It was four days before Christmas on H Street Northeast in a section of Washington DC that clings to the northern edge of Capitol Hill and is known to locals just as "H Street," nothing more. Tired buildings lean broken and vacant among their rebuilt and freshly-painted peers as revitalization has come to this long-downtrodden part of town, and this economic momentum has brought with it people like me who work in the businesses that now pepper the formerly-quiet neighborhood.
This day a man stood in the bright sunshine on the sidewalk in front of the bar I manage, gesturing somewhat wildly to someone (real or imagined I did not know); this is not in its own right anything of note, as the homeless wander the streets pretty regularly in this city and the regulars on H Street are among the most flamboyant. Wild gesticulations are hardly worth a second glance in a world where folks have conversations with lampposts and shout poetry on the corner to imaginary audiences.
Something about this presumably-homeless man caught my eye, though. Perhaps it was just the way he stood or the expression on his face, but I walked to the window for a closer look. Maybe in his mid-thirties, he was unshaven and clearly drunk as he was having a hard time standing without swaying. His face was intense as an undercurrent of anger seemed to flow through his eyes. His clothes looked old and second hand, but the ill-fitting sport coat over his shirt seemed to suggest he wanted to look cleaned up. And, under each of his tired, dirty arms, was a child.
A boy of maybe 4 and a girl of perhaps 6 or so stood by him, his dirty hands resting on the clean shoulders of their new clothes as they looked into the lens of a camera trying to capture the perfect moment, the pressure of which was obvious on the man's face. Perhaps it was his one chance to offer these kids proof positive for the future that he had been there, if only that day. A memory for a lifetime.
In what feels like an ever-more callous society I would challenge you, you who have never been close enough to touch a child whose normal could be this, a child whose smile could ring so hollow on the heels of Christmas: while you are counting the piles of gifts under your tree, chastising a spouse for forgetting the batteries for that special toy, bagging your mountains of trash and carelessly ripping open your bounty, I challenge you to look in your hearts, and to see our obligation to change the path for children like this and to have compassion for the adults that too many of them become.
When, in 30 years, these little children become this broken man because we did nothing, I will ask you -- as you scream about their entitlement mentality and their babies on welfare -- I will ask you what you did to help, because I cannot believe that the thinking among us can blame that little boy or that little girl for the future that was lain so crudely at their feet.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
A Poem
Arms raised high,
bloodied fingers claw heaven's floor.
Foolish gods laugh and dance, as
cobbled feet drag over stones
and men of faith chase the extraordinary,
each other in tow,
and who is left but the thinking
to clean the blood from the earth.
bloodied fingers claw heaven's floor.
Foolish gods laugh and dance, as
cobbled feet drag over stones
and men of faith chase the extraordinary,
each other in tow,
and who is left but the thinking
to clean the blood from the earth.
Blessed
Ere you wish to bestow on us
your songs of thankfulness sworn,
of blessed gifts from heavens on high,
silk, and triumphantly worn,
your shepherds who have had the truth
prescribed by them from above,
whose thinking lay stashed for another day.
You are blessed, they say, to have love.
You are blessed, they say, with your health and your work,
you are blessed, they preach, with your youth,
yet where is the heart of the fickle above
less concerned with substance than couth?
"Eat now," they sing, "from this body of God,"
"Drink now," they sing, "from chalices gold."
Their words are the cloaks we inherit at birth
and we young learned to hide in their fold.
If blessed then how not cursed are we
when fate -- your model, not mine --
so decides, that blessed is the dog at your feet
thought and soul decaying and dying?
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
blessed are the angels on high.
Preachings of blessedness fall on deaf ears,
for blessed, as a concept, is lies.
your songs of thankfulness sworn,
of blessed gifts from heavens on high,
silk, and triumphantly worn,
your shepherds who have had the truth
prescribed by them from above,
whose thinking lay stashed for another day.
You are blessed, they say, to have love.
You are blessed, they say, with your health and your work,
you are blessed, they preach, with your youth,
yet where is the heart of the fickle above
less concerned with substance than couth?
"Eat now," they sing, "from this body of God,"
"Drink now," they sing, "from chalices gold."
Their words are the cloaks we inherit at birth
and we young learned to hide in their fold.
If blessed then how not cursed are we
when fate -- your model, not mine --
so decides, that blessed is the dog at your feet
thought and soul decaying and dying?
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
blessed are the angels on high.
Preachings of blessedness fall on deaf ears,
for blessed, as a concept, is lies.
