RoadTrip Fever!

Dear Blob!
Who are these talentless, time-wasting, horse-faced whores from "The Hills"? and when will they cease gracing the covers of my US Weekly magazines? I much prefer to learn about Brangelina, Kate Hudson's latest lovers, and other sordid sagas of real celebrities. The tacky, rather ugly girls from "The Hills" do not hold the appeal of Jennifer Aniston's rocky, but juicy, love-life or the ongoing drama of good old Brittney and Jamie Lyn and newly-lesbian Lindsey Lohan! You go Lindsey!

In other news, I just spent 11 days on a cross-country roadtrip with True Love (TR), from Georgia to Laland. Highlights included humid Southern-artists wedding in rural Alabama, which had superlative wedding barbecue and all-you-can-eat-shuck-your-own-oysters, an unheard of luxury
on the west coast, but apparently food-of-the-people, in the South. On the way to the Alabama wedding, TR and I stopped for gas and upon purchasing, I inquired of the salesclerk, "What town are we in?" and she replied, "Alabama." Again I said, "Yes, but what town?" "Alabama." "I know, but what town is this?" "Oh. Selma."

TR and I quested for the folk-art grocery-church in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and came upon a rainbow-painted cinder-block, mardi-gras-beaded, ramshackle extravaganza, which resembled Lady Elaine of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood's, house. Reverend Herman and his wife, Margaret, the very black and very quirky 93-year-old host and hostess , sat on the porch and were thrilled to have visitors. Reverend Herman built the folk-art grocery-church for Margaret and repeated the same 3 phrases throughout our visit: 1. You can leave a donation, but you don't have too! 2. Don't drink or gamble and bring all your money home to your wife, who is your angel! 3. Take pictures of my church I built! It was surrealism in action. No need for The Ukulady to go to Burning Man - magical adventures and surrealism are everywhere.

TR and I hit the Carlsbad Caverns, which are a Must-See for anyone interested in beauty; the Grand Canyon, another beauty Must-See; a ridiculously windy Mojave desert, complete with 3 inch white spiders.

I was surprised that Louisiana is seemingly all-swamp and Mississippi is full of magnolia trees. Texas is huge and apparently smoking is still legal, in eateries. In San Antonio, New Mexico, we came upon the 7th Best Burger in America, at a tiny hole-in-the-wall called The Buckhorn. GQ magazine had somehow stumbled upon the blink-and-miss-it town, and sure enough, the green chile burger was awesome.

No roadtrip can be summed up in a mere blog/b, but I wanted to alert you, oh Blob, and readers, as to my slacker whereabouts lately.
Love The Ukulady
ps: TR and I invented a great game called Mississippi Go! The goal is to spell Mississippi the fastest. Player 1 begins, spelling Mississippi as fast as he/she can and when finished spelling, he/she shouts, "Go!" and Player 2 spells as fast as possible and shouts Go! and onwards until neither player is capable of spelling Mississippi anymore. Good Times.

pps: We tried to go to a pie shack in Natchez, Mississippi, called Mammy's Cupboard, which is a huge black mammy-shaped building, with what Roadfood.com said has the best banana caramel pie ever. To our enormous disappointment, by the time we got to Mammy's cupboard, indeed a scarf-headed, tray-laden, black-lady-shaped building with the front door in her huge pink skirt, Mammy's cupboard was closed.

UkuLady in NYC & DuranDuran!

