Did you know I’m road tripping? Talan and I took a couple of days to drive down to ACH/ALLC 2003. After it ends on Monday, we’ll drive on ’til Los Angeles. I’ll write up the conf itself later.
Blinky rocket, and poppies along the highway thirty by 120. Can’t pick or photograph because nowhere to stop — but a butterfly in the Smoky Mountains will vainly follow you up and down a mountain and pose for the camera. Thistles also, one in full bloom one just awakening, and three daisies twisting white petals into sign language. Two days later, with a mistaken press of a button, the brilliantly crisp flowers are gone, nothing to do but look for others to capture.
Stuck in a car together for hours on end, recipe for a nightmare? Miracle of, no. Ella Coltrane everything but the girl, postal service, David Matheson, Moloko. Darling Buds.
Half-comatose, and the passenger’s nodding off too. Stop at a gas station which sells corn dogs and “broasted” chicken and proudly announces its neighboring high school to be the “home of the fighting cocks.” Walk a mile and a third up a mountain, to see a waterfall and not fall off a cliff. Eat cheese and crackers and potato chips, and nod back at the Kinder Surprise toucan rocking on his perch on the dash board. Try not to get coffee from insta-Nescafe machines, and fail. Watch the sky get farther and farther away laterally, flattening you mentally until you’re belly-down like a snake. Except in a car, bless his mechanical soul, who’s running better than ever at 130K.
Mustafa, the kind Azerbaijani doctor of the sunniest disposition, hosts us in Roanoke. We eat fish and chukhurtma and drink beer and tea. We listen to Tom Waits, sleep in a deep quiet, and reminisce about old Russian movies in the morning.
Southern hospitality in Huntsville, Alabama comes in the form of a beautiful salad and chicken cordon bleu and great conversation and luscious bedding. All of this is provided by lovely people I’d never met live (though Stephen and I had known each other from ifMUD). Bisquits and sun and house finches in the morning, and we drive again. Six hours away, Georgia is practically next door.
Sudden sun! South!
Athens has an Espresso Royale Cafe, I purchase an iced mocha and write this. Then I purchase an espresso with whipped cream, and stir a packet of raw sugar into it. Besides Talan, there are three people in here, plus the invisible cashier counting out coins. Duran Duran and Blondie and Tears For Fears and bitter stretchy time. Two hours last forever on this day off from the conference, when most others are on a plantation excursion and we take off our name badges, blending into the surroundings. Blue sky and red brick out the window, and a whites-on-black painting of a naked boy on the cafe wall.
Off I go to read Cunt a bit. Colleen lent it to me before I left, thinking I might enjoy it. It’s an interesting read, intentionally horrifying in some places and suspiciously us-vs.-them about men in others; but mostly sensitive and passionate and tenderly, intensely true.
[…]
Here’s a passage from Cunt that reflects my thoughts not merely in general, but specifically with regard to the [in]effectiveness of the anti-war demonstration in Boston a couple of months ago.
[T]he fight for human rights does not take place on some bureaucratic battleground with a bevy of lawyers running from congressional suite to congressional suite, sapping resources into laws. The war for peace and love and other nice things like that is not waged in protests on the street. These forms of fighting are a reaction to oppression, giving destructive power that much more energy. The real fight for human rights is inside each and every individual on this earth.
Reading things like this re-affirms my lack of desire to go shout on the streets. That’s ineffective. I cannot change the entire world, so I build my community and educate my children and learn from the people I admire. There’s an awful lot of those people here at the conference. I’ll write more about them later; meanwhile, I will just tingle in my spine and grin like a fool.
