Monday, July 27, 2020

And she opens the door of her cadillac

Photo of Earthgirl and me descending Cadillac Mountain past Saturday



  • 227 miles in Maine 17 miles in New Hampshire 95 miles in Massachusetts 98 miles in Connecticut 71 miles in New York 220 miles in Pennsylvania 70 miles in Maryland and home
  • 437 miles in New England 361 miles in sub-New England 798 miles would make Waterbury Connecticut approx halfway 
  • and fuck that, New York-Connecticut border it symbolically be
  • Connecticut and Massachusetts interstates number their exits sequentially, not by mile marker, I noticed on way east north east up
  • remembered driving west south west home
  • I gave the odometer readings to Earthgirl who kindly agreed to write them down for me 
  • What if they need a new exit? 
  • they reassign and resign every sign every exit after the new exit's number pushes every exit after back one?
  • They have some massholianconncut THERE WILL NEVER BE A NEW EXIT?
  • Reminder: on American interstates, 0 starts at a state's southern border/terminus on odd-numbered north-south interstates, 0 on the western border for even-numbered east-west, so all driving home, except for Conn/Mass, we had countdown
  • State route shields in all New England states traversed this trip but New Hamphire's state route shield* is a square if route one digit or two, rectangular is route three digits 
  • complains the guy from a state whose route shields are barely more than labeled rectangles
  • *is weird, live free or die, dammit
  • U.S. Route 1 runs east-west for long portions of Maine and each of many long peninsulas gets a state route that runs due south until water then loops to the left or right depending on which junction with Route 1 you started 
  • If you start at the eastern-most junction with 1 your start route is signed south and remains signed south after looping to right and heading due north, and visa versa start western-most junction
  • More east than north and far more north, Seal Cove than Kensington, night black done by 4:15
  • Leaving at 5:45, talking to one of our hosts (who rent their cottage while living in their separate apartment garage to pay for living in the cottage nine months a year) when I remarked on the long days he remarked on the long nights, the January equivalent
  • Said winter is great but you gotta like winter
  • (Spring the shitty season to Mainers, he said)
  • Reckless and selfish, yes, our trip, and crucial and essential, more later, me processing, whether here or not
  • (All cats are safe, all cats are well)
  • Tomorrow starts the big birthday crescendo of the year, or not, that *or not* new too
  • Rest in peace, Peter Green






A WICKER BASKET

Robert Creeley

Comes the time when it’s later
and onto your table the headwaiter   
puts the bill, and very soon after
rings out the sound of lively laughter—
  
Picking up change, hands like a walrus,   
and a face like a barndoor’s,
and a head without any apparent size,   
nothing but two eyes—
  
So that’s you, man,
or me. I make it as I can,   
I pick up, I go
faster than they know—
  
Out the door, the street like a night,   
any night, and no one in sight,   
but then, well, there she is,
old friend Liz—
  
And she opens the door of her cadillac,   
I step in back,
and we’re gone.
She turns me on—
  
There are very huge stars, man, in the sky,
and from somewhere very far off someone hands me a slice of apple pie,
with a gob of white, white ice cream on top of it,   
and I eat it—
  
Slowly. And while certainly
they are laughing at me, and all around me is racket   
of these cats not making it, I make it
  
in my wicker basket

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