Orientation Week (Part 1)

Five weeks after the start of my voyage I prepared to leave home. My entire closet stuffed into my climbing bag, my hair stuffed ontop my head[1] and I’m bouncing from friend to friend. Squeezing in my goodbyes. Leo wrote me a letter. Amanda gave my some literature to read and Anastassia took all my records, my bike, and my glasses.

Joe & Meadow & Grace and a beagle name Shelby howled at a preday full moon calling upon the great Night Wolf bus to provide me with safe travels[2]. Erich and Heather showed me possibly the best running and food foraging spot in town… now I know I’ve wasted all three years in CU. Marissa gave me a half inch wooden pocket knife with the “World’s Greatest Trucker” inscribed in it for protection and intimidation purposes (against lot-lizzards). Zeyneps changed (she’s changed). Plata helped me stay rational. This friend gave me those feels and those friends gave me these feels, etc etc.

August 29^th, 2015 2030[3] reminded me that the Nigthwolf was ready. Trucking camp in Joplin Missouri[4] was waiting for its cub.[5] After three years of establishing an intensely personal domestic partnership, I bid a bittersweet ‘cya later!’ to Urbana and left behind a mountain of rib tip cartilage and Kombucha brewers’ secrets.

Fiona (Fi), my Irish-Fijian spirit sister, saw me off at the bus station and we felt positive my decision would be more than just the right one. 9pm and I’m red-eyeing it thru the Midwest. If the uncomfortable seating and the nonexistence of leg space don’t obliterate your sleep than the mandatory GET OFF THE BUS! layovers in St. Louis and Springfield, MO will! But warm company from a new acquaintance and twilight from a post day full moon illuminating the cumulus and cirrus clouds[6] reminds me that Meadow’s beagle is keeping me safe.

In Springfield I thought of Brad Pitt. Did you know he’s from Springfield, MO? “Pitt has described Springfield as ‘Mark Twain country, Jesse James country’, having grown up with ‘a lot of hills, a lot of lakes’”[7] I’ll have plenty of chances to see Springfield, BP. We’ll see about that!

During the Springfield layover I saw a dad crying, hugging his wife and kid. Just like the email said, “one bag and backpack. Leave room in the truck for your trainers’ belongings.”

He took a seat next to me. The sun illuminated behind the trees of Southern Missouri. He told me about his misfortunes during the market crash. All of his wealth lost in Californian housing. Assets gone, not a cent to his name. He told his wife to pick “Missouri or Florida.” And so it goes, they relocated and he was off. He planned to save up and invest. “I’m going to do it right.” Tyson meat, paid for his trucker training and, like a chicken on a conveyor belt, shipped him on the nightwolf towards Arkansas.

The white minivan cab rolled into Joplin’s bus shack. My driver, a tall Tony Bennett with droopy hound dog eyes and a trucker belly, reassured me in his slowwwwww-hounddog Antebellum-South voice, “every young person needs to take the journey.” He warned me of the old pill popping days before federal regulations “my driving partner did them. I stayed away from it all…. you still need your sleep. I’ve seen them stay up so long they go to sleep for two whole days, something crazy.” Before a minute of expected-regrettable silence, I went on ahead and told him I had friends do humanitarian work in Joplin. [8]

“I’ve lived here all my life except for, bout, ten years.”

He dropped me off at the La Quinta Inn. From trucking school friends’experiences[9] I expected a raggedy old place with spotty floors, bed bugs! Crime! Dirty sheets! Instead, I found it to be a pleasant commercial hotel across the street from a Texas Roadhouse on a hill in a sprawl.

The first of many Fox News reports was playing in the lobby TV when I approached the front desk. The clerk (concierge?) asked me if I wanted a room to myself. “Sure!” Oh that’s an extra hundred dollars? The random roommate is free? “Uh… ya, Ill take the, roommate.” She made the phone call to warn him.

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[1] “you hair reminds me of fanny pacs” – my uncle commenting on my man bun

[2] Next to  ROYGBIV arranged bookshelf, mind you (Meadow’s place is so cool! Chicken Coops, mountains of artwork from an art dweller who lives on their three house Urbana cozy-campus. Love it, Meadow. I Love it).

[3] Trucker time is Military time so get used to it

[4] Tornado Central

[5] “AHOOOOOOOOO”

[6] A creative writing teacher never said to use scientific cloud identifiers in my writing. This is a middle finger to him! Love you, Madonick!

[7] (From Inside the Actors Studios)

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado

[9] I’ll write about them soon, don’t worry!