Romani Day 4 - Writing and Running

I got up this morning and talked to Von by chat for a while, then went to breakfast. When I returned, I decided to take a bath. The hotel is built over a geothermal cap, so the water is gaseous, murky and hotter than hell. So I was careful. I sat in the water and sweated enough to fog up my old man glasses while reading the first story in Grisham's Ford County, loaned to my by my father-in-law. Blood Drive is an entirely believable story, as improbable as it seems. By the looks of it, the rednecks in Ford County aren't that different from the one's I grew up by in Hamilton County.

Then I did what every person in a foreign country does when they have an entire vista to explore. I took a nap. When I woke up, I dove into the story I'd been working on for an invitation only anthology about haunted things. I chose a haunted truck, in so far as used this picture as my inspiration. I only had one page done before I left on the trip and an idea of where it was going to go. But after yesterday and today it's finished. 6500 words. It's called The Milky Way Truck and is like of Stephen King's The Body were written by me channeling Cormac McCarthy. Or at least I think so. Anyway, it's done and I emailed the editor and he's happy, even though I'm going to sit in the story for a few days and let it percolate.

Now I can concentrate on my secret project, I shall refer to as CYP.

But before that, I had to conduct some maintenance on the old body. A few Leffe Blonds and some pasta weren't doing me any favors. So I filled up four empty two liter water bottles with nasty geothermal hotel water, put them in my rucksack, put on my UT sweatshirt, shorts, hightops, shades and mp3 player and went running. Or what I call running, which is a sort of mixture of staggers and walking and lurching and trying not to fall, doing all this as fast as my old bones will work. I managed four miles. I've provided some pictures to show you some of the things I passed. The dog's name is Igor and had a wire mesh mask on. I wanted to take a picture of that, because the dog looked positively Frankenstonian, but they took it off. Still, great looking Bull Terrier. I passed the almost deserted Olympic Complex used back in the Soviet Union Days, then crossed the river. I almost fell down the steps on the other side; well, I did fall down the steps, but I caught myself.

What was surreal was listening to my MP3 player and running by old Soviet era cars, homes, babushkas, young families dressed like they stepped off the set of the Sopranos, old men fishing, gypsies drinking on the bank of the river. Here are the songs I listened to in the right order. Besides being a pretty eclectic mix, imagine listening to some of these and seeing some of the things in the pictures, or what I described.

will.i.am - Heartbreaker
Riahanna - SOS
Thid Eye Blind - Jumper
Kevin Little - Turn Me On (Dancehall Remix)
Kilo- Lean Like a Cholo
Bony M - Daddy Cool

Eminem - Mockingbird
Earth Wind and Fire - Fantasy
Pink - Don't Let Me Get Me
Muse- Uprising
Papa Roach - Scars
Katy Perry - I Kissed a Girl

Pink - So What
Erin McCarly - Pony
Katy Perry - California Girls
New Radicals -You Get What You Give
Pink - Get the Party Started
Rihanna - Disturbia
Live Your Life - T.I.

By the way, the Katy Perry songs I blame on my daughter. I have no idea how they got in there.