pictures!

All posts tagged pictures!

1595: richmond.

Posted by EXIT265C on April 27, 2012
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I purchased jeans for the first time since high school yesterday. They aren’t skinny jeans because I look ridiculous in them; so does everyone else. They’re a dark blue. Unlike that beat-up pair I only wear when I’m either going to the beach and it’s not all that warm out or when I’m working on something, these are for going out in public. I wore them to work today, mostly because I have to be the only person in the newsroom who hasn’t worn jeans to work. I’m also feeling like getting a black pair as well. WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO?!

As an aside, considering that they are at least 12-year-old baggy Polo carpenter jeans with frayed cuffs, holes and paint stains, I wonder how much I could sell them on the Internet. Looks like I can at least make $70 bucks off my pants. But what would I wear when I’m washing my car?

But I digress. I really, really digress. This one’s like a record.

I went to Richmond for my weekend chiefly to see a dubstep concert. It’s not my favorite but there’s just something about being in a packed, sweaty room where every cell in your body is vibrating from the bass that makes one feel more connected with the entire human race. Who cares about gas prices; the upcoming elections; poverty; you yourself being deliriously poor at this moment in The National? I am letting loose at a loud concert with hundreds of my fellow creatures; the beat;  the lights; the alcohol for some; the drugs for some; the contact; the sweat; the smell; the humanity — oh God — the humanity rumbling into every orifice, vein, artery, capillary, pore, cell, atom, quark.

When I first arrived, I stopped in Petersburg to catch up on some Tri-Cities gossip at Demolition Coffee. I’m acquainted with the development team for that corridor on Bank Street and they’ve done a spectacular job. I haven’t seen them in a while. When they began staking their claim into the next residential frontier, my eyes were turned toward the capital.

Demolition Coffee, Bank Street, Petersburg, VA

I like Brewed Awakenings in Jacksonville but it doesn't compare to Java Mio (R.I.P), Capt. Buzzy's or Demo.

I learned a few veeery interesting stories I passed on to some people and some I’m keeping under my hat. I also picked up the free version of my old newspaper. I wrote a lot of things on it in Sharpie. I’ll leave it at that except for … no, I’ll leave it at that.

After an early dinner at Mojo’s, I returned to Mojo’s for its karaoke night. I didn’t want to sing Super Freak again because I have retired it. One of my friends hadn’t heard me do it before so I made an exception. Later on, and several drinks later, I did Purple Rain.  I dropped to my knees twice during it. The second was during the guitar solo. The first was at the start of the second verse: HONEY, I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW TIMES ARE CHAAAANGING. Because I’m ridiculous, that’s why.

I slept well on that comfortable couch on the living room in Chimborazo I missed so much that night. Which reminds me, I need to rent a van when I come up in June and get my frickin’ mattress. Or I could make an effort to get one here. Or I can be a cheapskate until whenever Renée comes all the way down here to visit. Whatever.

33rd and Clay

It will be a crying shame when Matt and Shaunelle finally move out. I regard this intersection to be home more than my mom's house (sorry, Mom).

The next day, I was late for meeting with Craig. I almost didn’t make it to a pointless appointment because I was late for meeting with Craig. Then I was late for meeting with Ashley. I was maybe a good 45 minutes late for the concert because I was late for meeting with Ashley. It was the opening act. Whatever.

I was late for meeting with Katy today because being punctual disappeared at some point after being half an hour early to Mojo’s Tuesday. I barely got to work on time but I didn’t have my time card so I have to talk to HR tomorrow. On top of that I got to leave two hours early because of flipped deadlines due to the NFL draft. I’m afraid to see my paycheck next Friday, considering things I need to purchase. At some point, I really need to start turning a profit. I need to start writing query letters for my novel again.

I need more jeans; I would have been clawing at my slacks by now. I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M WEARING JEANS AND I LIKE IT.

Being in Jacksonville thus far has seemed like an abridged version of the past six years.

I wonder where this all is going.

atlantic beach

Posted by EXIT265C on April 18, 2012
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"Look how relaxed/how much of a prick I am!"

Obligatory gloating about being relaxed on a beach shot.

