Train ride to Marseille

17:45

Station, Mémère and Pépère waving forever

Mother running alongside

Promenade of the Anglais

Brief splotch of ghetto

This train is an ocean liner on wheels

Filthy sea gulls

Rough turn, shifting in my seat

Tunnel, why I’m not sure

Madames et messieurs, en quelques instants nous allons vous offrir un repas

Tunnel is over; another station, Cannes already?

Si.

Jackass 3D, Mister Mystère, Carte SFR, Saw 3D

Train stations are almost as desolate as airports, which I hate.

How much hair gel would just the men represented in this car amount to? 

Scarfs. Furs. 

Very old lady in a wheelchair, pushed by pretty woman.

Did I end up in the wrong seat? 

Goodbye Cannes 

Graffiti lines my windows, where did my sea view go?

Swarms of little black birds that whirl, and dance, and remind me of my brother

There’s la mer (not the ocean, very important)

Three different types of clouds, though one set may be jet stream residue

Beaches are rocky, but the water is nice and dark today

Will I really make remarks like this for an hour? 

I think I mis heard the announcement earlier

Wheels need to be oiled, how much would that cost, how many lives could that money save?

Oh. Park full of trees like the ones you see in Tarzan

Attendant steps into my seat to let someone pass: Back to the trees

River, apartment, tall pines, with skinny trunks that touch the sky, topped with a tupé

Volleyball court in a man made beach (I know it’s man made because it’s sandy)

Something metal just feel and made a lot of noise behind me

Two idiots beside me guaffing over a video game

Mountains, with a village at the foot, painted pinky-orange-tan (pretty?)

Other side of tunnel: rock facades sprinkled with houses and trees

baby blue, roan, this road is too twisty to describe the graduation in color

The rocks are really red here, like Arizona

Nice light at a distance, premonition of actual Atlantis?

I haven’t seen an oliver in a few minutes. 

18:07

Tourist on a cliff and sailboat in the distance.

Erosion of the stone

French flag Red Rocks, White Waves, Blue doesn’t fit

Putting away the biscuits since I already ate two rows

October 27th: I’m a day early

Trees are vivacious green, they’ll always be

Sunset is painting everything gold, I can see that even though my back is to the sun

No I haven’t been smoking.

I was up early this morning to walk 2km for a haircut (he straightened it) 

Eyesore gas stations, revolting in disuse

Well maintained cyprès lining a road, lined with expensive cars 

With such a denser population, what’s the city’s carbon footprint?

Tiny red (gold) stone church (I like them from the outside) 

Whoosh whoosh, another tunnel

I’m not scared of the dark

Out of tunnel, a moment of silence- baby cries, squealing wheels, idiots game

Will I be used to the rush of palm trees when I see them aerially? 

I should be working on my prépas course about Allen Ginsberg

Another announcement:

En quelques instants, nous allons arriver à la Gare Saint Raphael

In that case, hello gaufres, goodbye guaffers! 

What a gloomy little station- man runs by with bichon frisé

Lady in front of me with IPad types like mom

Little Barbie girl walks by to go to the bathroom, her mother leans to stalk her clearly

Another mother arrives with daughter and a son. Snooty stock man is in the wrong seat (his book is an english money book, I’m unimpressed, he’s unimpressed by having to sit beside types-like-a-chicken-lady)

Yes Mr, I will smile at you while you wait for the roadblock to pass.

Old train cabs, rusting where the’ve stalled, arts in progress

18:23

This is going to be long. Maybe, I can cut it into segmets, and on nights I don’t have time to write a blog, I’ll post these instead. Am I lazy, or do I fear no one will read for disintrest?

Oui, doucement les enfants, il faut surtout rien dire qui pourra offendre (ou etre trop fort)

When did I get into the countryside? 

SHh.

Depots-car lots-suburbs-fields and everything is fenced in (keeping in or out?)

There are three rows of men sleeping in the mirror on the ceiling

Holy Hills. Am I in Nevada or France? 

