Only Two Burgers

Today I almost went to Boston.
I boarded a train this morning at the Staples Mill Amtrak station shortly after the white-mustachioed, portly gentleman manning the ticket booth glanced at my ID and said to me very patronizingly, "I bet you didn't know there's a Honaker, VA." Oh sir. If only you knew just how much I do know about Honaker, VA.
[Sidenote: I'll probably start an entirely new blog just to deal with that topic.]
I was exhausted on the train. Departure time: 6AM. Not terrible, but when you factor in having to get out of bed early enough to find enough pairs of panties and sweatpants and jeggings to keep you cleanly clothed for four or five days and stuff them all into your pizza backpack in addition to your toothbrush and Chuck Norris T-shirt, you're looking at a 4:30AM rise and shine.
I love the train. I find a seat all by myself near the front of the first coach car. I fight to stay awake long enough for the conductor or assistant conductor or whoever it is to come by and scan my ticket, then I pull out my Agnes Gooch sweater, ball it up for a pillow, and am instantly asleep.
Until D.C.
I wake up briefly in D.C. because lots of loud announcements start coming over the P.A. system. We are stopping to switch engines, we will be without power for a few minutes and- most importantly- the snack car will now be closed until departure from New York en route to Boston. This will come in to play later.
Back to sleep. I dream lots of dreams. At one point I "woke up" to glance over and find a small ginger-haired girl sitting in the seat beside me speaking softly in Russian and swinging her sneaker-clad feet back and forth very very slowly. I am not sure in retrospect that I was actually awake when that happened. It's likely I dreamt her. She sure wasn't there when I woke up the next time.
I was really sleeping well. I awoke up to pure peace and quiet. I was slightly overheated because just inside Maryland I'd woken up long enough to put my Idaho sweatpants on over my jeggings. It's cold on trains. What has jolted me out of sleep is the P.A. announcement that ".....and the snack car is now open for business...." infiltrating my sleeping brain. I am very grateful for my affinity for food in this case. And most others. As I slowly come to, I think, "Great! Snacks!" Followed immediately by " Crap! Boston!"
I peek out the window and notice we are in what looks suspiciously like Penn Station. I can feel the train revving up to pull out. Slightly sweaty, topknot wildly askew, I launch myself across the aisle and terrify the woman sitting in the next seat to ask her which station this is. She says, "New York." So, I fling myself back to my seat, claw wildly through the seat pocket for my phone and charger, grab my pizza backpack and am headed for the exit when I remember about my fedora. You better believe I ran the risk of going to Boston for a few days to get that hat.
Success. I disembark as the train pulls away and- I am the only living soul that's not a rat or a really ripe piece of trash in the basement level of the train station. I think- my mother would be thrilled. As I am alone, and now really overheated due to adrenaline and the excessive amount of pant I am currently sporting, I remove my sweats. I check my phone. So many missed messages. Joseph I think believes I may have decided not to come after all.
I climb out of the station, hit daylight and think- I am HUNGRY. I walk one two blocks, turn a corner and see directly in front of me a restaurant titled, "BURGERS AND CUPCAKES." Turns out "ask and ye shall receive" is really a thing.
I have a burger and a cupcake. These things are served to me by a pleasant looking lady with electric blue eyeliner. I compliment her eyeliner but refrain from telling her about my field trip to Beauty-Full whereupon I also purchased an bit of electric blue makeup for my face (see recent Facebook photos).
I text Joseph that I am in root* to his apartment. He arrives shortly to let me in and we fall into the familiar and wonderfully comfortable dynamic of me lying on the couch reading books about movie stars while he works on his computer and makes phone calls to the producers of "20/20" regarding the flight plans of someone named LaGuardia.
We pop round to the corner coffee shop for teas. I fondle all of these cute wee wee coffee cup lids which are like the size coffee cup lid your cat would have if he or she ordered a coffee sized for cats. I bet the manager of the store was thinking, "I wish this girl in the fedora would stop fondling all my tiny lids."
While we wait for JS to come home, I take a nap (sometimes one must travel to another state to get a good nap) and Joseph coats the bathroom in blue poison. I'll let you wonder.
Freshly napped and poisoned, and with JS now in tow, we head to Chelsea, where we are going to watch a lady named Molly Pope sing in a cabaret club. We are hungry, and are headed directly to some organic vegan restaurant I couldn't understand the name of when we are brought up short by the sight of a Lucky Burger. The boys clap with glee and we unanimously agree to go there instead. Lucky Burger is good. Good enough that even though you've had a burger for lunch only hours before- you still eat all of this one. It is ORANGE in the Lucky Burger. Round donut-shaped orange lights and red counters and lots of glowing yellow smiley faces which look like they are chewing tobacco. Joseph almost missed dinner because he was determinedly pumping special Lucky sauce into no fewer than 12 plastic cuplets.
