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I’ve never been to the East Tennessee Smokies.

I’ve been close. Spent my 46th birthday soaking in a hot spring in the middle of nowhere about an hour outside of Asheville, North Carolina, and made a couple of trips to Nashville for Wilco shows at the Ryman (including my 42nd birthday with Darren), and Mark Lanegan with K.

Most of my adventuring has been on the other side of Tennessee.

But I’m no stranger to Dolly’s world. I was raised in it.

Since news of Dolly’s death, some people have noted how lucky we were to have been alive at the same time as her. I couldn’t agree more. But I’ll say that I’m luckier than most, because I was born in 1972, just in time to have her early post-Porter Wagoner career provide the soundtrack to my childhood. Just in time to have my non-singing mother sing “Love is Like a Butterfly” to me as a little bitty one.

I also came from a family of women who understood what Dolly was saying. We weren’t from Appalachia, but the Ozark. While the hills were smaller and the region less vast, the Ozarks had abject poverty in common with Dolly’s home turf. I’ve heard so many family stories about the hardships and trauma that came from that world. Suffice it to say that it’s only been in the last fifty or so years that my family hasn’t been impoverished.

Since he wasn’t eligible for military duty because it was thought he only had one working lung, Grandpa Chuck found work as a truck driver. Granny Viv worked an assortment of jobs and I can’t remember all of them now other than a factory worker in the Levi’s factory in my hometown, and an upholsterer. She was skilled in just about everything through intelligence and tenacity.

Grandpa Chuck loved country music and watched all of the country TV shows. Hee-Haw was his favorite, which is how I found myself sobbing in a TV set cornfield at the Country Music Hall of Fame during my first Nashville trip. I also remember watching The Porter Wagoner Show at their house when Grandpa wasn’t on the road. Dolly left the show, and wrote “I Will Always Love You” as an apology to Wagoner, when I was a toddler, so I don’t have any memory of seeing her on the show, but I’m certain I must have.

Granny Viv wasn’t a fan of TV. It was too loud for her taste, but she sure liked Dolly. She didn’t wear makeup or dress trashy because she was a God-fearing Pentecostal lady, but she had the loophole of “the higher the hair, the closer to God” on her side. And boy, she stayed close to her lord and savior.

I thought she was the most beautiful person in the world. No one looked like her. She was special. I was correct.

I don’t remember who gave me the 8x10 photo of Dolly that wasn’t framed, that I loved and carried until the paper wore out. I don’t remember who handed me a big blonde wig and encouraged me to stuff a couple of oranges up my shirt so I’d look like a mini Dolly at age four. I don’t remember who had the 1975 Dolly album with “Here You Come Again” and my favorite, “Two Doors Down,” which I had no business singing at my age. But I sure am glad they did.

Dolly, her songs, her style, and her principles were just there all the time, under the surface of the women in my matriarchal line. Dolly was both as familiar as family, and other-worldly, one of my first inklings that the world didn’t end at my front door. That’s where the world began.

I do remember this: the hot smell of Granny Viv’s sewing machine when she really got going. For the first years of my life, she and my mom made a great deal of my wardrobe. She made quilts for everyone. Some of them intricate patterns like Sunbonnet Sue. Others simple double-knit polyester scraps quilted with hand-tied yarn.

I remember hearing Dolly sing “Coat of Many Colors” and knowing that song was about clothes like the patchwork scrap quilts Granny made and gave to everyone. She made me a scrappy patchwork stuffed puppy with lots of seafoam green. The same bag of scraps supplied the pieces for Granny’s own coat of many colors, made several years after Dolly released the song in 1971.

I’ve never been able to listen to Coat of Many Colors without sobbing. Even when I was little. That might be the song that first channeled my feelings into tears. I’ve listened to it repeatedly these two days, and I’ve looked at this photo over and over. We were on a family vacation to Texas when I was two, and I have faint, smudged memories of it. I wish I could pull them into the present and look at that trip, recall what it taught my little toddler mind.

I have plenty of other trips to pull memories from, though. In so many of them, waking up in a camper on chilly Rocky Mountain or muggy Ozark mornings with Granny Viv frying potatoes and onions for breakfast. Not over the fire, but in the electric skillet she plugged into the campsite’s hookups, not a hair out of place.

But they didn't understand it
And I tried to make them see
That one is only poor
If they choose to be.
Now I know we had no money
But I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
That my mama made for me.

As I’ve listened to this song, looked at that photo, and considered my childhood and who I am now that I’m around the same age as Granny Viv when she made that coat, now living in a world without the thread of Dolly connecting her to me, I’ve tried to suss out the meaning, if there is any. And this is what struck me:

Granny Viv, like Dolly, was vocal about how she loved everyone. They practiced what they preached, too. When I eulogized Granny Viv at her funeral in the Pentecostal church that had the same royal blue carpet it had when I’d go there with her as a child just to hear the band, that was my point: she loved everyone. Not just in her home or in that church, either. That country girl saw America, finally, from its highways, in the passenger seat of Grandpa Chuck’s 18-wheeler. A world where there were even more people to love.

She gave that world to her children and her grandchildren.

But when it came to making a coat of many colors? She did that for herself.

And she more than deserved it and everything it stood for.

Because of the way Granny Viv lived her life, “Coat of Many Colors” didn’t have to be my song. No, my Dolly song is “Wildflowers”:

So I uprooted myself
from my home ground and left.
Took my dreams and I took to the road.
When a flower grows wild
it can always survive.
Wildflowers don't care where they grow. 

I hope that somewhere, I don’t know where, Granny Viv and Dolly had coffee together and compared their beautiful coats today.

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I saw a new doctor a week ago, who sent me home with a couple of Nurtec sample packets. Since it’s generally not the drug of choice for vestibular migraines like mine, I was skeptical.

And then, before the taste of the pasty dissolvable tablet was out of my mouth, I noticed the unfamiliar feeling of my head not hurting. The fog cleared. Thoughts came into focus. When I stood, the floor didn’t wobble.

Does this mean I’m … well? Getting there! Tomorrow I have the midpoint re-evaluation of my vestibular therapy to see how that’s going, and I’m pretty confident the results will be a lot different than the ones I got six weeks ago.

You guys? I might be okay!

I’m starting to get excited about fall travels. CJ returns to Kansas City on Friday for their senior year at the KC Art Institute. I won’t be making that trip, since my seat in the car has been reserved for Rubbermaid totes of yarn.

But in September, things start moving! In a month and two days I’m making my first trip to Madison, Wisconsin to see Patti Smith read from her book, Bread of Angels, and pick up a new copy. Mine has endured traumas unimaginable.

I told my friend Tessa about the trip and she asked if I was going to the Madison Book Festival.

The what? I’m not sure?

It seems this book festival lasts for, like, two months. While Patti will be in Madison during that time, she’s not officially part of the festival. But Issac Fitzgerald is, and he’ll be in conversation the night after Patti. So I extended my trip to catch his talk.

The better part of four days in Madison with two book talks over the vernal equinox further north than St. Louis sounds perfect.

As for Issac, I’m currently reading his latest book, American Rambler, in which he documents the experience of walking Johnny Appleseed’s trails. I first encountered Issac a decade or so ago when he was curating the anthology Knives and Ink, a collection of stories, recipes, and art by Wendy McNaughton concerning food industry people and their tattoos. Since I was deeply in my chef years, I wrote about the jar of my granny’s gooseberry jam that’s on the back of my calf.

So, Madison in September! And October? Last week Southwest had a sale that actually had sale prices to Burbank. Between that and a $150 voucher to make up for a gate agent being an asshole last May, I’m going to Los Angeles for my birthday for $75.

And then there’s two jaunts to Indianapolis for concerts in November, followed by chasing the Afghan Whigs down to New Orleans. I’d say that’s a good autumn run.

In the meantime I’m focusing on journeys of the mind. Or something. I’m reading a lot of books, is what I’m saying. Right before I left for Solid Sound in June I decided to take a hiatus from partaking in THC products. Mostly because I wanted to go into the vestibular evaluation and treatments clean. And because edibles get pricy. I was going to take a one-month break but I’m quickly coming up on two months and I can’t say I’m missing it much.

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The downside: I’m no longer nearly as easy to entertain as I used to be. Doom-scrolling and repeated viewings of the same episodes of “The Office” no longer cut it without weed. I used to be a voracious reader. And by “used to,” I mean through the bulk of my life I’d knock out 30-50 books a year. But when I had my knee replacement surgeries in 2022, the opioid painkillers ruined my ability to focus on books. By the time I was finished with the drugs, I’d lost the reading habit.

