#anyways thought of them while i was on the bus n crazy how a hurricane and thinking of drawing girls combats the art block lol

[phant0m-ch3rry]

you can see my heartbeat tonight <3

they were my FAVS they are my LOVES i am a midge and weird barbie stan to my core!!

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Lost Number

Even at sunset, the yellow fireball in the sky was scorching hot, and there was not a single waking soul around for miles. A dusty old tour bus softly swayed in the unforgiving desert winds. Beached in the sand like a steel whale, the bus stood several steps away from the road, a thin strip of cracked asphalt that cut through the landscape of red sand, sparse vegetation, and rocky hills.

The door on the side of the bus burst open, and a lean figure stumbled outside. If anybody but a vulture perched on a rock had been looking, they would have had to have taken a moment to discern the gender of the person who had emerged from the large vehicle.

It was Kevin. His androgynous attire was typical of a grungy stage persona, perhaps a rock musician of sorts. Black boots and fingerless gloves, nylon stockings, a weird blend of half-cut and half-ripped shirts and vests as well as shorts. His fingernails were, in an alternating pattern, painted black and white each, his face smudged with stark white paint and smeared mascara that had dried after running from his eyes, and his bright red hair was a mess of strands of hair jutting in all directions. In a way that looked like a deliberately stylized mess. Well, mostly.

As he leaned forward, he staggered as if he was losing balance but then braced himself against his knees with both hands. Accompanied by squelching sounds and a disgusting stream of orange-beige something ejecting from his mouth in a stream, he vomited onto a patch of sand in front of him. And then some more. A few minutes passed there. After spitting a few more times, he wiped over his mouth with the back of his hand and convulsed, visibly fighting the urge to vomit yet again.

Kevin stood back up straight and looked wobbly on his feet. He looked around, unclear as to where he was. As if the desolate sight of his surroundings made him dizzier than he must have already been, he stumbled back towards the bus door he had exploded from. He paused when he heard a coyote howl in the distance.

The blue sky was melting into a painting of red and pink tones, dabbed with strokes of clouds pulling up. The sun was setting quickly. With one more glance towards the dying light, Kevin winced and pulled himself into the bus with the aid of the railing inside.

He looked around. The inside of the bus looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. Part of that was to be expected, as it belonged to the usual scenery. Half-empty beer cans, a crumpled stack of pizza boxes, an ashtray that had been overturned, leaving a chaos of ashes and cigarette butts strewn all over the place, a used condom hanging from a drawer handle, lines of cocaine that had been haphazardly sniffed off of a bass guitar now resting on a cushioned bench, a bag of chips that crunched under one of Kevin’s boots as he took a cautious step inside, and so forth. In fact, it was impossible to stand anywhere without stepping on trash of some sort.

What was not to be expected was the absolute absence of anybody else.

Kevin shoved the toilet door open. Nobody. He gripped the handle to a back room and felt something wet. He looked at his hand and it was covered in red. He raised the hand to his face and sniffed. Then timidly licked it. Ketchup, but really sour. Disgusting. He swung the door open. Nobody. With more sounds of cracking and crackling and crunching under his boots as he traversed the bus, he returned to the driver’s seat. Nobody there, either. No keys in the ignition.

At this point, he was trying to reconstruct what had happened to everybody. The events of the night before were a jumble. He blamed the brownies and seven cans of beer. Their band was called The Lost Number. He was Kevin Fuller, the bassist. After last night’s gig at a roadhouse, and an encore of their fan favorite Sexy Vampire in the Basement, they had wound up in the bus in the company of some groupies with a lot of food, booze, a modest amount of drugs. And they had partied. Hard.

Some of it was coming back to him. Him and Brent had dunked Rick’s head in the toilet after he had passed out from snorting coke with a nosebleed and they could barely stop laughing at how he flailed around with a sopping wet head while waking up like that. One of the girls had dared Kevin to make out with her guy friend and he did it nonchalantly as he was bi-curious anyway and had been way too stoned to care. Brent pulled a gun and shot through the roof of the bus, yelling something about nobody calling the cops—and right now, Kevin looked up in the middle of the bus and saw the bullet hole. Then blinked. His hands were shaking.

He pushed his cocaine-covered bass aside and finally sat down in the messy booth with an exhausted groan. Leaning over and struggling with his head spinning from the motion, he fished a half-smoked joint off the floor. He blindly grabbed a stainless steel lighter off the table, flicked it up and lit the roach all in one fluid motion that spoke volumes of pointless drug excesses.

Where the hell was everybody?