Dear Blog!
Greetings from NYCsies! UkuLady observations of the Capital of Planet Earth:
1. NYC has total Cupcake Fever! They are Everywhere and are twinkie-fied, with frosting centers!
2. Subway is the best teenager-watching! NYC teens are tough and many favor accessories with the word Phat emblazoned on the purse, shirt, hat.
3. Unlike Texas, everything is smaller in NYC. Less room, more people. Houston is more room, big people, perhaps due to large rib portions. How presumptuous of me.
4. NYC is almost like Burning Man to me, in that I'm having sensory overload. Too many cupcakes to taste, too many awesome old friends to see, too many amazing museums and shows I have no time for.
Meanwhile, in other news, when is Katie Holmes going to leave Tom?
Meanwhile, my awesome college galpal BFF, with whom I am staying, is recently single, so I've been coaching her on Making Out with Boys. The favored line is straightforward, "Hey, wanna make out?" delivered in a coy, middle-schoolish way. I'm encouraging her to do some frenching with a variety of fellas before her summer-camp boyfriend moves from New Mexico to her Brooklyn pad, for what seems to be an inspiring long-term mutual-admiration-society moving into fruition - that word looks weird.
My galpal and I worked out an amazing version of "Hungry Like The Wolf" voice and uke last night. We also sang our way through the libretto to "Working", which she directed and cast me in, in college. We agreed there is no choice but to hate Brent Popilizzio, who has become a minor Nickelodeon heartthrob to tweenagers and subsequently has become a total asshole; we googled forgotten classmate/theater majors and we called old college pals and sang "Hungry Like The Wolf" into their voicemails. I'm so selfishly pleased my married girlfriends are starting to get divorces because then they have more time for important galpal activities, iike shopping for liquid glitter eyeliner (which, upon purchase my galpal said to me, "What, are you a drag queen?" and I was like, "No duhsies!") and honing earnestly-delivered renditions of Duran Duran medleys. Rio is on the schedule next.
Good Album or Band Name: Worm Hospital
Love The Ukulady
PS: I will return to NYC forever, but I am a total California girl and yearn for palm trees, beaches and the Golden Gate bridge.
PPS: Yearn, in that I feel cozily nostalgic for home when I travel, but not in that I'm homesick and ready to leave. I could stay in NYC for weeks, as long as I maintained my sorely-missed Anusara yoga schedule.

UkuLady in Houston & Cameltoe FatPouch!

Dear Blog,
I write this from the Everybody-Is-Allowed-Area of Houston Hobby Airport, where the native Texans flock to bid farewells. Everything really is Bigger in Texas. The American Obesity Epidemic is in full bloom here at the Houston airport. In one way, it’s refreshing to be amidst absolutely zero junkie-style-meth-freak hipsters; the Silverlake (LA) Mission (SF) Williamsburg (NYC) artsy hipsters (of which, I’m admittedly, probably one), with super skinny jeans and shaggy/wispy haircuts and eighties-style ballerina flats (although I have none of the above). Although the hipsters are lacking, flats, the shoe, are all over the Houston airport, along with the cork-heeled wedgie; however most of the flats here in Houston encircle sausage-like feet, stuffed into the pleather and fleshily bursting below the cuffs of high-rise pants! Yes, they are alive and well here in Houston! I haven’t seen high-rise jeans in years and I’m pleased to announce they have never gone away. Being at the Houston airport has brought to light an extremely disturbing phenomenon; the Fat-Pouch Cameltoe Roll. I write this dispatch, seemingly surrounded by the displeasing spectacle. It is a cameltoe that goes beyond the Muffin, squeezing the belly of American Obesity Epidemic Victims, into two parts, a vertical equatorial vagina-line; essentially prolonging normal cameltoe all the way to the waist. It’s really unattractive.
Houston Hobby also has an abundance of American Flag garments, from tee-shirts to hats to the previously discussed, ties. I’ve also seen a lot of teen mothers, few non-white people and many skinny-thighed-but-enormously-bellied-women, which makes me feel kind of jealous, as skinny thighs seem to be a genetically-unattainable goal. I also think about how Anusara yoga would really be great for all the Houston Plumpies.
LATER:
I am now in the Passenger-Only waiting area and Aha! Here’s where all the non-white people are. It’s It’s A Small World in real life here amongst the peeps headed to the Capital Of Planet Earth, NYC. The people-color medley reminds me of why I love NYC; the medley, buzzing together in the beehive of the 5 boroughs, forced to interact with one another on the subway, on the streets, in the high-rises. In LA we are isolated in our cars, our huge boulevards and tract-house developments. LA is a medley of peeps, but Angelinos are rarely forced to interact with people other than their constituency. I go to my agency, interact with other voiceover actors; I go to my yoga studio, interact with yoga people, go to gay bars, interact with my gay men. In my neighborhood, I am somewhat ostracized by my Latino neighbors, glared at for asking them to park better so we can all fit, and disliked for moving their trash bins placed in prime-parking spots every garbage night. Crash is totally a right-on movie. The trick to Enjoyment of LA Living is discovering community. Fucking hippie.
Love The UkuLady
PS; Brittney would friggin love the Houston Airport - she'd be amongst her people!

