Visit the Scenic Florida Turnpike!

A view of the Florida Turnpike at mile marker ALL OF THEM.

There are many scenic roadways across the United States. The Florida Turnpike isn't one of them. It's flat. It's straight. It is lined by shrubbery that would make the perfect setting for a dinosaur movie, as long as you can edit out the electrical wires and billboards.

Here's what it's like as you roll hundreds of miles along the turnpike: Nothing nothing nothing cows nothing orange grove nothing nothing. This causes travelers to find ways to entertain themselves. You can spend time trying to pronounce the names of places you are passing: Osceola, Okeechobee, Okahumpka. Or you can ponder some fun facts...

Fun Fact! The Florida Turnpike was officially named the Ronald Reagan Turnpike in 1998.
Fun Fact, Part 2! No one knows why since Ronald Reagan never had anything to do with Florida.

An orange grove with electrical wires strung across it.

Another form of entertainment is the billboards. Here is a list of real billboards you will see along the turnpike: Gator Bait Air Boat Rides, RV World, 1-800-411-PAIN, Lion's Den Adult Superstore, Golf Shoe Store, Cafe Risqué, Garlits Drag Racing Museum, Antique Mall of Ocala, and anti-abortion signs with pictures of babies.

Fun Fact: There is an actual place in Florida called Yeehaw Junction.

So why do people travel on the turnpike? Well, there's this one little tourist destination called Orlando. And then there are our state universities: Florida State University in Tallahassee, University of Central Florida in Orlando, and University of Florida in Gainesville to name just three that have about 50,000 students each. College students and their parents from South Florida go up and back and up and back. Disney lovers go up and back and up and back.

We all know the turnpike so well that we can rattle off rest stop names like Fort Drum and Turkey Lake. The Waffle House signs looming over the road as we pass certain exits call to us. And we know that nowhere else in the world will you ever hear someone in a car utter, "I'm going to stop and pee in Okahumpka."

Yes, we just have to take our driving entertainment where we can get it. Yeehaw!

Book Ends

When I finish a good book, I get separation anxiety. It's that disorienting feeling you get when you move to a new town. Only this feels more like the town moved and you stayed behind.

Where'd all the people go? I can still hear their voices in my head. I get them. I know how they feel, what they think, whom they love, what they hope for. But now they're gone! All of them! I clutch the physical book, stare at the cover art, look for any hidden extras in the back like book club discussion questions or bonus biographical information about the author. I want anything that will help me linger a bit longer in the world that just ended when I flipped the last page.

In the real world, we don't get to see into other people's minds. But when we read, we get an invitation into the narrator's head. And if the book switches around to multiple narrators, as in the last two books I read (Bel Canto and The Luminaries) then the reader gets to travel into so many minds, seeing all the flaws and struggles that most real people cover up in the course of their real lives: the honest devastation, the elation, the fears. We become closer to these imaginary people than people in real life, because there is no way to see real people this intimately. Even memoirs that attempt to be fully open and honest are blocked in some way by the writer's own delusions of self. But there's no one more fully self-aware than a well-written character in a novel by a gifted writer.

So what is there to do? I mope around for a couple of days in order to recover from the book's end, and then I look at the unread pile on my nightstand, pick one up, and meet some new people.

Bildungsroman and Doppelgänger

The New York Times Sunday crossword, 1/4/15

The first time I encountered the word bildungsroman, I said, "What the heck is that?" and looked it up. The second time I saw it, I said, "Wait, I looked that up before, but what is it again?" So I looked it up again. The third time, I thought for a moment and then remembered what it meant. And then finally I got to the point where I can be doing the crossword puzzle and pull bildungsroman out of my butt. Woo hoo! (Since some of my students read this blog, I figured I shouldn't use the word ass.)

Bildungsroman, which is the term for a coming-of-age story that follows the main character from childhood to young adulthood, builds into my taste in vocabulary very nicely since I'm already attached to the word doppelgänger. I was very excited when a couple of years ago I saw a T-shirt at Uniqlo that had the word doppelgänger (which is a look-alike or double); I didn't care that the overall picture said "Art of the Shadow: Doppelganger" and that it had some anime figures doing what looks like martial arts. When was I ever again going to find a shirt that said doppelgänger? Does this mean there may be a bildungsroman shirt out there somewhere?

I've worn my doppelgänger to near ruin.

Bildungsroman and doppelgänger. They make a perfect duo, don't they? This couple should join elite pairs like Sturm und Drang, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Bang & Olufsen. I'll let you look up these last sets yourself. One never knows what clues the next crossword puzzle may hold.