Generally Discontent

Turkey Day in North Carolina! Man, what a good day. Well, until the fire and burning and stuff, but I'll get to that.

Seth, Dwyer and I spent the night before geeking out and playing City of Villains, and I ended up staying up until about 4:30 a.m. So I wasn't so happy getting up at ten, but so be it! Or was it eleven? Well, whenever I got up, I was tired as fuck. But that was okay, since Dwyer needed no help in the kitchen, and Seth needed no help cleaning. I asked if they needed help, I swear! I emptied out the ashtrays, anyway, so ummm yeah. I helped!

Folks started showing up around 1 p.m., and the wine started flowing not long after. There were a lot of people there, a total of twelve including myself. And everyone brought at least one food item, so there was an assload of food to be eaten. Some of the highlights: a broccoli and cheese thing with a layer of Goldfish crackers covering it, bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, and some tasty apple pie. And chocolate pudding pie. And baked ham and grilled veggies and mac and cheese and mashed potatoes and, and, and...ugh.

Around my third glass of wine, we dug in. I was starving, so I piled the food on and actually managed to finish of 3/4ths of it before I felt like stabbing myself to death. That's a little strange for me, since I typically hardly eat anything at Thanksgiving. But everything was so good, plus my metabolism has changed quite a bit while I've been out and about. I don't eat many times a day, but I'm often ravenous when I do. Back home, I'd be lucky if I could eat half of whatever meal I was eating. But now I'm going back for seconds and thirds. It's weird, but I ain't complaining since I've had so much good food to eat at all the places I've been.

Everyone flopped around for awhile, then dessert was had, and then more flopping. Mostly we hung out on the deck since it was so nice out, and later we started up a fire in the portable fireplace that Seth had. It was pretty nice just lounging on the deck, warming your feet by a good fire, downing beers.

After awhile a few people left, so the rest of us went down to the man cave to play the Music Channel Game. It goes like this: Seth's cable provider has a ton of music channels that just play songs and shows little tidbits about the currently playing artist, including artist name, album title, song title, what Bob Dylan's favorite food is, shit like that. So someone takes the remote and goes through the channels one by one, keeping the channel guide up on the screen so no one can see the artist. Once you think you know who the artist is you call out their name and the person with the remote exits the channel guide to show the info. If you're right, everyone else drinks. If you're wrong, you drink.

As you can imagine, this can get pretty messy, especially if you're not well-versed in music. But considering that everyone was pretty drunk already, that wasn't much of a problem. In the end, a good time was had by all. Or by me, anyway.

Eventually it was just me, Seth, Dwyer, Dwyer's ex-girlfriend, and their friend Ryan. Seth and I hung out downstairs playing City of Villains for a bit before giving up and just watching the teevee, the turkey sleep poison setting in. At some points, Seth went upstairs and didn't come back for awhile. But then he stormed down the stairs, and-

"The fireplace burned a fucking hole in my deck!" he exclaimed. And it was true. Ryan discovered that the section of the deck below the fireplace was burning, and acted quickly to put it out. But the damage was done: a large-pizza-sized scorch mark with a grapefruit-sized hole in the center now sat square in the middle of the deck. Seth couldn't figure it out, since they'd used that fireplace many times without problems. The only thing we could think of was that an ember had fallen out of the bottom somehow, or maybe the fireplace just got too damn hot. In any case, it's going to take some work the fix the deck.

So that was a downer, but at least some entertainment came later when Dwyer stumbled downstairs and plopped down on the couch, muttering something that may or may not have been caveman language. I swear I couldn't understand a word he was saying. Then Seth got a blow-up doll from somewhere and... Well, nothing weird happened, I'm happy to say. He just threw the doll at Dwyer, who punched it and then went to bed. Seth passed out not long after, and I was left alone.

I should have gone to sleep right then, but I wanted to make my last night in Charlotte last as long as possible, so I ended up staying up until about 3:30 a.m., even though I had to be up at eight. I'm stupid!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here I am in Charlotte!

Huh? I was already in Charlotte, you say? Oh, yes, yes, of course. I mean to say that I'm in uptown Charlotte, like in the actual city part of Charlotte. Big buildings and fountains and all that rot. It's really nice, from what I've seen. And while I don't know if I've seen a lot in the last three hours, it sure feels like it. Lots of walking around, taking quick pictures so I don't look too much like a tourist.