So then- to the cabaret. We walk in, pass the bar and are shown through some velveteen curtains into the private cabaret area in the back. This is the first time in my life I've ever been shown through velveteen curtains to a private cabaret area in the back. Immediately to my right upon entering is Georgia Rogers Farmer.
I was unaware Georgia Rogers Farmer was in New York. But she seemed pleased to see us, so we merrily crashed her party.  We take seats at the awkwardly tall booth. We take a selfie to send to Paul Major and Tom Width.
Molly takes the stage just as I leave to use the restroom. The bathrooms are downstairs in the back of the club. Along with the kitchen and paintings of Goldie Hawn. I am having a run of the mill bathroom experience when, as I open the stall to go wash my hands, the door of the neighboring stall flies open and out staggers an extremely tall, extremely tan, black-haired woman who was no shorter than 6'2' and also wearing ABSOLUTELY NO PANTS OF ANY SORT. Nope. Not even underwear. She leaned toward me and wriggled her shirt down to just south of her navel as she said, "I'm so sorry! There's no toilet paper in there!" I agree with her that it is frustrating when that happens. She weaves across the bathroom in her stilettos to the paper towel dispenser and helps herself. But then she must've forgotten her original intentions on leaving the stall without her pants and instead of returning to finish her business, begins admiring herself in the mirror. She turns on the faucet and tosses a saucy look over her shoulder at me. "I feel like I'm Asian!" She exclaims.
I leave.
Back upstairs, Molly is singing. Oh, so well. She has a deep strong voice that is reminiscent of Judy Garland. I study her for a while. For the first three songs of her set. All of these songs are wonderful pieces and I'd love to get my hands on the sheet music. I turn to comment as much to Georgia, but Molly has got Georgia's focus on lockdown. This makes absolute sense. Georgia is a splendid cabaret performer and some of what Molly was doing was reminding me of Georgia's shows. Since Georgia's obviously not going to speak to me, I resume looking at Molly and finally figure out who she reminds me of. Molly = Bette Midler + Eva DeVirgilis. Great stuff.
She sings a medley toward the end of her set which I get really into because it starts out with a song about some lady breaking into someone's bathroom while holding a spoon in her mouth and then ends with a song about hominy. I know it's about hominy because the lyrics for the last 3 minutes are as follows: "Hominy. Hominy. Hominy, hominy, hominy. Hominy."
I wanted to know more about what happened to the lady who broke into the bathroom.
After Molly was done, the place turned into a piano bar. Our server, who may or may not have been Vicki McLeod, does a number. The pianist himself does several numbers because no one has signed up to sing. Joanna Gleason's son sings the song that played during the scene change before my part in "Brooklyn Boy" at Barksdale Theatre circa 2007, but I don't pay much attention because I am wondering the whole time how he is keeping his red wool hat on, wearing it at such a jaunty angle.
Molly re-emerges to sing again- having managed to change out of her cabaret dress, but not out of her cabaret hair. I am not surprised. This is a killer hairstyle, but I'll bet she went through about 3 cans of hairspray to make it happen and I almost volunteer to go home with her just to help her brush it out.
Meanwhile- Georgia makes the fatal error of going to the bathroom. While she is gone, her step-daughter and step-daughter's roommate sign her up to sing. I am nervous for when Georgia finds out about this- but secretly glad. Georgia's wonderful and I feel it'd be a shame if she didn't get up and sing on this stage at this club. She does. She sings "Working 9-5." They Joseph pulls the "it's my anniversary tomorrow" card and signs JS and I up for "A Whole New World." We know this song. What we don't know is that when this pianist plays it, it is in the key of Microwave. I haven't sung in that register since I was performing regular Sandi Patti concerts in my bedroom as a seven year old.
Joseph then signs Georgia and I up for "Suddenly Seymour," which I hadn't been banking on singing again so soon, but had a lovely time doing. There was step touch, octave hurdling, and Molly popping her head out from the backstage area to provide backup vocals when needed.
We try to get Joseph to sing as well, but he points out that he doesn't go around asking us to publicize books. Finally, JS hypnotizes the room singing "Stars" from "Les Miserables" and we're done. I tell Georgia to call me tomorrow. JS points out that due to such prolific posting this evening, Joseph may have crashed Snapchat.
Back at the apartment, I am given the tour of the refrigerator and instructed what items I am to eat because they just aren't going to eat them. I eat my first pickled brussels sprout. Then, just to cool down before bed, we perform the entire scores of "Wicked," "Songs for a  New World," and "The Bridges of Madison County."
Now I'm going to read. I like to think of this guest room as: A Library Especially For Audra. I'm going to start with the Laura Ingalls Wilder tell-all about what went on behind the scenes out on the prairie. I'm hoping for lots of scandal. I'm certainly not sleepy. Richmond to Boston is a long nap.

*Preferred spelling.