i was eating breakfast in my dining room yesterday morning watching the snow fall lazily out of the double window when an unexplainable feeling came over me. i was listening to an old tom waits album that i had purchased the day after christmas in a basement level record shop in harvard square and i heard this line, "he dreams of a watiress with maxwell house eyes, marmalade thighs, and scrambled yellow hair." I'm not sure why, but into my mind crept visions of neon signs, hollywood diners, and a forgotten american era and i suddenly started to feel strangely emotional. How have we let the golden era's slip away so easily? why does no one care that we're losing our identity? I'm in desperate need to take a trip through the heart of the country to find an america that still exists in my head, because right now new york isn't quite doing the trick.