Friday, October 26, 2012
The Choice of Hapiness
Ideally, happiness -- a state of mind -- a perception, if you will -- must be able to exist regardless of the results of life's excursions. That does not render the excursions themselves pointless; quite to the contrary. Much is to be gained from the journey itself. But if you agree that happiness should exist independently of these journeys, then the logical extension thereof is that it is not that which you seek that brings the happiness but a preexisting choice. A results-based threshold of happiness is doomed.
Suppose for a moment that you were the sole living being on a planet with a limited food supply. You need the food to live, yet you know there is not enough to last you your natural life. To not hunt the food is to die a certain death. To successfully hunt the food brings a sating soon tarnished as the thief time steals from you; thief winning, you die yet.
To not hunt, is to die. To hunt, also, is to die. Choosing to stay at home in the mind means the self will live a happiness that is swaddled in the blind cloth of awareness, as if our lone survivor could manufacture boundless food in his mind.
For betting on a threshold of results, you will surely die.
Suppose for a moment that you were the sole living being on a planet with a limited food supply. You need the food to live, yet you know there is not enough to last you your natural life. To not hunt the food is to die a certain death. To successfully hunt the food brings a sating soon tarnished as the thief time steals from you; thief winning, you die yet.
To not hunt, is to die. To hunt, also, is to die. Choosing to stay at home in the mind means the self will live a happiness that is swaddled in the blind cloth of awareness, as if our lone survivor could manufacture boundless food in his mind.
For betting on a threshold of results, you will surely die.
Monday, September 10, 2012
soul marches on? A Re-post from March 2010
lying in a field of fire
soul above me
stretched thin
battle weary
i am awake
i am asleep
i am all people
marching, righteous.
and the man says
we’re moving
but i don’t know
if he’s talking to me
or to my soul,
and so I march,
and i go
i stay
i fight
i die
and i live
or perhaps it is my soul
that marches
i can no longer tell.
soul above me
stretched thin
battle weary
i am awake
i am asleep
i am all people
marching, righteous.
and the man says
we’re moving
but i don’t know
if he’s talking to me
or to my soul,
and so I march,
and i go
i stay
i fight
i die
and i live
or perhaps it is my soul
that marches
i can no longer tell.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Nowhere Man
I like Facebook. I was in early, and I’m on a good amount,
but lately I find myself dreading even logging in. Political rancor, mindless repostings
of unverified quotes plastered over the photo of a famous so-and-so, and shared
links to things I don’t care a lot about have driven me to risk not finding out
about your dog dying/daughter’s graduation/photo of your dinner.
It got me to thinking, and the thinking got me absolutely nowhere, and I love it.
Let’s straighten a few things out:
·
I admire people who have opinions.
·
I enjoy debate that occurs in a positive,
constructive manner.
·
This post is not really about Facebook or
politics.
·
[spoiler alert:] We are all always nowhere.
I have a friend in LA who is by no means a stupid man who
remains 100% convinced that 9/11 was a Bush manipulated plot to start a war,
drive up oil prices and make the Bush family billions of dollars in profits.
And you know what? I cannot prove him wrong.
Then I had a little epiphany one day, in response to a posting
from him, an epiphany that led me to think: What if you are right? Does it
impact my day? Or my life? Does it change my opportunities to be a good father
to my children or a responsible participant in my society? And now this thought
process has come to me again, a tattered and bloodied victim of the thoughts,
opinions, and ramblings of a myriad of people who seem to care and who, in
their caring, drag us all into a garbage-filled gutter where the broken are
left to die.
It goes like this:
Facebook
=> Crap Feed => Disgust => Revelation => Freedom
The flow of these random streams of rancor lead me sometimes
to insight and sometimes to disgust. So many people, so many opinions, so much
energy being put into arguing the rights and wrongs. My brain freefalls – things
used to be this way (or that way), it used to be worse (or
better), it has never been this bad, the country is falling apart (or maybe no –
maybe this is what makes the country great). It’s endless AM radio static in my
brain, and it’s horrifying.
Then, I return to my conversation with said 9/11 conspiracy
theory friend, and I remember: it doesn’t really have to matter.
He thought that the World Trade Center event was a hoax, and
he was angry at me for not believing him. And whether he was right or wrong
didn’t matter, because I have chosen to live my life in the now and the
now does not require of me to know the answer to his questions. All the now asks of me is compassion and awareness.
I, today, still get worked up over politics. I get worked up
over xenophobia, homophobia, and allodoxaphobia. Even over the very
concept of “nations.” Sometimes I get scared that we’re messing it all up. Then
the revelation hits – again – and the shackles of my fear fall like dirt to the
ground.
It just doesn’t have to matter. Today – today alone! – I will
be presented with more opportunities to do good and to be good than I am
capable of seeing. Stephen Batchelor teaches us a particular Buddhist
meditation that I use often: "Since death alone is certain and the time of
death uncertain, what should I do?"
