uh-oh. i've got the ol' don't-wanna-go-to-bed-itis.

[fflo]

hey, do i hear the 2 a.m. train, early this morning? i guess it's not always right at 2. tonight it's making me think of infinitepresent's aborted stab at hoboing from, what?, last summer maybe.

still hot out. only getting down to 72 tonight? humidity on the rise.

i had a full day today. worked 10 hours. went to the gym. stopped at trader joe's on the way home, all sweaty, and had a fella try to pick me up. (he seemed to have an instinct that steered him away from being a complete sleaze about it, thankfully. took me longer than it used to to get what was going on.) Made some supper & impulsively watched the last half of air force one on tv before switching over to schoolhouse rock (which didn't arrive in time for j's visit). "5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80..."

that's definitely the train whistle. if i turned this fan off i could probably hear the rattling on the tracks. think my attachment to that sound is why i prefer an old-style rickety wooden roller coaster, or is that more likely a combo of affection for coney island, alvy singer, and steve mcallister, who was so funny about our likelihood to die on the thing that day so long ago?

Comments

pennies on the tracks

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Okay, I guess it's about time I raised this issue: coins on the track to be smushed. Have you done it? Heard stories about their having the potential to derail the train? I confess, I've gotten some pennies smooshed, and have yet to derail anything. Though sometimes it IS hard to find your smushed coin afterwards.

Re: pennies on the tracks

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I remember the embankment of the rail bridge over the Huron river in/near the arboretum, finally realizing that I had to do multiple coins to insure getting one.

Memory may be faltering here, because I place trollhagen at the scene, telling a kid who was hanging out in the area after we recovered the coins that he should be careful around the tracks becase he could end up smooshed like one of the pennies.

I can't help but suspect that if a penny could derail a train, the rail system would have been brought to its knees a hundred years ago by stray gravel, branches, and bugs on the tracks. I'm sure it would take at least a quarter to do it. That's probably why they stopped making half-dollars, and shrunk the dollar coin. To keep The Terrorists from wiping out the transportation infrastructure.

The sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers
ride their father's magic carpet made of steel.

Re: pennies on the tracks

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes... the multiple coin technique. I think that's what finally did it for me.

            To a Locomotive In Winter

Thee for my recitative,
Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining,
Thee in thy panoply, thy measur'd dual throbbing and thy beat convulsive,
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel,
Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides,
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar, now tapering in the distance,
Thy great protruding headlight fix'd in front,
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple,
The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack.
Thy knitted frame, thy springs and valves, the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels,
Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily following,
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careening;
Type of the modern - emblem of motion and power - pulse of the continent,
For once come serve the Muse and and merge in verse, even as here I see thee,
With storm and buffeting gusts of wind and falling snow,
By day thy warning ringing bell to sound its notes,
By night thy silent signal lamps to swing.

Fierce-throated beauty!
Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music,thy swinging lamps at night,
Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like an earthquake, rousing all,
Law of thyself complete, thine old track firmly holding,
(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)
Thy trills and shrieks by rocks and hills return'd,
Launch'd o'er the praries wide, across the lakes,
To the free skies unpent and glad and strong.

                                    -- Walt Whitman

Re: pennies on the tracks

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

What was the TJ guy's pickup line? That's great-- when you're all sweaty and doin' something good for yourself, people think you're hot....

Re: pennies on the tracks

[fflo.livejournal.com]

He seemed to be mistaking me for a woman he met there earlier who'd said she comes over from Detroit to go to TJ's. True? Who knows. I took him at face value, though. He didn't seem to know what a doppelganger is; if he had, would I have taken him home? (ha ha)