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Monday, Oct. 27, 2003 / 2:10 p.m. ~Washington Is Beautiful~ Whew! I've been replying to comments about something I posted to the LiveJournal antiwar community for the past half hour at least. I practically jumped out of bed after way too much sleep, because I was tired of sleeping, was anxious to log back on after hours and hours of being in bed, and found nothing but replies to my post in my email inbox. I had 80 some emails in all, but about 20 were Spam. The rest were all comments to my post. Go figure. Yeah, I won't mention the actor's name here, but seeing him, meeting him after the debacle was the highlight of my trip. He is drop dead gorgeous in person, but has funky teeth, they're sort of all really far apart from one another, but he was nice, and friendly, and a bit shook up, I could tell. Crazy. I want to give up on A.N.S.W.E.R. altogether, I really do. It's something Sandy had complained about long ago, maybe a year or so, the same speakers, the same old shit, the same causes represented by their vast coalition, and the strange habit they have of forgetting exactly why we're there, every time. But because I'd made semi-arrangements to meet a fellow LiveJournaler in front of the Rally stage, and I'd told people to look for me on C-SPAN, and I wanted to be on TV (I'm a whore for TV coverage), I sat on the grass in front of the speakers' platform for almost the entire Rally. Prior to that, I'd wandered a bit, on my own since I lost my fellow bus companions when I knelt down to chat with the guy from my County, the one on the grass selling buttons. He seemed glad to see me, which was nice, so we chatted a bit, he gave me a button for the local group, and I bought one with John Lennon flashing a peace sign, it says "Choose Peace". I tried to give away as many of my stickers as I could, and I saw it as an icebreaker, a way to meet people, but you'd be amazed how I never actually meet people at these things, and you'd be amazed how no one seems to want to know me. It left me very sad at the end of the day, feeling outrageously alone, the alone one can only feel in the midst of a very large crowd. So many people together, with friends, with loved ones, with children, with dogs (people, do NOT bring your dogs to Demonstrations, they do NOT have a good time! - one I saw was really freaking out, and the owner refused to notice), and children. It had me wanting my own child, my own husband, my own boyfriend, my own best friend. But, speaking of friends, another incident which unfortunately is stuck in my mind is something that happened at our breakfast stop. We broke with tradition last time, visited an IHOP, but this time we were back at the same old truck stop (that sells all kinds of stuff! - I bought two Virginia magnets for my fridge, which is full, so they actually go on my dishwasher now) with the big country restaurant, the closed fast food restaurants inside (at 8:00 a.m., yeah, they're closed), the huge bathrooms that have music playing in them, the rock and roll bathrooms with granite counters and lots of sinks. I got a huge coffee with hazelnut cream and sucked it down (which gave me way too much energy once back on the bus for the final 'descent' into D.C.), went to wash my face and brush my teeth, change my shirt, that sort of thing, and whilst I was enjoying the music, and drinking my coffee in between face washing and application of moisturizer, two young women joined me, talking to each other, washing up. I commented on the music, they agreed, but then one was pleading with the other, "You sure you don't mind? You won't be grossed out? You know what it's like when you eat too much and your stomach feels uncomfortable, I have to do it? You sure you don't mind?", and I wanted to ask, "Jesus, what are you going to do? Take a shit? It's a bathroom!", but I tried not to notice. Next thing I see her kneeling by the toilet, her reflection in the big mirror, and I hear her coughing, like they do in movies and TV when they're pretending to throw up. I thought again how that's not at all how it sounds when people are really throwing up, and then all I could think was that she didn't 'look' bulimic, she wasn't skinny, she looked like a young lesbian, hair nearly shaved, long underwear, very masculine, not chunky, but not thin at all, but now I knew this secret of hers, and it's part of her life, and I didn't want to know about this at all. Later I was in a stall, blowing my nose, and the one who promised she didn't mind, or only shook her head, said, "You haven't changed a bit since high school". Yeah, this is stuck in my mind. So many other things were exactly the same. Being so nervous as I left home for the bus, getting there on time and being told the buses were late, which is always the case. Getting there at 8:15, leaving closer to 10:30. Talking to people in the parking lot while we waited, passing out my stickers. One older man chatted me up, then another, then the weird one who wouldn't stop staring at me and smiling, then the Iranian who was so handsome I became really shy, and wondered how he treats women, wondered if we could have a relationship, what would it be like to 'date' an Iranian. On the bus I sat alone, and soon was joined by a 23 year old man, another handsome young man with no interest in asking me anything at all about myself. I drew a little out of him before he sat with his eyes closed, found out his age and his sign (Gemini) and that he's lived in different parts of the country, and that he has a big dream for the future, and that he is involved in a project with a good friend, one involving sustainability for us all. A young man with a dream. Interesting. He turned me on to Kucinich, and we talked briefly, but I've never been so close physically to someone who seemed to want absolutely nothing to do with me before. We slept inches from each other, for hours, me tossing and turning, him sitting upright or with head nodded, eyes closed, and when I got up to use the bathroom and