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Saturday, Oct. 05, 2002 / 11:39 p.m. ~Six Flags~ I was relaxing in a hot bath when I realized I had to get online to check stats to make sure the one I don't want reading this didn't suddenly start. I was considering a little break from being online, a break consisting of all day today, which it has been so far, and maybe a good bit of tomorrow, a little break indeed, but then I had to make sure there was no need to lock this thing, not yet.... Silly, I know. Six Flags. My feet hurt. I can still smell the mildew, the mold, the wet pavement, that water with the green dye in it, the sweat, the occasional cigarette. I can still hear all those people bouncing the basketballs they won at the arcade, and the shouting. I can close my eyes and see tanned skin, tank tops, legs, athletic shoes, faces. Sensory overload is still loaded. I walked in my apartment and immediately felt... well.... at home. But even better than that. I felt back to normal. Away from all those people. So very many people. Six Flags was crowded. We went to Publix first, on the way, got sandwiches to go, Cubans, but someone had to make them, they said it would take ten minutes, so we waited. Then we drove to the park with the cooler containing our water and sandwiches, our chips and bananas, and once there, at the park, we walked to the ticket window where we had to wait again. Maybe twenty minutes, maybe more. Just to get a ticket. At 10:00 a.m., opening time. Someone wearing a large gold cross tried to sell us his free, comp tickets (is that redundant? - they were not only free, they were complimentary), for $20 each. We had a coupon to get in for $25 each. I told him it was wrong of him to be selling tickets he got for free, and he looked at me so puzzled. Wrong. We found a coupon for $20 off at the ticket window, so we paid $20 anyway. Hot and cranky, HAPPY, hot and cranky, HAPPY, all day. Tired, feet hurt, too loud, too long a line, fun ride.... HAPPY, sore neck from whiplash, cranky, sore, hot, feet hurt, out to car to eat, feeling nauseous, food, Cuban sandwich, banana, air conditioned car, HAPPY. All day, up, down, up, down. One ride, the very best in the whole world, a roller coaster called Deja Vu, required a wait of two hours. TWO HOURS amid announcements alternating between a recitation of HOW great the ride would be and an apology for technical difficulties: "We encourage you to stay in line, but if you must leave please exit through the entrance". Standing, watching the people, feeling no emotion for anyone, so many people, but taking notes the whole time, mental, looking at who gets her eyebrows waxed, who has perfect youthful skin, and the guy with the topiary in his beard, the one with the shaved head and the big scar running from one ear to the other (brain surgery, I tell Mark, he's had his head opened), and the one with the slitted eyes, just like the boy in "Deliverance". And after a while I'm humming the theme song from the movie every time we pass her. I laugh, and I say it's mean, but I cannot help it, she could be his sister. And why is her face so pocked, but her back, the rest of her, so perfect? And so skinny. I thought amusement parks were for heavy people, big, big, people, but we saw people I wanted to take home to feed. Here, eat, please. The Concentration Camp look was never really "in". Skinny, tanned white skin, brown skin. Black, black skin with black tattoos. Piercings. Braids, straight, ponytails, bald, afros, big, big afros. Tummies everywhere. Low riding jeans, jeans capris, shorts and cottage cheese-y thighs, bellies, not just tummies, bellies. Children, all cute, every last one of them. Adorable. Later, babies. Infants. Large stuffed animals, as in LARGE. Where do you put it, large. How do you fit in your car, large. Take that thing to the curb, large. Let's put it in the yard sale, large. And Mark played that hit the thingie when it pops up game with me, so 'we' could win the little stuffed Shar Pei looking dog. The one you're supposed to want to exchange for the coiled snake when you play again, which you're supposed to want to do, supposed to play again. But I want the dog, and he wins it, and I take it, he gives it to me. And we ride the old Scream Machine and it hurts, it hurts bad, it hurts worse than the Cyclone which gave me whiplash first thing in the morning. It throws me up in the air and lands me down with a thud, my breasts, hereby nicknamed my 'bodacious ta-tas', felt like they'd break. The tissue is torn. Forever. My little bosoms, swollen with my impending 'moon time', rushed up towards my neck and fell back down to my knees with a force heretofore unheard of. Outside of the Space Program. Pain. I was grabbing them, "My breasts!", then holding my neck straight, "My neck!", then "My breasts! My neck! OwWWWWWWW!!!!", until we were braked quite suddenly near the end of the ride. More whiplash. We walked away, no, staggered away, wondering why. And I said they should destroy that coaster, once and for all. Further thought, further consideration, brought about an unpleasant realization..... we are getting old. It hurts more the older you are. We decided. We skipped the Ninja, we both know the pain of that coaster. I refused to even consider the Wheelie, said