What I Was Writing While on the Trip to Chicago

Well, I am currently on the train to Chicago and it has only been one hour and fifteen minutes since I took off from the train station.  I am in for a 17 or 18 hour train ride and while first thinking it was going to be a doozy it seems I will actually have time to rest comfortably.  When waiting for the train you can spend time by 1.) Watching the gap and 2.) Guessing where other people are headed.  That took up about half an hour of my time.  I am traveling with my dear companion, my Mama, and we have a grand total of seven bags.  Yes, we are two small people and we need seven bags.  My Papa is at fault for making us carry, basically, a small refrigerator with us.  So, only six bags for us, small people.  Whenever I am traveling I believe I get very sardonic and I write a lot, so please, give me this small favor.  We have to be at this station for forty-five minutes and it’s going to take a while.  This is a little glimpse of the scenery around me.   Breathtaking, isn’t it?

Someone is coughing up something in front of me.  Hope everything is okay.  I bless you. 

My Papa's magnificent Spice Cake.  Yummy!

When on a train, I recommend you bring something to read.  If you do not have any reading material with you, then you will have to deal with reading “Arrive.”  Really gripping material there.  Bring food.  Good food, that is.  You might think when you get on the train that you can last without eating any nasty train food.  Well trust me, you need food.    Something about this train is making me eat and eat and eat.  Is it a strange coincidence that I am listening to Two Pina Coladas while, here, in a dusty parking lot?  Yeah, I don’t know either.  For you bloggers and writers out there, make sure you have a computer with you.  Yes, a computer.  If you bring a notebook it will look like you were drunk while you were writing.  The computer is very neat and you can write much faster. Work on a new blog post on Microsoft Word or if you have no idea what to write about just write about any thought that comes into your head and about your surroundings too.  For example, earlier when I wrote about the Two Pina Coladas I just wanted to write something that had to do with it.  So I wrote that.  Very useful trick.  Random thoughts always work.  As soon as I wrote that, the song I’m listening to said Heaven Forbid. The world is against me.  So the next few hours will be made up of random thoughts.  You guys are very lucky people to have the random thoughts of a bored teenage girl traveling in your head. 

My father is actually going to be at home reading my blog so he can know what we are doing and such.  So Papa, IF you are reading this, then you should know that Mama is taking a second cigarette break.  Yeah, I’m giving her grief about it.  I know.  I’ll behave!  Love you too. 

Well, it has been about four hours and we have not left the state of New York.  We got stuck at Albany for the bulk of the time.  I now understand purgatory.  When the show South Park said that purgatory was like being on an airplane and everyone is boarded, but you can’t leave.  The same thing is understood if being on a train.  I mean, I am watching people walking next to the train and thinking they look like Justin Bieber.  Yeah, it’s gotten that bad.  So, another thing to add to the list of things to occupy your time on a ride on a train is look at people and think of what celebrity they look like.  If you are traveling at night on a train, it’s kind of pointless to look outside and talk about your surroundings.  You can look outside and summarize what’s outside by saying three little words.  It is dark.  I’m going to describe what’s outside in the longest descriptive paragraph that you can ever write about darkness. 

When looking at this dark window, it gives me a reflection of me typing away at this keyboard with a blank glassy stare.  The iridescent nail polish I’m wearing is standing out against this black mirror.  If I could compare this black mirror, this dark window, this pane of reflection to a soul, it would be a soul that never saw the light of day, that was broken, hurt, left behind.  I can faintly make out the silhouette of trees in this darkness called night.  “Night…” what a strange word.  It sounds slightly relaxing yet with a tablespoon of mysterious.  Who can compare that word with day.  Day is a slightly boring word to an overwhelming lightness.  This window makes me look into my soul whenever I stare at it.  It’s something to be remembered.  Something to never let go. 

