|
|
It's a rare day when I'm up before the alarm goes off... both of them. This must be one. Though not particularly noteworthy. Ellie's back... so I deduced from underneath the pillows. The aroma of coffee would it's way through the covers, like those tendrils of vapor that you see in the cartoons... streaming through the character's nostrils, before it's levitated and drawn to the source. Well, it woke me up, anyway... though not before she departed for work. After two smokes and the better part of a cup of espresso on the balcony (I don't mean those puny demitasse cups, either), I managed to drag myself through the "A" section off the paper--an excercise in exasperation. Politics... the only thing worse than a FOX reality program. It kills, it maims, it manipulates for the few... and by the gods, it sells newspapers. The price of being "informed." Funny, I didn't ask for a war with Iraq. You Won't Fool the Children Of The Revolution. So says T-Rex... musically. Praise Jah for the Comics section. Seoul Man was in my seat at the terminal, unexpectedly, today... leaving me scrambling for a place to be. He's just one of those people I cannot hold a grudge against, though. Just too damned agreeable... a lethal weapon against peevishness. As the evening wore on, I got a call from �berSalesman... with a counteroffer on the Miata. Which I accepted (well less than what I was expecting to pay). Ragtop ownership! Another chapter in the AutoBiography! I forsee a monster tan when the weather breaks... and the size of my clutch leg matching my brake/accelerator leg, at long last. It's all about balance. And the night draws to a close.... ............................................................................................................................................ Though time's drawing short, I wanted to get back to the Bike Trip, at least the part about the flight to the commencement. At my first print shop, one of my foremen owned a small Cessna, which we used to take up before work, ostensibly to keep up his seat time. My first real experience in the air. Like an MG, compared to the Greyhound that was the Braniff 727, though I do award points to any aircraft that is completely painted in something other than white. Blue, Orange, Blue... I recall that being the sequence on the changeovers. After loading the crated ten-speed and the camping necessities, bidding farewell to my brother and mother, I was lucky enough to have the window seat the entire journey... where I had my nose premanently pressed. Remarkable difference between five thousand feet, and twenty-thousand... I was utterly enthralled at the order in which the world seemed to be arrayed. A trick of the height, surely, but the patterns were mesmerizing. The symbiosis of Memphis with the sun-reflected Mississippi... the interlocked circles and hexagons of the mega-farms around Forth Worth... the relief map of the Rockies (which obliterated any concept of the ups-and-downs)... the sunset (at 11PM) over Portland. The Rum-and-Cokes helped, as you may expect. Good thing... the baggage-handlers must have driven a forklift over the bike, so ragged was the crate at the claims conveyor. After assembling as best as could be done, with bent wheels, I pushed the remains, stacked with my belongings, to the nearest hotel I could find... three miles away. Auspicious beggingings? |
|
|