See, I hate tourists. I have to, I'm from Boston. Tourists are slow-moving, bobble-head-doll-headed blobs with their only purpose being to get in your way when you're trying to get somewhere important. Those tourists. So I have a certain averseness to being like that. This, I walk quickly, try to stay out of everyone's way, and whip out the camera only when there's something really worth having its picture taken. That's how I roll, yo.

Anyway, I was supposed to go into town yesterday, but I woke up feeling like poop, feeling a vague cold or something coming on. So I opted to fart around the house all day, though I did manage to update this site and the gallery, as well as take a walk to the local Bojangles to have a tasty chicken sandwich for lunch. Okay, so I'd go to the city tomorrow, being today, which I did. Go to the city, I mean.

First I had to get to the bus stop. I knew there was one right near the Bojangles, but Google Maps told me I could get to the main road a lot quicker if I went down this other street which ended up being some projects next to a car dealership. Then again, everything in the area I ended up in was next to some sort of car dealership. Regardless, it was a smart thing to do, as the area around Seth's house can be somewhat confusing since the street names are all sort of similar. Names like Mapleridge, Thorncliff, Edgewater, Starmount. Sounds like a bunch of goddamn elf villages or something, I swear.

So I missed my bus because I'm stupid and ended up standing at a stop before the street where the bus came from, so after realizing my stupidity I wandered down to the next stop, vaguely angry since it was cold and windy out. But really, there was nothing to be mad at. Certainly nobody was to blame but myself, and there's no sense in getting mad at yourself or anyone else for a lack of understanding. And that was my little bit of wisdom for the day.

Okay, so there was the bus ride and suddenly I was downtown. Or uptown. I'm not sure what it was exactly, but there were bunches of huge buildings everywhere, so that was fine. I had a few goals in mind aside from taking in the sights: 1) find a post office so I could send out postcards and stuff, 2) get North Carolina postcards, 3) eat lunch, 4) find one of the two Dunkin Donuts that were within walking distance, as listed on dunkindonuts.com. Not in that order.

Had lunch at Chick-Fil-A, which brings me up to five or six fast food places that I've tried for the first time while on this trip, most of which are in North Carolina. Got some postcards, then went for a walk. A long walk. I think I walked in circles about fifteen times, always coming back to what is known as the Four Corners. I think it's called that. Uh, it's the center of the city, pretty much, the intersection of North and South Tryon Streets, and East and West Trade Streets. And it has some beautiful sculptures on each corner, and lots of artsy things and plants and stuff.

East Trade Street was the alleged home of the two Dunkin Donuts I was looking for. I figured I'd get me a coffee and sit down to write some postcards. Good plan! Now I just needed to find 33 East Trade Street or 333 East Trade Street. No problem! Well, it was no problem after I discovered that I was walking down West Trade Street, so I turned around. Back at the Four Corners or whatever it's called, I noticed that both Trade Streets seemed to start at 100, so my hopes of finding 33 East Trade Street were quickly dashed. Fine! Off to 333 then! Tally ho!

I turned around at about 600 East Trade Street, after taking a moment to admire Charlotte's lovely city hall. Passed 400, passed the Transportation Center where I had gotten off the bus and which was 310 East Trade Street, passed a big empty hole where a building used to be, but may or may not have been 333. It soon became apparent to me that Charlotte eats Dunkin Donuts franchises like candy, and also enjoys watching me walk around like a moron. In short, Charlotte most definitely hates me.

In the end, I found a coffee shop in one of the many ritzy shopping centers that Charlotte has to offer. Got a coffee, sat down, and wrote postcards. Talked to Seth, and he'd be able to come pick me up in a couple of hours or so, so it was up to me to entertain myself. I had seen Discovery Place during my travels and I'm a big fan of science museums, so I headed off to do that, without knowing that the museum closed at five and it was now about six. So I just gave up and went to a bar.

I spent the time writing and smoking and drinking and talking to Carly on the phone, catching up. After awhile, Seth's roommate Dwyer came by and picked me up, as he had just gotten out of work and was passing my way. Oh, and I did get to a post office somewhere in all that mess. And I also walked around this place called The Green, which was a little park surrounded by expensive restaurants, but the cool part about it was all the literature-inspired sculptures and art and stuff.

