What’s in front of me
A scruffy, old man in ball cap and overalls, clutching a copy of Mark Twain’s “Roughing It,” stops by for coffee. A dog follows him unleashed, one that may or may not be his. As he ducks in for brew, she waits on alert in the cool, humid air outside. Loyal.
She has collie features, but is more accurately deemed a mutt: two-toned long fur, white and ruddy brown.
A small baking pan is brought with ice water. She drinks guiltily, then settles in. He cracks the tattered paperback, lights a cigarette. His free hand absentmindedly scratches the dog’s head, her tongue dangling in ecstasy.
After a while, the man pauses, wipes the sweat from his brow, and the dog jumps to attention. “Stay, baby” he softly requests.
Her name is Pocket.
July 29, 2011 1 Comment
Flying on the Fourth
Scene at Moe’s in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport
There’s a young woman, no older than 22, paying me more attention than usual. She’s a few tables away, wearing a multi-colored dress and far too many bracelets. I’m just trying to scarf down a burrito before boarding my flight to Illinois. No time for googley eyes.
A few minutes pass, and then…
“Can I put my hand on your knee?”
She’s asking the older man at the table between us. I can see that he’s bandaged up, but this seems out of the ordinary for conversation between two strangers. Even with hot sauce flowing freely.
He replies: “Umm, sure.” She scoots over, puts her hand on his injured knee, and starts praying. In the middle of the restaurant. In the middle of Concourse C. At the busiest airport in the world.
A hippie healing.
July 4, 2011 5 Comments
Random acts of weather
This transition from spring to summer has been schizophrenic, seesawing between “no jacket required”-stifling humidity to bitter, Hemingway-depression. Count me in that latter camp: I’m no sunny flower and I love hot drinks too much. 60 degrees and a fine mist is the very definition of a happy Adam.
But who wants to read about the weather? Not this guy. I write about it enough, along with murders, mangled cars and burning houses most mornings at the Journal Star. I’ve come up with a new slogan for my news brief expertise:
Just give me the facts
and I’ll shit out 4 graphs.
I can no longer write casually. This is the literary equivalent of blowing your nose and hoping something becomes dislodged.
6/7/11 – notes from a walk through my neighborhood (written in sloppy pencil)
The veiled moon overhead, neighbors blasting Ben Harper in their backyard, majestic Moss Ave porches ablaze with Django Reinhart drifting from interior safety, runners breathless, bicyclists with lone headlamps mingling dangerously, cherries in my hand, a strange smell of burning house makes me nervous. The first timid fireflies trying their on/off switches for the first time, the stillness of air does nothing for my damp shirt, and yet few mosquitoes exist.
June 23, 2011 Leave a comment
Self-explanatory
A young guy is out on a Saturday night in his best shoes, talking to a girl he’s met in a bar. She’s nice, he likes her. But he’s got this sort of confession, see. There’s something she ought to know about him. And he’s never told this to anybody. You see, on the inside, deep on the inside, he isn’t really a guy at all. He’s an Olivetti electric self-correcting typewriter. And he can’t even type!
–”A Singular Kinda Guy” by David Ives
June 4, 2011 Leave a comment
Out of context quote no. 5
“It’s like this — your family, your wife, won’t let you go out and pick up girls. But you went out and did it anyway,” Mr. Guan said. “Secret flying is like secret love. You do it, you don’t tell people about it.”
China’s Rich Try to Fly Around Red Tape – New York Times, May 19, 2011
May 20, 2011 Leave a comment