In the last four weeks, I’ve finished five books. Crazy, right? Some of them were indirectly about travel—Bread of Angels has stories of Patti Smith tours in the 1970s along with visiting the places of artists who inspired her, and James centers around Huck Finn and enslaved Jim’s epic journey on the Mississippi.

But there are a lot of travelogue books that have recently been released. American Rambler being one. Earlier this week I finished another, Monster of a Land by Lauren Hough, in which she drove the path John Steinbeck took with his poodle in Travels with Charley, which is one of my favorites. She took her dog, Woody Guthrie, with her, so you know I had to read it.

After Issac’s ramble and Lena Dunham’s Famesick for a book club, I’ve got my eye on Midwestern Death Trip by Meaghan Garvey. Again with traveling.

Am I reading all these travelogues to steal ideas? No more than any other writer who reads books in their preferred genre. These are all books I’d enjoy on their own, but I’m also looking for books that have similar themes to my Woody Guthrie manuscript. Being able to say, “Look! This is kinda like my book and people are buying it!” makes it easier to get an agent, I’m told.

Today I planned to write about Monster of a Land, but I went to a coffeehouse and forgot to bring my copy with me. So next Substack, maybe I’ll write about it. Same with some of these other books. Sound good, switching to a travel book Substack for a month or so? It better, because I think that’s what I’m going to do.

In the process I’ve been motivated to do another revision on my manuscript because I keep thinking things like, “This sentence is perfect! What did she do to make this sentence perfect? Can I do this to perfect some of my sentences? Let’s find out!” To that tune I’m accepting a couple of manuscript-readers to make sure I’m not screwing up my book. Drop me a message if you’re interested.

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Wanna chip in for my Nurtec in case my insurance won’t cover it?

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I know. How?! I don’t know. Years and summers are fast. Days are slow. Sometimes hours are slow. And sometimes time means nothing.

As we do every summer, CJ and I started with a list of things we wanted to do, and have found ourselves in August, having done not a damn thing. I’ve migrained, traveled, and worked. They’ve made art, worked on their senior thesis, slept, and hung out with their significant other. So now we’re scrambling for some quality time.

These days, I’m hauling out to west St. Louis County for vestibular therapy, which will hopefully slow the migraines and my hypervigilence about when I’m going to next vomit. Having puked in public in Beverly Hills, I have reached my vomit apex and can do nothing more spectacular, so it’s time to find effective treatment for this bullshit. Twice I week I make the 40-minute drive to let my vestibular specialist make me queasy and off-kilter in the name of not being such a dizzy bitch in the near future.

And since I’m making that drive, and I'm trying to do some local tourism, I should combine the two, starting with CJ’s recent request for Swedish pancakes. There’s an Original Pancake House location near the dizzy clinic, so yeah! Let’s do that!

I haven’t been to an OPH in years, but I think I’m finally ready. My absence isn’t pancake-related. It’s Mer-related.

I met Mer on Twitter a billion years ago, and we just clicked. A social butterfly and lover of pancakes, she was the core of the St. Louis Fat Bitch Pancake Club, an organization in which fat bitches in St. Louis ate pancakes together.

Yes, it was the best club ever.

We spent time together outside of STLFBPC, sometimes hanging out at her place when her health made it impossible for her to go out, other times exploring pancake options around the city.

With our birthdays less than a week apart, we always met at one of the two local Original Pancake Houses to celebrate together. Apple pancake, extra whipped-cream—that was her order, along with as much, if not more, coffee than me. Girl married her shitty ex-husband in a Starbucks. That’s how much she loved coffee.

And yes, I’m using the past-tense. Mer died two years ago this month. I haven’t been to the ol’ pancake stomping grounds since. It hasn’t felt right to go without her. But Mer loved CJ, and would pitch a fit if I denied my child OPH Swedish pancakes on her account.

So CJ and I had a plan: let’s get pancakes, then go to my treatment appointment on Monday. And hey! Guess what’s also in the neighborhood. The butterfly house! Before starting school, CJ and I lived at the butterfly house! That kid was born loving nature, animals, and plants. And it was a lot easier than going to the zoo. Perfect. I don’t think we’ve been since before pre-K, though.

Know who else loved going to the butterfly house? Devil Baby.

CJ, their dad, and I all have ADHD in a variety of flavors. With my variety, if I have something scheduled that doesn’t have flexibility, like a dizzy bitch appointment, anything else I do that day also has to be perfectly timed and noted on my calendar so I don’t screw up and miss the appointment. Of course, before we left, I double-checked the hours at the butterfly house and learned that they’re closed on Mondays.

Fuck. Okay, we’ll do that on Thursday with my next dizzy appointment.

For some reason I didn’t make a similar check regarding pancakes. It’s a chain restaurant and they’re open every day, right?

Nope.

And that’s when everything went to shit.

CJ and I were in the car. I plugged in my phone and pulled up the map to see how long it would take to get to the pancakes. This is also integral to my sanity when there’s something scheduled.

Yep, no pancakes on Monday. They’re closed.

Fuck. Now what?

CJ’s ADHD prevents them from remembering anything unless it’s been the subject of one of their hyper-focus episodes, so while being able to recite the OPH menu, they had no backup restaurant suggestions. I’m a Libra with ADHD, which means I cannot physically force my brain to make a reasonable decision in the best of circumstances. When pressed for time and needing to stick to a schedule? God help us all because Devil Baby might as well be in charge.

Mer was definitely laughing at us. She and her son were also a carful of neurodivergence. She knew what it was like to be all aboard the Hot Mess Express.

Fuck it. I wanted to go to Songbird. I hadn’t been since they moved to their new location. CJ had never been at all. It’s Monday so they shouldn’t be too busy. Let’s go!

We headed west, just like we would do for clinic-adjacent pancakes. All’s well!

Except I made zero account for how much further south Songbird is from where we were supposed to be going. Take a look at these maps:

Readers, what the fuck is wrong with me? Because we arrived at Songbird and, as soon as we took a spot to wait, it was time to leave for my appointment. Did we spend an hour sitting in the driveway, trying to decide what the hell to do?

Probably.

I’m a responsible adult. I model well-adjusted behavior for my child. I have my priorities.

I cancelled my dizzy bitch appointment.

Because at this point, having brunch with CJ—on the verge of their senior year of college, having no idea what they could be doing and where they’ll be doing it in 12 months—was far more important.

Mer and I skipped our birthday pancakes in October, 2023. And I never saw her again. I will gladly pay a missed appointment fee along with my farm toast if it means having one more hour over breakfast with my favorite person.

But seriously, how is it I can navigate unfamiliar cities, and huge metropolises like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston, without any issues, but I can’t navigate the extremely easy small city where I live? No matter. Songbird was worth it. They started at Tower Grove Farmers Market when CJ was a baby. I’d stop on Saturday mornings and get one of their grilled cheese and honey sandwiches every trip, talking shop with owner Chris Meyer. Walking into their new space still felt like home.

CJ went traditional with The Combo, a grilled sourdough sandwich with bacon, a ton of white cheddar, a fried egg, honey, and sea salt. And a bowl of cheese grits on the side because I raised them right.

I can’t get away from the farm toast, which I’ve had every time I’ve been to Songbird. It’s a crumbly cornmeal bread, dipped in custard like French toast, served with seasonal jam dipping off the top (black and blueberry this time) and a dollop of whipped ricotta on the side. I topped mine with shaved country ham because I, too, was raised right.

We might lack a sense of time, but we have extremely good taste.

After lunch, since time was no longer important and place is imaginary, we went north to Left Bank Books. If we weren’t going to see bugs at the butterfly house, at least we could see this guy:

This is my favorite corner in the Central West End. Yes, partially because it has three of my favorite things: books, burgers, and ice cream. But also because each building on the corner of McPherson and Euclid—Writer’s Corner— has a bust of a St. Louis author outside. Along with Burroughs, there’s also Tennessee Williams, Kate Chopin, and T.S. Eliot. Don’t make me pick a favorite. I can’t.

These are things that, if they were located in cities I visit, I would make them a top priority to visit. And yet when I’m home, I sometimes walk into the bookstore without even saying hello to Bill and his bug. How many times have I visited his gravesite? Only once. And I didn’t even do a shot of tequila while I was there.

I’m really not a very good St. Louis writer.

Time is meaningless, and the basement at Left Bank is probably part of the cave system that runs under St. Louis, catacombs of darkness and light, with a massive used book selection. CJ disappeared down there like they’d stepped through the wardrobe to Narnia, eventually returning with a wheelbarrow of books.

Since I have a huge to-read list in an effort to stop doom scrolling my brain into gooey butter cake batter, I stayed upstairs and promptly fell into reading Monster of a Land by Lauren Hough. Because of course I’m going to read a travelogue inspired by John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley that stars a husky mix named Woody Guthrie. I’ll report back when I finish.

