sorcyress | Entries tagged with travel

I am writing my words ON A TRAIN!

More specifically, in roomette 1 of the 65 from Boston to BWI. We're past Providence, so the conductor has ceased announcements for the night (I have an alarm set to wake me up about half an hour before my station). There was a potential version of this plan where I did all this with a partner, but I have to say, I'm really enjoying flying solo.

Having my own tiny space to travel in is *exquisite*. I'm not going to be able to afford¹ this every time I travel (especially since I don't think there's a remotely convenient train route from Boston to Dallas) but I really need to keep both train in general and roomette in specific in mind for the future. The privacy while still being in a communal vehicle is really neat! I can just...take my pants off if I want and moon the wilds of Providence (hypothetically, probably).

I spent about the first hour just being really excited and poking around at everything the room had to offer, with lots of photos and a couple videos to go with it. The room is gorgeously well designed, as you'd expect! Things fold or move or slide, and there's storage space hidden unexpectedly --I found a private overhead bin, essentially, and there's plenty of space beneath the seats.

Obviously, I am charmed as absolute fuck by the funny little basin you 're supposed to wash your face in, but I was even moreso impressed by the clever little locking mechanism for the door, and the net designed for the upper bunk to keep you from falling out. Oo! And literally as I was writing this, I discovered the sliding knob to close the vents by the window, so now it's not going to be quite as chill...but it doesn't really matter, because there's a lovely blanket which as an unnamed friend explained "It's property of Amtrak but it's cozy property of Amtrak".

(I have plenty of cozy blankets of my own and am not going to steal this one. Probably.)

It's dark and rainy, so the scenery hasn't really been much, and while I think I'll be able to sleep just fine, I don't yet have any way of proving it. Overall though, I am very charmed and at peace and cozy. I hope you are also finding joy wherever you are tonight!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: I mean the time, mostly. The train is a _little_ more expensive than a flight to BWI from Logan, and the roomette basically doubled the cost of this leg (I'm not getting one on the way back and _slightly_ regretting it). But even with security lines and all that, flying's about half as long.

And of course the PostScript: "wait, why are you on the train in the first place?!" I am going to Maryland to see the CICADAS, my friends! I recognize the rain will make this slightly difficult, but I refuse to be daunted in my hunting of bugs by being physically miserable. The answer to the question "wait I live in Maryland, can we hang?" is no unless you are my capital-F Family --I hope to do a longer trip sometime in the summer when I can do a proper social, but for this trip, it's Veronica, Grandpa Perks, and BUGS!!!

So there was a post on Tumblr, "Things you will see on a road trip across America"⁰. It spoke to me, far more than the Regional Gothic trend did, and I was quick to respond with my own listing. You may read my additions ( under the cut )

Of course, then I started writing more about it all. Have some blather about road trips. It's not under a cut, because I do not love you enough.

According to my quick count, I have visited (or at least driven through) 36 states. Let's look at some highlights...

-From very young to age 11, the family drove to Peoria IL every year to visit Great-Grandma Deemy. She died in 2000, which was the year of...

-The Big Trip! Mom, her best friend Neva, and me and the sibs spent 2-3 straight weeks on the road. We drove from Maryland to Colorado, took a turn north up through both Dakotas, cut east back to Minnesota, just missed Michigan, and swooped back to MD. It was an absolute fucking delight. Kansas is terrible, we somehow skipped Nebraska entirely, and mom spit-swore she'd take me to the Mall of America to ride the roller coasters before I turned eighteen. This is why I don't trust my mother. ;)¹

-From very young until college, we drove to Winsted CT for Thanksgiving, and also usually for a visit in the summer. Dad's parents (St G'ma, G'pa Gus) live up there, on a wonderful horse farm with rock-walls to climb on and a pond and art and books strewn everywhere. I haven't been to the farm in several years --Thanksgiving started moving around my sophomore year of college-- and I miss it terribly. I should organize a visit some weekend!

-Starting in about, oh, 2002 or 3, us kids (Shan, then Al, then me) attended Stayaway Camp in Maine. Have you seen the Parent Trap? That is the camp we stayed at. No literally, they wanted to film at Wyo, but they were told to piss off, there was a camp to run. Anyways, there would be 2-3 trips up a summer (dropping off, changeover day, picking up) with some subset of siblings and parents, and staying the night in either Winsted or Boston.

