11.10.2003

just how long can he stay awake, anyway?

now playing: mae moore, "bohemia"

(note: it was gonna be "fine fine day" by tony carey, but the song was over before i could find anything resembling a decent website. he had no official one. and i'm a stickler. if i say "now playing, that means now playing. ya know? ya KNOW?)

alright, so i had my laptop along for the weekend, so i could pump up my word count during the trip. here's a summary, exactly as it was written.

here ya go...enjoy.

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11.08.03

now playing:david wilcox, "chet baker's unsung swan song"

typing on a train is something of an adventure, i think. there are two adorable children behind me, zachary (4) and mackenzie (2). we've become fast friends. i've already babysat while their mom went to get them milk from the dining car. they're on their way to texas, and apparently there's some marital strife going on with their mom and dad. sounds way too familiar.

in front of me a few seats is my ex-wife...or, i should say, it would be my ex-wife if she were a foot taller and had a serious crack problem. she's chatting everyone within earshot up about her problems...glad she decided to sit in the fore section of the compartment.

it's been dark for some time now and my little friends behind me are starting to drift off, i think...they're getting a little cranky.

i've had a 3000 word jump in my book since i got on the train and we're only a few minutes outside of lewistown (which is mentioned in the book a number of times). i might just finish this bitch on the train, at this rate.

11.09.03 early am

my little buddies zachary and mackenzie ended up sitting with me for a good chunk of the morning, zachary playing a game on his mom's cell phone and mackenzie sitting on my lap, looking out the window as the sun came up. cute kids. zack has a pretty serious case of pinkeye, so my number shall be coming up soon...just hope i can hold out until the drive is over.

there is a Crazy Black Man on the train.

i know this will sound as though i'm profiling, or that i'm prejudiced, or something of that nature, and i'm gonna get reamed for saying it - but it seems that every long trip i go on involves at least one Crazy Black Man. this particular Crazy Black Man has made a habit of stalking the aisle, making noises like Goat Boy from saturday night live. it's gotten to the point where several of us have begun trying to communicate with him when he goes by, making our own Goat Boy noises, but he doesn't respond. Duh. we don't speak Goat Boy, so how could he understand us? now i feel like one of those dorky fratboy idiots who make pseudo-chinese noise at the peking buffet.

Crazy Black Man will not be stopped. nope.

in the middle of the night, someone got stuck in the bathroom. i just knew it was Crazy Black Man, but it turned out to be someone else. too bad. it woulda been the perfect cap to the trip if the door had swung open to a cavalcade of Goat Boy indignance.

i'm feeling a little overwhelmed....it's after 8:30, and i don't think there's any way i'm going to make it back home in time for work on monday morning. i sure do hope i'm wrong.



so i caved. i'm travelling with limited funds, but i hadn't eaten anything for 24 hours, and the mcdonalds was right there, right next to the metra ticket counter, so i gave in. went inside and sat two tables away from another Crazy Woman (whose nationality i will omit, lest it really seem like i'm singling out) who was telling someone to "drinky they meelk so dey grow up biiig...". there was no one but me within fifteen feet of her, and i was havin' orange juice, so draw your own conclusions.

the lengths that we will go to in order to pander to illiteracy and/or stupid people is probably more evident nowhere on the planet than here in the south concourse of chicago's union station. each of the gates here actually says its number out loud over and over again....track number twelve....track number fourteen..track number ten...track number eight...track number twelve...track number eight...track number ten.....track number/track number twel/track num/track number eight...

i'm trying to tell myself that perhaps it's due to a large number of international clientele or something of that nature, but i seem to be cancelling that argument out internally by realizing that if you don't recognize the number twelve, who's to say you'd understand it being spoken to you ad infinitum by an automated version of the airport "red zone is for loading and unloading of passengers only" lady?

i can't think of a single reason for this. sorry. waste of money. gettin' on my nerves by now, too, and i have an hour of this to listen to yet, since my amtrak train was forty minutes late and i missed the 8:30.

this is god's punishment for attempting to talk to Crazy Black Man in his native tongue.

i was watching the weather on tv in mcdonalds, and was seriously humbled by the map. i have a long assed drive ahead of me, and i've just lost two hours, courtesy of amtrak.

i'm fucked.

11.09.03 5:50pm

departing now. we've spent a good chunk of the afternoon visiting kenny's resident VW repairman, who make me wish that he lived in my backyard. i'm seriously jealous. he lives on a farmhouse literally in the middle of nowhere. it's corn, corn, corn, corn, 50 bugs and vanagons, corn, corn, corn....he was born and raised in east tennessee, so he instantly felt familiar to me.

kenny gave me the master list of everything i could possibly want to know about the van, and i've tried to commit most of it to memory, but i know i'll end up asking again at a later date.

ok. off we go. time is not on my side.

11.10.03

FUCK.

blew out the rear tire on the driver's side...a mere hundred feet from the service plaza parking lot. it felt like a lucky stroke that it blew there, but this is gonna kill my time.

better start figuring out what i'm gonna tell the boss now. cuz unless they're pulling in now, i'm not gonna make it.



it's a little after noon, and i pulled it off. i arrived at home at 6:45, just in time to take a shower and leave for work. since saturday morning, the only sleep i've gotten was on the train, and although i'm feeling a sense of fulfillment in having managed to pull this whole thing off in the face of near trip-ending diversity, i'm just plain friggin' beat.

between fatigue and pinkeye, my ass is kicked. i'm predicting a 6:30pm bedtime this evening.