And then we sat around and had beers and played video games and prepared for Thanksgiving, which was the next day. THE END.

Posted by CosmoDNA at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I sort of got up at ten with no trouble at all. I was glad that I had stopped drinking around 2 a.m. the night before, since I was more tired than hungover. We headed out for Asheville around noon and got there at two. But first, a little tangent:

Before I left Maryland, Vani's friend Ellen insisted that I go to Asheville, since it's a haven for artists and creative types. Sure, maybe I'll go, I thought. Then Seth's friend Michelle, who is from Asheville, said that I simply must go upon learning that I'm "the artsy type". Well, that's kinda strange that two women in two different states would tell me the same thing! But then another Charlotteite, Elizabeth, after hearing where we would be going the next day, demanded that Seth (who she said was being a poor tour guide) take me to uptown Charlotte to watch football and drink beer instead of "antiquing". Her vehemence seemed slightly unbalanced with the situation, but I'll chalk that up to the large amount of alcohol that she had consumed. Anyway, finally, after returning from Asheville today, I get an email from Andrea in Connecticut that if I was still in NC I should go see her sister-in-law's bed & breakfast in - you guessed it - Asheville!

So, what was so great about Asheville, you ask? Well, I'll tell you! For starters, we ate at an exotic sea food restaurant called Long John Silver's, where I had some tasty chicken planks and A&W root beer and that was good. Then we parked in downtown Asheville and walked around for two hours. It's a pretty nice place, a little hippie town nestled in the low mountains of North Carolina, a beautiful place, really. Reminded me a lot of Woodstock, NY or some Vermont town. And yes, it was very artsy. Seemed every damn building had some kind of art gallery in it, including the local Best Western.

Now, art galleries are great and all, and I fully support them, but I can't say that I get art all that much. I really don't. I mean, I can look at a piece of art and say it's good, or it sucks, or it's weird, or whatever, but that's about it. I look at art and I see something that someone else made and that's fantastic and okay, let me go do something else now. I almost felt bad coming to this town since I really had no intention of checking out all the art galleries. Hell, the motorcycle and car museum, and the earth science museum sounded a heck of a lot more interesting to me. I'm a bad artist, I guess.

But that doesn't mean that I just ignored all that art. Many shops had stuff created by local artists, some of it really good, a lot of it just plain silly. I guess tearing the side off a video camera and sticking it in a store window is art. Or maybe that was a video camera repair shop. Shit, I don't know. Anyway, there were lots of artsy fartsy things all over the place, and the town itself was very artistic in its strange-yet-typically-American mishmash of old department stores converted into art galleries and hardware stores; ancient, gorgeous banks now the breeding ground of small, swanky, overpriced shops; facets of the city twisted and transformed into art or something a little more functional.

And the people were okay, I guess. Lots of really well-dressed and evenly matched couples wandering around, lots of "wonder what'd happen if I stuck my clothes in a blender then put them on" punk-types, lots of bums. LOTS of bums. I think they have their own union for bums in Asheville, because those guys were organized. After buying a guide to North American birds at a small, swanky, and overpriced shop, and having the book placed in a bag with the word "NOKIA" plastered across it for some reason, Seth and I headed down the street to find something else to do. We passed a gang of bums hanging out in front of the library, and one of them tried latching on to us.

"Scuse me...scuse me!" he burbled behind us.
"Huh?" I said.
"Issat one o' them NO-KEE-YA phones in that bag of yers?" he said. In that moment I wondered A) what his scam was, and B) what the hell he was talking about, as I hadn't yet realized that my bag said NOKIA on it. I looked down at the bag, then told him nope, it wasn't a phone. That seemed to disappoint him and he wandered off, leaving us to ponder what the fuck that was all about. But that seems to happen often in these small hippie towns. Lots of bums, lots of beggars, and lots of places that charge you twice as much as anywhere else in the world. Huh.