Cotton candy sky; Exhibition Park in Bridgewater every year; for birthday, failed plans

That’s unfortunate

I could have sworn that train of thought would end well

Barely out of infancy, children speak better than I do: unsettling (but well behaved)

Farmers fields

Maybe these windows are tinted red: the soil seems off tone too

Graffiti themed route? A little house, floorboards to tiles; recreated

Massive plant (do you import or export) 

Abandonned sink, chair, front half of old truck- we must be close to another stop

Something burning a village away, the wind is chewing the smoke

Recycled air makes my hair cranky (also unfortunate, I was hoping to make a presentable impression) 

One of the men in the mirror woke up

Night is falling, street lights defend their posts valiantly

One single, orange-yellow house perched on a large hill like a crown

I like cars

Montrez vos billets s’il vous plait!

DidItaketherightseat?Whatifsomethinggoeswrong?WheredidIhidemydarnedtickets?

Star punched in the paper by the uniformed attendant (Polar express! -don’t think about Christmas stories you dolt- I’m still definitely keeping that ticket)  

18:41

41- 23 equals 18 / 23 - 07 equals 16 / 18- 16 equals 2

I have to coincidentally check my phone at (18:41+ (:18+:2) equals 19:01) 19:01 to keep my rhythm (yes I distort numbers like that for fun, who knows why I dislike math class) 

Pictures-Application-Lesson-FrenchHomework-Pictures-Am I boring you?

Chicken lady’s book must have been boring her because she’s asleep now 

Leather Jacket Money man is writing in his book (how many times could he replace the crayon that crying little girl broke for that one pen? How many slates could he buy for a school in Africa? How many schools in Africa could he have built with the bulging wallet that just fell out of his pocket? Would he offer one bill? Doubt it)

Excusez- moi Messieur, je crois que vous aviez perdu quelque chose...

Ouf. British buisness men have bad french accents (attitudes)

No, you do not need another chocolate wafer.

Coutryside in greyscale: Brown-green (grey), Green (grey), dark Green (tree line is also grey), dark Charcoal (first row of mountains fading into the darkness are almost black (but definitely are grey)), Slate Blue (suggesting a certain greyishness) and a constant tone shift from light blue to midnight blue is a starless sky. 

How optimistic.

I’m not being (moody - a typical teen - emo - depressive) pessimistic though

Head to toe, I’m new!

New boots! They drive my brother insane, who already confesses ‘heels aren’t his thing’ since he’s far too polite to admit he can’t stand them (black suede booties with little metal claps on a bow that ties up on the heel) 

New jeans! Never shop in France unless you’re a US size 6, it will send you into a swirling vortex of self-image doom (nonetheless, I don’t hate these baggy-style, lowrise)

New sweater! White, which is self explanatory (but for those of you who don’t baby sit, haven’t been in Girl Guides, and have never pitied their mothers doing brothers laundry:  for the other 98 percent of the world, rule of thumb states that nothing ever stays white) 

New pull! No, I’m not sure if that’s a word in english (it’s a navy blue warm thing, not a sweater since it’s open in the front, and not a cardigan, since it has a sash, not buttons) 

New haircut! I already complained about that today. 

Hmm. Optimism, optimism...

What isn’t new? 

The rings on my middle fingers:

Left: Fleur- de- Lys surrounded by a thick band of half heart shaped flowers that my brothers offered me for my sweet 16

Right: My name spelled out in hieroglyphics (I have déja-vu, and no, I didn’t just say that to stick another french expression in there, I’m pretty sure I already told you about these rings, so I’ll drop the subject) 

And of course my locket, from grammy - in my pocket when it’s not around my neck

I was told that when you put a picture in a locket, you never take it out, so to choose them wisely. I think I did pretty well: I put the two boys who don’t have the choice but to put up with me for the rest of their lives. 

Salut Toulon. 

Is it possible I still have three stops to go? 

