Day 20: January 20, 2009

Question 9:
Where would you most like to travel? Why?

Responses:

• Germany I have heard that it is very clean and I want to see that, since it is unfamiliar to me as a New Yorker. Also I like the idea of being in a country where I am exotic beauty.
• There are so many places in the world I would like to see either again or for the first time—both the relatively familiar, such as Europe, and the unknown and exotic, such as India and Vietnam—but I’d really like to get to know the United States. There are entire parts of this country that are truly foreign to me—more so even than, say, England and France—and I’d like to spend an extended period driving around the country (I’d love to be behind the wheel of a Winnebago!) and discovering what makes people tick. As a New Yorker, I certainly have an incomplete, and no doubt distorted, picture of life in this country. This becomes apparent during any election year, but it’s particularly obvious to me during this election year. First stop, Alaska!
• Ireland and Italy

Song:
Another Travelin Song, by Bright Eyes

Lyrics:
Well I'm changing all my strings
I'm gonna write another travelin' song
about all the billion highways
and the cities at the break of dawn
I guess the best that I can do now
is to pretend that I've done nothing wrong
and to dream about a train
that's gonna take me back where I belong

Well now the ocean speaks and spits
and I can hear it from the interstate
and I'm screamin' at my brother on a cellphone
he is far away
And I'm saying nothing in the past or future
ever will feel like today
until we're parking in an alley
just hoping that our shit is safe

So I go back and forth forever
All my thoughts they come in pairs
Oh I will, I won't, I doubt, I don't,
I'm not surprised but I never feel quite prepared

Now I'm hunched over a typewriter
I guess you call that paintin' in a cave
And there's a word I can't remember
and a feeling I cannot escape
And now my ashtray's overflowing
I'm still staring at a clean white page
Oh and morning's at my window
she is sending me to bed again

Well I dream the dark on the horizon
I dream the desert where the dead lay down
I dream a prostituted child touching an old man in a fast food crown
Oh yeah, I dreamt this ship was sinkin' there was people screaming all around
And I awoke to my alarm clock it was a pop song it was playin' loud

So I will find my fears and face them
or I will cower like a dog
I will kick and scream or kneel and plead
I'll fight like hell to hide that I've given up