is the spine of MOCO and the defining highway of my MOCO experience, having grown up in Gaithersburg a quarter mile off 355, now owning a house a half mile from 355 but
is my favorite state road in MOCO, but only west of
where they intersect near Casa Satanica in the Quince Orchard section of Gaithersburg (called by realtors "North Potomac"). 124 has always been an odd, disjointed route, long before the Mid-County Highway was built and 124 re-routed onto it through Montgomery Village (in theory, 124 once ran along Diamond Avenue through Gaithersburg long before there was a Montgomery Village, though there was never any signage as such through Gaithersburg, though there was a shield where the road curved left past Washington Grove and the humpback bridge). It doesn't really start proper until it interects
near the MOCO Airpark. 115 runs east from 124 as Muncaster Mill Road all the way to
in Norbeck (which is the same 28 but not the same 28 that I love), 300 yards from
in a different country than Muncaster Mill Road started. Anyway
runs north to Damascus as Woodfield Road, past Goshen, home of prebilics and bryds and vetters and Audrey of My Heart's house and terminates at
which is in itself worthy of a future post, a wildly S-shaped route, which from Damascus heads due east then due south and then due east to intersect
in the Dismal Empire of Olney (about three miles north of Norbeck), a town know solely for the traffic jam caused each rush hour by that junction, but what's really odd about
is in Etchison, when it turns due south,
branches off to the east to run for seven drop-dead gorgeous miles to intersect
afterwhich it runs five more drop-dead gorgeous miles to intersect
again, this time in Ashton, where it continues south as New Hampshire Ave. The section between Ashton and Colesville is renowned (locally at least) for its dozens of churches and temples of many different religions and their denominations, and then
continues south through White Oak and then Hillandale, which is as far in my imagination from Dickerson, where my favorite MOCO road
finally reaches the Frederick County line after heading west from
and Casa Satanica, then goes past
which goes west from Darnestown to Seneca Aqueduct and McKee-Beshers Wildlife Reserve, then
which goes north to the horror that is Germantown, then
which goes west from Dawsonville to the foreign country of Poolesville (imagine Burtonsville, imagine Poolesville, figure out the faster route to get from one to the other), then
which isn't 121 anymore, the state giving the section between 28 and Boyds to MOCO to maintain (Boyds home to the now underwater Ten Mile Creek Road, where Willy Bayne in a cocaine and whiskey-fueled fury ran down the cat), then
which runs east to Boyds, then all the way back to Gaithersburg, from Boyds to Gaithersburg called Clopper, then
north from Beallsville to the charmingly otherworldly Barnesville then Comus then Hyattstown where it dead ends at the spine that is
From Beallsville
is downhill all the way to Dickerson, where after you go under the railroad bridge to the stop sign, you make a right on Mt Ephraim and go four miles to the base of Sugarloaf Mountain, which is my Olympus.
Tomorrow,
and it's two-named two miles between
and
that might as well be a hundred miles.
Or, now that I've got this out of my system - and here's truth: if I hadn't finally posted this after thinking about it for the past two years off and on and the past week intensely, this would have gnawed at me harder each day until I posted it.
- Yes, I did edit that from the original post.
- Governments kill.
- Popular rebellions and imperialist designs.
- Send Arthur some coin if you can spare it, please.
- Nothing happened to Howard Dean.
- On the above.
- Libya and the Left.
- Leading from behind.
- Acuity.
- Responsibility 2 pullyourheadout.
- Electoral effluvient.
- Heh.
- Dickdick.
- Larrydick.
- Fatuous hagiography.
- Would Mother Jones read Mother Jones?
- Credit where due: YFWP publishes Greg Sargent calling George Will a motherfucking cracker liar.
- Little boxes.
- Holyfuck, read about Ric Flair. More tomorrow, or not.
- Champions League draw:
GROUP A- Bayern Munich, Villarreal, Manchester City, Napoli
GROUP B- Inter Milan, CSKA Moscow, Lille, Trabzonspor
GROUP C- Manchester United, Benfica, Basel, Otelul Galati
GROUP D- Real Madrid, Lyon, Ajax, Dinamo Zagreb
GROUP E- Chelsea, Valencia. Bayer Leverkusen, Genk
GROUP F- Arsenal, Marseille, Olympiakos, Borussia Dortmund
GROUP G- FC Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk, Zenit St Petersburg, APOEL Nicosia
GROUP H- Barcelona, AC Milan, BATE Borisov, Viktoria Plzen
- Remember, fuck all Italian clubs, Chelsea, both Manchester clubs, all Spanish clubs, Bayern Munich, but especially fuck motherfucking Madrid.
- United's moved it's game to two tomorrow b/c of Irene.
- I haven't stopped reading Gaddis, I just haven't had a chance to read in the past week for various reasons - I suspect I'll have lots of time this weekend, and I've batteries for the flashlights.
- On MFAs.
- New Bill Callahan!
- Yes, second time this post (there might be third):
BEYOND HAMMONDTON
Stephen Dunn
Night is longing, longing, longing,
beyond all endurance.
—Henry Miller
The back roads I’ve traveled late
at night, alone, a little drunk,
wishing I were someone
on whom nothing is lost,
are the roads by day I take
to the car wash in Hammonton
or to Blue Anchor’s
lawnmower repair shop
when the self-propel mechanism goes.
Fascinating how the lamplight
that’s beckoned
from solitary windows
gives way to white shutters
and occasionally a woman
in her yard, bending over
something conspicuously in bloom.
So much then is duty, duty, duty,
and so much
with the sun visor tilted
and destination known
can be endured.
But at night . . . no, even at night
so much can be endured.
I’ve known only one man
who left the road,
followed an intriguing light
to its source.
He told me
that he knocked many times
before it became clear to him
he must break down the door.
