Midnight Oil

[Powderworks] Currency for Cultural Exchange

Kate Adams kate@dnki.net
Fri, 12 Apr 2002 17:42:12 -0400


I was staying in the hostel in Washington DC earlier this week.  I turned 
in early, before my bunkmate even arrived, because I was completely wiped 
out from an overnight train trip and ten hours of symposia.  Since there 
was activity in the room, I decided to use my cd player to drown out the 
random noise.

I was pretty close to out when my bunkmate arrived.  She was a 
standard-issue HI/AYH swagwoman - an internal frame pack with legs, just 
like the ones you can find at every hostel.  But this one didn't say G'day 
like they normally do ... she was eagerly waving the crystal case from the 
Ghostwriter's Fibromoon in my face.

She was doubly astonished to find out that I was not Australian.

As the disc was in the closing strains of Cold Heart, I willingly 
relinquished it, along with Second Skin and Capricornia.  She hopped out to 
meet one of her companions in the hallway, boombox in hand.  ("got them 
from a yank!  can you believe it?").  I put in another cd and crashed 
totally.  I think she'd been away too long.

Of  course, had I not been so beat, I'd have joined them.  The discs were 
sitting next to my bed in the morning.

I also got a new appreciation for Diesel and Dust last night.  The train 
pulled out of Penn Station headed North around 1am, and I curled up on the 
double seat and popped it in.  The tracks between NYC and New Haven CT are 
so bad that the fast trains have to slow way down.  The bumping, jostling, 
lurching and trying to stay on the seat and sleep added an entirely new 
dimension to D&D.  If only fresh air had been involved.

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Kate Adams
Doctoral Student
Epidemiology
Department of Work Environment
UMass Lowell
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"There are a lot of people who as they get older get mellow. I don't like 
mellow music. I don't like mellow. Period."  -  Moe Tucker
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