Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

One of the places I haven’t been in awhile, even though it’s right next door to where I live, practically.

For the record: Yes, I know the theme of this week is black metal. Eventually, I’m going to bother to subvert that into something I can write about, and write about it. This will likely entail babbling about the biomechanical structure of the Combine Citadel in Half-Life 2, or something similar.

Right now, I may still be talking about transit. I’m not really sure yet. I’m certainly talking about locale. As I write this, I’m sitting outside of a place I used to work, the Steel City Café, at a black metal (hah!) table, watching crowds stroll past to take in Blob-fest, Phoenixville’s annual horror movie celebration.

Ahead of me, just around the corner, there’s a stage on which a band have just finished playing. I recognized “Carry on My Wayward Son” and a few other things. Now Jethro Tull’s Aqualung is playing, from recording, presumably while the next act sets up.

A block or so behind me, a crowd of screaming people are about to explode outward from the Colonial Theater, to recreate the famous ‘crowd bursts out of the theatre’ scene that was filmed in that same theater oh so many years ago.

Up the street to my right a block, kids are lined up out onto the sidewalk waiting for Blob Sundaes from Brown’s Cow, another place I used to work.

I don’t really work anywhere right now. Well, except for last week (or maybe the week before) where I drove a forklift and assisted a man named Karl in the deconstruction of a two-story high refrigerator case.

Cell phone. Hang on a moment.

Massive eruption of screams behind me, as masses flee the theater. Everyone else heads over to look. Camera flashes and screams, the roar of the crowd. A helicopter flies overhead, looks like local news of some kind. Ahead of me, the band continues to tune up and perhaps starts a song, but they’ve chosen their moment poorly.

They persevere, though, and eventually their sound: chanting vocals and rhythm guitar, solid rhythmic bass and drums. Or at least, so I think, until my sister wanders down and returns to inform me that there is, in fact, no one there.

Location. Geography. Displacement.

I’ve always had more friends that lived far away than friends who lived nearby. Always been separated, to a certain amount, by a mere happenstance of space-time. Some day, I’m going to figure out a way to transcend this, or so I tell myself, but at present, the inconvenience remains.

Locale makes a difference. I wouldn’t be writing these words in my house. Judging by recent performance, I wouldn’t be writing anything in my house.

It’s starting to get dark. The helicopter remains overhead, and there’s a cop car parked in the center of the intersection, reinforcing the fact that the road is closed to promote foot traffic.

I think I’m going to take the chai latter I purchased here up the street to Brown’s Cow, and get a scoop of vanilla ice cream in it. Then, perhaps, I’m going to go watch some Lost and play some video games.

But it’s nice, to be out in the world again for a moment.

I should do this more often.

Addition: Couldn’t get this to update before on unnamed linksys wireless, going to give it another shot in a second, as the power indicator on my laptop screams a tiny, red-orange blinking cry for help. There’s a real band again now, and they’re pretty good, but I’m still thinking about heading out. May have missed the boat on Lost for now, but I’ll get the discs later. I’m not quite ready to go back inside yet.