had to crawl over him, looked at his perfect mouth, and thought he was incredibly beautiful. Hard to sleep next to a handsome stranger, wanting his arm to fall across me, move up against me in the middle of the night. This was a newer bus, more comfortable than the last one, but the driver smoked and we stopped too many times, and people piled out, and it was always as soon as I fell asleep we stopped. On the way back as well. So that when the 'tip cup' was passed around I let it pass me. I wasn't going to tip drivers who seemed to have much disdain for us, talked ill of us, "I can't hear my radio with all that damned noise back there!", etc. And played Aretha Franklin on instant replay, over and over and over on the same song until I never thought I'd hate the sound of her voice, but I did then. Sandy is right, the bus ride is hell, it always is. The March itself was nice, a bit too spread out, and not a lot of chanting, not so proud as last time, not so extreme, we weren't challenged by the police, it was more like a stroll, and our numbers weren't as strong, I noticed this immediately and was disappointed, "Where is everyone?". But it was good. It was. I still have one of those disposable cameras filled with exposed film from the Demonstration in January, and now I have one from Saturday too. Eventually I'll get them developed. But I remember everything. Yesterday morning we arrived back home just before the rain (and it poured off and on all day long), just before 6:00 a.m., with the time change, 7:00 otherwise. I picked up a huge takeout breakfast, came home and pigged out, turned on C-SPAN, but they'd already re-broadcast Saturday night, then CNN and they had a big story on us, we made news. Then I got online looking for stories, looking at slideshows already posted on Yahoo! and elsewhere, researching the famous actor who was almost removed from the stage, found out he's quite the activist. Finally I got in bed, around 11:30, fell asleep to some movie or another, woke to watch a movie set in modern day Vietnam, "Three Seasons", ate leftover trail mix and drank water, tried to get the cats back on their usual feeding schedule, walked by my pile of stuff still on the dining table, the contents of my backpack that need to be repacked for everyday use. The rest put away immediately after breakfast. And the Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate was on Fox News Channel last night - I skipped "Tarzan" to watch it, still in bed. I wanted Kucinich to drive his points home, I wanted people to applaud his Department of Peace, and his ideas for repairing this country, but Dean was the frontrunner and Clark was on the defensive. Braun stood out for her gentle manner, and once again Sharpton provided comic relief and the "Amen, Brother!" reaction from the crowd in Detroit. Now, I'm groggy from dreaming of being in love with unavailable men, first a hockey player, then Mick Jagger, I think Moby, god knows, I dreamed and dreamed until I could dream no more. I sifted through my voluminous emails, and now I'm here. I could go to a movie, or watch more TV, or read, or clean, I'm not sure. I'm just really glad I took today off work. My recovery time is slower this time around, though yesterday I felt pretty good after my breakfast, like I could keep going and going. Did I mention it was a good time? That I chatted up a Korean War and a Vietnam War veteran next to the Veterans For Peace contingent? That I talked to a lot of strangers, and that more than one person tried to pay me for the stickers I was giving away? "How about a donation?", "No thanks, they're free". But I was longing to connect with anyone, with just one person, to feel something akin to closeness, and I didn't, and about the time my feet began to cramp painfully (I stopped to tighten my shoes, I think they were too loose and my feet were sliding around too much), I began to feel the lack of any connection, the ultimate sadness and loneliness that can only come when surrounded by strangers, and of course I thought of that beautiful actor, and how I can't wait to see the photos I took. The 23 year old who slept next to me gave me a little hug when I said goodbye, and I know I'll never see him again. He was sweet, very young, had me wishing he was maybe 30, wishing he'd lived a bit more, and that he were as open as he claimed to be. When we debated the virtues of Michael Moore, and he said he refuses to see "Bowling For Columbine", I realized how closed minded he really is. Alas, it could've been worse. I'm glad I went, I always am, well, maybe not April of '02, and January of this year was really difficult with the cold, and maybe I won't go again, maybe I've had enough, maybe it's not worth it to me, in the end, but I am glad. I'm glad for the experience, and I love Washington, I think it's a beautiful city, filled with green spaces and monuments, parks, and people. (CNN just ran a story on a guy with a web log, mentioned Diaryland as a place to get a free online journal - hmmmm) I forgot to mention my bath yesterday, after hanging out online, after eating my huge breakfast, which was SO good by the way. Nothing like good food, and a good hot bath after a long bus ride, long Rally and March, and long bus ride. And, in the TMI category, for those following along, yes, Saturday turned out to be my 'heavy' day in the timeline of my menstrual cycle, and I coped ('super' tampons can be super!), but let me tell you that changing a tampon in a tiny bus lavatory, on said bus traveling over 65 mph, is nothing but a huge challenge, and I did it and lived to tell about it, but constanly worrying if I needed to change, if I'd get toxic shock syndrome, etc., etc., was not exactly fun. And I had to keep it all to myself. I had to keep everything to myself, as it was a very lonesome trip in the long run. P.S. Here are some good photos from the March on Saturday. And here, as well, um, and here too - have a look, why don't you? Cost of the War in Iraq
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