April 19, 2005
The kindness of strangers
I spent most of yesterday wasting time in Providence. Hotel check-out was 1PM and my bus to the airport was a few minutes after 6. So I left my bags at the hotel to pick up later. I thought it would be a good time to visit a Sprint Store and finally get the software on my cell phone upgraded so my Picture Mail would work. The closest store was in Cranston! They couldn't do it but It took up the entire afternoon anyway, which was fine. I sat on the bus with my iPod on shuffle (It seemed to have a thing for Leonard Cohen yesterday!!), either looking out the window or reading some Dreiser.
Anyways, I lugged three extremely heavy suitcases from the hotel to Kennedy Plaza. (The Crusher had some things in storage for me so I brought empty suicases up there so I could bring stuff back with me.) Why did I decide to walk?? It was a beautiful day and I am insane. It was tough but I made it.
I had a little while left to wait for the bus and it was rush hour. There were tons of skateboarders and children making lots of noise. Then an old black woman came by handing out candy to everyone from a CVS bag. Just what I needed, too! It was delicious.
The bus to the airport is a regular city bus with no place to stow bags, so it’s a bit of a stuggle. As we were boarding a young black man asked me if I wanted some help with my bags. Already feeling horribly conspicuous and pathetic, I said, ’No thanks, I'm OK. I’ve been dragging them around all day anyway.’ Then a woman standing next to him said, ’Well, that’s the time you should say Yes.’ She was right, of course, so I apologized and accepted the offer. Then, before I knew it, the young guy, the woman and her kid had my bags on the bus for me! I was so grateful I nearly cried. I think they were a little embarassed.
The ride was only twenty minutes and I sat across from a guy in a Guatemalan hoodie who was reading a Gothic Romance called ’The Harrowing of Gwynedd.’ I think to myself that maybe I’m not so pathetic after all. So doesn't the guy get up and hand me down my bags when I get off the bus? And he wasn’t even getting off there! Again, I was flabbergasted. These gestures were so genuine, and made me so much less miserable, that I don’t really know what to say except, ’Thanks folks!’ I’m sure they have no idea how much these kindnesses meant to me.
Check-in was ridiculous. Southwest has new weight restrictions and I had to repack my stuff at the counter. The woman at the ticket counter was really helpful but god only knows what I looked like pulling crap out and stuffing it back in and changing jackets in a frenzy. Of course, TSA chose me for bag screening. I’m sure they thought I had escaped from somewhere. The screener was baffled by my Todd Oldham floor lamp in a film cannister. He was afraid to open it! Finally, I was approved for flight. I was so tired.
The flight was full of people from the Boston Marathon, I think because Amtrak’s Acela service is down. (Come to think of it, that’s probably why I couldn’t get an earlier flight.) I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy to get to Philadelphia before.
PS. I realized that I have five Leonard Cohen albums on my iPod. I thought over the past few days how much I really like his stuff. His lyrics are finely wrought, never overwrought; the melodies are beautiful; the arrangements are still interesting and his delivery is deliciously, icy cold. I think he’s brilliant. And he’s still recording!
Also the iPod has taken a liking to the soundtrack from Psycho by Bernard Herrmann. This music is famously all strings. The CD is a lot of very short pieces, each one a gem. They’re tiny masterpieces. I’m not big on soundtrack albums. Almost every one I have is by him. He was the best.
Posted by HighStrungLoner in Music at 11:45 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.thehighstrungloner.com/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-tb.cgi/132
