HALLOWELL, ME. i left montréal this morning with ten canadian dollars and some coins. the scenery went from concrete to country… grain fields and animal pastures stretching as far as the eye could see. my windshield wipers were streaking back and forth from montréal to woburn and beyond the border into maine. there are beautiful mountains in northern maine, i’m sure, but i couldn’t see them through all the fog and the rain clouds that hovered up above. then came the snow, and then i finally stopped in a gas station in the middle of somewhere to stomp around gleefully in the sloshy mess. the darkness came quickly, me being in the mountains and short winter days fast approching. i kept driving through the darkness and the rain slush stopped falling from the sky. i reached augusta, maine in good time.

i want to know why the fda thinks our pecticide laws are so much better than canada’s. supposedly, according to a know-it-all u.s. customs agent, this is why i couldn’t keep my mandarins at the border crossing into maine. three days ago i came into canada with apples and bananas, no problem. in sherbrooke, québec, i bought four bright, ripe mandarins at the super IGA, along with other snacks, totalling 10.49$, leaving exactly two canadian cents in my pocket. but a hundred kilometers later, the friendly u.s. customs official said no mandarines while plucking my perfectly sweet orange fruits off of my passenger seat. he rattled off some bureauocratic nonsense about fda-approved pecticides in brazil, and the fact that there’s no citrus crop in canada. he said the last part about canada’s inability to grow oranges with a smirk on his face, as if, once again, the u.s. is on top. we can grow oranges. take that, canada.

but meanwhile, i can’t eat mandarins bought in canada in my car while it’s driving in the u.s.

in other news, i need to take some notes on my interview with Right to Move / La Voie Libre in montréal. lots to report… i’ve officially started again on the bike spaces documentary. more to come.

i’m sleeping outside tonight, next to cranberry lake behind a quiet church.
goodnight, stars.

ROCHESTER, NY. today, i left cleveland without the food i had cooked. last night, after driving alone to choke’s house and getting lost, i decided to leave. it was a little overwhelming going out to two shows a night, bars, cigarette smoke, etc. i think choke was excited to have me in town. david bond, he calls himself. david fucking bond. he’s doing well, choke. no drugs, no booze. excited about his life. he always is. but he’s unusually happy, too. which makes me happy.

if i felt like i could have chilled more, i would have stayed. but i felt bad refusing choke’s plans to be on the scene, every night. and the endless concrete and winding streets of cleveland got to me, too. the same thing happened in chicago. i was run off by concrete monsters.

so i left.

i picked up a hitchhiker on a nameless crossroads on a small lake-side highway. when he got in and we said hello, i swore he was cuban. puerto rican, he corrected me. from carolina. i once had a student from carolina. this hitchhiker was quite unexpected. sharp, clean clothes. new-looking baseball cap. his english was medocre, but my spanish was worse. he was stranded after taking a bus from nyc to western new york for some party at the invitation of a strange woman. he woke up this morning with no money and no friends. hitchhiking is much more common in puerto rico, so it wasn’t difficult for him to just begin walking with his thumb out. but unlike puerto rico, no one picks you up in the states. well, almost no one.

i took him all the way to rochester where his sister lives. i was planning on staying in buffalo. again, alone in new places. tomorrow i’ll go to the food co-op and pick up more food. tomorrow will be a wandering day through new york state without a map. the scenery is amazing. fall is my favorite.

if i ever come through mississippi again (i say “if” because, after today, i may never come through, at least jackson, that is) i’d like to bring someone to the Down Home Cafe. this truck stop is a little slice of a former small-town side-of-the-highway america, circa 1960. a buffet with all kinds of southern cooking, from fried chicken to okra, blackeyed peas to green beans & ham. cornbread and sweet (sweet!) tea. this place calms my mind after an enitre day sitting in the sun. i hitched one ride, from one side of jackson to the other, and after about 10 am didn’t get a ride until 5. i can’t tell if it was the waiting that drove me crazy or the hot sun with all it’s radiating uv rays. or maybe the fifty pound pack. mostly–i think–it was the *thousands* of vehicles that passed me by, an endless stream of steel and plastic. i didn’t think a person could stand with an outstretched arm for seven hours while so much traffic flowed by. i waved, smiled, held signs. nothing. i think i could wait that long on a highway with no traffic, a car or two every hour. the chances are thin. but i’ve learned that in jackson, no one like to look at a solitary hitchhiker, sometimes flailing desperately for a ride up the road.

i spent the night on a construction site, dirt and concrete pipe surrounding me. i slept well. no rain. and in the morning i met only southbound truckers fueling their trucks at the station. a couple hours drove me to the exit ramp and i grabbed my first ride across town, getting me away from the tangled i55/i20 intersection. now on the north side of jackson, i hiked up the on-ramp, jumped on the interstate and held up my sign: memphis. no luck. the sun cooked at high noon. i walked a bit. nothing but empty skies and hot sun. even on on-ramps, i met fancy cars and blank stares. i guessed i was near a mall and walked on. my rides usually come from young folks, contruction workers, mexicans, or truckers. occasionally i get a ride from a woman, a fancy car, or a chartered bus, but here: nobody. the psychological impact of everyone–thousands of vehicles–passing you by leads to a certain lost hope in humanity. i don’t ask for charity, just a ride up the road in an empty seat or bed of a pickup truck. after four hours, i started yelling at every pickup. i walked some more. six hours: i wrote “help” on the backside of my sign. nope. even the state trooper didn’t pull over; three times he passed me. finally, after seven hours–i don’t remember if i was standing or sitting, but i pulled the sign away from my face to block the sun’s rays–a red ford pickup truck rolled right up to my feet. i threw by pack in the bed (surprised i had the strength to lift if over the side) and hopped in. turns out the male driver thought i was a women (he didn’t have his glasses), but he decided to give me a lift anyway after i got in the truck. i write now in no rush ready to come to terms with my situation: on the road with no guarentee, a heavy pack, and no sunscreen. i’ve got time though. i just lost my faith in humanity for a moment, i guess.