The internet beings that Ali and I are, we decided to live blog our road trip home from New Jersey to Houston. The following is our trip. (Most posts by me where posted by Ali as I dictated.)

Saturday

Posted by Mike:
In my parents’ driveway about to head home to Houston.

Posted by Mike:
Almost 12 miles in the wrong direction. Passing parents house again.

Posted by Ali:
Are we there yet? Mile 45 of 1500 I asked Mike this question. Then proceeded to sing Staying Alive really, really obnoxiuosly loud.

THIS IS GOING TO BE SO FUN!

Posted by Mike:
Mile 58: Pennsylvania.

Posted by Mike:
MILE 108: Just passed Shartlesville,PA. Laughed like a 5 year old.

Posted by Mike:
Mile 148: On the Hershey Highway, Hershey, PA

Posted by Ali:
Mile 154: Small detour into Hershey, PA. The lamp posts are kisses and I’m standing in Chocolate Ave. Heaven.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 156: Found a Dunkin’ Donuts in Hershey! I am a big nerd.

Posted by Mike:
Mile 222: We’re in a tunnel. Blue Mountains, PA.

Posted by Ali:
Welcome to Pennsyltucky.
Mile 328: Driving for miles and miles seeing lots of trees and mountains with an occasional smattering of houses, gas stations, cows and Donut Connections. I have no idea how people function like this. This is some country bumpkin bidness right here.

Posted by Mike:
Mile 349: Making Ali turn down her Justin Timberlake at the tollbooth because I don’t want this guy to think I listen to this crap.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 357: No, I’m not eating at something called “The cookery” all lit up like the bastard child of Christmas and Las Vegas in the middle of BFE. I have, like, 1300 mliles left to go. I’d like to do it without a serious case of the poos.

Posted by Mike:
Mile 366: We’re on a bridge.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 407: Welcome to West Virginia. Wild and Wonderful. Yes, the sign actually says that.

Posted by Mike:
Mile 421: Ohai-o.

Posted by Mike:
(Almost) Mile 521: Missed our goal of reaching Kentucky for the night and we’re spending the night outside Columbus, OH.

Sunday

Posted by Mike:
Mile 542: WAFFLES.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 542: Having breakfast at the friendliest Waffle House I’ve ever been to. They sing HELLO! in unison when someone walks in and everyone is overly nice. BONUS: Most everyone has their teeth!

Posted by Mike:
Coffee run for Ali.
Bonus: You can see a very excited Ali in the bottom of this picture.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 542: Canadian treats in Ohio!

Posted by Mike:
Mile 647: Filling up just outside Cincinnati.

Also Midwest, what’s up with the Arby’s at every exit on the highway? Gross.

Posted by Mike:
Mile 657: Rainy Cincinnati.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 660: I hear Deliverance in the distance… Welcome to Kentucky.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 758: Ironic tourist “Hi Mom!”

Posted by Ali:
Mile 843: Anyone got an ark we can borrow? Driving through the beginning of the apocalypse heading out of Kentucky and into Tennessee. This rain is seriously messing with our driving mojo. Any minute now I fully expect to see a cow floating by.

Posted by Mike:
Mile 892: Every exit is either a Cracker Barrel, Arby’s or Waffle House.

Or adult stores. For the Bible-belt, you guys sure like your porn.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 911: The Colonel Is Ashamed. I see a Kentucky Fried Chicken sign. In Tennessee. Not one in all of Kentucky.

Even the namesake state knows that’s some nasty shit.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 912: Stopped at McDonalds in BFE, TN and this cat perches on the curb staring me down like I have pockets filled with Meow Mix. Mike rolls down the window and it meows at us and continues to stare. Like we’re on it’s turf.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 955: Ima die in Tennesee. Driving through devastated Nashville getting turned around by water and down trees. Passed by cops escorting military humvees. The apocalypse is upon us. But, for our dining needs, we have convenient Arby’s and Waffle Houses on every corner. Praise Jesus.

Posted by Mike:
Mile 992
Got stuck outside of Nasville, TN because of biblical flooding that closed major highways. We are taking a detour through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana home to Texas.
Ugh.

Monday

Posted by Mike:
Mile 1048: BRB, refueling.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 1061: Almost got ran off the damn road by an ice cream truck. The driver was too busy talking on his phone to see us.

I would have fully expected free ice cream for life as part of restitution.

Posted by Mike:
Mile 1070: Welcome Alabama. And NASA…? At a rest stop?

Posted by Ali:
Mile 1116: Lunch.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 1301: Welcome to Mississippi. Mike says Mississippi is cool because it has “pp” in the spelling. He’s 5.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 1507: Awww, mah sha! Bienvenue Louisiana, home of my people! Ima try to make it to Best Stop in Scott for grateans and boudin.

Mike says that I started talking a bunch of voodoo gibberish as soon as we crossed the border and doesn’t understand a word. He needs to learn.

Posted by Mike:
Mile 1560: These are Ali’s people. Stopped just outside of Baton Rouge at a gas station to use the bathroom. I go into the hot, moist bathroom and am greeted by the smell of death and swamp-ass as some dude craps with the stall door open.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 1571: If I had a nickle for every Waffle house, Arby’s and Cracker Barrel we saw on this trip, I’d never have to pay for gas again. Ever.

Posted by Mike:
Mile 1586: The Mississippi River. It’s big.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 1615: Whiskey Bay off the Atchafalaya River Basin. I grew up fishing, riding 3-wheelers and drinking beer at a very, very young age there. My dad, his dad and all of his brothers hunted there. We had a big camp that slept something like 20 people there and we’d spend weekends and holidays there in the Spring and summer. We had chickens, duck, geese, quail, turkeys and peacocks there. I loved that place.