Days when time and space are as real as the happenings in Burrough’s Naked Lunch are my favorite, especially with CJ. We didn’t do what was scheduled or planned, but we had a perfect day. And this Thursday? Pancakes and butterflies. It’s on my calendar.

I need some coffee on whatever astral plane this is.

She also had this Tele House box set of “hits of the ‘60s”—we’re talking a notch below K-Tel—that introduced me to Alex Chilton (“The Letter” by The Box Tops), Otis Redding, The Byrds, ? and the Mysterians, girl groups, Percy Sledge, The Animals … I mean, this set was absolutely loaded with what was considered second- and third-tier hit songs that Tele House probably licensed for next-to-nothing a few years past their prime, but were actually a blueprint for alternative, punk, and modern R&B. I fucking loved it.

That set followed me through life until sometime in the 1990s when I no longer had a turntable. When I found the complete set at a record sale in the early 2010s for $5, I’m not exaggerating when I say that I stood at the crate and wept. And you better believe I would have happily paid ten times more than a fiver for it.

(I also made a streaming playlist of the whole collection so I’ll be less likely to lose all of it should the physical copy disappear. It’s linked past the paywall below for Big Spender paid subscribers. Also, as I was writing this, my musician friend Drew sent me this article that, despite the rage-baity title, covers some pretty incredible discoveries about the evolution of pop music. And since I’m supposed to be writing about travel, I could also get into regionalism and the role place plays in pop music and we’ll be here for a week.)

Anyway, all this is to say that somewhere down the line I realized that there were families that not only played records in their homes, but also made music in their homes, and this made me a bit jealous. I wanted that. Maybe I watched too many “Partridge Family” reruns in the same era, but I always felt like I was missing something crucial to who I was by not having people around me who would bust out a full band in the sunken den at any given moment.

We didn’t even have a sunken den. Was I truly raised in the 1970s?

As an adult, I now know where to get that homemade music fix—house concerts! God, I love a house concert. I’d love to hit house concerts when I travel, but I haven’t done the research to find them. Someday.

Earlier this year my friend Courtney, who works for Explore Belleville, tapped me to write about restaurants for their most recent city guide. And because she’s smart, Courtney got my friend Alicia to write about Belleville’s music venues. Because we have quite a few of them. Considering that the town’s modern claim to fame is being home base for Uncle Tupelo and the alt country explosion of the 1990s, it makes sense not only that we have venues, but that we have some unusual ones. Like the one Alicia didn’t mention in the article: her home.

I met Alicia and her husband Paul when our kids were little and attending the same elementary school in our neighborhood. I don’t remember exactly how we met, since their son is two years older than CJ, which is a lifetime in first grade, but I’m glad we did. Even if Alicia did cajole me into being president of the parent-teachers organization the same year we got a stuffy, frou-frou girly-girl new principal who looked at me with sheer terror the first time we met.

The principal also called me to the principal’s office when CJ wrote a manifesto about the fascist—CJ’s word—nature of a new cafeteria rule. CJ wasn’t in trouble. I was, because I posted the manifesto on my Facebook page, thus partaking in behavior unbecoming of a PTO president.

That lady didn’t last long in Belleville.

Meanwhile, Alicia and I are also both Belleville transplants, and we do just fine around this weird little town that’s technically a suburb of St. Louis, but really is its own thing despite being a 15-minute drive to the Mississippi River and downtown STL.

Speaking of, Alicia and Paul live in a truly awesome house in our neighborhood, which I’m told was a wreck when they bought it. It’s been beautifully rehabbed and sits on one of the Mississippi River bluffs that ring the western edge of Belleville, offering some of the most spectacular views of the St. Louis skyline, especially at sunset. Not that I ever remember to take a photo of it when I’m there, since I’m usually engrossed in conversation or live music, because Alicia and Paul host the occasional house concert.

I’m pretty sure they started by having some local acts play at Alicia’s birthday party a few years ago, during the time when I lacked functioning knees, so I didn’t go. But at the beginning of 2023, my friend Edward asked me if I knew of anyone who might want to host a show by Official Claire, a duo from Chicago that includes ex-Wilco member LeRoy Bach. Since Alicia and Paul are also Wilco fans with this awesome, spacious house and yard, I roped them in.

On a chilly March night, Edward and a band of St. Louis ringers warmed up a packed house with a selection of songs he recorded with his friend Jay Bennet (also formerly of Wilco) and some classic pop covers. Then Official Claire played their atmospheric, ethereal pop full of guitar loops and smartly quirky lyrics. It was a great time.

So, three years pass. In June, Official Claire played Solid Sound in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, it was on the day I skipped because of a migraine. Alicia and Paul caught their set and raved about Claire’s musical evolution and hey! There’s another house show coming up! Let’s do it again!

And we did last Sunday. Just like in 2023, my friend Amy came up from the very southernmost tip of Illinois—Cairo—for the occasion. She’s another friend I met at Solid Sound, and was partially responsible for finally getting me over myself and making my first trip to Los Angeles in 2020, for which I’m forever grateful.

The rest of the crowd was peppered with familiar faces from so many parts of my life: around the neighborhood, CJ’s old school, Wilco shows, the St. Louis music scene. Being somewhat of a floater friend who doesn’t so much have a social circle, but drifts from group to group as they fit whatever identity I’m feeling at the time, it’s always lovely to be in a cross-section of any of those groups.

Edward Burch and I have been friends since 2019 when I interviewed him about his friend and collaborator Jay Bennett for my Woody Guthrie manuscript, since Bennett was instrumental in the making of my beloved Mermaid Avenue albums. As I walked onto Alicia and Paul’s back deck with its view through the lush woods to the skyline, I approached Edward, who introduced me to his parents after all these years.

Then Amy found me and, like last time, we headed to the living room to sit together during the set that started with Edward, John Horton on bass, Gary Hunt on guitar, and Patrick Hewley on drums. The quartet dipped heavily into the track list from The Palace at 4 A.M., the album Edward and Jay released in 2002. Much to my delight, they included two Woody Guthrie covers that Jay kept from Wilco’s Mermaid Avenue research: “No Church Tonight” and “Little White Cottage.” Watch their performance of the former:

I jumped to record “No Church Tonight” because it’s my favorite of the two songs, with its tale of a nefarious preacher taking advantage of a young parishioner who, it would seem, exacts her revenge. Later, though, I realized I should have recorded “Little White Cottage,” a longing for a beloved home, instead.

If you’ve been reading lately, you know I’ve been spending a lot of time at home as I receive treatment for my migraines and other vestibular system issues, and rebuild my finances from my summer travels. It’s a bittersweet thing, since I love so many places. Home means responsibilities I don’t necessarily want, work I can’t really do right now, and stagnation, which makes me itch like I have a rash.

But it’s also so hard to leave. I have my nests around my house where my life takes place: behind my L-shaped desk next to the front door where I do my writing under the glow of my grandmother’s pink ceramic lamp. The spot on the couch with my stack of books. That’s where morning coffee and evening reading happens while I watch the squirrels at the feeder in the window. Conversations with CJ and, most nights, dinner happen there, too. And bed, where I’ve spent far too much time lately with the migraines, but it’s a soft sanctuary with Woody the cat, more books, and piles of pillows and comforters like I’m The Princess and the Pea.

No matter where I go, home is always here. Even with the empty boxes in the dining room and tumbleweeds of Scarlett’s long dog fur and busted-up vine-covered picket fence that needs to be torn down before it just gives up and keels over. And don’t talk to me about the half of a dead tree lying in the side yard.

I’m lucky. Home is in a town where I’m comfortable being my weird self because most of the folks I know here are a bit off-kilter, too.

It’s a town where I can happen across honor system farm stands loaded with tomatoes still warm from the August morning sun and peaches that drip juice down my forearms when I bite them.

Then I can make a run to an indie bookstore that hosts book clubs for smut, novels with fat protagonists, progressive women, LGBTQA folks, and kids who want to learn cursive writing.

A town with one of the best restaurants in the St. Louis area, tucked behind a counter in a coffee house, so unassuming you could miss it hidden inside the Victorian-era train depot.

A town with far more parades than normal, way more street festivals than necessary, and a fountain that gets name-checked in one of my all-time favorite songs, created by one of the best songwriters of our generation who grew up down the street. Where old men full of Stag Beer still greet him with, “Well, look at the rock n’ roll star, come back home!” when he’s here.

It’s where a mom from my kid’s school became my rock n’ roll buddy, who I see more often at out-of-town shows than I do around the neighborhood, although every morning I drink my coffee from a beautiful mug she made and dropped off on my doorstep.