19:11 

Ten minutes late. I wrecked my pattern. 50 minutes to go.

I have aquired a seat mate! 

Naturally, she would not like a chocolate, and takes out her cell phone. 

People are so friendly. 

I love kids. The little broken crayon boy is playing Mario Kart. 

How many hours does an American boy play per capita? European? South American? 

What about the little boys that manufacture the cardboard boxes they come in?

On that note, the flavor of my munchies is ruined.

A fine state of affairs the world is in when people can type and watch out the window for inspiration to fill cyber-pages, tasting disgust at the idea of blood shed over chocolate and diamonds, people throwing away their money on Gucci bags, ripped jeans and-

And still, every mother puts in a full day, that’s only begun when it’s PJ time. 

‘The world doesn’t need a president: It needs a mother’

-Cathy (the comic book that I was obsessed with in 9th grade) 

Not only from Cathy, from the same volume, but the same strip states

‘If you played fair, and shared with the others then people wouldn’t fight with you! And for goodness’ sake, if you make a mess clean it up!’

Imagine the government that could be run strictly on a regime of a mothers critiques...

Eat your vegetables (good for the environment! They use a tiny fragment of the space to produce in comparison to the mass amounts of meat north America consumes). 

Clean your room, I don’t care if it’s your room, it’s nice for everyone else not to see the mess- Don’t you dare hide it all under your bed or put it in the laundry for me to take care of! (Landfills, carbon footprint, you name it.) 

I don’t care what the class average is, I know you can do better! (In each student taking responsibility, class average goes up, class average goes up, initiative goes up, etc) We’re having leftovers, it would be wasteful to throw that all away (did you know that the average European throws out 23 percent of their meals? Don’t quote me on that, I heard it on the radio, but I don’t know if the radio is a citable source. On that note-) 

Who told you that? you can’t believe everything you hear! (Oh hey Cold War)

Turn out the light when you leave the room (If we all cut back on energy consumption... Or consumption in general actually...) 

Don’t swear! It makes you sound less intelligent! 

That one I just agree with

It’s not an epic metaphor to solving the worlds issues

19:29 

my laptop battery is at 40 percent

So far: One thousand Nine hundred Twenty Nine

words. 

Now that was a fun number puzzle to work out!

Am I really that different from Mr Money (who left without saying a word)

Yes, I like to think I am (who am I to say? I didn’t look up at his stop) 

We both play with numbers, he just made a career out of it

For all I know, he might enjoy opera and jazz music

I can’t tell when we’re in tunnels anymore - Are they the track lights or city lights?

City lights to kitchens, and living rooms, and children's bedrooms, where those two poor little kids should be tucked in right now, not on a bus

What a sheltered life I’ve led

How can my generation bring children into the world in good conscience? 

They’re destined to latch onto technology like crack babies, destined to fail at bringing global warming back from the brink, destined to die in guilt of the hundreds of thousands of younger people taken by AIDs and cancer before them

They’re destined to leave less for their children, less space, food, water, hope, goodwill, clean air, moments they can recall total silence without the infernal buzz that is the value of our society

Neon, drills, engines, four different IPods, crackling receipts in brand name pockets

I don’t fear for my children, because they would have enough

I don’t fear aging, wouldn’t wage a war against wrinkles with cremes or incisions, I’m too much like my mother for that who loves her smile lines

But I fear my children wouldn’t be like their grandmother, or mine

Is it not terrifying, the idea of watching the last real wax and twine candles burn out? 

That in time may come the dawn of a day where nothing is genuine, nothing is real? 

What of a mothers love? Will even that prevail institutions, and the need for careers, to buy a better life, to take cars, not trains? 

Marseilles.

Here we are.

One day, this station will be reduced to rubble

How will mothers get their children home safe?

Where will the grandmothers wave from, on the day the world falls?

Will I be a mother or a grandmother on that day?

Will I already be burnt out?

Because it will come.