After seeing my mum off at Newark last night and then arriving home two hours later—four trains later—to a midnight cheese-on-toast (if I were a different restaurant I would say: aged parmigiano stravecchio and sweet cream butter on lightly toasted walnut bread), I thought I was going to wake up at seven this morning and go to the gym and get back into some semblance of my daily routine—a daily routine so far in my past I need to gently pick it up and dust it off. So, ha-ha, rolling over in bed at ten to greet the sunny blue.



I’ll say it, parents in town makes me a show-off, makes me want to say, See where I live, see how I live, see that I made it okay. We have been all over: golden fish and spring flowers in bloom at the New York Botanical Garden; aviator sunglasses and cobblestones in the Meatpacking District; rosy teacups and apricot jam cake at Tea and Sympathy; a shady spot and anise-seared tuna, and a pug with a chair of his own, outside at the Maritime’s La Bottega.



There were the ladies, the ladies, and the orchestra at Lincoln Center. Eleven on a Friday morning at Lincoln Center, who knew, the old ladies in pearls and veiny hands, in suits and sensible shoes. Hélène Grimaud on Rachmaninov is small, and clever like a Chinese gymnast.

(The Hélène Grimaud story is: Mowmy, because sometimes she does the thing where maybe all French people know all French people, asked Maud if she knew the French pianist Hélène Grimaud. And Maud said, “Is that the woman who raises wolves?” and I said, “Ha ha ha,” and Maud said, “No, really.” It turns out there is a French woman pianist whose husband is, I dunno, a zoologist or something, a wolfologist, and together they raise wolves. So I said, “Ha ha, and when the wolf goes out and hangs out with other wolves, he is sitting at the table with a white tablecloth and silverware, and the other wolves say, ‘What? Were you raised by pianists?’” and Maud said, “You are the only one laughing,” but the thing is, Jazon was laughing, too.)

But anyway.

We were uptown at Abyssinian Baptist for an impassioned pastor and a surprise gospel choir visiting from Mississippi, saffron robes and hundred-person harmony. We were downtown at the Landmark Sunshine for a mad hot movie and a three-dollar-fifty-cent bottle of water (even the counter girl was embarrassed and apologetic).



We were upstate, even, visiting family friends in Germantown, where there was papaya at breakfast and watching sails on the Hudson River. George showed me how to broil steelhead trout, five minutes on each side, and the skin crispy crunch crunch. Southward, back toward the city, a roadside farm stop yielded an apple cider donut for now and a whole smoked trout for later.

When it was time to go to the Met for the second time in three days, I hooked my mother up with the little pink badge and then went and sat in the sun outside Le Pain Quot’ for a cold lemonade, a coconut macaroon, and a long-distance chit-chat with Lurlene. Lurlene is going to Moldova this summer to hang out with the orphans. Maybe there will be a piano in the orphanage, an old one, a clunky out-of-tune one, and Lurlene will shine it up and teach those scruffy little orphans how to sing in tune. The children’s choir will take Eastern Europe, and then the world, by storm. I thought Ashley Judd might play Lurlene in the movie, but Lurlene is holding out for Kate Winslet. I figure, if Kate Winslet can do the accent, then okay.



It’s altogether a little bit funny and a little bit completely appropriate to be doing the New York City Greatest Hits less than a month before I check out. I’m not trying to be maudlin about it, but holy moley, New York rocks my socks, it is cool like the gleam of a silver scale of a smiling fish, shabam!, pow!, blop!, wizz!

The number of parents in town has been reduced from two to one, and still the activities, the activities, the all over town, the tired as a dog at the end of the day, the completely and utterly sick of every single department store, especially when the rhythm is Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and the better part of an hour spent buying six pairs of beige underwear. “I only take you to the best places,” I’d told the parentals as we traipsed along the Brooklyn Bridge or the Brooklyn Heights Promenade or Elizabeth Street or Blue Apron Foods on Union or the MSTBN at Great N.Y. Noodletown or inside the cold flower room at Chelsea Flower Market. But there is only so much steering a girl can do, and if one of your guests is hankering after six pairs of beige underwear, or if the other of your guests wants to go to the craptastic Century 21 for “nothing, just to look around,” then you just suck it up and go with. One of these days I might learn to simply point them in the direction of—maybe even walk them to the subway station and wave them good-bye—but for now the Chinese filial daughter thing is still going strong. Did I say “Chinese filial daughter thing”? I meant “Chinese daughter guilt complex thing.” Either way.

Maybe I am bitching and moaning, but only very little, and only because I am good at it. At the end of it all, we like them, these strange and unusual parents. And when interesting things happen such as my mum asking questions like what the difference is between Crate&Barrel and Pottery Barn (“What is the difference between Crate&Barrel and that other one, LockStock&Barrel?”), and then thinking about it, and then deducing, as she flips through the Pottery Barn catalogue: “Yes, Pottery Barn is more rustic. Like a barn,” well, you cannot help but like them very, very much.

In the meantime, those three pounds I lost driving around the country eating like a squirrel, subsisting on fruit and nuts and, um, cheeseburgers, like some sort of giant mutant ravenous omnivorous squirrel, those three pounds have found me again, what with the wining and dining of parents and their assorted friends. There have been: the spicy fish soup at Blue Ribbon; the early-morning brioche French toast at Balthazar; the late-nite hot noodle soups at Teriyaki Boy; the marinated artichokes and aged ham and lavender madeleines at Fig & Olive; the tomato-rosemary bread and seared duck and cashew-and-cherry salad at Spring Street Natural; the chilled English pea soup and seared tuna and lotus root crisps, and then, to follow, the hot chocolate with housemade marshmallows (in coconut, pistachio, and vanilla bean) and the buttermilk pannacotta with rhubarb marmalade at Terrace 5 at MoMA.

Oh, but I am forgetting that day when my mum’s friend Auntie K. was in town staying at the Mark. I looked up the Mark online to find out the address and the words that came up were “Mark Hotel Luxury Hotel.” And even though I was a little bit craving a donut, because I’d just gotten an e-mail from CC alerting me to these policeman-shaped air fresheners that smell like donuts, and even though I suspected that a luxury hotel on the Upper East Side may not have any donuts on hand, we got on the rush-hour train uptown to meet Auntie K. In fact, between the eggs and caviar and the truffle omelettes, the hotel restaurant menu offered no donuts. But! there was a very large wine glass of Greek yoghurt with crushed berries and a honey-sesame drizzle. Drizzle! For breakfast! Amazing. And so quiet a restaurant, the sort of thing with only murmuring, and polite clinks of silverware on china. After the Met—where the older ladies with high, candy-floss hair of spun sugar pointed and admired the gowns and suits at the Chanel exhibit—we returned later in the day, call me Eloise, for tea: delicate sandwiches in salmon and cucumber and curried tuna, light scones with cream and jam, fruit tarts, banana bread, and lychee tea in the smallest and finest of porcelain teacups.

So, but, the thing I wanted to say about MoMA a paragraph before, is this: It’s true, I am totally in love with MoMA, and not even just because of the menu at Terrace 5. More and more I go, (MoMA and MoMA I go), and more and more I am in awe of the magic miracle-making of Yoshio Taniguchi. The new space is clean and gracious and beautiful, but it is not without a whimsical glee. In the upstairs atrium, a cut-out in the wall offers a view of a security guard, bored, motionless, by the burst of Campari painting. In the sculpture garden, the sculptures are sculptures and the trees are sculptures.

Parents in town for graduation is fun and all, but it means a whole lot of hectic running around playing hostess and not a whole lot of sitting around blogging.

Oh!, the blogging story is that after convocation on Tuesday, Maud and Jazon and my parentals and I were on the downtown train to a happy lunch at Otto, where so many little tasty things awaited—roasted beets and English peas and radishes and olives and pizza with fennel and bottarga, and a rum-soaked brioche and all kinds of gelato, including rose-rosemary and goat’s milk ricotta—and, to quote a funny French boy we know, pim pam poum, now I have a lunch story, too, which is that one of the things on the menu were “ramps,” which the waiter explained are like wild leeks, which made me and Maud say, simultaneously, “Aaaaaa!!” and wave our hands around. And then the waiter said, “Yes, we hunt them down with dogs,” and I said, “Really?” You see, higher education has made me less gullible.

Um. But, so, the blogging story. Which is this: we were on the train downtown after convocation and Jazon started to ask a story about blogging on the road trip, which made me lean toward him to say, in a low voice and between teeth gritted into a smile: “Ngy ngarents gnon’t gnow I nghaff a nglog.”

And now what comes to mind is the Jazon story, which is that my dear little mother thought Jazon was my boyfriend. So I said, “Well. Jason likes boys.” And she blinked, and then she said, “You mean he is...a gay?” Oh, funny Mowmy! And this reminds me that today when we were talking about L.A. and I said something about staying with Jude and Chad, she said, “So Jude is a girl.” And I said, “Both are boys.” And she thought about it, then said, “How come you are only friends with gays?” Oh, mother, me too I have the same question.

One last tangent, I swear, and it is that today we were in the park, and I pointed out to my mother a squirrel perched on a fallen log. He was perched, and still, and looking. Just looking. And I said, “I wonder what he’s doing,” and my mother said, “He is thinking, ‘Did I leave the gas on?’”



So you see. Parents in town for graduation is fun and all, but I have been wanting to blog about the end of the roadtrip, and I have been finding it difficult because of one thing after another—like post-commencement lunch at Le Pain Quot’, where there was the great tartine trade-off: roast beef and wild caper mayo for black bean hummus for chicken curry and cranberry chutney; like “Faust” at the Met Opera, where Soile Isokoski and Roberto Alagna sure can belt it out, but where Méphistophélès had on a very silly devil bodysuit; like a walk through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where the tortoises sunned on hot rocks, where the Japanese peonies were blooming in pink and white and red and stripey, where a brown duck and I played a staring game for a good couple of minutes; like Café Regular, where my parents were charmed by the place and the boys behind the counter and the foamy heart Josh made on the surface of my mocha—and the thing is, I just need, like Maud says, to be able to sit down and think about it.

It is not a week since we got back to New York, me and Maud and Ya, and being caught up in the whirl of the city is making the trip seem like it all took place a long time ago. I was talking to CC yesterday, and I said, “The roadtrip, it is under my belt and behind me,” and she said, “That means it is your ass.” Even with egregious lack of sleep from looking after child, she is quick, that one.

But the thing is,

the thing is,

the thing is this.



Once upon a time, there were three girls on an adventure around America. One of them was in love. One of them was leaving soon. One of them knew all the songs. Two of them played drums. Two of them had red cloth shoes. One of them had a pair of gauchos. One of them was good with numbers. One of them could put her hair in little braids that stayed put without rubberbands.

Each of the three had brought the same Otis Redding CD, and together all three of them knew that when Charles Aznavour’s “For Me, Formidable” came to an end, it was time to play it again, c’est obligé.

Two of them liked to stop for photographs. One of them was very patient.

Mornings, one of them could generally be found sitting on the back bumper eating an orange.

One of them drank a goodly amount of gas station coffee.

One of them wanted yoghurt. One of them wanted pie. All of them wanted chocolate.

One of them learned a word a day. Car, la bagnole. House, la baraque. Tisane, le pisse-mémé. Someone driving too slow in the left lane, pédé. A key that doesn’t work, pédé.

One of them said “Blog it.”

One of them said, “Don’t blog it.”

One of them learned to drive at the speed limit. Well, maybe five miles above.

All three of them liked to put their feet on the dashboard.

One of them thought she knew, but she had no idea.

