Project Eveningland

“My husband was a great traveler, so I’ve spent many happy evenings without understanding a word. The thing is to keep smiling and never look as if you disapprove.” -Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham

4/1/2023 Saturday

I woke around six AM feeling pretty damn good. The antibiotics seemed to have “dropped a train” on my protozoan bodyguests. Well, maybe the antibiotics did and maybe they didn’t, but later they dropped a train on me.

I walked to the Marathon gas station next door for a breakfast sandwich, which I recognize as a sentence that does not usually precede a positive dining experience. But I knew better. I’d gotten a sandwich there in 2021, and it was fresh and effing amazing. Someone knows what they are doing. The biscuit was salty and buttery and wonderful. The egg was clearly an actual egg that was cracked and fried.

I returned the tent stakes that Lost in Town (LiT) (née Lost & Found) loaned me back when we were on Roan High Knob and one of my stakes snapped in the deep-frozen ground one inch below the mud and duff. Walked over to the hostel and chatted with folks and met Lady Di (that’s a trail name, obviously) in person and asked her what she thought of Emma Corrin’s portrayal of her namesake on The Crown. She laughed genuinely and I don’t think that’s an easy effect to achieve with Lady Di. She seems like the type who speaks bluntly and suffers no fools. My hiking buds were waiting on the rain to abate. I was surprised when it eventually did. In conversation with them I described their slackpacking itinerary (20 miles out of here with insane high wind warnings) as a “madcap plan.” I wish I had said “foolhardy caper” instead. Alas, hindsight. (They are safe; heard from Wedge this evening).

I spent almost an hour chatting with Mom. I was very happy for the company. Still feeling great.

I set about hiring a shuttle to take me one mile (you read right, just one mile) to the Food City. If that sounds wasteful, bear in mind that I am trying to rest here and carrying tons of groceries back by foot for a mile in high winds is untenable. Then I thought, I don’t wanna explain this to someone. I’ll just pay a shuttler to take me to Walmart in Abingdon, then the driver won’t try to talk me out of “wasting” money, which kind shuttlers are surprisingly prone to trying to do. To me anyway. I guess I must sound unsure to them on the phone. People sometimes take my talky self-presentation for a sign of anxiety, which it absolutely is. The mistake is in thinking that because I have anxiety, I am weak. When friendly sorts make this mistake, the misapprehension usually resolves itself. But when bad actors make the error, it causes them to grossly underestimate me. Often at their peril and very occasionally to their great cost. I’ve seen it many times across the years of my young life. But that’s by-the-by. This has no bearing on my supply run.

A shuttler agreed to take me to Walmart. She was on a list of drivers that Lady Di recommended when I saw her this morning while I was returning those stakes to LiT.

About the shuttler. Southern accents prejudice me sometimes. I make assumptions. I don’t want to. I try not to, and I’m getting better at it. But then sometimes what you see (or hear) is what you get, and there’s no sense in doing anything other than being kind, nodding where appropriate, and moving on.

Abingdon was farther than I realized. I took forever (well, 50 minutes) in Walmart and it made me terribly anxious to keep someone waiting. I did my best. I took a list. I thought through each department so I didn’t have to backtrack. Going into supermarkets when you’ve been on trail is overwhelming and overstimulating. You’re always in the way and it takes forever to find things. What makes a place like Walmart worth it is the ability to get exactly what you want. To do a fine-tuned resupply. For example, while refilling my stomach meds (which have been depleted over and over), I bought the expensive blister packs of liquid gels. They cost more but come in smaller quantities and the blister pack keeps air and moisture away from the pills. And they are so pretty!

Another example: I’m gonna do a snackbox approach to my eating on the next stretch. I just thought of it last night. It’s inspired by United Airlines’ overpriced little “snackboxes” which cost an outrageous $8-11 but give you just a little bit of many different foods. It’s an appetizing experience. If I replicate it, it’ll help me eat more. A sample spread: pepitas, cheese crisps, jerky, gummy bears, a tiny bag of potato chips, a miniature candy bar. That adds up and also supports an intriguing idea: aesthetics are not merely aesthetics. The border between substance and design gets blurry up close.

On the drive back, I just listened to the driver and tried to say as little as possible. The nausea began. I practically had my head out the window for fresh air. The cigarette smell was only residual—I would not have been able to handle actual smoking—but it seemed to grow stronger and stronger until it was reaching up into my head and squeezing my brain. I experience nausea as a sensation in my head, always have. It frustrated me as a kid because I would say, “I’m nauseated” and people would suggest stomach remedies but I would think, “no, I’m nauseated, not sick to my stomach!” It’s like a headache, my nausea. I know it’s nausea because I get it in all the contexts where people get nauseated (e.g., motion sickness). Also I have no gosh darn clue what else people could mean when they talk about nausea. I once surveyed a whole class on this issue. One or two students said they have the same experience. There is some connection between my nausea displacement and my migraines, because they “taste” so similar, but I haven’t figured out what it is. It’s one of the many things that challenged young Doug. People never seemed to *get* my needs as a child and it made me sheepish to trust adults enough to even try to explain.

I made it back to my rental and had to lie down immediately, no pause to put away perishables. Took me a while to be ready to stand up again and put stuff in the fridge. A friend told me later he’s dealing with two sick kids (and his wife is also temporarily incapacitated and so can’t help very much) and they’ve all got it coming out of both ends and I thought, OK, it could be much, much worse for old Doug. I think he is among the most loyal and hardworking people I know. It puts everything into perspective. Oh, god, why does my mouth taste like puke?!

I fell asleep. Woke. Watched Picard. Ordered food. Chatted with Benny, who’s watching his nephew.

The power went out in the high winds. A man staying upstairs knocked on my door to check whether my power was out too and also to (implicitly) invite me to share in his outrage at the injustice of paying for a rental but not having power. I thought, what in the hell are the AirBnB owners going to do about it? It’s high winds, dude. I opened doors to let fresh air in. I think I will have to stay in Damascus on Monday, too. I cannot take this medicine and hike in the same day, end of story.

I hope the power comes back soon or I’m going to have to hunt down ice to protect the freshness of my groceries! I can hear Mom’s voice echoing at me across the years from a day in my childhood when our power went out: “keep the fridge door closed to hold in the cold air.”