intangibles: December 2002 Archives

There are times where I manage to get outside myself. Where I can stop thinking about my issues, stop thinking about the things that are hurtling towards me. And even the things that are of concern to me.

Let's face it, even those commercials asking you to feed starving children in Africa appeal to your desire to feel like you're helping someone less fortunate than yourself.

I still think of myself as the boy from a small town; but I don't know how real that is any more. I first noticed in college that I have a certain amount of adjustment time whenever my environment changes. For the first couple weeks of school, I was running into walls, tripping, and knocking stuff over. Not so much later, though, I was smoothly moving through the dorms, half asleep and half nekkid, with no problems. Now I see myself doing that in DC. I can really walk the street and feel like I belong there. Hell. Just the fact I feel anything but paranoia on the street is a major change, since I was assaulted.

I don't know how to describe the feeling really. Very peaceful. Very alive. Very "just is". According to the quote taped up to the wall over my desk, I guess this is happiness.

Is there anything on earth that smells better than the freshly washed and still damp women's hair? I just wanted to grab the head of the girl in front of me on the bus and bury my nose in her hair. If 'soft' had a smell, this would be it.

Running a close second, of course, is fresh pepperoni. You sniff some fresh pepperoni and you know exactly why you're a meat-eater. The flesh, the grease, the texture.

The books today are, in no particular order, Teenagers from Mars #'s 3 & 4; WildCATs Version 3.0 #4; Global Frequency #2; 100% #4 (fuckin' finally!); Wolverine #183, Fight for Tomorrow #3; Wolverine: Netsuke #4; Uncanny X-men #416.

It is now, one month and counting, until BWM2003

Since I bought my new computer, I tend to sit on the end of the couch typing. From that position, I have a direct view of the flight path leaving Washington National Airport. Pretty regularly, a plane takes off from there about every minute or two. Thankfully I'm far enough away so that the only time the sound reaches me is when the weather is right.

Just yesterday I was on those planes. After a seven hour delay in New York, I finally got back from my thanksgiving trip,

I noticed I was feeling much the same as I did after my last trip to see stacey, at her graduation in May. I remember more about small town life than the lack of shopping. There's definite atmosphere to those places. While there's never a lack of stupid people, there is much more common sense and decency. I tend to come back a lot less angry. I walk through town on my way back from the airport, and remember like some bad dream the pent up stress and anger I usually experienced walking those streets on any other night.

A great deal of it is caused by the utter insanity I call my job. As anyone about their job, and you hear about the projects they're completing and the clients they're dealing with. But not at DKG. You simply hear about the problems that exist with other workers. It's insane. The sheer, utter, petty, useless infighting that goes on.

I once again very much questioned why I am staying there.

The problem is that question leads to oh so many others. If I did leave, then what? Do I travel again, and if so... to where? Nearer to my friends, who may also move again at any time? To another big city, or small town, where I again know no one? Back to Rochester, which I admittedly loved at the time, but find hard to look back on as anything but a quiet little town anymore.

I wanna get back on the plane. I don't care where it's going. But when you're sitting there in the airport waiting for your plane, all there is to do is read and watch the tarmac.