The Unfortunate Annual Transient

This is my sojourn from Seattle back to the Midwestern motherland. Speckled enamel coffee cups, humidity, fireflies and confronting my addiction to change. Where will this one lead...

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

I move, and almost didn't move (from a pole)

I'm moving to St. Louis. I did the math, and it is cheaper and more reasonable for me to move out of my dad's rural abode, and live carlessly, in urban St. Louis, than it is for me to buy a car and afford to commute into downtown. Honestly, I don't mind. I lived without a car for six months in Seattle, and actually enjoyed it. And working for the public transit system here in St. Louis...I'm just supporting the family business. While I will be squatting in the three-walled "art studio" part of a one-bedroom apartment (my new theme song...ain't no bed smaaaallll-enough!), I will be living on one of the best street in America. And most importantly, hopefully I will get some of that zest for life back. I miss the energy of a city. Where young people, however hopelessly cynical and broke, still believe their futures will juxtapose someplace wonderful and grand.

Oh, and funny story: a week ago, I was walking to my Metro stop in Shiloh, and a thirty-something year old guy with Down Syndrome asked me if I wanted to see a magic trick. I did a quick scan to see if another train was coming round the bend (the signal that the stationed train would be leaving soon), and there wasn't one, so I said sure. I expected him to whip out some of those novelty hoops or some cards or something. Instead, he said, you have to put your hands behind your back. I was carrying a bag at the time, so I put one behind my back. He circled behind me, and I expected him to put something in my hands, like a hidden quarter or something. He then asks me to put both hands behind my back, and I see, out of the corner of my eye, that he is drawing a longish rope out of his pocket.

Lightbulb moment: this guy wants to tie me up.

I assess my options: let this guy tie me up, or cordially decline having my hands tied together at a Metro stop. I go for the latter, claiming that I "unfortunately don't have time to be tied up" because I have to catch a train. He disappointedly obliges. I find out later, at work, that this guy managed to tie a woman to a pole the day before. She was remarkably good-natured about it, calling it in mostly as a "by the way...". But geez. I think about this later: no matter how optimistic are my liberal tendencies, I probably shouldn't let any stranger tie me to a bus stop pole. Unless it's Johnny Depp. Lesson for the ages.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Back to blogging, turtles and spraying that stuff

For a while I was blogging on MySpace, but the formatting is uncomfortable and visual aesthetics are akin to a Wal-Mart dressing room, so it’s back to Blogspot. The only thing that I don’t like about Blogspot is it’s ability to know it's me before I've logged in. Because it’s linked to Gmail, it automatically loads my blog when I type in the main page’s URL, even when I’ve logged out of my email account. Just another one of Google’s beautifully hegemonic detailing.

I watched part of The Sarah Silverman Program last night. First time, and the jury’s still out. Something not quite funny about that woman. Probably her nasal-drag voice and her gopher face.

I ran over a turtle last night. And it was horrible. I have run over raccoons and harried squirrels and recently witnessed the Look of Impending Death on a young possum, and it didn’t bother me. Circle of life, dust to dust, Bambi to road splat, etc. I was on I-55/70E, right near the I-64 split, in post-work traffic. There are a lot of cars on the road. And I saw him…a box turtle. Just a little guy. And he was trucking it. He was pumping his little turtle legs as fast as he could. You could see the look of determination about him. He was going to make it! He had gotten past one lane of traffic, and only had two more to go. And I saw him plowing forward as fast and as hard as he could and I thought, oh God buddy. I’m so sorry. I know you are trying really, really hard…but you’re not going to make it.

Thump, and he met his Maker under the tires of my Volvo station wagon.

And I thought to myself, “Man, what were you thinking? Didn’t you see those giant, buzzing and vibrating, smelly-hot metal beasts barreling down this road? Aren’t they going approximately 2000 times faster than your sense of perspective can even comprehend? What is so great about what’s over there, that you would step out of the grass and into a patch of cigarette butts and broken glass and go for what you must realize is in impossible crossing?"

See, when some retard squirrel darts across the street (or worse, runs away and then BACK into traffic), I don’t feel sorry for it. It’s fast. Probably faster than my wagon. It made a miscalculation, and now its Stupid genes are no longer available to propagate squirrel idiocy on this earth. But the turtle…that turtle was trying to get somewhere. He was huffing it. I seriously wondered what could have made such a perilous journey seem worth it to him.

I got a little weepy-eyed and said a prayer that hed have plenty of lettuce and bugs when he got where he was going.

So here’s to all the little determined turtles I know. You may end up wedged in the treads of a proverbial Goodyear, but at least you’re going for it.

And finally – and unrelatedly - I love this quote. Whether he’s kind of an idiot, or just simply honest, or both:

"I've seen this on TV a lot and I'm excited to be part of it. I've always wanted to spray whatever that stuff is all over the place."

- Rockies’ right-fielder Matt Holliday, whose team won the NL Wild Card by beating the Phillies in the 13th, on how awesome it is to spray that stuff.