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Sunday, Jan. 19, 2003 / 4:08 p.m. ~Yeah, I Was Miserable, But the People Watching Was Fun (and THANKS, Moby!!!)~ Thank you, Whatawoman for thinking of me. You're the only one from Diaryland to let me know. Much appreciated. And you're right, I should have eaten more. I think if I had I would have had a better experience. Regardless of whatever news reports you hear or read (and I heard on CNN Headline News this morning that the Washington Police REFUSED to estimate the size of the crowd!) there were not just thousands of people in Washington yesterday for the demonstration, there were HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. That's a lot of people. It was crowded. It was cold. I wore all the right clothes. Everything I own that will keep me comfortable and warm, and I was cold. It must've been in the low 20s all day. In the shade, with the wind blowing, it felt in the low teens. Some people covered their faces with scarves, some people had special REI manufactured garb, arctic exploration type garb, but I had nothing so advanced. The earmuffs were great. My ears were warm. My face was cold, my scarf wouldn't stay over my mouth. My hands, inside my fleece gloves, were freezing. My feet, ensconced in wool socks, were freezing and only moved because I forced them. I couldn't chant too much because my throat was too dry. I drank my water, but it was as cold as the day. A cup of hot tea helped, but it was a drop in a large bucket of coldness. I helped Sandy and his son at a table, selling the book Sandy believes in so strongly, and peace sign pins and stickers. People began encroaching on the space as more and more arrived, so I helped organize, moved things, boxes, duffle bags, around, under the table. Took money from people, moved my feet trying to stay warm. Listened to speakers on the stage, Ramsey Clark, Jessica Lange, Jesse Jackson, on and on. So many people, constantly bumping into me as I stood in my spot, banging into my backpack that stayed on my back all day. Imagine being in a large crowd all day, and you know crowd mentality, right? No regard for personal space. Imagine being bumped into all day long. Knocked around, quite literally, as people struggle to pass by, to cut through between your table and the one where the woman sells hot chocolate and tea, boiling water all day long in a kettle on a portable camp stove. Every so often an, "I'm sorry", or an "Excuse me", and I, shocked, surprised, thankful, would respond, "Thank you for that". Snow on the ground makes the ground colder beneath one's feet. Fig Newtons, and cheese and crackers, and cracked oats energy bars. Marching with a sign in one hand, my pack on my front because my shoulders begin to burn with searing pain. Cold, cold, cold. Dancing to the drums and saxophones being played by marchers behind me. People spilling on to the sidewalks, a man holding a praying mantis puppet, standing atop a concrete platform, moving the mantis' legs as we pass. Dressed in green. People dressed in suits, big puppet heads of Cheney, Bush, Ashcroft, kids, gray haired seniors, a man in a wheel chair with his assist dog by his side, dog laying his head in the man's lap every time we stopped. Everywhere signs, homemade, mass-produced, so many signs, so many people. Volume. Just like rush hour on I-75. Stopping. First gear. Stopping, first gear, second gear, downshift, stop. What are we waiting for?? Oh, about 7 people protesting against the protestors (!), their own signs in their hands, stand on the sidelines. People telling us how unpatriotic we are. Leave them alone, the police are in front of them, guarding them from us. Sandy and his son were left behind to pick up their table, I wanted to march, but the march was so long, there were so many people, I could've easily waited with them. Sandy tells me later, once back on the bus, that he helped the 'grannies', some group of elderly women, gave one a ride atop the boxes on his handcart. And his son rode there too. I told a woman waiting to get back on our bus that I'd stood since we got off the bus at 9:30 that morning. I hadn't sat all day. She said, "Didn't we all". So when Sandy complained later that he'd only slept two hours on the bus the previous night I said, "Didn't we all", and reminded him that no sympathy was available on this trip. It was fairly miserable. And I'm trying to analyze what I did wrong, or what I could've done to make my experience better, but what good would that do? It's a hard trip, and I knew that going in. I knew it would be cold, I knew it snowed a few days ago and there would be snow on the ground, I knew my hiking boots are no longer wearable, that the soles have come unglued, that I'd have to wear my sneakers, but that wool socks would be warm enough... Even with Sandy's extra long johns, that's two pairs of long johns under my pants, I was still cold. And I think if I'd eaten some HUGE breakfast in the morning, that's at 6:30 a.m., that I might've had the fuel to warm my engine, but I can't eat at 8:30 in the morning, much less at 6:30 in the morning. And in the category of too much information, I really didn't want to fill my bowels to the point of a necessary evacuation. Where does one shit? Not on the bus. Not in a 19 degree Fahrenheit portable toilet with a line out front. Only if you can eat and shit immediately after in the restaurant. Good luck. Too much pressure for me. I also learned what men go through, in regard to public urination performance anxiety, on this trip. We stopped on the way to D.C., 12:30 a.m. (or was it 2:30?, 4:00?), to change bus drivers, emptied out to use the public bathrooms, snow all over, bright in the light of the full moon, beautiful really, and one of the stalls didn't have a door. A large group of women crammed into this bathroom, three stalls. I used the doorless one, people looking in to see if it was occupied. Fun. If I'd felt I could move my mouth and articulate any sentiment at all I would've told the C-SPAN cameraperson and the one with the microphone that I was there because I want to make a difference, that I would like to believe that if enough people stand up and speak out, unified, that we can stop the madness, that we can stop George Bush from making a really huge mistake, that we need the money spent here, in this country, not on a war on a country that is not the threat it is purported to be. Not now. Maybe not ever. Even marching was hard, with so many people. After awhile I couldn't stand the fact that every time I stopped because of march congestion, the people behind me did not. I was 'rear-ended' all day long. And I wondered, as I do every time I'm in a crowd, what is it that makes people lose respect for others as they do in crowd situations? Why do people suddenly feel it's okay to press against total strangers? To push them? To bang into people and not say, "Excuse me" or "I'm sorry"? And not any one age. I'd turn to see who it was and it was an old man, or a kid talking on a cell phone, or a lover with his girl, arm around her shoulders. We got back early. Only 8 hours after the dinner stop. Which was maybe 2 hours from D.C. Could it be we made it back in 10 hours?? 