We got off to a freaky start yesterday with a stormy, nighttime drive to Pullman, WA, where we now find ourselves waking to blustery winds, hot coffee, and friendly dogs at Wiggy Stardust’s sister’s house. Pullman is every inch a college town, loaded with franchise food and apartment clusters and permanently nooned by bright stadium lights. It appears suddenly after miles of rolling wheat fields, seemingly out of nowhere. Culturally, it is a world apart.
On the ride in, we talked about how as residents of the Northwest we tend to feel insulated in our comfy bubble of progressive values and local food obsession, and forget other parts of the U.S. have things like T.G.I Fridays, or a combination-megachurch-and-Wal-Mart. We acknowledge that we’re being judgey.
However, I’m also indulging in positive stereotyping. I love reading the strange names of once-successful supermarket and fast food chains that hold out their last bastions in small towns. Servethrift, Holman’s, Zip n’ Go. These places are quaint as fuck, and it’s easy to drift off into a momentary fantasy life of organic farming and antiquing away from the passive-aggressive city. Am I fetishizing? Yeah, probably. Definitely.
Whatever. I’m a city bitch. And I haven’t had my coffee yet.
Next up: Boise, and the lovely strippers of Hot Mess Burlesque!