America sure is big and different, there is no way around it. The Korean waitress at the Luxor Hotel buffet, who said, when I asked her what Las Vegas locals do: “We just work, there isn’t time to do anything else”; the waiter at the highway Barrigos in El Paso, who told us about upping and moving from city to city, because he likes the change of scene; the old Native American man and his table of trinkets at Monument Valley, the wind lifting the corners of his tablecloth while he hunched over in a plastic folding chair—this is America. Also Jésus, manning the cashier at a Shell station in Baker, California, whom two towing-company guys raucously and jovially hailed “Zoos.” Also the Navajo women in Fort Defiance, Arizona, who pointed us in the right direction and then smiled and said, when they found out where we’d come from, “No wonder you’re lost; I’d get lost in New York.” Also the DC politician and the Nashville lawyer and the Texas-based French expatriate and the California academics, all generous and warm and eager to show us their lives, if only for a day, or a night, or three hours. This is America, too.

And the mountains and the valleys and the fields and the cow ranches and the beach and the snow. And the desert and the desert and the desert. Somehow, I’m not quite sure how, the desert changed everything. In one month I leave America. And maybe everything’s changing and everything’s changed, but the desert.

All of a sudden everyone wants to transfer to UCLA and hang out with Chad and Jude ALL THE TIME. Maybe in between classes, we could change dollars into quarters and practice Dance Dance Revolution Extreme for hours at the student center. And maybe I’d live in Los Feliz, and it wouldn’t be hard to remember that “Los Feliz” means “happiness,” and not “the cats,” because, clearly, “the cats” would be “los felines.” If I lived in Los Feliz we’d go have pie at the pie place with the big sign in the shape of a pie, or maybe we’d go to Fred 62 for a root beer float. And, oh, every day there’d be palm trees reaching for the sky like happiness.

Instead, we are grumpy, and about to board a jetBlue plane to the east.

Damn.

But, oh, maybe that’s okay too, because I graduate in two days, and maybe they’ll show an episode of the Smurfs on board.

14 mai
Voilà quoi, c’est fini.
Joie et tristesse.
Fatigue surtout.
L’Amérique c’est grand et c’est différent.
(Fin).

Maudou

13 mai
La route jusqu’à LA c’est que du désert, et c’est tout droit. De loin on voit les palmiers et on sent la mer.
Dans la rue de Jude et Chad (Merci Jude et Chad !) les trottoirs sont couverts de fleurs rouges et mauves, bougainvilliers et catalpas.
Il fait doux, on va se taper un burger, puis un dessert, puis un cocktail. Je m’endors doucement dans le dernier bar, heureuse et rassasiée comme un nouveau né.

Jude et chad sont des pros du yoga, ils nous font une démonstration en rentrant, contorsions improbables sur leur moquette. Bref regain d’énergie, on pétasse un peu avec Astella jusque tard dans la nuit.

Parce que je suis à LA, je veux un smoothie pour mon breakfast, et parce qu’il y a un club de sport et une majorité de gays, il y a un bar à smoothie au coin de la rue.

On retrouve Ya à UCLA, et on traîne sur le campus en se disant que ce serait chouette si j’avais cette bourse, parce que j’aurais une maison sur la plage et une décapotable, que je travaillerais sur le campus le plus beau du monde, et surtout les deux sistas pourraient venir me rendre visite.

On échoue sur la plage en fin d’aprèm, mais vraiment comme des épaves (des jolies épaves), harassées par des jours et des jours de route.

Le Pacifique est frais, le soleil décline, Dieu que la vie est belle.

Maudou

In the cartoon version of my life, we walk down the street and there are little bursting pink hearts and yellow stars bursting and sparkling all around us, because everything is amazing good and we are magic.

We have now driven all the way to the West coast, truly, down Santa Monica Boulevard all the way to the ocean. Seven dollars bought parking for the day, then the sand soft under our feet, and the Pacific cold like a bath of ice cubes, jumping and screaming in the waves, and—“Ils! mangent! nos! trucs!”—Yaël chasing bandit seagulls on the shore. Seagull, la mouette. Three on a picnic blanket, and strawberries, and carrots, and the sun.



Thursday afternoon the Mosquitoes took us into L.A. It seemed like we were on Interstate 10 for years, the traffic and the highway and the palm trees, and we could see the downtown skyline off in the distance, and we could feel California all around us, but we still weren’t there yet. But then La Cienaga, and Melrose, and Wilshire, and Beverly, and we roll the windows down and we are California girls.

Jude and Chad gave us the keys to the city and took us on a tour: the Star Trooper outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the corner where the trannie prostitutes hang out, the crazy guy playing the harmonica into a payphone, the twenty-four hour donut shops, the Scientologists. When you talk about the Scientologists, you must do it in a hushed voice. We saw one walking down the street, in a SHIRT AND TIE, and I said, “Aaaaa!! I think he’s talking into a thing in his ear!” and Jude kept shushing us because the windows were rolled down and he was afraid they would come and eat us.



In L.A. I trade Jude half a cheeseburger for half a plate of buttermilk chicken at the Kitchen. After dinner, the sun sets to the West of Fountain Avenue, over the glowing Pioneer Chicken ’N Biscuits sign.

In L.A. I think we are coming up to the Amoeba Museum, but it is really a shop called Amoeba Music.

In L.A. we sink into mismatched sofas in the back at Parlour, while Jude tells about monster fish with lightbulbs on their heads.



In L.A. the guy in the next car would be cuter if he shaved, but he is cute nonetheless, and every time I look over he is looking over. But he drives a white Mercedes and fixes his hair at the traffic lights, and actually I think he might be looking over at Jude.



In L.A. the streets are Mariposa and Ocean.

In L.A. the palm trees the palm trees the palm trees.



In L.A., for no other reason other than being in L.A., I am up at six-thirty in the morning, madly waving at Jude from the sofa.

Chad and I walk up the block to the big gay Starbucks. “Are we going south?” I say. “No, north,” he says, and situates me: Toward the Hollywood Hills—“That’s Johnny Depp”—to the left— “that’s UCLA”—to the right—“and that’s New York.”

We put on swimsuits under our clothes, because we are in L.A., and we could go to the beach AT ANY TIME.

In L.A., the dark Toblerone melts when we forget it in the car, but we can always take a gander to Trader Joe’s for more. Also at Trader Joe’s—we heart Trader Joe’s—wine on the cheap, and Italian cinnamon-ginger yoghurt.

In L.A., we dance to Mint Royale, shimmy shimmy, and if you say, “Hey, would you put ‘Galang’ on,” Chad will do it happily.

We live here now, in L.A., so we stay up whispering till it is tomorrow, laughing till we are crying, and then in the morning we wake up and walk in the sun to an iced mango tea, a breakfast quesadilla, and the daily horoscopes.

12 mai
Je ne sais pas comment parler de Vegas. Imaginez, vous êtes dans le désert, le silence des espaces infinis vous effraie un peu, vous foncez sur une route solitaire, et soudain, comme un mirage, une ville appraît. Vous retrouvez l’entrelacs familier des autoroutes et le rythme accéléré du traffic.

Vegas est un mirage, c’est, au beau milieu du désert, une succession d’absurdités incompréhensibles : des villes entières reconstituées en abrégé et en faux. Des montagnes russes sur le toit d’un hotel, la féerie des eaux devant un autre, et partout des gens qui boivent dans des tubes de plastique colorés.

Néons, haut-parleurs, musique, limousines...on peut survoler la ville en hélico, on peut faire un tour en gondole au ‘Venetian’.

Et au bout de l’avenue, après le dernier casino, les cactus.

MAIS entre le dernier casino et le premier cactus, Ze BOOT Barn. Et là, des kilomètres de bottes, de toutes tailles, couleurs et motifs. Alors si, par hasard, vous êtes debout, asseyez-vous, et sinon, respirez un grand coup, parce que ces bottes là sont maintenant A MOI. HAHAHA. (euh Astella et moi on a pris les mêmes, d’où les 2 paires).



On ne le dira jamais assez : LIFE IS GOOD.

Maudou

Thursday, May 12
12:52 p.m. We have just had a Burger King lunch in the parking lot of the Gold Strike Hotel and Gambling Hall in Jean, Nevada, just south of Las Vegas. LA CLASSE.

The thing you don’t know is that in the boot of our rental car, we have TWO PAIRS OF THE OLD GRINGO COWBOY BOOTS, one for me and one for Maud, a last hurrah from the Boot Barn as we pulled out of Vegas. And I will tell you right now that I will put them on and BLIND YOU WITH MY GRACE. Boots are a lightish, weathered brown, with blue stitching in swirls and little stars. When I hit London this fall, I will be wearing these ALL THE TIME. People will say, “Are you an editor or a cowgirl?” and I will have to say, “I think it is clear.”

(It could be clearer still if I had also gotten a fancypants gold-and-silver belt buckle with my initial on it, or maybe one in the shape of hearts, but I somehow held myself back. My friend Tom wears his “T” belt buckle very well, in fact he rocks it, but maybe that is because he is from Omaha, Nebraska, whereas I, let’s not ignore the facts, was born in Kuala Lumpur, nowhere near a horse.)



Got to Las Vegas yesterday afternoon. Maud called for a room as we headed to the city, and the tourism office offered one at Casino Royale on Las Vegas Boulevard. Oh, yes, please.

Room 313 smelled like a cheap whore. We pushed open the sliding windows for a view of the carpark and the kidney-bean pool.



Slowly but surely, I am beginning to feel like I am losing control of reality, losing control of my mind a little bit, the further West we go. It seems like ten years ago we left New York City, driving into the pissing rain of New Jersey. There have been cities—Northern and Southern—and there have been mountains, and valleys, and desert. And now Vegas, and it’s almost like I don’t know how we got here, and I don’t know that there is any way to describe Las Vegas.

Yesterday in the late afternoon, we walked up the Strip. Stimulation, simulation, and for all the lights there is very little sparkle. Animated billboards; hustlers lining the sidewalk handing out strip club cards; skin skin skin; shorts and socks on wrinkled, veiny legs; loudspeakers always on, voices intermingling, “Blackjack, craps tables, we will we will rock you”; and the canals at the Venetian smell like disinfectant; and my head was pounding like a jackhammer.

We walked past Paris and its Eiffel Tower, past New York and the Chrysler Building, past the Mirage the Monte Carlo the Flamingo, to Egypt at the Luxor. Sixteen ninety-five plus tax at the Pharoah’s Pheast buys you all you can eat and a whole dessert station with neon green tarts and a do-it-yourself soft-serve ice cream dispenser with THREE TOPPINGS in chocolate, strawberry, and rainbow.



In the Luxor Casino, all sorts of Asian ladies with painted eyebrows behind the poker tables. A tubby man sat at one of the tables, “Oh yeah oh yeah hit me oh yeah mm gimme a big one.” We dug into our wallets for spare quarters and played the slot machines, whereupon, on the machine called Rich & Famous, WE WON THIRTEEN DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS.

We printed out our win ticket and cashed in our winnings, and then clearly it was time to call it a night. Down the Strip, we entered our hotel from the parking lot like coming in through the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant.



At a quarter to ten this morning, the sun was out and there wasn’t anyone in the pool. We put on swimsuits and dipped our toes into the cold. I jumped into the heavenly, and the sun played through the water. A dead moth floated on the ripples. We lounged on yellowed deck chairs while the sour smell of garbage out back wafted in through the palm trees.

3:24 p.m. There was a hearty breakfast for hungry girls at the San Juan Inn and Trading Post. A group of Swedish bikers inhaled omelettes and potatoes at a large table.



