h-well

All posts tagged h-well

hard at work today, i am

Posted by EXIT265C on April 1, 2009
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We don’t print a paper called the &#8220Prince News&#8221 so I had fun with the typo.

So I ripped March off the calendar and noticed that it had the same dimensions of an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper. So I made this:

.

Erika and Chai were, unbeknownst to me, about to play an April Fools prank on Berkley when I finished my stealthy construction, yelled &#8220APRIL FOOLS PLANE&#8221 and hurled it at Berkley. I ruined their prank but I think plane trumps prank.

This monstrosity flies amazingly well so I want to throw it off Trevor’s roof at some point to see how far it goes. Or I might just throw it out my window. But why throw something out of a window when you can be on a roof?


Fly my little birdie!

Don’t you wish you worked for me?

As you can tell, I’m paying for my antics and photos earlier by still being here right now. But it was oh, so worth it, especially since NO ONE saw this coming from me because my favorite pastime is making sure nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

what do we do if a chemical plant catches fire?

Posted by EXIT265C on March 26, 2009
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That is NOT the text message I want to get at 6:30 in the blessed morning.

For the record, it was a minor fire but the city went through with its full emergency management thingamawhatsit. Long story short, an ingredient in shampoo ignited and possibly caused a small explosion.

I was at work for 10 hours. This was the first time I was at work for that long since leaving Petersburg. It sucked. Especially the whole getting to work early part, which is kinda funny because I got up just half an hour before normal but it ruined my life. I guess the whole impending disasters part kinda drained me today.

I left work at like 7 then helped Pat get some things into his new shack house then we got drinks and dinner with Court’s boyfriend John at Mojo’s partially because I knew I was too mentally drained to cook dinner. Hell, I was too mentally drained to drive home. If I wasn’t heading to Pat’s house after work and then realized that I was, who knows where I may have ended up on 95 North.

I’m so fucking exhausted, I can’t go to sleep yet. On the bright side, all the pages in the now two newspapers have been proofed except for the front and jump of the main paper. After the presses run and I get a copy, I’m fucking going home. I was thinking about going to Hampton Roads this weekend but I’m going to keep my happy behind in the 804 this weekend. It’ll be the first time since I moved back here. I plan on seeing NO BS! (At the Camel, 1621 W. Broad St., RVA, only $6 at the door at 9:45 p.m.) Friday night and I don’t know what I’m doing Saturday. I had hoped to hang out with someone Saturday but all the cool kids are going to be in the 757 the one weekend I decide to stay here. But I shan’t be moved. I’m not going to Hampton Roads unless someone gives me 20 bucks or gives me a ride. I’ve driven nearly 2,000 miles in my car this month and that’s partially because I’ve gone there every weekend. And also because I have a 50-mile round trip commute (it’s far better than the 120-mile commute before).

Anyway, how can I say I live in RVA when I’m not fully here on a weekend?

WHY CAN’T IT BE WARM ALREADY?

if i get this one, i think i shall dub it “down under”

Posted by EXIT265C on January 8, 2009
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Tomorrow at 4 p.m., I look at the basement apartment in the beige 338 building. It seemed like pulling teeth at times but I got the landlord to lock down a time and date. Although I really want this apartment for the location, I’m preparing myself to be sketched out by it and change my mind. Then we’re back at square one and it’s a good thing I got started early on this.

If I like it, I need to find other places open in March quickly so I can make a decision and have a place. I want to lock down a place as soon as possible because I’M TIRED OF THIS COMMUTE. The best-case scenario for me would be if I managed to find something where like February is free or part of it or something because I really miss having my own place. There’s stuff I want/need but it’s in some box and I don’t know where and, since my mom took it upon herself to unpack a few things, I don’t know if I’ll manage to bring some things back with me.

I walked past it for the second time yesterday as I was waiting for Potential Roommate #1, who was waiting for me but didn’t have my number and left a desperate e-mail from her iPhone hoping I could get e-mails from my phone &c. I don’t know what draws me to it. It’s an unremarkable building on an unremarkable block. I guess it’s because it would still be a funky space because it’s the basement of a house from 1900. That’s almost as cool as living over some store in an old building.