Anyway, we ended off our tour of Asheville by stopping by the Earth Science Museum, which was awesome. It wasn't too big, more of a small section of the basement, really, but it was packed full of dinosaur bones! The helpful and nice lady who was running the joint (and the only other living being down there) explained that this dentist guy spent a good deal of his life collecting and cataloging fossils, and after he died a whole lot of them went off to the Smithsonian and some other museum. But there were lots of fossils left, so the dead guy's friends thought it'd be a swell idea to donate them to the museum, since the guy was from Asheville. So here were bones!

And rocks, too. Most of the geological displays were blocked by the various dinosaur skeletons, and none of the nifty displays in the kid's learning room worked, but it was a nice place. And the old lady was sweet and let us take some stuff from the baskets of tiny shark teeth and rocks on her desk. After that, we made our way back to the car and, after a brief stop at a Krystal so I could experience the wonder that is the tiny cheeseburger, took the two hour ride back to the house, where we proceeded to be lazy for several hours before going back out to pick stuff up for Thanksgiving dinner.

So that's what I've been up to. I've got four days left in Charlotte, as we'll be heading down to Savannah on Friday. In that time, I need to do a few things: send out postcards, go to downtown Charlotte and walk around, and...uh. I guess that's really all I need to do. Oh, and get a haircut! Woo!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, Charlotte's a damn cool place! The first thing you should know about Charlotte is that pretty much nobody who lives here was born here. For some reason, Charlotte draws people from all over the country to come and live, and then a lot of them say that it's only temporary. I've met a lot of people this past week, and I think only two or three of them are from North Carolina, and only one was actually from Charlotte. It's kinda strange, but I can see the appeal of this place. Nice weather, nice-looking city, lots of stuff to do in less then a twenty minute drive. And they have Waffle House too!

Another thing you should know is that the outlying areas of Charlotte look an awful lot like the outlying areas of Baltimore. What I mean is, there are lots of intersections and gas stations and strip malls. Seems that once you get past New York, there's a standardized way of thinking as far as strip mall placement is concerned. Not a complaint, just an observation. Aside from convenience, strip malls provide a wide variety of comedic material in the names and types of small-town shops.

Anyway, yeah, been a fun week down here. Wednesday night, Seth and I headed to an Irish pub and met up with his friend Roger. I guess I'll get it out of the way now that Roger is a cross-dresser, but he doesn't do it all that often and wasn't doing it that night. He's a cool guy, and we got along well. A bunch of other folks Seth knows showed up, and we ended up hanging out, playing darts, and talking about making levels for Half-Life. All in all, a good time.

Thursday, I accompanied Seth to PetSmart, to have them look at Newman (one of his beagles) to make sure it'd be cool if he came in for a teeth cleaning next week. Newman, not Seth. As far as I know, Seth goes to a normal human dentist. As opposed to a normal horse dentist, which I would advise against since horses can't really hold drills too well. Speaking of horses, this was the first pet store I've ever seen that had its own horse supply section. Yes, I am in the South.

Then we have Friday. Friday, we were supposed to go see the new Harry Potter movie, then presumably go out and drink lots of beer. Well, for one reason or another we never got to see the movie, but much drinking was had. A bit too much drinking, since I eventually ended up with my hand dunked in ice water for no apparently intelligent reason. Here's why: Seth's roommate Dwyer went to school up north, in New York somewhere, I think. At some point during his stay, he and his friends invented this game where, after finishing off a bucket of a beer, everyone would take turns sticking their hand in the ice and nearly-freezing water that was left over for as long as they could.

So it was only natural that this game would migrate to Charlotte, as their favorite bar served up buckets of Bud Light by the, uh, bucketful. Yeah. Anyway, the official record amongst their friends was four minutes, and the unofficial record was around ten minutes. So, with bellies full of beer, we set out to break some records. A couple of guys lasted a minute or two, then one of Dwyer's friends got up at bat...

...for fifteen minutes. Now, I was fully intending on take a turn after this guy, but any hopes of trying to beat the unofficial ten minute record were blown away as the minutes passed and the guy showed no signs of passing out. He sure didn't look happy, but he was a trooper and stayed in for the last few minutes simply to make breaking the new record extremely unlikely. After he was done and his hand covered in several bar towels, I gave it a shot. Now, I had no hope or interest in going fifteen minutes, but I wanted to stay in as long as I could. At about three minutes, I decided I'd stop at five, since it was really pointless to try for anything more than that. I'm pretty sure I could have done ten minutes, but again, pointless. So I got to 5:01 and pulled my numb, lifeless hand out of the bucket.

