#missinformed

That’s weird. Didn’t I just say they called me saying that they had a full-staff? That was two weeks ago. This post was on Craigslist three days ago:

Love ice cream? Love working with fresh local ingredients? Love making people happy?

The Charmery is Charm City’s local hand-crafted ice cream shop opening in July 2013.

We’ll be hand crafting some of your favorite classics and having fun with the flavors that make Baltimore so delicious. We’ll also be making toppings and assorted baked goods from scratch.

Ice Cream Production Kitchen & Bakery The Charmery hand-crafts our own ice cream, toppings, and treats. We are looking for part-time talented help in the kitchen with some night and weekend availability; Our team provides consistent, outstanding work with every batch; has a passion for teamwork, an eye for detail, a willingness to clean, stamina (for crafting great ice cream), and the ability to work in an exciting, fast-paced environment.

Kitchen experience is required.

Memories of Memphis… There are lots of reasons to take a road trip. There are always multitudes of reasons to leave where you are. They often out-number the reasons to stay. The irony of me documenting this as a “journey of healing and reconciliation” for my mother and all the Indians she killed in her mind does not escape me. I wanted to check in with how she and i travel together after such a long history of difficult travels. I feel I have somewhat successfully done that, but I did not predict the memory that cities hold. Highways are like encodings that make up memories. Inescapable. Just seeing the names of towns and cities stimulates an automatic response in me that i guess i wasn’t completely aware I had in me. The senses betray me. I walked into an Indian casino in El Reno. The wave of stale cigarettes more co-mingled than masked by the heavy musk of the perfumes and colognes that are the preference of the elderly. I can still seperate out individually and name each scent… all memories of Reno, Nevada. Of that crazy time I lived in Las Vegas with the man i thought I would marry… And I am prone to pining. I love to envelop myself in the pure genius of the past, but still this trip has been excessive. All this fucking sobriety probably has something to do with THAT! Here in Memphis there is another memory that socked me in the gut:

I left California on Easter Day of 2010. I left with my millinery partner and dear friend from Oakland, CA. I always viewed myself as a series of trasnplanted organs in the body that is California. It would seem at first that the body had accepted me. With me as the new lung, the land breathed easily. And then as soon as acceptance and normalcy felt effortless, the body would reject me. Off to rehab. To other states. To other countries. Back to Oakland as a new kidney. Seamless. Rejected. Off and on for over TEN years. And finally it was time to leave again. The body had rejected this heart transplant, and I had to leave. I wasn’t even sure where I would end up, but with my friend (who seemed so of the same mind) we slapped that Jesus on our dashboard and headed east…

It was a beautiful adventure. So much laughter. She got me. She wanted to play dress-up and have a podcast and be FAMOUS with me. We were so poor. We had enough money to get to NY, where we had people waiting. Along the way, we sewed hats. She let me drink whiskey from the passenger side in a car we had to push start, KarateKid style the ENTIRE way across the country. We stuck as close to that magical 66 as we could.

We arrived in Memphis. I was the Priscilla to her Elvis. I wore a white dress with flowers and big hair to her white jumpsuit, giant aviator glasses and garrish blue bedazzled belt that was is our costume kit. We spent more time in the bathroom at Graceland than anywhere else. She practice karate moves and we made video footage that we would watch over and over and over again. Graceland was $35 to get in, making us both remember why we had never gone in. Instead we got some whiskey and barbeque and drove around the humid landscape of Memphis.

We don’t talk anymore, either. Like the boy in Missouri. She grew to hate me. Or at least became intolerant of me. Our final words were not kind. Things I would never say to someone I hadn’t truly loved. I remember my mother wouldn’t let me come home at that time. Something or other I had done. I remember my partner saying, “Your own mother can’t even stand you.” I remember all the things I said, too. They were much less eloquent. I realize the only commonality in these stories is me. I am not stupid, I just haven’t cracked the code.