Typo Hunt Across America

Somerville, MA

I had a going-away party at my house in Somerville on Saturday. Still not going to be leaving town for another nine days or so, but I figured best have the party before I start really obsessing over the last minutiae of preparations for the trip. I set up a Typo Creation Station in the living room, where guests could make their favorite typo and put it on the wall with sticky letters. Construction paper for cutting out states, real or metaphysical, was also provided. Some twenty-odd people showed up, and by the end of the evening the walls were covered with choice erroneous samples and all manner of bizarre cutouts. Needless to say, I was touched. I was even more moved by the well wishes and various offerings that my friends brought me to sweeten my months on the road. Now I have everything from a collection of comedic albums to a traditional hula-girl dash-enhancer to homemade road tunes to a ridiculously generous pair of gift cards that could serve well as bail should I occasion the wrath of some pastoral sheriff in the cradle of America. That’s one r and two f’s, mind you.

I started to think to myself what a fool I was for planning to leave these singular people behind for two and a half months, after I’d somehow been lucky enough to come into the grace of their friendship. And Jane for a month and a half, until I meet with her for our journey across the vast northern plains. Then my thoughts wandered to the even darker specter of what might happen if I only get into my grad school choices out in the far West. Yes, I always know what needs to be done, but that doesn’t make it any less wrenching. I understand, finally, how some folks, hell, many folks end up staying in the same area their whole lives. You draw the skeins of human connection about you until at last you feel that you belong. The fact that I’ve happened to fall in with people of remarkable warmth, humor, and generosity certainly doesn’t make it any easier.

But here is our chilly reality. I’m two days away from my twenty-eighth birthday, perilously close to the time when one must Get One’s Shit Together once and for all. This could be the last opportunity I have both the time and the funds for such a ludicrous adventure, before I go and really wreck my career for good. (Or, Inshallah, return to the snug bosom of academia for a spell.) This could also be the moment that I, and my illustrious companions in the service of TEAL, change the world. A fantasy, perhaps, but if the only way I have to make a dent in the world’s great hull of indifference is through alleviating a few verbal eyesores, then so be it.

So, my friends, I gots to do what I gots to do, but I’ll be back. And don’t believe for a hot second that I won’t be thinking of you all the while as I navigate the marvels and perils of this impossibly vast country.

Back to TEAL home 

Somerville, MA

Somehow I’m left with approximately two weeks until my intended departure date, even less if you count the “official” start date of the TEAL field trip as March 1, during which Jane and I will scout out typos in the greater Boston area (lest anyone accuse me or other members of the League of the dread sin of Northeastern elitism). I realize that I still have a lot of preparation to go. Burning questions such as “Where can two young men stay for the cheapest in Beaufort, North Carolina?” and “How can a body continually enjoy cold beverages on the highway without the benefit of a portable icemaker?” plague my mind and poison my sleep. All right, maybe it’s not that dire, but I’m still wondering how I’ll pull all this shit together in time. In the name of typo correction, though, I must persevere!

The trip will include a marvelous range of accommodations, including at least a few nights in a cavernous tent slung up in dark and lonely locales. So I was thankful that the “mummy”-style sleeping bag I cashed in my credit card points for– my polyester sarcophagus, if you will– arrived at my door this past Friday and not in 4-6 weeks (or forty-six weeks, as my grandfather used to say). I would be pleased if other vital pieces of equipment for the trip simply arrived at my house, summoned by some benevolent god of comfortable and economic traveling, but I suspect that I’ll have to do the legwork myself. I did recently purchase the first provisions for our journey. I spied a 48-count steamer trunk of Pop-Tarts on sale at Shaw’s and immediately called Benjamin.

Jeff: “Do you like Pop-Tarts?”

Benjamin: “Yeah, of course!”

Jeff: “Do you really like Pop-Tarts?”

I reckon that this abundance of toaster pastries–two dozen brown sugar cinnamon and two dozen frosted strawberry– should account for a major portion of our sustenance on the road. Peanut butter also sounds like a good idea. Bread. Things in cans. Getting back to the basics, just like our pioneer ancestors. My mother made a gift of five bars of soap, which will surely prove useful as my companions and I bathe in streams in secret glens to slough off the dust of the road. Or in the sink at McDonald’s.

For those rare occasions when Pop-Tarts prove inadequate, we can consult a book that I purchased, called Jane and Michael Stern’s Roadfood. The worthy, iron-gulleted couple cited in the title bring to the reader an overview of the best shacks, stands, and diners in our great nation. Also, I will be installing a “Donate Food” button above the comments section. A visitor to this site can click the button at any time to donate via PayPal, any major credit card, or against the credit of the Argentinian national bank. Upon completion of the transaction, a small door in the dashboard of my car will open, ejecting filets and hamsteaks onto the passenger seat. Please click often.

Back to TEAL home