And sometimes, I can have a sleepless night, fill that mug full of coffee, down it, go back to bed for three hours, down another mugful, then wander up the bluff to her house to watch a show by some of the region’s best musicians.

Staying home’s not that bad sometimes.

After Edward and friends wrapped up with a cover of Richard Thompson’s “Wall of Death” (Or R.E.M.’s, depending on your perspective. Either way, it’s another one of my favorite songs.), Official Claire switched gears from Burch’s guitar-driven pop-rock to her breathy looped dream pop. Alicia was right—Claire’s degree of confidence as a performer has skyrocketed in the three years since she was last in the living room. LeRoy Bach also seemed more comfortable with the material, having an obvious good time on guitar. Their set was brief, but sonically surprising and fun. I didn’t catch the title of this song, but it was my favorite, with its biting and witty lyrics and resonate guitar tones.

Was this what I imagined as a kid, sitting on the floor in front of the stereo with my oversized headphones and cheap compilation albums, dreaming of a home filled with people playing music? No. The daydreams were far tidier and tighter, with no room for improvisation or error or the humanity of being mere feet apart, musicians and listeners, eye contact locked during the intimate act of creation in the same place where someone kicks off their shoes and watches TV or feeds the dog on the couch.

This was so much better.

When asked to list my most influential albums, this is at the top of the list. Enjoy on Apple Music or Spotify.

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The good, though: I had a lovely outing with the formidable Mama Dee, one of my longtime local friends. When I’m sick and make it known publicly, she’s the friend who immediately offers assistance, which I prefer to take in the form of going to lunch when I feel better.

Because I haven’t set foot into the Missouri side of St. Louis much in recent years, I feel a bit like a tourist when I do. When Dee told me to pick a place for lunch last week I wasn’t sure exactly where to begin at first. Then I remembered that I hadn't been to Telva at the Ridge, which is an abomination since it has three things I love: café vibes, tons of fresh flowers (it’s in a nursery), and an award-winning female chef.

Did Dee and I have lunch, then dessert, while hanging out gabbing for nearly three hours? Why yes, we did. Did I take home enough pastries for the next day? Absolutely, because I wasn’t skipping sour cherry scones.

The vibes were perfectly on point, made even better by Dee being friends with damn near everyone and getting showered with love. I was happy to pick up her splash-back.

I was also happy to discover something sloppy that I love. Recently I had a conversation with the bestie, Suzie, about my dislike of Sloppy Joes on all levels from Manwich to “elevated.” They’re always too sweet for me. The exception to the rule now is the moussaka-spiced Sloppy Mustafa Toast at Telva, loaded with chunks of tangy white cheese and a beautiful runny egg.

Dee and the cashier didn’t have to recommend the portokalopita to me for dessert, because I had been thinking about it since the night before when I did my ADHD pre-study of the menu. Cake soaked in orange syrup, topped with whipped cream and phyllo crispies? Um, try and stop me. And yes, I got it with a cappuccino even though I’d had the iced Euro Cream caramel and vanilla latte with my lunch. Dee might have gotten caffeine poisoning by proxy. Apologies.

Because of some road closures and detours, I got an unplanned tour of Webster Groves, the inner-ring suburb of St. Louis where Telva is located. It was a good reminder of how I take great things in my backyard for granted. When I find neighborhoods like Webster Groves in other cities—walkable, loaded with interesting small businesses, artsy, friendly—I start making relocation plans. And yet this one is only 24 miles from my house, and I hadn’t been in ages. What is wrong with me?

Bonus: The drive to Webster Groves had something delightful that I’d only see in St. Louis. On a billboard for a MAGA-loving regional steak burger chain, someone had climbed to great heights to remove the G from “100% grass-fed beef.”

Dee asked me if I’d seen it within minutes of us taking a seat.

Girl, not only did I see it, but I’d already texted friends about it!

On the way home, she reported that the G had been replaced. Such a shame.

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I considered another trip to Webster Groves last night. Diesel Island, the local outlaw country cover band, was scheduled to play at the Frisco in the same neighborhood. Suzie and I have talked about hitting their monthly gig there since last summer. Plus, twice in July I had to bail on our plans to celebrate her half-birthday because I had puking migraines. I thought that would make for a pretty great night after all the postponements.

Turns out it was just as well I forgot to ask. The gig was cancelled due to storms, and I was cancelled due to the fourth run of puking migraines of the month.

I’m recovering today, and at least yesterday’s nausea wasn’t nearly as severe as the last two spells. The first spell didn’t knock me out like these last three. I’m watching my hands shake as I type from the combination of low blood sugar, dehydration, and exhaustion I’m actively trying to undo. I’m getting there. Returning to my usual two giant mugs of coffee this morning and keeping them down did wonders. As did eating something that wasn’t white rice, banana, or Jello.

I wasn’t terribly surprised to have a nauseous day this week, because I started vestibular treatments on Tuesday. We’re still tweaking the intensity so they don’t throw me into migraine hell like this. And what “this” level of hell is appears to be migraine gastroparesis, a condition that should be considered a human rights violation. I’ll spare you the details other than to say that this isn’t normal vomiting. It’s vomiting that has a personal vendetta. Appointments have been made to get some help with this bullshit.

In the meantime I hope to be back to normal tomorrow for some tourism in my own neighborhood. My friends Alicia and Paul are hosting a house show for Official Claire, with my pal Edward opening. I’m hoping that yesterday’s spell, like the others, means I have a week and a half or two of feeling mostly-okay so I can go. And I’ll report back because right now, going two miles up the road sounds like a pretty epic journey.

Wanna contribute to my Liquid IV fund?

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Maybe poetry’s like pornography: You can’t define it but you know it when you see it. Or read it. Or hear it. Or all-of-the-above it.

Hey, that was kinda poetic!

I wrote poetry when I was a kid. The first time I submitted my writing for publication, it was a poem to Seventeen about my cat when I was 11.

That was also my first rejection letter.

A few years ago a high school friend scanned and posted the literary journal from our sophomore year on Facebook.

If you’re an artist of any sort and you regret losing your youthful creations, this is how you get over it.

I might not have looked goth back then, but judging from the number of dead babies and cemeteries in my poetry from that era, I am goth down to my rotting bones.

I remember writing a poem in 1996 during a fit of insomnia. Or as I called it then, “every fucking night.” I was watching MTV and saw the video for “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails for the first time. That closet goth girl was moved to poetry by the occasion. I do wish I had a copy of that one, because I remember part of one line that was pretty good.

And that, I thought, was the end of poetry for me, mostly because I didn’t really understand it despite devouring the materials in my college poetry classes. Writing lines to describe a scene or a feeling seemed easy to me when I did it, compared to maintaining the momentum of an essay or story. Obviously the poets know something I don’t, and I’m not doing it right.

I still believe that.

And yet, since 2018, I’ve had my work chosen to be included in the annual Woody Guthrie Poets readings every year that I’ve submitted.

At this point I assume I’ve been grandmothered in or something.

I learned about Woody Guthrie Poets through a post on Facebook, and was drawn to the concept: Every year a Woody lyric is chosen, and poets work from that thematic angle, then submit their work. The selected poets get divided into three readings in Oklahoma City, Okemah (Woody’s hometown), and Tulsa on the weekend closest to Woody’s July 14 birthday as part of Woodyfest.

Considering that, for nearly 15 years, I’ve used around 85 percent of my brain in figuring out how Woody’s old words so beautifully fit into modern life, it seemed like a good use of my skills that first year. A fun writing challenge that probably wouldn’t go anywhere.

I love being wrong.

Woody Poets has become one of my two favorite weekends every year, competing only with my spa weekends in Kansas with CJ. Writing the poems each year remains a writing challenge (I still think my poems are just prose with different line breaks), and each year I meet and get to know more and more of the poets who make me wonder who the hell said I could hang out with the cool kids.

(The structure of that sentence indicates I’m probably not really a writer of any sort.)

Last year I attempted to attend all three Woody Poets readings, and was two-thirds successful. What kept it from being 100 percent successful? A fucking migraine. This year, I dragged out that drive to Oklahoma City so I wouldn’t have a repeat, and it worked.

After taking it easy in my hotel and writing on Friday, instead of battling the Oklahoma City heat, I made my way to Rodeo Cinema in the city’s Stockyard City neighborhood. I expected the type of gentrified neighborhood that so many art house theaters made from old movie theaters are in.

I was wrong. Mostly.

Stockyards City is just that—a business district that borders the city’s enormous cattle trade stockyards. It’s what the “Old West” would maybe be if the U.S. hadn’t become so homogenized through telecommunications and expanded travel opportunities. Decades-old steakhouses sit beside boutiques which sit beside western wear stores that sell cowboy boots to people who actually need them for work.

