Van Living/Memphis

For anyone who doesn't know or refused to refer to the FromTheVan link on either side of this blog, you should know that I've been living in a van (by choice) for the past four months and traveling the country with Brandon. He's a cool guy who I like and enjoy his company. We decided to just drop everything here in small-town Indiana after saving some money to travel the USA in a white mini-van we bought for cheap and tricked out.

It took some planning and saving, but we both did our part and took off in June of 2012 for Key West, FL. We ended up going across the country to the Pacific coast, up to Canada, through Montana and Wyoming down to Colorado, and then finally, back to Indiana to visit family. That's where we are currently, but only for a couple more days.

We're going to live in Memphis, TN, for an indefinite period of time while we gather up more money to burn on traveling again. Hopefully on our next trip we can do the east coast, which is the only part we have yet to travel to. There, we'll continue the podcast but do plenty of other stuff to keep ourselves from going insane. Brandon and I have a similar problem. We can't be bothered to stay in one place for very long. We've only been together for nine-ish months, but the entire time we've known each other well enough, we've been driving aimlessly together. First, it was across Indiana, but you can see how that changed.

We chose Memphis not for a specific reason like people have been asking, but for a few reasons, the most important of which being because we needed to choose a definite location. After a week of "I don't know; where do you want to live?" we finally decided to just go with the blues-centric southern city. It was either that or Lexington, KY.

Memphis also seems to have more comedy places than Indianapolis. I want to try out my shitty skills and do open mics, and Brandon might as well. He wants to also do some parody country music reminiscent of Mojo Nixon, which will be interesting to hear. It would have been nicer to live in Oregon or Colorado, but currently it would be too much of a hassle. Maybe some day.

I've lived in Indiana for so long I have started to develop the speech impediment that many south of Indianapolis seem to have. Everyone generalizes words instead of using the correct ones. "Car" for "van," "truck," "SUV," or anything remotely close to a four-wheeled vehicle. It's atrocious. No wonder it's considered a fly-over zone. I say this as if I've lived anywhere else, but actually, my family has lived here since the 1800s. I'm committing a crime by leaving, in a sense.

If you are unaware of Indiana, you should know that it should be referred to as the Land of Indifference. Nowhere in the whole country have I met so many people that just don't give a shit. We could vote, but who cares? We could go out for a run, but oh, well. We could rally for better schooling, but why? It's not that important, I guess. That may be why there is just nothing to do. I'm surprised so many people stayed for the Super Bowl, Indianapolis's claim to fame for the next forty years.

The Fairland Fish Fry was the only thing to do in my old town. And that's pretty much dead. I'm glad I'm getting out. I'm glad I could get out. Some of my high school friends won't. And they'll never see how awesome the rest of the world is. Small town livin'. It's not as great as it may seem. I don't recommend it.

Well, that's enough about me. Check out our podcast if you're interested, and if you have any questions about us, e-mail the website e-mail address or comment here and I'll get back to you.

-Alexis