New York's Thataway!

New York is walking around the Lower East side at 4am looking for a hotel (“How long would you like the room for? An hour? – taxi driver) and getting mistaken for a prostitute. First me, then him. It’s conversations that change the way I think for the rest of my life – and sort the boring from the brilliant.
It’s sex that I cant even be bothered trying to explain with words. The bottom of a shower alcove used to be where I’d sink to in melancholy and now it’s a spot to share happiness with the same lover. It’s falling in love all over again and regret that it cannot be sustained. Luckily the regret isn’t sustainable either.
Poppit makes a wish somewhere for the both of us to stay away from mediocrity. I am scared of mediocrity too. The price I will pay is that I can no longer stand anybody that embodies it. But it’s all subjective anyway.
It’s hanging out on our Williamsburg fire escape watching the Orthodox Jewish kids play on the street and getting stoned with old friends. It’s breaking into apartments to fill the tub with cold water because it’s so hot outside.
Getting lost in the Met, stung by a bee in Central Park, lobster spaghetti, jazz bars and red wine, coffee every morning in Brooklyn, outdoor movie festivals and concerts, pretentious roof top bars with beer, unpretentious roof top parties with cocktails, the Chelsea hotel, lots of breakfasts, reading books on the Highline, earl grey popsicles, lavender donuts. Markets and boys with long hair, dive bars and getting hilariously drunk. Singing Eric Clapton on the street with Poppit playing drums on her legs. It’s so hot, there is always sweat on our legs. The sun is so hot and the air is hot and even the clouds in the air are hot. The mosquitoes stop us sleeping at night and the fans aren’t strong enough. We catch the train to Coney Island (grey, dreary, like a bad summer horror movie) too many times.
When we leave we have had one hour of sleep and there are tears in my eyes, when the universe comes to save the day once again, as usual, and “Funkytown” comes on the taxi radio.

Hangin' out with the kids

"I feel like this dog most of the time" - Me

Duck

There are wild ponies that live on the beach here. It’s also called “duck”. We don’t see the ponies, or ducks, but we stay with Tess’ friend on the lake and the house is huge and white and has it’s own jetty. We can finally sleep with windows open and there is a breeze. We take the boat out for an hour, lounge around the pool and eat tacos at the pier watching men play a makeshift game on Kayaks with paddles as swords and trashcan lids as shields. All of the “shacks” here are triple storied and look expensive even though they’re made of wooden slats and haven’t been painted in years. Everything is white and washed out - the sand, the house, the scrubland…There is a lake on one side and the coast on the other.

Nashville

I am sick in Nashville. We stay out the back of a wedding chapel/B&B. The daughter sells vintage bags. We have our own rooms . There is so much 90s grunge music on the radio and we sing nirvana all night when we hit the town. The bars are cool. There is trivia and live music and we dance to an indie country band and make eyes at skinny. Poppit chases a firefly on the way home and it is the funniest thing I have ever seen.

Memphis

Everything is starting to blur together. I don’t remember the houses we’ve stayed in as well and can’t differentiate what was where. We drive into the Graceland hotel at 10pm and are stretching our limbs in the guitar shaped pool within half an hour. The water is as warm as the air. The next day is dedicated to Elvis. I say thank you as we pass his grave. Memphis is real music and my first taste of gumbo. The musicians in an outdoor pub on a wooden stage take a liking to us and we escape in the middle of a song whose lyrics they cant change. Escape to the Peabody hotel where we watch the duck march and sleep in prestige. We sit with the children to watch the ducks and I watch the runaways in the hotel room drinking champagne. Bath, hotel, ducks, champagne, inspiration, rock n roll.

Roadtrippin'

R's driving makes me feel like a fish in a bag of water in the back seat. We are all doing well considering we are starting to grate on one other. I refrain myself from screaming across the roadside diner table at one of my friends “STOP CHEWING LIKE A HORSE” and hope to god that one day her mother will tell her. I'm not easy to live with.
The scenery is lush and green and forest-y. We eat candy and laugh and listen to 90s music and sing our hearts out. We always get a little hyperactive toward the end of the day’s drive while searching for a hotel. We managed to go off course in Pennsylvania around Amish country and ended up driving down lovely lanes around beautiful countryside, fields and national parks as the sun was going down.
On a whim we added in the field where they held Woodstock into our itinerary. On our way we drove through picturesque forests listening to The Who and Janis Joplin, all wearing crochet (it was lame and we loved it) – sun filtered through the open windows and with wind in our hair we passed creeks and lakes with people swimming, tiny charming hillside mountain towns. We also passed a field in the middle of acres of woodland, with trees cut down and abandoned bulldozers. On the biggest one was hanging a huge American flag. Further down the lane, a giant stiletto, like the one from Priscilla, on top of a shed. Americana is so wonderful.

Nawlin's

New Orleans is the blues and touristy streets that would look amazing if they were deserted. Luckily, on a Sunday, they are and I wander alone to buy a hat and perfume. Shrimp po-boys are eaten alone and I enjoy the men’s frivolity and noise in the fish stalls of the market in the French quarter. Dingy bars nearby prevail and we dance to music played by famous new Orleans TV stars with tattoos. We drink in absinthe bar courtyards and spend time with a freaky ghost tour guide. The house we are in is breezy and long, cool, high ceilinged and we all rest in the afternoons from the 35 degree heat and humidity that we can no longer walk in. It drains us and burns us and sweats through our clothes. The trees of the French quarter provide relief but everywhere else is dried out in the sun. On our last day Louella and I find a coffee shop full of likeminded people and play dominos. There is an openness here and the mingling of old and new, blues and modern, heat and wide roads combine to create a space of acceptance and languor by day, music and dancing by night in the marshy Louisiana right next to the Mississippi river.