The thing about Leezard

(Day Question Mark. When we drove from Dallas to Nashville.)

Helena had the cruise control set high as we flew through the barren purple landscape that is Fate, Texas at six AM.

Somewhere in that line there is a metaphor. I can't decide what it means that we had the cruise control on while driving through Fate. Was she meant to set the cruise control, or did she choose it? Cruise control isn't that hard to get out of either, you just have to tap the break right? That's got to mean something. Does the fact that is was beautiful change anything? What about the cruise control being on 80 or so? Fate zipped by, for sure. Somewhere in there I'm sure there's a lesson about destiny, love, and long journeys, something deep and central. Right?

Hell if I know, I'm just the bass player. Today we saw the sunrise in Texas and the sunset in Tennessee. From the soreness in my abs I'm guessing we spent most of the time between laughing. That and belting out bad pop music with whatever radio stations we could pick up along the way. I would be snobby about the music, except that all three of us knew most of the words. The wonderfully awful "shorty's like a melody in my head that I can't get out" is a melody in my head that I can't get out, right now as I write this. About two cups of coffee and three bawdy jokes into the drive we remembered what we forgot: the ipod adapter. It could have been worse, we could have forgotten Sara's bag of shoes.

Dallas was one of my favorite stops on the tour, mostly because of Mama T. I now know where Helena gets her nurturing side, as well as her prowess in the kitchen. The Thompsons not only warmly welcomed seven hungry (and slightly smelly from the road) college students, all their instruments and nightly jam sessions, and the impressive amount of luggage we spread through every room, into her house; Patricia Thompson also cooked us some of the most delicious southern food I've ever had the pleasure of eating. I am hungry again just thinking about her grits and biscuits. Then there was the high school teen-movie-like sleepover that took place on her floor. From the amount of giggling, inside jokes, and bro love that went on in that room after midnight, you'd swear we were all high in the sky on something illegal. We were just high on Carlos' wonderful/terrible puns really. And Helena's innuendos. And Danny's resemblance to Hunter S. Thompson. And Alex's leezard boots (he's got "good taste, for a yankee" apparently).

From sleeping in that room I learned that:
-One of the gentlemen on our tour, who shall go unnamed, talks in his sleep, occasionally has nightmares about a giant evil butterfly named Mama Coochin, and will never live it down.
-Phantom tickling becomes much more effective after 3 am.
-Helena is the only one of us who isn't ticklish. She is also one of the most merciless ticklers. I believe this is unfair.
-I would rather sleep on Mama T's living room floor with these dorks than in any luxury suite in the world.
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I'll let you in on a secret: I'm writing this from my Dad's upstairs office in Kentucky, ten days after I'm pretending to write it, and two days after my girls left. I wouldn't tell you that, except I wanted to tell you this: the rain is hitting the skylight and I'm listening to 'skip, hop, and wobble' and except for the fact that this cupcake is stale and I'm kinda lonely, things are pretty great. This is the first time I've really heard skip hop wobble all the way through, and I like it a lot. Hymn of ordinary motion is pretty glorious. Just to let you know.