The chap with wings there. Five rounds rapid.
For the last four years, I’ve kind of been stuck in place, emotionally and physically. Years spent tackling the long, arduous process of healing – from chronic pain, to brain surgery, to the newly unclouded realization that life really is a sad, often tedious joke.
Continue reading ‘Drive, They Said’
Just about all of my friends who have travelled extensively by rail in the UK have found themselves, at one time or another, stuck at the Castle Cary station in Somerset waiting for a transfer. Castle Cary almost always creeps into the conversation when exchanging vacation stories.
Continue reading ‘Castle Cary’
I’ve long harbored a secret love for the British canals. My friend’s parents introduced me to the canals many years ago and, slowly, my (semi-)annual visits to the UK have become dominated by cruises with them. So there I was, early 30’s, with a couple of retired folks, moving through cities and countryside at four miles per hour. Healthy food, old movies, and to bed by 9pm.
Continue reading ‘On the Canal’
On the road again.
The interstate screaming beneath my tires, the mountains on the horizon. West into the setting sun, truckers roaring past as I hug the granny lane, cruise control to five miles over the speed limit, a steady, relaxing cruise control. The plugs of traffic, traveling like miniature herds of harried animals, rise up in my rear view, close the gap, zoom past. Brake lights dancing if the leader sees a cop, imagined or not. They vanish around a bend, leaving me alone again with the lonely road.
Continue reading ‘Acura’s Last Ride’
As you read this, my plane will be bumping from BWI to New Orleans, a town I’ve tried to visit at least once a year since 2001.
Continue reading ‘Journeys’
June in DC! When the lovely spring weather slowly slides into swampland horror. The sun glares down and it’s a humid mid-80’s before 8am. I try to walk 10 miles a day, despite my soul-murdering sedentary day job, so I push on through Code Orange mornings, breathing in toxic fumes and insuring that I’ll die, choking to death, at the age of 63. All for the illusion of fitness.
It’s about this time of year when I think about my long-abandoned goal to become a landscaper. That was back in 99, and I had just had what we’ll go ahead and call a nervous breakdown. I wanted to quit the office life forever, never dress up again, and get dirty every day. Drive around in a truck and mow lawns, plant trees, tend to gardens, wear shorts, and get sexually molested by lonely housewives and/or Slovenian ex-hooker au pairs.
Yet, I write this now after nine years sitting in a windowless office, talking to morons, and being treated by my superiors like I’m a troubled 13 year old.
Every time I head out to see my friends in New Orleans, I feel compelled to put up a note on the front page so the one or two people who read GS know absolutely every aspect of my life. Right now, for instance, there’s a 12 year old kid outside screaming “I’m going to fucking poop on you bitch!”
Continue reading ‘NOLA 3: With a Vengeance’
These days, I get off the Metro a few stops early and walk into work, which is my only form of exercise. It also gives me the chance to daydream. There are parts of DC that remind me of the places I’ve been. The stark poverty around the train station in Brasov, Romania, the urban decay feel of some of England’s medium sized towns and, on rainy, grey days, coming out of Queen Street station in Glasgow. There’s even a touch of Seville here and there.
Continue reading ‘The Travel Bug’
Ah, winter’s angry hold has finally broken. The first signs of Spring in Washington are upon us – namely, fleets of landscapers out preparing our corporate greenspaces for the warm weather.
Whilst they labor with their hoes and clippers, surrounded by bags of mulch and soil, I’m somewhat nostalgic about my own attempt to change my direction in life.
And the end of the American Braves story. It’s really annoying when it’s spread over four weeks, eh?
We ended up at a crazy bar, which I must go visit again, run by the guy who wrote Rhyme & Punishment, which I’ve forgotten entirely. And who knows if he’s still around eight years later?
Continue reading ‘Sunday Archive XXIV: American Braves, Part Four of Four’
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