National Book Festival, One Wet Dyslexic Biker's Experience

by Jerry W. aka DancesWithCars

Saturday September 26, 2009

 

 

So this is replaying the day, yesterday,

and I try to remember the details and sequence of things,

though a bit Forrest Gump-ish and choppy in style,

as I'm tired and not that good a writer,

especially today.

 

 

I did a little planning ahead, knew there was

100% rain forecast and it had started

raining before we left the blighted 'burbs.

 

 

The MetroAccess paratransit driver wants to talk,

but I really just want to be left alone.

She's giving me that

"I'm crazy /challenging facts attitude",

making un logical statements

and questioning my replies...

 

 

We arrived downtown around 2.30 pm,

I'm glad to get there without a cab driver

running over my feet, like they did to me

last year, probably what this

MetroAccess driver was trying to discredit,

but it happened, and I have hospital

and an empty police record to prove it,

and feet that still hurt too much,

over a year later, after a simple walk,

the day before...

 

 

I rented a SmartBike at Gallery MetroRail,

throw a duffel bag on the girlie front rack

but it's getting rather wet, in the rain going

down to the National Mall area.

 

 

As going down hill, ask some women in

a bus stop enclosure, keeping dry and looking

satistfied at the end of their day's outing,

"what it's like?"

 

 

They like it, so I continue looking for

a purple BookTV bag that I see most everyone

carrying.

 

 

I stop near the crowded lines, look at

"The Line Ends Here" Sign

cute young thing with the sign,

thinking too young, darn...

 

 

She mentioned authors names

kindly looking it up from her wet program,

and I say "I don't remember names,

I worked for a bookstore,"

and named Crown Books, but

"We didn't know, [/I didn't know,]

we just send them back somewhere in the store..."

BTW: Crown Books no longer exists,

though Books A Million does.

And they think it's funny..

 

 

I bike along the gravel paths on the mall,

sometimes on the grass between tents,

getting looks, odd looks, somewhat amused

looks, but I'm used to it.  I don't like it,

 

 

I don't like the disrespect my life has become,

but I'm used to it, and make the best I can

of it, as I normally would stay home and

wish I were dead, but I'm out and trying

to forget that...

 

 

A golf cart pulling up with a blonde woman

in back and a guy.  I say "Thanks for blocking..."

and ask where we are going...

And they think it's funny...

 

 

I bike up to an info desk, but

difficult to fit the bike out of the rain,

as a small tent.

She is handing out programs, but

"we're out of bags".

 

 

I bike around with others walking

and a few bikes locked up places

maneuvering around crowds of people

and on the grass, just missing one

kid who jumps back and in my

way, I talk to the parent and kid,

"no harm, not fowl, just a warning"

they might have thought that was funny,

but with parents willing to lift cars

off their kids, being protective, maybe

not...

 

 

Take photo with camera in the rain,

but my old camera is still having problems,

as you might see attached below...

I pull into the back of a tent to get out of the rain.

 

 

Listen to a guy talk for a while, wonder who

he is, start looking at my program, he pitched

the name of his book somewhere,

and I guess I'm not in a kids tent, nor poetry,

so that leaves very little other places,

narrow it down by process of elimination...

 

 

The tents available are:

Children's

Learning to Read 1

Learning to Read 2

Poetry and Prose

Biography and History

Mystery and Thriller

 

 

No Non Fiction, per se.  I'm into

How To type of stuff, as Geekie,

and on my  way to an Asperger's meeting

later that night...

 

 

I listen to the guy, and take a couple of pictures,

difficult with a camera not working well.

 

 

Next speaker is introduced, she says that the

author is someone she would want to have

writing the story of her life.  As she would make

it interesting and classy, iirc.

 

 

Speaker/ author is funny, she starts hitting on

the sign language interpreter standing on stage

with her, he's young and cute, she says, and

she asks what the sign for various things are.

 

 

She talks about her life and how things got into

her book.  She's very very open, and says she's

from a family of 18 kids in Philadelphia, they

are good Catholics, but not from a book family,

they have one book in the house, and asked

the audience, who guess the Bible, but no

TV Guide...

 

 

She jokes about "What's the difference between

an Italian Mom and a Rotweiller?"

"The Rotweiller eventually lets go..."

[I tell that later to an Aspergers group,

but they think it is really Jewish mothers,

I say it is rather universal, even to a mom

in the group]

 

 

As I'm leaving and hungry,

I pull up to the vegetarian food vendor,

not many people there,

but checking what is available

and it's next to the middle and a merry go round

and the sweet almonds vendor

with a sign "it's almonds you are smelling"

or similar.

 

 

As I leave, as about ending, I'm tired/ bored,

and go wander, a woman hands me a RIF,

Reading Is Fundamental book,

and asks if I want another.

No, just one little relative.

But it's about my speed as a dyslexic...

 

 

I go around the area a bit,

somewhat looking for the Street Sense /

street paper vendors that I used to be involved with,

getting the latest version, checking up on people's

lives, how they have changed, how they haven't,

what they are writing about these days,

trying to avoid the abusive drug dealing one

who thugged me out of the group I was running

and I had created the Writer's Group page,

now a thankless experience, in a lot of ways,

but still a few bragging rights about it...

 

 

But being victimized, most think it is OK,

he was used, so OK for more people to,

so I tend not to tell people about it

but blog extensively about it, as therapy...

 

 

But tired and decide to stop and got to

wait somewhere before possibly

running a support group

 

[redacted stuff here]