I went to Atlantic Beach today. It’s a good little drive if you drive the entire length of Bogue Banks instead of taking N.C. 24 to Morehead City. My true purpose of traveling to the town was because it was another weird crossing of my life with Theresa’s. (The strangest was one of my friends in high school moving into an apartment in Lexington Park, Md., in the mid 2000s that I saw get built in the early 1990s because it was across the parking lot from my sister’s first apartment.) When she got married in 1994, she was unable to go on a honeymoon directly after. After my first nephew was born in 1997, they finally went on one. They went to Atlantic Beach and she absolutely raved about it because it was the first time she had seen clean sandy beaches and clear, blue-green water. If you’ve ever been in Hampton Roads, you know there’s often a lot of debris on the locals’ beaches (it’s been a lot lately) and the Chesapeake Bay is always murky. The Atlantic doesn’t look all that pretty at Virginia Beach either.

I had no idea how close I was to it until I looked at a zoomed-in map to get my bearings once I moved here. I knew I had to go at one point just to see a part of her life in happier times.

Eventually, I settled down at Fort Macon State Park, just east of Atlantic Beach. I’ve heard it’s the second most visited North Carolina state park so the desolation of it most likely will end in the next 30 days or so. I really need to find a beach around here where I can sit and read or write in peace. It was part of the reason that you were more likely to see me at Buckroe Beach in Hampton in October and November than you would in July. If I’m going to stay here for a while, I need to find my spot. With the impending influx of tourists and dearth of parks, that may not be a possibility here.

My mind flipped between my sister and my life the entire time I was there. Fourteen years ago, Theresa thought she was with the one she’d be with her entire life. There was no talk or even an idea that she had multiple sclerosis at the time. Her gait had been a little off after having Tré but no one was too concerned yet. Atlantic Beach may have been one of the last pure blissful moments of being happy and healthy with her husband and her firstborn child.

Before she was ravaged by the disease, I can see why she loved it on Bogue Banks. It’s the same reason that I love the area in general and head to one of the beaches or Wilmington every chance I get. But it’s all a lousy hunk of sand without Renée. I told her something similar in flowery words because that’s what you get when you’re in a relationship with a writer.

Although it is nothing without her, I do have to admit that it’s pretty photogenic:

objects in photo are closer than they appear

I probably could have touched this seagull if I really wanted.

shipwrecked shrubbery

This shrubbery has seen better days.

Really big sand dune? Yeah.

The park is home to some of the largest dunes on the East Coast. I didn't think to get a photo of one that was 50 feet at least near the parking lot.

no one was there

There was an old couple there and two fishermen. That was it. I'm sure that will change after Memorial Day.

It's a log!

I walked all the way down to Beaufort Inlet. You can see Shackleford Banks from here. That is almost the southeastern edge of North Carolina.

Beaufort Inlet

Rocks, sailboats and Shackleford Banks. There is a feral horse population on that island.

Damn dirty apes!

I almost expected to see a half-buried Statue of Liberty here.

 

so much win in berlin

Posted by EXIT265C on April 18, 2012
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Nia's poster

I'm a work of art. Literally.

Nia let me know that there is about 1500 of these posters in Berlin. This is glorious because this is a piece of art she created that is of me.

The piece is a combination of a large number of my Facebook profile pictures. As you can tell, I’m almost always wearing a hat and I generally wear glasses. And I tend to have the same pose. Well, there’s only so much you can do when most of your photos are self portraits and you abhor mirror shots or ones that include one’s outstretched arm. I knew she made the piece but I had no idea I was going to be the promotional poster when I was shilling for her campaign to get the showing off the ground. If I knew that, I would have been pushing that a lot harder. The more people who see my face in Europe, the better.

I can’t wait to tell my grandchildren of this and some of my other crazy stories (although I probably won’t have to because the Internet most likely will be uploaded into their brains at birth by then). I think I’ll start each story time with me drinking a Dos Equis and I’ll end it with “And that is why I’m the most interesting man in the world.”

Stay thirsty, my friends.

I only need one more awesome thing to happen to me to make this the greatest April of all time.

photo 30

Posted by EXIT265C on March 30, 2012
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image

anyone got a shop vac I can borrow?

I just hope that, once I’m done with purgatory, I end up somewhere better, somewhere I can copy edit or write features or track in sea salt and sand after my lunch breaks or take a deep breath at night and smell the heavenly stench of a marsh.

I was born to live and die by the sea, to have the Atlantic sweep away my bones. I must return to sea level.

I must.

That was me in May 2006. I was two months in to living in Central Virginia and, at the time, it felt like an exile.