-For two of those years, when the sibs were at camp and I was not, me and the rents drove down to South Carolina for a conference at Myrtle Beach. This is relevant because it means I've visited both South of the Border and Wall Drug.

(The second year, when it was just me and them, mom started to have some really funky vision problems and dad had to do all the driving home. Turns out she had MS. Anyways, that was 2002, which means Shan started camp in 2001, which works out since I did 2003 and 2004. Good talk.)

-Moving on to adulthood, I went to college in Boston (well, Cambridge). The family did many runs to pick me up or drop me off with my stuff, several of which did not involve my mother (see also, Dragon*Con.)

-Didn't roadtrip much in college, but right after I graduated, I got to do 14 straight hours in a car with one other driver (mom --although Shan did drive a couple hours), two siblings, and two cats. We moved to Chicago! Cats do not like it when the car goes 80 mph. They are fine when it is up to 85. No officer, I had to speed, I was doing science!

(Two days later, I did half that again, doubling back to Hiram, Ohio with Alys in tow. Dad was out of town, mom had to wait for the movers, I was her Official Adult for her college orientation. This was a profoundly uncomfortable experience for us both, I suspect, plus we had a serious argument about whether World/Inferno Friendship Society was a hipster band in the first thirty minutes of driving and were both super tense and stressed for like an hour. That bit I mentioned about the Lion's Den? I think it was figuring that out which calmed us the fuck down and brought us back to giggling like loons.)

-Sparr and I have made the Boston-Atlanta(ish) drive a few times. One of these times, I drove 17 of 20 hours (I did not make that up above for humour value). One of those times, our rental car was totaled and we had to frantically scramble to get home. The last time went quite without problem, except for the entertaining logistics of picking people up or dropping them off in at least five different locations.

-In early fall 2012, I was unemployed. My favourite ex-partner decided to move to Seattle. Their rich friend offered a plane ticket home. Mel and I packed up a uhaul (technically a Penske), drove to Cleveland (where we spent a day with their mother and raided a storage unit), drove to Chicago (where we spent about an hour and a half with my mother before she left for some vacation and we hung out in the house and watched movies --maybe George of the Jungle?), and drove and drove and drove and drove to Seattle. The Milky Way is every bit as stunning as I implied, Buttes will never not be hilarious, and having a governor keeping you from going over 75mph when you're on a 70mph speed limit road going DOWN THE ROCKIES is the shittiest thing.

I think that's the most of 'em. There's some small ones with strangers (from Indy to Chicago a couple times after GenCon, and I'm about to do Boston to Syracuseish) but most of the long trips have been with friends or family. States I have been to without driving there: Florida, Texas, California, and Arizona. And I suppose technically Tennesee in that I *have* driven to Georgia before, but the trip we went to TN, I flew to GA and then we drove up there. Dunno if that counts or not.

I hold no respect for America the Corporate Identity but I do fucking love America the road-trip liminal space of folklore and legend. Given a world without capitalism and a Tesla Roadster², I wouldn't even bother with a house in exchange for a rotating selection of friends riding shotgun as we roam around this world.

~Sor
MOOP!

0: Although I appreciate the thing someone pointed out, which is that they mean "USA", not America.

1: In case the smiley is not obvious, my mother is THE BEST MOTHER and I trust her very much and have forgiven her, but it's fun to tease.

2: I am adding this footnote seven years later to acknowledge that this reference did *not* age well.

Crossposts: http://kdsorceress.livejournal.com/722173.html

So, here's what my life has been the last n weeks.

*I graduated. This was apparently a big deal or something.

*I took, and as of two days ago, passed my MTELs. Now I can get my teacher's license and get a job or something.

*I am currently in Atlanta. Two days of rest and relaxation with Sparr and the various folks around his living space, and then he and I go up to Columbus, OH on Wednesday for Origins.

*I helped my family move from Columbia MD to Park Ridge (just north of Chicago) IL. This involved driving for about six hours on Tuesday (mom drove the other half.)

