Salt Lake City

Hi little kitty cat!!! H’areya?

Anyway I got to t he bus station ok after I got my running around accomplished and I gotta say one thing I GOT TOO MUCH SHIT my knees actually buckled when I got it all on ditched one 500ml water was about all I could do which is approx 1 lb. BFD.

Sitting on the couch this morning at 7:30 trying with limited success to eat a bowl of actually delicious oatmeal thought to myself with a blast of revelation/insight obvious truth “this feels exactly like an enormous geeze of high-quality methedrine, that sense of  fear and excitement and omigod this is what I was afraid would happen and confidence and doom all at the same time.

And the readiness to do what needs to be done, not just do it but precisely and immediately…

And like all those times I knew that the best thing would be just to let it all float over it about 3 feet off th deck and let it go…and a great sadness

The irony is that the Greyhound station this Monday morning is clean, spacious, relatively quiet, organized and tranquil. Of course there were the obligatory crackheads out on the sidewalk I don’t know where central casting gets them, the woman with the bulging eyes and the crow-caw/donkey–in-pain voice, but they were all perfectly type-cast yet minding their own business.

The lady behind the counter (nobody in line) was pleasant, well dressed in a kind of high grade work outfit a great big white watchband and sparklies all around the great big watch face revealed casually in conversation she happened to be the station manager, the boss, the big cheese, and yet she was, like I said, nice. Competent. Printed out my boarding pass, answered my questions, said I might get away with not checking any of my bags but it was up to the driver.

And I got the priority boarding upgrade which will obviate the necessity of standing in line. We even have our own waiting area ( im the only one in mine) 1 hour to go.

My only criticism is the tv is right over my head and its CNN thank God not on to the jerry springer channel and the volume is loud enough to echo a bit. Earplugs and headphones . At least there’s nobody yelling or banging their trays on the cell doors, oh wait, Im not in County… and thank God no country music at all. And, really, better ten tvs than any stupid music at all.

The little kitty is the screen helper in the MS Word 2000 I had leftover from back in the days when I was working on my never to be published book. I love my little screen kitty I wish I had one on here all the time.

Further drama now that its later at night and I’ve been on the road for 7 hours, fed at McDonalds in Baker city. This kid got on in Stanfield Oregon or Pendleton maybe big guy twenty five at the most obviously not happy slugging from an industrial size bottle of some pink prescription stomach remedy so we get a five minute stop in LaGrande me and him make the briefest of eye contact earlier but it’s a five minute stop only and the kid barrels off the bus before you can say boo and later on wee rolling to baker city and hes not there. His seatmate showed us the bag he left behind and Omigod we left him at the Lagrande 5 min stop we were warned but he didn’t make it back in time OI figure hes in the can  and I was sad for him and how fucked up his world just got. 

But no, its like this, some guy from the rehab he was supposed to meet the kid at the bus in Baker City and the kids not there. Bailed out. They tried to make him go to rehab he said NO NO NO.

But the bus us great, nice guy driving, spirit of comraderie back here in the coach. My 5 bucks bought me first boarding rights I felt like a bit of an asshole passing up he entire lineup to get on. Like the guys getting on first class on the airplane dude I paid for it. I didn’t really hardly get the stink-eye at all.

Of course its an ancient heap of a bus, rust streaks on the overhead, windows permanently effed up, gumstrips left where the engine cover used to be duckt taped on. And judging from that how long they must have left the tape on there looks like a while. Not very crowded, though it was for a minute there. A young native American woman sat next to me. I don’t think she was all there, the way she kept mewling out MAMAuh you promised, then things thinned out a bit and she went back to the seat net to her Mom who had a nice blankie for her and now they’re napping. I love the human race, goddammit, I really do.

And the pemmican isn’t bad either, but I did go over to McDonalds for a big Mac and a small chocolate shake. It didn’t seem right to pas up the chance for real food. Did I say real food ? Relatively speaking of course. You can take this re-enactment shit too far.