Lawrence, Kansas – I am a huge basketball fan. Okay, it’s more that I’m a fan of huge basketball players, but I’ll sit through a game for them anyway. That’s why I came to Lawrence after all. James Naismith, the old fogey who invented basketball is buried here. He had this totally awesome brain hemorrhage and then died. Apparently the University of Kansas police don’t like it when you sneak into the Pioneer Cemetery and hold a candle-lit picnic with Naismith’s ghost at three in the morning. They also don’t seem to like being doused with Everclear and set on fire, if the screaming I heard while running away is to be believed.

I got lost in the Bowersock Dam a couple of hours later. I’d stopped off for some nachos at Lawrence’s own El Mezcal, but they were closed because it was 4:30. I broke the lock and made my own though. Anyway, I headed over to the dam, and let me tell you: not impressive. Did you know it takes only 53 bags of trash to gum up the whole spill system?

I mean, they make a big deal about having had the first corrugated paper plant west of the Mississippi, but who really gives a crap about corrugated paper and who had a plant for it first? That’s the kind of stuff that bores you to tears on first grade field trips. Sometimes I think those field trips to the county museum and the river walk influenced the way I behave on trips, but most of the time it’s just how stupid people are. They’re also real happy they had the first “sanitary sewer” in Lawrence. Yeah dudes, pipes for poop!

Later that weekend I did get to help the Lawrence Police Department. Well, sort of. See, I was sunbathing topless in the part near my motel and this hunky dude came over to talk to me. I sort of got him to unzip his pants to show me the tattoo of Shoki the Demon Slayer he said he had, but then all these cops showed up and I had to get out of there.

On my way out of town today I stole a few Naismith Street signs, but otherwise Lawrence just wasn’t much fun. Next up: NEW YORK!!!

Rascard, NH– Set in the darkest and deepest hollows of New Hampshire’s forested hinterland bordering Sinonipponesia, Rascard, a sleepy little New England town right out of a picture postcard, nestles within a large meadow. But, I wasn’t coming here to look at the local scenery, nope. Trees I’ve seen. Wildflowers are old hat. I came here to see the local color, specifically Hermie Luger, who the townsfolk affectionately call “The Measuring Man.”

Mrs. Gina Wilkins, The Measuring Man’s long-ago high school sweetheart spoke to me for a bit on her rooster-decorated verandah. The closed-in porch was filled to the brim with rooster paraphernalia and the diminutive, middle-aged Mrs. Wilkins made no bones about her continued visits with Hermie. Visits some townsfolk consider scandalous.

“Why, Hermie comes on by any old time he likes to measure the cocks. He’s brought his own over sometimes,” Mrs. Wilkins told me. I wondered how a man could measure so many things throughout the course of his life, but then I met The Measuring Man himself at the local diner comparing stacks of flapjacks.

Armed with his trusty and ever-present tape measures, rulers, yardstick, calipers and a smile, the former landscape architect spends his every waking hour measuring. From dawn till dusk he wanders throughout the town measuring everything he can get his hands on. The guy can’t even walk by a picket fence without stopping to measure every single picket in all three dimensions.

His cargo pants and measurer-laden halter are both made by hand by his mother Mamie Luger, whose measuring cup and measuring spoon-filled kitchen may have something to do with The Measuring Man’s proclivities. Mamie has the state’s largest collection of such objects, with over 3000 1/4 teaspoons alone. She also gave Hermie his first laser calipers, which he now uses almost constantly.

“Four point one eight inches,” Hermie triumphantly declares, holding out a pine cone for me to examine. It seems he knows the width, breadth, height and circumference of every single object in this little rustic town. From the campus bell tower to the shoe size of every man on Lenton Street, The Measuring Man has a notation in his workbook. Neighbors say he’s friendly, helpful, and always ready to measure anything be it a lead pipe or a robin egg.

Of course, I say The Measuring Man is a creepy weirdo. For one thing, he offered to measure my vaginal depth and then even tried to measure the circumference of my left areola. So, I kicked him in the balls and then smacked him in the face with his own meter stick. Pretty ironic, huh? And then I told him to measure how far I’d shove my boot up in his ass. Stupid Measuring Man.

Hopefully these laser calipers will come in handy at some point. See ya next month!

I came to Templeton, Accadia because of its reputation as the relationship advice capital of the world. according to the Relationship Advice Weekly Circular, anyway. My editors say they get a lot of mail about my love life as described in this magazine. That really made me want to stab all of you in the eyes with mechanical pencils and then click the end a lot so that the lead went all the way back into your brain. It also made me decide to peep Templeton and get some questions answered.

My first stop was at Love Success Publications, Ltd., home of Jimmy Gwaltney the famous relationship advice author and lecturer. I met with Jimmy, who is apparently a fan and provided some stupendous nachos during the interview as well as some nice Mexican suds. Anyway, I asked him my first question: “What does it mean when a guy says he wants to have sex with me?” This is kind of where the interview started to go downhill because he laughed at me.

