A post about nothing much from Brussels.
I wish I could tell you I've had a fantastic day, but I haven't really. I did NOT want to wake up this morning. I'm sure I'm not alone here, but I'm one of them poet-types who is plagued by the demoness Insomnia. Once I fall asleep, I sleep long and hard (that's what she said), but the falling of the asleep is typically the most difficult task I accomplish in a day. Add that to being dizzy with joy after a show, and I was lucky my head hit the pillow at all.
I called Timothy Bradford (a poet living and writing in Paris) this morning to see if he wanted a coffee, but he'd been traveling and needed to go into work so he couldn't come out. So I had a coffee alone at a bar near the Gare du Nord. I watched an American couple get pissy with the waiter because he didn't understand that they wanted to share the single plate of chicken they ordered and when only one plate of food came, he took the lady's silverware away. And so the Americans were confirmed of their suspicions that the French are rude, and the waiter's notions that Americans are gauche, particular, and too self-justified are formally corroborated. People: Can't we all just get along? That's what I say.
It was raining today, and cold. So much for a Parisian springtime. I got chatted up by one of the guys in front of the cafe. He liked my purple hat. (These aren't blog posts, properly, they're a catalog of my flirts across the continent. Tell true: Is that cool or lame? A little of both, I imagine.)
The train ride to Brussels: Uneventful. I arrived in the city, bought a map, and spent about 20 minutes studying the damn thing and took a chance and just hopped willy-nilly onto the metro, no clue where I was going. But by instinct or accident, I got it right, which I took as a triumph. It's windy in Brussels. Did I know that before? My purple hat blew off my head! I found my lodgings, went to the market, bought cookies, beer, and bread, then put myself into an early bed, and I napped until just this moment.
The Brussels show is tomorrow. My plan is more or less the same for each city-- install myself at the venue early, and edge in close to the stage so I can see. This plan leaves little room for sightseeing. And if I'm being honest, the plan leaves little energy for anything beyond the plan itself. I'll take a book with me to pas the long before time. I'm currently reading a biography of Eva Braun. Today is coincidentally the anniversary of her death. It was her lot to love a monster.
The wind outside the window is loud enough to resemble the sound of a badly-tuned car revving its engine.
I am missing something or someone right this moment, though I cannot say what.