Not very often is my answer: “Worry.” So this debate leaves me exactly, happily nowhere.
Monday, August 6, 2012
T'ai Chi
I spent the day in Annapolis yesterday, with my father and a friend -- my father because I invited him to spend some unstructured down
time with me this week, and my friend because he needed an escape from his apartment.
After lunch we sat on a bench by the water and smoked some good cigars, talking about boats and life and watching the world go by. A man, white and maybe in his late-30s, did t'ai chi in the sunlight near the edge of the park, methodically and purposefully. Two younger black boys, one thin and one heavier set, both maybe 13 or 14 or so, were doing skateboard tricks up and down the curbs nearby. Tourists streamed through, as they do, chatting and taking photographs.
Then the most amazing thing happened.
The boys were staring at the man and they started to mock his practice. He saw them, it was clear, but he continued through until he reached a stopping point a good while later. I looked away for a moment to my boats and my cohorts, and when I glanced back I saw him demonstrating a basic move to the thin boy, who was facing him, mirroring what he was doing, trying, clearly, to understand it. Skateboard down, lying on the ground, a relic from a moment just gone by when mocking was king and t'ai chi was freaky. Hands up. Hands down. Up as we fill the lungs. Exhale and dooowwn.
"No, no, no! Like this!" his heavier-set friend said. A second skateboard fell to the curb, and in that moment the three of them were there, strangers so oddly brought together, doing t'ai chi in the sunshine in a park by the water in Annapolis, straight out of nowhere.
How many such moments take place in the world in the course of a day? Am I left to lament the fact that it isn't more or to celebrate that I experienced this one -- perhaps so small and so large all at the same time?
After lunch we sat on a bench by the water and smoked some good cigars, talking about boats and life and watching the world go by. A man, white and maybe in his late-30s, did t'ai chi in the sunlight near the edge of the park, methodically and purposefully. Two younger black boys, one thin and one heavier set, both maybe 13 or 14 or so, were doing skateboard tricks up and down the curbs nearby. Tourists streamed through, as they do, chatting and taking photographs.
Then the most amazing thing happened.
The boys were staring at the man and they started to mock his practice. He saw them, it was clear, but he continued through until he reached a stopping point a good while later. I looked away for a moment to my boats and my cohorts, and when I glanced back I saw him demonstrating a basic move to the thin boy, who was facing him, mirroring what he was doing, trying, clearly, to understand it. Skateboard down, lying on the ground, a relic from a moment just gone by when mocking was king and t'ai chi was freaky. Hands up. Hands down. Up as we fill the lungs. Exhale and dooowwn.
"No, no, no! Like this!" his heavier-set friend said. A second skateboard fell to the curb, and in that moment the three of them were there, strangers so oddly brought together, doing t'ai chi in the sunshine in a park by the water in Annapolis, straight out of nowhere.
How many such moments take place in the world in the course of a day? Am I left to lament the fact that it isn't more or to celebrate that I experienced this one -- perhaps so small and so large all at the same time?
Saturday, July 28, 2012
My City. A re-post from July 2012.
It's
walking to the bank. It's diversity. It's tamales for breakfast and Jon
Wye and protesters by the White House. It's stickers for causes and
girls in dresses on bicycles and dog walkers and Marine One. It's Dupont
Circle farmers market and lamb from the country and an herb garden in
the back yard and friends close by. And at this moment it's my city.
Friday, July 27, 2012
It's There if You Look. A re-blog from August 2011.
The many fallen blossoms
from the crape myrtle leave traces like a patina on the stoop in front
of my apartment. They look planned, they look like art. I hose the
blossoms away several times a week in a ritual that seems to serve no
purpose but for the satisfaction of the ritual itself, maybe for the
feel of the splash of the water on my bare feet, sometimes cool,
sometimes warm, maybe for the sound, maybe for the act of doing
something while doing nothing at all.
This pattern, this patina, painted, stained on the canvas of my world, leads up the stairs to the bricks of the front yard which find themselves impervious to the lingering memory of the tree that shades them. Here the blossoms rest and rot and the bricks find them irrelevant other, perhaps, than how they get stuck in the cracks between the bricks like popcorn does in my teeth at the movie theater. These blossoms, too, I beg away on a water ride of unparallelled excitement that takes them to the sidewalk, to the curb, to the street, where their adventure takes turns that leave me behind, watching. They're my kids on a bus on the first day of school. They're my parents driving away after a visit, my cat wandering away to experience all that which it can't find indoors. I feel good. I have done what I can.
