Aqui

18 de Septiembre
17:15

What should have been our armor
becomes a bright and burning sword
-Rush

Plane bringing me home boards in 25 minutes. I sit in the airport bar with a cold Sam Adams Octoberfest, bogging and listening to Suzanne Vega's Crime and Beauty. Beautiful album. The Rush show last night really rocked. What a send off! It was a fiesta y una media (party and a half). The highlight may been Armor and Sword. There's no place that has energy like the Garden.

JJ, my good but very unreliable friend, stood me up. So I called Maria and asked her if I could stay by her tomorrow. She was like “No problema!” and I was like Woo Hoo!

I have a place to stay and get to spend more time with her (ooh la la!). I can hear you all snickering and chortling like school children, rife with innuendo. Oh well. We will see, but I am psyched.

So it's a good day to be El Dude, as are most days. The Seester suggested I try to be very very neat and well behaved while I stay with her. “Try not to be too comfortable with her right anyway, if that's possible. Or you could just wear your Darth Maul boxers and say 'This is me baby, let's put it all on the table.”

The problem is I find it very difficult to behave, for whatever reason. I think i'll shoot for a happy medium.

I am happy to go back but was kind of waxing poetic about the USA, after a KILLER night in NYC, but then I got to Newark airport. Even though the sign outside gate B said BRITISH AIRWAYS, I had to walk all over and then take an elevator.

I called yesterday because they hadn't sent me an e-ticket. I was booked. I asked if they had an electronic kiosk so that I could print it out at EWR. “Sure.” she said. The correct answer was NO. So I had to wait in a twenty minute line to get my ticket. Moronic! And the lady who told me where to stand was a bitch on a unicycle! Once I finally had my ticket, a klaxon went off. It was excruciating. Luckily, my iPod headphones protected mý ears a bit. So I was frazzled like Chewbacca in that sonic chamber in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. They stopped me at the baggage screen and took my toothpaste. I didn't know it was a liquid and got it thru Barajas, Dublin and Heathrow in July. 20 minutes later I was through and waiting ten minutes for a beer at the bar, the klaxon still screaming and a thin line of crimson running down my left ear. Then it finally stopped and bar patrons clapped and joked about class action suits against Newark International Airport.

Fuck a duck! It just went on again. Nooooooooooo! I am now ready to go back to Madrid.

You never had the things you thought you should have had
and you'll not get them now
-Genesis

Listening to Bowie's Alladin Sane. Good stuff. Drinking my last Martini til Christmas. Good stuff. Klaxon stopped. Good good stuff.

Good-bye Beisbol! Friend, lover, baby mother! Good-bye marriage! Good-bye Confederacy! Yo volver a Madrid!

Catch you on the other side of the Atlantic.

23:27 EDT

We are due south of Iceland, narrowing in on London. London always seems to be my gateway to the West and to Madrid. I think we get there in an hour. Then a layover in Heathrow. Maybe three hours. I'll try to sleep there. Yes I will.

Swept away like voices in a hurricane
in a vapor trail
-Rush

Here comes Madrid, part II. Laptop battery running low. Melting, melting...melting

20 de Septiembre - 17:05 Madrid Time

I am in Getafe, a burb south of Madrid. technically Madrid, but about 15 minutes by train. Tomorrow go see Alex and start work on Monday. I have a pretty damn full week. Yes! I love work because they pay me Euros, which i use to buy stuff.

It´s been fabulous to see Maria, though I have no possible way to explain the last 24 hours. None. Nunca. I would if i could, but i can´t. I´ll make an attempt.

The fact that I am inconceivably jet lagged is one thing. I slept maybe 1.5 hours on the planes, metro and train. We went to bed last night at about 23:30. I woke a few times, and when Maria got up as we slept in the same bed, but then i slept til 13:00! She just came home for lunch and will be back at 19:00. Then dinner. Then God knows what! I will attempt to illuminate you. Apparently I kicked and kind of strangled her a bit in my sleep - but she´s okay and thought it was funny! Do i do this normally? I don´t know - i usually sleep alone! I could have strangled Fripp on vacation, but he didn´t say anything.

I am also receiving mixed transmissions from the Maria unit, but you don´t ask someone to sleep in your bed you don't like, do you? I bet some people do.

Think she´s trying to let me know she´s ineterested but needs to go slow. I know she's really been snake bit in the past, but i guess i have too. Yet it was very intimate. Maybe it´s just that I want to bang her like a John Bonham gong?

And all this could be compounded by my staying here, cultural shift in customs, language barrier, jet lag, and my own warped sense of how the world around me works. But I´m having fun. And I really dig her. She wore the shortest shorts to bed I have ever seen - what little ass she has was hanging out. It was quite nice.

Wendy
Darling
In the kitchen
With your dreams
Will you fly
again
Take to the sky
again
Undo the hooks
Once and for all
Banish the tic tic tic tok tok tok
Again
Will you be
Yourself for me
Cause I can take it
I can stand
Anything
When you're with meI
can stand it
I can stand
But when you're gone
I never land
In Neverland
-Marillion

Okay. I have an idea! More tomorrow!