Bossy is real! Real cool! Speaking in purely technical terms, she’s also real purty, even though I shot her through my patented “accidental tangerine” filter:

Here’s one thing I learned: Bossy may be my secret twin. We’re basically Lanky Bright and Dark: both tall, both the same amount of old but don’t feel it, both hopeful rovers with dogs named Stella (of course, hers is the size of a shetland and mine is more like a shetland’s hoof). It’s a rare treat to meet someone who can be both a mirror and a mentor.

I’d love to do what she’s done—not so much building a blogging kingdom, as bring people across the country together through will and charm and (literal) drive. For me, roadtrips are usually undertaken alone, but Bossy’s redefined the solo trek. She’s put in some hard miles and smiles over the past several weeks, crossing the country and hosting meetups in every city, but I bet when she looks back it’ll all be worth it. I know it was for me, so thank you, sister.

That’s lovely Rita from Surrender, Dorothy behind Bossy, but you’ll have to take my word for it (step away from the bokeh, Subtle Rudder). Rita works for BlogHer, and I have to get around to signing up. One of these days, I’m going to learn how to network like a big girl.

I think I drove the farthest to be there; most of the other women were from Kansas or Missouri. It was a very cool group, and pretty everyone knew each other already, which was a revelation to me. You mean you can make your internet contacts into real world friends? I have got to get out more.

Nimble drove in from Lawrence, and we got to hang together after the larger meetup was over. We figured out how we found each other (through Nancy Nall, via the coozle highway—it’s a dusty, rutted road where the neighbors are strange, the mules are goodlooking, and the writing makes you snort-laugh through your tears) and we talked about the big stuff: how we got to where we’re at, and where (and who) we want to be as the dial slips another season, year, decade. We’ve already decided on one place we’d like to go together: instead of meeting in the middle, Cooz, we want to come and hang with you and Raydell and the whole rurritable gang.

Of course, I had just enough Malbec to take a bunch of unimpressively soft pictures of friendly strangers, as well as some wine-fueled self portraits in the bathroom mirror. As you may know, I’m not comfortable being captured in two dimensions, although Bossy told me to get over my twitchy-grimacy self. I’m not sure this is what she had in mind, though:

Won’t you join us for some junking in Kansas City?

(The one on the right is my little sis.)

First, we’ll have some fortification. How about a mess of Ethiopian food?

Nothing like njera bloat to raise your game. Luckily, you’re with the Rudder sisters. We can scour an antique mall dragging our broken legs behind us and still come away with an unnecessary bargain or ten. It’s in our blood.

I love the randomness of crap. For instance, the sacred heart of eat-a-snax:

And this wall of tribal masks, which may be the raddest thing I’ve ever seen (and you must imagine me with my tongue out, throwing rock and roll devil horns, as I type that):

Speaking of horns, I was tempted by El Toro and his manly places:

His name is Chuck. As in the roast, I’m guessing:

Somehow mamacita here seems incomplete. Let’s see…beach hat, on. Lipstick, applied. Joey, enpouched. But where is her cigarette?

Perhaps it’s in her pocketbook.

How’d you like to share your bedroom with this happy couple? Brrrr:

Speaking of bedrooms, that’s for private time when the door is closed, you naughty, naughty monkey:

Archie gets a less jowly version of this look, where his forehead gets all pleated:

Movie tie-in! I found a wild thing, or maybe it’s Ferdinand the lonely bull:

The mall has three massive floors with a pretty good dreck-to-acceptable ratio. While it’s mostly filled with unwantables, there are a good number of modern oddments and midcentury delectables, with enough quirk to send me shivering. The upper floors are, ah, rustic, though, and the flooring’s a little airy for my taste:

That’s the first floor, as seen from the second floor, by the way…

Whew, quite an adventure, and we escaped for less than ten bucks each. Now we just need to make a quick stop here before we put our pajamas on:

Thanks for shopping!

I’d spare us all this one, but a deal is a deal and a goal is a goal and if I offer my dad five (count ‘em, FIVE) American dollars, do you suppose he’d ferry the mutts down here for me, so we could commence with the entangled cuddlement of return?