It's August, but at 2 am the bricks feel cool as I sit. I'm not supposed to be sitting outside writing; I'm supposed to be asleep. But this city around me is calling to me in so many ways, reminding me so strongly that there is beauty everywhere, in everyone, in everything, that I don't think I can go to bed until I've tried to alert everyone. I'm on the deserted island and you're in the plane flying overhead, and I need you to see me, to see the beauty I've found, see me waving.
I don't know what the soundtrack to city life is supposed to be, but in my now, at 2:23 am on a Wednesday morning, I hear mostly crickets. Every once in a while some people walk by, wondering why I am on the stoop with my laptop, I think, walking, purposefully, maybe home from work, maybe home from a date, giggling, holding hands, talking earnestly but maybe insecurely. Every 10 minutes or so a car drifts by, excited, heading home, eager to rest finally and maybe bask in the glow of its day, its night. Sometimes though it's a cab, creeping by, hunting, predatory, moving too slowly. I feel like the cabs see everything and yet see nothing at all, certainly nothing that I see. Once though I got into a cab in Chinatown and Jimi Hendrix was on the radio. "Nice music, " I said. "You know who this is?" asked the cabbie, challenging, almost confrontational. "It's Jimi Hendrix," I said, "the greatest guitarist the world has ever known." "My man!" said the cabbie, to me, not about Jimi. That cabbie liked me a lot. I think maybe that guy sees things that I see.
In the midst of it all acorns drop here & there, intermittent and unpredictable like shooting stars, dropping onto cars, dropping onto the street, bouncing, "ker-plunk"ing, rolling away, a fraction of a second of hostility followed by utter silence. I'm not sure how the acorns feel about dropping onto asphalt. I'm thinking they must feel sad or maybe useless, directionless. Maybe we've all fallen onto asphalt before, metaphorically I mean, found ourselves feeling out of place and sad and useless and directionless. Maybe the acorns are supposed to remind us of this. But maybe they are just seeds that drop and they're not supposed to remind us of anything at all. As I sit, I don't really care. But the acorns, they "ker-plunk" repeatedly, regardless.
Mostly though it's crickets, steadily chirping away, and trees, and leaves, and a moon like a homing beacon staring at us through a haze of clouds too restless to stay. If I were a cloud, I'd stay, and watch, and listen.
This pattern, this patina, painted, stained on the canvas of my world, leads up the stairs to the bricks of the front yard which find themselves impervious to the lingering memory of the tree that shades them. Here the blossoms rest and rot and the bricks find them irrelevant other, perhaps, than how they get stuck in the cracks between the bricks like popcorn does in my teeth at the movie theater. These blossoms, too, I beg away on a water ride of unparallelled excitement that takes them to the sidewalk, to the curb, to the street, where their adventure takes turns that leave me behind, watching. They're my kids on a bus on the first day of school. They're my parents driving away after a visit, my cat wandering away to experience all that which it can't find indoors. I feel good. I have done what I can.
It's August, but at 2 am the bricks feel cool as I sit. I'm not supposed to be sitting outside writing; I'm supposed to be asleep. But this city around me is calling to me in so many ways, reminding me so strongly that there is beauty everywhere, in everyone, in everything, that I don't think I can go to bed until I've tried to alert everyone. I'm on the deserted island and you're in the plane flying overhead, and I need you to see me, to see the beauty I've found, see me waving.
I don't know what the soundtrack to city life is supposed to be, but in my now, at 2:23 am on a Wednesday morning, I hear mostly crickets. Every once in a while some people walk by, wondering why I am on the stoop with my laptop, I think, walking, purposefully, maybe home from work, maybe home from a date, giggling, holding hands, talking earnestly but maybe insecurely. Every 10 minutes or so a car drifts by, excited, heading home, eager to rest finally and maybe bask in the glow of its day, its night. Sometimes though it's a cab, creeping by, hunting, predatory, moving too slowly. I feel like the cabs see everything and yet see nothing at all, certainly nothing that I see. Once though I got into a cab in Chinatown and Jimi Hendrix was on the radio. "Nice music, " I said. "You know who this is?" asked the cabbie, challenging, almost confrontational. "It's Jimi Hendrix," I said, "the greatest guitarist the world has ever known." "My man!" said the cabbie, to me, not about Jimi. That cabbie liked me a lot. I think maybe that guy sees things that I see.
