4AM The humming of the soda machines at the Staples Mills rail station could be an Angelo Badalamenti score. Laura Palmer's theme. The same hum as the frozen section in the Pleasure dome Giant Tiger, W. 117th. I forgot to wave bye to dad in his car when he drove away. It was a good hug though.
The canned black coffee is disgusting .. so awful. "Illy Cafe" no no. And what I did with it, I spilled the damn thing all over myself trying not to let moms bag fall over. Coffee strikes again, Teddy Roosevelt would be proud, guzzling a gallon a day ain't nothing I have that doesn't have a coffee stain. Coffee stain my life.
9:2 - Something AM. Filter Coffee shop on 20th St. NW in Washington DC. It took a bit of turning around to get here and some aching shoulders and a 2.40 dollar Metro ticket. w Pandas on it. Mom pausing to say she doesn't think she can do this in front of the 1890 mansion church of Scientology. A breather on the steps. We have so much luggage it's almost obscene. We're packing moms vintage light bulbs and I'm wheeling that around in her laptop rolling case. So I've got my unnecessary 2 bags plus this roller. Mom has her mid-sized roller and giant canvas sack. We're ready for a middle-class safari you'd think. Mom also comments that she's seen several people look at our luggage with "disdain". What is wrong with me that I managed to travel San Fran for a week with only 1 bag, chrome full and now I'm carrying 2? I need to rethink some things looks like.
Cold brew is in my hand. It is an espresso blend of Panama and Brazilian. Filter is in Dupont circle. We took the red line. I took mom down the street in the wrong direction. F. I can smell the Eucalyptus heavy. The cute girl at the counter looks familiar and likes my necklace. The guy and her both answer when I ask if they serve a cold brew. "All year round" he says with a smile. Mom's friend 's office is at the metro stop on blue line. We can put our bags there after all!
10:44 - On the mall. Dirt paths The Washington monument to my left. Amidst the galleries of the Smithsonian. The metro also to my left. Mom ran into the Freer Gallery behind me to find a bathroom. It was a full 15 minute wait for the cargo train. An asian mom and 2 kids boy and girl snap a photo standing on a bench. The girl repeats several times "Greetings from Washington DC!" Now she takes pictures of the kids pointing at the Washington monument. "Nathan, I can't even see you. Nathan look at me. Fine, don't be in pictures" an they're off. I'll probably never see them again. Haven't heard from moms friend. 2 more pretty asian girls study the National mall map. One has a pretty handbag in the shape and design as a decorative Japanese fan. I hope mom is okay.
We walked on through a maze of colored rocks, precious and semi precious, cut, polished and not so much. Tiaras given as gifts by Napoleon with turquoise in replacement of the original emeralds with diamonds. An actual "Emerald Necklace". It's amazing what old Earth can make with it's own hands given time and gas. I wish I could say that for all of us. Mom goes gaga over it all. I realize how man great synth band names are floating around this exhibit. "Mineral Friends" "Rhodocrosite?"
On train, getting on double decker in daylight hours, not common. Jerry, the coach attendant is a lively man, I inform him that there's more to see in Cleveland than the rock hall. "I never knew" says he. He has a great speech for everyone on the train. Spunky. Maybe it's the daylight. It's just, usually Amtrak attendants look like a bunch of dead horses or like they're going through withdrawals. Cracks joke about his chicken embroidered cap falling off the overhead compartment in front of this lone traveling Judge Reinhold type, balding. "You're stealing my hat already?" A righteous dude. I catch the guy laughing to himself. I like that. People laughing to themselves. It means they're remembering something. Then he cracks open a can. His hands move over the label slowly before I can tell what it is. A tall boy can of "Icehouse" beer. I can't not smile. Hands on a can. He has a crushed-ish box of Corn Chex in bis bag too.
First stop, Rockville, MD. I'm waiting for the lid on my "Pret" Orange juice to blow off again with a bang with all the shit that's mixed in it now. Was good OJ then I mixed Rooibos ... WOOF! Then later to put the kabash on the honk smoothie I poured what was left of my grape juice detox soda from Pret in there. So it's this funky semi-carbonated liquid that tastes the way my concoctions as a kid with kitchen oils and herbs would smell and then I poured them on the furniture and lied about them. I think maybe I'll dump it out. Let the train insides have it. Use the bottle for my coffee. Until it pops again and I stain something else.
Bathrooms - I like Amtrak bathrooms. They are in my experience minimalistic, color coordinated and for the most part, clean. I just used one with a changing room fit with a vanity and xtra sink! I feel like a star with a super flush-suck toilet. I even appreciate the font in which "trash" and "diapers & napkins" is etched in the steel compartment shoots. I would have one for my own. In a very 1960s - 70s hue of orange.
