Day 21: Oh, Omar.

Ah, Beale Street. I was very excited to return for round 2, especially since A: I did not have to drive, B: I did not have to get up early the next day, and C: I knew what to expect, and so was even more excited to go get crazy. We met up with Nick and Aimee, and headed out to the liquor store across the street called 3 Habits (beer, cigarettes and porn), and the store next to it called The 4th Habit, which sold liquor. Walking in, the bottles were on shelves along the wall, encased in glass. It was like going into a booze zoo, where you got your brown bag passed to you through a drawer. Awesome. We decided to have the front desk call us a cab, and we waited for a white van, driven by someone named Omar. ( I think he was dating the front desk girl so we got tons of information about him which I found humorous.) He arrived, and we were instantly charmed by him, and chatted non stop from the hotel to Beale. I took his number, and we promised to call him when we were ready to head back to the hotel. Had a great dinner, and started the drinking. First stop: the shack that sold 32 oz beers for $4. $4!! Went back to Coyote Ugly, dedicated to getting Aimee up on the bar, and after 2 beers, a couple swigs from my flask of Jack, I got my wish. We danced like rockstars, and were then stuck up there for 20 minutes, because there were girls on either sides of us doing body shots.  From there it was a marathon of drinking, dancing, and drunk dialing. Just wonderful wonderful wonderful. 

Long story short, we eventually could drink no more, and called Omar for our ride. We were hanging out on the corner waiting for our big white van to show up, so when we were finally saw it we jumped in hugging and high fiving Omar, chatting on and on about I don't even know what. The entire time we were driving home I found it strange that Omar's cell kept calling me, but I was really not caring. But by the time we pulled into the paring lot it clicked. This was not Omar. This was not our big white van. We had just made total asses of ourselves to some random cab driver, and confirmed the drunk tourist theory: drunk tourists are dumb. 

The rest of the night, not so fun, nor was the morning. So finally crawling out of bed at 2pm, I think I was still a bit drunk, but at least I felt slightly human. Pretty low key day today, went to the Rock and Soul Museum, which was amazing and beautiful and very moving. I learned that Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13 year old cousin, and find that very funny. I also learned that the Mississippi river looks the same down here as it does back home, but it was neat to see the ferry boats carting all the drunk middle aged people around because they couldn't hack it on Beale. The boys wanted to do Beale again, but both Aimee and I were all worn out, in need of some R and R, more specifically alone R and R. 

Driving to Mississippi tomorrow, though I love Memphis, I am looking forward to seeing some more of the south.

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Day 19: Adventure at the Scary Mall of Memphis

Went to the scariest mall in the entire world yesterday. If I remember correctly I went in to find ear bud headphones, and walked out with my heart racing, grateful for mall security. Ok, so it wasn't actually that scary, but I was not about to hang out there by myself after dark. Now I know about half of you reading this are shaking your heads because almost all of you have at one point or five told me to "be careful", and I assure you I have. But I was not aware how crappy the neighborhood around me is. After spending a whopping $.75 on my dinner at Aldi, which was a terrible idea, by the way..... very gross chicken, corn and potatoes, I pulled into a mall parking lot, and walked inside. This was my experience: walked by kiosk after kiosk of indian salesman trying to sell me "gold bling", store after store of spray painted t shirts, tacky shoes, and horrible "couture". I realized as I rounded the corner that the lights we very dim, I was the only female in sight, and also the whitest. The only two stores I recognized were Rainbow (super classy) and Sears. I ducked into Rainbow, and found myself in female company, and decided to buy new sunglasses, since I have lost a total of 2 pairs so far this trip. Cashless, I paid with a credit card, which let to the discovery that their machine was down. Long story short, they tried to take an imprint of my card, and after watching them fail for about 20 minutes, I calmly showed them how to do it. Though my impulse was to get the hell out of this empty shell of a mall, I decided to trek it over to Sears to get some socks. Mission accomplished, I briskly walked back to the front doors, dismayed at how zealous the vendors were to sell me bling, but grateful that mall security was present as I walked through the darkness to my car. Once back at the hotel I happily went for a swim in the heated pool, watched the debate (I swear if McCain said Joe one more time I was going to throw something), and crawled into my very very comfortable bed with 4, yes, 4 pillows!

Oh, and BTW. Earlier this week I went for lunch at McDonalds and the had crack there. (For those of you who don't know, crack is the touch screen video game, with my personal favorite PhotoHunt) And the best part: It was totally free. I gotta say it was the nicest McDonalds I have ever seen: flat screen TV, high tops, jukebox, vases with flowers. I was impressed by fast food. First time for everything.