In the midst of it all acorns drop here & there, intermittent and unpredictable like shooting stars, dropping onto cars, dropping onto the street, bouncing, "ker-plunk"ing, rolling away, a fraction of a second of hostility followed by utter silence. I'm not sure how the acorns feel about dropping onto asphalt. I'm thinking they must feel sad or maybe useless, directionless. Maybe we've all fallen onto asphalt before, metaphorically I mean, found ourselves feeling out of place and sad and useless and directionless. Maybe the acorns are supposed to remind us of this. But maybe they are just seeds that drop and they're not supposed to remind us of anything at all. As I sit, I don't really care. But the acorns, they "ker-plunk" repeatedly, regardless.
Mostly though it's crickets, steadily chirping away, and trees, and leaves, and a moon like a homing beacon staring at us through a haze of clouds too restless to stay. If I were a cloud, I'd stay, and watch, and listen.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
A Rose. Re-posted from April 2012.
There is a particular rose
that grows high and leans south
through the fence of a house on T Street.
And when I walk home from yoga
this one red rose greets me at nose height and says,
"This is what you practiced for,"
and so I stop and inhale it
with my eyes closed.
that grows high and leans south
through the fence of a house on T Street.
And when I walk home from yoga
this one red rose greets me at nose height and says,
"This is what you practiced for,"
and so I stop and inhale it
with my eyes closed.
My Narrative. A re-post from May 2012.
I was envious, in my youth,
of the boys with the thin hair
that cooperated like a Quaker child, submissive.
I have been envious of the shallow people who seem to know joys
that to me are as far away as an understanding of the universe.
I have watched the soulless men who work and count
days and dollars
and I have wanted to understand how so that I could pretend to like it, too.
I have lived the narrative that is me,
a crazy man saddled on a zebra
riding in the brush next to the highway
sneaking through fences,
staring at your discarded washing machines,
wondering where the cars are going.
that cooperated like a Quaker child, submissive.
I have been envious of the shallow people who seem to know joys
that to me are as far away as an understanding of the universe.
I have watched the soulless men who work and count
days and dollars
and I have wanted to understand how so that I could pretend to like it, too.
I have lived the narrative that is me,
a crazy man saddled on a zebra
riding in the brush next to the highway
sneaking through fences,
staring at your discarded washing machines,
wondering where the cars are going.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
"Somebody asked me..." A re-blog from January 2011
A really dear friend of mine asked me how I am. "How you really are," she said, "not the Facebook kind." And this is what I said:
I love that you asked. The answer is: my toes are cold, and, in a way, that might kind of sum it up.
I am happy,
feeling grounded,
feeling content,
occasionally peppered by little tiny moments of anxiety
(Siddhartha would be so disappointed in me some days).
I love my little English basement apartment; it allows me to really feel at peace and happy. What better could a home do than that?
Sometimes I wish I didn't have to watch movies without someone to cuddle with, but I know that that is only temporary. A day, a month, a year, a decade... a lifetime. They're all temporary. And when I remember not to "want" what isn't, the feeling wanes pretty quickly. I like watching myself as I watch a feeling wane. It's weird. It's like how I watched myself slipping and falling on the ice on the way home from the staff party Monday night. I laughed every time I fell, because that was the option I liked best.
I spend a lot of time noticing how many things crop up that are not exactly how I may have wished but that don't bother me for being that. I also spend a lot of time realizing how many times a day some folks get angry at the very same types of things. Then, in those moments, I secretly hope for them that they can find a better way to be. Their way is hard. Negativity is exhausting.
I'm a little bit of a Facebook addict because I'm a little bit of a people addict, and my people are scattered. For that reason I don't understand why so many people love to hate on Facebook. For me it's part megaphone, part billboard, part scrapbook, and part water cooler. Part thesis. Part sympathy card. And a lot more.
I watched a Kung Fu movie marathon with my son Brandon the other day. We laughed until we had to go searching for the Albuterol. That rocks. Can you do better than that?
My toes are cold because I haven't had an electric bill over $49 since someone moved out. They reached $165 a month last winter. So I'm ok with my toes being cold; I just had to learn to wear socks inside the house. I bet the homeless guys have colder toes than I do.
I wish I meditated more and I wish I did more yoga, but sometimes it's hard to do that alone. And then I remember that I do those things to achieve a peace that isn't available to me any other way, and then I remember that I do meditate, and I do do yoga, and if I decide not to be stressed about whether-or-not it's "enough," then it suddenly becomes "enough." Wow. Here's me watching my slow-motion-ice-falling again.
I think that that's me. I feel pretty goddamned lucky.
I love that you asked. The answer is: my toes are cold, and, in a way, that might kind of sum it up.
I am happy,
feeling grounded,
feeling content,
occasionally peppered by little tiny moments of anxiety
(Siddhartha would be so disappointed in me some days).
I love my little English basement apartment; it allows me to really feel at peace and happy. What better could a home do than that?
