The Dukes of Hazard

Greetings from sunny scenic 42 05.441 N, 72 36.679 W.

I'm in Connecticut. So said, why are those GPS coordinates for a parking lot in Massachusetts? Because I fucking said so.

As it turns out, Dan and Laura were excited to take me through Hazard County to The Big E, a New England expo outside of Springfield, Mass. There were many carnival festivities: frosty chocolate milkshakes, fried candy bars, show horses decked out to the nines, and Laura going nuts at the numerous petting zoos. I was fortunate enough to see the Royal Canadian Mounted Police preparing for their horse show. Female mounties are quite easy on the eyes.

Probably my favorite activity was going through a bunch of different northeastern states on foot. There were a variety of small buildings, each a type of state embassy promoting that state's resources. I went through New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maine. I don't travel much, and in a single afternoon I doubled the number of states I've visited.

I bought soap from Vermont. It's organic, cut into an unadorned and quite utilitarian brick, and smells like cinnamon and clove. In all a sweet but masculine scent that will compliment the little green sliver of Irish Spring that found its way into my bag before I left Cleveland.

I had the opportunity to eat disgustingly unhealthy fried foods and damn near walked away with 400 thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets for a theoretical bed that I will probably buy at some point in the future. I had my picture taken holding onto that bottom part of a helicopter and had a very nice woman who tried to sell me a razor that vibrates watch me shave. I won't buy it, but I was impressed that it competently removed a week of stubble. Then again, with five aligned blades it had damned well better.

I've received one phone call from work already, which was my boss mistakenly believing that this forthcoming week was to be my last. Oops. He asked what I was hoping for, and I responded with a quote from Mononoke Hime. He's polite about giving me the space I want to find myself, but he very clearly wants me to still work there. I could hear the disappointment in his voice.

I have presently discovered that Doug, Mr. One, has been banned from numerous theater production companies around northeast Ohio due to a pathological tendency to sleep with other people's girlfriends. It's hardly a comforting piece of news — and not even news to probably everyone by now — but hey....

I mailed a Very Important Package to Monk on Friday. I checked the Saturday delivery option, but the tracking number says it's not going to be delivered until Monday. Fuck you, Fed Ex. You are expensive and incompetent.

Jess gave me an autographed copy of Danielewski's House of Leaves. I started it in the airport and have only gotten to page 50 or so and it's already one of the best stories I've never understood. It's been a great companion on the flights, both as a horror story and as a convoluted mash of contrived literary references. I don't expect to have much time to pick it back up until Wednesday, and then who knows? I'm looking forward to getting my stuff put back together in Seattle. I have lots of pictures I want to upload of the things I've seen and done.