Hey

Well, right at the moment I'm in the projects outside of downtown buffalo. It would have been a good time to have my bike aboard but since the weather's turned bad and I decided just to park my car behind the motel next to the truck stop near my residence, I've gotten lazy with respect to the bike. I could walk into downtomwn buffalo from here and I'd kind of like to, but walking through this neighborhood, either carrying my computer or leaving it on the truck strikes me as rather more of a risk than I care to take. When I got this store and took walk around the building to see how to get to the loading area, there was this guy following me and watching me. His manner gave off more of a village idiot than threatening vibe, but still. If I had my bike though I'd just hope on and ride very quickly out of this area into downtown.

No matter. I'm holed up, tomorrow I'll unload and get the fuck out of here. This is still infinitely preferable to entering a comparable neighborhood in NYC. The streets are wide and all but empty. There was this inconvenient median in the road obstructing my entrance to the truck pass through, so I just crossed over before the median and drove on the wrong side of the road for a truck length or so. No problem at all.

I got confrontational with one of my bosses last week. I wanted to get that way with brandon more than with stephanie but B wasn't in. Explained that due to the shit that went down with my last NYC load I would not be entering NYC ever again. Stephanie said she would talk to brandon about it but that I probably could not stay on this account if I wouldn't do NYC. I said that was fine, I would just go back to running 48 states. She tried to tell me that there aren't any openings in 48 states right now.

Which of course is total bullshit. The only thing limiting the number of 48 state drivers is how many trucks they have and drivers to put in them.

But to make doubly sure about that I phoned placement; there are a couple of other accounts I could get on if I were to get my hazmat endorsement, as well as an unlimited supply of 48 state positions.

When I was at the DC today I noticed a missed call from the bosses mentioned above, I phoned them back but got a busy signal and did not bother trying them again. I don't like confrontations even though I guess I'm not the worst ultrawuss that ever existed.

I would prefer to stay doing this family dollar thing until i hit my year of experience at the end of january, as I'm use to the hometime I've been getting. On the other hand it wouldn't be so bad to get in a last hurrah and see a few distant places before I set this over the road shit aside for good.

A new motivation I have for wanting to be home is that I'd like to start playing guitar out with people. Friday night I was up at Sam's, the former Bart's in northampton, and ran into two old friends, one whom I've know since the seventh grade, about 1983 or so, and one who was a housmate for a few months in the nineties.
I was listening to the folks playing the open mike acoustic set, and they asked me If I played anything. I said I could play House of the Rising Sun and a few Mississppi John Hurt songs. So they handed me a guitar and I did HOTRS and "Don't Follow" by alice in chains. Apparently AIC is not a common selection amongst that set and they asked me if I had written that song. They tried to accompany me while I was playing but I'm not really used to playing in groups and what I was doing didn't really lend itself to accompaniment, but still I got an applause, even though I screwed up a bit, and was invited to show up next time with my Larrive. I hope my schedule will permit. There's also a group lesson group I'd like to join at some point.

I guess that's what's reportable for the moment.

Aleikum salaam

Liz