UkuLady in The AIR!

Dear Blog,
OMG! The Pioneers would totally lose their minds if they knew that today, not only are travelers able to traverse the country in a single day, but that feat is accomplished by flying n a giant metal ‘n’ plastic machine, and one can also use a computer in the air! This is the Ukulady’s first time utilizing Tallulah Petunia Mackulele aloft. Some pre-NYC traveling observations:
1. It is not the wisest choice to request a ride to the airport from a Stoner. Time has no meaning for them, aside from 4:20. I know this because in my youth I was a stoner. Highlights from those years include smoking pot all over Europe; sub-highlight of that highlight, was puffing from an orange Fanta can at Jim Morrison’s Paris grave, where my pals and I gleefully spotted nearby graffiti declaring, “Smoke Pot!”; smoking dirt which had desperately been scoured from a carpet where the bowl had fallen, and as we were either too desperate or too high to discern or care about the difference between the cheap Boston schwag we smoked and actual dirt, so the bowl was repacked; and being caught in the dorms smoking pot senior year in college, by the junior-year RA. Alongside me was Former-Comedy-Partner and Best-Gay-Friend-From-Chicago. FCP was, at the time of Caught! an employee of the college and amazingly, not fired. BGFFC was hit with a hefty fine hours before graduation, which, unless the hefty fine was paid asap, he would be uninvited to graduate from college, potentially robbing his family, who had traveled from California to witness the event, of the inevitable joy and pride the commencement ceremony evokes. He paid the fine. I was sent to Emerson College Drug rehab, where I was the lone senior amongst freshman and we were asked to complete time-wasting tasks, such as listing all the words for being stoned.
So my stoner airport ride was late, but made up for it, by driving me all the way to LAX, rather than the flyaway bus stop. Stoner-Ride’s dashboard displayed healing herbs (not pot) and a half-smoked spliff lay in that little pouchy-scoopy thing under the ashtray – that resty thingy that in my car, holds an old mix tape from my ex ex ex and an aromatherapy squirty bottle from my Current Crush.
2. Once through security at LAX, I made a beeline to the airport lit corner to find out what’s going on with Brittney! Instead of Brittney, People and In Touch, both renown celebrity trash rags, featured cover stories on Prince William’s breakup and Virginia Tech. It’s says a lot about our culture that Prince William’s breakup and the Virginia Tech senselessness, tragedy, loss-for-words-to-describe-the vast and varied emotions-brought-on-from-it, share a magazine cover. I guess Brittney’s laying low.
3. LAX has superior people watching! I can’t wait to get to Houston though, where I’ll really have a lot to say! Already, my flight to Houston carries people in cowboy hats and thick accents and the heavily-twanged couple across the aisle from me are drinking his ‘n’ hers Bud Lights at 11am. Who does that besides rednecks, all-night-gamblers or circuit-party-goers? No, circuit-party boys do E and drink Red Bull. It is in airports where I feel the most repulsively smugly-superior; clutching my New Yorker, as I expertly make my way through the throngs of less-experienced travelers. I’m such a schmuck, judging others on their romance-novel reading-material and lack of familiarity with the new travel rules and regulations. I’m a total judegmental snob, but like Anne Frank, I ultimately do believe everyone is good at heart. What a fucking hippie thing to say. I played Anne once, so I feel I can quote her, as I embodied her for an exhausting 3 months. It was a highly successful run and the final performance I went onstage with a fever of 104, and subsequently went to the hospital afterwards, suffering from a friggin kidney infection.
Love The Ukulady
PS: Time to read up on the cultural events on NYC that I simply cannot miss! NYC makes me feel like Eloise, my first NYC fantasy!
PPS: I even put a rubber band around my nose once, to be just like Eloise, and the tip of my nose was literally purple for a week. Ahhh, childhood….