Greenpoint

Arrived in Brooklyn on Friday, after a car ride encompassing 18 hours, a tire blowout in Indiana, getting pulled over in Ohio (not carrying guns), 5 and a half Red Bulls, the Worst Truck Stop Ever, getting pulled over outside of the Queens Midtown Tunnel (not carrying bombs), and heavy rain throughout.

Notable Bodily Sensation: a kind of weightlessness brought on by the green sameness of the landscape, about 3/4 of Pennsylvania. Unerring in its beauty, and also unrelenting - the landscape distorts any sense of time or progress. Pennsylvania is not a state of mind. Without seeing the signs, you somehow know that you are inside of it - the landscape grows hills almost immediately upon exiting Ohio. The beauty is breathtaking until you have no breath left. I suppose then it's suffocating. You get the feeling of being lost, even though there is no way ever to get lost along the I-80, which keeps you clear of pretty much any sign of civilization, except for the literal ones pointing out roads to Harrisburg and a couple Penn State campuses. Eventually you hit the mini-mall of Stroudsberg and it brings on a feeling of almost total exhaustion because you're thinking, "Now? This is the first city I'm hitting? We have more to go ..." But then soon after the Delaware Water Gap, and you're in Jersey, for better or worse. [Also, do NOT stop at the first truck stop after you cross into Jersey on the I-80. Harrowing.]

Road Game to Keep You Occupied: How Many Anglo Modernist Writers Can I Name? (Not nearly as many as I thought.)

Worst Choice for Packed Lunch: Starbucks Sandwiches.

About the Stuff in the Back: "I hear something shifting in the back of the truck." "Ignore it." WHUMP "Ignore it."

And now Greenpoint.