Had it not been so hot, and if I’d allowed more time, I would have loved to have walked the neighborhood. Maybe in less migrainey future times.

The air conditioner struggled at Rodeo Cinema, but who could blame it in heat not meant for man nor machine?

This year’s Woody Poets lyric was particularly timely. Although this is the beauty of Woody: his lyrics are damn near all particularly timely, no matter the time. Part of it was his ability to capture universal emotions and experiences in a way that shatters man-made walls. The other part is because we’re so bullheaded about changing what needs to be changed that we keep fighting the same wars over and over, just with bigger guns.

This year’s lyric: “All they will call you will be deportee.”

If you don’t know the song … why are you here? Do you know me? Because I talk about this a lot. Quick version: Almost 80 years ago there was a plane crash that killed everyone on board, the vast majority being legal Mexican workers being shipped back from where they came because farm bosses no longer needed their labor. News coverage only gave names to the white people who died in the crash. Woody got mad and wrote lyrics. My friend Tim Z. Hernandez tells it way better than I do.

Living in the time of ICE makes these words an ever-present thought for some of us. It’s a melody that haunts me with every new name added to the roster of people who shouldn’t be dead but are. It was a list read by Woody Poets curator Ky George to begin the night’s readings.

I was in tears by the second poem. The poet, Holly Zorn, read her poem about the day her son got in the car after school, sad because one of his friends was gone.

And I was gutted, her words bringing back the despair and anger I felt the day in 2014 when I sat 10-year-old CJ down and told them what they should do if they encountered police while playing with their Black friends.

Is that what poetry does? Because all weekend, that’s what poetry did to me.

(Cassie Premo Steele shared the poems she read in Oklahoma City on her Substack. This? Definitely poetry.)

I didn’t hang around long after the readings, needing some time with my thoughts and emotions, and to prepare to do it again the next morning in Okemah.

The Okemah reading takes place at the Okfuskee County Historical Society, on Woody’s front porch. I was more social this time, thanks to the always-close quarters in the historical society. A good night’s sleep helped, too.

Remember when I briefly did a podcast here? My friend Paul Juhasz was such a good podcast guest last year, talking about his annual silent treks into the mountains that I didn’t think anyone could top it so I quit. (You can listen to it. I took the paywall down.) Also? He was recently nominated for a National Book Award, so there’s no arguing that he’s a poet. A really fucking good one. Should I believe him when he tells me I’m a poet? Maybe.

What’s funny is, every time I heard people congratulate Paul on his nomination, he sounded like I do when people tell me I’m a poet. Nah, not me. Someone made a mistake.

Maybe poetry has something to do with imposter syndrome? I don’t know. We’ve established that I’m a hack, right?

Am I purposefully only writing about the first poet at each reading? No. I wish I could write about each person who read their work, because there wasn’t a single piece that didn’t provoke my thoughts, stir my emotions, and make me understand what is happening now, what happened in 1948, like these magnified bits of minutia we call poems.

Is that what a poem really is?

On Sunday, I was in the middle of the list of readers taking the stage at the Woody Guthrie Center. My home. The stage where they put me every year, which shares a wall with the archives where I spent four weeks surrounded with the minutia of Woody’s life. Letters scribbled on hotel stationary in pencil—that degree of minutia, holding the truths of life that are likely to wind up at the bottom of the trash can. Because that’s where the truth too often comes to rest.

As at the previous two readings, Ky opened with a reading of the names of the twenty people killed by ICE in 2026. This stark, unadorned list wasn’t labeled “poem,” but I think it counts in how it tells the truth, provokes thought, and swells feeling.

Less than 24 hours later, there would be another name on the list. Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero.

In scouring the internet for information about the ICE-related deaths immediately following Woody Poets weekend, details are questionable and sketchy. Look up Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and the first hit is a DHS page with the headline calling him an M-13 gang banger based solely on a long-ago local police investigation that never merited an arrest.

Who do we believe?

I believe what Paul wrote about Garcia.

Is that what poets do?

Despite not feeling like I’ve earned the title, this year I took to the poet’s stage faking a sense of confidence that I usually can’t muster. For once I made a point of focusing on the words I had written, instead of making sure I read them fast enough to fit the time limit but not in my usual Gilmore Girls pace that’s hard for people without ADHD to understand.

While feeling like an imposter is generally a lonely place, I don’t think I was quite as alone in that feeling at the Tulsa reading as I usually am. When we were gathering in the lobby before start time, the buzz of everyone suddenly quieted, replaced by whispers. My friend Durell Carter, (Who is absolutely a poet, declaring, “I am not your favorite son” when he started his reading. It was a line that shot through the toughened white skin of my chest, directly into the beating of my heart.) whispered, “Joy Harjo is behind me.”

Oh! A former United States Poet Laureate is here to watch us read? That’s why so many of us look like we’re about to burst into tears! Got it.

I’m not prone to getting star-struck, but Harjo is one of the people who does it to me. In fact, my most embarrassing moment with a person of renowned involved her. A few years ago I was stepping out of the Bob Dylan Center and almost ran into her. She lives in the neighborhood, and was walking at a brisk pace, a giant old potato chip can under her arm. And I saw fit to look her in the eye and say, (I cannot believe I’m going to repeat this.)

“Oh hey! It’s you, Miss Poet Laureate!”

Woody, I know you like to blow up transformers in this neighborhood so if you could explode the one closest to me and remove me from this mortal coil, now would be the perfect time. Thanks!

When I did my reading, my brain was busy thinking about the poems I had heard, and the words on the printed pages before me, with my words and thoughts, so I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I was reading my non-poems with Joy Harjo in the audience. It helped that the stage lights were bright and I couldn’t see past the fourth row. I convinced myself she had left before we started, and just happened to drop in on some official business before the reading, since she’s the artist-in-residence at the Bob Dylan Center.

Nope, she was there, I was assured after the fact, when it was too late to throw up on the podium.

I can tell you what poets did after the reading. They convened down the street at The Tavern, took up three big tables, drank a lot of bacon old fashioneds (the migraines forced me to abstain so surely that revokes my poet cred), ate a lot of deviled eggs, told a lot of tales, sweated in the Oklahoma July afternoon that the best air conditioners can’t fight, and, at least for this one, felt at home with people who raised their glasses when I toasted, “To words!”

And that, friends, is what poets do.

(The Pickup sent a poet to review the Tulsa reading, and she tells it better and with less self-flagelating than I did. And hey! They also published a piece I wrote about the next generation of Woody followers, so continue your reading over there.)

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Poets need coffee.

Originally I planned to drive from home to Oklahoma City on Thursday, July 9, but I changed my mind at the last minute. Having spent eight days on the road the previous week while wrangling my migraines, I realize that driving more than seven hours isn’t great for me right now. Without stops, it’s seven and a half hours to OKC. That’s pushing it.

Since I had a follow-up with my vestibular therapist 45 minutes west of home on July 8, I opted to leave from the clinic, driving half a day to spend the night in Joplin, then heading to Oklahoma City on the 9th as planned.

It was a good plan, because I was pretty well wiped out by the time I checked into my hotel in Joplin. As soon as I got into my room, I hit the bathroom then threw myself across the bed, where I stared at a small crack in the popcorn ceiling.

A crack with two little offshoot cracks.

I took this photo to zoom in for a better look.

I was still telling myself this was a ceiling crack when I stood up to get a closer look and faced my reality: There’s a motherfucking slug on the ceiling above the spot where my face would soon be sleeping.

I fucking hate slugs. Yes, I know they’re not harmful, and they’re good stewards of the earth. But that’s where they should be—in the earth. Not hanging out on the ceiling of room 132 at the Sleep Inn.

I don’t know why I called the front desk for a slug. But I did. It went like this:

Me: Hi. Um, I'm not upset and don't need a different room but, um, I thought you should know there's a ... slug? Slitering across the ceiling? So maybe, uh, have maintenance check the ... window?

Desk Clerk: Good lord! I thought you were going to say you had a gecko in your room! We get those! 

WHAT ECOSYSTEM AM I STAYING IN?

Is this an artifact of the tornado 15 years ago, stirring up all the critters who haven’t yet found their way back to where they belong?

Of course, that thought stirred up everything I read a few months ago when I hyper-fixated on the Joplin butterfly people. Between that, the ceiling slug, and the potential for a gecko invasion, I didn’t get a great night’s sleep.

Maybe the fear jostled my still-lagging appetite, because the next morning I woke up ravenous. I hadn’t really been hungry at all since throwing up all day on the 4th of July. Terror or slugs or whatever pushed me to the hotel’s adjoining truck stop diner, where I ordered the only food that had sounded remotely palatable since I got sick—pancakes.