Fortunately, there was no permanent damage. Soon after, we took off and went back to the house, since we had to get up semi-early for the next day's festivities.

Festivities being a college football party, and then later a birthday party for Roger. The football party wasn't bad, and brought many firsts for me. It was the first time I ate venison, albeit in chili form. It was also the first time I played Cornhole.

Done laughing? Okay. Cornhole is a bean bag variant of horseshoes where, instead of throwing horseshoes at posts, one throws beanbags at a slanted plank of wood with a hole in it, with the goal being to land a bean bag on the plank itself (one point), or get one into the hole (three points). Pretty simple stuff, and it was a good backyard sport to play when you're drinking and stuffing yourself full of chips and buffalo chicken dip. Around five, we said good byes and thank yous, then headed back to the house to chill until the birthday party.

That evening, we headed out to a place called Sushi 101, where the bartender was good friends with Seth and felt the need to fill us up with free sake. Roger and a bunch of people were there boozing it up and whatnot, getting ready to go to the Bucket Shop to see a band called Perfo. Sounded good to us, mostly drunk as we were.

The Bucket Shop was a strange little place, looking like a punk dive bar, though the speakers were playing dance hits from the 80s. Regardless, the bartender there was cute as hell and went to Northeastern, and if I had any social skills whatsoever I'm sure I could have turned that into some sort of interesting conversation. Ah, well. The place was decent though filled with twenty-something scensters, and I realized once again that I really need a haircut. Don't ask me how those two are related.

Some shitty band got on stage first, three older-than-forty guys who had hung up an American flag upside-down on the wall behind them. Their first song was called "Bush Knew", and their whole set stayed about as cliché and ridiculous as that, especially when the lead singer said something like, "Now, I just wanna say something. I'm not and anti-Semite, but I am an anti-Zionist!" and then launched into a song about how the Jews run Hollywood, or something. He was pretty garbled, and really wasn't worth trying to decipher. So we drunkenly wrote a bunch of nonsense on their mailing list sheet, then politely waited until the main band came on.

Perfo came on, and they were good. Full of energy and a bit better than your typical pop punk band. By the end of their set, we were all pretty wasted and figured we'd go back to the house to wind down, especially since Seth and I were planning on going to Asheville the next day. That didn't work out so well since their friend Jamie met us at the house, so we ended up staying up, grilling burgers and playing Xbox until about 4:30 in the morning. Oh well, I could be up at ten with no trouble at all!

To Be Continued!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm in North Carolina! Got a couple of big posts coming up, but I gotta figure out how to get them from my computer machine onto the information superhighway. Just figured I'd post in case anyone is wondering where I am.

While I'm here, I wanna request that you comment if you read this, just so I can get a good idea of how many people read this site. Not that there's any real reason; I just want to see how popular I am. Uh. BYE!

New post right below this one...things got a bit wonky with timestamps and shit!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

2:30 p.m.

And here I am on a big fat train rumbling southwards to Charlotte, North Carolina. Can't say I'm feeling too excited right now, sorta want to go curl up in a ball and die in a ditch somewhere, or at least sleep for twenty hours. Eh, it's not so bad. Just tired and sad. It sucked saying bye to Vani and Jay, Vani especially since we've become much better friends than we were when I arrived. Who am I going to sit around with all day watching cartoons and making jokes about various disgusting bodily functions now? Bleh.

But it is what it is, such is life and all that, and it's not like I won't be seeing them again. In other news, this train kinda sucks! It was twenty minutes late and instead of picking up time during the trip, it seems we're falling more and more behind. Just had a rousing bout of sitting still for fifteen minutes right after leaving Richmond, VA, but now we're chugging along so things ain't so bad.

The other reason this train sorta sucks is because it's frickin' packed! I get no window seat except here in the snack car, which I will talk about more in a minute. My car is pretty full, and I think I'm one of the few white people in there. Not that this affects me, really, but it is interesting. I don't know why it's interesting, but it is. I guess. I'm so tired that I don't know what the fuck right now. At least the view is nice, what with all the trees and...trees. Lots of trees. Uh.

