sidewalks

I’d like to absolve the puzzle

/ josephpatrickrichards / 1 Comment

6 February 2012: DC Exile Day 13

Thirteen days have passed since GF and I departed DC for her parents’ basement in Ogden, UT. In about half that time, we have done pretty much everything in Utah we wished to do. I saw most of my friends (I still have one more to see), we ate some good food in Salt Lake City, we watched television and I have worn pajamas 85 percent of my waking hours.

I keep trying to write blogs while here, but I get caught up in reading and sitting and talking and staring into the atmosphere and generally being lazy, but not lazy like sitting around drooling and watching mindless television – lazy like doing things other than writing a blog.

Sometimes, writing is one of the more difficult tasks for me. How can I possibly put down all my thoughts? They don’t stop. They don’t break. There are no natural pauses like a conversation or a trial with a court reporter tap-tap tapping the notes of the mostly pre-destined judicial rigmarole.

So, I frequently end up with gaps between blog postings like unfinished pieces of sidewalk in which city planners and city workers realized it would probably just take way too much time to keep building all the way to the next block because then they would have to keep building all the way to the city limits. And what would happen if they reached the city limits and dared to cross into the next city because they still had cement and desire and the sun wasn’t quite low enough in the sky to warrant shuffling back home for potatoes and fish sticks? Would their internal drive force them to build sidewalk forever, covering the entire world like some productive Sisyphus?

I’m frequently afraid of saying too much. That if I ever put out anything creative, I won’t be able to stop and I’ll have to keep going and it will consume my life and my obsessive tendencies will prevent me from ever stopping to say “hello” to anyone again until I have to say hello to get stories for the next thing I want to write.

I just used the “spell check” feature. The dialog box informed me “No writing errors were found.” But isn’t going without writing when your every instinct is to write an error? Perhaps it is, but the semi-sentient internet is attempting to absolve me.

I’ll take what absolution I can get.

Three insignificant incidents

/ josephpatrickrichards / Leave a comment

8 August 2011

Reasons I do not want children: #1 My love of junk food.

I watch a lot of television. I saw something on television where a parent was trying to feed healthy food to a child. I would be such a poor parent for a child. I enjoy junk food. I would probably order takeaway for my child every night and it would grow up eating Kung Pao chicken, pad Thai and egg rolls.

Today, I experienced three insignificant incidents.

A. I arrived in the Metro station barely after 8 AM. I did the quick-jog-that-is-trying-not-to-look-like-a-quick-jog down the final stairs so I could catch the train into work. I often rush, and see others rushing, into work. I never see anyone rushing to get home or to the bar or to a pizza place. I know it probably exists. But seeing it would disprove my point about a great human truth.

As usual, all the humans crowded in the doorway rather than moving to the center of the train car (as the humanized robot voice instructs us to do). I refused to be stranded on the platform because some overdressed politicos are not afraid of authoritarian androids.

I shove in the car, much to the grunting chagrin of the other passengers. Then, for three stations (with much pausing in between because of a “backup” at the next station) my bum was pressed against the bum of the passenger directly behind me. His was a gigantic bum. A bum that seemed to conquer the entire world in its enormity. Hindsight is 20/20, but this bum could have hit a moving target from two states away. So we stood there, bum against bum, shifting uncomfortably. At first, I wasn’t even aware of the pressing. But then, at the second stop, I was hyperaware. Nothing else existed but our butts. Like constantly hi-fiving sports aficionados at a game that is “going our way.” Then, the big-butted stranger exited the train. And my butt was free to wiggle on its own.

B. After a day of work, to which I rushed, I walked back to the Metro while eating an apple. I like eating apples while walking. I actually like eating anything while walking. Well, not anything. But I do like eating foods like bread, hotdogs, hotdogs in buns, apples, popcorn, pears, peaches and peanut butter & Nutella sandwiches while walking. (While I am walking, not the food.) Eating while walking is comforting. “Hey world, I’m comfortable enough to eat while I’m walking. I’m not even paying attention to you or to what you think of me. It’s just me, my mouth and this apple. You can’t hurt me world.”

I throw my core in the trashcan (rubbish bin for our UK readers) and continue on to the Metro (Tube). I am riding and hearing a child scream. I stand next to a seat where a young boy child (age 3?) and a young girl child (age 5?) sit, squirming like young children do. Suddenly (as everything is) the boy child topples forward headfirst between the seats. With reflexes that would make a snake jealous, the male parent/guardian figure (seated in the seat behind the seated children) reaches forward and grabs the boy child by the overalls before the boy child’s head hits the hard carpeted ground. I tried not to laugh at the child’s tears, but the entire scene was too humorous. I looked around at my fellow passengers to see if I could make eye contact and share the joke but no one looked at me. I settled for a self-satisfied smirk.

C. I exited the Metro, on the way home now, and found myself, as usual, on the sidewalk (after walking a bit). I looked up and saw a shirtless, sweaty man doing pushups on the sidewalk. He was red like Santa Claus’s suit.