ferry, we took a ferry from the world trade center (the other one), we being rebecca, petar, and i, after as i remember some confusion because i wasn't able to reach her all day the day or two prior to confirm we were actually going. we went, obviously. from the wtc to a pier in provincetown, whose relationship to the other pier enabled us, with the help of a pitiful map they gave us on the boat, to determine which open area was ocean and which land.

simply lovely boat ride, with grapes and sunblock and honey wheat pretzel sticks to boot. those last two, especially the second, were prominently featured on this trip. someone suggested that we had consumed thirty linear yards of the pretzel sticks.

yuppie, as i pointed out to ester, is not the first adjective that springs to mind when i encountered provincetown. neither is provincial. "town" is accurate, but that's not an adjective. it was unclear whether the town (and particularly its bustling and only thoroughfare, the aptly named commercial street) contains more portuguese flags, rainbow pride flags, or star-spangled banners. it did become quite clear (to me at least), that the american flag and the gay pride flag don't look very good together. nevertheless, they seem to be hung together on a majority of provincetown houses. actually, the pride flag doesn't really look good with anything. it's kind of like my sunday pants, which i wore this past sunday with my pink shirt - literally the only short-sleeve button down i can wear with them, since at least it's a solid-color.

[editor's note: i'm digging itunes. i love the little segues it makes between tracks, sliding one smoothly over the other so you don't mind even if one mp3 is cut off abruptly. and the cheesy "music video" graphic thingy (i guess it's called a "skin") is simply entrancing. just finished: "shaft in africa" by johnny pate. now up: "a little soul (lafayette velvet remix)" by pulp. soundjam? what was i thinking? while i'm on the subject of realtime, i just played another scrabble game; finally bingoed with "variate" after being unable to place a number of earlier 7-letter words. just like stephan fatsis, i play too many phonies. worse, they often make it through. cool word file: zooidal.]

where was i? oh, not very far at all, just down commercial street and left onto pearl (walking trips, especially, always seem much longer the first time, before you're familiar with the route) to jane's. that's rebecca's not-but-nearly-aunt. i can't remember if she's supposed to be jane or ester is, and i don't really see her as either (but maybe closer to becca's temperament.) jane is undislikable, completely no-nonsense despite being somewhat nonsensical, with broad tastes and limited interests (or maybe vice versa.)

but we didn't see jane yet, not until after plunking ourselves down at her house, i at least somewhat zonked, sat looking at her ceiling-high shelves of books books books - over half of the collection being art books (full half-shelves on the work of artists whom i have heard of, perhaps, in passing once or twice, or seen a slide for two seconds in ap art) and most of the rest literature, but oddly centered on a relatively small number of authors (hence, hemingway, faulkner, colette, had at least half a shelf each; woolf had over two full shelves.) alphabetical and chronological within author. duh. neat record collection too, including several lps of dirty dirty blues records. the best was a five-lp "copulation compilation," which i can't find online, but had a lot of the same tunes as this one.

pick it up pick it up, yes, we ate or something and walked down to the bookstore (jane has a bookstore.) dawdled at marine specialty, a huge army/navy store (as becca described it), where i purchased a pair of flip-flops made from recycled tires and other materials ($5, and quite comfy) and two $1 lps, a woody herman compilation and a 2-record set called "classic hustle" with disco-ized versions of chopin, offenbach, tchaikovsky, and so on.

next to the beach at race point, a truly fabulous beach (and i don't love beaches) with nice big sand granules that i threw myself down and delved into. water, too. and a perfect sunset, pretty enough to make us wait around for it.

at least one other thing is worth reporting about this day, which by the way was tuesday: after we wandered nearly the length of comm. st. looking for cheap eats, and settled on mojo's, i ate a sandwich called dixie chicken. on its styrofoam box someone had drawn a little chicken with the text "hi, my name is dixie." the sandwich was chicken fingers, guacamole, and cole slaw on a roll. cool and unusual. i would recommend heavier on the guac and slaw next time.

so. i'll stop for a bit.

mercy

(that's a roy orbison quote)