the state i am in

All posts tagged the state i am in

if you were wondering

Posted by EXIT265C on May 27, 2012
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Other than now having to shell out some money because of all of that crap, life is more or less back to normal. I eat healthy, take walks, read books, enjoy how this is nearly a tropical region, go to work, drive like a normal person beyond accelerating like there’s no tomorrow and talk to Renée. I haven’t even drank in the past two weeks because I don’t like drinking alone so I seldom do; since I’ve been here, three beers has been enough. The only thing I miss is being near my close friends and that’s about it. I have to go pick up trash in Chesapeake for a couple of hours in June, I still need to take care of that North Carolina speeding ticket and I’m going to have some lingering punishments/bills for a few months but whatever. As I said before, I deny and am ashamed of nothing. I’ll be as candid about this now as I will about this and anything else I’ve done in my life at a live press conference in front of my children 20 years from now.

That said, that day/week was such an aberration, I’ve wondered exactly what went wrong; I know it’s because I’m so isolated here. I firmly believe I lost control because I was that excited about being around people I’ve known at least a decade. I sped up there although I had hours to spare. I was going to take a nap in my hotel room but I couldn’t just sit there. Want to see me out of character? Deprive me of some of my favorite daily experiences for five months and then bring me back.

IF I HAD A SLURPEE’S WEIGHT IN GOLD, I WOULD PAY THAT FOR ONE RIGHT NOW AND I ONLY WANT ONE BECAUSE THE NEAREST 7-ELEVEN IS OVER 170 MILES AWAY.

I have to get out of here.

I mean, I love my job and my roommates are cool but it’s not the same. I have hundreds of people who love me very much and the only woman I’ll ever marry but all but two of them are at least one state away and I hate that. I’m not depressed. I’m just … bored.

On top of that, the end of a daily paper in New Orleans and the elimination of copy editors in Colorado is making me reassess the whole journalism thing. I know it will survive as an industry and this is the transitional period but this period is truly scary. I’ve seen the necessity for editors firsthand. I know that I don’t want to be a reporter anymore. I appreciate the beauty of page design and fonts and I know we can translate that onto websites but the current thing is to just plop text on the page with a slide show/video on top. My job in its current form is becoming obsolete. Once upon a time, it was separate from page design. Tomorrow, it will be folded into something else or, as in Colorado, considered superfluous (as they misspell a word in the headline describing it). Being at a daily used to be a badge of prestige. Being at a daily is now wondering when it ceases to come out seven days a week. Or worse.

There are other editor jobs in the world. In the far back corner of my mind, I pictured myself as an awesome old man looking over the printing press at the newspaper I owned lock, stock and barrel. Staring at my newsroom in Hopewell on those days where our thrice weekly scooped two larger daily newspapers and TV news may have been my John Paul Jones moments but the fact of the matter is that the Bonhomme Richard still slipped beneath the waves.

I don’t know what’s next beyond knowing that it probably won’t involve journalism. That is the biggest thing to accept. I’m the last of the dinosaurs; I have no stomach for running out to cover a story, taking photos and video and slamming it onto a website as soon as possible with no true checks and balances. Hopefully, I’m wrong and the necessity of having the process we have will survive in some form.

The other thing I do know is next involves the people I miss and me heading north. How far north, I don’t know yet. It’s going to be soon, though.

Very soon.

It has to be.

asbury park

Posted by EXIT265C on May 19, 2012
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I was going to head back to North Carolina today. I even had my stuff in the car. I would have gotten there three hours ago. I didn’t feel completely up for the drive. That should bother me but it doesn’t.

Anyway, since I’m still here, my mom and I did some more minor housework (as compared to yesterday where, if I actually had a major heart condition as initially feared last weekend, I would have keeled over). During the course of this, my grandfather came up and, eventually, his sisters — my great aunts — in Asbury Park, N.J.

I’ve talked about researching them but never followed through. I never got their names.

So far, I’ve discovered that they were born in 1887 and 1890 (Grandpa Elliott was born in 1893). One of my great aunts died in 1975. I need full Internet access, newspaper records and, once Bill gets home and has extended leave, we’re having a Bruce Springsteen-Elliott Family adventure.

