at the end of an 8000-mile road

we're back in texas!

and with weather like this, i'm so very glad to be here. sunshine abounds and the bluebonnets are in bloom. there is nothing like a field of bluebonnets. is someone working on weed control for those nasty yellow things that are encroaching on the bluebonnets? you know what i'm talking about...that stalky weedy looking thing? it's very worrisome (in so far as wildflowers and weeds can be worrisome).

so another midwest/northeast tour comes to close. we had a great time, despite two or three 12 hours drives and one stellar 18 hour drive from wisconsin to texas. i have never been so happy to pull into the suburban driveway of my parents' home as i was on monday morning at 4 am.

we met some amazing people. near the top of the list - dan from univ of WI in eau claire, who came to all of our shows at the university and spent his weekend handing out flyers and trying to drum up a crowd for us. super mille grazie to dan. thanks also to amy and greg for housing us, to brian sauer for organizing a great concert in marshfield, WI and for being super-hospitable, to heather and kohl for being the best ever, to vicki and chris and stella for letting us crash their wonderful home for days on end (probably days that seem without end for them). to corbet for being our photographer, to dustin and kim for hosting tonight's house concert. to kate for opening a super cool coffeehouse in sheboygan. we are so lucky to have so many friends all over the country.

random things:
it's always fun to be driving around with manuel, because he notices things that i don't ... like how everyone passes on the right here (which is super-illegal in italy). yesterday we were driving down the highway and RIGHT in the middle of my lane was a desk. like one you would sit at to work on. i swerved and missed it, luckily, but right in front of us was a truck laden with the possessions of an entire family, and not a cord in sight to tie it all down. these sorts of things don't faze me at all (especially here in texas) but they totally freak him out. and he's right - that's how the desk ended up in the road, i imagine.

we saw some "cool" kids out at dinner last night and got to talking about the concept of being cool....in Italy, the whole idea of popularity just flat out doesn't exist. there might be the cool kids and the weird kids and a bit of everyone in between, but the groups just kind of peacefully co-exist; until recently there wasn't even bullying - in fact, it's all over the papers as of late because it's this new terrifying thing. how amazing it would be to grow up in a place without the pressure of trying to fit in - where everyone just does their own thing.

one more thing - election campaign finance. i'm so immune to that sort of thing, so reading yesterday's headlines of $26M for Senator Clinton, $25 for Senator Obama, etc... it barely registered for me. but manuel shook his head and made a pretty damn good point - why aren't we embarrassed by this? not just americans - humanity in general. we spend ungodly sums of money to elect our candidates .... the $100M raised so far by various candidates would go a loooong way towards feeding a whole lot of people. towards cancer research. towards green energy research. towards healthcare. and yet millions and millions more will be raised in the coming 18 months before the next election. to what end?

i, for one, am without answers. i will stop passing on the right, always secure my valuables in the bed of a truck, will work to eradicate the entire notion of popularity...but election campaign money just seems beyond me right now. i am without ideas.

hugs to all of our listeners - thanks for keeping us on the road with your contributions to OUR campaign.
lots of love
vanessa