I have a bone to pick with time. Not Rip, Van's cool with me.
It's not an issue about passing time, certainly rush past it as fast as I can making sure that every next second is relatively shorter than the previous one. This also means that every next second has to be all the more intense than the previous one.
It's why I accept challenges with the caveat that the challenger be willing to take it upon himself.
That's how on a faithful college afternoon - the kind that can only happen in a run down apartment building that calls itself the hall of kings but where rat traps are laid everywhere within and without the place. Where exposed brick isn't a nice artsy touch to the place but more of an accident of unfinished business (masonry?). I saw a man eat a spoonful of powdered cinnamon, choke, cough, garggle, whelp only to have the powder cling to his very existence. At one point some of it came out in a cloud but not from his mouth but his nose.
And then I saw his friend do it as well. Challenge challenged.
But just last week I kept thinking it was midnight when in truth it was midday. What gives?
Never been one for watches and since I am part of the cell phone generation the digital display truly speaks more to me than the two slightly disfigured arms. Gotta admit the irony of the short pointing to the long and the long pointing to the short is my kind of humor. Not funny.
And truly our life has become or at least becomes so regimented that a watch is as good as the sun that rides up the horizon and slides behind it. Useful, necessary, but a luxury.
My sisters lives without it for months at a time. Both the watch and the sun just in different seasons.
I think.
And today I asked a coworker what his plans were for the weekend. It was 9AM on Tuesday morning and I'm not entirely certain if I was talking about the proverbial weekend or this one in particular.
It'd be too easy to figure it was driven by ennui or the circumstances at the time - my mind was occupied with the thought - it is the exalted weekend child, and I should have fun.
He looked at me quizzically and he said - are you serious? I don't even know if I'll make it till then.
If we dont, well, time...it'll come to fists.
It's time.
*This one is particularly cantankerous
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
March Waters
Letters in the most literal way possible have always played a role in my life. They let me imagine places and get to know people that have never been.
Now they take me places.
And I'm reminded of that famous quote - "I am not a crook!"
And that other famous quote - "We are looking for the ros lyn"
And a third quote (for the sake of completion) that I just happen to enjoy - "Amigos con derecho y sin derecho de tenerte siempre".
The weather was crisp and spirits were high as we all united and boarded the train for an underwater adventure towards a mistress of the lower hoods of Brazil.
Where down south Favela would carry the connotation of danger, low income, dancing and hope - that only translates here into delicious caipirinhas, corrugated metal and flimsy flip flops stapled to the roof. The samba was flowing and the drinks kept playing with perception of time, space and season. The smell of feijoada was a tantalizing possibility but I knew there'd be more to come so instead i egged people on and carried light conversation smiling in the compulsory way only the happy can.
No reason and cheeks hurting we left the lady - my shoulders still itching to follow the smooth tones of samba and bossa nova.
Thighs and pies. Enough said. Deep fried chicken in hot sauce with a buttery biscuit that's served in a style reminiscent of the german bratwurst in an positively diminutive bun and called a hot dogs despite merely being a handle with which to grasp the goodness.
Back up driggs and past my cousin's cleaner we perfectly timed it in such a way that we ran into sisters that managed to look alike and not alike disarmingly at the same time. A block down we picked 3 more for our crew and lined up outside BB.
Where beer dispelled any illness we may have once had.
And we had a Blast (2 chips). And a defender and an celebration of the month between september and november.
I'm going to call these daycations from now on.
And listen to Aguas di Marco (pretend the c has a little curlycue below it) for a little while.
Now they take me places.
And I'm reminded of that famous quote - "I am not a crook!"
And that other famous quote - "We are looking for the ros lyn"
And a third quote (for the sake of completion) that I just happen to enjoy - "Amigos con derecho y sin derecho de tenerte siempre".
The weather was crisp and spirits were high as we all united and boarded the train for an underwater adventure towards a mistress of the lower hoods of Brazil.
Where down south Favela would carry the connotation of danger, low income, dancing and hope - that only translates here into delicious caipirinhas, corrugated metal and flimsy flip flops stapled to the roof. The samba was flowing and the drinks kept playing with perception of time, space and season. The smell of feijoada was a tantalizing possibility but I knew there'd be more to come so instead i egged people on and carried light conversation smiling in the compulsory way only the happy can.
No reason and cheeks hurting we left the lady - my shoulders still itching to follow the smooth tones of samba and bossa nova.
