i'm not santa, kid. just a guy in a wheelchair

there's this scene in swimming to cambodia where spalding grey is having his perfect moment in the waves off the coast of thailand. suddenly, he has a panic attack thinking about his wallet and personal stuff on the beach. the way he describes it, something like a dark line connecting his forehead to the stuff, and the stuff morphs into a pile of hot shit on a steel counter, that he's inexorably tied to, that is pulling on him.
i think i felt a fraction of that here in providence. which is weird 'cause this is a hip, laid-back town. but within the first hour of arriving i heard an argument about drugs and secret police cameras, a man tried to sic his dog on me, i chased away a group of thug teens eyeing all the equipment in the car, i bought chapstick, a truck nearly careened into a telephone pole in front of us, a group of bikers met peacefully in the street, i nearly bought nail clippers, a man was accused of stealing at a gas station, and i generally got pulled from the waves of a perfect moment and worried about my hot pile of shit.
actually, providence is great. our host gave free accomodations, the space we played in was rad, they gave us free dinner (i had an orange soda with vanilla ice cream float and a bowl of spicy tomato soup with corn and bread), gave us free drinks all night, and then paid us for our gig! which, by the way, was fairly decent, except for one dude telling us to stop because we sucked. which we didn't. did we?
right now we're getting the brakes fixed on my car. $430. that does suck. but i forgive you providence. you gave us free stuff and paid us for our jackassery.
hopefully the car will be fixed in the next hour so we can make it to toronto by our 9 pm showtime....