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The Road to Hell, again paved with good intentions. So much could have been accomplished, today... before my eyes had become accustomed to the light filtering in through the drawn curtains, I knew something was up. The silence gave it away. Snow, again. Yesterday's effusing over convertibles lured me into forgetting that winter's just begun. Fie! I motivated myself, relatively early (for me, on a Sunday), to gather up Miss Jane's usual sequioa's-worth of newspapers, and vainly go in search of another Sopranos fix. All the while, the abating storm slammed back, full force, in almost whiteout conditions. Putting a serious hurt on backroads wanderlust. Effectively letting the air out of my bagpipes. Television, as is usual on Sunday, sucked buffalo ass. Nay, swine ass. Couldn't focus on soccer, football (American, that is), the dreck of the film industry... aiming me at the pile of books that want for reading. Fast Food Nation became the ammunition... just what I need, more conspiracy theories. Well founded ones, it turns out, concerning the crap (both nutritionally and philosophically) that the chains want us to believe. That this stuff is actually good food, that they are the vanguard of the American way, that we need to see the world through primary-colored, logo-ed glasses. No wonder I've resisted the drive-throughs to the tune of only once this year. Gimme the raw fish, bitch. As the day imperceptably waned, Biggles gave a ring... first I'd heard from him since way before the Holidays. The Gadfly of Guildford has been woodshedding lately, perparing for his return to Old Blighty in the summer. Shedding possessions, girding his family's loins for emigration. Time for me to get a passport. Out of sheer boredom, eyes tired from reading, the TV droning imbecilities, I eventually strode to this room, where the drawing table sits, anticipating. Stacks of records and CDs lay in wait for mix tapes to come. Instead, I began to purge the file cabinets. One diamond-in-the-rough was my "journal" from my cross-country bike trip. Knowing what I know now, a fairly lame attempt... random inanities, unrelated details (or my priorities were a lot different, then), anemic on the impressions that were, at the time, mind-boggling. So much input, in so short a time... if three months and four-thousand miles is considered "short." And, I was craving more from the words. Looking for flashes of brilliance, or better yet, insight. Must've put more into the photographs, the immediacy of the journey and the companionship. And lots and lots of beer, from one end of the country to the other, sucking up the atmosphere and intoxication from the sanctity of local watering holes... the only way to find the pulse of a strange place. Nice. Good Times. Damn Right. Now, I fight sleep... knowing that the grind of routine awaits tomorrow. Dashing through the snow to the prefab land of No Soul. Making my ploy to wrest the Miata from its owner. Bringin' home the Big Eagle. There's a warm and sunny place somewhere, ain't there? |
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