{"id":2556,"date":"2017-06-08T15:36:46","date_gmt":"2017-06-08T20:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/?p=2556"},"modified":"2017-06-08T17:06:08","modified_gmt":"2017-06-08T22:06:08","slug":"mind-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/mind-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

Driving makes me drowsy, so I am anxious as I contemplate my solo drive from my writer\u2019s retreat in Montpelier, Vermont to my home north of Chicago.\u00a0 On most long drives, I wisely stop for refreshing naps.\u00a0 Once a wavering median line prompted me to pull over in Milwaukee just one hour north of my starting point.\u00a0 I fell asleep for a solid two and a half hours, wakened only by a ripening bladder and thickening saliva.\u00a0 On this cross-country trip, I cannot afford any such therapeutic dallying if I want to avoid the withering Fourth of July traffic through Chicago.<\/p>\n

In preparation I have selected audiobooks that tread that fine line between entertainment and distraction.\u00a0 A prior choice of Jeremy Irons reading Vladimir Nabokov\u2019s\u00a0Lolita\u00a0cost me dearly.\u00a0 Iron\u2019s reptilian voice coupled with Nabokov\u2019s seductive prose had me so enraptured that I lost track of my accelerator foot in rural Michigan.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until I heard the siren that I realized I was speeding.\u00a0 As I rolled down my window, I wanted to tell the cop about the mitigating details, about Nabokov\u2019s use of words like \u201csibilant\u201d to describe Lolita\u2019s childlike lisp, or \u201ccrenulated\u201d to describe the pattern that an elastic band might make on soft flesh.\u00a0 But the argument wasn\u2019t going to work on this young cop with a peach-fuzzed and acne-stippled face. \u00a0Forty-five minutes later, now in rural Wisconsin, I got a second ticket, but I considered the tickets as money well spent for the privilege of quality time with Jeremy Irons and Nabokov.<\/p>\n

Since then I have sought safer entertainment with biographies or history.\u00a0 I am a World War I and II history buff, but the slow measured tones of the narrators can put me in a dangerous trance.\u00a0 Besides sometimes I am just not in the mood for Hitler.\u00a0 For this trip, I decide that a murder mystery will hit the right balance \u2013 a zippy plot that will keep me awake, but not encroach on the required concentration needed for safe driving.\u00a0 My friend recommended the author Louise Penny, and I pack in a couple of her books.<\/p>\n

Within one hour of Montpelier I am in traffic hell.\u00a0 In my eagerness to avoid the Chicago traffic, I have plunked myself in the middle of arriving traffic on this holiday weekend. Lumbering campers, sharp turns and winding roads suck up too much attention to focus on a book.\u00a0 I must entertain myself in the odd moments of calm.\u00a0 I think about the Bingo game my mother made decades ago to entertain us kids during long vacation drives.\u00a0 She replaced the dreary entries of store-bought Bingo, such as \u201cbird on a wire, or \u201ccow\u201d with spicier entries, such as \u201croad kill, \u201creligious lawn decoration,\u201d or \u201cdangling bra on a clothes line.\u201d\u00a0 As I inch along, I spot additional entries for her Bingo cards, such as \u201cdriver really picking his nose,\u201d \u201ckids fighting in the back seat,\u201d or \u201cman with a hairy back mowing his lawn.\u201d \u00a0I make a mental note of the man as a potential character in a story.<\/p>\n

Finally, after six hours, I reach New York and the blessed interstate, a shimmering ribbon unspooling all the way to Chicago.\u00a0 With no more jockeying for position or white-knuckled passing, I can just hit cruise control and motor on.\u00a0 This driving will only require a fraction of my attention.\u00a0 Time for the murder mystery.<\/p>\n

I have chosen poorly.\u00a0 The plot line is familiar, involving a murder at a dysfunctional family reunion; every member has a plausible motive. \u00a0I shift my focus to the author\u2019s prose style, but it is simple and unadorned.\u00a0 I think of my hero Nabokov whose command of imagery is remarkable given that English is his third language after Russian and French.<\/p>\n

Louise Penny\u2019s occasional attempts at literary flourish fall short. \u00a0She writes of scudding clouds and dappled shadows.\u00a0 \u00a0What else scuds besides a cloud?\u00a0 I can only think of the Scud missiles featured in the Iraq Gulf War and the embedded reporter referred to as the \u201cScud Stud.\u201d \u00a0Besides shadows, only horses are dappled.\u00a0 Well okay, maybe vitiligo can dapple skin, and I think that there is such a thing as a dappled dachshund, but that\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n

And then there is the word \u201cscamper,\u201d which Penny uses to describe how ants move.\u00a0 I think about all the words at Penny\u2019s disposal \u2013 scamper, scurry, scoot, skulk, scuttle, slither and skitter – each conveying intent as well as movement.\u00a0 Skulk and scuttle imply clandestine or evil intent \u2013 cock roaches scuttle \u2013 skitter suggests disorganized movement, while scurry is more purpose-driven.\u00a0 Penny\u2019s scampering ants just don\u2019t work for me.\u00a0 Scampering implies a joy and playfulness that is just not within the emotional repertoire of ants.\u00a0 Squirrels scamper, ants scurry.\u00a0 I ponder the infinite shades of movement in language and thrill to the idea that both Nabokov and I like to dissect words.<\/p>\n