Instead of calming him down, the hits he took brought back the most important memory. It was more like a flash of bright light, and he pressed his palm against his forehead, as if it would help against a surge of searing pain that shot through his brain.

“I can show you real magick,” Michael had said. “That’s magick with a ‘k’, the real deal.”

Michael was the guy he had made out with on the dare. Their strange conversations from later on that night were surfacing.

“The general rule of magick is that you always get what you give. Kinda like baking a cake but without the oven. With magick, you exchange the oven for something else, like getting the raw energy from something else. Like what? Y'know, like, human sacrifices.” He had followed that up with a magnetic chuckle.

Michael’s smile had been most enchanting. Kevin remembered feeling entranced by him as the night had dragged on. Kevin recalled having thought to himself that he thought that Michael had been magic—or magick with a ‘k’.

“Of course not. You’re only a monster if you look into the mirror and see one. See, the exchange rates on magick are way better than currencies. Depending on your breed of crazy, you will always get something for something else. Like, you never get a bum deal unless you try to game the system. You ever try that logic out in the stock market, you’re gonna get reamed. It’s an accountant’s wet dream, everything adds up. Pass that bong already?”

Kevin wracked his brain and looked around, pushing some junk off the table. Then rummaged through some drawers, though it was aimless and mindlessly done. They—as in all twenty-one people—had driven out here in the bus in the middle of the night. There had been no other cars. There were no clues. He had no idea what he was even looking for.

He took another drag from the joint, then coughed and dropped the thing and stamped it out on the stained velvet carpet.

“Lemme show you a, like, a trick,” Michael had said. He had led him to the back room and looked around. Then spotting the half-open safe, he had looked inside, pulled some drugs and other items out of it, and dumped them on the floor. Michael had looked around suspiciously, and put something into the safe. What it was, Kevin had not seen. He had been too trashed at that point to tell. Michael had toyed around with the safe and turned around to Kevin again. “You wanna find out what’s in there? Then you’re gonna have to figure out the combination, and I won’t tell you, but you can figure it out. If you’re willing to work some magick. With a 'k’. Yeah, I knew it. Your mind is fully open right now. You’re open to the whole universe up there.”

Kevin remembered seeing the clear, starry night sky over the desert. He also remembered digging in the sand with his bare hands. His gaze jolted down and his hands shot up, and he inspected his fingernails. The paint was chipped and flawed now, and there was dirt underneath his nails. A lot of it.

“So here’s how it’s gonna work. You dig a hole and read these words out loud. Then you bury this with one of the most prized possessions you have with you here, in the sands of Nowhere, US of A. Because a sacrifice is only a sacrifice if it means something to you.”

The familiar sting of cactus needles flared up from his left calf. Kevin remembered how he had drunkenly stumbled into one of those things out there, last night. On the way out to digging or on the way back? It was all too blurry. But what was in the safe, that did return to him. He had found his lighter in the safe. Though he reckoned that Michael could have picked it from his pocket like a stage magician, he only remembered it not making any sense how he had instinctively known the combination to get it back by just looking at Michael. Or how he had thought he was starting to hear people’s thoughts while looking at them last night.

“Neat, huh? Okay, look. I can show you—I can give you the real deal. Not just a minor bit of reality re-mixing, but the whole nine yards. The price is—it’s gonna cost you more, though. Way more. Y'know? The real question is, what do you want? What do you really want?”

Kevin made his way to the back room and looked at the safe. It was locked. He punched in a five-digit code. The device beeped, and nothing. He tried another. Still nothing.

“That kind of trade, that's—that’s woof. You’re messed in the head. Maybe it’s just the drugs talking. Look, it’s up to you. I just teach you how to fish, okay? The rest is your responsibility. But I mean, man, by paying a price that steep on this, you’re gonna be rocking some serious mojo. But there’s no telling what kinda bad juju will be following you around.”

Kevin did want to be number one. The main attraction of the Lost Number. Another star among the musical gods in the celestial halls of rock 'n roll legends. He had had a plan: he was going to have his breakthrough by the year 2020. But with his poor musicianship talents, too many drugs and too much alcohol, and misguided ambitions, that would have been difficult. Until now.

“And after this, we go separate ways. If we meet again one day, there’s no telling how that’ll end. You’ll start seeing the world in different ways soon. You won’t be going back. You sure you really, really want this?”

He punched the code one-one-three-three-three into the safe’s number pad. It beeped in a lighter tone and a green light flashed on the display. The small safe door clicked open. He looked inside.

Inside the safe was a mirror and Brent’s empty revolver. Kevin saw his own reflection.