Perhaps it’s just the city: the narrow urban streets with parking; the unpaved alley in the back where I’ll park Marian; the brick sidewalks; knowing that I’d be within reasonable walking distance of a lot of the things I like to do in the city, within biking distance to Kroger and Carytown, within a reasonable (downhill) drive to the Bottom, if the mood takes me; just the fact it is a walkable city with amenities urban areas offer is just what I’m looking for. I don’t think I could ever be bored there: I could go for a walk or a bike ride or go to some funky coffee shop or grab a beer or visit someone. If I go on vacation, I could have a fun week without ever getting into a car. I can’t wait.

But I need to find somewhere, somewhere cool, somewhere that finally marks that it’s time truly to start my adult professional life somewhere I can finally call home.

Ever since I left the Tau Delt house, I’ve felt homeless. My mom’s house hasn’t been it since I packed my first bag for college. I sat in my apartment in Petersburg counting down the days until my lease was up. My furniture made me too lazy to leave Hopewell back when I said I was going to and my desire to get a new job left me with the question of where in the world I would go if I moved out.

So there you have it: Down Under 338. Option Uno of who knows what. I can’t jump the gun but I’m itching to kiss routes 5 and 10 on a daily basis goodbye.

Once I get settled, I can finally sleep in my bed again and take full advantage of typically getting off at 5 p.m. and dream of what I need to do to this newspaper.

For the moment, I would be settled. If I felt it were time to move on, I’d look for places so I could stay in Richmond indefinitely. If whatever apartment I choose is satisfactory after a year, I’m finally changing my address.

In less than 60 days, I could finally be home again.

You Are So Lucky On Your First Day

Posted by EXIT265C on December 29, 2008
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I’m keeping this short because I’m so tired. Yes, I just said that at 10 p.m. I’ve been tired since like 9 p.m. You have to remember that, because I get up like a normal adult now, it feels like almost 2 a.m. to me right now.

I filled out paperwork today, cleaned my desk and most of the newsroom and got phase one of the crash course of procedures. I have a staff of four as far as I know for the moment: two reporters, one paginator/copy editor and a utility journalist. The publisher and I haven’t discussed sports except that it is most likely that I will need to hire someone for sports.

I theoretically have an office but the old managing editor sat out with rest of the staff. As much as I would love to have my own office with a real door and walls again (something I haven’t had since my very first job in high school), I’d rather be out there with them. I have to do a little bit of reporting in the physical city so I might as well be out there.

I also had some people contact me about places to stay in March. One offer, that I really, really want to take would put me in a 14th floor waterfront efficiency, That would be really, really funny because, in my novel, the character modeled after me lives on the 10th floor of a waterfront apartment building in what is effectively an efficiency because of the way it is shaped.

Tomorrow, I learn more of the ropes, head over to the municipal building to (re) introduce myself and see if I can keep my column going.

Well, it’s 10:15. Good night, everyone.

Stupid being an adult.

moving

Posted by EXIT265C on November 29, 2008
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So … Fred has a lot of stuff.

My truck is too small to fit the stuff I want to donate to charity so I’m hoping Fred can get the lead out so we can reuse his truck.

Depending on how long this takes (I planned to be out of here in half an hour), I may need to cancel my ride back tonight or have Fred go with me.

I won’t have the Internet at my mom’s house for a bit AND, except for the weekends, I probably will just want to get there and go to sleep anyway.

I charged out some things and I won’t be squared away completely, unless I get this ludicrous job that I am in no way getting, until the beginning of March.

But I do need a new job in general and soon.

This is probably the last entry from Hopewell and the last one from not at work for a few days.

*Sigh* Why is this so incredibly complicated?

997: this is not a drill

Posted by EXIT265C on July 25, 2008
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I’m selling an overstuffed couch and love seat with pillows, a coffee table, two end tables, two lamps and a dining room table that seats eight. The couches are beige and the lamps match the set. The coffee table and the dining room table have a few nicks but everything else is in good condition. The entire living room set can be yours for $180 and the dining room set for $85. You can have the whole lot for $250.