In Monument Valley, the sky was Blue like a child had woken up early to color it in.

Three girls in a car means a good number of minutes spent driving around very slowly looking for the best angle to pose with the Three Sisters monument. Yaël balanced her camera on top of a small pile of books on top of the car, and directed us through the peephole.

“A droite...à droite...à gauche.... Non...”

“L’autre gauche?”

And then setting the timer, and then “vite vite vite!!” and then grinning like three sisters.



We are driving around where Arizona and Utah meet, vermilion cliffs and cartoon landscapes under fluffy clouds. Sandwiches of sardines, or cheddar and apples, by Lake Powell, sparkly sparkly. Las Vegas tonight, sparkly sparkly.

11 mai
ET OUAIS je sais, ça fait un petit bout qu’on vous a pas causé, mais c’est parce que dans le désert, la communication est un peu subtile...



Ca fait deux jours qu’on sillone le désert. C’est grand, rouge et violet, parfois très beau, mais globalement vide, indifférent, et vaguement hostile. On y trouve le silence, comme dans les montagnes, mais celui des montagnes est gros de mystère, celui du désert sent la désolation.

C’est crevasses, grottes, galeries, et globalement comme si la terre nous montrait ses tripes. L’empilement minutieux des couches géologiques (ocres, roses, mauves) me rappelle ces petits bocaux avec des sables de couleurs que l’on compose, enfant, pour la fete des mères.

SPECIAL MESSAGE POUR OLIVE : mission accomplie, au coucher du soleil sur la San Juan River, dans le pays Navajo. Photos et films à suivre.

Dans Monument Valley, le ciel est bleu carte postale, et on écoute Coltrane à fond ; alors qu’on passe devant ‘The Three Sisters’ Astella s’exclame : « Et en plus, il y en a une plus petite que les autres ! » Du coup il a fallu faire la tof :



Maudou

9 mai
Chronique nique nique

(warning: les photos sont souvent complètement décalées...)

Well well well, comme je ne souhaite pas déroger a ma no-blog attitude - j’ai des principes, moi, mossieur (/madame/mademoiselle) - mais que je me sens un peu lonesome cow-girl à faire des gribouillis sur mon carnet moleskine à petits carreaux, je me lance donc dans la “chron-amer-ique”.



Concept: la chronamerique pourrait se définir comme un meta-blog post-humaniste au fil des miles jonchés de lambeaux de pneus éclatés et de chiens/chats/lapins écrasés, la patte raide pointant un crépuscule inatteignable dans notre folle course à l’ouest, nous sommes décidément les Danaides des temps modernes... Mais je m’égare.



Ce qu’il faut comprendre, c’est que je démarre une rubrique quotidienne à 3 jours de la fin de notre road-trip, et qu’il y a de grandes chances que cette rubrique quotidienne soit unique, sachant que nous taquinerons le désert jusqu’à l’Os en Gelée.



Nous sommes à El Paso, Texas, à la frontière mexicaine. De l’autre côté, organiquement collée comme le seraient deux soeurs siamoises, c’est Ciudad Juàrez, et les flingues sont interdits, c’est un panneau sur l’autoroute qui le dit. L’ensemble est un monstre incrusté dans une vallée désertique et constellé de points lumineux comme autant d’insectes phosphorescents agglutinés autours d’un papier gras.



La chambre de motel a des relents de désinffectant, et la moquette trop moëlleuse absorbe toute la moiteur de l’air. Le repos des guerrières ne s’avère guère de tout repos... pourtant les filles dorment déjà d’un sommeil de plomb. Le bourdonnement du générateur électrique dehors a du les bercer. Et il faut dire que la journée fut longue.



De Houston-we got a problem (le déluge, le vrai, en live), ville tentaculaire aux mille échangeurs (à chaque ville sa gloire), nous prenons la I-10 West, par le tronçon en travaux : il s’agit de transformer la 2 fois 6 voies en 2 fois 12 voies, et j’ai déjà du mal à imaginer ce qu’est une 2 fois 6 voies....



Notre traversée du Texas ne nous enchante a priori pas, nous nous sommes officiellement interdit de nous faire arrêter dans cet etat de clowns en chapeaux de cow-boys. Et bien, je ne joue pas le suspens, c’est raté... Non seulement le méchant Texas Ranger nous arrête, mais en plus il a la bonne idée de nous envoyer devant le juge de “Ozona”.



Demi-tour sur l’autoroute (des cow-boys je vous dis), et arrivée dans le bureau d’un juge papy brossard, qui ne feint même pas d’être occupé à autre chose qu’à finir sa réussite sur ordinateur quand nous entrons, tandis que ses trois poules de secrétaires, tout en parlant brushing, offrent bonbons et grands sourires de serial mother dans le bureau d’à côté. Papy a gagné sa journée : grâce à Astella, c’est la première fois qu’il voit un permis de conduire singapourien (rien de bien fou pourtant), et il nous déleste quand même de 120 USD. Il sourit tellement que j’ai peur que son steradent se décolle. On n’ira pas voir le musée David Crockett pour la peine, Crockett ou rackett, il faut choisir.

D’ailleurs là je choisis de dormir un brin.



Je reprends on the road to Albuquerque. Nous venons de quitter le Texas, welcome to New Mexico. Un charmant patroller nous demande nos passeports, mais nous laisse malheureusement repartir sans même nous avoir sauvagement fouillées au corps. Dommage...



Nous voilà donc à Truth or Consequences, non, ça n’est pas une blague. Et encore, on a evité de passer par Corpus Christi au sud de Houston.... Truth or Consequences, c’est l’histoire vraie d’un village qui a pris ce nom idiot après que l’animateur du show télévisé du même nom (le show, pas l’animateur), dans les années 50, a promis de venir tourner l’émission dans le premier bled qui changerait son nom pour prendre celui de Truth or Consequences. Ta-dam. Et voilà. Mais ça reste charmant. Tellement que Maud en prend la route à contre-sens. On aura tout eu au Texas...



Ce qui me plaît dans ce patelin, c’est qu’il est clairement le seul à porter ce nom. Ça doit même être l’unique village dans ce cas. Car il y a une chose remarquable dans ce pays, c’est la redondance dans les noms de lieux (et je ne parle pas des post-human beings, sinon il faudrait aussi que je raconte pourquoi le biker sur la photo avec Astella ne pouvait s’appeler autrement que Chuck Riddle...).

Quand je l’ai fait remarquer à la miss Stellou, elle a eu cette phrase mythique: “On dirait que le pays est tellement grand qu’on doit recycler les noms”. J’adore cette idée de devoir recycler les noms... Colorado, Las Vegas, Washington, Portland, Charlottesville, Walnut Grove, et ils vont meme jusqu’a recycler Paris, London, Orleans, pffff, aucune imagination! (cela dit, c’est un peu pareil en France, si on devait compter les “Villefranche” ou les “Grand-bourg”...)



Bref, de toute façon, il y a de moins en moins de villages là où on va, de moins en moins de gens aussi (et c’est bien comme ça), mais de plus en plus de soleil, de plus en plus de cactus, c’est le wild wild west... enfin, presque, parce que même si Maud et moi avons chacune un chapeau de cow-boy, c’est pas pratique de rentrer avec dans la Toyota Corolla, donc n’exagérons rien...



Sur ce, take a walk on the wild side, guys and dolls.

yaya

Well, apparently blogging fever has hit. Pleased to announce a new guest blogger. Three days before the end, but here she is nonetheless, and with photos to match, ’cause the girl has one helluva appareil.

Tuesday, May 10
10:29 p.m. It seems like an awfully long time ago we were pulling out of the motel carpark sometime in the six o’clock hour this morning. At six in the morning, after a Howard Johnson’s breakfast of grey coffee and plasticky jams, we are very, very punchy.

When you have three girls in the car crossing border patrol early in the morning, certain things are bound to be said as we wind up the windows and drive away. Like: “That officer sure was cute.” Like: “Oh, officer, are you sure you don’t want to hold us back?” Like: “Officer, search me. Now.”



The Beatles and the Commitments and Lou Reed and Les Rita Mitsouko took us northward on I-25 out of El Paso and into New Mexico, through sierra and mountains, everything a dusty beautiful. A desert bunny hopped about among the scruffy grass and tufted cactii while the sun rose in the east.



By the time we reached Gallup for petrol and a pee break, the wind had picked up somethin’ crazy. And truly, the wind today has been a force to contend with—either I was fighting with it for control of the car, or I was busy trying to hold down my billowing dress and take pictures at the same time. But I don’t mean to talk about the wind. We have traveled much and seen much today, and I am writing around the fact that I cannot write about the desert. The desert is massive, surrounding, so very there, and it is all of it some kind of amazing. There are plateaus and cliffs and mesas and buttes. And the land seems, as we drive, to swirl toward us, away from us, in any case moving all the while. Sometimes the desert is the color of sand. Sometimes it is the color of a curry. Sometimes it is the color of desire. Sometimes there are trains. Sometimes there are cows. Sometimes there are sheep and donkeys and wild horses. We don’t actually know that they were wild horses, but there they were, the two of them, I think one was brown and the other speckled, and they were grazing by the side of the road. It was clear to me then that they were wild horses like wildflowers, maybe wildflowers who’d grown up to be wild horses. But later as I stared into the neverending desert and thought about it some more, I figured maybe I’d gotten it the other way around, because it’s really the wild horses who turn into wildflowers eventually...



Through Navajo Nation land—Window Rock and Tsaile and Chinle and Mexican Water. At the Canyon de Chelly, where Navajo once fought against all manner of intruders, the wind beat through the trees, up through the canyon, and whipped about all around us. In the Valley of the Gods, the winds of the ages have carved sculptures into stretches of paprika-colored stone. We took the lonely, winding circuit amid monuments and massive fallen rocks, and it was reddybrown and brownyred all round like we were on another planet. As the sun set, the lifting mist washed the sky lilac.



Tonight we are in Mexican Hat, Utah, because it is a wondrous name for a town. We threw a stone into the San Juan River for a friend of a friend who committed suicide. And the river rushed toward the setting sun.



At the Mexican Hat Lodge Motel, a mustard-colored booth in a John Wayne bar. A Utah cowboy cooked us perfect hamburgers over an open flame, with pinto beans and grilled toast. Utah boys, they know what they’re doing, what with the hat, and the boots, and calling a girl pretty.

10 mai
On est arrivées à El Paso à la nuit tombante, lumières à perte de vue dans l’immensité du désert. Après une Corona et un steak à la Mexicaine, on s’est trouvé un motel. Quand j’ai rejoint Stella au comptoir, elle m’a dit ‘j’ai deux bonnes nouvelles : il y a internet dans la chambre, et en plus, il s’appelle Hector’ en jetant un oeil au réceptionniste. J’ai regardé son badge, et, sous le coup de l’émotion, je suis resortie aidé Ya à décharger, toute rouge et un grand sourire au lèvres. HAHAHA, non mais quelle idiote !

On s’est levées avant l’aube pour tracer vers le désert et les canyons. Au fur et à mesure, le paysage s’est hérissé de blocs rougeâtres, argile sculpté par les vents, failles, volutes, courbes et arrêtes se succèdent comme un immense jeu de pâte à modeler.

Au pays Navajo, les gens vivent dans des maisons toutes faites, qu’ils achètent et qu’on leur pose comme ça, au milieu de la plaine. La plupart se déglinguent très rapidement, et en réalité les seuls batiments qui tiennent debout sont les églises.

Au pays Navajo, on voit des gens marcher sur les bords des routes, et aussi des détritus balayés par le vent.