Yeah, guess I'm just cranky right now. I'm sure that once I get down to NC and unload my crap at Seth's place I'll be feeling hunky-dory. Hell, I get to spend two weeks going to bars where the girls will have that wonderful Southern accent that gets me going. A Carolinian girl could be telling me that she's about to crush my nuts in a vice and I'd say, "Yes, please."

Anyway, let's talk about the snack car. Seems nice enough, normal enough for a train snack car. The first time I went in there to get something for breakfast, there was a woman sitting near the empty counter area wearing an apron. I assumed she worked for the snack car, but when she didn't get up or acknowledge my existence, I just figured she was doing some other job besides working behind the counter. The counter person must have been in the bathroom or something. Yup.

Nope. The sitting woman waited about three minutes before getting up and asking me what I wanted. Yay! I love shitty customer service! Meh. I got my sandwich and apple juice, sat and ate grumpily. The second time I went up, she was okay, got my drink in a timely fashion and whatnot. Third time, not so much. I ordered a drink and as she reached out her hand to get it, her other hand grabbed her cell phone, and there she froze. Staring at her phone while the one hand hovered inches above my soda. I stared at the back of her head, trying desperately to make at least one of her synapses fire with whatever latent telepathic powers I might have. She finally broke out of her trance and gave me my drink, but this lady sure ain't helping my mood. Not like this place is busy or anything. Whine, whine, whine.

Goddamn, I want a cigarette.

4:13 p.m.

Sweet fucking Christ, kill me. I'm pretty aggravated right now, for probably no good reason, aside from the fact that we're running about 50 minutes late, dammit.

Sat down for awhile, relaxed in the too-warm car (seems our AC isn't working so well), just vegged. Started feeling better, figured I was just being pointlessly bitchy, but hey, here I am in the South! Or getting closer and closer, anyway. Looking forward to it, can't wait to get there, can't wait to get off this fucking train.

But it was too warm to stay awake, too tired...nodding off, snapping awake, nod, snap, nod, sna- COUGH. Something caught in my throat and I was instantly awake, coughing my guts out, vaguely paranoid that I'd puke up my mostly-digested bagel sandwich all over the back of the chair in front of me, but I made it through the cough-fest okay. I was awake and annoyed and coughy and... Wait, not annoyed. Angry.

My annoyance at my coughing fit and the late train and the heat was instantly turned into blind rage when I was confronted with some horrible sound gurgling from the seat next to me.

It must have happened while I was napping and I hadn't noticed. The little, polite Indian lady sitting next to me had turned on her walkman and, instead of putting the headphones on her HEAD like they're supposed to go, she put them around her NECK and turned the volume up. What came crawling out of those headphones was not any ordinary music, nothing that anyone else might want to listen to. What I was suddenly confronted with was Kenny G-caliber smooth jazz cover tunes. What I heard was "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?" rendered in a tiny, tinny, screeching saxophone that burrowed into my psyche and stomped my mind to death, starting with my childhood memories and working its way up. Fuck me.

This continued for awhile. I suppose I could have said something. Something like, "Please shut that off before I PULL YOUR SKULL OUT OF YOUR FACE!" But it's better that I grabbed my laptop and retreated to the snack car. Lot cooler in here, lot more leg room, even if it's filling up with old people and children right now. Bah.

But, regardless of how I may be feeling and overreacting, the train sure is better than a bus, especially on such a long ride.

4:46 p.m.

This train has it in for me, I'm convinced of it now.

The snack bar re-opened for business, so all the kids and old people formed a line, with me at the end. But we had a new snack car lady who seemed a lot more friendly and responsive, so the line moved along quickly. Maybe I just needed some food, I thought, Maybe that would make me less cranky.

Got a microwaved cheeseburger, some chips, and a Sam Adams, which seems to be the best meal combo I could possibly order from the snack car. Trudged back to my seat, past screaming middle-schoolers, only to find my seat was wet. Looked like someone spilled some water on it. Fine, whatever, I have an extra napkin. Fine. Wipe, wipe, wipe. Sit, sit, sit. Eat, eat, ea-

Motherfucker. Turns out the AC on the ceiling above my seat was leaking, and now it was leaking on me, a stream of water raining down from above as if God's most favorite cherub drifted down from the heavens in order to take a whiz on my head, and a cold whiz at that. FINE. I give up.

