In which Kimberly Colburn and I dedicate our time and resources to a theatrical collaboration that stretches the boundaries of sanity and good taste: PANDA MEETS AMANDA. Amanda is a dominatrix who wants to destroy civilization as we know it. Panda is a depressed panda.
Lee Sunday Evans, in addition to being a director and a soda-fountain-explorer and a great-boot-wearer and a fabulous travel companion, is a street photographer. She places me against walls, as we wander through the world, and then she takes pictures. 
There are some great walls in Kansas. Here are two more that I found, and did not stand in front of: 
I went out to Kansas for the Inge Festival.
I did not find: a tornado.
I did find: a lot of fun people, a jacuzzi in my bedroom, and all of the below: 1) beautiful old buildings, from the times of oil-boom prosperity. 
2) An amazing woman named Ilene, who wears green fascinators and told me and Lee Sunday Evans: “I have gone to sleep every night and woken up every morning for 86 years, and that gives me great confidence.” And she was right. 
3) A drug-store with a soda-fountain…and a jukebox. Lee Sunday Evans and I went for dinner one night, and when we got our bill, we saw that we had been recognized for what we truly are. 
4) Crop insurance! 
5) One of these two things: 
During Humana: 
After Humana: 
Sometimes they are sad. And sometimes they are homicidal. But sometimes they just recognize the inherent bleak existentialist despair that informs every moment of our short and arbitrary lives. 
Sometimes I read articles like How To Grow An Avocado Tree and then I look at my very tall and very gangly and a little bit mangy tree named Toxic Seven, whose leaves all fell off recently when he encountered a drought (but have started growing back), and I think: Oops, I did it wrong. But then I think: this tree maybe be mangy and he may have scoliosis and I may not have done anything right because I didn’t know anything about avocado trees when I adopted him, but he’s mine and I love him. And then I think: maybe this is what parenting is like?