My lord, I had forgotten how good truck stop food can be. They’re certainly not the same as they used to be, back in my trucker grandpa’s days on the road. I’m sure Good Time Charlie wasn’t eating gravy from a can, or Sysco frozen fried chicken when he was on the road. But the pancakes—sweet and fluffy, speckled with powdered sugar—and juicy pork sausage patties studded with whole fennel seeds gave me a twinkle of truck stop diner hope.

The jet black diesel-strength coffee put it over the top. As did visiting with my server. A young Indigenous woman who’d only lived in the Joplin area for a year or so, she talked about being excited for an upcoming road trip with her brother. They were driving to Washington state. Back home. She gave the Midwest a chance and wasn’t happy.

I gladly listened to her story as I ate, surprised that, by the time she finished her story, I had finished my plate. I can’t remember the last time I finished a plate of food, especially one this huge, but I was finally satiated. I left the server a ten for the company and for the road.

With the entire day ahead of me and only three hours on the road to Oklahoma City, I stopped in Tulsa for the afternoon. Sure, I could have gone to OKC, which isn’t nearly as familiar to me, but the connection to Tulsa reeled me in. I went straight to the Woody Guthrie Center, originally planning to grab a copy of the new book about Mermaid Avenue, which wasn’t stocked yet. So I grabbed another new book about Woody’s time in Los Angeles in the 1930s.

While at the center I hung out with my friend Sam, who’s the head of guest services, gives the most dynamic and interesting tours of the center, has registered a LOT of Oklahomans to vote, and is just about one of my favorite people in the world. Ask him what’s new, because he knows. This time, he told me about a documentary called Looking for Laura Nelson that’s being made by Bruce Nelson, one of her descendants. Laura and her son L.D. were lynched in Woody’s hometown a couple of years before his birthings 1912. It’s always been rumored that Woody’s father Charles was involved in this act of racial violence. I’m so glad the Nelson family’s story is being told. It’s one of those stories that people don’t want to face, but until we do, things won’t change.

And then I got walloped out of nowhere by a migraine because I’d been standing and walking for longer than my brain can keep track of my position. A bottle of water from Sam, a mint, and a seat in the Dust Bowl virtual reality exhibit prevented me from vomiting in the Son Volt exhibit. Begrudgingly, I left the center to recover at DoubleShot Coffee and work on an article for The Pickup.

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Of course, as I always do when I’m at DoubleShot or staying in my favorite little guest house down the street, I had to text Suzie and tell her I was once again in the shadow of the Tulsa Murder Tower.

At first I hated this building because towers built without neighboring tall buildings make me nervous. That’s a weird aspect of my megalophobia (as opposed to all the things that are normal about being afraid of big stuff). Even though it’s home to luxury condos, something about it looks derelict, like it might crumble to the ground, likely while I’m under it.

But then it got worse, and this is why I always have to text Suzie, who loves true crime, when I’m near the Tulsa Murder Tower. A few years after first seeing the Tulsa Murder Tower, which I hadn’t yet named, I saw some true crime show about a pregnant woman throwing her husband from a window in the high rise. She later died by suicide in prison.

I’m not a true crime person but I got sucked into that show because it was in Tulsa. And then, back in 2022, I booked the cutest little guest house without realizing that it’s right in the shadow of the Tulsa Murder Tower. I couldn’t remember the particulars of the murder, so I texted Suzie, who is a total murderino, and babbled something about staying under the fucking Tulsa Murder Tower. And sure enough, three minutes later she texted me with all the grisly details.

Fucking Tulsa Murder Tower.

And I really like that guest house, and DoubleShot, plus there’s a really handy gas station nearby so dammit, I swallow my weird fear and spend a lot of time around the Tulsa Murder Tower.

sigh

Anyway, I always have excellent writing sessions when I’m there. Maybe fear motivates me. I got a lot of work done then hit the road for OKC in time for an onion burger for dinner around a lot of squat, slug-free (to my knowledge) buildings.

I should be glad to be here, as traveling has been hot and, thanks to migraines and related conditions, exhausting and occasionally barftastic. But two days into being home, I’m bored and restless. There’s plenty to do, and none of it holds anything new and enlightening.

What’s worse, I don’t have any trips scheduled until November. Ultimately, this is probably good. I need to rebuild my finances, spend time with CJ before they return to school for their senior year next month, and deal with these migraines. Which is happening.

The day after I returned home from eight days on the road to Massachusetts and back, I spent three hours in exhaustive and exhausting testing for my vestibular system with hopes of finding out why I’m never not dizzy and why I throw up frequently and with little notice.

The day after having my head flung around and riding in a contraption they lovingly call “The Washing Machine,” I had a horrible headache.

Then I celebrated Independence Day sicker than I have ever been in my life. Over the course of a dozen miserable hours I vomited more than I have in any single period of my life. I lost count of how many times I puked. Which wasn’t just my commentary on the current state of the country, but an artifact of the tests.

My vestibulars are fucked, y’all.

A week ago today, on my way to Oklahoma, I learned just how fucked. Honestly, the test results were more hopeful than I expected, especially after having a day when I was convinced I had died and gone to Hell.

In addition to having severe migraines in the part of my brain closest to my inner ear that make me dizzy and nauseous, I also have two other disorders happening in the depths of my inner ear.

Of the four organs that control my center of gravity, only one of mine works. That’s why I always feel like I’m about to tip over.

The organs next to it are encased in bone and, likely due to a concussion I got the day Kurt Cobain died (unrelated to his death), that bone has either thinned or developed a hole. That lets too many electrical zaps hit my brain, which then assumes I’m falling and acts as such.

It’s a lot, but the good news is that treatment for the two weird disorders has a pretty good success rate. I start my seven-week course on July 27. As for the migraines, getting the busted stuff on track should help. Traditional migraine treatment should help the rest.

By the time I go to New Orleans in November, there’s a chance I’ll be able to dance through the Afghan Whigs show, run amok in the Marigny and on Frenchmen Street, and generally act in the dangerous and foolish ways I’ve missed so much in recent years. Hallelujah!

But let’s go back to the Berkshires for a bit, where I did not get to run amok on the second day of Solid Sound. I thoroughly overdid it on the first day but honestly? Worth it. I wasn’t horrifically ill like I would be a week later, just tired and a little headachy, enough to make the decision to skip the day with The Breeders and Wilco in favor of being in good shape for Sunday’s Jeff Tweedy and Friends set.

It was a good move, because I got to spend Sunday afternoon with my new friend Geri.

Now this is the kind of Solid Sound camaraderie I experienced in 2019 and had been missing! Geri and I connected on Facebook a few weeks before the festival when she posted in the Solid Sound group about her visit to the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa. Of course, I had to jump into that conversation.

Turns out, Geri’s also a writer and we have lots in common. She tracked me down shortly after I arrived on Sunday, and we hit the ground running.

Not really, because running makes me puke.

But we sure did hit it off immediately, gabbing until Jeff’s set started. She couldn’t find her people, so I offered her my plus-one seat in the nearly-empty ADA seating area where we were joined by my Belleville neighbors Alicia and Paul.

Between songs, Geri and I pointed out the best outfits and t-shirts as people walked by. Solid Sound ‘28 Fashion Extravaganza. Let’s make it happen! Jeff! Call us!

I always love a Jeff Tweedy solo set, and I missed last year’s tour with his backing band of youngsters that included his sons Spencer and Sammy, and their childhood friends Liam, Macie, and Sima, who all grew up to be stellar musicians. This is what happens when you don’t say not-in-my-backyard to rock n’ roll riff raff.

My favorite part of the Solid Sound final set is always the cover songs and guests, and Jeff didn’t disappoint. Not only did we get a weep-worthy “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” but also a blazing cover of Donna Summers’ “Hot Stuff” with a very pregnant Sima Cunningham exhibiting some dangerously warm fertility mama goddess bump and grind. More of this all the time, please!

And so it ended, hugging my new friend and my old neighbors before hobbling out with Donna and Carol. They invited me to dinner, but I had been thinking about ice cream at the Stewart’s Shop between North Adams and my place. Still not sure what state it was in, but it was just right for the perfect summer dinner capping off a perfect summer day before hitting the road yet again.

The trip home didn’t take quite the leisurely pace as the trip out. Not so much because I was tired (although I was), but because I needed to get home in time to get a decent night’s sleep before the vestibular tests (I didn’t). I stopped to sleep in the northeastern corner of Ohio after plowing my way across New York’s I-90, only stopping to investigate the local food vending machines at a rest area near the Finger Lakes where I was told that I look like a pinup girl. Tired, encrusted in festival sweat that doesn’t come off in a single shower, and sporting a too-fancy sundress because all of my comfy driving clothes were dirty, I rode that high all the way to the Pennsylvania border. Or maybe I was just jacked up on the locally-roasted coffee-infused dark chocolate bar from the rest stop.