Sometimes I wish I didn't have to watch movies without someone to cuddle with, but I know that that is only temporary. A day, a month, a year, a decade... a lifetime. They're all temporary. And when I remember not to "want" what isn't, the feeling wanes pretty quickly. I like watching myself as I watch a feeling wane. It's weird. It's like how I watched myself slipping and falling on the ice on the way home from the staff party Monday night. I laughed every time I fell, because that was the option I liked best.
I spend a lot of time noticing how many things crop up that are not exactly how I may have wished but that don't bother me for being that. I also spend a lot of time realizing how many times a day some folks get angry at the very same types of things. Then, in those moments, I secretly hope for them that they can find a better way to be. Their way is hard. Negativity is exhausting.
I'm a little bit of a Facebook addict because I'm a little bit of a people addict, and my people are scattered. For that reason I don't understand why so many people love to hate on Facebook. For me it's part megaphone, part billboard, part scrapbook, and part water cooler. Part thesis. Part sympathy card. And a lot more.
I watched a Kung Fu movie marathon with my son Brandon the other day. We laughed until we had to go searching for the Albuterol. That rocks. Can you do better than that?
My toes are cold because I haven't had an electric bill over $49 since someone moved out. They reached $165 a month last winter. So I'm ok with my toes being cold; I just had to learn to wear socks inside the house. I bet the homeless guys have colder toes than I do.
I wish I meditated more and I wish I did more yoga, but sometimes it's hard to do that alone. And then I remember that I do those things to achieve a peace that isn't available to me any other way, and then I remember that I do meditate, and I do do yoga, and if I decide not to be stressed about whether-or-not it's "enough," then it suddenly becomes "enough." Wow. Here's me watching my slow-motion-ice-falling again.
I think that that's me. I feel pretty goddamned lucky.
In The Role of "Customer"... a re-blog from May 2009
So if the girl at the Wendy's in
Chesapeake blogged (which would require proficiency in her native
English, which is highly doubtful), I would be a subject. She would
blog, sitting at a friend's computer, guzzling her Dr. Pepper and chain
smoking Salems and trying to spell words like "asshole" and "customer"
without benefit of spellcheck. Somehow I picture a toddler balanced on
her knee, too (although I'm unsure in my mind if it's hers or the
friend's and does it matter?).
As no particular friend of fast food I just wanted something to eat on my last trip home from DC. This Wendy's is new'ish, not in a scary area, and easy-off easy-on from the toll road. I decided to craft my own meal, mostly from the $.99 menu. And I will say that the food at Wendy's tends to make me less ill than the food from most fast food places, so kudos to them. My meal building went like this: two Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers ($.99 ea.), a regular fries ($.99), and "Value Soda" ($.99), and a small chocolate Frosty ($1.39 and, by the way, "Chocolate Frosty" is redundant, like "Gin Martini"). So in my head I think Burger - Burger - Fry - Soda - four bucks. Add Frosty, low fives. Add some tax, upper fives. I pull around.
When my sweetly-plump chain-smoking (that's an assumption, but really, come on) window girl greeted me she confirmed what I thought I'd heard through the speaker, that my total was in the upper $6 range. My brain was curious as to how we arrived here in the upper sixes when we had been expecting a little fling with the fives.
"Hi," [smile]. You don't want to startle them. It's like encountering a strange dog. "Umm... I was just wondering how my total got to be Six Something [smile]. I'm not mad or anything, juuuust wondering [SMILE]."
"Well you ordered a Jr. Bacon, a drink, AND Fries so I upgraded you to a combo because it's a better deal."
"Uhh.. I'm sorry, but how can it be a better deal if it costs more?"
I could end this story here, and you could just guess the rest and you'd probably be right, in spirit.
"Well you get a bigger drink and bigger fries with the combo," she says. I see her sensing that things aren't going to go well, just like how I could tell those dogs were about to chase me when I delivered the Washington Post on my bicycle when I was 14. It's still scary.
"ALSO," she says, "you got a Frosty. That's $1.39 PLUS TAX." Ahh, tax. Thank God she taught me about tax. I'd had no idea there was such a thing.
I sigh. I also know that this is not going to go well, like when you convinced yourself that you could learn what you'd been ignoring in Calculus on the bus on your way to school on the day of the test. "I know there's tax. But if what I ordered is about $5.50 or so of food, how can a combo that adds up to $6.79 be a 'better deal'?"
Perhaps I should have tried "Your babies are ugly," "The south really did lose the war," or even "I hate Dale Earnhardt." Any of those would have worked out better, I suspect. She stopped in her tracks, mid-upgraded-soda pouring, shot me a look that expressed every ounce of why she hated me, her job, and her life. She set my now-half-filled-upgraded-soda on the window ledge, spun around and screamed "RHONDA!" as she walked away. Rhonda, a much more pleasant seeming woman, appeared at the window. "Sir," says Rhonda, "The combo is a better deal."
