I'll let you know. I'm sure a few of you are thinking of suggesting that I drink, but that wouldn't help much since they don't put alcohol in their beer here.

*I had an urge just now to write this sentence out as "had I a been" or "had i of been" but neither would have been correct. It's taking me a while to figure out what is correct, in fact I haven't written the rest of the sentence yet and I have no idea where I'm going to go with it. I think it must be a colloquialism, or a rural thing. Any thoughts, dear readers**?

**speaking of which ... yesterday, apparently, there were 49 of you. I don't know who you are, or where you're coming from, but thanks for stopping by. I hope you like it.

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