Doing the United States

Road Trip.

This timeline is being recorded for consumption.

Friday, May 15, 2009
9:16 AM
Day 8,452 Alive

The trip is off to an intriguing start. In line to buy juice to equalize my hangover I see an alien. She was wearing a large brimmed hat and used an outdated lexicon, "by golly!" She had trouble understanding the operations necessary to both pump and then pay for gas. Clearly she has intercepted old tv emissions (the waves taking years to reach her planet). I take this as a good omen; also as a sign that this section of my journal may be a false memory created to cover up an abduction. Either way I'm pretty excited.

9:33 AM

Passed a hitch hiker. Did not pick him up, alas. He was a looker.

11:08 AM

Revelation: Music is meant to be experienced, live and on drugs.

1:23 PM

Lunch in New Hampshire. I ordered a pastramy sub for authenticity. A sign reads "Customers taking more than three minutes to order two pizzas or less will be shot." I ask the cashier if any veggies come on the sub. She tells me no. I ask for lettuce and tomato. It is clearly a rare order. Authenticity ruined. Outside I eat in the 24 degree heat and watch a woman buy icecream and feed it to her dog.

3:56 PM

Last stop before the lodge. Supermarket for mix. The old couple behind me has in their cart a pie, a head of cabbage and over a dozen, perhaps almost twenty cans of things like 'sweet corn' and 'sweet peas.' Also a twenty-four case of Samuel Adams Summer Ale. The old man's lower lip folds neatly over his upper lip, almost covering it.

5:50 PM

We've just passed a store called Fashion Bug. Wares unknown.

10:28 PM

We arrived at The Lodge. It is literally a lodge, over a dozen bedrooms on an island in Maine that this weekend will house twenty people. We put in a dock, we drink. There is a clutch of stereotypical geeks here. The two brothers have red hair, one with a pony tail, one without. Both with receding hair lines. No one says it, but I think they are twins. They talk about literature, computers and sci-fi, all with the vague condesention that comes with the mastery of your chosen domain. Dinner is chicken. I have named this weekend 'Majesty.' From the bed I sit on while I write I can hear loons crying.

Monday, May 18th, 2009
2:03 PM
Day 8,455 Alive

Heading back home, we stop at a state liquor store shaped like a barn. I buy whiskey at an incredibly low price. In the bathroom I wait for the only stall in a line of three men. The man in front of me is old, with high high waisted pants and glasses. In my mind's eye now I see him with suspenders, but already this could be a trcik of memory. He comes out of the stall after some timeand I'm leaning with my butt on a heat register. He apologizes for this prostate problem and I assure him that it's all right, of course. In the stall someone has written on the toilet paper dispenser with a sharpie. CRAP O' MATIC. TURD DISPENSER.