Travel Notes, Ruminations, and Whatnot #5—02/02/06 12:45 a.m.

It is 12:40a Portland time. 2:40a Nashville time. I’m not sure what time it is in my head. The rain is making a wonderful soundtrack—as Tom Waits says, “…and the rain sounds like a round of applause.” I stand but do not bow. I sit, return to my umpteenth Evil Williams & splash. And thus begins the extended bender I’ve promised myself for ages. On the heels of a sleepless week I embark. Because embark I must (I love to talk lofty). K & P gracious and graceful as ever indulged my near non-stop blather. Apparently I was in dire need of some adult company as I did not shut up until they went to bed. They are good listeners and good talkers.

Tomorrow is Seattle and a brush with a dear friend from way back. I am anxious to see how the years have treated him. Anxious to visit his city. His friends. A guy likes to have a feel for how his buddies are doing and where they are doing it. In my mind, Seattle suits Phil as Nashville suits me. But I need to see it firsthand, just to be sure. Amtrak will take me three and a half hours north and along The Sound. A lovelier trek is hard to imagine. I’ve made the trip once, nearly ten years ago. K and I went to a Mariners game that we really should have been kicked out of. I saw Alex Rodriguez in his infancy. K explained to me how important A-Rod would be to The Game and how he had grown up down the street from K’s grandmother in Miami. K knows I love shit like that. [I almost certainly have part of that wrong yet it has remained thus in my memory for a decade]. It was a good trip and we returned to Portland hung over as all hell but with stories to tell. Tomorrow will be good.

With the lullaby of rain still feeding me hints, you’d think I would sleep now. I am exhausted beyond words, but am also aware enough to know that sleep will not come.

So I mix a new drink. I glance at The Boy’s picture on my friends’ refrigerator. And I listen to the rain. The wonderful rain. Its advice and secrets and wisdom.