scantering

excerpt from a project for rachel j:

in france, people stared at me because they thought i was a gypsy. they thought i was going to rob them. i sat on the metro to myself and quietly read lonesome traveler. i couldn't hurt a fly if i wanted to. before i left humboldt county last summer, my new theater friends gave me a copy of edna st. vincent millay's collected poems, which i read on the greyhound from san francisco to L.A. despite the red eye bus trip getting pretty full mid-way through, i carefully guarded the seat next to mine so no one would sit in it. which i feel guilty about because people are always telling amazing stories about the people they meet on those kind of trips. i met a woman on a plane from boston to california. she gave me a hard time for reading hemingway. "that's heavy reading isn't it?" she said. "when i read, i don't wanna hafta think." she proceeded to tell me about her granddaughter and her new heirloom tomatoes. there's something magical that's happened to me the four or five times i've arrived in san francisco as a solo unit. i can't stop writing. there seems to be nothing better for my writer's block than to scanter into my favorite city without a friend in the world.