—Submitted by Wratts

[sheehantravel-blog]

Days 24 - 27: New Orleans, LA; San Antonio, TX; and Austin, TX

In contrast to Nashville, New Orleans was actually a lot like I had expected it to be (a very good thing). The live music, the drinks, the nightlife, the people... there really wasn’t anything about it that wasn’t enjoyable. Besides Bourbon St being completely torn up by some major construction.

We got into New Orleans later in the day, and did the usual. Hotel, unload, freshen up, go out. I found a cool “live music and cocktail tour” of Frenchmen St that we booked for a couple of hours. It was a private tour, so there was just Maga and I, and another couple. Our tour guide was so awesome and full of knowledge about the history of the city. It was really cool to actually do an informative tour, since we haven’t done this yet anywhere. 

We went to four different bars. Well, Maga and I started at our pickup location. We got an uber there a little early just to be sure we wouldn’t miss the tour, and had a drink at the bar and were the only audience to the man playing acoustic guitar and the harmonica there. He had a lovely voice and I actually really enjoyed listening to him. We felt bad leaving since we were the only ones there... it was still early. I don’t think I can remember the names of all of the bars that we went to. The first one was called Maison’s I think? They had some band playing, they were good but not anything that blew us away. Maga got a variation of a moscow mule, her favorite, and I got an old fashioned. 

The next bar I don’t remember much. Maga struggled with an ATM machine. I snuck out and ran to the corner store with the tour guide for some cigarettes (I was drinking, yes I know you’re disappointed, and yes I know I should quit, thanks). Then I shared a smoke outside with a really nice girl named Sarah who was from Hawaii and lived in San Francisco, visiting New Orleans with her boyfriend for her birthday and their anniversary. Then it was time to go, so I didn’t get much experience or knowledge at this bar.

Our third bar was my absolute favorite. It was called Blue Nile, and it was the epitome of everything I ever thought New Orleans could be. We walked into this dimly lit bar that appeared as a really basement-looking dive bar. Then we saw the lights and the stage and heard the music... and wow.

This band was absolutely incredible. They had a really diverse group of at least eight people. The outfits were great, the passion, energy, dancing, and god the talent - everything that came out of these people were great. Walking into this bar and watching them perform was like a movie. And there was hardly anyone there! We were really enjoying ourselves there, but had to get to the last bar. But don't worry, Mama and I found our way back somehow late into the night and watched the band finish up their set. And they were right, they ended up filling up the place on a Tuesday night as if it were a Saturday. Someone bought a bunch of their CD’s and donated them to the crowd, and I got my hands on one. I feel like this kind of music is just so much better live, but I don’t doubt that they are amazing on record as well. I have yet to listen. But if any of you want to look into them, their name is Water Seed. 

It seemed as if we left Blue Nile and arrived at this last bar at the perfect time. We walked in and the band finished up their song some seconds later. Then all of a sudden the lead guy says to everyone, “Alright now everyone give it up for our good friend Quay as our special guest tonight!” Our freaking tour guide! He jumped on the stage and did vocals for the bands next song, I thought that we so cool. We had no idea, and like I said, he had just timed it so well.

Quay stuck around with us after the tour and helped us find a good place for food. He was a really great guy, it was cool to hear his story and get his recommendations. Oh! And can I just say that our Uber driver was just a doll? He went by the name Hope. He took us to our tour meet up location, and gave me his phone number to call him for a ride back when we were done downtown. It was so sweet of him to go out of his way to do that for us in the middle of a busy night. And he had so much information about New Orleans (like the huge pumping issue) and great recommendations as well. We love you Hope! 

The next morning, we found a place downtown kind of in the French Quarter to get some cajun/creole food. Maga and I both wanted jambalaya and gumbo. I also was told that I needed to try some crawfish or crawdads or whatever the hell. Love everything except the crawfish étouffée. What in the world are you people thinking? I thought it was disgusting, and the crawfish tails looked like tadpoles. I was pretty put off by it wish doesn't happen often, I typically love everything and anything. But, I tried it!

After lunch we went to Cafe de Monde, apparently a very popular french coffee shop in the French Quarter. They basically only had cafe au lait and beignets. Both were delicious, Maga and I had powdered sugar all over us. It as definitely worth the stop, I wish I had more pictures of this. We finished off the day by walking around the French Quarter a little more, peeking into shops, and then took a stroll by Bourbon St. It was completely torn up for construction, so I was glad we spent our one evening on Frenchman St instead. Bourbon just would have been way too hard to navigate, the whole middle of the street was just trashed and there was buldozers everywhere and big fences up with black cloth so you couldn’t see what they were working on. It took away from the experience a little bit, but I don’t think Bourbon St is my cup of tea anyways (get it, Frenchmen St, the French Quarter... tea...) Oh yeah, and I came across this somewhere near Bourbon St. If you don’t get it, don’t worry about it. 