The food was decent at least, edible. Beer is good. Gonna be in Raleigh soon and I will have a smoke or I will kill someone. OH GOD SHUT UP MIDDLE SCHOOL KIDS!

5:37 p.m.

We're gonna be about an hour late getting into Charlotte, fun fun fun. I talked to Seth during my glorious smoke break at Raleigh, and he's cool with showing up later. I feel a little bad a bout Seth, or staying at his place, anyway. Or, uh, I mean to say, I haven't had much contact with him about staying there beyond him saying yes initially, and me letting him know when I'd be coming down. I just don't want anyone to feel as if I'm taking advantage of them, though I doubt he'd think that. Plus, I have no doubt that we're going to have a great time. So, uh, okay I don't feel too bad.

Still sad, though. Vani called from Padonia Station to say hi. She's sad and having beers in my honor, so I might as well have another beer or two on this train. Never got drunk on a train before, and I'm not about to start. But a nice buzz sure couldn't hurt! God, it's so strange having so many great friends scattered all over the world. I seriously have to win Powerball or some shit so I can afford to have a private jet flying all over the place picking people up or whatever. Damn.

More people just got on, I don't know what stop we're at. It's strange - seems like nobody's getting off, only people getting on. My ass is still wet from the AC dripping on me. Ride, train, ride!!

6:28 p.m.

Okay, beer was a bad idea. I've become so used to drinking and smoking at the same time that I really, really want a smoke right now. Can't have one til I get to Charlotte, two-and-a-half hours. Fuck.

Wish I had a DVD or something, a movie to watch. Ah well. I have plenty of comics to read if I'm going to do anything. Also have my sketchbook if I want to draw, and the book Vani loaned me if I want to read. But I think comics are about all I can handle right now. I'm still tired and prone to dozing off. All this sitting around really kills you, sucks all the energy right out of you. Or maybe that's the beer. Huh.

7:16 p.m.

Less than two hours to go, if all goes well. I've switched to water and coffee since the snack cart is now too warm, so - combined with the beer - I'm back to being drowsy.

We're almost to Winston-Salem, where the cigarettes are made! Exciting! Well, I'm trying to get excited. Still sad as hell but not so annoyed anymore. Just before the sun set, I drearily glanced out the window to see a glowing yellow field, and on it was a cow, and another cow, and a horse, all grazing. And there, anticipating twilight, sat three great and ancient husks: broken down and rusted out pick-up trucks. I have arrived!

Well, that gave me a smile, anyway. Guess that's important.

I'm also pretty excited about not having the slightest clue what to expect in the next five weeks. Two weeks in NC, then Seth hands me off to Mike and Becky in Savannah, GA, and then on down to Florida. Well, no matter what happens, it should be a lot of fun. So yeah, so there. It ain't all bad.

8:05 p.m.

And here I am in Charlotte, NC! WOOOO!

Or at least that's what I'd be saying if we still weren't an hour late. Sigh. I burned my tongue on coffee, or re-burned it, since I had initially scalded it with espresso Friday night at Susie's birthday dinner. Yawn.

I'm just typing to hear myself type at this point. I don't have any profound thoughts today, nothing but big, uncarved blocks of emotion dropping all over the place. I still need to write an entry about comic books, or another about my obsession with poo jokes, or even another talking about just how fortunate I am to be able to do all this. I need to fix the map view thing, need to change the look of the site though I'm pretty sure that won't happen. Sure, I could do all these things while being so damn bored on this train, but I really don't feel like it. Besides, all the kids roaring in and out of this snack cart are really friggin' distracting. Don't these little monsters have parents somewhere?

Two more stops! Yay!

8:28 p.m.

Almost...there... Gonna shut this shit down in a few minutes and gather my stuff, also want to get away from the fine young thugs who are boozing it up in here and hitting on underage girls. Or something. Well, Seth's going to pick me up around 9 p.m. and he mentioned something about London Broil for dinner. Sounds good to me!

Of course, if I get mugged and murdered before I can find Seth's car, make sure someone feeds my fish. Thanks!

Posted by CosmoDNA at 06:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)