London Fog

Slightly jet-lagged and ill, I'm nevertheless enjoying my first full day in London. Saw where some people are entombed in Westminster Abbey, and that was interesting. More later when I have my wits almost about me.

My Bags are Packed

In just a matter of hours I will be off on a 2-week trip that will take me to London, Brussels, and Chicago. What fun. I have packed and re-packed my luggage, adding things and taking out other things, trying to eliminate what I might need but keep what I will need. It's a balancing act. I read this morning that President Obama and the G-20 will be in London the same time I will, and that there are protests of one kind or another planned for different parts of the city. That should be fun, too, and I am hopeful to see a bit of what's going on. I am not looking forward to the flights first to Dallas and then to Heathrow, for they are both long and dull. Worse, I will be traveling with a nagging head-cold, though I have assembled quite an array of medicines and narcotics to make the trip bearable.

Brussels worries me a bit because the few Dutch phrases I've assembled over the last couple of weeks are meager, my pronunciation of them terrible. If I can make these phrases, along with the little French I know, work until I can ask my hosts to move to English, I will be glad. If not the Ugly American, I am perhaps the epitome of the ignorant one at least as far as languages go. But, Belgium will be an adventure, something quite different. And since the trip will be short, I will look into checking most of my luggage at a train station for a couple of nights just to keep from hauling stuff around. Being lost in Brussels does not bother me, but the prospect of being lost while carrying a duffle bag does.

If I am able, I will post updates here.

Equinox

Ninety-six years ago today, on Easter Sunday, my grandmother decided to be born. It must have been a good day for many people, and I have enjoyed her company for many decades now. Our family got together to celebrate with her yesterday, and though she is somewhat frail, she remains lucid and funny. Good for her. From her I have learned tolerance and patience, though perhaps not as well as she expected. If I live to be 96, maybe I will better understand both tolerance and patience.

Sixteen years and 3 days ago, on the first day of spring, my mother decided she did not want to live anymore, so she left. It was a rough few months back then--because of this and other things. My mother liked parties, and she would have enjoyed seeing her own mother turn 96. She would have had cake. She was also only 7 years older than I am now, which is a scary fact.

Twenty-six years and 4 days ago, my oldest son decided to be born. It was a wonderful day. We had a party for him this year, too, which was nice. I look at him and wonder if there is anything I have taught him--certainly not patience or tolerance, for I don't have enough of either to spare. He is much smarter than I in many ways, and I think he probably knows that.

Probably for No Good Reason

In just over a week I'll be on my way to London, England. Crossing the Pond. Yup.

So now you know. And you know something else? I'm not sure why I'm going--probably for no good reason. This will be my second trip to England (the first journey is was chronicled a couple years ago: here, e.g.). The first trip was fun, a true adventure to places I've never been. This time I'll be visiting someplace I have been, but I'm throwing in a thematic variation: visiting Brussels, too, for a couple of days. That should be fun, but I wish I knew some French or Dutch or Flemish. I'm hopeful that the people I encounter there will forgive my lack of linguistic abilities. I'll get to ride the Eurostar for a couple of hours, something that will take me beneath the English Channel.

I'll also not only be spending my birthday alone this year, I'll spend it in 2 countries: waking up in England and going to sleep in Belgium. I've not been away from my family on my birthday for several decades, so I figure I'll award myself an extra beer--Belgian--just for living this long and to pretend I'm with someone. I was confused and disoriented for several hours after arriving in England the last time I was there, and I predict I'll be doubly so when I emerge from the train station in Brussels and have to find my way to my hotel.

I do feel guilty about traveling alone yet again, and I'm hopeful that the parallel schedules my wife and I live by will one day go perpendicular and intersect. Then, we'll find someplace new--Italy, maybe.

Random Tracks

...where we search for something to write about but can only revisit old material.

