Here is a little free flowing thought that I might as well send out to you. I’m obviously still not on the train so understand that going in. I have to learn to send out even the most mundane and random Dear Diarrheas along with the brilliant ones that are normally pumped out to you guys… Enough said, here we go with a little train ride back from North Carolina. Just me and my laptop watching the world go by.
I’m on Amtrak train #80, the Carolinian heading back to New York. I’m in the diner car at a comfy table looking out at the sandy plains of North Carolina, pine trees galore! I really wanted to bring back a little white pine for my apartment but I’ll have to do it next time. They’re so cute and hairy and they remind me of the Joshua trees in the high dessert. I love Joshua trees! They are friendly and make me want to hug them. I’d advise you not to hug a Joshua tree though. They are really spiky and rough to the touch. I hugged one a few years back when I camped out in Joshua tree state park. Best to hug one with a lot of heavy clothes on first. Better yet, just give one a high five and leave it at that. They’ll understand.
Enough of the Joshua tree talk. Back to pine trees. I love pine trees and I forgot how many are down in these parts. The pine needles are the best. They make that coppery quilt under the tree that looks so soft and friendly. Makes me want to rake it all up and rearrange the needles in a crazy shaped pattern and make a sculpture piece. I can visualize it now. A line of pine trees with the pine needles arranged with a letter from the alphabet under each tree. Can you see it? I can. Or in a forest of pines, rake perfect circles under a select few of the trees and create a pattern that fixes your artistic needs. Shit, throw in some triangles and squares ta boot! Go crazy with it Bobby! (I’m trying to tell myself to actually do this art piece that I keep harping over. Looking at my busy skedge coming up, I need to plan on doing this sculpture piece when I’m in my little cabin writing my blockbuster movie script and the sculpture is one of the few activities I do as I create dialogue and characters; stuff that goes with the creative writing process. I can see me now with my ADD kicking in to the max, raking pine needles into the shape of a snake for a couple of hours and out of the blue I scream out, “That’s it! My protagonist is a tree surgeon! That’s how he meets the girl of his dreams! That’s it Bobby! He does surgery on a beautiful girl’s pine tree and after a grueling eight-hour procedure; he goes up to the awaiting family in the waiting room and dramatically breaks the news. He has good news and bad news. The bad news is that he had to remove four major branches from Eddie the white pine, and the good news is that he’s gonna use Eddie’s branches to build the beautiful girl a manger to place their new baby in after he gets her pregnant… That’s it! That’s a good idea for scene in a movie and it all took place right here and now as I look out the train window yappin’ about all the beautiful pine trees going by. Am I still in parenthetical mode? Yep, let’s get out of here shall we…)
What else? The train is really creeping slowly right now. I wonder what the problem is… If we derail right now it would be a very slow and agonizing accident, but at the same moment everyone would have ample time to pad themselves and even call their loved ones. “Mom! I think in approximately fifteen minutes the train is gonna hit a tree! What should I do?!”….Don’t think anything bad is going to happen I just need to get some excitement going through my head.
There is a little brother sister combo sitting in front of me and they seem to be enjoying themselves playing their card game and eating frozen pizza from the dining cart. I had one of those frozen guys on the way down and it was quite good for a microwave pizza. It was the kind of package that has the silver bottom that attempts to toast the pizza. I love the progression in the microwave industry! I kinda like crappy frozen food like that because I was never allowed to have it as a kid their age. My stomach doesn’t. Just ask the guy behind me.
I need to turn off this computer right now and start hand writing my tree surgeon script because typing on the train is giving me vertigo. I really like that you were with me when I came up with this wonderful script idea. Thanks for reading and understanding that these Dear Diarrheas are fun little streams of consciousness for me that lead into the great ocean of creative hope. Let’s all jump into that ocean soon, shall we?