Thighs and pies. Enough said. Deep fried chicken in hot sauce with a buttery biscuit that's served in a style reminiscent of the german bratwurst in an positively diminutive bun and called a hot dogs despite merely being a handle with which to grasp the goodness.
Back up driggs and past my cousin's cleaner we perfectly timed it in such a way that we ran into sisters that managed to look alike and not alike disarmingly at the same time. A block down we picked 3 more for our crew and lined up outside BB.
Where beer dispelled any illness we may have once had.
And we had a Blast (2 chips). And a defender and an celebration of the month between september and november.
I'm going to call these daycations from now on.
And listen to Aguas di Marco (pretend the c has a little curlycue below it) for a little while.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Mobius
Dear Friend,
I'm leaning on fairly obvious inspiration today but I'm ok with it. I have too many disparate short stories to tell you about today for a normal thing (for that is what it is to suffice).
Do you know how few people know that every post I write is about a person? And though admittedly 40% of the time that person is me (which probably speaks to a wee bit of narcissism likely (or hopefully) inherent in all humans and not just the sign of an inherent character flaw) the other 60% I write about people. Sometimes it's the people in the stories, and sometimes it's the story itself that tries to create the vision of the person. Does that make sense? I don't know why I'm telling you this.
On Saturday I visited Sam's Town. Or better yet it wasn't really Sam's Town but an equally slightly decrepit piece of Americana that attempts to entertain the modern day American (Mexican). Just me and two friends trying to branch out a little outside the urban jungle and we found ourselves in a geometric island. We all feared the hurricane last year and yet we embraced the cyclone.
Maybe it was curling my toes in the sand and walking down the beach trying not to step in half broken glass bottles, watching a 65 year old man "jog" in a hammock for bananas and a small middle aged man in a fisherman's hat hunt for treasures with a metal detector - I couldn't stop smiling. The landscape was nothing like the one I wonder at every day. Instead of Skyscrapers I had The SteepleChase, the Soarin' Eagle (I don't know why I got a kick out of the ') and the Slingshot.
The latter was ridden by a young kid named Lewis. I regret not going on that.
And then we had beers after a log plume called Wild River - likely because of copyright.
Neptune Jam was there. Not the candied type I imagine Jupitanians consume but the kind made up of an eclectic group of men in love with the music they are creating on a boardwalk where kids and adults alike swim through the air in what can, by some, be called dancing.
It was great and I'm glad I got a number of moments where I got to appreciate the space and time of the present without worrying about the future and the past.
It was four when I thought it was really 7.
****
And I start to write the second story my dear friend, I'm worried the third is escaping my memory already so I'll toss out the word taxicab now before it's too late. This will help me remember and leave you with an inkling of the kind of people I engage in conversation in the middle of America.
Let me tell you about these people I met. Not the taxicab drivers but the others.
They are engineers of sorts - of all sorts. They are not only in charge of engineering solutions to major health and health system problems but they are also techno geeks deeply committed to a .net system that is interoperable. Picture Windows and Microsoft being forced to play nice not because it's $ but because it's the law and because otherwise people die.
People so passionate they are moved to tears by the CEO of an IT company or the President of a Consulting Division.
Healthcare is personal but the future of it will likely require us to separate those two words and focus on health first and reach only for care as the last option possible.
This digitization of the healthcare system today has led me to believe IT will provide where others can't and I realized my writing style has changed friend and I blame the song choice more so than anything.
I turned to asleep again.
The smith is a great restaurant.
***
And the last part of this story is the shortest one.
I met two cab drivers this week. It's a little sad you never meet the drivers in NYC. The first cab driver was on his third wife and was originally from far far away - he had a college degree which he showed me (because he always keeps it tucked away in the little flap on the ceiling of cars and he told me sometimes it's just easiest and best to smile and nod. Ha! I already knew that because you taught me that! The second cab driver had graduated college 5 years ago but he was 69 and had a 14 year old child from his third wife. He came from everywhere because his dad had been in the military and so had he. He had left for tour from Kansas 44 years ago and when he returned 4 years later he got off the plane to a new airport - the one that still stands today.
And all of this reminded me of the time my little cousin, aged 4 at the time came up to me at my grandparents house and he asked me "can i show you that i know how to count to 100?".