On se perd en voulant prendre un raccourci vers le canyon, et on s’arrete au Bureau de Recensement Navajo. Là, une vieille indienne nous demande d’où on vient, puis, tout sourire, nous dit ‘pas étonnant que vous soyez perdues, moi si j’étais à New York, je serais sûrement perdue aussi.’

Maudou

Monday, May 9
11:22 p.m. Well, shee-yut. Maud wants me to start this post with “Oops, I did it again,” and dang it, if I did it’d be appropriate. ’Cause, post-lunch, we were on Interstate 10, and there was the police car, and, oh, I don’t even need to say it, you know what went down. The flashing lights, the pulling over, tra la la. I am getting awfully good at this. For the record, (a) I am not an unsafe driver, just desirous to get places, and (b) eighty in a seventy-five zone is hardly speeding.

Anyway. The state trooper was mean and squinty, he said it was illegal to drive in America without an international driving permit, and when I tried to tell him that wasn’t what I’d heard, he said, “You gotta talk to the law first.” He said it so that the word “law” had two syllables. He asked what I was studying, and I said “literature” twice before he said he didn’t understand my pronunciation, and another three times before he said, “Oh, litter-ritchur.” And then he took my license and said we had to FOLLOW HIM INTO TOWN TO MEET WITH THE JUDGE. Man, if there is something you don’t want to hear when you are in Texas, it is that you have to follow the state trooper into town to meet with the judge.

We crossed the highway median and chucked a U-ey, and then, some miles down, took the exit for Ozona. When we got out at the town hall or the sheriff’s office or whatever official building it was, trooper dude came over and tipped the brim of his hat and said he owed me an apology because he’d just checked, and hey, turns out I don’t need an international driving permit to drive in America with my foreign license. He made up some line about September Eleventh, and forgot to apologize for being rude. And then he said to go in the double doors, down the hall, and into Judge B.’s office on the right. “He’s good people,” he said, “and he’ll take care a you.”

Through the double doors, down the hall, and in Judge B.’s office on the left, three birdy secretaries smiled and welcomed. One had a bowl of Hershey’s kisses on her desk. They said to go right in, so I poked my head round the open doorway, and Judge B., his back to me, was playing a game of solitaire on his computer. “Um,” I said. He placed a card, and then another, and another, and then he swiveled his chair—round face, genuine smiley wrinkles around the eyes, greying strands of hair, glasses, suspenders. There was really very little to be said. All charm, he marveled at my driver’s license, had me pay a hundred and twenty dollars, and then wished us a good trip to El Paso. When we left, he’d just started another game of solitaire.



In Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck writes that his drive through Texas was “achingly endless.” And truly, when we arrived on the Western border this evening, having traversed the state from East to West, we felt like we’d achieved something. After one hairy moment in the middle of bloody nowhere on I-10, where it seemed like we might run out of gas in the hot, and empty, and dusty, we hit the city, finally, and the moon smiled in a purple sky. Chicken mole in a Tex-Mex joint by the highway. It hasn’t taken us long to navigate the country’s industrial zones, keeping our eyes out for the mega Targets (for fresh food), the Barnes & Nobleses (for an Internet connection), the national chain motels (for sleep, we like sleep).

The guy at the restaurant was Ned Flanders–friendly, and he pointed down the road. “In four traffic lights, you’ll be New Mexico.” But that’s tomorrow, and the thing about tomorrow is, it’s tomorrow.

2:00 p.m. Texas is big, we know, we know. But we are making it from Houston to El Paso today, dammit, and there may even be a Dairy Queen drive-thru along the way. Dairy Queen is memories of summer in Evanston, Illinois, back when there was a boy who had a car, and sometimes—or maybe it happened just once and it’s become the sort of thing myths are made of—we’d stop in a Dairy Queen for a Blizzard. And hot damn, today is made for a Blizzard, it is hot all over, the kind of hot you wear and can’t take off, the kind of hot where the hot rises from the roads. The trees are hot, the little mintgreen bugs are hot.

We called Jazon for a San Antonio lunch suggestion, and he suggested maybe we stop in at a Taco Cabana along the way. “And it’s pink,” he said. “Say no more,” I said. But then we pulled up at Super S Foods instead in search of picnic groceries. The beef jerky selection by the door was next to the wall that said “This is Eagle Country.” I tried to make Maud buy a gallon tin of liquid nacho cheese, but she wasn’t having any of it.

Now, we have just lunched by the bright blue of the South Llaso River just outside Junction, Texas. We are picnic fiends, and today’s feast included a whole roast chicken, spinach, radishes, leftover tomatoes, and a good hunk of parmesan.



Arrived in Houston last night, after braving mad storms on Interstate 10 from New Orleans. The sky was low and angry, shades of grey getting darker and darker. And then the wild lightning, fierce streaks, and then we drove into the middle of the storm, fat, wet pelts of rain, thicker and thicker, and then we could hardly see in front of us, we were driving on water, each car spitting up water behind it, and the highways were criss-crossing in the sky like a sci-fi movie, and still the rain falling falling falling furiously.

Hélène’s e-mail of directions to her place included a goodly number of “fais gaffes”—which is to say, watch out for the invisible stoplight, be careful of the holes near the railroad tracks, don’t miss this turn or you’ll find yourself heading for downtown with no return. So of course there had to be the one point on the highway when we missed an exit, and Maud had to call and say “On l’a raté.”

But we are clever girls who finally got an updated atlas at the last moment before leaving New York, so it wasn’t too long before we were pulling up outside the ocre cottage on State Street, the black-and-white Breton flag as advertised, the immense magnolia tree as promised.

We slipped in between the raindrops, skip skip jump to the porch, and then inside, and then there were the gorgeous old wood panels of the kitchen, and the warm red of the dining room, and a bottle of white wine open, and soon the whole house smelling delectable, of a Cajun shrimp stew.

The wholly unexpected thing about crashing at Hélène’s is that her son, Hoël, has a drum kit upstairs in his room. Drum kit is glitter red, and has a whole tin of drumsticks to choose from sitting next to it. Yaël played, and then I played, and man oh man it was good to be behind the drums again. Some ten or eleven years after, my feet still have it, my hands still have it, and oohhhh it felt good like a rock show feels good. And then Yaël played “Rocky Raccoon” on the guitar, she is amazing, this girl, and we sure like an attic full of instruments.

After dinner, an evening walk around the neighborhood and its pretty wooden houses. The frogs were out, too, little-like.

There was just time for tea, after, La Saveur du Soir, and then tired girls made their way up the narrow wooden staircase. Upstairs, I smiled at the magnolia tree on the other side of the glass panes. The next thing I knew, I was asleep. In the morning, milk and Nutella.

9 mai
On a pris la saucée de notre vie, des trombes d’eau, un vrai déluge, les voitures semblent surfer sur la route et font de grosses vagues. Le ciel est noir, les éclairs roses. Au téléphone, Hélène me dit que c’est normal, que quand il pleut c’est toujours comme ça par ici.

On a reconnu la maison à son drapeau breton qui flottait fièrement dans la tourmente, et à l’immense magnolia dont les grosses fleurs jonchaient le sol. A l’intérieur il faisait bon vivre, comme dans une maison de campagne. Hélène nous avait préparé des écrevisses façon cajun TROP BON (Merci encore Hélène !), elle a ouvert un bon petit blanc, et immédiatement on s’est tous sentis nettement mieux. Ya et Stella ont essayé la batterie d’Hoel en pouffant. Moi j’ai aidé à la cuisine, parce que je suis une jeune fille bien élevée.

Au petit matin, j’ai mangé (avec délice) des tartines de nutella en discutant le coup avec Hoel, peinard. On s’est tapé des embouteillages à la sortie de la ville, puis plus rien, vaches et foreuses. Plus on avance vers l’ouest, plus le paysage se dessèche. Pique nique à l’ombre au bord d’une rivière turquoise. Au supermarché, en plus du poulet roti et des radis, on a trouvé des chapeaux TROP BEAUX. Manquent plus que les bottes...

Dans l’après-midi, on arrive dans des paysages de Western, avec de grandes plaines arides, et les montagnes aplaties sur le dessus. A tout instant, on s’attend à voir le cow boy de la pub Marlboro avec son lasso dévaler une de ces collines et galoper dans la plaine.

Et comme une fois n’est pas coutume, Astella s’est fait arretée again. Par un Texas Ranger, avé le chapeau et les lunettes chips et l’accent et tout. Il lui fait le grand jeu : lui demande son passeport, ce qu’elle fait en Amérique (il faut qu’elle répète 4 fois ‘French Literature’), lui dit qu’il est illégal de conduire avec un permis étranger, et qu’il va falloir qu’elle le suive chez le juge.

Ya et moi, on ricane un peu, on peste aussi parce que ça nous fait faire demi-tour. On sort de l’autoroute pour Ozona. Et là il y a un comissariat, avec un juge de paix en bottes et bretelles (son chapeau est posé à l’envers sur son bureau) comme dans Lucky Luke, qui joue tranquillement au solitaire sur son ordi. Il nous fait un grand sourire, et nous dit que si on paye maintenant, tout ira bien. On s’exécute, tout en rigolant. Cette amende nous a valu une vraie aventure au pays Texan.

En longeant le Rio Grande, on écoute la BO de ‘Western’ le film, et ça le fait, avec le soleil couchant, la brume qui monte, les montagnes qui bleuissent.



Maudou

8 mai
Au Texas, on passe devant d’immenses raffineries et l’odeur d’essence nous prend à la gorge. Depuis qu’on a quitté la Louisiane, le temps s’est couvert. Nuages lourds et pluie épaisse. Ca sent l’orage. Du coup on a changé la BO, c’était Charles Aznavour avec le soleil, maintenant c’est du bon vieux Hip Hop ‘Naughty by Nature’. (by the way, Merci Olive pour le CD de Hip Hop bilingue tout chelou ! et aussi no problemo pour la mission spéciale...).

SPECIAL MESSAGE POUR GAB (de la part de Stellou):
« Si tu n’organises pas la teuf du siècle, je m’enferme chez toi et je danse toute seule »

En fait le Texas, c’est comme l’Irak : en plus de produire des dictateurs mégalos, c’est désert, avec des raffineries et de gigantesques pipelines.

Sur la route on voit toutes sortes d’animaux morts, plus ou moins écrabouillés : vautours, chiens, écureuils. La plaque de chocolat que l’on avait emportée de New York et rangée dans la boite à gants en cas de coup dur est toue fondue.

On a pique-niqué sous les arbres et dans les piaillements d’une multitude d’oiseaux invisibles.



En rejoignant l’autoroute, cette suggestion, sur une grande pancarte noire : « Are you tired of losing ? Try Jesus Christ ».

A la Nouvelle Orléans, le jasmin et les lauriers sont en fleurs, ainsi que les magnolias, sous lesquels on trouve parfois de grosses chenilles velues. Il y a des chats vagabonds et meme des hérons gracieux. Pour rejoindre notre logis, on doit traverser une vieille voie ferrée bordée de grands tas de cailloux où jouent les enfants, et sur laquelle passent parfois, dans de grands sifflements, de longs trains vides.

Hier on a croisé successivement un jeune type qui trainait sa contrebasse sur un chariot, une jeune femme en vélo son verre à la main. Et aussi cette mise en garde, sur la porte d’une maison, au détour d’une rue silencieuse :



Dans le journal, après la rubrique nécrologique, et avant le programme télé, il y a la liste des églises selon les religions (lutheran, anglican, baptist, christian science, etc...) et parfois de la pub, du style ‘Fatigué des chrétiens traditionnels ? Venez chez nous !’, et le nom d’une sous-secte quelconque.