*I drove my little sister to and from her college orientation at Hiram college. This involved driving for about six hours on Thursday and Saturday. No mom to help. On the plus side, I own a lot of music, and some of it she likes.

*I spent last weekend in Layfayette Georgia in order to go to my very first burn. Burns are hippie festivals; Burning Man is the best-known example. It was really quite fun, and I enjoyed running around the woods surrounded by hippies, and watching various people perform various arts, and learning things, and posing for photographs and jumping on the trampoline and etc. Also, there was fire, and it was fantastic. Alsoalso, I got to see in passing Amber, who is bright and sunny and really likes me and seems to want me to move to Atlanta almost as badly as Sparr does. She makes me smile a lot.

*I might make a real post about that one.

*Oh, also I went to Balticon a couple weeks ago. I slept in a car, and hung out with old friends and new friends, and again played less werewolf than usual, and broke my JungleSpeed totem (okay, technically Braffy broke it...) and wound up giving kisses to a gorgeous woman with fantastic pink hair, and flirted with the pervy artist, and in general it was all quite good. And like last year, it was a completely significant-other-free con. Which is a little strange, but mostly very freeing --the first time I went to Balticon, I went without my partner, and I kinda really like not being responsible for anyone else's happiness at the con. Not that I don't love being with my partners at cons, you understand --I do love it, very much-- but once a year...I'll gladly take the vacation from feeling responsible for other people's happiness. Because I am responsible, some, no matter how hard I try not to be. At least for my boys.

*Alys graduated high school. Go her!

*This is the first 750words entry I've made in twelve days, and the third this month. Please whine at me to do this. I won't be able to during Origins, but I should at least get my act together the week after, and once I'm back in Boston.

*Looking to get back in Boston somewhere around the fourth. Hoping to spend a night in NYC with...someone. Need to talk to relevant someones and see who has a couch and wants me to sleep on it. (I mean, I also have friends in the city who have couches that I can sleep on, but if I have people who actively want me as houseguest, I'll strive for that first.)

*Week after Origins is Girl Scout Day Camp. This might be my last year, but if you volunteer as an adult for five years, you get a pretty volunteer pin. And next year would be year five. So yeah, MD peeps, I might be looking for crash-space a random week in July or June 2012.

*I dodged the sunburn from camping in the middle of fuckyou Georgia all weekend (I hate the weather here, does it show), but the trade off is that I think I might have some poison ivy on my arm, and I certainly have bugbites everywhere. Still, that doesn't cause cancer, so I'm okay with this. I did my best to keep Sparr and Sarena sunscreened (two of my three campmates --Joe is a redhead and so did a very good job of keeping his pasty self covered) too, and I think it mostly worked.

*Made foodstuff with Sparr earlier --potatos and eggs such to put into breakfast burritos. Was good! Also, I made the mistake of asking Bethany how many people I should cook for (since she is the normal cook hereabouts) and she answered "sixteen".

I did not cook for sixteen people, because Christ, how would I?

That's all for now.

~Sor
MOOP!

(Okay, so, for a very long time now, I've known that MOOP is a burner term meaning Matter Out Of Place --probably learned it less than two years after I coined the term as my own personal word. Holy shit though, people actually use it, like all the time. It's how the burner community refers to trash, or to the action of leaving trash "Yeah, I was MOOPing all over the place last night, I should clean up" or "Jeeze, who left all this MOOP at our campsite."

The weekend was _so weird_ for that alone.)

Crossposts: http://kdsorceress.livejournal.com/598334.html

In Indianapolis. Will make it to Chicago sometime this afternoon. Ambiguous when I get proper internet again, but then again, the advantage of being an adult is that I can take off and find a wifi enabled coffeeshop if I have to.

Really really really exhausted. Note to self, if ever mum suggests a road trip after two weeks of day camp without at least a day of rest, smack her around a bit.

Went to Young's Jersey Dairy, which is a memory from so far back I didn't even have a livejournal last time I passed through. Got "trash" as my ice cream which was vanilla died a *vivid* purple, with chocolate cups with assorted interesting fillings in it. The raspberry filled ones were my favourite. Also played on tractors and chased cats and admired goats. Was a good stop.