I slept again in Indianapolis, even though it was only three and a half hours from home. I’d hoped to make the drive home with only one overnight, but the drive out proved to me that, in my current vestibular state, seven hours on the road is my hard limit.

Plus, I wanted to hang out with Aimee, a Woody Guthrie researcher friend in Indianapolis who I met once in passing at an event in Tulsa years ago, and again before Billy Bragg’s Friday set. Our plan to catch up again at the festival went the way those plans tend to go. There’s just too much happening, too many people to see, too many shows, to make much of a plan. And that’s fine.

Aimee is part of the Teaching Woody Guthrie Collective, along with my friends Gus and Court, a professor named Michele I’ve only met in passing, and our recently-passed friend Mark. He wanted us to connect, which I learned after his death. Far be it for me to deny that wish, especially when it means spending three hours talking Woody Guthrie stuff with … another woman!

In a lovely little Danish church-turned coffeehouse and community space, we told our Woody Guthrie stories—how we came to study him, the people we’ve met along the way, the magical things that have happened because of it, and how we can maybe combine some of our experiences down the line.

Did I mention how awesome it is to finally have a woman to discuss these things with? Because it really is. And Aimee feels like a kindred spirit. How could she not?

And that’s what Solid Sound—and music—is all about. Connections. Clicking. That magical combination of finding someone who lights up when you say, “No way! Me, too!”

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Spending eight days on the road, driving around 2,500 miles by myself, gave me lots of time to think. Not once was I lonely. Driving by myself with my own company? Absolutely entertained me to no end. I’m a damn riot. I wrote whole books in my head, performed my own Mermaid Avenue concerts. This was the longest solo road trip I’ve ever done, and now I feel confident that I can drive anywhere by myself. Even with Solid Sound, I had plenty of solo time at my little guesthouse tucked into a clearing in the woods.

Solid Sound in 2022 was lonely. I was with people, and felt the love from some who remain tightly in my life. But there were a lot of times spent with others, feeling very alone.

In 2024, I don’t think I was in a position to accept any connection at all. I went through some shit in late 2023 that left me questioning everything about myself. That continued until just recently, when one day I realized it had been a bit since I beat myself up for things I had done in the past that I now view differently.

I can’t remember where I read this. Maybe Levon Helm’s biography This Wheel’s on Fire or the Greil Marcus book The Old, Weird America, which is also about The Band. At any rate, one of them has a quote/story that’s always stuck with me:

After The Band toured as Bob Dylan’s backing band on his first electric tour, enduring night after night of hostile crowds, Helm hit a wall. He just couldn’t do it anymore. He went home and, as he put it, spent some time in the shed, by himself, to regroup. Find himself, find his confidence.

We all need to go to the shed and get ourselves together for a stretch of time.

I feel like I’ve been in the shed since Covid began. I was well on my way there already, thanks to going into my third year of hobbling on busted knees. But in the time that followed—Covid, knee replacements, CJ striking out on their own, social changes, changes in myself—I needed to hibernate and incubate. The vestibular shit threatened to keep me in the shed for the rest of my life.

I’ve been working through my cocoon goo, emerging with some necessary growth and knowledge. I’ve been in the chrysalis, dangling in a dusty, web-stretched corner of the shed, so close to the crack where sunlight leaks in.

And now I’m out, having grown into myself, shedding what I’ve outgrown, fully embracing what I love: good music, good people, good food and coffee, good quiet, and a good, long stretch of road. Writing about these things over the last 14 months has given me a chronicle of just how much these things fulfill me, making me able to be exactly who I am.

I’m ready to keep going.

Who wants a coffee?

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No, I’m not going into the sordid details. I just happen to know the exact moment my life shifted into crisis mode before depositing me into the place where I was supposed to be, doing what I should have been doing with my life. And yes, a part of that shift involved more solo traveling than I’d ever done in my life.

The night the midlife crisis began, a music writer friend posted Woody Guthrie’s “New Year’s Rulins.” Since I wasn’t employed at the moment—part of the reason for the crisis—I suggested we start a writing project for Woody’s centennial. It pretty much fell by the wayside, except Woody kept interrupting my life.

Once I stopped crying in my hammock every night while listening to the “Mermaid Avenue” albums — the collaboration of Wilco and Billy Bragg where they composed music to Woody’s lost lyrics — I started getting offers to write about him that eventually led me to Tulsa, Monterey/Salinas (thanks, Mary!), Chicago, Iowa, Ohio, Brooklyn, Washington, D.C., Manhattan, the Catskills, the Berkshires …

And the next thing I knew, I’d done the one thing I always wanted to do.

I’d written a book.

Or, rather, I’d written a manuscript.

The first of seven or so drafts of a manuscript.

Over fourteen years.

Jesus Christ, writing books is hard! Who knew?

Researching and writing about Woody has been the most important thing I’ve done in my life, second only to producing CJ. It’s what has taught me about life and the world. It’s fulfilled me. It’s made me grow in ways I never could have fathomed. Introduced some of the most interesting, intelligent, kind people into my world.

And that little giant from Oklahoma just keeps giving.

When Wilco announced that they were reuniting with Billy Bragg to play the first whole concert of their compositions of Woody’s lyrics thirty years after they went into the archives for “Mermaid Avenue,” I knew one thing: I had to be there. The show would be the hallmark of the biannual Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, Massachusetts on June 26, 2026.

I first attended Solid Sound in 2019, and it was a revelatory experience. I connected with so many people I’d known online for years, and made so many new friends including Jonathan, who remains one of my favorite people.

And then Covid hit, postponing the festival until 2022.

And then I got both knees replaced.

I should have skipped the festival in 2022, having the second knee done just two months prior, but I was stir crazy. I didn’t care so much about doing festival stuff. I just wanted to see my summer camp friends. With promises that I’d have lots of help, I went.

While some folks were super helpful, or made great attempts to be and were met with my fickleness, others were helpful but complained behind my back, leaving me feeling burdensome and unwanted. It wasn’t the summer camp friendfest I’d experienced three years prior, save for a couple of folks.

I struggle with asking for help anyway. One of the big lessons I learned from that year on the road chasing Woody was how to be open to the generosity of others. But 2022’s experience left me feeling how transactional generosity can sometimes be. I chose to crawl back into a hermit hole.

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I tried to go in 2024 and made it as far as Bennington, Vermont. The day the festival opened, I drove to it and, struck by some really deep social anxiety, decided to not even try. I took the weekend to do some exploring around Bennington, and it was fun. No regrets at all, other than losing the money I spent on my passes. I needed that time alone, though. I needed the quiet of the Green Mountains.

But 2026 … no way was I going to miss the chance to catch that “Mermaid Avenue” set. Just the idea of seeing this reunion as I set out to sell my manuscript to a publisher felt like coming full circle from the crisis that began 14 years earlier. It was necessary.

Except now I have these fucking migraines every single day. Fuck it. I would figure it out along the way, without counting on anyone else but being open to whatever and whoever came my way.

And you know what? I had the best weekend.

On Friday I arrived in time to slide in just before Billy Bragg started his solo set in the bright, blazing afternoon. I started running into friends and acquaintances and even neighbors (hi Alicia and Paul!) before I was even in the door.

It was the Solid Sound I remember from 2019.

Despite MASS MoCA, the host location, not being great at responding to my emails and calls about ADA accommodations, the festival volunteers and museum staff made up for it with helpful kindness. Those folks busted their asses working with what they had. Even though I couldn’t see much, I was glad to have a seat in the packed courtyard to enjoy Billy’s tongue-in-cheek protest tunes in the sun.

Then why the hell did I look like this by the end of the set?

Because, say it with me, summer campers—it always rains at Solid Sound!

No matter, I was having fun, feeling happy, and overwhelmed by the love as I slowly moved through the crowd to Joe’s Field, the amphitheater, for Gang of Four and the headlining set.

Sweet Ellen, who co-runs the ever-helpful Solid Sound Facebook page, offered to stand in line for me and grab dinner.

Gang of Four opened Joe’s Field, and I went out of curiosity, only being familiar with a couple of songs. My god, I’m so glad I did because they absolutely blew my mind. Opening with “To Hell with Poverty,” their frantic, kinetic post-punk rancor was the perfect filling for the Billy Bragg-”Mermaid Avenue” sandwich. I was hyped and focused on the show, except when people asked me about my shirt.