Maudou

Saturday, May 7
11:43 p.m. On North Rampart Street, the sign said “Loretta’s Pralines and Cream,” and we had no choice but to cross the road and enter. The storekeep lady—surely one could only expect that this was Loretta—came out from the back where she’d been making okra gumbo for a Mother’s Day lunch. She told us about being sent to Rouen, in France, as an ambassador of Lousiana. She told us about New Orleans pralines. Pralines, pronounced praw-leens. Buttery, pecany: we got one for the road. Maud got a box for a friend in Houston. She was concerned they might melt in the heat, but Loretta knew better. “You’ll pass out before they do,” she said.



Two on a Saturday afternoon, we sit outside Lucy’s Retired Surfer Bar on Tchoupitoulas under a giant red umbrella. The guacamole is called Rock-a-mole, and the surfer waitress girl calls us “Y’all.” At La Côte Brasserie across the street, the suits at lunch are neither surfers nor ever were.



We are having a lazy day, and teatime means iced coffees-and-chicory in the garden out back at Café Beignet. The air is birds chirping in the palms, and a folk singer somewhere down the street, and the train, always the train, in the distance.



In the French Quarter, there was a jolly La Bamba while we shopped for dinner groceries at the local A&P. I tried to make Maud buy a large jar of pickled pig’s feet, but she wasn’t having any of it.



We walked down Royal Street all the way home. We live on the other side of the tracks, and we like it like that. Through the French Quarter, through Faubourg Marigny, through Bywater, across the railroad tracks, and all the way to Mazant:

Victorian houses with curving iron balconies and carved wooden cornices;

whole walls of delicate white jasmine, their scent seductive, dizzying;

a black cat and a red porch;

beat-up old Chevrolets and Jaguars to make a girl swoon;

red flowers to match red shoes;

a heron—a live one, a white one, a genteel one—perched and still on a garden fence;

old warehouses with faded names;

and then the setting sun, and then just one more block to go, and then we were home again.



It is cool in the evenings here. We were sitting on our balcony, me and Maud, with our feet up, and we were watching the house across the street. The house across the street has boys, and this evening they were having a barbecue out back. The house across the street has a hand-painted yin-yang flag hanging out front, and strings of fairy lights jimmyed up to the electrical pole on the corner. There are all sorts of heehaws and doodads hanging out the front corner window: hats, strings of beads, a tall, green stuffed cactus. The house across the street is such that one can exit a second-floor window to walk on the roof of the porch. We have seen the boys do it.

This evening, there was the scent of burning sugar in the air, and Maud said, “They’re having shamallows,” by which, either because she is French or because she is Maud, she means marshmallows. And then the smell of grilled meat followed, floating up to our balcony, and we were hungry, and, sure, we had the makings of dinner ourselves, but those were downstairs in the fridge. We tried to get ourselves invited over:

“Maybe if we start talking really loudly about how we’re hungry.”

“We’re so hungry!”

“And, like, about how we’re nice. And cute. And we smell good.” And here we smelled ourselves. And then we thought about it. “Well, we could.”

“It might take some work, but it’s possible.”

“It’s happened before.”

“Look we can’t help it, it was hot. And we’ve walked a lot today.”

The sky was fading, dimmer and dimmer till it was a watery blue. We went and made our dinner, spinach salads with yellow peppers and apples and grapes and walnuts, and slices of tomato and mozzarella, and toasted whole wheat bagels, and there we sat, three girls with the night and the world to themselves. The sky was a deep purple, then, and the cigarette tips glowed orange.

We can’t say it enough, life is good, life is good, life is goo-oo-ood, like the train calling in the Nawlins night, its chug-chug-chug and two-toned honk floating on the breeze.

Saturday, May 7
4:33 p.m. In New Orleans, there is a street named Desire, and one named Piety. There is also one named Frenchmen. We like New Orleans a lot.



Headed down Burgundy toward the French Quarter late Friday afternoon, the lush Birds of Paradise, the bright hibiscus, the magnolia trees in bloom. The Creole cottages and Victorian houses are pink, blue, green, orange, and all connected by black wires thick and thin attached to leaning wooden telephone poles.

Down one street, a pizza delivery girl sped by on her bicycle, balancing a pizza box on her handlebars. She was olive skin, and golden curls cropped tight.



There is that New Orleans, and then there is Bourbon Street, and the stench of old beer, the woman with her breasts bared and a snake around her neck, the man dressed up as a grenade, and everyone in a state of dazed, desperate excitement. Bourbon Street is a twisted Disneyland, where people walk about drinking alcohol out of Special Edition plastic mugs. The air is thick with the deep thumps of early Nineties dance music. We hung a left for a quick escape.

On Decatur, a down-home jazz band and fancy drinks all around. Walking around earlier, Maud’d said, “I need a beer.”

“I need an iced mocha,” I’d said.

“Chacun son vice.”

“With whipped cream, maybe, and chocolate sprinkles.”

But then we sat, and I saw that the strawberry daiquiri was bright red, and, soon, it was mine.

7 mai
Attablées dans un petit jardin à l’ombre (oui j’ai déjà chopé un coup de soleil), tables de jardin en fer forgé, palmiers et magnolia. On se calme un peu. New Orleans, c’est la folie. Non mais, vraiment. Dans Bourbon Street, les gens se promènent en buvant dans de grands verres en plastique, ça sent la bière, la cendre et la pisse, et chaque band essaye de jouer plus fort que son voisin. Il y a des jeunes noirs qui font des claquettes en baskets, des femmes qui montrent leurs seins, des bikers qui montrent leurs engins.

On a débarqué en fin d’aprem hier, apres avoir traversé les marais et les usines fumantes de Baton Rouge.

Le truc c’est qu’on écoutait le volume 3 des oeuvres complètes d’Hector Gomart, et voilà le verdict. Astella fait une grimace de surprise en entendant ‘tes gros seins, ton petit cul’ ; Ya chante sur Jean Jacques Goldmann parce qu’elle était fan entre 12 et 14 ans ; Ya et moi chantons sur ‘chacun fait ce qui lui plait’ (surtout le refrain) ; et tout lemonde chante et danse sur ‘Sweet dreams’ parce que qui n’aime pas Annie Lenox. Mais quand, vers la fin, résonnent les premiers accords de la BO de Rocky, c’est « Oh My Gowd, Hector Gomart ! », et puis immédiatement on imagine une séquence, avec ça en musique de fond (comme dans Pretty Woman quand elle fait les magasins), et Hector dans son nouveau short à flammes, boxant, puis penché le soir sur un livre de Dostoievski, et enfin perché sur une échelle en train d’accrocher ses rideaux. HAHAHA (nous on a ri en tous cas).

A notre dernière pompe à essence, on s’est faites abordées par un groupe de bikers du Montana qui se rendaient au Festival de la Langouste à Lafayette (« des petits homards, Mr Gomart » s’est empressée d’ajouter Astella, qui décidément a le sens de l’à propos). Il y avait deux frères, l’un portait les bottes de cow boys de mes reves, l’autre s’appelait Chuck et a accepté de poser avec Astella.



Ils nous ont escorté un moment, et c’était comme si les 7 nains avaient décidé de se faire un trip Easy Rider parce qu’ils étaient 7 et bedonnants, et barbus sur leurs selles à accoudoirs.

A la sortie de Natchez, ville fantome des bords du Mississipi, on a déjeuné chez Mammy’s, qui, comme son nom l’indique était rempli de vieilles dames et offrait des tartes comme dans les Walt Disney, toutes en hauteur et pleines de crème. Ca sentait le parfum de grand-mère, il y a avait des sets de tables à fleurs, et on buvait de la limonade dans des pots de confiture, et dans la cuisine, il y avait une version américaine de Mamie Nova, avec le chignon et le sourire, mais en jean et baskets.

Plus loin sur la route, il y avait une pancarte pour la ‘Catalpa Plantation’ qui m’a rappelé cette blague indémodable du pater : « Talpa se promène d’un air bizarre, mais qu’a Talpa ? ».

Les routes dans le sud sont ponctuées de messages subliminaux, écrits sur d’immenses pancartes, tels que : « Abstinence is the best choice program », « a family that prays together stays together », ou encore « Huge ultimate double whopper ». Sinon, à la Nouvelle Orléans, on aime les balcons de fer forgé aux fleurs dégoulinantes, la vieille maison coloniale de bois blanc qui nous sert d’auberge et sa terrasse qui invite à la reverie, mais pas tellement le cimetière (n’en déplaise à la Queen Mother qui nous l’avait chaudement recommandé...).

Ya qui s’est mise à lire ‘On the road’ m’interrompt pour me dire que mon post est bien long, mais, lui rétorqué-je (j’aime beaucoup ce verbe rétorquer, et je n’ai pas souvent l’occasion de l’utiliser), trop de choses à dire et puis je suis sure que j’en oublie la moitié, ce qui me vaut cette perle que je blogue immédiatement : « ce qui compte dans le blog, c’est le blog ». C’est quasiment aussi bon que lorsqu’Astella, en passant devant une maison ‘A Vendre’, nous a fait remarquer, un (grand) sourire en coin, qu’en plus on était VENDREdi....Qu’est ce qu’on se marre, vive les vacances.

Maudou

Thursday, May 5
2:34 p.m. Our bottoms were beginning to ache from the sitting when we pulled up the curving driveway at Laureen’s around four. Glasses of cold water for refreshment, and then the bright Nashville day was waiting.

“We’ll drive round and look at the beautiful houses,” Laureen said, “because that’s what people do in Nashville, drive around and look at the beautiful houses.” Along Belle Meade Boulevard, grand Southern mansions, their pillars straight and tall like white-jacketed butlers at attention, preened on polite green lawns.



If you are lucky enough to have Laureen tourguide you around Nashville, you will discover some unusual things. Like the Belle Meade Plantation Home, which comes complete with creek and slave house and cut-out photo opportunities. Like the Belle Meade Country Club, which doesn’t accept Jews and blacks. As we drove past, Laureen gestured and said, “There’s some white people playing golf.” Like the Pantheon, which was built of papier-mâché for a World’s Fair, and which the Nashville community liked so much, they rebuilt it solid. There were geese and ducks by the lake, and the ducklings, in the sunlight, were glowing balls of fluff.



Laureen took us downtown to her office, too, where we admired (a) her view of the Cumberland River and (b) the soda machine in the common kitchen.

And then, because the girl is on top of things, there were reservations at Margot’s for dinner. And, oh, we were feasting like kings today, what with the sugar snap peas in a beet vinaigrette, the goat cheese, the plump, salty olives, the grilled snapper on a bed of warm frisée and slender carrots.

Laureen’s friend Erin came and joined, Erin with the dark, earnest eyes and the sweet smile and the stories that make you double over with laughing. Here are some things girls talk about at dinner: Arles. Crying at trial. Horrifying blind dates. The dearth of eligible bachelors in Nashville, Tennessee. Yaël was talking about co-operative banking when Maud leaned over to me and muttered, “I’m having the pot de crème, fuckit.” There were pot de crèmes all around, then, and a lemon ice box pie for me. Sweet and tart on a graham crust, surrounded by strawberries, and cold to make your mouth form an “O.”



On the way home, Laureen pointed out Fat Mo’s, where the sign outside read: “The biggest burgers in town.” The really unexpected thing about Fat Mo’s is that “Mo” is short for “Mohammed.” Laureen’s friend Lee, who is vegetarian, does some lawyering for Fat Mo, and we are hoping that Fat Mo creates a veggie burger in his honor. It is clear to us, there is no other way to go, that the veggie burger will be called Fat Lee.

