Low level Weirdness....

Went to Mississippi again. It was not weird, which makes it weird. Met no crazy people, but that may have been because I only associated with people I have known for more than 20 years. After that length of time, you kind of lose your sensitivity to their particular weirdness.

But there was one person - I discovered that someone I know in Greenville is a vegan. This is sort of like finding Mormon missionaries in Kabul. I imagine the difficulties are approximately the same. I have known this man for approximately 25 years, but until the visit, I never realized how much I liked him. It isn't often you can meet a man who can take a conversation from an ashram in India to a urinal story involving Lamar Alexander and Ross Barnett. Ross Barnett was MS's famously racist governor from the 1960s who pledged to keep Ole Miss lily white and which resulted in the National Guard visiting Oxford. Mississippi, of course, named its' capitol city's water source after him. Anyway, he was telling a story about when he was growing up he went from having CNN's Ted Turner as a big brother at boarding school to having Mr. Plaid President-want-to-be Lamar Alexander as his fraternity big brother. Well, because his family has roots so deep in Mississippi that they probably walked the real Natchez Trace, his family knew everyone, including Mr. Barnett. So, he (I need to come up with some distinctive name, so I will call him Walker) is standing at the Cotton Bowl with Lamar peeing in the 1960s. Well, he looks over and Mr. Barnett is peeing on the other side. So, after making introductions along the lines of "Politician meet future politician," Ross, without skipping a beat, swaps hands he is using for his package and reaches across Walker to shake Lamar's hand. Lamar waited until after soap. Makes me like Lamar just a tiny bit. Anyway, in addition to Walker knowing the universe in Mississippi, he has also traveled a lot, including time on an ashram where he became familiar with the Swami who moved to Oregon with all his Rolls Royces and attempted to poison the town's drinking water. Walker "didn't like him."

So, the other day I made my mom cry. This is not new, but she gets really, really upset about how much I hate Greenville. She tells me I will never be happy anywhere I live, which is completely possible, but I do, honestly, strongly dislike my hometown. Talking with hubby and friend one night, we were talking about how much we liked college vs. high school. Hubby and friend's wife were in favor of high school, and I said, "I would rather eat my own eyeballs than go back to that time." What I have come to realize is that I always felt like people around me growing up were only interested in their tiny little portion of the world, and anything that disturbed that or was different or forced them to change was BAD. Girls making good grades is BAD. Religious curiosity is BAD. Voting Democrat if you are white is EVIL. There were a couple of times when I heard and saw stuff this visit that were so racist and ignorant that it took my breath away. That was appalling, but more appalling to me was my unwillingness to address those comments and attitudes. I was completely willing to walk away, which made me feel like I was back in 1986 and living there again.

This sounds so judgmental, and I know I am, but it really isn't a Mississippi overall thing. It is the only place I know all the bugs and trees. I spend hours trying to figure out how I can justify to my husband the need to buy land and plant a pecan orchard in Mississippi. He can't do it because it would mean he never had another bit of dietary roughage and he is quite proud of his colon's health. And it is hot. And he doesn't understand one word anyone says to him. We were sitting on our porch at the Shack Up Inn, and I said, "I can't believe I have nothing to do." And he said, "Sitting here in silence and sweating IS doing something." So, that is what I did this trip. Sweated. Is that the past tense of "to sweat"?

Oh, here is a project for you. When you travel, always be sure to check out the magazine rack in the gas stations. You can learn so much about the community that shops there from it. One place in Tennessee where we stopped apparently likes only these things: 1) Female genitalia. Lots of porn magazines focused below the waist. Boobie fans are out of luck. 2) Marijuana. I learned there are 4 magazines that specialize in it. 3) Ty Pennington, the host of Extreme Makeover. They keep back issues in case your collection is not complete. 4) The stars of Disney. These were arranged between the titties and the marijuana, which kind of frightened me. 5) Hairstyling magazines like you find at Supercuts. That was it. Not one monster truck, hunting, cooking, travel, or current events magazine, but I now know that Selena Gomez broke up with her boyfriend AND there are lots of animal names used for girl parts, but which are necessary to know for understanding the covers of the gentleman's publications. So, while you are waiting for your child to choose the sugar bomb that will make him talk without breathing for 2 hours in the car, you might want to learn something new from the magazine rack.