Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

As life goes, last summer I found myself looking at the heartland's horizon, and this summer I'll be duplicating and extending some of these travels.  And with that, I have thoughts.   Yes, I was in the American Midwest, rolling my economical car forward, with iTunes blaring, and some flavored water at my side.   In a poetic manner of speaking, I woke up and found myself on the road.   Though, as we all know, the realities of life don't afford for that.   Instead, I had spent weeks planning, crafting ideas in the wee hours of insomnia on my Pinterest boards, and I had prepped my car.   I had ample data for my GPS, I had a cooler with bottled water and a couple of sandwiches, I had carrot sticks, and I had a somewhat curated playlist.   What that came down to was my asking friends for road trip songs and adding their suggestions to my questionable music library.   I planned to stop and see some old friends, from college and before, but as...

Last month, as it really has been a month now, I took my annual voyage to the summer camp for nerds, AKA the College Board's read of the AP US History exams.  We've been in Louisville, KY for my tenure, which isn't all bad.  I lived in Kentucky twice, got my bachelor's there, and while it is not my longest place of residence it is the place that captured my soul for homesickness boughts and markers of oddly made binaries of identity.  In blunt laymen's terms, I'm not from the Bluegrass but parts of me are.  So, amid the mass of grading--and OMG there are so many essays in seven days--I meet up with some old friends from years gone by.  And . . . I partake in local cuisines, like Ale-8 and bourbon.  We all know that I have a long love of bourbon . . .  That being said, this year's view derives from the Marriott . . . as I wasn't at the Galt.  Did I mind? Eh, ya know . . . those little free apps and bourbon mixers at 5 everyday went a long...

Along The Dover Road, between New York City and Virginia Beach, we tumble through Salisbury...the last place my brother called home. As we pass through, I notice–– as I did in August, the first time I'd been through in nearly nine years–– the growth of the little roadside stop. Well, the academic in me wants to call it sprawl, but most folks draw lines with progress and clutter...the expanded Wal Mart, the chain restaurants, and the new chain gas stations all replacing the single owned ones known along the area for subs and fried chicken.  Somewhere along the way my mind remembers golf balls and rides in his partner's blue pick up truck. Those...those are memories for me to hold onto for another day.  Perhaps like the skybirds (Skybirds http://coolerthanyoustupidthings.blogspot.com/2009/08/skybirds.html) of my youth.  I still wonder what those are, then again I doubt that I really need to unearth that. This past February made ten years since my ...