"Wild and Wonderful West Virginia everybody! You'll have to maintain your enthusiasm." says Jerry. Sounding like Tim Meadows. Judge Reinhold and I share a share and chuckle in that way that 2 people in eye shot of each other seats across can't help. I look over at mom heavily breathing in dreamland mouth-open. I can't escape Judge over there motioning at mom "----Out-----" he says. I wonder how that Icehouse is feeling. The conductor comes on and reminds us of the upcoming smoke breaks and that on the train it is illegal. We could be escorted off train by police. I dare see judge pointing at me "Smoking" earlier as I parked my head on the tray table for a nap Elementary school style. I hear Judge call over "Do you want a pillow?" "There are some over here and more above".. "No thanks"... all is over. Reminds me how sad I was that no one was around for me to make reference to podcasts on band car trips passed. Comedy Death Ray or Bang Bang or something featuring a very self depreciating "Paul Giamati". At one point I can't remember what is going on but everything he says is echoing, all of his complaining and wining and he's getting lost in it and lets out a fierce "I'm in hell!" and well, no reference could have better described how I was feeling going up and down escalators rolling suit cases to the metro carrying two heavy bags of my own on my back. I had a Paul Giamati in me amongst crowds of students, moms, field trips, and young and old professionals in those tunnels yelling "I'm in hell!" about to explode/implode and nobody was around to laugh at that except me. And I did.
"You can't write now. You can't see that" Judge says. I realize I might should have sat in the observation car while it was still light out and I could see. Oh well. A car zips though the night with it's headlights. It could be traveling through space. Just like Maddy, Granger and I were on the Highway 1, California coast in the middle of the night, fog rushing in. "I don't need to see it" I say. Jerry walks down the aisle holding a dinning car menu looking confused. The food is also, like the trash cans, made from recycled material. Smoke break, Cumberland MD! Suck it Amtrak! I can't sleep... this must be the Cleveland car. Everybody's going out for a smoke. The golden land of inhibitions. A Sheetz glows in the Oasis of Little Caesar's & Burger King. I would destroy macaroni bites right now, just because I'm bored.
Why did I have so many crazy F-d up dreams this past week? Not so much last night. Not much sleep, though I was trying to get myself out of a very large tree shaped like an animal. It was very high up and I don't remember how I got up there, but Stephanie Ruggerio was there and Tall Adam was somewhere on the ground perhaps with friends. Darren Embry may have been there too. But the night before was just utter child-molesting chaos. Well.. more than children. they were these creepy males, one who might not exist alike anyone I actually know. But I had let him too much into my life after people warned me... kind of like this radio dude (not like I'm implicating him) and I the parts of the dream I can remember he is chasing Maddy and I around our house and we are hiding form him in a bedroom. It's more like a long one floor house like the ones in Alabama. He's a shorter skinny guy with thinning hair. It's a freaky dream. We know he's killed somebody we know, but who? Don't know. It's like we're early high school aged again. H e's kicking at the door psychotically, all of this pounding on doors in my dreams. Then we are spinning through a wet parking lot with other of our guy friends and I think my mom is driving. And we're almost crying. We don't want to let this guy, thin hair guy in the car. But he's one of us, our friends and mom doesn't understand. I think Carl and Marty and Leo are there. Maybe thin hair guy has killed some girl, and he's trying so desperately to get in the car. I'm reaching to keep the sliding door shut ad I'm crying. Then... this is awful but there's this guy James who I've booked for art shows at The Path who has also been doing something bad. He's heavier with thick blonde/white hair. I just see him walking in and out of doorways in the daylight. From what I can remember it doesn't seem like much, but it was so much. all in the dreams was uneasiness and terror in the face of people I thought I knew. I need to start filming this stuff! I miss Maddy and my boys.
Some guy just barely made it back onto the train from smoking.
You know sometimes I truly find myself in memory trying to figure out what were dreams and what were things that actually happened. I mean some things seem so ridiculous to me that now I think, of course they must have been dreams. But I remember times as a kid I would ask myself these same questions. and be totally convinced that yes, they were real. Like this confusing dream or memory I have of Sandy and Shelly, my cousins and I climbing up through a hole in their closet up into these mazes and mazes stacked on top of each other of rooms and we could hide and play in them. Some rooms were literally no bigger than a coffin that you had to squeeze through. Others with ramps and inclines bisecting the room that you had to scooch up to the next cubby hole. Utterly strange. But in my head for years anytime my head dredged it up for whatever reason, I would always think of it as a memory and not a fantastical dream. What does that mean? And if it wasn't real, why did I think it was?
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