6:00 in the morning I was grabbing my things and practically running off that bus. After a night of fitful sleep, legs curled, shifting, trying not to step on Sandy's son on the floor between us. Three seats in the very back of the bus facing forward, me on the two facing back to those three. Sandy, an Indian man, and the son on the floor. I'd wake to the Indian man's feet on my hair. I'd wake after the dream of the serial rapist and my frantic call to 911, hearing the Indian man's voice at the other end, softly, slowly retrieving my information. When Sandy tells me how intelligent the Indian man is I remind him how often very intelligent people talk to hear the sound of their own voices, to let others know how very intelligent they are. How being intelligent is one thing, but listening is something very different. And the other one, the one who admitted to a recent nervous breakdown, who consistently namedropped, "Well you know what Chomsky said, and you know Hugh says, and so and so says, and so and so wrote in the Washington Post, and blah, blah, blah, do you enjoy the sound of my voice as much as I do?, blah, blah, blah, let's watch another Michael Moore tape, blah, blah, blah". It was a great trip. Ahem. I got my requisite Sausage McMuffin With Egg and Hash Browns on the way home, came home and turned on C-SPAN to watch the end of the repeat of the Rally and March, saw Patti Smith (who I'd missed at the Rally because I left to go march before it was over - I followed the drums and saxophones), and saw a bit of the march I'd missed. Crawled into bed and watched the story on CNN Headline, and some of the call-in show on C-SPAN, listened to the old farts talk about how horrible the marchers/protestors/leftists are, and how we'll bring down this country with our stupidity, etc. Watched the host as he read the headlines of the day from papers from around the country. Passed out, TV off, around 7:30 and slept until 3:00. I don't regret that I went. I did all I could, really. I told everyone what I was doing, why I was going, I informed people at work, I've used my voice, as one of the speakers yesterday told us to do, Jessica Lange, whoever. I do what I can and that's really all I can do. I can pay the $65 and ride the fucking bus, and listen to the oldtimers pontificate, listen to the intellectuals intellectualize, try to humanize them, even the one with the nervous breakdown as he tells us the reason he is so proud of his wife is because of her PHD thesis on deconstructionism. Yoohaw! Whatever, dude. No wonder you had a nervous breakdown. Your mind is crosswired. And he took his 8 year old son. (A very different situation from Sandy and his 11 year old - they are strikingly 'normal' by comparison.) This is not even mentioning the couple in their 50s with the kid Sandy's son's age, the kid who brags quite loudly that, "I've NEVER GONE TO PUBLIC SCHOOL!!!" and tells everyone to be quiet so he can hear the Michael Moore tapes. And he tells us his parents met at a demonstration in Washington. I tell him how romantic that is and think that would be cool for me too, but I've never met anyone, except Sandy, and the more time I spend with Sandy the less I like him. Now is looking for valid stories about yesterday. Finding some info online, on this dinosaur computer, NYT stories, Washington Post stories, anything that accurately portrays yesterday's numbers. If we were 500,000, as some say, then let the world know that. People passed our bus as we loaded and were ready to leave, thanking us for coming from so far away! Let's be recognized for what ALL of us did, the sacrifices we all made to get out there in that cold yesterday and speak out. I want us to be counted. Oh, and I understand the Golden Globes are on tonight. I'll be watching that too. One last word about the march itself, at least for right now, the route was different, we went from the Capitol to the Navy Yard, and we passed incredibly beautiful architecture, old, old, buildings, and restaurants that looked really inviting (I heard some people stopped, ate, and the march kept going so they jumped back in! Wish I'd done that.), Thai, Mexican, Pizza, McD's, Seafood. People leaned out of second and third story windows and flashed us peace signs and we all hooted and hollered, thanking them for their support. We passed Amnesty International's offices and they leaned out the top floor windows with a banner, waved, flashed peace signs. This is to say it wasn't all bad, it was actually very, very good. It was all very positive and peaceful, and our numbers were strong. I was just personally cold and tired and cranky. I'll look back on it and be very glad it went as it did. *********P.S. - Just read Moby's diary and I have to post his latest entry: 1/19/2003 - New York City hmm...funny that the bush administration is projecting a budget shortfall of 200 to 300 billion dollars for fiscal year 2003. and at the same time they are saying that the war in iraq could end up costing between 200 and 300 billion dollars. ah well. and kudos to all of the people who braved the freezing cold weather to go to the anti-war march in washington. moby" Thank you, Moby. I really don't know what the temp was all day (could've been anywhere from 10 to 20 Fahrenheit, not sure), but I was in it, standing, for about 7 hours. I don't know how people climb the Himalayas, or any other snow-capped peaks. The extreme cold is hell. Cost of the War in Iraq
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