gypsy soul

Most of the next morning and early afternoon were spent in dreamland, as the night before lacked nothing but that.  Around 5, Eba and I packed up a few things and a cooler and headed back to our old stomping ground: the beach.  We layed around all day listening to music, reading, drawing, swimming, eating, drinking and being merry.  One of my favorite moments of the dya was when Eba, sweetheart that she is, walked up to an older man collecting cans out of the trash and gave him the aluminum shell of the Coke I had just drank.  He thanked her kindly.  She noticed he was quite hot, so she came back to our little camp and got out a full cold Coca-Cola.  Taking it back over to him, both filling his need for refreshment and offering him another can once he’d drank it, he thanked her even more kindly.  A little while later, the ultra-tan man selling sea-doo rides and umbrellas, etc. came over and told Eba the man had left a message for her.  He said, “Thank you. God bless you.  It won’t always be like this.”  He made my prayer list for the day.  Matthew, our friend from the night/morning before, came out and sat with us to watch the sunset. It was unbelievably breathtaking.

After a sandy hike back to Eba’s Honda Fit, we went back home to shower and get dressed for supper and another night on the town.  After driving around looking for a place to eat, we realized it was 11 at night on a Sunday and decided we’d go to the trusty Waffle House, open ‘round the clock.  We then headed over to Just Us Lounge, a gay bar.  Eba is bisexual, though I think she prefers to not be labeled that way and just to be recognized as a human being willing to fall in love with anyone.  We played pool, I played some songs on the jukebox and we looked at magazines and talked to the lady bartender.  Finally, tired as all get-out, we went home and bedded down.

I was thinking about the gay bar and the differences in general between Eba and I.  Eba is a gay Arabic Islamic vegetarian.  I am a straight Kentucky Christian meat-eater.  For sure, it is obvious that she and I come from different worlds and believe different things.  Hopefully though, she came out realizing that none of that matters a bit to me.  In my eyes, Jesus was a peaceful/loving/wandering hippie.  I’d like to think of myself kind of the same way.

I found it even harder to leave Baton Rouge than it was to leave Chattanooga.  That extra day or say made me feel as if I’d found a home there.  The thing about couchsurfing is that, in meeting these like-minded people, we understand ourselves a little more with each encounter so that leaving that place seems a little self-destructive, as if we are tearing away from a part of ourselves.

After a short, air-conditioned drive of only a couple hours, I sat at Eba’s apartment and awaited her arrival.  Oddly enough, she was out picking up a man named Ayman Islam who she’d been hanging out with for a week or so after meeting on couchsurfing as well.  He is an Egyptian Army Captain who is stationed for some kind of training around here.  He had this past week off, so he met Eba through couchsurfing so that he could make a friend.  The three of us went out to Old Navy for a little shopping.  Afterward, we made our way over to Blow Fly Inn.  Though it doesn’t sound appetizing, it really is.  The restaurant sits on the Back Bay of Biloxi and we watched an amazing view of the sun going down.  Eba and I shared some fried pickles and as my meal I had Mississippi Delta CATfish and homemade hushPUPPIES…which I thought was both hilarious and delicious.  A very good combo.

Eba’s friends were out at Government Street Grocery for a Jerky CD release party, so that’s where we went.  However, after about 20 minutes of sweating to death, we decided to opt for a “cooler” location.  Driving around for a bit, we found a little bar called the Inn Zone where the Mae James Band was playing live music.  During our first 3 minutes in the bar, Eba had managed to meet a lady who was very forwardly telling everyone about her sex-change operation about 20 years ago.  She was also, it happened, quite drunk and giving live shows.  It was a learning experience for all of us involved.  The little bar was very “Kentucky” to me, as it didn’t seem like anyone was too uptight.  I’m guessing it was a bit of a fishing community; we were over in Ocean Springs.  The music was absolutely phenomenal and though I hurt my foot earlier during the trip, Eba, Ayman and I were still grooving in our seats.  While listening to the music and people watching, Eba and I noticed two men in particular.  One was the black beauty guitarist.  Mmm mmm good.  He was gorgeous, so we were having a lot of fun taking pictures and acting goofy. (Don’t worry, John knows. haha.)  The other man we noticed was a big white guy who, when on the dance floor, was absolutely breaking it down.  He was the life of the party, you could tell.