"Yes"
And off he went until he hit 100. And he looked at me inquisitively for some guidance. I said "one hundred and one" to which he raised his hand to stop me lest I give it all away. And we worked our way up to a thousand. And he looked at me inquisitively for some guidance. I said "one thousand and one" and at that point we started skipping the nonsense in between, going into the thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, billions, trillions.
And his eyes lit up in wonder.
"They don't stop"
I smiled - "They're infinite".
He's been a great math student for the last 6 years.
Love always,
D
I'm leaning on fairly obvious inspiration today but I'm ok with it. I have too many disparate short stories to tell you about today for a normal thing (for that is what it is to suffice).
Do you know how few people know that every post I write is about a person? And though admittedly 40% of the time that person is me (which probably speaks to a wee bit of narcissism likely (or hopefully) inherent in all humans and not just the sign of an inherent character flaw) the other 60% I write about people. Sometimes it's the people in the stories, and sometimes it's the story itself that tries to create the vision of the person. Does that make sense? I don't know why I'm telling you this.
On Saturday I visited Sam's Town. Or better yet it wasn't really Sam's Town but an equally slightly decrepit piece of Americana that attempts to entertain the modern day American (Mexican). Just me and two friends trying to branch out a little outside the urban jungle and we found ourselves in a geometric island. We all feared the hurricane last year and yet we embraced the cyclone.
Maybe it was curling my toes in the sand and walking down the beach trying not to step in half broken glass bottles, watching a 65 year old man "jog" in a hammock for bananas and a small middle aged man in a fisherman's hat hunt for treasures with a metal detector - I couldn't stop smiling. The landscape was nothing like the one I wonder at every day. Instead of Skyscrapers I had The SteepleChase, the Soarin' Eagle (I don't know why I got a kick out of the ') and the Slingshot.
The latter was ridden by a young kid named Lewis. I regret not going on that.
And then we had beers after a log plume called Wild River - likely because of copyright.
Neptune Jam was there. Not the candied type I imagine Jupitanians consume but the kind made up of an eclectic group of men in love with the music they are creating on a boardwalk where kids and adults alike swim through the air in what can, by some, be called dancing.
It was great and I'm glad I got a number of moments where I got to appreciate the space and time of the present without worrying about the future and the past.
It was four when I thought it was really 7.
****
And I start to write the second story my dear friend, I'm worried the third is escaping my memory already so I'll toss out the word taxicab now before it's too late. This will help me remember and leave you with an inkling of the kind of people I engage in conversation in the middle of America.
Let me tell you about these people I met. Not the taxicab drivers but the others.
They are engineers of sorts - of all sorts. They are not only in charge of engineering solutions to major health and health system problems but they are also techno geeks deeply committed to a .net system that is interoperable. Picture Windows and Microsoft being forced to play nice not because it's $ but because it's the law and because otherwise people die.
People so passionate they are moved to tears by the CEO of an IT company or the President of a Consulting Division.
Healthcare is personal but the future of it will likely require us to separate those two words and focus on health first and reach only for care as the last option possible.
This digitization of the healthcare system today has led me to believe IT will provide where others can't and I realized my writing style has changed friend and I blame the song choice more so than anything.
I turned to asleep again.
The smith is a great restaurant.
***
And the last part of this story is the shortest one.
I met two cab drivers this week. It's a little sad you never meet the drivers in NYC. The first cab driver was on his third wife and was originally from far far away - he had a college degree which he showed me (because he always keeps it tucked away in the little flap on the ceiling of cars and he told me sometimes it's just easiest and best to smile and nod. Ha! I already knew that because you taught me that! The second cab driver had graduated college 5 years ago but he was 69 and had a 14 year old child from his third wife. He came from everywhere because his dad had been in the military and so had he. He had left for tour from Kansas 44 years ago and when he returned 4 years later he got off the plane to a new airport - the one that still stands today.
And all of this reminded me of the time my little cousin, aged 4 at the time came up to me at my grandparents house and he asked me "can i show you that i know how to count to 100?".
"Yes"
And off he went until he hit 100. And he looked at me inquisitively for some guidance. I said "one hundred and one" to which he raised his hand to stop me lest I give it all away. And we worked our way up to a thousand. And he looked at me inquisitively for some guidance. I said "one thousand and one" and at that point we started skipping the nonsense in between, going into the thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, billions, trillions.
And his eyes lit up in wonder.
"They don't stop"
I smiled - "They're infinite".
He's been a great math student for the last 6 years.
Love always,
D
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