I spend a nervous night in Geneva, New York during a massive manhunt for two prisoners who have tunneled beneath the wall of the maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility. \u00a0They are still on the loose when I leave in the morning, directly on my route through upstate New York.\u00a0 I am safe whizzing along in my cocooned world of the front seat, but I feel vulnerable as I pull into the Niagara Falls oasis for gas. They have already hijacked one car. \u00a0Do I park amidst many others, seeking safety in numbers, or perhaps park in the open where it would be more difficult for a crazed criminal to sneak up with piano wire, garrote me and commandeer my maroon Honda CR-V? \u00a0I park the car in plain view but quickly scuttle in and out, relieved to be on my way again.<\/p>\n

This would be a much better murder mystery than Penny\u2019s, I think.\u00a0 Maybe the man with the hairy back could be one of the escaped prisoners, his back a defining feature that he cannot disguise.\u00a0 This would be my first foray into fiction and I relish the freedom to make up whatever I want. \u00a0Why not pile on other quirks to my character? \u00a0What the hell, I could give my prisoner a sibilant lisp, and\/or a pock-marked face, crenulated from old acne scars.<\/p>\n

New York turns into Ohio and finally I see signs for Cleveland, where my grandmother lived.\u00a0 I see her exit for Kirtland and am tempted to take a quick loop to rekindle fond memories, but I stick to my time schedule and keep heading west.\u00a0 As I squint into the afternoon sun, I remember my grandmother\u2019s firm opinion on the superiority of the east side residents compared to those living west of Cleveland.\u00a0 \u201cThe people on the west side have to commute into the sun in the morning and then again when they go home at night,\u201d she said. \u00a0I think it does something funny to their brains.\u00a0 They\u2019re just not as smart as us east-siders.\u00a0 We never have to look into the sun when we commute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another possible story line, I think, perhaps a parody of Romeo and Juliet\u2019s forbidden love that rips apart affluent families living in competing suburbs.\u00a0 My car has turned into an enforced writer\u2019s retreat.<\/p>\n

I finally reach the Ohio Indiana border.\u00a0 One more state to go.\u00a0 I gaze ahead at the featureless landscape.\u00a0 Sometimes I am just not in the mood for amber waves of grain.\u00a0 Indiana is a skinny state and I feel I should be almost home, but I am wrong, so wrong. \u00a0I am reminded of the scene in the movie\u00a0Lawrence of Arabia\u00a0where Peter O\u2019Toole must cross the searing Nefud desert to reach his goal of Aqaba. \u00a0The local Bedouins say it has never been done. Camels with wrinkled, dehydrated humps stagger onward and O\u2019Toole\u2019s only sign of life is a determined glimmer in his piercing blue eyes.\u00a0 He will get there or die trying.\u00a0 Well, Indiana is my Nefub desert and Chicago my Aqaba.\u00a0 And surprisingly, Indiana seems to agree.\u00a0 The license plates contain the state motto, \u201cIndiana, the Crossroads of America.\u201d\u00a0 Even the residents think that Indiana is meant to be endured and not enjoyed.<\/p>\n

I trundle on, tempted to pull over to revive my softening brain, which Nabokov might describe as \u201call ooze and squid-cloud.\u201d \u00a0Vigorous shoulder hunches and sustained butt clenches that raise me off my seat provide temporary stimulation.\u00a0 Finger clenches on the steering wheel are less successful, but I do notice that they make my hands look like wizened claws of a 100-year-old chicken.<\/p>\n

The setting sun hits the rear-view mirror at the perfect angle to highlight the delicate crepe-like wrinkles on my face.\u00a0 \u00a0I notice my left nostril is larger than my right and there is more grey hair on my right temple than my left.\u00a0 My glasses are crooked on my nose and I wonder if my ears are alop. \u00a0As I run my tongue along my teeth, I detect a slight misalignment.\u00a0 I remember a funky Peruvian sweater I bought years ago.\u00a0 The tag read, \u201cThe minor irregularities in this garment are part of its hand-made charm.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I hope this describes me.<\/p>\n

I am as weary as O\u2019Toole\u2019s droopy camel, drifting dangerously.\u00a0 An inventory of my asymmetries no longer keeps me awake.\u00a0 I return to mental games, this time focusing on idioms.\u00a0 How many millennials know that the phrase \u201cDrinking the Kool-Aid,\u201d describing mindless obedience, comes from the mass suicide engineered by Jim Jones in the remote jungle of Guyana?\u00a0 Years from now will the phrase \u201cLand it in the Hudson\u201d still be in play to describe a heroic rescue?\u00a0 I try to come up with an idiom that transcends time.\u00a0 \u201cStew in Your Own Juices\u201d is as apt today as it was when a caveman first conquered fire and put a carcass in a pot.\u00a0 Who was that clever linguist?\u00a0 Perhaps Shakespeare, the towering genius of word play, or maybe even Chaucer.<\/p>\n

Ah, finally, I see it, my Lake Michigan peeking through the skyline of Chicago. I have beaten the weekend traffic.\u00a0 I swing around the base of the lake and shoot out the north side of the city, a horse to the barn streaking towards the northern suburbs. \u00a0I briefly wonder if this timeless idiom was invented some 6,000 years ago when horses were first domesticated.\u00a0 But no, I no longer need contrived entertainment.\u00a0 My mind pivots like a heat-seeking missile to focus on home, where I will find good potato chips, reruns of Law and Order, and a blank piece of paper just calling out for a man with a hairy back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>Share: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Driving makes me drowsy, so I am anxious as I contemplate my solo drive from my writer\u2019s retreat in Montpelier, Vermont to my home north of Chicago.\u00a0 On most long drives, I wisely stop for refreshing naps.\u00a0 Once a wavering … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pot-pouri","category-what-i-did"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVc8-Fe","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2556"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2566,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2556\/revisions\/2566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}