"Hi," [SMILE]. "I really don't want to be difficult [SMILE]. I just ordered five bucks worth of food, she changed my order so that it costs me six bucks and change, and I don't think that's a 'better deal' at all." I so can't believe that I'm doing this.
"Sir a small Frosty is almost two dollars," says Rhonda. Yeah. If that tax rate is actually more like 50%.
"You know, Rhonda," I say, "It's ok. I don't care. I'll take the combo. It's not a lot of money. I have no desire to be difficult. I just asked why it cost more than what I ordered. But it's ok. Give me the combo. Mostly I just want to eat and I want to go home. Please."
But Rhonda will not have it. Rhonda is now re-ringing up my order to see how much it would have cost without the "better deal." Cars pile up behind me. Glaring drivers wish me dead for slowing them down. Children cry. Fire rains from the sky and animals in the forest scamper away towards safety. Salem Girl is pacing around the counter area jonesing for a smoke. A cute high-school-aged black girl leans out the drive-thru window and says, "I like your car." This is surreal.
"Thanks," I murmur. "They all hate me in there, don't they." More a statement than a question.
"Yeah," she agrees. "I bet it goes fast. How fast have you driven it?" I glance around for Rod Serling but don't see him. I don't understand life at all at this moment.
Rhonda again. "Did you want a VALUE soda?"
I'm a prisoner of war. I hope the torture is nearing its end. "Yes," I sigh.
"And you wanted SMALL fries?"
[Sigh] "Yes."
"Five sixty two. Here's your change." Death stare from Rhonda.
Out the window from behind the death stare comes my change, two drinks and a bag of food. For the first time in my life I worry about what may have been done to something I am about to eat, but even after all this I am simply too hungry to care. The black girl smiles at me. Salem girl is at the counter talking to mean-looking boys who may-or-may-not-have-fathered-children with her and surely drive big pick up trucks with big rebel flags and gun racks and hate stored under the seat like a box of ammo. I leave, thinking that the one who liked my car would surely have enjoyed how fast I drove away.
As no particular friend of fast food I just wanted something to eat on my last trip home from DC. This Wendy's is new'ish, not in a scary area, and easy-off easy-on from the toll road. I decided to craft my own meal, mostly from the $.99 menu. And I will say that the food at Wendy's tends to make me less ill than the food from most fast food places, so kudos to them. My meal building went like this: two Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers ($.99 ea.), a regular fries ($.99), and "Value Soda" ($.99), and a small chocolate Frosty ($1.39 and, by the way, "Chocolate Frosty" is redundant, like "Gin Martini"). So in my head I think Burger - Burger - Fry - Soda - four bucks. Add Frosty, low fives. Add some tax, upper fives. I pull around.
When my sweetly-plump chain-smoking (that's an assumption, but really, come on) window girl greeted me she confirmed what I thought I'd heard through the speaker, that my total was in the upper $6 range. My brain was curious as to how we arrived here in the upper sixes when we had been expecting a little fling with the fives.
"Hi," [smile]. You don't want to startle them. It's like encountering a strange dog. "Umm... I was just wondering how my total got to be Six Something [smile]. I'm not mad or anything, juuuust wondering [SMILE]."
"Well you ordered a Jr. Bacon, a drink, AND Fries so I upgraded you to a combo because it's a better deal."
"Uhh.. I'm sorry, but how can it be a better deal if it costs more?"
I could end this story here, and you could just guess the rest and you'd probably be right, in spirit.
"Well you get a bigger drink and bigger fries with the combo," she says. I see her sensing that things aren't going to go well, just like how I could tell those dogs were about to chase me when I delivered the Washington Post on my bicycle when I was 14. It's still scary.
"ALSO," she says, "you got a Frosty. That's $1.39 PLUS TAX." Ahh, tax. Thank God she taught me about tax. I'd had no idea there was such a thing.
I sigh. I also know that this is not going to go well, like when you convinced yourself that you could learn what you'd been ignoring in Calculus on the bus on your way to school on the day of the test. "I know there's tax. But if what I ordered is about $5.50 or so of food, how can a combo that adds up to $6.79 be a 'better deal'?"
Perhaps I should have tried "Your babies are ugly," "The south really did lose the war," or even "I hate Dale Earnhardt." Any of those would have worked out better, I suspect. She stopped in her tracks, mid-upgraded-soda pouring, shot me a look that expressed every ounce of why she hated me, her job, and her life. She set my now-half-filled-upgraded-soda on the window ledge, spun around and screamed "RHONDA!" as she walked away. Rhonda, a much more pleasant seeming woman, appeared at the window. "Sir," says Rhonda, "The combo is a better deal."
