Whoa, dude. So, like, I’ve been reading this book, you know, that takes place in the late 1800s? It’s about this pregnant woman, you know, who has had to, like, move to the middle of the prairie with her nasty husband and their four kids ‘cuz he and her father totally ripped off a bunch of people in their hometown. So here they are in the middle of nowhere, her husband is being a jerk and she realizes how much she detests him, but there’s nowhere to go. (Believe me, after driving 7 hours through South Dakota and Minnesota, I can understand) They can barely be civil to each other and rarely are. The next thing I know I’m starting to be bitchy towards Cork. Whoa, kind of like Jack Nicholson in The Shining…. I think I better stop reading that book.
So in one of my earlier posts I posed the question of just why are we taking this trip? All ageism jokes aside (although I did find myself in a restaurant in a sleeveless shirt, holding my upper arm to keep it from wiggling while I was shaking the salt) we’re taking this trip because Cork and I started to feel trapped by our lives. He probably won’t talk about it much, since I don’t think he likes things to be that simply said, but the fact is that he hasn’t been inspired artistically in quite a while, and I haven’t been inspired emotionally or really on any level in a long time. Simply put, I’ve been bored and find myself boring. This isn’t self deprecation, it’s middle of the night therapy sessions with myself, where I realize that I stopped being an interesting person a long time ago and was having a hard time jump starting that person again. There are many reasons for this, the main one being that I postponed certain parts of my life in order to be married and have a child, and now that it’s time to reclaim them, I’ve forgotten how. The result of that forgetfulness coupled with menopause has left me growing impatient, hypersensitive, Cork would call it prickly. I slowly started to become one of those women you read about, stern, brittle, and humorless. Most people wouldn’t notice it from the outside, but I noticed it, and noticed it growing. I found myself thinking “If I don’t do something soon, I’m going to pluck my eyeballs out and bounce them across the room!” It was time to do something.
We’re slowly making our way across the United States. We arrived in Minneapolis last night, the 19th, and will stay here until Thursday when we head down to Milwaukee. While we’re here we’re staying with Cork’s ex, Donna, and her husband Paul. I just want to take a moment to say “HEY DONNA AND PAUL, YOU GUYS ROCK! THANKS FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY!” They’ve put us up in their guest quarters. It’s always so nice to have some space! Last night we had a great dinner at an Italian place they chose, and our server was so great I asked if I could put a picture of her in my blog. Then I lost all my pictures transferring them to my computer., so… THANKS AMAYA FOR A GREAT MEAL!
Cork and I have prevailed as adults and come to an agreement regarding our trip. We’re going to put off going to the Bay of Fundy this time around. I know this is disappointing for Cork, but in the wake of that decision came an AMAZING happening. Two, maybe three songs of his band, 50 Foot Hose, has been chosen to be in a movie that Billy Bob Thornton is directing. I don’t know much about the movie, but its working name is Jayne Mansfield’s Car and it stars Ray Stevenson, Kevin Bacon, John Hurt, Robert Duvall and more. Next to Lily, the 50 Foot Hose is Cork’s biggest love, and he is so excited that it’s made postponing the Bay of Fundy part of the trip okay. (And I have to tell you, I wanted to see the Bay of Fundy, but one of the draws is that it has the most extreme tides in the world, greatest range, I guess, but to experience it you have to sit and watch for six or seven hours. I could handle that, but Lily would want to pluck her eyeballs out and bounce them against the wall and then we’d both have no eyeballs and Cork would have to do the driving, and he’s having an eye exam right now as I write, so….