I’m not shipping them or anything like that, you have to get your own transport to Hopewell to get it all.

I really don’t need all of this furniture, at least not right now but I do need the cash and I do need to lighten my load because I’m moving out by the end of August.

If you haven’t seen my furniture before, I posted about them in my old apartment here. The leaf is out of the dining room table in the pictures. I’ll post better photos later when they get taken. I’ll also make a similar post on craigslist as well.

Make an offer on the TV and DVD player. You know I don’t watch TV. It hasn’t even been plugged in since March 2007. I bought it in I think 1999 but it’s hardly been used. The DVD player is from like 2002 or something.

For more info, drop me a line!

rambing man

Posted by EXIT265C on July 1, 2008
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… and, at some point, I stopped going home at night. I don’t know why exactly. I just don’t like going back there. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the 15- to 20-minute drive from work or from Pat and Court’s or on top of getting back from Richmond. I mean, Hopewell wasn’t founded to have convenient access to the rest of the state. It just needed to get stuff out to the James River or on a train. Distance was part of the reason why I couldn’t do commuting to CNU from my mom’s house.

I still have to go there in the morning, though. It’s not like my stuff is here or anything. Despite that, at least once a week, I go to Pat and Court’s and stay there for the night. I guess it’s partially because I just don’t want to be in this area anymore. Or I really have lost the ability to stay in one place for more than a year.

In a way, I am confused about a lot of things. I’m 25 and this is not where I expected to be at 25. Not in a million years. But who is where they expected to be at 25?

I’m single, I work at a newspaper with at 15,000 daily circulation and the three cities and two counties that make up our massive coverage area barely equal the population of my hometown. I’m basically a spoiled city kid. I admit it. I hate having to drive to Richmond to do anything. I miss being within a 10-minute drive of something worth doing or visiting where no one will ask me for change.

I guess I don’t look forward to going home because what will I do there? Fart around on the Internet, cook/eat dinner, maybe talk to Fred if he’s home/not asleep/on the phone and then not go to bed till like 3 a.m. because, of all things, I’m frickin’ playing online Scrabble. It’s a far cry from a typical evening before March 13, 2006.

I’m in the proverbial prime of my life and I’m here. I have nothing against the area as a whole but it just isn’t the place for me. I just want out and, although I have a plan a and a plan a-and-a-half, I fear there’s no end in sight.

I guess that’s it. In Hopewell is my house. All of my worldly possessions are in it in where they would mostly be if I were to stay there for decades. It’s almost an expression of me being settled at a time where I don’t want to be settled and in a place where I don’t want to be settled.

I’m denying that I actually live there. Legally, I don’t. I’ve refused to admit that I’ve been in this area for the past two years. I’m hardly ever there lately; it would be hard to prove that I did live there. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve slept in what’s supposed to be my bedroom in the past 12 days or so. Ask Fred. There have been stretches where, if he didn’t see me at work, he didn’t see me.

It at least would be nice to say that I hadn’t been home for days because I was off cavorting with some girl but it’s just because, as I said once before, I feel homeless.

About an hour ago, I almost went home but I asked myself if I really wanted to go there. I said no. And I didn’t want to stay here either. And, after about an hour, I don’t want to be at my mom’s house either. It was like that before I even formally moved out. I often feel bad because I know so many people who have good reasons never to want to go to their parent’s house and so many who never want to leave my mom’s house.

I don’t know where to go or what to do. I just don’t. It’s easy to blame my job but there’s so much else. Perhaps I feel like a failure. My mom’s nearly 60. She wants more grandchildren. My sister was married at 26. She had her first kid at 28. My sister has a genetic terminal disease and will be lucky to make it out of her 40s. I am not my sister.

Only one man in my family has made it to about 70. Most of them never had kids. All of them had typical fatty, salty, horribly southern diets. I am not them.

I am a man with a B.A. in English, journalism concentration, who is easily annoyed at the grammatical errors of others but sometimes can’t see his own; who wonders what the hell he is doing with his life; who wonders where he went wrong; who wonders if he went wrong; who feels this isn’t good enough.