This style of writing is called overbored.  It makes me reminisce of what my English teacher called “writing.”  Chills…

I wonder how I will fall asleep on this train.  They have these cushions that come out of the bottom of the chair and lift your legs up.  But with all of these bags clinging to my legs I will be surprised if I ever get up.  I have to flex my leg muscles and every muscle in order to keep writing and in order for me to keep all of my body parts.  At this rate, I’m going to go into paralysis.  Fun fun fun. 

The last time I kept up a steady writing like this was when I went to Seattle two years ago.  I was writing and writing and writing and then later in the trip I spilled water on the computer and I lost my brilliant writing, if I do say so myself.  Seriously, I did some really great writing on that trip and I lost it.  Oh the wonders of flash drives. 

When I think about it, I’m kind of a geek.  I am the one that my parents go to when there’s a problem with the TV or computer or whatever.  In order for me to go on this trip, I had to prepare my Papa with being alone by teaching him how to use the Wii System and the TV.  He understood it much faster than I thought it would take. I like being the geek though.  I’m not the standard geek.  I’m the one that loves to travel, write, read, watch TV, hang out with my friends kind of geek.  I’m not the just computers for me kind of geek.  So, yeah, I’m okay with being a geek. 

You know, some people think I’m in college.  I am always surprised whenever people say that to me.  My Mama works at a college and she got a free R.I.T. bag one day and I got the wonderful bag which I am using right now.  I was at the train station and the person said to me do you go to R.I.T?  And I said”Oh no.” I then explained how it was my Mama’s and it was given to me.  Also people at my Mama’s college think that too.  They are always surprised to hear what grade I’m in. 

My Mama went to get soda a while ago and I haven’t seen her for a while.  Hope everything is okay…  It was just soda!!!!  Hmmmm…

I’m gonna go play some minesweeper.  If anything interesting happens, just let me know. 

Well, it is now 7:00am Central Time and if I had to describe my night’s sleep I have to say it was painful.  Let me describe what it was like.  I was sitting next to my Mama and by this morning, I would have to say that we are contortionists.  There were times when I thought that I could never get out of the pretzel knot I was in.  Suffice to say, I barely slept.  The guy behind us came onto the train at 1:00am and he promptly started eating very noisily and listening to Aerosmith.  When I whispered something to my Mama he told me to “Shhh!”  The dialogue in my head was, “Did you just tell me to shhh?  Oh hell no.  You were the one that decided to listen to Aerosmith at 1:00am preventing anyone on this train to fall asleep and you think I am going to shut up for you?!”  Right now, he is dead to the world. 

A lot of the people on this train were able to fall asleep and I am very jealous.  It was impossible for me and my Mama to sleep.  So, to those of you who are like me and can’t sleep on trains count the number of passing cars, see how many ways you can contort into a slightly comfortable position, stare out the window, see how many warehouses you pass by, and send curses to the guy behind you for me. 

Right now, we are in Toledo, Ohio and the train is going to be two hours late because we were stuck in Albany yesterday for two and a half hours.  The positive outlook to this is that our hotel room will be ready.  That will be in another blog post.  The Hotel.  Oh and Union Station.  My father was telling me yesterday that I should take plenty of pictures of Union Station and look at the architecture of it.  I shall do that.  Supposedly, at the Art Institute of Chicago instead of the usual sculpture of a face on the bottom of stone, they have skulls of bulls sculpted.

You know, people smell weird.  I know weird thought.  It’s just one point someone passed by with major B.O. then someone passed by smelling of macaroni, now bananas.  Very very strange. 

Ghost like graffiti

Ooh!  Another thing you should when on the train is notice the graffiti of passing trains and railbeds.   The can range from words to pictures.  It’s all very interesting.

Seriously, Amtrak?

The train has stopped for some reason and it’s making me stare at the seat in front of me.  Why did Amtrak decide to use this fabric for the upholstery?  I get the whole idea of the blue, but triangles? 

Okay that’s enough fun for one day.