“So, okay, maybe that’s too obvious,” I said. “What about if he asks me out to dinner. What does that mean?”

Jimmy seemed to choke a bit before answering that “pretty much any time a guy says something to you that he doesn’t have to, he wants to have sex with you.” Then he laughed some more. Shortly before I broke his arm for that, he tried to qualify that by saying guys were interested in talking and companionship sometimes. Then I had to hightail it out of there as the receptionist heard all the breaking glass when I tossed all of Jimmy’s awards through the window and smelled the smoke from the fire I set using his copies of his latest book as kindling.

I stole some keys on my way out. Turns out one of them was to this sweet Japanese motorcycle out front. So I took that for a spin, picked up a strawberry shake at a drive through, but then tossed it into oncoming traffic as I ran a red light because it tasted like cardboard. Sorry about that truck, guys. Hope that ASPCA van came through okay.

So I took this opportunity to visit one of the many freelance relationship experts whose offices dot Templeton. Mistress Bitney Jones-Kopaceki had a great place with this huge, plush, red couch and lots of incense, so I totally felt right at home. We cracked open a bottle of red wine and I got down to business.

“If a guy doesn’t call me five minutes after we’ve gotten off the phone, does he hate me?”

Mistress Bitney confirmed that, yes, if a guy doesn’t call you back within five minutes he probably thinks you’re ugly. I also found out that if he doesn’t want to spend six hours chatting on the phone or via instant messenger late into the night, he’s probably sleeping with other people. I knew it!

My last stop was with sex and relationship therapist Stanleyetta Johnstone. See, I’d had this really weird hookup back in Albuquerque I wanted to ask about. I almost didn’t make it to Johnstone’s spacious office with the interior waterfall because I had to stop off at the candy store. And, of course, they were real turds when I was walking around sampling the different sweets in there. Of course the rage just took over and I cracked open that emergency fire hose in the corner and let it rip. Have fun restocking that inventory boys!

But anyway, like I was saying, I was in Johnstone’s office sitting next to this awesome waterfall and I had to get the last question off of my chest.

“If we’re having sex, and I’m just laying there like a starfish not responding for five minutes, and he starts asking me if this feels good, or if that feels good, or if there’s something else I’d like him to try, does that mean he’s not really attracted to me?” And boy if the answer isn’t yes.

I had the feeling that going to Templeton would clear up for me the fact that guys are scumbags and I got the answers I was looking for. Men! Just for that I just might head up to Dry Michigan, known as “The American Isle of Lesbos.” See you next month!

Atlanta, GA– Why, you might ask, am I writing this award-neglected travelogue from Atlanta, even though the fat cats at Axes & Alleys paid for a trip to Reykjavik? Well, it all has to do with the little light-up signs on the airplane. When you need to put on your seat belt the sign shows a seatbelt. Makes sense, right? Now, the No Smoking sign shows a cigarette, doesn’t it? Not a pipe. In fact, no one ever mentioned pipes at all and yet you pull out a pipe after dinner and they act like you’re a godless communist or something. I mean, for Christ’s sake, they’ll bring you a brandy. What was I supposed to do, just sit there drinking brandy and not smoke a pipe?

Yeah, so they went all ballistic and I got stuck in Atlanta. Luckily, I met this cute doctor at the hotel bar. It was lucky for me because he works at this company called CDC and offered to give me a special guided tour. And it was lucky for him in a few different ways that I won’t mention because this is a family magazine.

CDC is a pretty cool company, I guess, you know like in a futuristic way. But their headquarters is pretty big and it’s easy to get lost. There are lots of long, white corridors and rooms full of science and medicine and stuff. They probably even have a janitor’s closet reserved for “maths.” Anyway, they had the biggest refrigerator I’ve ever seen, like almost as big as a whole Arby’s!

There were also a bunch of vials and stuff, and it turns out they were all drugs. Sweet. Though I didn’t know the actual street value of the stuff, I figured it would be fun to try them out and see what happened. I am a journalist you know, and I seek the truth, especially the truth about cool new drugs that even I’ve never heard of like Smallpox or Polio.

Turns out this stuff must have been really expensive. Seriously. You think they freak out when you get caught loading an ice machine from the hotel onto your truck, that’s nothing compared to how these CDC guys freaked. All these astronauts ran in the room and they were armed to the teeth. And they’re all yelling and stuff and made me put all the drugs back.

Atlanta is stupid. First, the hotel pool was closed and second the police won’t believe you when you say you’re not a terrorist. And police station coffee sucks. So, I’m like, who do you have to blow to get good coffee around here? Turns out it’s Special Agent Picket. He took me to get coffee and then while he was in the bathroom, I skipped out of there before I had to pay up on my part of the deal and hitchhiked to the bus station. Sherman was right; screw Atlanta, I’m going to Iceland.