The physically going there point will be about a year from now at the earliest. My goal is that, whenever it happens, I’ll be heading there from New York.

sixteen hundred

Posted by EXIT265C on May 4, 2012
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Initially, I planned on this entry coinciding with the eighth anniversary on June 1 but the CNU thing happened and I got carried away with the March photos and the ’80s April.

Although I padded this one a little with the hundred entries since February, it’s a little comforting to know, despite some slacking off in the past year or two, I’ve had a relatively constant 200-odd posts a year average since the average-skewing first year. I used to keep spreadsheets of my post frequencies but I stopped updating it in October 2009. I just did some quick math. When I stopped tallying up in 2009, I averaged 18.4 posts a month. From that point till now, it was 12.8. Overall, it’s about 16.8. That’s still roughly every other day.

Who am I kidding? The viaduct is starting to grind to a halt.

Eight years ago, Facebook barely existed and tweets were only things birds did. I’ve noticed that there have been many things that I would have posted here that have instead been condensed to 140 characters or some things thrown on my timeline. On top of that, I’ve become partially dreadfully boring and I’ve stopped recounting how amazing whatever party I attended over the weekend was. On top of that, this isn’t my private haven anymore to vent about people or situations. Those have been directed off the Internet as texts and phone calls to people lately. You know, the thing normal people used to do.

That said, here’s what I think the future will be here:

  1. Continued long-form entries. I’m a writer. When the mood hits me, there will be thousand-word tales of me getting in my car in going somewhere; rambles of things in my brain I need to work out; general musings of things as pieces of literature (see the 792 entries); picture posts.
    1a. I see picture posts being more of a thing. Typically, on my not seeing my girlfriend weekends, I roam around Eastern North Carolina and take photos on my phone. They often aren’t very good but I can string along a story at times. Once I’m living in a new city with her, I’m going to get out a lot more and I’ll buy yet another point-and-shoot camera and maybe a good one as well to capture more of city life.
  2. A continued average of about 12 entries a month unless a theme (more on that later). It’s going to be all about quality and not quantity. A LOT of my old posts were frivolous. Some of them were even short enough to be considered ur-tweets. I’m going to make a promise now, though: Unless I’m on vacation, I’m going to guarantee at least one entry a week from now on. The reason for that is twofold: Originally, this blog was for me and only me. At times, I still write this as if no one is reading. It’s serving as an auxiliary memory and it’s doing me no good if I’m blacking out my life for weeks at a time. I fell into a rut when I first arrived in North Carolina and I think it will help me break my routine of work-sleep-farting around on the Internet-going outside to read to do something worth writing about. Like I said before, this is temporary: once I’m around friends and loved ones again, I’ll be doing all kinds of stuff. I’ll use the old print schedule of my old job as a template. Guaranteed Tuesday post then Thursday then Saturday, if stuff can wait.
  3. Video. Yes, video. After I make sure I have enough hosting space so I don’t have to put them on YouTube, I’m going to be here in living color. My computer has a webcam and my phone currently has room for seven hours of regular high-quality video or two hours of 720p HD. I’m saving that for when I’m no longer living in the Bayshore house so I’m not that guy talking to himself alone in his room. At the earliest, this will start in July when my lease is up and I’m … somewhere.
  4. Themes. I’m definitely keeping fotos de marzo. I’m not doing ’80s April again (at least not in April) because I don’t want them to be back-to-back. Later this year, I’m going to experiment with pulling a random album from a random artist in my collection and doing a summation of why I own it and why I love it every day for a month. I may do a reprise of my Week of the Wine by going to a place where I can buy single bottles of beer and pick out 30 I haven’t had before. The sky is the limit.
  5. Issues. The CLOG thing inspired me. I’m journalism tag has been beefy lately because I’ve been commenting on the media in general off and on. I want to do that more. If I ever transition out of journalism, there may be more current affairs popping up.
  6. Continued candor. I once told Katy that being me is interesting because I try not to have anything to hide. I can’t think of anything to which I wouldn’t own up or make me die of shame. I mean, there may be some situations where I’d rather that story not come up that second but, unless it’s going to royally screw or embarrass someone else, screw it. It’s a part of my experiment with my own life. I make conscientious attempts not to lie; I’m not ashamed to say I have literally lost count of how many people have seen me naked and the vast majority of that had nothing to do with sex; and I go out of my way to be kind and helpful.
    I KNOW. Some of your are like, “Wait. What?” That’s what I mean. I picked something benign as to not distract to the whole purpose of this entire entry. Like I said, I think it’s better to just throw things out there. Sometimes literally. There are still some off-limits things because of my journalism career (politics, hot-button issues, &c.). I typically don’t take requests but, if you want to throw questions at me from time to time, I may be inclined to dedicate an entry to answering it. I’ll even throw myself a softball one in the next entry, which will be up in a few minutes.