I have been reading in the car, which is one of those sentences that the majority of you probably looked at and went "so?". But let me emphisize my point here --I, for the very first time in my entire life, have been reading in the car. I have been reading, and not feeling queasy and puking. Oh frabjous day, the whole carsick thing that has plagued me my entire life has finally ebbed!

So pretty much as long as I had daylight yesterday, I was tearing through books --a couple of KoDT collections, "Autobiography of a One Year Old" (which I had read before and heartily enjoy) and a collection of Cory Doctorow's short stories called "Overclocked".

The Doctorow I had to put down halfway through --I was enjoying them, and from a relatively uninformed perspective, I seem to largely agree with his open-source ideals. But *man* is he militant about it. Sometimes I just want to read a stupid sci-fi story without any serious message about how OH NO THE WORLD IS GOING TO BE RUINED OH NOOOOOO!

(This may be why I read a lot more fantasy than sci-fi)

At any rate, I am currently reading "Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians", which is totally fun so far, and very silly. AND, might I add, mindless fantasy without any great message to it. Based on the first sixty pages, I recommend it, especially to

currentlee, who is not a thing like any of the librarians in the book, and who I am now of course totally suspicious of, as all librarians seem to be evil.

And now I think I go drive us most of the way to Chicago (Chitown? Chi-town? Chee-towne?) so I'll catch you lot later. Bai!

~Sor
MOOP!

I went on a Most Excellent Adventure/Trip with mum and Josh and Eric and ocassionally Shan. So I'm in a realitivly good mood.

Trip Report:

"How do you get an evil giraffe? 'I will eat all the leaves off this tree. I will get up early to eat all the leaves from this tree. Then there will be no leaves on this tree, and the other giraffes...will die.'"¹

Friday:

Woke up hells early (5:30 AM...there is such a time?), picked up Josh and Eric, and drove to MA, with hardly any traffic at all, and a rainstorm that started moments after we hadn't gotten us and all our stuff into Dave and Diane (Boston version)'s house. Yes, we are Just That Cool.

Much hanging out and coolness occured. Dave introduced us to the brilliance that was Guitar Hero, which was good fun. I highly support silly games like that, especially if you get to rock out. And I was very good at the easy setting, but basically fell apart when it came to medium.

Awesomer then silly games though, Micro, who is my agent, and whom I haven't seen since the Oscars LARP in...ninty six? or so came over, as did [Redacted] who is a completely fabulous woman, moreso because she understands the idea that you don't have to wear skirts and make-up to be a girl, even if the idea of not doing so *does* horrify the rest of the mtf community.² Plus, [Redacted] draws comics, which is terribly awesome, and I have to e-mail her so that I can insure that I get the copy of her next one.

Also, quote: Mom: "Well see, I can't *really* date Josh because I know his parents real well"
[Redacted]: "Ah, but *I* don't know his parents."

Alsoalso, I am completly awesomely irrisistable to everyone, because I am Just That Awesome. Good flirts make me happy.

I think that was about all of Friday. Oh, except I just lost The Game. Which, I taught the rest of them, and we have been playing the whole weekend. MUAHAHAA! Additionally, we have restarted mom's pointing game that she used to play in college, where the basic goal was to point at people before they pointed at you, every day.³ (Day's resetting at 12:01)

Saturday:

Saturday, we left MA and drove to Maine! Where we went to Crossroads Games and Books, which is this great little game shop we found up there, and lusted after everything⁴ (or I did at least). Better yet, Chris, the highly cool gal who we met the first time around, remembered us. Yay!

Got to Wyo, kidnapped Aly, and...well...listened to her talk. I love her dearly, but she did not stop speaking for a good half hour. Much teasing occured, especially since she kept using both "like" and "Ohmygod". Granted, I use both of those fairly often as well, but still. ILMS.

Aly is doing very well, for anyone who knows her. Which is nice to know, as she *is* my sister. And I was nice, and didn't eat her hair the whole time. I should write her a letter.

