travel day one

sunday november 16. day one.

lethargic wine hangover. plus that nervous butterfly feeling came back with a vengeance. ugh. awful cliche sentence. sat on my hands. paced. read internet. but i still had the awful stinging anxious feeling. my new train would leave at 4:45pm sunday afternoon.

flying star. i got the buddha bowl. it's served with rice, edamame, broccoli, carrots, crispy tofu bites, sweet peppers, ginger, crisp noodles, and chopsticks in a pregnant white bowl. marc ordered a breakfast burrito. served with christmas. dave matthews slush played on the speakers. fiona apple song. jazz shit song. another dave matthews. and a terrible cover of in my life. marc said he hated beatles covers. "but i know you like them" he said to me. yea, i like a couple but this one in particular was garbage. BEATLES BRUNCH. marc listened to paul mccartney blab about how the yellow submarine is still very relevant even today. and you know what? it offended me. who does paul think he is commenting on a piece of music he made with several other people? what's more valuable, the musician or the song? it seems to me that a great piece of music comes together through a string of chances. the correct combination of musicians, instruments, producers, time period, social consciousness and drugs and we have lucy in the sky with diamonds. and to comment on it like this means he's taking responsibility for something that happened to him. paul, i'm sorry but the yellow submarine album is greater than you are and it can explain you better than you can explain it. that last part is corn. but possibly true. when i listen to an unspeakably good song it's life and death. it feels necessary. music can solve our problems. right? one day i'm going to comb out these previous thoughts. there's a good point in there somewhere. moving on.

so the train is huge. i'm in coach which is on the top floor. and lugging my two suitcases up the incredibly small and twisted stairwell was fucked up. the bottom floor, i think, is the nicer business class seats and tiny little rooms with beds and doors. the seats are awesome. much better than the sweat stained messes on greyhound. they recline back and there's a leg rest and foot rest. i have a window seat but it's dark now. and it seems to take forever to get to the train's top speed. not that you notice the slow acceleration, it just seems like the telephone poles aren't going by fast enough. and then suddenly they are.

i had no idea this many people took the train. and the various strange personalities assembled together is surprising. there's a large family with four small kids. a guy in an expensive gray suit. REI guys who look like ex-bf, jackson. ladies with real estate magazines. teens in hoodies. the train crowd is more diverse and interesting than the plane crowd. i think i love the train. let's see how i feel at the end of the trip though.

the creep next to me keeps asking about marc. my boyfriend. weird questions about if we're happy and if i'd ever marry him. telling me that he "could just tell" i was still a party girl. and telling me super personal details about his past girlfriends. om effing g, dude, please realize that when i say "gross" that means STOP TALKING.

no, i will not tell you the address of my sister's dorm.
no, i will not lay my head on your shoulder to sleep.
no, i will not go back to your house for a "party" when we get into san francisco.
and no, my sister doesn't look exactly like me. why are you even asking weirdo?

ok. i just remembered two gross things he said when we introduced ourselves. "so how old are you? i've got to make sure you're old enough! this time." and he kind of whispered 'this time' like he wanted me to hear. should i be excited you may have seduced a child? or should i be excited that you lie about things like pedophilia? i told him my age and he said "oh good. i would have guessed 21 by your face and younger for the rest." uhm. the rest? of my body? HALP!

i looked for another empty seat but when i got back he was gone so i'm just going to stay here. put my headphones and sunglasses on. even tho it's pitch black outside. we're somewhere near kingman.