We stuck around for a few minutes after the band quit and then decided to take an after midnight stroll on the beach.  Upon walking outside we ran into the two guys we had noticed inside.  As it were, they’ve been friends since middle school…who knew?  Matthew Bullard was the guitarist and Jake Winborn was the dancer.  We stuck around for hours talking with them and laughing at their playful banter with each other.  Eventually, our little makeshift group of 5 decided we still all wanted to go to the beach.  We played in the sand, made rock basketball games (Kobe!), walked in the water, (smoked cigarettes and stared at the moon—Tom Petty), talked about most things, laughed about everything and finally watched the sun come up.  After a surreal night like that, there’s no place left to go except out for breakfast.  :)  Ihop, it is.

Since Kelly and I stayed up the night before talking until 5 or so in the morning, she opted to sleep in.  I guess because I’m in a strange place everyday, I went ahead and woke up at 10:30 and read some of the current book I’m reading…Into the Wild. Read it.  When Ben woke up, we went to Winn Dixie to pick up some breakfast stuff.  He cooked Kelly and I eggs (over easy), sausage links and patties, and muffin-y things.  Mmm mmm good.  And he even had a hangover, so I thought that was mighty kind of him.

After hanging out at Ben’s for a while longer, Kelly and I went home to beautify ourselves for a sweaty trip to New Orleans.  When Ben came over, we met him in pretty dresses and pointed Kelly’s car south.  We had supper at Coops.  It was a little bit of cajun wonderful at a good price.  I ate so much I could barely walk.  But walk we did.  Bourbon Street, the French Quarter, an art museum, on the river walk.  New Orleans is a beautiful city.  We shopped a bit and went into Pat O’s and continued our trend of talking a lot.  :)  Finally, we had beignet’s at Cafe Du Monde. Pronounced ben-yay, they taste like little bits of funnel cake heaven.  After a tiresome trip back, I decided to hit the hay early that night.

Kelly and I connected immediately.  She greeted me with a hug at 11 in the evening and though we planned to go to bed shortly thereafter, we found it hard to stop talking to each other.  Her boyfriend Ben and her sister whom she lives with, Michelle, also joined in the conversation about the road and many other things.  I slept in the most comfortable bed in the world, again having my own room.

The next afternoon after Kelly and I woke up and got movtivated, we found ourselves wearing very similar outfits.  Looking back to the night before, when we met in our bandana’s…we decided we were kindred spirits.  Right after that, we discovered that we had the same kind of toothpaste…we decided we were basically sisters. haha.  Kelly took me to lunch at Raising Cane’s, which is a restaurant that sells only chicken strips.  I loved them and Kelly took that as a great compliment since I’m from the home of Kentucky Fried. :) Afterward, I had some kind of delicious white chocolate blended coffee at (Highland?) Coffee on or near LSU’s campus.  It was a blissful break from what felt like 110 degrees of heat.  Kelly showed me around all afternoon in the artsy district, where we ooohed and ahhhed over things we couldn’t afford, but wished we could.  Somehow we felt a little ownership of the item, just by being the one to notice it first and show it’s beauty to our friend.  We made our way quickly between air conditioned shops until we ran out of them.

We ended up having supper at the Grape, a beautiful and fancy restaurant centered around it’s wine selection.  We dined with her amazing and full-of-life mother, who prefers to not go by name, but just to be called Mom by friend’s of her four daughters.  Also there was another sister, Michelle that I mentioned earlier, who makes an impression as very refined, but after a few minutes of conversation comes out as this down to earth, sweet, funny woman.  The third of the four sisters was also with us, her name is Jaycee, though I have no idea how to spell it.  She is the only daughter that looks just like her mother, with dark hair and big eyes.  We talked about the youngest of the sisters, Becca, who was not in attendance, and I could feel the closeness of this tightknit family.  I listened to the girls tell funny stories for quite some time about raunchy parades and pedicures.  We ate delicious food: crab-stuffed portobella, miniature crab cakes, bruschetta, baked brie, and roasted garlic hummus.  Mom topped it off by paying the check for all of us.  You could tell that giving to her daughters (and even their random quirky couchsurfing friends) gave her the greatest joy.