Today began at the hour of the sparrow’s fart, and involved:

A shuttle ride through Denver dawn with a group of older execs from big pharma, who ambled through the do you know who-and-ifs and have you seen thus-and-suches, while I took sunrise snapshots on my phone through the chiaroscuro of grime on the windows.

By the time we were approaching the airport, talk had turned to family. One father bitched gently about kids today, with their outscale expectations, saying, “Back then, I had a Doberman and a dirtbike, and life was good.”

The cattle-prod whateverdom of modern flight, with the airport security lines and the moving walkways and your fellow passengers, all fetal with sleepiness. The flight was fine, no drama until the end when the snotbag flight attendant insisted on walking me through the iphone shut-down process, as if I were thick, and not merely resistant. And now, of course, my phone is fritzy, caught in a cycle where every button I push makes it take a picture of itself. If I can get it to reboot, I will have many shots of the homescreen (I am death on the iphones; must be all that personal magnetism.)

A three hour drive from the Kansas City airport, which was unremarkable except for the blinky-starey exhaustion I felt and all the cheek-slapping I did to keep myself awake and on the road. I did make a detour through an antique mall in St. Joe, overstuffed with the sort of vintage horrors that make me want to purge everything, become a minimalist, a stuff-anorexic. Give me a white room with a white bed, and a white table with three grey rocks arranged artfully on top.

An epic nap from which I could barely awaken; one of those overtaking numbers that make you feel weighted, medicated, dopily underwater. I’m still coming out of that, in fact, and I am sad to say it’s already dark o’clock, which makes me think I won’t stray much from this place tonight. Maybe as far as the bathtub, then back here for more lounging in my own bed. The best part of being away is coming home to what’s yours (even if that’s just three grey rocks, or two small dogs, or one well-slept bed).

The largest experiences take the longest for me to tell. I’m ten kinds of wrecked today, after spending three and a half hours in the tower of song. I could string a list of superlatives together, but that would never capture the ecstatic catechism of last night.

It’s enough to say that I now understand why deadheads taped different shows, because as I was walking out with the crowd after the umpteenth encore, I considered rushing the sound dude and begging for a board recording.

More later…for now, here’s the setlist. Gotta fly to Denver soon.

And suddenly, everything feels a little lighter. Weather Jesus is rewarding us with a couple of 70-degree days, after trudging through the gloomiest October on record. Expect the be-shorted and the shirtless. I had to break out a tank top yesterday.

Right now I’m running a load of laundry and trying to gather myself and my stuff before I head south to KC, MO for some sister time (see you soon, Kate!), some Leonardsong (so long, Marianne!), and then Tuesday’s Denver flight (tech conference). I’m nearly a vagabond, at this rate.

It’s silly how excited I am by the drive alone. Three hours, and I’m giddy with the possibilities. And don’t get me started on the urban infusion: Crowds! Skyscrapers! Ethnic eateries! Two mid-sized cities this week; it’s like jacking straight into the mainline.

Damn, I love a good road trip. I was built for the secular Haj; I’m a rambler, a flâneur, an itinerant passer-through with big plans. If you see me on the mean streets of KC or Denver, be sure to say hello.

Via

My sister just moved to an adorable house in a very cool neighborhood in Kansas City, a place where the restaurants aren’t just a medley of sandwich shops and more sandwich shops. (With some sandwich shops mixed in for variety.) I’m a little jealous, in case it’s not clear. I miss me some city, and I find these urban longings express themselves most often as a fixation on food.

But I also miss the downtown-ness of cities, that pulse of traffic and skyscrapers and people moving quickly to jobs, to museums, to restaurants featuring the foods of many lands. So I love what KC did with their public library, taking books of importance to the region and creating a pretend shelf running along the main branch of the library’s parking structure.

Isn’t this the perfect example of well-considered form elevating necessary function? Stacked books have always seemed like towers to me, places with far views and rich contents. And libraries are cities unto themselves, my cathedral (although I often fail to tithe in a timely fashion).

I can’t wait to head down and see it.

Via