I didn’t feel like seeing anyone today. It used to be all my old friends would hang out together every night in somebody’s crappy apartment or trailer and all I had to do to see everyone was show up at a nightly get-together and all the fish were there in the barrel, ready to be shot. Now, people have their own houses and families, jobs in the morning, and so forth, so it’s mostly individual visits if I feel like seeing old friends, which I usually do, but not today. Today I didn’t feel like seeing anybody. I thought about calling my friend George, whose family essentially adopted me during high school, get his sister’s number and go see her in Reliance, north of town, while he was at work and then drop in on him after he got off, but I just didn’t feel like seeing anyone today.
This morning a guy emailed me from the University of Iowa and said he’s bringing a cadre of accomplished international writers to New Orleans next week, and asked if I could help arrange some activities for them that would engage them with the city’s literary life. So, I spent much of the morning on the phone and sending emails, so that was nice, since I didn’t want to see anyone today.
I don’t know why I didn’t feel like seeing anyone today. I don’t feel bad or anxious. I sort of feel like I have things to do, but I don’t think that was it, because I really didn’t do any work today, and I don’t feel guilty about it. Well, maybe a little.
Instead of working today, I decided to walk to the community college. It’s on the next hill over, a few miles away, and has some pretty sweet dinosaur skeletons and a library I was sure contained a book I’d been looking for, Washington Irving’s The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, a masterful recounting of said captain’s explorations of the Rocky Mountains, especially Wyoming, told occasionally like Cormac McCarthy describing some snowy mountain pass Frodo had to traverse in Lord of the Rings. So I filled a mug of coffee, strapped a backpack on and set out into the beautiful, sunny day.
There’s the college, the brownish compound on yonder mountain.
I’ve always loved alleys. They’re like secret cities inside cities.
This tree house is pretty mediocre, but, hey, probably better than your tree house.
These trees are in front of the junior high I attended, which is sealed shut and ready for demolition later this fall. I had a lot of bad times at that school.
Yelling shit out car windows at pedestrians was never really a pastime of mine and my friends’ growing up, but it was frequently a supplemental activity to whatever else we were doing. While I was taking a picture of this union hall, some kid drove by and yelled, “It’s not that interesting!” Without missing a beat I replied, “Neither are you!” and felt good that I’ve still got it.
Some ladies were sweeping out an abandoned bank to turn it into a haunted house in October and let me wander around.
No one stays at the Park Hotel
Yep.
