810 Miles Later
April 25th, 2005 | Posted by Shannon
I am so tired. I am sooooo tired.
I spent the weekend in Columbia, the gold rush town that is now a state park. There was a wine tasting there yesterday, and I stood behind a table and talked to people for three hours.
Then I went and did something really cool – I wrote a short story.
I have been wanting to write some fiction for a long time – the last time I did was ten years ago. But I never seem to get around to it. Yesterday I was sitting at this picnic table outside my hotel and this short story just came out. It was hella cool. My summer project is going to be to write a whole bunch of them. Of course, wanting to write them is not the same as them just coming out.
After I finished, and was walking back in to the hotel, Tom, the guy who runs the hotels and the wine tasting in Columbia, told me there was going to be a party in the parlor of the City Hotel up the street, and that all the wine people who were staying were going to be there. I knew though that before I went to a party I’d have to eat something, so I went and ate some Mexican food. It was good but then on the bill the server had written a scripture – Romans 12:10 or something like that. I got kind of irritated. I mean, is there no escape from the Christians? Also, why just write the scripture name and not what it means? She forced me to ask. It was some scripture about brotherhood. I am going to start writing every where: Pete Townshend, 5:15. Then people will have to ask me what that means, and then I will tell them, that is a song from The Who’s Quadrophenia.
So after all of that I went over to the City Hotel, but there was no party. As I was leaving I saw Tom again and he said no one had showed up, but that there were some people in the dining room who said I was joining them. This was complete and total news to me; I hadn’t talked to anyone about plans for the evening. It turned out to be this guy Kevin who works for a winery in the Shenandoah Valley, a charming, Irish-style drinker who I ran into in the parking lot before the tasting, where I mentioned “maybe I’ll see you in the bar later” figuring, knowing Kevin, he would definitely be there.
Kevin was with his lady-friend Vicky and this other guy, Chris. They were well on their way to Hammerdom. It was pretty funny. It is always funny to join a group in that state when you are pretty sober. I had some wine and then some grappa and watched the show. Chris was so drunk he was absolutely cross-eyed and made no sense – you could tell sentences were forming correctly in his brain, but when they came out they were all jumbled. Kevin was his usual charming self, and Vicky was cool but then disappeared right before dessert, and so I was forced to eat some of her chocolate souffle. Eventually Kevin left too and then it was just me and Chris. “Balcony wine nice moon come there?” He said. “Dude, I have to work tomorrow, sorry.” I said. When I left I looked through the dining room window and he looked so completely sad and dejected that I almost went back in.
So now I am in Jackson, at the public library. I am going to take a bath and crash early tonight. Seriously, I don’t think I recovered from my trip to Italy and Malta yet. And after Wednesday a series of wine fueled, active nights begins again. And in San Francisco, something awesome is going to happen. So I’d better rest up.