After heading over to Ben’s house and playing a game of foosball and being totally ashamed at my lack of skill compared to the Kelly and Ben, we went out that night to a bar called Punchers, where Kelly, Ben and I played pool and drank horribly strong daiquiris.  We also tried our hand at a punching bag game.  We originally thought it should be called the douche bag detector, as it seemed to only attract sissy girls who giggled and squealed until they punched it and guys who had bulging forehead veins and were likely roided up or guys who thought that had the whole thing figured out even though they were weaklings.  After a few punches, we realized we had an addiction to the machine and recanted our previous statement. :)

We later headed to Spanish Moon, more of a dance club than bar.  I met tons of interesting people there, including (Mr. Fabulous?), a man who wears a beautiful costume and dances the night away there as often as possible, a hippie with gorgeous hair, and two friends of Kelly’s named Amanda and Samantha. I danced until the dancing was no longer good.  Everyone danced along with me…all of them!  That made me happy as sometimes at home, I tend to dance alone or with only a couple friends.  (Missy-you know who you are. haha.)  Ben, the boy of the group, even danced so hard he had to go down to wife beater status. :)  We eventually were so tired that we all just crashed at Ben’s place, home also of Lucy and Jack, his tiny little greyhounds who were hyper and sweet respectively.  I slept in a room with an animal named Chinchilla.  He was a chinchilla. Very clever.

I walked into Steve’s house before he even came home. That’s the epitome of a trusting individual. His entire house smells like patchouli and is covered in posters from all of my favorite bands. His refrigerator is decked out with handmade magnets developed from Rolling Stones magazine covers. When Steve came in the door, I knew we’d be fast friends. He introduced me to his dogs, Charlie (a 13 year old chow) and another dog still in the “puppy” stage at heart. I forgot his name, because he was so jumpy and fun to watch. haha. I also got to know his cat Samson, who is super friendy and actually came in to cuddle with me this morning.

Last night, Steve and I walked across Chattanooga’s pedestrian only bridge and he told me all about a great many things: architecture, how to avoid people, girls. We walked to the Coolidge Riverfront Park and watched the children playing in the fountains. It was hot, I was tempted to get in. Instead, we got some ice cream at (Clumpy’s?) Cookies and cream in chocolate ice cream. Niiiice. More walking took us down by the beautiful river on the other side. We met up with his friends Katie and Barry for a beer at (Los Mas?) Apparently I’m bad at remembering the names of places I go. They all went to church together a while back. Steve entertained us with a few stories about God’s providence and his super-fast good kharma at Bonnaroo. I brooded in my jealousy, because I wanted to be there. haha.

Next, we traveled on to his friends Jennifer and Melissa’s house (they’re sisters). Jennifer fed us tons of delicious sushi and edamame and fruit salad…all finely decorated and arranged. We sat on the floor under the fan and ate and talked and drank good wine and sang and laughed for a good long while, eventually taking our little makeshift party down to their front porch. I felt very at home there. Those girls are simply amazing.

Steve and I weren’t ready to end the night, so we headed out to Hair of the Dog Pub downtown. He seemed to literally know everyone there, including a war veteran selling flowers off his bicycle. We sat with, and talked with, quite a few people there. They all just accepted me right in as if I had known them forever. We talked about how long you can wait for an unreturned call from a guy or girl you like. We talked about curly hair and shampoo. We talked about couchsurfing. We talked and talked. Finally, Steve and I came home and got to bed around 3 am. I’m taking with me a tie-dye shirt Steve made himself and two Hair of the Dog glasses Steve stole for me and a flower he bought me from the man on the bike. All in all, Chattanooga was a major success. It’s actually pretty hard to leave.

EDIT:

The next day I spent traveling from Chattanooga to Baton Rouge.  It’s hard to describe my driving days to anyone, because few people understand the joy I get from being in a vehicle by myself with the windows down for hours and hours listening to classic rock jams.  However, one thing of importance that I did was go to Rock City that morning before I left.  To really appreciate it, it’ll cost you two hours and about 17 dollars,but it is well worth it.  Tourist spot or not, it’s freaking amazing.  It’s like…God’s tourist spot. ;)

That’s what I’m doing. I’ll let you know how it goes.