Of hairspray and literature - a weekend with the Pulpwood Queens

Thelma and Louise embarked on yet another road trip last weekend. We hurled ourselves into Trish's Jeep and barrelled (unsuspecting) down I-20 toward a quaint but haunted town called Jefferson, TX, near the Louisiana border. (Who knows what happens near the Texas/Louisiana border? Shadows of the Caddos and all manner of spirits populate the air out there.)

We were headed for Girlfriend Weekend, a book fair hosted by a woman who can blow your hair back with her megawatt personality and then blow it out into a 'do that would make That Girl proud. Kathy Patrick, the megawatt in question, is the owner of Beauty and the Book, a combination beauty salon/ bookstore (we're not kidding) in Jefferson. Girlfriend Weekend - an annual event for her book club (now with chapters all over the world) the Pulpwood Queens - brings women from around the country to tiny Jefferson, where they meet and greet authors, listen to their stories, and then fancy themselves up into confections of fuchsia, leopard print and tiaras, then dance themselves silly at the Ball of Hair (formerly known as the Hair Ball.) Can't you just smell the Final Net?

Notes from the road:

Louise: Okay, I started the weekend having burnt the Pancho Villa candle at both ends. I admit that. I was grouchy. Pouty. Whiny. I needed a glass of wine, a pair of flannel jammies and a long visit with my best friend, Trish. All three of which I got, and in spite of the haunts at our B&B (the woman in the white gown, in particular), we both got a good night's sleep. Up the next day (the last two to arrive at breakfast, of course), and we were off to the Methodist church for our first taste of Girlfriend Weekend. We walked in, Kathy Patrick (wearing a fuchsia t-shirt and a tiara) turns to the woman next to her and says, "I guarantee you, these are the two girls from Austin." Then to us, "I could tell as soon as I saw you walking across the parking lot." Which we took as a compliment. Even though I'm from Dallas.

Check out this video of Kathy Patrick talking about us:


Thelma:

At first I thought we'd missed an exit and somehow ended up at the Iowa caucuses. We walk up to this church classroom, fully expecting to have to register and jump through a bunch of fuschia hula hoops before anybody would even give us the time of day. But here she is, Kathy Patrick herself, flinging the door open for us and shooing us in out of the snow flurries. And there they are, the donuts, coffee and bottled water sent over by the Boy Scout troop. We get name-tagged, to be sure, take a folding chair with the rest of the women gathered there. This, apparently, is It then -- a very intimate gathering of early arrivers. An author takes the podium, and it's Denise Rodriguez, who's written a controversial New York Times best-seller called Kabul Beauty School about her expat life in Afghanistan. She's got long, flame-glo colored hair. She looks a little out of place in a church classroom. We all do, I guess. So does Lynette Shirk, the snarky cookbook author, dressed in a t-shirt, white crinoline and wild shoes. Louise elbows me in the kidney. "Hey! I think that's the supermodel over there in the leopard print shawl." I scan the room. There are seven leopard print shawls, but only one of them wraps around a brunette who could easily pass for Audrey Hepburn or Sophia Loren circa 1979. She is in fact Paulina Porizkova, the Face of the Eighties, married to a rock star, and sitting in a church classroom in Jefferson Texas promoting her new novel. She looks like someone who'd feel awkward taking herself too seriously. We decide we like her. Louise buys her book. We decide to splurge on an early, boozy supper before the evening programs start. We just can't wait to be entertained.


Louise:
Okay, our publicist didn't show up. She'd just gotten back from a trip to New York, during which she'd seen lots of terrific theater, eaten fabulous meals, walked miles in that amazing city, and caught a cold. All we got out of that was the cold part. She called in sick at the last minute (we forgive you, Lisa), so we were on our own. Which is generally not a good thing. Sort of like my Aunt Jewel and my great-grandmother Ruth. I knew them when they were in their 80s and lived in a little speck of a town called Shamrock, TX. Grandmother Ruth was afraid to drive and Aunt Jewel was blind. You get the picture. The whole town knew to avoid their mint green Lincoln Town Car. So Trish and I find out, through a series of unfortunate events, that we (the two singers from Austin, even though I don't sing and I am from Dallas) are the post-event entertainment that night. Um...


Thelma:
Suddenly I'm apoplectic. This news galvanizes me into my scary alter-ego, Thelma the Neurotic Fatalistic Tour Manager. We ditch our plans for an early supper and drive around until we find the Bull Durham Playhouse, to advance our gig. What if there are no microphones? No cables? No speakers? I've brought the absolute wrong guitar, the kind that doesn't plug in because it's too nice to drill a hole in for the electronics. I dig a microphone out of the Jeep, one I never use because it's too hard to EQ, figuring it may have to do. My career is over at this point anyway, in my psychotic mind. Louise didn't bring a fiddle at all. She's a writer from Dallas, not an Austin musician. We've never even played together, unless you count "Come On Eileen" at a loud bar with six other guys backing us up. Or those Christmas carols we butchered last month after a little too much champagne. Oh well. We decide to punt and hope for the best.

The guys at the theater couldn't be nicer. They cobble some gear together and then take us over to Charlie Clampitt's hand-made instrument shop, where they're sure Louise can get outfitted. I start to begin to try to relax. I'm fixin' to. Any minute.

Louise: Well, the fellas were nice. She's got that right, for sure. In fact, every single person we met in Jefferson, including the ghost, was polite, literate, interesting and unfailingly helpful and friendly. So Trish sort of started to relax after quite an impressive meltdown and then I got wound up because I realized were on in half an hour and I didn't know the songs. Note that I look slightly dazed:


But we got through it and almost no one knew how many clams we were dropping. At least they said they didn't.

Then we went back to our B&B and cracked open our bottle of wine, which we should have done in the first place...

Stay tuned for more from Girlfriend Weekend with the Pulpwood Queens