Downtown on Broadway, the buskers were out: here, a guy, his guitar, his dog; there, a two-man band with a guitar and a full drum kit. There was one guy in a cowboy hat outside a bar, and then another. The neon signs came in the shapes of guitar and cowboy boot, but we could hardly keep our eyes open.

At night, the traffic lights hang in the darkness on Franklin Place. Set back from the road on Tyne Boulevard, the houses glow through the trees and hedges, a chandelier here, a spotlighted brick façade there. Inside at least one of them, I know this much is true, there are soft beds for girls who are adventuring around America.

Thursday, May 5
11:36 p.m.In the crisp morning, breakfast on the screened porch. Toast and feta and apricot jam, and a cup of Snow Monkey Plum tea because it is Laureen’s favorite, but mostly because it is called Snow Monkey Plum. There was a visit from Daniel, the kid next door, newly adopted from Russia. At ten months old, the kid already has a Slavic face.

The Natchez Trace Parkway took us out of Tennessee and, briefly, into Alabama, where, among the green and the birds of the scenic route, our short sojourn was interrupted by a visit from the local copper. (India, are you reading this? We are not doing such a good job, especially at seventy in a fifty-five zone, avoiding les keufs.) The passing policeman took a U-turn behind us and turned on his lights. Yaêl pulled over to the side. “Non mais.” “Non mais non mais non.” “Merde merde merde.”

The officer seemed unsure what to do with Yaël’s French driver’s license. He let us off with a warning, and said “Y’all have a nice day.” “T’as une sourire qui tue, Yaya,” Maud said, as we waved and pulled away.

We crossed the Tennessee River and found a spot by the Old Ferry Crossing for a picnic. The wildflowers made the grass a carpet of lilac. We revisted the cheeses, the breads, the tomatoes, the avocadoes, the grapes from the day before. Still good.

On Highway 45, a tractor on brown fields raised a cloud of dirty white dust behind him. A “For Sale” sign leaned on the wall of a shack by the highway. It really was a shack, but it had a front porch, and the front porch had a rocking chair. In the backseat I succumbed to the post-lunch and the midday hot and the muffled rumbling of the road beneath our wheels.

We were approaching Tupelo, Mississippi, proudly advertised as the birthplace of Elvis Presley, when I woke. Yaël’s Guide du routard refers to Tupelo as “le trou du cul de l’Amérique,” and there is some truth to this, because once you have hammed it up like showgirls next to Elvis’s car at the birthplace museum, and once you have marveled not only at the museum lady’s helmet of candy-floss hair but also at the oven mitts printed with recipes for Elvis’s Peanut Butter And Banana Sandwich—a recipe that calls for 1 Stick of Butter—there is not so much else to do. We zipped out of there and were back on the road illico presto.

I was behind the wheel and we were merrily barreling along southward to Jackson (Olive, tu lis?, je ne te connais pas, mais merci pour la zik. Rigolo, ton CD, c’est gégé!) when Route 25 disappeared. We were about to make a U-turn when a minivan pulled up behind us and a boy, maybe fourteen, came up to our window to ask if we were lost. We don’t know how he knew, but he knew. His mum got out of the car, too, and they pointed us in the right direction. “You’ll pass a car dealership—” the boy said, and his mother interrupted, “Don’t matter what you pass, just keep going straight to Jackson.” The boy let his mother walk back to the car before he said, “And you’ll pass a gas station.”

One three-point turn later, there was Route 25 refound, and a car dealership. And then, a gas station.

The heat chased us, relentless, to Jackson, Mississippi.

Jackson. After passing through miserable stretches of strip malls, we drove in empty streets looking, futilely, for a downtown. Yaël finally hopped out to question a lone passer-by. Apparently it all shuts down at five in Jackson.

A highway Barnes & Noble provided a rest-stop and a two-hour wireless connection for $3.95. There are some e-mails that can only be sent when one is in the middle of Mississippi.



It was late, then, and the neon lights of Bop’s Frozen Custard glowed invitingly. Hungry, tired, defeated by the overwhelming grimness of the city, we pulled up to the drive-through counter to order grilled chicken and turkey burgers. We wolfed. “Mmm,” Maud said.

“Et alors?”

“Degueulasse.”

We drove on into the blackness of Raymond looking for a motel before we turned around and headed back toward Jackson. “Jackson, c’est notre châtiment,” Maud said, but I couldn’t figure out why, when we hadn’t done anything to deserve it. “Les étoiles sont belles quand-même,” I said, and that much was true, for the wide Mississippi sky was made for jewel stars like tonight.

On the outskirts of Jackson, past the billboard that read “No Ring No Fling,” finally, a Comfort Inn. The check-in lady asked for my Zip code and her eyes widened when she heard the digits. “You’re a long way from Brooklyn,” she said. “What are you doing in Mississippi?” I told her we were driving to L.A. “Just to drive?” she said. “Yeah,” I said, “because why not.”

And this is now: One of us is reading. One of us is organizing photos on the computer. One of us has just emerged, sweet-smelling, from the shower. The thing is, sometimes there is nothing better than a hot shower.

Friday, May 6
10:56 p.m. Sitting on the upstairs balcony of the Mazant Guesthouse in pyjamas and the evening breeze. The giant magnolia tree in the yard bows down with fat white blooms. A passing train honks in the distance.

Arrived in New Orleans this afternoon. We rejoined the Natchez Trace Parkway heading south from Jackson, stopping in Natchez for a walkabout and a look-see. Like a nautical explosion of multicolored feather boas, the Isle of Capri casinoboat sat on the Mississippi River, while a massive barge pushed along in the waterway.



Everybody likes a Main Street, especially the sort of Main Street that has a shop like Darby’s, where the sign outside reads “Everything Under the Sun!” Inside, there was pecan fudge for sampling, and a T-shirt that said “Paris,” and a pink flamingo dressed up in sequins.



I asked the shopkeeper lady at the postcards-and-things shop next door about this restaurant I’d heard about. It’s in the shape of a giant woman dressed in red, and YOU ENTER UNDER HER SKIRT. When shopkeeper lady said, “...and they have pies,” well, there was no question, then. We tumbled into the car and headed south.

On Route 61, Mammy’s Cupboard called from the highway. “C’est une grande mamie,” I’d said. “On’n’la ratera pas.” And truly, there she was on the left, and Maud was moaning in the backseat at the sight.



In Mammy’s Cupboard, wooden shelves of jellies in mayhaw and muscadine; blueberry lemonade a shade of deep pink served ice-cold and refresca in jam jars; chicken pot pie and broccoli cornbread the Friday special; a salad of cheddar, bacon bits, and mayonnaise on lettuce; a giant can of Crisco on the kitchen shelf; a white-haired grandma cooking in the kitchen; a pie menu; and, truly, pies.



Three old biddies with heads of white came in, and Maud said, “C’est nous dans cinquante ans.” One of them was even shorter than the others. Later, the three old biddies looked over at us, as if they’d been thinking, That was us fifty years ago.



For a good many minutes we were silent at the table, that sort of silence that comes with complete and utter bliss. The ice cubes clinked in our jam jar cups.

When the nice shoplady cleared our plates, she said, “Y’all ready for dessert?” which I like because she understood there was no question that dessert would happen. I mean, come on. The banana caramel pie was soft bananas and thick dulce de leche and a sweet cloud of meringuey cream. And pie is pie, but pie and coffee is something else. And the coffee came in a footed milk-glass cup, and, oh, just everything was good, and we could have moved in, maybe, but the road was calling again.



On Highway 61 southward, we stopped for gas and fell into conversation with one Chuck Riddle from Missoura. Chuck Riddle rides his bike, and was heading to Lafayette for the crawfish festival. He was of a group of seven, and we passed them again later on the highway, these seven, some with beards, some with boots, altogether seven jolly biker dwarves revving along these Southern roads.

Eventually we zipped by the sign that read “Bienvenue en Louisiane,” and we whooped in the car. We have Good Feelings about New Orleans. As we approached the city, the humidity seeped into the car. Maud put on a Louis Armstrong CD, and we hummed and whistled to “Jeepers Creepers.”

In New Orleans, we drove through narrow, bumpy streets with faded wood houses seeming to lean in on either side. On Burgundy and Mazant, a white house with a seagreen door sits behind a low, curvy iron fence. Carina came out onto the porch to welcome us, while Eleanor sniffed hello, dogly.

5 mai
On a quitté la maison de Laureen (merci Laureen !) après un petit dej sur la véranda. La maison de Laureen est une villa néo classique avec les colonnades les lustres et tout le tralala. La classe quoi. Hier soir elle nous a emmenées voir les plus belles maisons de Nashville, le Country Club ( qui n’accepte ni Blacks ni Jews), la plus vieille plantation, avec la case des esclaves conservée en l’état, la réplique du Parthenon, et puis diner chic, vin, plats dont on ne comprend pas les noms, et crème au chocolat.

On a repris la route direction New Orleans sur les traces des Cow boys et des Indiens, surveillées par des groupes de vautours.



Il fallait parfois s’arreter pour laisser passer un faisan à l’air égaré, qui nous rappelait les regards vaguement étonnés des jeunes daims (et leurs petits culs blancs) des Appalaches.

Astella profite du premier arret (vérification des pneus) pour s’acheter un de ces granités qui tournent toute la journée dans leurs bacs de plastique, et bien sur elle choisit le bleu, sur le gobelet, il y a écrit TOO COOL. Plus tard, elle se tourne vers moi, ‘Maud’, et tire la langue, elle est toute bleue....AH BRAVO.

Ya est allée un tout petit peu trop vite sur la petite route de campagne et s’est chopé un ‘warning’. Il faut dire qu’elle lui a sorti le grand jeu, au ranger qui nous a arretées. Genre sourire qui tue et accent franchouille comme il faut, quand elle a sorti son permis, il est resté en arret devant le papier rose comme si c’était un OVNI. Trop compliqué, s’est-il dit sans doute, et il nous a laissées repartir. On lui a fait des grands signes de la main.

Pique-nique dans les fleurs bleues au soleil en Alabama, on parle d’amour et des garçons.

La vie est belle, voilà notre conclusion.

Maudou

Wednesday, May 4
11:11 p.m. In Tennessee, Interstate 81 turns into I-40, the Shins taking us there, and we sing “oo-oo-oo-oo-oo” with the band. This Wednesday afternoon, the roads are liquid with heat, and my eight gold bangles shine, hot, on brown skin. Just past Knoxville, thoughts of lunch in Farragut.

We drove up and down the road and were about to consign ourselves to the dismal ABC Market to pick through what would undoubtedly be a dusty selection of prepackaged foods when we saw, off to the left, a nondescript store front, white sans serif letters on brown brick, spelling out CHEESE SHOP. Miracle words. We eased into the left lane toward the chorus of angels.



Local Sweet Valley cheeses in the bag, we followed the shopgirl’s directions up the road a mile to the giant Target, with its giant grocery store. Inside, the singular blinding awesome white of the suburban megastore. The aisles were wide and clear, the linoleum shiny, the shelves piled high with gorgeous produce and giant boxes of cereal. Like savages emerging from the forest to find themselves on the set of “Supermarket Sweep,” we cradled bags of apples and oranges, grapes, tomatoes, a massive cucumber, even a small watermelon labeled “personal.” Every day a French lesson. Watermelon, la pastèque.



