Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from April, 2012

Timescene 1:06 PM

A pregnant woman in a green shirt passes out a poem to a passerby while a man in shorts interviews another woman in a green shirt about the purpose of their exercise. A woman with impossibly red hair bounces past furiously trying to avoid a piece of literature. The pregnant woman looks side to side waiting for another mark. Her child that already draws breath is excitedly chewing some food and shaking his water bottle. A man walks past and he seems reluctant. He walks past, but she says something that catches his ear and he returns. He puts his hand in the polka dot bag she is carrying and retrieves a poem. He looks at it briefly and then walks on. The cameraman wanders around in circles, his camera slung over his right shoulder as he waits for someone else to speak with for a news story he's doing on this project. He manages to snag one of the women who runs the organization WriterHouse, and she's explaining the importance of the project. The WriterHouse woman reaches in

One hour of editing

2:33 pm Over 1,600 words of notes from a court case. It's a mess, transcribed from chicken scratch notes. I don't have a recording of the hearing, but I jotted down paragraphs that make sense independently. But, I have to get through them and give it a narrative. The process must be completed in an hour because I have to work my second job tonight, a catering gig located elsewhere on the mall. This is how I help pay for my child support. I'm distracted by the sunny day outside. I want to run in order to get my mind off a zombie relationship that keeps rising from the dead for brief awakenings that give me hope of happiness. I travel there, have a good time, but then when I get home I'm back to the solitude and the loneliness. A track by the German band Can plays in my headphones. On my other screen, the words await me to give them shape, to give them life so people can know what happened in that court room. I have my lede paragraph written. That's about it

Approaching, not reaching

Halfway through my life there's a sense I should have paid more attention in calculus. I vaguely remember something about curving lines that could come ever and ever closer to a vertical line, but couldn't quite make it there. In this mess of a thought is an apt metaphor I wish I could flesh out further, but alas. I'm hobbled by what I can write here mostly by the limitations of what you can say in a public journal. Everything is now actionable. Everything we do is watched, scrutinized, assembled into dossiers that may or may not prove that we are a threat to society. Or that we aren't employable. So, I back off and say very little about anything, except in rants to people I meet from time to time. And hopefully none of that is actionable, though you can never really tell in a town like the one in which I live. It's been two weeks now since I got back from England. I've settled right back into my schedule, have worked my first catering gig, and have recurr

The new chapter begins

I write this from my desk in Charlottesville, where I can watch people walk past my office all day while writing about the community I live in. I am well on my way to getting back up to speed after a week away in England. I crammed seven days of experience into my life and managed to survive a lack of financial challenges. I bonded with my son and met new friends and spent quality time with my other family there. I had intended to write more here about the trip here, but I mostly wrote freehand. I am planning on writing out the details of what I experienced, but will likely save most of that for private journals. But,  at this desk, I know that I am going to have to begin planning for the next trip. My experience is still fresh in my head, and I know that I have to go back as soon as possible. In a perfect world, I would be able to find professional reasons to travel there to help supplement the personal ones.   In a nutshell, I know that I want to spend more time in England both

A massive amount of chirping

A pigeon calls out as numerous small birds chatter and fly around as the innkeeper stands in the gravel drive speaking with someone. Just behind I can see out to the road, cars and trucks whizzing past at speeds that seem too swift. On the other side of the road, a green hill banks up steep. On the other side is one of the Tring reservoirs. It had been my hope that I could have run along the Grand Union Canal today, but my shoes are not here. They are in my luggage, which did not arrive at the same time as me. I went for a walk instead, maybe a three mile loop. It wasn't as much fun as running would have been. I've not run since Saturday and my body is crying out for the exercise. I spent the last two days traveling and settling in to my trip here. I've left my credit card home, so I'm trying to avoid the stress that could cause if I chose to allow it to do so. I am drawing upon all of the relaxation and breathing techniques I have learned in the last few years.