Morning Musings
in my room at 5:54 a.m.
Why is it so fucking early?
I mean, shit man. This was 4:54 a.m. like two days ago.
morning musings
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Morning Musings
on interstate 95 at 8:30 a.m.
All across America,
immigrants seeking a new life sometimes come to the conclusion that the best way to do so is to share a bit of home with their new neighbors. The next thing you know, you can go down the street and sample South American fare or Thai food or the delights of the Mediterranean or Ireland or Germany or Ethiopia.
Are there American restaurants in Spain or Denmark or India or Bolivia? I don’t mean McDonald’s. Are there expatriates anywhere touting tater tots, steak, mac and cheese and sweet tea? Anyone from Carolina sharing barbecue with the world? A Cajun showing the French how to make gumbo? A Virginia country ham v. prosciutto? Do they assume all we have is fried chicken and hamburgers?
I’m getting foreign food for lunch.
Morning Evening Musings
in the walk-up section of Sonic at 7:33 p.m.
My conjecture was correct:
everything but the drive-through is faster at Sonic.
Although it’s a little chilly outside (and it snowed for all of like 30 seconds), I wanted a root beer float whilst I waited for the hospital to move my sister from the emergency room to a private room (she has some sort of infection and all but passed out earlier today). I decided to walk up to the alfresco dining area instead of pressing the button from my car because I often try not to be a lazy American and, because it was kinda chilly, I didn’t want to have someone walk across the parking lot just because I wanted ice cream in my soda and didn’t feel like doing it myself.
As I stood there, I thought about all the people in the past seven days, especially yesterday and today, who have called me Tyrone. It was an extraordinary number that included my mom several times today. Until this week, it got down to about once a week or so.
I realized today when my mom called me Tyrone four times in a row that it’s actually starting to get annoying. I’ll be a year in about two weeks and I didn’t make a conscientious decision, go through all that effort and spend good money on it for nothing. It originally didn’t bother me but I don’t know why it did this weekend. I guess it’s because there’s still vestiges of my old name on a few documents and I’m doing a pretty damn good job of answering to Elliott/not readily answering to Tyrone.
I think I’ve settled on a nickname. Maybe if I shorten the three syllables of Elliott down to El, it’ll get more people to call me by my legal name (it’s on my frickin’ birth certificate for cryin’ out loud). That said, feel free to refer to me as ¡El Robinson! in an exaggerated Spanish accent.
Remember to roll your r’s.
Morning Musings
at a wastewater treatment facility at 9:30 a.m.
In the background,
there is the sound of some piece of equipment — maybe the furnace — but, for some reason, it sounds as if it is an eternally-flushing toilet. Seeing that this is where all of the things that go into a flushing toilet end up, perhaps it is. Perhaps it actually is the sound of however many of the 22-odd-thousand people who are in the city getting off the can.
Since the domestic wastewater treatment facility is uphill of here, I wonder where the literal crap here goes. Like if they pump it back uphill to get treated or if it’s insignificant enough to just ease it in with the rest and into the river.
This is my third time here. Why have I gone to a wasterwater treatment plant three times in two years? I’ve toured the place twice as well. I’m not exactly sure where the wastewater from my mom’s house goes and I know the ins and outs of central Virginia poo water.
A Morning Musing
May 1, 2008, 9:01 a.m.
I woke up a little early today for two reasons. The first one was because I’m really cold. The temperature dropped last night and we turned the heat off a while ago because of how high the electric bill is when it’s on. The second is because, in a way, the final dream I had before I woke up was a bad one. I openly wept in the dream.
Actually, it was a bit of a long, drawn-out dream. What happened at the before the bit here is unimportant. I had just left Richard Bland College and was heading to Richmond. Since I wasn’t totally asleep, I was listening to Death Cab for Cutie in my car and I was cold. So I decided to stop by the Petersburg Library to pop online and check the weather.
{Earlier in the dream, I did have a phone conversation with someone where I did mention the city and how I know it will eventually turn out better but I don’t want to be here during the transformation. In reality and in my dream, her husband is among people trying to revitalize the downtown area. Much like Detroit, Baltimore and Philly, the thinking of developers is to start with the downtown. True, the end result is a virtually crime free, beautiful downtown full of business and tourists but it’s dead at night and the problems in the rest of the city still remain. It makes me think of the high-class tourist hotels virtually sharing a wall with the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and the metaphor of that in “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations” by Arcade Fire: “Eating in the ghetto on a hundred-dollar plate.”}
I drove through the city, looking at the complete poverty in some places, the abandoned buildings, the ones with half-assed renovations, burned-out buildings, effectively a real scene of the city. I kept wondering to myself why this happened; how a city could get to this point; how a city at such an important crossroads on the east coast could come to this point, especially in light of the the commercial mecca just on the other side of the Appomattox.