I have an odd obsession with good pens and nice notebooks. I once spent $65 for a handmade wood pen in Newport, Rhode Island. It's heavy, fits nicely in the cradle between my right thumb and forefinger, and glides across whatever paper it is pressed against.

I generally carry some type of notebook in my car or on my person. My favorite notebooks, as I've alluded to before, are Moleskine. My friend Tom gave me my first one one in 2002, and the first entry is from March of that year, from Complete Sea Kayak Touring (Jonathan Hanson):

With other humans near, you draw a circle around yourself and your companions--a small human universe that you must deal with on many social levels.... Alone, there are no circles. The world around you is your only universe, and you must either embrace it or live in terror of it.

I re-read this entry as I was looking through various notebooks to see which would accompany to Europe at the end of this month, and digging through the top drawer of my dresser, I found several old notebooks, out of which I've collected various entries. They are here in no particular order but roughly arranged by notebook and some dates. Some locations are indicated by brackets, as are some notes. Some notebooks have been used in more than one year.

Dates Unknown

• After a few hours on the information highway, I felt like the human equivalent of roadkill
• Illinois Tourist Information Center (312-744-2400?): DISCONNECTED
• Hertz: $40 per day + tax
• Chicago-Northwestern trains stop at Jefferson Park, which is within walking distance of the O'Hare/Congress line to O'Hare.
• U.S. Scientists say that most moon rocks are igneous.

1998

• I had to stop. But it wasn't the five hours of highway, and it wasn't the desert heat that made me exit. For lack of a better word, it was homesickness: a literal gut-felt pull that had me crossing the Salt Flats, the Rockies, and finally the Great Plains until I crossed the Mississippi before finally stopping.
• The hypnotic effects of driving do not manifest themselves immediately. For this trip, I was nearly into Nevada.
  

2000

• [Reno] Access to the river is actually pretty easy, especially from the park.
• There are now geese in the park, no ducks.
• Java Jungle is on the north side of the river, across from the park.
• [Carson City] Could see the cemetery from the Bucket of Blood Saloon.
• Filson canvas bags.

2002 (the first batch all apparently from Chicago/Illinois trips)

• Walked up Michigan Ave., prowled around N. Rush St., Visited Northwestern Campus. Overcast and drizzly, but less wind than previous days--staying away from the water helps.
• Lots of black outfits in the city now.
• The music in O'Neil's: Velvet Underground, double live CD; blue w/Banannas?
• Lunch at Gino's on Rush: slow service, great pizza--deep dish cheese and garlic.
• Cold, rainy weather all but the first day. Had to dress like a backpacker: polypro, flannel, Gore-Tex. Hiking shoes were a good choice, both for walking long distances on concrete and for keeping the feet dry. As in Portland, no one stops just because of the weather. They just adjust to it.
• Don't do Thrifty rentals!
• In town with Kominski for a few days. Congress hotel--old, needs work, good enough to sleep in.
• El rides to Henry's house.
• A trip to Harvard [Illinois]--such a dismal place!
  
• @ the old apartment building: tried to remember the way we watched an ambulance respond to an accident. I seem to remember the ambulance itself taking the corner on 2 wheels though it doesn't look like there is enough room @ the intersection for any visible to turn so quickly and sharply. I remember a woman crying as she was being tended to; she was sitting against a tree, which is still there.
• Wookstock [Illinois]: What was Ward's is now Woodstock Mall.
• There's a line on the court house: 373 feet above sea level.

2002 (more)

• From a church marquee: "Should God bless the USA?"
• In Elko, the train stops across from Paradise Lanes bowling alley & arcade.
• [Viewed from Amtrak train window]: 40 telephone poles per mile. Pole 10 has one reflective strip, pole 20 has two strips, pole 30 has three. Pole 1/40: mile marker, four strips.
• A Piggly Wiggly in Helper, Utah.
• Carbon County, radio KOAl.
• Drank wine out of paper cups at the Day's Inn--Palmer House Hilton has wine glasses in the room.
• Streets with presidents' names run east-west.
• On the train to Chicago, riding along expressway: lighted sign over the road reads "congestion continues thru Sacramento."
• Van Gogh's The Poet's Garden; George Seaurat A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.
  