Anyway, so that’s it: the state of the viaduct. Nearly eight years, six cities and 1600 entries later, it’s still something. If I ever become famous and this blog is part of the reason, I want my historical marker in front of 210 Deep Creek Road in Newport News.

Onward to the eighth anniversary in less than a month and thence beyond.

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.

bonus photo #2

Posted by EXIT265C on March 16, 2012
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hipstaelliott

shaving regularly is too mainstream

So. This is me now. I have glasses again and they’re Wayfarers. I wear hats, blazers and Wayfarers and I listen to music by people of which you haven’t heard. And I say that I was wearing hats and blazers before they were cool and I was drinking PBR before you knew what it was.

I’m not saying I’m a hipster. I’m saying I was slouching in this direction since 2004 and it got a label in the process.

Despite that, I have a twinge of self-loathing as I play Patrick Phelan (not the video game music composer) and remind myself that my laptop case is a briefcase, I have a PBR poster and I have a decorative typewriter. I have a broken floor lamp because it means something!

On the bright side, I don’t own skinny jeans; denim is too mainstream.

Also, the flash on my phone is awful. This is my eyes cowering in pain. EDIT: I took a better picture the following morning, which is what you’re seeing now.

… when there’s danger

Posted by EXIT265C on March 13, 2012
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I discovered today that there’s a full 3:42 version of the Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers theme song. That is ridiculous, Disney, but that sax solo makes it. Just listen. I’ve seriously played this like five times now.

I don’t understand why Disney commissioned a full version in the first place. It’s a 30-minute cartoon and this song is over 1/10 of an episode so there was no chance that it would ever be played in its entirety (and OMG, we’ve been deprived of that sax solo). I guess this was for the chance that a feature film would be made?

Renée mentioned that it was about 20 years since she heard the theme song. That gave me pause. It has been about 20 years. I was 10 when syndication stopped. This is emphasizing how close I am to 30 now. OH MY GOD, I’M GETTING OLD. WHY DID I KNOW ALL THE WORDS TO THE SHOW EDIT VERSION OF THE THEME AFTER 20 YEARS?

But, in the grand scheme of things, I’m not that old. One of the wire editors turned 58 yesterday. That is twice my life this year. If I don’t leave the industry, I’ll spend more than half my life in a newsroom when I’m 58. That’s hard to picture right now but it puts things in perspective. In 29 years, I should have kids out of college and this show will be over 50 years old. The first episodes of the Jetsons are 50 years old. The Beverly Hillbillies are 50 years old this year.

Here’s a brief list of shows that will be exactly to us in 29 years as the story of a man named Jed is to us now.

  • Blossom
  • Clarissa Explains it All
  • Dinosaurs
  • Darkwing Duck
  • Rugrats
  • Doug
  • Ren & Stimpy
  • Taz-Mania
  • Roc
  • Æon Flux (of which I own the entire series and have just decided I will watch tonight)
  • HAMMERMAN
  • Step by Step
  • Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

RUGRATS WAS 21 YEARS AGO. WE CAN DRINK WITH TOMMY PICKLES.

 

But enough of freaking out about the approaching end of my 20s. I’m going to go back to reliving the late 1980s and how sometimes some crimes go slipping through the cracks.

small figures in the state i am in

Posted by EXIT265C on February 23, 2012
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I’m on a posting YouTube video/sharing songs I like kick.