A red dress and red shoes are just right for a picnic, as are the green lawns and sparkling creek up the road at the little Farragut library. Maud’d brought not one but two knives, all the better for three hungry girls. A sharp Tennessee cheddar, a creamy buttermilk cheese, perfect avocados. Strawberries in season tasted like a sunny day.

We lay about in the sun while the leaves rustled above us. And it felt good to be hot and still.



The interstate all the way to Nashville. Blah blah highway. Truckers lean thick, hairy arms on windowsills. We are the best-looking team on I-40.

4 mai
Un air de deja vu (2) : parce qu’on veut avoir le temps de regarder les cow boys a Nashville, et parce qu’on veut voir l’aube sur les montagnes, on s’est levées à 5 h du mat. Et là c’est comme quand on va regarder le lever du soleil au Puy Mary. Il fait encore nuit, les premiers oiseaux sifflotent timidement. Encore ensomeillée, je prends le volant et c’est de nouveau les tournants, l’aube est grise (la chair est triste et j’ai lu tous les livres, comme dirait l’autre), mais les sous-bois au mois de mai se la jouent pointillistes avec leur vert tendre tacheté de blanc et de rose.

A la sortie des montagnes, une rivière brune et large de chercheurs d’or, et un train fait de wagon vides et rouillés. Au petit matin, à la station essence, l’odeur de graisse nous agresse. Les femmes sont grosses presque difformes et nous appellent ‘hon’. Impossible de trouver du thé. Plus tard au village, les enfants, sagement postés sur le bord de la route qui attendent le bus.

Sur l’autoroute, Ya fait DJ, elle a une spéciale dédicace, c’est ‘La femme d’Hector’ de Brassens ( on aime beaucoup cette chanson parce que quand on la chante on peut dire ‘Hector’ une bonne dizaine de fois, et aussi parce que, au final, tout le monde aime la femme en question, y compris Pamphile, dont le nom incongru me rappelle celui, absurde et imprononçable, de l’homme qui a vendu ses gouttes à Ya: Mesfin Gegziabhear.

(Et oui, je l’ai noté ce nom, tout en regardant fascinée les grosses bouteilles de Prozac, dont la barbie à talons et brushing devant nous semblait etre une sérieuse consommatrice.)) Bref l’histoire avec la chanson de Brassens, c’est qu’aux premiers accords j’ai eu un sourire ému et une exclamation enjouée, Astella derrière, bloguait. Plus tard, je mentionne la chanson, et là, avec l’air ingénu qu’on lui connait, ‘Aaah, je croyais que c’était ‘la FIN d’Hector,’ et je trouvais pas ça nice !’.

Sur l’autoroute : un pick-up avec un autocollant I coeur Jesus, une caravane qui derrière elle tire une jeep, des grqnges de bois qui parfois s’effondrent, et parfois sont flanquees de grands silos en forme d’ogive d’obus avec un toit ouvrant coulissant qui en fait de parfaits observatoires (une idée de recyclage de ou d’activité alternative pour les fermiers proches de la banqueroute), des églises qui annoncent leur message comme les cinémas annoncent leurs séances (celle ci par exemple, parfait exemple de la casuistique perverse d’une religion de la grace : ‘ God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage’).

Nous évoluons dans un paysage de playmobil : les vertes prairies avec les vaches posées dessus, les rectangles de motels et fast foods avec leurs enseignes (comme des modèles géants des touillettes qu’on met dans les cocktails) fichées dans le sol.

Après Knoxville, on décide de s’arreter pour pique niquer, à Farragut (Troufigny les Oies, Tenessee), la première chose que l’on trouve c’est, croyez le ou non, un ‘cheese shop’. La vendeuse, tout sucre et tout miel dans son accent du Sud, nous dit, après les questions d’usage et en toute innocence, ‘You have good cheeses TOO in France’(HAHAHA). C’est décidé, on aime le Sud. Donc fromage pain, et aussi tomates, fraises avocats, carottes et raisins. Parce qu’en matière d’épicerie, il n’y avait que le modèle King Size, et donc, victimes de la règle de base du ‘plus y en a, plus t’en veux’, on s’est un peu lachées.

Milieu d’après-midi sur la route de Nashville, les Shins à fond, soleil, on se croirait vraiment dans un western des temps modernes.

Wednesday, May 4, 2005
7:52 a.m. Backseat blogging.

The front counter guy at the Inn at Afton was all Southern accent and perky accomodation at a quarter to six this morning. He went to the back to get us hot coffees in styrofoam cups, and said, when we left, “Y’all come back and see us.”

Country roads and the squat, crooked wood fences. I was thinking that all that was missing were the cows, then we turned the bend, and voilà les cows, big and small and brown-spotted and black.

The sun was rising over swathes of greyblue mountains as we wound ’round the Blue Ridge Parkway. Green green green, and bursts of bright white dogwood like the trees blooming diamonds. We were singing along to “All You Need is Love” on volume up, because it’s true.

Yaya told a joke that ended with us denouncing it as “nulle,” but some minutes later I revisited it in my mind and it was amusing after all. “Faut la laisser mijoter,” I said, and Maud reckons it’ll be hilarious in three days.



On Route 130, we drove with a train and the river. Kids waiting by the road for the schoolbus pick-up. Kicking the dirt, and hands shoved in pockets.

Seven a.m. in Glasgow, Virginia: there is no tea for ready money, and the gas pumps are out of gas.

Tuesday, May 3, 2005
10:23 p.m. On Florida Avenue, we followed a Ford with dogs hanging out every window, a giant Saint Bernard out the back left, a little white snout in shotgun.



We took Route 66 westward out of DC, the hills in front of us green and tufty with trees. Virginia: the sky in front of us wide and low, and here and there the sun beaming down in streaks of light. Turning left for the Skyline Drive took us through the curving country streets of Front Royal, a dusty gem in small-town America with an antique antique store and an ice cream shack advertising burgers and Butter Brittle–flavored ice creams.

At the entrance to the Shenandoah National Park, the nice park ranger lady told us about the route. A three- to four-hour drive, service stations along the way, possibilities for exiting to I-81 before Waynesboro. I said, “We’ll take it!” and we handed over two fives for entry.

We are three girls on a roadtrip, so the first sight of deer maybe ten minutes into the drive brought about squealing and cooing. Also, we are three girls with varying degrees of bilinguality on a roadtrip, so the nature drive necessitated a dictionnaire français-anglais of forest animals. Deer, le daim. Squirrel, l’écureuil. Hedghog, l’hérisson. Skunk, le putoir. “’Putoir’ parce qu’il pue?” I said. “Oui,” Maud said, “tu pues, toi.” And then I was the only one laughing while everyone else laughed at me laughing.

* * *
Announcing Blog Quiz #1: Anyone know how to say “chipmunk” in French? Tell us, and you could win a souvenir from Tennessee, yee-haw!

Attention, le blog-quizz #1 : si tu sais comment dire “chipmunk” en français, lève ta main et dis-le nous! Tu gagneras un souvenir de Tennessee ouaaaiiis !!!
* * *

Except for the rare car on the lonely road, Shenandoah was just us and the deer and the squirrels and the wildflowers in pink and yellow. And the mountains, my word, the Blue Ridge mountains, waves and shades of blue stretching out and neverending on either side of us.

Gal Costa was singing into the muted mountain air as we pulled over at the Jewell Hollow Outlook for a breathe and a stretch. She sings in Portuguese so I can’t be sure what she was saying, but the way the song feels, it can really only be about love.

The Appalachian range and the deep green valley. We were speechless but for understanding that life is good.



The sky turned pink like a rose Ladurée macaroon, and then the setting sun was a blood orange in the sky. Everything glowed golden, the hillsides, the trees, our faces.

Soon, the enveloping darkness, our headlights on black gravel, and, to the right, the lights coming on in the valley. We took the curves to Dinah Washington on “What a Difference a Day Makes.” As we came to Waynesboro, the modern jazzy brass of “Our Love is Here to Stay” felt like the neon lights of the city, of Broadway, of civilisation refound.



The Inn at Afton is sixty dollars a night for a massive room and cable television. Because we are classy ladies, we have a delivery Domino’s pizza and Fox TV for dinner.

3 mai

A Washington DC, les feux rouges ont un compte à rebours intégré qui minute le temps qu’il te reste pour traverser la rue. Il semble que la plupart des habitants portent des costumes, et les rues portent des lettres au lieu de noms (ce qui me semble tout à fait posthumain), et il y a un lama devant chez Aaron (merci Aaron!) qui me rappelle une récente discussion avec Camille dans le metro new yorkais.



L’avantage aussi de ce monde posthumain et des chaines de restaurants, c’est que l’on peut etre sur de trouver un Starbucks à chacune de nos étapes, sachant que c’est là, par un deal un peu mysterieux avec mon opérateur de telephone que l’on peut se connecter et vous balancer les niouses.

C’est moi qui conduit aujourd’hui, Astella fait copilote et dame de compagnie, Ya dort pour reposer son oeil atteint de conjonctivite aigue. Les automatiques c’est tout doux et silencieux, et puis ça laisse un pied libre pour battre la mesure, et, sans me vanter, les compiles que j’ai composées, elles dechirent leur race. On a décidé de delaisser l’autoroute pour prendre par les montagnes Appalaches, parce que ça a l’air beau (on ne sera pas déçues) et puis que ça s’appelle Skyline Drive (et ça, ça fait rever).

Un air de déjà vu: Shenandoah Park c’est comme notre route des cretes, à flanc de colline on passe d’une vallee a l’autre. La route est sinueuse et les vallons sont moelleux. Je retrouve mes reflexes et epouse les tournants (ralentis avant, accelere dedans, comme dit le pater), le soleil se couche lentement, rose sur les montagnes bleues, avec cette mer de brume que l’on aime tant. Pour moi c’est samba et le bleu turquoise de l’apres midi finissant, pour Astella Chopin qui va mieux avec la lumière dorée du soir. Le trio de choc est reveur (Ya surtout derrière son bandeau de pirate).

Ce soir donc une fois de plus c’est comme dans les films, motel années 50 qui domine la vallée, livraison de pizza et teloche.

Maudou

Sitting in a Starbucks on N Street. Don’t roll your eyes at me, we needed the wireless connection. Where the air in New York seems electric with wireless possibilities everywhere, the AirPort signal on my iBook has been a sad grey all day up till now, the four curves positive and black with affirmative connection. The background accompaniment is sounds of steam and thumps of coffee grounds being discarded and calls of “grande latte tall skim mochaccino tall latte venti cappuccino iced tall green tea.” The day’s adventures so far have led us down and up and down Connecticut Avenue looking for an eye doctor for Yaël, who developed an infection overnight. We crossed the same bridge thrice before Maud got the bright idea to call the office and ask for directions. “It’s on Connecticut between Sixteenth and Seventeenth and H and I,” she reported off her cellphone, and we were flummoxed that something could be between four things. But then there it was, Sixteenth, Seventeeth, H, I, and now Yaël has a Kill Bill eyepatch, trop style. I guess she won’t be driving for a bit, which is too bad, because she is genius at parallel parking.

This is a lot of adventure for twenty-four hours.

O.K. FINE WE’VE ALREADY BEEN PULLED OVER.

Which is to say that this little speed demon was rocking along to a particularly jolly pop ditty (hé, Hector, trop bonne ta compile) when all of a sudden it seemed that certain notes maybe weren’t part of the melody, and oh, wait, are those flashing lights behind us? Damn. Welcome to Maryland.