2004

• Hotel 71 [Chicago] w/Kominski. Much better than Congress.
• Red Line to Division and Milwaukie: Polish food.
• BofA ATM near Hotel 71: near Post Office & Red Lobster.
• Thoreau: Nature/Walking; Heinrich: The Trees in the Forest.
  

2005

• Accident in parking lot--one woman cries @ the damage to her new truck, the one who hit her cried only after the police report was done and the other woman drove away. Cop leaves w/the comment, "You have a good afternoon."
• "Buckle Bunny" slang for a femail rodeo groupie.
• "Technical animal fat not intended for human food."
  

2006

• [Boundary Waters, northern Minnesota] Paddled the Moose River to Big Moose Lake. Lots of lily pads along the narrow river. Stayed the night in Ely in the Paddle Inn.
• A couple of short paddles and one very long portage today. Yesterday were helped by some "old" men who carried our canoes; they were dressed in jeans and rubber boots, and probably laughed at our style of dress.
• Much paddling and a few short portages. Slowly learning how to control the canoe. The weather has been very good thus far, which helps make the experience more pleasant.
• I find myself imaging Grandpa up here, sitting on a rock and staring out over the water. I am also gradually forgetting about the "outside" world, since right now this world is good enough.
• [Chicago] Friday night after a week of Illinois--ends with a wonderful rain storm through which I decided to walk. Wet feet, wet blujeans--but not a moment of regret. Got to watch a bit of lightning while up on N. Michigan Ave, and I stood beneath a canvas awning and listened to the thunder roll between the buildings.
• "At least you didn't lose your boyfriend to your dad."

Date Unknown

• For "The Somnombalist": I once found myself in the Amtrak station in Helper, Utah, the August sunrise bright and hot, the Wasatch Mountains an immune wall to the east. My luggage, a simple small suitcase, was suspended from my hand, the handle cutting into the soft flesh of my palm."
  

The Rest of the Story

Many decades ago when I was a church-and-Sunday-school goer, my father would drop my sisters and me off in front of the First Presbyterian Church, and then he would return an hour or so later to retrieve his flock. Looking back, I think it was a way for my parents to get the brood out of the house and have some time alone, but that's beside the point: we dressed up and sat in our seats and sang songs just as we were told to.

In addition to wishing I were outside when I wasn't, I remember the ride home in one or another Ford station wagons, listening to the radio from the backseat, listening to Paul Harvey and his bits and pieces of news. I used to like how he read his stories, and his tag-line of "And now you know the rest of the story." This was AM radio, mind you, the band of frequencies that held WGN for the Chicago Cubs, and WCFL and WLS for music; and this was many years before I discovered FM radio and its anything-but-Top 40 format of repetition.

Radio would play a small part in my life in college when I talked my way into a news-writing internship at a station in Sacramento, where I learned to write quickly and succinctly though not necessarily well. Talk radio has certainly come a long way since Paul Harvey--it seems to be much more coarse and loud, less thoughtful, but I am more prone to tune into NPR anyway regardless that there is no small amount of pontification there. Even this habit, though, has weakened along with the worldwide economy--why listen every day to bad news, is what I ask. When I was in college and working many nights at a pizza parlor, I would drive home at night and listen to some guy named Rush Limbaugh, a highly successful self-promoted type of guy who has, unfortunately, come to believe that he is a sort of republican messiah. I once worked in a place where Limbaugh's show was played through the warehouse loudspeakers every day, and that was a test of patience if nothing else. The man does bloviate quite well, and there is no denying his disciples of ditto-heads.

I have not listened to Paul Harvey for many years, but I am neverthless saddened to read that he died--read it in a newspaper, if you remember what that is. Oddly enough, I wonder if he now has the true "rest of the story."