I grew up a coastal kid. It was nothing for there to be all sorts of seafood in my house: shrimp, crab, scallops, fish, oysters, you name it. When I got older and went to a Red Lobster, I was shocked at how much people paid for these things. Growing up, I got scallops because someone got off a boat and gave them to us. To this day, I refuse to eat a crab cake from west of Williamsburg.

We went to the beach mostly in the off season. Getting in the water isn’t completely necessary. It was just the concept of being on the beach. It was an extension of the front yard. In high school and the start of college, it was the site of our illegal camping. The one thing I missed in Richmond, although there were “beaches” was digging my toes in the sand and pulling out a notebook as the waves crashed in front of me. I don’t know what it is. Being on the beach just *feels* right.

As you can see from the inside of my car, I go to the beach every chance I get now. Unless it’s cold or rainy or I’m being totally lazy, I spend at least one day of my weekends at the shore. I came here thinking I would be in Wilmington more but I’ve only been there twice. This picture is a poor representation of how much sand is in the driver side of my car. I keep a beach towel in my car. I had a chair but I put it on the back deck in Richmond once, it eventually migrated next door and I never got around to stealing it back. That was nearly three years ago; they probably have squatter’s rights to it by now.

I feel fine here and the beach is why. It’s not home but the Atlantic makes it feel like home. I grin when I cross the bridge to Topsail Island the same way I grin when I see the hideous James Monroe Building in Richmond.

I know I’ve brought this up a lot recently but I really want the where we’re living question answered sooner than later. Once I know where our home will be, I can resume starting to plan our wedding nearly two years in advance. I already have a photographer and a reverend. I may procrastinate on a lot of things but doing events is my thing. Bill’s going away party was my high point. It made up for the greatest party CNU never had. It was my first party as social chair for my fraternity and, because flyers were made (not with my full OK), it was cancelled before it started. We were going to have a band, I did a quick and dirty soundproofing of a room and we were ready to go before the sun even set.

But I digress.

I don’t care where Renée  and I live but I just want to know. I could stay here but we’d have to move to Wilmington because she’d most likely get a job at UNC-W. If she lands an awesome job in New York, I can do that. If we mutually work on D.C., fine. I just want to know how far inland I will be. Will I have to plan beach trips or can I just stop when the mood hits me? Will I continue the family tradition of buying all of those nasty emergency foods because I’m in a hurricane zone? Will the inside of my car always look like this?

I guess I’ll find out in the next few days, weeks and months.

For now, it feels good to be back at sea level.

photo 29

Posted by EXIT265C on March 29, 2012
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image

i do think it looks slightly tilted since the earthquake

Because of the time we had left, the Cherry Blossom Festival and where I parked, this is as close as we got to the Washington Monument. Those clouds were amazing and I wish I could have taken a better photo. Perhaps there will be awesome clouds again the next time I’m there.

I can’t believe this is almost done. I’ve decided that, in April, I’m going to post lesser known/you forgot about songs from the 1980s from YouTube until some overzealous lawyer misses the point.

the district

Posted by EXIT265C on March 27, 2012
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My weekend began and ended with days where I both went to work and arrived at my mom’s house at 4 a.m. For the most part, she has ceased being confused and concerned by the way I live my life.

I worked for eight days straight to see Renée. It’s how I have to do things for a while, especially since I literally have -2 vacation days. This weekend proved that it’s doable and almost stress-free, despite how I managed to complicate things. I really do think that part of this whole move was an exercise of me learning not to stress out all the time. I haven’t had a freak-out session over something since November even with everything that happened from December to February.

I packed my things Friday morning and ran a few errands before working until 11:30 p.m. From there, I hopped in my car armed with Prince albums and Raspberry Beret-ed my way to Virginia. I came in by way of Suffolk because it’s the most efficient with the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge-Tunnel is open. The Virginia Department of Transportation closed it northbound Friday night. I had thought up until that point that I kept myself abreast of Hampton Roads news. I somehow completely missed this maintenance project and had driven past the last logical exit for the James River Bridge. It was uneventful but I was annoyed. The high point of that was stopping at a traffic light and saying to myself, “So … it’s nearly 4 a.m. and I’m on Tidewater Drive in Norfolk. Right.”

I took a glorified nap because I needed to leave no later than 10 a.m. to get to D.C. by the time my girlfriend’s bus arrived. I planned on getting a rental car because I needed brakes for Nicole, the inspection expired back in February and my registration would have expired in April. My car and I will remain Virginians until Renée and I nail down where we’re living.