I didn't feel like tasting my stomach lining. And Mark's favorite, the Superman coaster, the one wherein you feel like you're 'flying', or about to fall, to me, was so crowded I couldn't stand the thought of another line. Expensive french fries, sitting at a table surrounded by arcades, boys bouncing basketballs, people shouting out to their parties, hey, we're over here, hey, you, come here, etc. Bells ringing the beginnings of games involving squirting water into small holes, bouncing balls. The Carousel. Built in 1908, transported from Chicago to Six Flags upon its opening in 1966. Beautiful. Tranquil. Lulling. Hypnotic. We rode it twice, in semi-rapid succession. We never got off. The elderly man running it announced we could stay on, there is no line, he said, and we did, we sat atop our steeds, I placed my feet on the forelegs of mine, I held my pole and we went up and down some more, and round and round, and I asked Mark once again, "So you haven't seen 'Strangers On a Train'? Really? But there's this great Carousel scene, you really should see it, the horses all fly off the thing, people are killed, see the lever is pushed in, the speed increases, everything goes flying off, it's crazy, you sure you haven't seen it?" Walking around with my stuffed Shar Pei, neck hurt, feet hurt, dried sweat, sunblock still making my arms sticky, 'clown hair', hair all sticking up because of intense humidity, but the sun came out all day, and it was HOT, did I mention it was hot, it was HOT, and the hot sun hurt when we were in it. It was painful and hot. Steam everywhere. Hot, humid, blue sky, big puffy white clouds. Hottest part of the day out in the car in the a/c eating our Cubans, but later, breezy and nice, tolerable, and once washed and not sticky it was okay, but there was a Fright Fest raffle and we gathered to win. We turned in stubs, we went in to a quick Fright Fest stage show, all scary Halloween-y rock songs, "Welcome to My Nightmare", stuff like that, dancing, singing, not bad at all, I was impressed, and then the drawing, and we waited, anticipating the TV, the Airline Tickets, the Thrashers Tickets, or Braves Tickets, or Season Pass, but we didn't win a damned thing standing there for a half hour, waiting, listening, anticipating. And the prizes listed weren't given away, and again, cranky, HAPPY to leave, cranky to walk back to car amidst strollers pushing towards me, HAPPY to listen to Loudon Wainwright III in the car, in the a/c, towards home. I looked at the contest rules once home, and it's ongoing, through Halloween, so the prizes not given away tonight will no doubt be given away later. And I feel better knowing it was not illegal, it was not a sham. It's okay. We have passes to get in on Halloween for free, we all got them, everyone today. And maybe we'll go, I don't know. The best parts? Riding the little Dahlonega Mine Train, the gentle coaster I rode as a child, then a teenager, the coaster that existed there, 35 years ago before any of the rest. Riding the Sky Bucket, and calling it the Slut Bucket and laughing, and thinking of her and wondering how she is..... The second coaster we rode, the Georgia Scorcher, and realizing the word to describe the feeling is JOY. Laughing so hard on the whiplash inducing Cyclone that tears came out of my eyes. The first drop on Deja Vu, again, laughing, realizing riding roller coasters makes me LAUGH. Loving that ride, until it went backwards. Then concentrating to make sure not to get sick. Winning the silly stuffed Shar Pei, or Mark winning it, even though I bashed as many of those thingies with the mallet as he did. Riding the Carousel. Riding the silly train around the park. Looking at all the goofy shit for sale in the stores and around the park. The horrible stuff???? Realizing my digital camera wasn't going to work and not knowing why, yet carrying the thing around in my 'fanny pack' against my stomach all day. The hot hot sun. And sweating with sunscreen on. Losing money in the pressed penny machine. Getting a fucked up pressed penny, the design all skewed. Spending 50 cents a pop on the pressed pennies. People walking helter skelter, and wanting to run away from them as I saw them coming. Really bony skinny young people. Scary stuff. The crappy raffle. Whiplash. My bodacious ta-tas being bounced up and down. OW!!! (gee, would a bra have helped avoid this?) No more parking lot "train" to take people to their cars. What did they DO with those things? Having to walk the mile or two to the car to eat, in the midday sun. Realizing I'm too old to enjoy coasters as I once did. Or maybe it's the hormones. If I just sit here and focus on something small, I'm still dizzy. It was after the Scorcher that I noticed it, that I began to feel it. I told Mark it was banging my head, my ear, against the brace. It didn't hurt, but I think I jogged my brain in my skull, a mini concussive effect. Concussive? Concussion. Jogged. Makes me dizzy and a bit nauseous. Combo of that, the whiplash and not enough food to make up for the calories burned. It's 12:22 a.m., but I'm going to eat leftover pasta now. And watch TV in bed. And tomorrow I intend to sleep very much. It has been the longest day in history. Cost of the War in Iraq
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