However, the St Louis cathedral in Jackson Square was gorgeous. It was really sad to see our flag at half-mast, as always. It’s hard being in a big city after such a devestating event, you really look at people and the world a whole lot diffrently. Not always in a bad way, but you realize how often you take things for granted. I do my best not to. I try to be the best I can be to everybody I know. The world will know peace once we all treat one another the way that we would like to be taken care of. 

We then ended our day by stopping at the French open-air market before hitting the road to Texas. It was neat to see, but we didn’t find too much. I know I said before that I’m a souvenier junkie. Well, it all starts to get to be the same after a while. 

We had a hard time finding a hotel on our way through Texas towards Austin. We had to go through Houston, and didn’t even think about the fact that the hotels would be all booked up from all of the relocating. We had a stressful time trying to figure something out for about an hour, but we ended up being able to find something about a half hour back in the direction we came from. In my opinion, that was us getting lucky! We had a pleasant sunset coming in, though. 

Now for some reason, I have hardly any pictures from Texas at all. I don’t really remember getting into San Antonio because I had a really weird and concerning thing going on. I got car sick, not only from Maga’s driving, but I just can’t be a passenger in a vehicle anymore. I get sick if I’m not driving, usually. But we were about to come into busy, rush hour and big city traffic, so I wanted to drive, and I didn’t want to feel sick anymore. Well, when I started driving it got a lot worse. I think I needed to eat or something... I don’t remember anything and accidentally cut off a two part bus. Whoops. I’m okay thought and feel a lot better ever since.

We stopped in San Antonio for the river walk. I didn’t care to see the Alamo. Maga had seen it once before, and I’m sure the history is pretty amazing, but all it is really is a building that you can’t even go inside of. So for the sake of time and what not, I said let’s skip it. But the river walk was beautiful, and it was a nice hot sunshiny day, yet again. We’ve still been so lucky with the weather. I am concerned for New Orleans with this hurricane Nate though... the whole city is literally a bowl. A bowl with poor drainage and pumping systems. With a literal huge river that lies ABOVE everything. Where do you think the floodplain goes?! Alright. 

We then drove to Austin. I had to beg Maga to go to the Congress St bridge. Haven’t heard of it? It houses 1M-1.5M Mexican bats. I guess in the summer months they come out all at once at dusk and it’s supposed to be amazing. Google a picture! Maga is afraid of bats, but I wanted to go so bad and had to pull her arm. I feel horrible because the bats didn’t really come out and we had to pay for parking and navigating through downtown Austin is no fun. But there was so many people out waiting on the bridge! The bats did come out a little bit, but stayed below the bridge. It was so dark at this point and they were hard to see. But I did see some bats!

Then we thought it would be a good idea to spend the rest of the evening on 6th St, because we heard that that’s where things are happening. Well, this was on a Thursday, which was college night. And a lot of these bars are actually 18+ clubs. BUT we had a great time at the bars that we went to. The first bar had an awesome rock cover band and an amazing rooftop with two bars and games in the back. The next place we went to was a rock n’ roll dueling piano place, and we made some nice friends there who started out as just a stranger buying our drinks for us. He wasn’t creepy, wasn’t hitting on us. Crazy right? A genuine guy who teaches martial arts to little kids who have black belts, makes his own moonshine, whiskey, and vodka,  and is studying business. He says that he tries to always do acts of goodness to strangers, in order to “return the favor” of other people doing nice things for him. We thought that was pretty cool. There may have also been some drunk pizza eating involved in our night during the uber ride back...

The next day, we got some good local coffee at some Monkey something or other place, and then went to a really awesome and ritzy outdoor mall. Maga may or may not have dropped some cash. I like it when she spoils herself, she deserves it. We got lunch at this place called Yard Bar -  an actual dog park BAR. And small restaurant. It was so cool! You have to eat outside of the actual fenced in part of the park, but you can drink anywhere. It was another lovely day out, dogs everywhere having a blast and their owners hanging out in the sunshine drinking drinks. What a great idea. 

We then spent that night in Lubbock I think? Tried to cover as much ground as we could on our way to Colorado. It was late, Maga and I got Chipotle, and thats that. 

I apologize for the lack of pictures for these past few days for us. We must have been real busy? But this last week and a half of our travels consist of a lot of parks, so you’ll see way more pictures, I promise! I am SO excited to get to Colorado (we’ve been in Texas for like three days) and finally see some red rocks. Woo!

Ki 10/4-10/6