For the past few years, I’ve been tagging general life posts either “The State I Am In” or “Small Figures in a Vast Expanse.” There is a subtle difference between the two. Sometimes, I don’t even know the difference. Typically, SFVE is more introspective and SIAI is more general. The origin of both tag titles are song titles. SIAI has its origins in a post where I played off some lyrics in the song (I do that every now and then). SFVE is purely based on the title.

Either way, I like both songs. I like the Rilo Kiley song more (Small Figures in a Vast Expanse) but that’s because I have a little but of a man crush on Blake Sennett. (I mean, Ronnie Foster Pinsky from Salute Your Shorts makes music! That’s like Danny Tamberelli making albums. Oh, wait. He has.) The State I Am In is a Belle & Sebastian song, namely the first track on the first album.

Anyway, here they are. Listen and, as I mean to say every time I post a video, if you like them, support the artist. If you don’t like them, support No BS Brass. If you don’t like No BS Brass, well … screw you.

The State I Am In — Belle & Sebastian

Small Figures in a Vast Expanse — Rilo Kiley

letting go

Posted by EXIT265C on February 7, 2012
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There was a second reason for my stop in Hopewell last week I’m going to have reasons to go to Petersburg and Hopewell for years and years but that trip was it in the sense that, beyond friends I have made, that the trip has anything to do with journalism. It’s just weird that, after six years, that’s over. There was one last person I didn’t get to say goodbye to in City Hall and I was able to. I learned a couple little things that I knew were true but I couldn’t write about because I had no proof. I got the proof because the people who told me knew I couldn’t write about it and most likely wouldn’t feed it to either of the two papers because it would take far too much time to explain what was going on to anyone other than Katy, Hopewell’s no longer her a part of her coverage area and the paper I just left has changed directions to the point where that article isn’t going to happen.

It doesn’t matter anyway. I was also told that Hopewell is going to keep doing what it’s been doing for decades. I was also told that, well, questions when answered lead to more questions. I’ll leave it at that.

I’m doing less work for more money in another state with a warmer climate near the beach.

Why do I have to keep telling myself that?

I guess it was because I threw so much of myself into being there almost six years. It became personal. It was still personal when I moved to Richmond partially to divorce my life off the clock from my life on. The failure of the ethanol plant no longer matters. The Beacon Theatre no longer matters. The growth of Virginia State University no longer matters. The coming of Amazon to Dinwiddie and Chesterfield no longer matters.

I’m no longer battling the Progress-Index. I don’t even remember why it was a battle to begin with except that it brings us here. Let’s have a recap.

My father was last stationed at Fort Lee but didn’t move my mom there. I most likely would have been born in Petersburg or Hopewell and probably would have grown up there. I managed to drive on all of Route 10 before 2006 except for the stretch between Interstate 295 and the Benjamin Harrison Bridge. I slept through a bus trip that went through Petersburg. What should have been my last semester in college started to fall apart the summer before when the documentary studies class I wanted to take died due to lack of quorum, for lack of a better word at 2 a.m. That led to my job hunt starting in December 2005. Ben Bagwell just happened to leave at that point, thus providing the opening. I instantly decided that I could enjoy working for Jon Pope and, other than being homesick for a while and having a  horrible apartment, I did. My dislike of Brian’s leadership style somehow spiraled into … I don’t know. Looking back two months removed from working in the Tri-Cities, I think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know, there was a moment when he actually paid me a really good compliment. I don’t know if it was the only one or not because it stands out just because I distinctly labeled him an asshole to everyone who was there the second he left. At this point, I don’t understand my utter disdain. I’ve never hated someone I had met so much before and I haven’t since. Well, there’s no use of analyzing that now.  What’s done is done. I napalmed that bridge. My biggest fear is that he’ll exact revenge for my effectively tangible hatred of him on Katy. Well, I guess if he does, he’ll just prove me right then. I had the urge to call before or after her interview but I figured hearing from me would only hurt her chances.

But I digress.