More importantly, I should write *Mell* a letter. Because Mell is amoung the coolest people I have ever met in my life, and one of the few reasons I miss going to Wyo. And I got to see her again!!! *parti-dances* This is an excellent, excellent thing. Also, I should totally go visit her. Which is why I may wind up making a college visit to Wheaton, regardless of any interest I have in going there. *grins*

Lessee...returned the kids, left the camp, got to the turnpike. Went north, without thinking about it. For the geographically challenged, Maine is north of Connecticut, which is where we were aiming. Yeahhhh...it took us a couple minutes, and then we had a group "Shit!" moment. Whoops. So, we got to see more of Maine then we previously expected. *grins*

Eventually we made it home to St. G'ma and Grandpa Gus's place, where we...pretty much immediately fell asleep. I think that was the first night in about three weeks that I fell asleep before midnight. And that was Saturday.

Sunday we woke up, ate a delicious breakfast, and went for a lovely walk around the lakething. Really, I'm going to have to write about the farm sometime, that place is...well, the least fannish place that feels like home. Also, I've now taken both Josh and Eric down to the Kids Club⁵, which is always fun. I love that place.

Then, we went to NYC. First off, I love cities, especially New York. ESPECIALLY New York. London was lovely, DC and Baltimore are close, but NYC is...well, New York. Can't explain it.
You either get it or you don't.

Our ultimate goal in New York was to see Sweeny Todd (OhmyfuckinggodlustwantneedholyHELLgood.), and *possibly* another show as well. Hoorah for TKTS -we saw ST from remarkably good seats and had a lovely time, ambled over to TKTS, and wound up with tickets to see Avenue Q from pretty damn good seats. Broadway for the WINS!

And those both deserve seperate squeels, plus I'm getting bored of typing. So, I'm thinking that, since that was really the end of the trip (left NYC, went home) I'm done. Ta kids!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Copyright Eddie Izzard, at some point or another. Important because we quoted this one roughly eight thousand times, in different forms. ("I will eat all the french fries...and the rest of you...will die!)
2: mtf: male to female transsexual. Way back when, [Redacted] used to be known as [Deadname], and apparently used to warp my tiny infentile mind with such facts as 'Two plus two equals seven'. I like her immensly, partly because she's fabulously cool, and partly because she interests me.
3: *points at everyone who reads this. And everyone who doesn't, for that matter.*
4: They had all the Sandman comics. Mum says she will get them for us, but still! Also, they had dice, which is slightly less desperate since we've *finally* got a local game store. But still! Dicelust.
5: Hard to explain. It's...um...a big pile of rocks on my grandparents land. Yeah. Basically me and all my cousins have spent a collective arseload of time there playing games and pretend. I lurves it.

Editor's note, 2022: Let's not out people without their express permission, okay? I have other comments to make to my past self, but I am trying to leave this journal mostly intact as a historical document, even when it is cringe as hell.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Home again, home again, jiggity jog.
Current Music: For Now, Avenue Q

According to my composition book of stolen from Bittner...

1) "Whorlet"

2) Origins notes: Namely that I need to find someone (*coffMaguscoff?*) to find out if the LARPC guys are still running and to get me all the spells and whatnot. I can bluff the rest of it. Oh, and arguing about dice. After all, I don't *need* any more dice...

3) The notes I was actually looking for...

Alright folks. As you may or may not know, I am going to LONDON in six days. London is in Europe, and it's a commonly known fact that Europe has better candy then we do, especially smarties and kinderEVERYTHING.

SO! As I already know that I'm bringing back some orgasm chocolate for Josh (His term for it, not mine.) I figured I could be nice and try and bring back chocolate/candy/deliciousness for the rest of you as well. And since I totally missed getting orders when I went to Germany, this would be a good time to say it, so that I have time to actually write stuff down.

So...candy! Drop a comment with what you want, and if I don't have your address and I won't see you any time soon, e-mail me that bit of info. (Who DO I have? Lesse...mek, Kyu, Tho, Ms. H, Dottles...I've actually got a fair amount of addresses. Yay for the stalking!)

That is all for that.

In completely unrelated news, I have been adding new information to the stalkerfile like crazy as of late. Four or five various phone numbers and addresses have found their way in there, it's lovely. And I am actually a really bad stalker, but I'm direct, which gets me results...more often then I would expect, actually. Awesome.

That is all.

~Sor
MOOP!

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: In six days, it'll be London.
Current Music: Dmitri's pick

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