Posted by Mike:
Mile 1650: In Louisiana they call this “food.”

Gross.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 1651: Enjoying Best Stop grateans (cracklins) both eating them and grossing Mike out.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 1752: THE LONE STAR STATE. Just passed the “El Paso 857 miles” sign. I love how ginormous and awesome this state is! I need to live here in order to have space to house my attitude and sass.

Mike says sometimes even Texas is too small for that.

Posted by Ali:
Mile 1865: Home sweet home. Walked to find flowers from our landlord. How awesome are they? We may live here forever.

Now, my bed is hollerin’ for me. Night, y’all!

Posted by Mike:
Mile 1,865.4: In our driveway in Houston.

—

That was our trip. Tennessee ate up a lot of valuable driving time (about 3 or 4 hours of drive time) that made our trip so much longer and we didn’t get home until 10PM on Monday night.

Tuesday was a long day of work. Wednesday will probably be just as rough.

All in all, we had fun driving. Just like when we did this drive four years ago when I moved to Houston. We’d do it again in an instant, we just wish we’d have more time to go slowly and be able to stop along the way and enjoy some of America on the way.

Yesterday morning Ali and I were watching Breakin’ and I got to thinking about the current political situation. Stay with me here, it’s about to get a little funky.

I mean fun-kay.

No. No, I mean funky. Sorry.

Breakin’ from IMDb is about

A struggling young jazz dancer (Lucinda Dickey) meets up with two break-dancers. Together they become the sensation of the street crowds.

And during their rise to become the “sensation of the street crowds” they fight dance the rival dance crew. This has become the standard in dance movies as far as I can tell, anyway. Ali watches them all the time whenever they are on cable so I see bits and pieces of these movies and they all have some kind of dance fight in them. They may start out with words and shoves and some of the angriest stares you’ll ever see but they always end in dance fights and each team walks away with a little more respect for the other side.

There all the same. Breakin’, the one with the thug life ballerina, the one with that chick from The Fantastic Four and so on. The model can even be interpreted into other types of movies like the one starring that white guy from Detroit who was popular for a few months in 1999. They all use dance (or rap) to fight their battles and over come great odds like the closing of a neighborhood community center, proving the love of a tough down and out street dancer for the classically trained dancer, and other gripping cultural issues.

And that’s when it hit me. Dance brings people to together.

There has been all these town hall meetings across America dealing with health care reform, something this country desperately needs. Without getting too much into the politics of anything Ali and I have seen what the costs of not having (good) health insurance are and that is something that no American should have to go through.

Now at these town hall meetings I’m sure you’ve seen the news clips of people standing up and screaming their fears and opposition.

(There are many like this video, and worse.)

This is where my genius comes in. Yes. Genius. Are you sitting down for this? Go ahead. Sit. Brace yourself. I’ll wait.

…

All set? Cool.

Forget town hall meetings. By looking at the news all they do is devolve into screaming matches. The only thing that can bring these two sides together? That’s right. Dance.

No more town halls. Only dance halls. I have already written President Obama with my suggestions about dance hall meetings for health care and beyond. No more chairs, no more picket signs, no more battle lines. Only dance floors, pirouettes and pop n’ locks.

Imagine the two sides. Pro-reform, let’s call them The Sharks, and the Pro-Status quo, let’s call them The Jets. Now imagine them dancing. Singing. FOR AMERICA!

I like to be in America!
O.K. by me in America!
Ev’rything free in America
For a small fee in America!

Problem solved.

I even think President Obama should get out of his chair and dance while doing his YouTube videos. Nothing helps pass policy like jazz hands.

FOOL! Dancin’ don’t create problems! It solves ‘em!

The whole skit can be found here. If you can only handle a few seconds of this clip, make sure it’s the last 10 seconds.

Or as Ali would say I say it, “Kawffee Tawk.”

The other morning Ali looked at me all sad and pathetic and asked me to go to H.E.B. on my lunch break to get her a pound of coffee because she was all out. Ali likes the Breakfast Blend, and to her the H.E.B. kind is the best.

As I walked around the plethora of whole bean dispensers looking for Ali’s magic Breakfast Blend beans I noticed a weird middle aged man staring at the bean grinder. Intensely. And at that moment I knew he was going to be trouble.

I found the mystical Breakfast Blend beans and filled up a pound bag and walked to the grinders as far away from the weird dude as possible. But they were for hippie organic coffee only. So that meant I had to go stand next to weirdo goober person.

“Hey. Getting some coffee?” he observed annoyingly.
“Yeah. Looks that way.” I say with as much jerkiness that I can muster.

See, I hate small talk, especially with strangers. I don’t like talking to a lot of people I actually know, why would I want to talk to you, old weird dude?

“I never liked coffee all that much.” He followed up with.

And at that moment, I knew that I had been given the opportunity to screw with this guy.

“I can’t get enough of it,” I said, which is a huge lie because I hate coffee. But hey, any chance to screw with somebody, I jump on it.

“How much does a bag that size last you?” He asked, pointing to the one pound bag in my hand.
“Hmmm. About 2 or 3 days I guess.” (It lasts Ali 2-3 weeks.)
“Wow! You must drink coffee all day long!”

These types of people always find Ali and I. They want nothing to do but talk our ears off and we have no idea how to stop it. Most times I try to ignore them and move on as fast as possibly, but I think from now on I am just going to engage them right back.

And have fun with it.

(Also, any of you on Tumblr? Add me. http://hellamike.tumblr.com)