All that carping led me to leap at the chance to work at a rival paper to prove what I could do. In retrospect, if I weren’t so irrationally spiteful, I wouldn’t have learned layout or did so much heavy lifting in Hopewell, picked up a camera with any degree of seriousness or argued so much for new equipment and resources for my newsroom. In some twisted way, hating him was the best thing that could have happened. I think, at one point, it stopped being him. In proper American military-industrial form, I created some sort of mega-enemy loosely based on reality named Brian in my head that we had to destroy.

My old publisher Mike once asked me want I wanted to do in Hopewell. I held up a Progress-Index and said that, if I had a lighter, I’d show him. He then asked me why and I couldn’t answer because what could I say? Because they don’t dig through the courthouse records room to try to uncover why the city does what it does? Because they don’t follow political candidates at 3 a.m.? Because they didn’t see journalism as not only a battle to hold government accountable but also a vehicle unto which thou shalt dasheth thine enemies against the rock?

At some point, I realized it had gone on for far enough. That was what led me here back when Irene was a distant storm in the Atlantic. I only applied because of my spontaneous trip to Wilmington in college and Jacksonville being nearby. I got this job offer during the cleanup and I turned it down because I couldn’t in good conscience leave that newsroom in the middle of that. I wanted to leave them wanting more. I wanted to leave with a structure in place to validate that little paper’s existence by personally covering statehouse news and getting to the bottom of what was going on in Hopewell and getting the P-I to declare defeat in Hopewell and visit as often as the Times-Dispatch. I earned that paper some respect it lost over the years prior and I knew I couldn’t take it much farther. I wanted to look back proudly after I was gone and say, “They beat the P-I again.”

But that would have just continued my unnecessary hatred.

At some point I transcended it. I think it was somewhere around this entry. I think that dream was when I began to let go. Katy picked up on it. She always picks up on it. If I haven’t yelled STOP BEING SO RIGHT ABOUT MY LIFE to her yet, I really need to. She said that I had a great friends, I rediscovered someone I loved very much and I wasn’t afraid to walk away from there. When it all went down at the end, I was fine. Beyond giving me the tools to be where I am now, all of that was unhealthy and downright nasty. I hope I never go down that road again.

That was why I stopped there last week.

I was briefly angry that the Hopewell News wasn’t still pushing the Bonhomme Richard into battle but, after I looked at an edition back in early January, I decided that it didn’t matter and I let go. Although I wouldn’t mind writing about Hopewell again, it wouldn’t be to dance around with my middle fingers raised in the general direction of the Progress-Index. I bought an online subscription to the P-I.

I want to see it all roll on without me.

A part of me wants to say the past six years were for nothing but I know it isn’t true. I squandered those years, though. Especially the last four or so because I was so driven by wanting to leave and then beat the P-I. Although I have a twinge of remorse, given the chance, I’d do it all again.

It was messy but I like how things turned out so far. There are too many causes and effects. If this was how it had to be, warts and all, I just hope the next step has far less collateral damage.

1499: wilm

Posted by EXIT265C on January 25, 2012
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Today is my Sunday. This was the first full weekend I spent in North Carolina where everything wasn’t torn up and crazy and all. Basically, this was my first normal weekend since Dec. 2.

This is how I spent it.

I was up late Monday night talking to Renée because we talk at night due to our work schedules and, if not for falling asleep next to her for a few days since November and back in 2002, I would swear that she doesn’t sleep. Regardless, I set my alarm to 8:45 because, if you’ve actually been reading this, I only spend about one weekend a month in my room/bed. I don’t care how long or tiring my work week is. My weekends are for me and for them being for me, that means not rolling about in bed all day. I can’t do that, especially now. My work week is get up almost too late to do anything constructive, go to work and try to find something to talk to Renée about when I get home although my entire day can be summed up as “I woke up and designed pages.”

Back in Richmond, I would spend the week in Hopewell, go home, cook dinner, watch the Science Channel or Jersey Shore and then go to bed after talking to Renée. At least, back then, I could share a story about Hopewell or something that frustrated me at work. Nowadays, it’s just a job where I can have some degree of creativity and turn work off when I go home.

Either way, I need my weekend and I need my weekend to be spectacular.