I’ve never worn a piece of clothing that has gotten so much positive attention. No joke—this shirt literally opened conversations that started new friendships. I don’t wear t-shirts often, but when I do, I make sure they mean it.

(It’s from the Woody Guthrie Center, if you want one of your own.)

Those new friends include Francis, a trans 25-year-old and their dad Mark. We talked about art, trans issues, and vestibular migraines between sets. They’ve been to every Solid Sound since it began in 2010 when they were, what? An infant? And Tracy, who sat next to me with her husband. We speculated on what potential surprise guests might show up for the main event. The woman on the other side of me whose name I didn’t get brought me a much-needed bottle of water. And my friends Donna and Carol from previous Solid Sounds, along with Beth, who I know from going to East Coast Afghan Whigs shows, held an ADA spot for me and hobbled out with me at the end of the night.

Any souring I felt in previous years vanished. It was enough to lure me out of that hermit hole in time to get reacquainted with my old pal, Woody.

If you’re hoping for a big “Mermaid Avenue” review, I don’t have one. There are plenty out there already.

No notebook. No phone. I just soaked in every song, the music that has saved me over and over again that I thought would be relegated to recordings for the rest of my life. The music that's continued to be the soundtrack for my fulfilled dreams. But there it was, the songs and the people who made them, hugging and joking, any animosity from thirty years ago evaporated like steam of the rain in the burning sun.

Partway through the set, the music was interrupted by a freight train passing on the neighboring tracks.

That’s how Woody says, “I ain’t dead yet.” And as long as we keep singing his songs, he never will be.

Neither will Jay Bennett, the Wilco member whose fingers and heart are smudged onto these songs, who didn’t live long enough to be at this reunion. But he was aboard the train, too. Along with Mark, my recently-passed friend who made it possible for me to research in Woody’s archives and was one of my biggest cheerleaders, imparting a confidence in my work that I never dreamed I could have.

Everyone I’ve loved who’s passed but made me this person who cries at union songs, writes about music like she knows what’s going on, sings along to “This Land is Your Land” like she’s eight years old next to her granny in the back pew at the Pentecostal Church of God—they were all there.

And I was, too. Happy. Belonging. Accepting the love of everyone I encountered who offered theirs.

All because Wilco and Billy Bragg reunited.

And now my previously-finished manuscript needs an epilogue.

Goddamit, Woody.

I’m headed to Oklahoma tomorrow to celebrate Woody with poetry and could use a coffee along the way.

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I’d planned to get home today, but realized that driving nine hours a day is beyond my capabilities (fucking migraines). I’m okay with that, as I sit in a Holiday Inn Express room in the far northeast corner of Ohio with a late check-out and a bowl of chicken shawarma and rice. Tonight I’ll sleep in Indianapolis after putting some more miles behind me.

This is the most I have ever driven by myself. I expected a few more side trips, but when there’s 1,128 miles to cover and a music festival to attend, those quests and planned hours wiled away writing in coffeehouses in new-to-me towns fall by the wayside, replaced by the endless stretch of interstate and thruways.

Not that I’ve just been stationed behind the wheel. The first day was full of new friends and food and a happy dog and love.

I stopped in Indianapolis to have lunch with a friend I’d never met in person, Jade. We know each other through our shared love of the Afghan Whigs, but failed to meet up when we were both in Cincinnati and Joshua Tree on their tour this spring. No way was I going to miss seeing her while passing through her hometown.

We spent so much time lost in conversation that time became meaningless, and I left around the same time I was supposed to arrive at my next stop in Xenia, Ohio. Thankfully my friends there—Susie, Greg, and Buddy—were beyond gracious and waited an extra two hours for me before making dinner.

I’d met Susie and Greg once before, and it’s one of my all-time favorite meeting stories. In May, 2025, I was in New Orleans for a Wilco show and general New Orleans bullshittting. While having brunch at Elizabeth’s, I noticed that their biscuits were as big as the giant bun on top of my head. Seriously, this thing was as close as I could get to Kate Pierson’s ‘do without adding fake hair to the mix. I ordered a biscuit and asked the server if she’d hold it by my ridiculous hair for a photo, which she did. We were laughing the whole time, which caught the attention of a couple at the next table. Susie and Greg from Dayton. We started talking and left with contact info and tentative plans for dinner that night that fell through. No matter. We did this weird thing that doesn’t happen enough—we kept in touch.

Since I was spending my first night on the road in Dayton, they invited me to their home on the outskirts for dinner. And despite my ADHD ass rolling in at 8 pm, they were beyond gracious. On this textbook beautiful summer night infused with more lightning bugs than I think I’ve ever seen in one place, we lingered on their patio with grilled steak and swordfish, baked macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, red wine, whiskey, gooey butter cake from St. Louis (I’m not a totally horrible guest), and chocolates we forgot to eat because we were so engrossed in conversation and playing with the young elkhound mix, Buddy, who instantly became my buddy.

After dinner Susie and I took their golf cart on a tour of their park-like five acres where they have a huge garden with almost enough potatoes to get me through summer (that’s a lot of potatoes), a grove of paw paw trees, and stories of their two decades turning a plot of land into a lovely oasis. We went down the road and waved to the neighbors’ security cameras before bumping back to the house to visit some more.

When I had the inevitable dizzy spell and explained that I get vestibular migraines, I found a kindred spirit in Susie, who has also dealt with this shit. She’s the first person I’ve met who also has this weird disorder.

Eventually they sent me on my way with cake, the remains of the bottle of wine we were drinking, and the warmest of glows.

On day two I plowed through Ohio without stopping at Jeni’s or Graeter’s. I needed to put some miles behind me, and there’s plenty of ice cream in New England. There was also a natural wonder awaiting. But not before stopping for coffee in Erie, PA and discovering that I’d had another financial misunderstanding and wasn’t nearly as flush as I thought.

I’m about tired of this happening. Maybe I should actually use one of the financial apps on my phone.

Anyway, it’s all worked out.

I spent the night in a vintage roadside motel that has been slightly modernized. Safe, clean, and comfortable was all I needed, and it provided. Burrito delivery was a nice bonus.

The next morning I had a rude awakening that involved vomiting bile into the bathroom sink, something I’ve watched my non-eating cat do plenty of times but have never experienced myself. I don’t recommend it. This sent me down the Cleveland and Mayo Clinic wormholes to figure out what the hell was wrong with me. I felt fine. I am fine. Best as I can tell, my stomach was empty and the migraine nausea hit. I cautiously got myself together and headed to the falls, hoping I wasn't about to spontaneously explode or something.

(I’m happy to report that was the only time I’ve thrown up on this trip so far.)

It was pouring rain when I left the Moonlite and headed to Niagara Falls State Park. Between sleeping in a bit, vomit time, vomit research time, and the rain, I hate to admit that I had to force myself to go look at the falls. There was a bit of a walk in the rain and I wasn’t confident I was up to it after the way my morning had gone.

I’m so glad I tried. And succeeded.

Are you familiar with megalophobia? It’s a fear of really big things, and I have it. In the past it was just a fear of really tall things. Like, I can’t stand under the Gateway Arch back home and look up without getting a rush of panic like it’s going to fall on me. As I’ve gotten older it’s evolved to include all big things.

That also might have played a part in my hesitation. From my teenage trip to the falls, I remembered the magnitude. Standing next to where the whitecaps rush by before gravity takes hold, sending them plummeting down the jagged rocks, capable of taking me with them.

Just typing that gives me a shiver. In some ways I was much braver at 17. In other ways I’m braver now. It’s all balanced into a lifetime of remaining the same degree of chicken shit.

But I made it, and I loved every rainy, soggy second of it.

When I was at the falls with my parents when I was 17, we talked a lot about how the first European settlers must have felt upon discovering the magnitude of Niagara Falls. They would have heard the roar of the water long before it was in sight. Probably noticed the foggy cloud of mist that hangs low from where the water impacts the river below.

This time, I thought about the people who lived by the falls and knew nothing different. Indigenous people for whom this wonder was just … life. It’s hard to comprehend but then I think of how I take the Mississippi River, eight miles from my house, for granted.

I would have loved to have lingered at the falls, but there was a guesthouse on the other side of New York awaiting me, so I got back on the road, crossing upstate in the rain, not venturing off the thruway until I was in Troy on the state line, on to tiny little Petersburgh on the state lines of New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts, my home base for a weekend in which I was unsure of my abilities and what to expect. With no solid plans to meet up with anyone, no answers from MASSMoCA regarding ADA accommodations, and no word from Wilco’s publicist about interviews, I braced for a trip into the unknown. Solid Sound was feeling anything but solid, but I was on my way regardless.