Right before I was going to head to Enterprise, my mom realized I was going to D.C. and not back to North Carolina for the weekend. I don’t know how she thought that was the case. Anyway, she told me I could take her car. She has a ginormous 2000 Dodge Intrepid that needs some cosmetic work done and a new motor for the power doors. Other than that, it rides like the baby land yacht it was designed to be. That beast, that I call Samantha, is over a foot longer than Nicole, is four inches wider and has 240 pounds on her.

that engine noise makes me want an american car next

i floored her around a truck in rural virginia on the way up. it was a glorious waste of gas.

It took me forever to get to D.C. Traffic was horrible. Some of the highlights were a car driving perpendicular to traffic at very not an intersection, a van stopping for a bit then bolting at a red light and a shoulder/sidewalk being used as a lane. Oh, and did I mention it was Cherry Blossom Festival weekend? The 100th Cherry Blossom Festival weekend? OMFG.

the floormats

i totally, rocked a car with these mats this weekend.

I was driving with extra caution because I was in a bigger machine and didn’t really get my bearings until the ride back. Who knows what havoc would have been wreaked if Nicole was with me.

After picking up Renée, I headed directly out of the city and discovered that our hotel room left something to be desired. I really should have looked at photos of it first but I figured that it was in Sterling so it had to be nice. Eventually, we hung out with some of her sorority sisters and their friends since it was one of their birthdays. It was at one of those fancy-pants bowling alleys that are en vogue. I liked it but, in my world, bowling alleys look like the one in the Big Lebowski and that’s the only way the should look. I shouldn’t have been able to get boneless buffalo wings, a Fat Tire and a Stella. The options should have been a hot dog, pizza, nachos, Bud or Coors Light. What are we going to tart up next, laundromats?

The next day, we almost thought we were about to miss checkout because Renée’s alarm didn’t go off. It was after 10:30 and I thought it was the standard 11 a.m. checkout. We had another hour. At least that allowed me to do more than take a panicked whore’s bath in the sink before dashing out.

Since I worked it out this way, we still had a good day left to hang out. If we meet in D.C./Maryland and I crash at my mom’s house Friday and Sunday night, we can have very close to 36 hours together unlike the weekend where I drove to New York. I wound up with less than 24 hours with her then. I wish my normal weekends were on Monday and Tuesday so we could spend more time. I would try to shift things more but I’m the new hire and I don’t want this to become an issue. I already can’t really coordinate a weekend off in April.

Anyway, we went to Tyson’s Corner and then to the National Mall. Effectively, the only thing we did in D.C. was see the Native American Museum but it was worth it. Renée got to see the Cherokee exhibit and told me a lot about the native side of her family. I had no idea that she could speak, read and write Tsalagi.

at tyson's

i have no idea how she can walk in those all day either.

Not long after, it was time for her to go. It looks like we won’t be able to see each other in April. It could be worse. I don’t know how military couples do it.

Although this trip doubled as the beginning of seeing if we want to live around there, she has a pretty big interview in New York coming up. If she gets it, that settles the whole where we are living question. I might even consider *gasp* living in NEW JERSEY. We have some time to figure this out. It’s just I want at least this question answered as soon as possible because Richmond showed me that I’m done with being transient.

After leaving D.C., I got to see two of my fraternity brothers, which is a factor in wanting to move there. It’s always great to see another TauDelt. I had a lengthy conversation with one of them about how we’re changing into real adults finally and how we’re OK with it. At least we had a blast.

And I’m still not done with my man-child antics at times. For example, as long as there’s open road, I’ll be driving across a state at 4 a.m.

I was able to sleep for about six hours yesterday before I needed to set out. I need to go back to Hampton on the 10th because there was a another problem with my car that needs to be fixed. It was actually the sound I was hearing although the brakes were going too. I had just forgotten what that one was because I’ve had fully functional cars since 2006 and it was the first time that I had heard it after normal wear and tear and it had been six years since I heard anything mechanically wrong except for when my stupidity/lack of money/recall issue put Marian out of commission.

From there, it was time to drive directly to work. The day wasn’t bad, thankfully and I slept like a baby until about noon today. I’m finally about to do something constructive.

The down side to growing up is that I need longer and longer recharge times between weekends like this. It’s been a while since I’ve had a weekend like this and I needed that. It was great to know that I’ll soon have a permanent riding partner.

One day, I want to take her to southwestern Virginia. We’re taking U.S. 58 all the way back. There’s this spectacular spot she just has to see.