Thursday, February 23, 2006

Hey Little Bird

And the Barnes and Noble Cafe, half a state away, next to some guy in a pink tie chattering on a cellular phone, and so it goes. I have half an hour to get to there, across an intersection to Red Brick Station, to meet (again, for the first time) Dawn and Meredyth.

White Marsh is no Fells Point, but she is not without her characters, the child stoops slowly to pick up a rolling bottlecap, coordinating joints he's just learning how to bend, the woman munching on a meatball sub from the Italian place up the street, the street draped in neon and the false halogen moonlight, Ladysmith Black Mambazo singing the South African National Anthem over the soundsystem, the reverend sipping mocachino waiting for the nearly newlyweds
Rumors have started that you are in love again
Rumors that are completely unsubstantiated
The platinum countergirl is no Polly Harvey, but she'll do in a pinch.

After all, I've half an hour to get from here to there, to meet Dawn and Mere, sadly emptyhanded after all these months, that month it's been since Mad City, on about noon.

No Polly Harvey there to speak of, only Mark (or maybe Mike), who's owned the place since I lived there, very nearly a decade ago, and he's as bald as he was then, though I doubt it is intentional now (the scalp exceeds the shave), bu my hair's receeded since then, so I've no room to talk.

And no time to talk, to speak of, spent the last fifteen digging through coat pockets for a Day-Quil, a temporary fix for a sinus infection. It looks like I've been crying all day, though I've not shed a tear in a year.