Ho to Rowe

Ever since I left Boston, I've had nothing to read. Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing.

I don't know if you realize what a hardship this is for me. Aside from the entire day in planes and airports (where I actually did have my Sunday Times, and Juno, to keep me occupied), and aside from the ten hours each day in the car (where I actually have One Friend and One Dog), I pop awake at 6:18 every morning, because that's what time my alarm's set for back home (don't ask). This would not be so bad for the up-and-at-'em's of being on the road, but unfortunately that's Eastern Standard Time. As we've been changing time zones, I've been managing to stay in bed closer and closer to the actual sunrise, but still: I've been up whole marathons -- charity marathons -- ahead of One Friend every morning.

Not a thing to read. No. Thing.

It's not like I haven't been looking. But you can't get books at truck stops, because of course we're all happier with truckers keeping both eyes on the road. And the only newspaper you can rely on getting -- sorry: the only "newspaper" you can rely on getting -- is USA Today. I'm already eating too much fast food, thank you. I don't want my brain to go all lard-ass on me, too.

(I'm not quite sure how reading nothing is better than reading USA Today, but I'm sure it is.)

And I can't even turn on the TV in the mornings lest I wake up Sleeping Beauty over there. (Who, for those of you who've read the post below, is indeed still Sleeping. It is now 7:54, the storms have blown away. I've been back to bed for an hour and given up on the idea; I've showered (but not shaved) and lotioned myself and gotten dressed. Now here I am again, and still my One Friend gently sleeps.)

So last night we pulled into Colfax, Iowa, after driving 620 miles in ten hours from Cheyenne, Wyoming. I won't put you through the whole ordeal about how we had actually made a reservation from the road because it was getting late, but how they somehow lost it in an hour and a half. How they gave us a room anyway but neither of our keys worked so we had to move down the hall. How in the midst of all this hubbub we forgot to tell them about One Dog (who is allowed, but who costs extra) and by the time we remembered we were so mad at them we decided they weren't getting no $12-stinking-.50, so we snuck her through the back door like a couple sneaky stealers. Or how, exhausted and not in the mood for a sit-down dinner, we walked across the street to McDonald's and had to wait -- I shit you not -- 45 minutes for our food.

I won't get into any of that. What I will tell you is this: in the lobby of the hotel there was a basket and a magazine rack and a sign: "Need something to read? Take something. Finished with something you've read? Leave something."

Score!

The books turned out to be mostly businessman brain candy. Nelson DeMille, John LeCarre, Louis L'Amour. The magazines ran to mostly Time and Readers' Digest. But then, buried between last week's copies of Newsweek and Fortune -- with the address-corner painstakingly clipped so as to protect the identity of whatever Assistant Vice President of Central Acquisitional Typecasting left it behind -- I found me this:

How did he know I was here!? Do you think he can see me? Oh my god, I wish I'd shaved!

I couldn't wait until this morning. I read it before I went to bed last night. Did you know he was fired from QVC for doing obscene things to a nun doll on the air? Oh, you dirty, filthy boy!

That's it. Sudden yonic-hill-licking urges or no, I am definitely not a lesbian.

Unfortunately, I am a not-lesbian with, once again, nothing to read.