So I puttered around for a bit because I was exhausted and then JD, Jamee and I went to North Topsail Beach, one of the closest beaches to our house, for a few hours. It was 70 Tuesday.

North Topsail Beach

It was cloudy when we got there.

North Topsail Beach in mostly sunny 70-degree weather in January.

Then the day looked awesome.

YOU ARE SO JEALOUS OF MY LIFE.

Really, really awesome.

At one point, on Facebook, I thanked my former publisher for all that happened because I now live near an oceanfront paradise where it’s 70 degrees in January, I have low-stress work to do and JUST LOOK AT THIS. THIS WAS TOTALLY WORTH STICKING IT OUT IN THE TRI-CITIES UNTIL IT CHEWED ME UP AND SPIT ME OUT.  I’M THE LUCKIEST SPIT IN THE WORLD.

After that, I finished organizing my room. I have a place for my CDs, my two framed pieces of artwork are up (I still need a frame for a third but I’ve been saying that for an entire year) and everything is where it’s supposed to be. All I need to do is get a real mattress in the next couple weeks. I’ve been stalling on that because I’m owed some money and I want that first. This cot is fine since it’ll be a little while before Renée comes to visit. I’m content with my four walls for now.

Today, I went to Wilmington. I love that city. I’ve said here a few times before that I want to live there. I still want to live there. I plan on going to visit it a lot now that it’s so close. It would be nice if I could go with someone but there is about 10 hours of road between me and my girlfriend and two between me and my nearest friend. And, if it comes to seeing Joseph, I’ll just go to Chapel Hill.

I stayed in Wilmington until sunset. I capped that trip off with taking a photo of said sunset from Wrightsville Beach and snapping a shot of the Shell Island.

Cords? Check. Blazer? Check. Unsigned band T-Shirt? Check. Wayfarer frames? Check. Hat? Check.

I dressed like a hipster today.

The Cape Fear River

The Cape Fear River from an overpriced parking garage that shall never see my car again.

Wilmington Post Office

It looks like a larger, less curvy version of the Petersburg Post Office.

Riverwalk

This boat has cruises up and down the Cape Fear River. I think I shall take Renée on one.

I WANT TO HEAR THIS.

Hopefully, despite having that previous weekend off, I still have a "normal' weekend to see this.

I'm sure he was entertained.

George Washington: Define "entertained."

SPANISH MOSS

There is some spanish moss in Jacksonville but I think Wilmington is the true upper limit. It allegedly grows as far north as southside Hampton Roads but I've never seen it.

The Shell Island Hotel, Wrightsville Beach, N.C.

The first time I stayed in this hotel just east of Wilmington, I was in Room 803. The next time, when it's the off season, I want that room again.

Pretty!

Sunset over Wilmington from the southern tip of Wrightsville Beach

It’s back to the grind tomorrow. I’m thinking about a Richmond trip next “weekend” but that depends on Shaunelle’s work schedule. If I stay in North Carolina, I’ll probably bug Joseph after work, hang out at the beach again or start haunting the Cape Fear Museum. I meant to go there today but then I didn’t. I even walked up to it. I guess that and other things will give me an excuse to go back.

If anything, these past two days have shown me that I can’t live too far away from the coast. This salt water is in my blood. Although Raleigh/Durham and D.C. are options in 2014 after I put a ring on it later this year (it’s not a surprise proposal — it’s more of a matter of me wanting to meet her father first), I want to live in Wilmington and be near this.

If we didn’t finally realize that we don’t like Hampton Roads anymore, we’d just head back. My mom’s house is going to be legally mine in less than 10 years and there will be at least one newspaper down there still that has a copy desk in Hampton Roads.

But, I like it here. I’ve liked it here ever since I randomly picked Wilmington as my spring break trip in 2005. It’s like the opposite of how I wound up in the Tri-Cities (picked it because I had never seen that part of the state).

Yet again, it seems like my life is leading up to something. At least, this time, I’m going to take someone with me. It feels good to say that. I’m not slighting you readers, of course. Since 2004, I’ve always considered y’all as a part of the ride. I’m just looking forward to how this adventure builds up to Renée officially joining the quest for me to live up to the nickname I gained when I moved to Richmond that wound up on a T-shirt in my closet

If you don't know, ask me, in person, what's on the front.

