walking the four and a quarter miles to kilbarchan from lochwinnoch. I'm in scotland
and it's the first sunny day in a while. jamie, chrissy, dean and I. we're walking
down a bike trail. midges are attacking us from all around and I am chain smoking
to keep them away. I've done this walk two times before and I don't mind doing it
again with my friends.

perpetually bludgeoning people with my backpack
to stay away from my perptual boredom
as we walk on past ruins of a castle
washed over with mud from a mud slide long ago

I'm happy here. First time in a long time that I can remember. Singing along to
songs by Papa roach and Sublime, we pass the time plotting against the bicyclists. If
we clothesline those two, render them unconcious and wait for two more people, we
can ride all the way there.

I should have brought my bike. though the flatbox would not have fit on the plane.
we're walking down the trail, under bridges. I have no idea where we are. but the
bridges are hundreds of years old and magnificant. the magnifacance that only
natural decay can have. fields are on either side of us. sheep, cows -- cattle, I
guess. the sheep look at us incredulously, as all sheep do in scotland. and we
laugh.

in kilbarchan now, walking through a tunnel, some sort of structure for a train bridge
unused from long ago. we step off onto a thin sidewalk. we're going to Jamie's
house.

we stop there for coffee and tea. jamie is addicted to coffee. but I take tea. the hot
water comes from those cool whit jugs that can boil water in three minutes. we
need one of those for our house back in california. jamie just moved into his house
in the suburbs of kilbarchan. his brother is out somewhere else and his parents are
at work.

it's in the middle of the summer and the clouds have come back to cover us. it looks
the way it does in alameda, in the bay area after it's just rain. the air is humid and I
can taste the water in the air. it feels good. feels fresh.

we walk through kilbarchang to chrissy's house. seemed to me a fragment of an old
mansion. antiques clung to the walls. chrissy's room itself was a mess, cluttered
with paper and clothes. the way my room gets sometimes. dean is somewhere.

I'm mixing experiences now. but they all blend into one. I sing god save the queen
as we walk back to the bus stop and piss off a car full of NEDS. so we walk down
farther to another bus station where they won't find us. long talks of Non-Educated
Deliquiants and chibs take place as I dig into something that I bought at SPAR a
grocerry store that is a franchise around Scotland. we rode back to Lochwinnoch on
the bus. and went back home.