The old clich&#233 says that you can never come home again. Win Butler said he’d return if he ever cared but there’s no interstate he’s found to take him there.

I can’t go home because I haven’t found it yet. I really, really hope I do.

At Year’s End

Posted by EXIT265C on March 3, 2008
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Fred, anyone who may have visited and I have imbibed 50 bottles of wine in the past 52 weeks. I don’t even want to count the number of beer bottle caps.

Today is New Year’s Day, it marks exactly one year since we’ve been in this house. It’s amazing because of what I’ve just done. I have not lived in the same spot for over 365 days since roughly June 1983 to August 2001. The only place that comes close is the Tau Delt house because I think I technically never moved out and the living room is my bedroom.

For at least a year now, I’ve been whining about wanting to stay somewhere for more than a year, to finally be home somewhere and I just did it in a place I no longer want to be.

I don’t quite know what to make of this except to give pause right now and continue to look for an exit. I hope I don’t figure that I can’t do any better and settle right now.

SURPRISE! (ENTRY 898!)

Posted by EXIT265C on January 23, 2008
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Our lease is up at the end of February. They counted March as the first month.

According to the lease, we go into a month-to-month lease until we tell them we’re leaving and we have to tell them 30 days in advance.

Regardless, we’re going to talk to them before the 28th.

As Fred said, we could move in 30 days but we’d rather not.

This is quite a turn of the screw.

50 Days Till March 13
or should I say
36 Days Till Feb. 28?

&#8220The mighty oak tree was once a nut like me&#8221

Posted by EXIT265C on December 3, 2007
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Basically, that feeling I had Friday was one of dread with a pinch of annoyance. I heard some news from a place on Friday that basically told me that I’d have to wait about another month to hear real news. Dec. 4 will be two months of hemming and hawing.

This weekend was pretty uneventful. I left of a name in a caption so, hopefully, we can fix that in Tuesday’s paper. It was a complete misunderstanding since I was quite overworked on Saturday.

I had to go to the candlelight vigil of three children who died in a fire on Wednesday. That fire was one of five major fires down here in about three days. There were six overall if you count the trash can around the corner from the office that caught fire.

I got a few drinks at Bogart’s Saturday night. I had actually planned on not being able to drive my own car back to Hopewell but things didn’t work out that way. Seemed fitting, a good way to close out an entire month of things not going according to plan.

Ms. Annabelle’s house caught fire on Saturday, my mom told me. She had to be taken out of the home as she had no idea it was even on fire. Her son plans to have the house torn down and sell the land. It’ll probably be gone by the time I get a chance to visit my mom again.

We four reporters, plus our new sports writer, Courtney, typed in letters to Santa from virtually every elementary school student below fourth grade today. I posted some of my favorites from my batch of letters in my quotes on my facebook profile. A lot of them were funny but, of course there were some heart-string-pulling ones. Like the girl who hoped her dad would get out of prison and that her mom could get a home of her own with a yard to play in. Or the kid who wanted a house to replace the one that burned down.

I have a lot of ground to cover this coming week. I’ve put a lot of things off because I was hoping to had someone a letter on Monday. Instead, that letter is in pieces in my trash can. Soon it will go the same way as a business card I chucked a few weeks ago. I’m chalking this whole affair up as a no at this point.

It looks like everything will be back to normal tomorrow except that I may have done something stupid a few minutes ago, Kendra’s stepfather is still in the hospital and it may snow a little Tuesday night.

In 90 days, I’ll be getting ready to move out of Hopewell and, hopefully, haul my stuff into storage until May when I find a place with my soon to be three-time roommate Brandon. A lot of things are going to change in the next 90 days and I really don’t know where I’ll end up. All I know is that I’ll most likely be in this bed or banging away at this very computer around this time next year but it won’t be in this ZIP code. And we won’t be in 23669 either. No matter where it’ll be, I hope it’s somewhere I’ll stay for more than a year. I’m beginning to tire of moving.