"Hi," [SMILE]. "I really don't want to be difficult [SMILE]. I just ordered five bucks worth of food, she changed my order so that it costs me six bucks and change, and I don't think that's a 'better deal' at all." I so can't believe that I'm doing this.
"Sir a small Frosty is almost two dollars," says Rhonda. Yeah. If that tax rate is actually more like 50%.
"You know, Rhonda," I say, "It's ok. I don't care. I'll take the combo. It's not a lot of money. I have no desire to be difficult. I just asked why it cost more than what I ordered. But it's ok. Give me the combo. Mostly I just want to eat and I want to go home. Please."
But Rhonda will not have it. Rhonda is now re-ringing up my order to see how much it would have cost without the "better deal." Cars pile up behind me. Glaring drivers wish me dead for slowing them down. Children cry. Fire rains from the sky and animals in the forest scamper away towards safety. Salem Girl is pacing around the counter area jonesing for a smoke. A cute high-school-aged black girl leans out the drive-thru window and says, "I like your car." This is surreal.
"Thanks," I murmur. "They all hate me in there, don't they." More a statement than a question.
"Yeah," she agrees. "I bet it goes fast. How fast have you driven it?" I glance around for Rod Serling but don't see him. I don't understand life at all at this moment.
Rhonda again. "Did you want a VALUE soda?"
I'm a prisoner of war. I hope the torture is nearing its end. "Yes," I sigh.
"And you wanted SMALL fries?"
[Sigh] "Yes."
"Five sixty two. Here's your change." Death stare from Rhonda.
Out the window from behind the death stare comes my change, two drinks and a bag of food. For the first time in my life I worry about what may have been done to something I am about to eat, but even after all this I am simply too hungry to care. The black girl smiles at me. Salem girl is at the counter talking to mean-looking boys who may-or-may-not-have-fathered-children with her and surely drive big pick up trucks with big rebel flags and gun racks and hate stored under the seat like a box of ammo. I leave, thinking that the one who liked my car would surely have enjoyed how fast I drove away.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
The Long Way Home
I took the long way home tonight,
winding through the back streets, almost alone.
The breeze suggested it to me.
The crisp air agreed, curious.
South on 11th, southwest on Maryland,
through the fringes of Capitol Hill.
The houses were quiet,
lights escaped here and there through the trees,
explosions of color and movement from televisions
echoed on dark walls,
danced on cars and tree leaves,
a silent dream
that leaves no mark.
Around Stanton Park, west on Constitution,
the park vacant let for a lone dog walker
and an unfortunate man in a Toyota
who had garnered the attention of several police cars.
But through the flashing lights they, too,
surely thought the night was lovely;
their manner was relaxed, they stood a little taller,
it seemed.
West on Constitution, onto Pennsylvania,
into the grandeur—neoclassical, gothic, modern,
Georgian, French Second Empire,
Federalist, Victorian—
buildings lit, security guards pacing,
slowly,
bored,
shifting their weight from foot to foot
wrestling perhaps with whether the boredom
or its end
would be worse.
On Pennsylvania, up towards 15th, a group of
thin young men in elegant suits walks on the sidewalk,
laughing,
striding past the Willard Hotel,
pats on the back,
smiles large,
life seems easy for them tonight.
At 15th and K they are repaving the road
and a stocky Hispanic man holds a “STOP/SLOW” sign.
He looks uncomfortable,
like he has more gravity than he should
and standing is hard.
I like this man, and I want to follow him home
to see his dinner table set,
children hugging him as he walks in,
the day exhaling from his lungs,
a smile escaping, hardscrabble,
a crucifix on the wall,
the carpet thin and the dinner simple.
West on K towards 16th,
a Ferrari in front of me is struggling
to decide its direction—stop? go? south on 16th?
service lane?—
I see the long, thinning hair of the driver
and the light blue Hawaiian shirt of his passenger,
and maybe I do and maybe I don’t
cringe
just a little.
16th Street, brings me
home,
its buildings comfortable and quiet
and its pedestrians happy,
and its pedestrians happy,
holding hands.
The city is a shy girl on the first day of school
trying to hide behind her dress,
smiling.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Clocks
What is it about ticking clocks? What is it about the clink of an ice cube dropped into a glass or the flare of sulfur at the end of a match? A knife through celery, footsteps on gravel, or a flag whipping in the wind? They are not real and yet they are supremely real. Understanding this is a good first step.
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