Yesterday afternoon, we picked up our Toyota from a Midtown Hertz. Deep blue like the midnight sky, trop classe, and perfect for stealthing by under cover of night. The license plates are from North Carolina, “First in Flight,” because we are about to take off.

After the futuristic neon of the Lincoln Tunnel, we’d raced through New Jersey and Delaware, under grey and rain, electrical towers and smokestacks on either side of us. Maud’d been bitching about the weather, and I’d said, “It’s got to be crappy before it can get good.” Apparently what I should’ve said was, “It’s got to be crappy before we can get pulled over before it can get good.”

So, the cop. Pudgy, brown, barking. I forgot to do all those things girls are supposed to do when they get pulled over. There was no flipping of hair, there was no crying, there was (foreign girls unite!) no pretending I don’t speak English. Et voilà, I have a ticket for seventy-five dollars, which is ten less than I was going in a sixty-five zone.

We were marveling about it later, how he’d appeared out of nowhere, how there’d been nothing and nothing, and then his car right behind us, sirens wailing, lights flashing. “C’était comme le Batmobile,” Yaël said, and maybe if we’d winked and complimented the cop on his irresistible essence of Batman, he’d have let us go with an indulgent smile. Mm. Well. Uh, now we know.

If this were a movie, and who’s to say it’s not, this is the part in “Romy and Michelle” when they’re just about to leave on their roadtrip, and Michelle (unless I mean Romy, in any case I mean the woman who plays Phoebe on “Friends”) goes “Whooo!” and then the car stalls, and then they have to start it up again, and Michelle goes “Whooo!” and then the car stalls, and then they have to start it up again, and then Michelle goes “Whooo!” and then they’re off for good.

The cop waved us off, we pulled away, and we started the music anew. And then the sun was out, and DC just minutes away.

Coming upon the city, a white Cinderella castle loomed in front of us. Except: no pastel flags, and no birds a-twitter. This castle was a pointy affair, from the next century, and quite possibly about to blast off in flames. “It’s like Star Wars,” Yaël said. “I am your father.”

We pulled up outside Aaron’s on Connecticut Avenue and cased the first floor looking for his apartment. When he opened the door, he said, “I heard the giggling coming closer.” We were maybe a couple of hours earlier than we’d thought we’d be, and he said he was sweating from having shoved everything under his bed.



He took us on the three-hour nighttime tour of DC. It was very cold, and the stars were points of ice. And the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, everything lit up grand and white against the dark sky. And even if you don’t agree with the government, there is something breathtaking about these monuments, an excitement seeing the White House glowing in the distance.

Like private agents we walked through the Crypt, subterranean, silent, walls of pipes leading from a secret somewhere to a secret otherwhere, and Aaron tried to sneak us into the Capitol afterhours, but the guards were immovable. We settled for the office wing, then, while we ooh’d and aah’d and tried not to be tourists. There is a barber in the Capitol, and a bank, and a post office, and an old-timey shoeshine. Down one hallway, Maud popped into the restroom. She poked her head out the door almost immediately to announce, “It’s pink!” so then everyone who was a girl popped into the restroom.



We walked by Tom De Lay’s office, and Chip Pickering’s, and all these names you see in the newspapers, and then we got to Aaron’s office, where he offered us Georgia peanuts and Cherry Cokes and Fanta Grapes, and let us play with a stuffed duck. Big fun on Capitol Hill.



But peanuts and sodas do not a dinner make, and some of us had been noshing on not much more than a Ziploc bag of pecans, pistachios, and dried cranberries for hours, so it was time for some fine dining. Aaron took us downtown and pointed out a big gay gym and a big gay restaurant. In Adams-Morgan, at a twenty-four-hour diner called The Diner, there were burgers and reubens and onion rings and fries. And then, just because one can smoke in DC restaurants, Maud did.

We were yawning like fat sunning seals, then, and we were rounding in on the midnight hour, so there was rumbling home to Aaron’s, and a flurry of toothbrushing, and then tumbling into the pull-out bed, eyes closed and sleep sweet like sweets.

New Jersey: des forets de pylones, des petits bosquets de grues, des bouts d’autoroute pas finis les entrailles a l’air comme des charognes de betons et d’acier. Il y a une odeur dans ces faubourgs, de plastique et de misere.

Astella, une fois au volant, s’avere etre un chauffard ordinaire, qui double par la droite sur l’autoroute et insulte ceux qui osent la ralentir (nous verrons plus loin ou cela nous menera).

Il a plu tout du long, par grandes giclees imprevisibles, il etait temps de partir vers le sud.

Et puis nous on s’en foutait parce qu’on etait au chaud avec de la bonne musique (merci encore Hector pour les compiles, franc et unanime succes) : Ya riait de retrouver des airs connus, Stella de ne rien y comprendre.

On etait presque arrivees, on chantait et on dansait, quand Astella a dit, d’un air incredule, ‘is that the cops pulling us over?’ Et la, comme dans les films, la sirene, le gyrophare (et Ya triomphante: “je vous avais bien dit qu’ils sortent de nulle part”), un gros flic qui met son chapeau avant de sortir de la voiture et de s’avancer, la main sur le revolver, jusqu’a notre voiture (qui j’ai oublie de l’annoncer, n’est PAS rouge, mais d’un tres beau bleu nuit, merci Hertz). Stella se recroqueville sur son siege, rougit et s’excuse, le flic se penche et prend sa plus grosse voix pour nous demander papiers et caetera, en faisant tout repeter a la desormais minuscule et ecarlate Stella sous pretexte qu’il ne l’entend pas. Il repart avec son permis. Je fais des blagues, Ya rit un peu, Stella pas du tout. Puis le gars l’appelle sur son haut-parleur, conciliabule, Stella dehors qui grelotte (il caille dans ce pays de cons) le flic dedans qui reprimande, gentiment cette fois. Resultat, une amende de 75 dollars qu’on payera peut etre sachant que ladite Stella quitte definitivement l’Amerique dans un mois.

A Washington DC, on dort chez Aaron, un ami de Jazon (Big Up Jazon (pour les nouveaux le vrai nom de Jazon est Jason, mais comme son prof d’ancien francais a Columbia s’obstine a franciser tous les noms, et qu’il aime les films kitsch et moyenageux, il est devenu, et il demeure, Jazon)). Aaron travaille pour le jeune depute de Georgie, et nous fait donc non seulement le tour commente de la ville mais aussi de l’interieur des batiments gouvernementaux. A l’assemblee, les toilettes des dames sont carrelees d’un rose criard, les couloirs sont hauts et resonnent, mais surtout il y a ce passage souterrain qui relie tous les batiments, sur les parois de ce glauque boyau alternent tuyaux gigantesques (plomberie ou, comme dans Brazil, systeme de communication par air comprime), et collection d’oeuvres d’art plus ou moins reussies.

Apres une breve visite a Lincoln, toujours assis dans son sanctuaire, et apres avoir decouvert avec etonnement que le sommet de la fameuse obelisque clignote dans la nuit, pour prevenir les avions (ou les extra terrestres, ai-je immediatement ajoute), un bon vieux cheeseburger des familles et au lit.

Maudou

So it is possible to spend the lead-up to a trip going out at all hours, and then running about on the last day home in a flurry of laundering and house-cleaning.

Some months ago, Maud and I got onto Mapquest and asked for directions from New York, NY, to Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA. The Interweb, she is an amazing thing.

This afternoon we will not be following the route suggested. I seem to remember something like, turn right on Canal, take the Holland Tunnel, something something something, get on a highway, merge onto another highway, something something, turn left on Hollywood Boulevard. Forty-two hours, nineteen minutes.

This afternoon, we have a 1990 road atlas that Maud scored from under the counter at a little Indian bodega. We have a lot of music, including mixes from friendly well-wishers, and at least two bags of car snacks. We know not to pick up hitchhikers, and, in case of a flat, to balance the jack on the car frame behind the wheel. We will look for cowboy boots in Nashville. We will sit on a latticed porch and eat beignets in New Orleans. We will drive through a drive-thru. We will depend on the kindness of strangers’ wireless connections. Cross your fingers for we will blog and we will guest blogue. And when we get to the West Coast, shining and golden with promise, we will put on our swimsuits and run along the sand and jump into the ocean, ally ally oxen free.

Sunday brunch at Le Pain Quot’ downtown, almost noon, we were two at the table with room for more. Then Jill, then India, then Tom. And the food kept coming, the basket of breads, the hams, the jams, the gruyère, the boiled eggs, the croissants, the almond pound cake. And the coffees and teas filled and refilled. And laughs and stories and laughs again. And then we were awake and happy, and Tom said, “More coffee?” and pourquoi pas.



We walked east after. Grand Street through Little Italy and Chinatown was hustle and bustle and the sun coming out in a blueing sky.

The battle cry is “More parties for us!” because it is apt, and because I broke my no-shopping fast with a pair of amazing shoes. Shoes are black faux crocodile leather, open toe, a cross-strap in the front, a wedge heel in the back. These are not “nice” shoes, they are not “great,” please, they are so beyond cool that they are H-O-T. The bonus is, I can even walk in them.

(Friday afternoon I was in the store trying very hard to not buy these shoes. I told the salesgirl I don’t really wear black shoes, and I said, “You see? Like, I have this skirt”—and here I flapped my pink and red flower-print skirt like I was Marilyn Monroe standing on a subway grate—“and they just wouldn’t go.” And I put on the shoes to demonstrate, and they went. “Um,” I said. “That didn’t quite work out as planned.” The salesgirl wrapped up the shoes quick.)

When my shoes and I got to India’s tonight, the hallway smelled of a pastry-based good, hot in the oven. Surprise, then, because the smell wasn’t coming from India’s. However, at India’s: a coconut lime-curd layer cake maybe eight inches high, a chocolate gingerbread cake, and a merguez couscous. There were people, too, including India gorgeous in green roses, and John, a vegetarian who makes exceptions for bacon. When I met Cedric, my mouth said: “Cedric. That’s an unusual name.” At which point I thought I should leave the room for idiocy, so I did.



What gets people talking at a party is a roadtrip. Christina said we should check out Dollywood. Edward suggested we go to the Four Corners, where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet—to which Maud said, “But where is it?” Stewart told about finding a giant snakeskin on a motel bed in Tennessee. With a sort of otherworldly rapture, Jennifer spoke of the fatback to be had in an Asheville, North Carolina, greenmarket. Somewhere in talking about Philadephia, people got excited about Philly cheese steaks, and then people got very excited about the triplet marvels of Cheez Whiz and Velveeta and Easy Cheese. (Raise your hands if you are surprised that Easy Cheese is spelled “Easy Cheese.” I was so sure it was going to be, like, “E-Z Cheez.”) Also, apparently there exist SAUSAGES WITH A MOLTEN CORE OF CHEESE RUNNING THROUGH THEIR CENTER. People, America is a great land full of wonder.

Then Henry tried to tell us that MacDonald’s milkshakes are made of plastic, but we weren’t having any of it. When he said he’d heard it on the news, Christina made the newsflash sound—“Deet-de-deet deet deet-de-deet”—and said, with authority, “Tonight: milkshakes are made of plastic.”



Later, there was the grand exodus, and I put on my coat to leave, but then Stewart said to stay a minute, and we like Stewart, so I sat down again. And then the flurry was over, and it was “Desafinado” clear like contentment, and India and Stewart and I gossiped like old ladies about (a) everyone who wasn’t there, and (b) everyone who was.

Almost two, it was warm in there, and the sofa was low and sinky, and Sarah Vaughn was soft on the stereo. And the comfortable, and the yawning, and time to leave for real. After rain all day, on Smith Street the mist made halos of streetlights.