My Little Golden Book of Phobias

I'm in Nashville, well somewhere outside Nashville in a Marriott, uck, where the conference is being held. There is bad food, nice beds, a weeny swimming pool and air conditioning. The outside is mostly concrete with small patches of grass. I went outside last night in the dark. I had to find some food I could actually eat. Like a bean burrito. The hotel gave us 'vegetarian lasagna', a gloppy hunk of carbos and a few whittled carrots. Today I tried a pretzel under a warmer thingy with squeeze bottles of mustard. Mustard, I thought, I like mustard. I got a pretzel and squished a whole bunch of mustard on top. One big bite and I entered a deep dark sad feeling of disappointment. It wasn't mustard, it was 'liquid cheese food'. Bletch. The South is grand and creepy, especially when trying to be meat free. If I liked barbeque, I'd be fine, I think.

BUT. There are crickets. All day, all night. I saw a few on the sidewalk. In spite of the food. Crickets cheered me up and helped to me live another day.

It sucks to be a food snob. It's stupid, actually. My friend Tommy had a theory. In the end times, if you couldn't eat garbage food, you'd die faster cuz you couldn't get vegetables and o, fruit. I don't care. I'd rather not eat than eat mashed potatoes mixed with bits of ham and dyed yellow. Under some flattened green beans. Ish.

Tonight we're gonna go into downtown Nashville and go to a restaurant. Maybe I can convince everyone to try a vegetarian restaurant. Otherwise I'll be reduced to the salad and some salted peanuts from the vending machine. Maybe I'll just drink heavily so I won't mind.

Nah.

Love from Your Travel Hostess