If you don't know what's on the front, ask me in person, preferably when I'm near a computer.

1496

Posted by EXIT265C on January 12, 2012
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , . 2 comments

So far, so good. Because of my trip to New York this weekend that was scheduled well before this rigmarole started, Monday/Tuesday seems like the day I will get my bed unless I can get same-day delivery before 2 p.m. Thursday, which I doubt. I was going to go the used mattress route but most people have jobs that run for normal hours so I wouldn’t be able to get one until the weekends, which would leave me sleeping on couch cushions for up to seven more days (I think my work schedule will be what it’s going to be starting Monday. I think I actually don’t have any of the traditional weekend days off at all since I’m the new guy so I may be MIA longer than I thought I would.

Other than the bed, almost everything in the room is where I want it. I just need to build a case for my CDs (I never finished uploading everything and I think my external hard drive is in Richmond and it’s possibly stolen). and put my books on the shelves. I haven’t put the books up yet because I’m suing them to mark out where the bed would be and stop the couch cushions I’m sleeping on now from sliding. I’m pretty much stopped moving in my sleep but I had gotten used to a queen bed and those first couple nights were an adventure. I haven’t put a lot of things up because I’ll be out of here in a few months. There haven’t been any problems and I think we’ll be friends but it feels a little awkward to have a complete opposite sleep schedule from everyone else in such as small house.

I go to bed between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. so I’m as refreshed as possible for work but I typically spend those overnight hours afraid to breathe too hard. I’m probably overreacting but I’d rather overreact than be that asshole banging things around at 3 a.m. They mentioned being afraid of waking me up in the morning as well but I lived in a frat house so, once I’m out, I tend to be out. The weirdest things wake me up but, typically, something going on in an adjacent room does noting for me, with the exception of when I had the ill fortune in Petersburg of having my bed directly opposite the bed of the other apartment where they did nothing but argue and have loud sex for a good portion of every night. I would up sleeping in my living room. I’m doing some preliminary looking around at places now. I found some that I like toward Wilmington but I’m not up for commuting 20+ miles to work again. It’ll work out; this feels like a combination of my move to Petersburg and my first six months in Richmond right now. It’s a little freaky that way.

I got good news out of the Virginia today. Once again, I can’t and won’t explain what’s going on but Katy was out of a job too. She is now at the one job I ever truly ranted about online. I didn’t hate the place. I was mostly annoyed at one person. Back when overtures were made last year, I told her that it was nothing but a clash of personalities and she should go for it when the opportunity arose. I actually went out of my way to not talk about my time there with her before that point because I didn’t want her to think it was an awful place because it’s not. If anything, everything went as it should. If I was 100 percent content, I probably would be there still, hating that, six years later, I was still writing articles. Being annoyed and leaving there allowed me to spend almost three years practicing layout and design in Hopewell which allowed me to move on to a daily copy desk since, between the time I started college and finished, copy editors and paginators became one and the same. I would have been stuck as a reporter because I never would have had the opportunity to learn how to design pages. At the end of the day, I’m glad I left both places in Virginia when I did because I left with good information and an impressive résumé: over three years of daily experience, writing experience, nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills, photography experience, social media experience, three years of managerial experience and experience in InDesign and Quark. I want to hire me.

But I digress.

Anyway, she’ll be fine there. I still have some connections if she’s ever in a bind, she already knows some people and she has at least one loyal friend in that newsroom.

And I’ll get to live vicariously through her. I’ll probably end up pitching story ideas to her just to get updated on people I miss. I just have this soft-edged, sepia view of Dinwiddie County. I still miss it. I don’t think I’ll ever stop. I wasn’t completely joking when I told someone I would be content in my old age to have a house on a couple acres there. It’s probably the country boy in me. I’m only one generation removed from the farm. I have no idea how to farm but I tell you, if I get my own grain to sway gently in the wind, I’d be the proudest man in Dinwiddie.

Oh God. This is going to be my midlife crisis, isn’t it? Why can’t I have a soft-edged, sepia view of me in a sports car?