Day 18: Missed chances, nuns, and that DAMN GINGER KID.

I got a call this morning from the Science Museum of Minnesota, asking me to come in for an audition for a job acting/presenting for them starting in the spring. Paid day job acting? Score!  Of course, the audition would be on a day when I am still on the road. BOO. Yet another missed opportunity I will let go after a few days of pouting. Ah well, they said they will try to reschedule but I didn't get the impression it would be anytime soon.

I saw nuns! The second show was at a catholic school, and I got to chat with nuns. I don't think I'd ever done that before. They were super cute and very nice. And I got to sit and "talk" with a bunch of 1st graders between shows. I say "talk", because it was more like an inquisition. "Are you going home now?" "Do you two live together?" "How does he change so fast?" "Why do the big kids get a different show?" "Why didn't you change costumes?" "Do we get to learn more when we're older" "Do you know my name?" " Where's your car?" etc.. Eventually I just had to walk away.

Ok. Now I have had a chance to calm down since this morning, so I think I can rationally discuss the horror that was the first show of the day. Private school, super nice teacher who let us in, gave us sweet tea, bottled water.... Kids: MONSTERS. They just screamed things out the whole time would not shut up, would not listen. Would not sit still, there was a kid in the aisle who was constantly moving around, I almost stepped on him 3 times. But the worst was this damn redheaded kid in the front row, who kept screaming. "BATTERIES! YOU FORGOT ABOUT BATTERIES!!!" " BATTERIES! YOU FORGOT ABOUT BATTERIES!!" "BATTERIES! YOU FORGOT ABOUT BATTERIES!!" Over and over and over and over and over. I was so pissed by the end of the show, I raced through the wrap up, and it took everything in my power not to drop kick that damn ginger kid. Once backstage, I was fuming. Granted, every other show has been great, and I knew this would happen eventually, but damn it he made me mad!

But now, I am zen, I have a pool about 5 feet from where I sit, I get to go to Beale Street again this weekend (going to be AMAZING AGAIN!), and I fly home for a quick visit in 9 days!

Day 17: 3.5

I watched 3.5 movies yesterday.

1) Blindness, which had THREE actors in it from Slings and Arrows (Ellen, Anna and Darren Nicols)

2) about a half hour of a horrible kids movie with talking little dogs, I dare not speak it's name.

3) Burn After Reading. I heart the Cohen Bros.

and

4) Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. Yes the soundtrack is sweet.

That's really all I got for now.

Day 16: a day off. again.

Today is Columbus Day, so no school in session in the great state of Tennessee. I'm back in Memphis after a fun filled weekend in Lynchberg where I was able to begin my love affair with Jack Daniels. Not only was the tour informative and fun, but the bottle that we drank afterwards was even more enjoyable. We had the most amazing tour guide named Ron, who had legendary facial hair, and he made it even better.  Sadly, we had to drive a good half hour before we could find a liquor store (Lynchberg being a dry town), but we found a good place to call it a night, enjoy the whiskey, and even tried "shot's in a bag". Seriously. Like a zip lock bag filled with a shot. It was actually kind of impressive.

After a late checkout the next morning, (my poor room mate was hurting pretty bad), we had lunch and continued on our way back to Memphis. It was a beautiful drive, passed the town that claimed to be the birthplace of Fred Thompson, had a HUGE picture up of him as you enter their city limits. I began to feel the strain of endlessly driving, unpacking, packing, driving as I neared the 4th hour of this leg of my journey, but then was given something else to stress over when I was pulled over for going 71 in a 45mph zone. Shit. Thankfully, the cop was super nice, I don't think it hurt that I told her I worked for a Children's Theatre, and she let me go. After that all I wanted to do was get to the hotel and crawl into a ball in the corner. All this downtime is much more stressful then I ever imagined it could be. The weekdays go by fast with show after show, but these weekends, being on a limited budget, are starting to get to me. So my solution is to spend this entire day at a movie theatre, catching up on all the movies I have not seen. Aaron would be proud.

Perhaps a portion of this stress is coming from the changes at home, Josh moving out, Molly moving in, then then all that changing again in May when I decide what to do next.  There have been so many questions raised I just don't know where to start answering them all. I have lost a certain amount of control in my life as I have known it, and it's becoming more and more difficult to accept. Or maybe I'm just having an off day.

Regardless, I am still loving Memphis, it's just beautiful in the fall, and I have met some incredible people with some incredible stories. I am grateful that now they will become a part of my story. Everyday, there are these new worlds that are opened up for me and I try to cling to the memory, as obscure as it may be, not wanting to forget a moment of this, but there is just so much to take in.