I reached the library. Inside, books sat on the shelves, collecting dust. The floor seemed grimy. It was loud because people were talking and playing music. There was a line for the computer room but no one was really following it. The people who were reading were looking at pop culture magazines. I was in an institute of voluntary learning and people were doing anything but.
I couldn’t wait in line anymore. I couldn’t stand to be there anymore. I had to get out.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I can’t help them. I work at a newspaper but they can’t or won’t read. I want to help them but I don’t know how. Why are they like this? Why are they OK with being like this?”
I wept. I wept for the poverty. I wept for the poor education. I wept for the virtually non-existent commercial tax base. I wept for the people who think that pushing out babies, drinking 40s, smoking crack and shooting people who “disrespect” you is all life is about. I wept for the people surrounded by knowledge, knowledge that could take them anywhere, mentally or physically, and all they cared about was the next horrible rap song that topped the charts. I wept for trying to make a difference and knowing that, as soon as I can, I’m just going to give up and walk away for greener pastures. But they’ll still be there like this. For how long, I don’t know.
I hoped someone could do something for them.
I left the library and the city defeated. I head the end of “Stable Song.”
I woke up as it was ending on my computer:
Time for the final bout
Rows of deserted houses
All our stablemates highway bound
Give us our measly sum
Getting the air inside my lungs is heavenly
Starting out with nothing but crippling doubt
We’ll rest easy, justified
Suffered a swift defeat
I’ll endure countless repeats
The gift of memory’s an awful curse
With age it just gets much worse
But I won’t mind
I won’t mind
I won’t mind
I won’t mind …
I’m visiting Charlottesville Monday. It’s not for the Daily Progress, if you’re wondering. This has nothing directly to do with a newspaper.
Hopefully, it is finally time for a new change.
Morning Musings
the dining room, on a cold spring morning
Since Thursday,
we’ve received the following:
• The Greater Richmond Yellow Pages (which does not include the Tri-Cities)
• The Greater Richmond White Pages
• The Tri-Cities Yellow Book
• The Greater Richmond Yellow Pages, Abridged
I have never seen a larger waste of paper in my entire life. And I work at a newspaper.
Quick and dirty photo editing of an image from my camera phone. I know exactly where the line came from; LSW4 screwed up. Seriously, I need to put more memory in this laptop. It has 2GHz but only 480MB of RAM.
Morning Musings
upon waking
Halloween —
That day where we essentially tell our children the following:
“Timmy, remember how we’ve always told you not to beg or accept things from strangers? Forget all that. But just for tonight. Tomorrow morning is business as usual.”
I at least hope the kids were escorted and/or the sex offender registry was consulted before venturing out into the night as a naughty nurse. Don’t get me started on costumes for children, especially little girls.
Happy Taking Candy from Stranger’s Day (and, if you’re like Jean, Happy Birth-oween)!
Morning Musings
on river road in prince george county
It’s 7:30 a.m.
Some people work this early. Others, like me, do not. Actually, no one works at this time; it’s 7:30 a.m. I’m sure 95 percent of people in the U.S. start work at the top of an hour. Anyone going to work at x:30 is either 30 minutes late or 30 minutes early. Since it’s a Thursday, I’m going to go with early.
WHY THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO WORK 30 MINUTES EARLY?
I know damn well you don’t like your job so much, you get there half an hour early. I love what I do and I’d never come in half an hour earlier than I have to. I might take work home with me or stay later but never early. That’s crazy.
OK. Maybe you have a long commute and you put in a cushion in the event that you’re stuck in traffic but this was MULTIPLE PEOPLE PULLING INTO THE SAME ESTABLISHMENT. Move closer! Get some sleep, you freaks!
OK. Nap time.
Morning Musings
from my reporter’s notebook at about 8:30 a.m.
Yesterday,
I learnt that the “bad mother … [shut yo' mouf!] … I’m only talkin’ ’bout Shaft [and we can dig it],” is a literary character. He dies in the final novel (a thing authors sometimes do in the event that they lose the copyright or something and someone decides to continue/ruin the character).
Since the three movies more or less follow three of the books, that means the one who’s “complicated man and no one understands him but his wo-man, John Shaft,” didn’t live to see the bicentennial.
But
In the 2000 sequel, where Samuel L. Jackon plays the nephew of “the black private dick who’s a sex machine to all the chicks,” “the cat who won’t cop out when there’s danger all about” is alive and well.
So
“the man who will risk his neck for his brother man” is not only the ultimate badass, he’s a Highlander.
Can you dig it?
Morning Musings
from a scrap sheet of paper in my car
Ah, Spring …
that magical time of year when Nature resembles an adolescent boy ejaculating indiscriminately on everything in sight.
Love is in the air. Literally.
I need to go wash the plant bukkake off my windshield so I can see how to get to work.
