Dispatches From the Road: Holy Crap, I’m Home Edition

Wow, time got away from me last week and I find myself at home, back in cat hair-covered pajamas, just as god herself intended it.

My trip across the state and back was amazing, as I fully expected it to be. And exhausting, like any good roadtrip vacation. Aside from the insomnia Tuesday night that knocked me out of doing the Jack Daniel’s tour Wednesday morning, everything else was smooth sailing.

Let’s see if I can break it down into digestible nuggets. Ew, “nuggets” is a gross word.

CHATTANOOGA

I got to see Nick’s new digs in the Scenic City. Holy crap, Chattanooga has done a fantastic job on their downtown/riverfront area; how neat to see a city using its public art budget creatively, or at all. The pedestrian bridge across the river is a nice touch, especially when it’s full of shirtless young men jogging. Hey-o! I kid. But seriously, that town is serious about its jogging.

Our afternoon was spent at the art museum, which houses American art, and is a pretty swanky place. We are twelve years old, so we mostly spent our time making inappropriate, anti-intellectual comments about the artwork. The highlight of the trip was the visiting exhibition by William Morris, whose blown glass works are absolutely insane. If you ever get a chance to see this guy’s stuff, do so. (I snuck a picture here.) It will boggle your mind. Also, there was a lifelike sculpture there of an old lady taking up money for charity. Nick decided that it nearly resides in the uncanny valley. I couldn’t stop looking at her, waiting for her to move. It was sick. Also, awesome.

We spent the evening bar hopping — conservatively, compared to the drinking pace he and his last visitors took. I particularly enjoyed Pickle Barrel (which I obnoxiously refer to as “Hobbit Bar” because it’s roughly three feet wide, some of the stools look like they’re carved out of logs, and it seems like the kind of place tattooed, down-on-their-luck hobbits would go after a long day at the hobbit office), which was super cheap and laid back (so much so that we were served by some dude in super tight pants who apparently didn’t even work there). We saw a movie (“Tropic Thunder,” which was horribly offensive but terribly funny) and had dinner, then roamed around the riverfront some more so I could try my hand at blurry nighttime photography. We met up with Nick’s work friends at The Big Chill, which is a gay bar that doesn’t want to be called a gay bar lest some of the more prickish patrons decide to stop patronizing once they realize teh gayz are everywhere! We had entirely too many rounds and Adam spilled some unholy peach/Jager combination all over my hand and convinced me it was okay to take two of the bar’s cups home with me. I tipped $10 and called it even. Adam is evil. Evil!

The next afternoon, Nick let me take a look at the classy Times Free Press newsroom where he works. It’s a big open lofty-looking place with shiny old hardwood floors and clean lines everywhere. Classy! I wish I had taken pictures but I got a case of the chickenshits there with all those other journos. I felt touristy enough just being there, I suppose.

We came home, watched a documentary about the infamous documentary in Dyersburg in which Nick has a starring role, and I hit the winding road out of the ‘Noog and back into Middle Tennessee.

[More Chattanooga pictures here.]

NASHVILLE

Lesley was kind enough to let me swing by her house for a shower so I could go meet Brittney and some of the other Nashville bloggerati without being a disgusting sweaty mess. We don’t do a lot of blogger meet-ups in Memphis (I know, I know, this wasn’t technically a meet-up), so it was a surreal experience meeting so many of the people I’d previously only known as avatars, and doubly surreal to actually be recognized by some people. I’m not going to name everyone I met because just thinking about accidentally leaving someone out makes me break out in hives, but suffice it to say that if I met you Thursday night, I am so glad to finally know you in meatspace. Lesley took a funny picture of me drunkenly, nervously rambling about who knows what, smarmy grin plastered on my face. Lordy, boozehound, easy on the vino.

That night I spent some time with Kristin, looking for midnight vittles (The Herm was closed by the time we got there so we ended up at some place whose name I cannot recall, but I do remember ordering some Korbel bubbly and having it served in a small airplane bottle with no glass, heh) and a nightcap. We dodged aggressive panhandlers with skill and ease, and returned back to her and Lonnie’s house pretty late. The next morning I tagged along while Kristin ran errands around town. Bought some crap at Target. Bought some crap at World Market. Realized that I like shopping when I a) am not looking for anything in particular and b) do not need anything. We ate lunch at that dairy bar over on Charlotte and I had a fanfuckingtastic chocolate milkshake. We sat on the patio and watched the traffic whiz by while golden oldies played on the PA.

MUFREESBORO

I left Kristin’s and booked it to the ‘boro to meet up with Megan for dinner and drinks at the Mellow Mushroom. (God, Murfreesboro just keeps sprouting strip malls.) We spent some time cussing (Megan’s a champion cusser just like I am) and boozin’ and then, upon realizing that I had nowhere to go until my friend/home base for the night JR got off work, Megan invited me to play poker with her and her friends. I know nothing about poker and they were playing for money, so how could I possibly say no? Sure enough, I got my ass handed to me, but in the meantime, I actually learned how to play poker. And I got to see someone do this:

After the game, I met up with JR at his house and made him watch the aforementioned tranny nanny documentary, like I’m some kind of tranny nanny documentary evangelist, traveling from home to home, spreading the good word. The next day we laid around the house like lazy, drunken cats, me editing photos and him watching football and trying to Google hott pictures of Bristol Palin, only to stumble upon rumors about Trig and his suspicious parentage. This is what journalists do on their days off.

We had lunch and then trucked it back to Nashville. At some point, my car reached its 3,000th mile since its last oil change, and John McCain’s VP pick began to look really fucking stupid.

NASHVILLE, AGAIN

JR and Lonnie sutured themselves to the recliners in front of the Alabama-Clemson game, and I nuzzled up to my laptop to continue editing pictures. Nick was in town and already drunk, so he sat beside me and said weird things, as he often does. Kristin came home from work, and then Matt and Amanda came over, and we set about figuring out a plan to get us out of the house and away from the all the football-related yelling.

Cut to Larry’s Karaoke Lounge in Antioch, which is where we met up with Cox, who was in from Oregon for the weekend. There was drunken warbling, there was blurry picture-taking, there were hugs, there were dudes dancing with dudes (closely!), there was a long line to get to the toilet, there was Rickrolling and there was a Total Eclipse, and I somehow even ended up on the dance floor. Twice? It was marvelous, the whole night.

The next morning I stumbled into the shower and into a fantasy football draft, which was one of the more pointless and confusing things I think I’ve ever taken part in, besides voting. I reckon my team is pretty solid. Actually, I have no idea, but apparently my kicker is to be feared. Fear the Bironas, y’all. Fear him.

I finally got my ass in gear and left Kristin and Lonnie’s and headed toward Saltillo for a quick powow with the family before returning to Memphis yesterday. I got back to a new camera lens, a pretty clean litter box (my catsitters are fucking professionals), and some wine I’d forgotten I had. Score, score, and score.

It was a busy, busy week, and living out of my car was not necessarily easy, but it was pretty damned fun, just drifting from couch to bed to bed, wherever I could find a place to stay. (Thanks to everyone who lent a shower, couch, or bed.) I got to see old friends I don’t get to see a lot, which is always so much fun, and make some new ones along the way. My car got to trace the highways of Tennessee as the land swelled and swayed into the mountains of East Tennessee and then back again. I am fortunate to live in a state with such amazing beauty — both in its rural lands and in its major cities. There was so much to look at, so much to relish along the way, that there’s no way a week could ever do it justice.

[More pictures are here; they’re sadly out of order for the time being, thanks to my own drunk hands changing the date on my camera at some point in the middle of the week.]