This is the part where it doesn’t seem real, where I’m watching myself pack and do things that are decidedly non packing.
Trips always get me nervous, and no amount of preplanning seems to take away that anxiety. I have the list.
Everything is checked off.
All there is left is to fall asleep and wake up ready to head out.
I’m shaking and I don’t know why.
Normally, I get anxious before I travel. Doesn’t matter when or where.
Usually it’s right when I have to start packing. The questions begin to start in my head. Have I brought enough? Did I bring everything I would need? Then the procrastinating begins. A search for some little thing I’m not even planning to bring on the trip, some web browsing, maybe some video games.
This time, none of that works.
This time it’s different.
I can’t stop the shaking and there’s an overwhelming feeling of being trapped.
And I don’t know why.
Staring into the hollow, tiny eyes of a bronze statue, I stop to think for a moment. I hold the cucumber eel brown rice sushi in my chopsticks and then I realize.
I have no idea where the hell I am. Continue reading
I think I’m getting it.
Walk downtown on Church. Pass Ground Zero.
Join throng of people headed downtown.
Left at Pine.
Jaywalk, hang a right when I feel like it.
Avoid bike messenger going wrong way down one way street into oncoming traffic.
Cross with the light this time, making sure to avoid the hybrid taxi edging its way through the crosswalk, the same crosswalk filled with people.
Avoid line of people entering fifth starbucks in three blocks.
Pass The World of Golf.
Barrel through family of tourists that decided to make the stop right in the middle of the sidewalk during rush hour wearing those incredibly stupid looking statue of liberty foam headbands.
I hate those headbands.
Grab blueberry yogurt parfait at Pax Wholesome Foods.
Arrive at training center.
Bang. Easy.
The South.
My brother had this to say about it:
You know, I’ve been to Communist China, and the South still scares me.
And I can understand his fear. Still, that wasn’t my experience when I went to The South (Proper caps) exactly one year ago.
The South still has a public relations nightmare to clean up after that whole state’s rights issue that got blown way out of proportion. Then, as usual, the only people you see on the television are folks that appear to be straight out of Deliverance. Continue reading