cease-whine / rocky ripple

Okay, I'm done whining about all our work. I've written twenty pages of the novel in the last three days. And they're good! (I think).

Dan, though, has had an irritated throat and a slightly hoarse voice ever since he took a sip of one of those 5 Hour Energy drinks somewhere just east of Seattle. (There is absolutely no convincing him that this month-long ailment is not solely to blame on the 5 Hour Energy drink.) It's very slight and apparently not painful, but it's making it hard for him to sing, and therefore hard to complete songs, and he's understandably pretty cranky about it. Anybody have any miracle cures for persistent throat irritation? Brian?

Yesterday we went to a "festival" in Rocky Ripple. Rocky Ripple is a small neighborhood of houses clustered along a canal in the dead center of Indianapolis, just a five minute drive from my grandmother's house. But Rocky Ripple is pretty secluded, despite being inside the city; it's incorporated as a township and they even have their own mayor. It has a legacy of settlers from Appalachia and Kentucky, and is also described as "bohemian," and I've always been curious to visit. Turns out, Rocky Ripple is weird and kind of creepy and fairly awesome.

There were missing teeth and teenagers with babies, like we were a hundred miles outside of the city. Octogenarians hobbled about everywhere, a good 25% of the population in attendance, some of them wearing obviously homemade clothes. Others wore shirts made for the occasion that said, "I'm not lost, I live here. ROCKY RIPPLE." A group of old men cooked corn in the husks in a cast-iron oven. The ex-mayor sold magnets and had Weird Al hair to match his Weird Al face. A woodworker sold rolling pins. A blacksmith sold chainmails. Twentysomething dudes played southern rock on a gazebo and sounded like they were in their sixties. This is an exaggerated comparison but I swear it reminded me of that scene in I'm Not There when Billy the Kid is hiding in that weird town and Jim James sings "Goin to Acapulco" and everyone is dressed for Halloween.



Anyway. It was one of the many moments on this trip when I've turned to Dan and said, "Don't you feel like we're in America?" and Dan has answered with a slow, awestruck nod.