| Sunday night, a little past midnight, I had this strange desire to go out for a walk. Yup, in the middle of the night I had a crazy notion to go out for a walk around my neighborhood. Don't ask me why I wanted to do such a thing, because I honestly don't know. I thought about it for a while and nearly went out a couple of times. The last time I nearly went for this crazy midnight walk thing I had my keys in my pocket, my ID and a flashlight in hand. The wind kicked up as I opened the door, and I just stood there for a moment. The wind didn't stop me, but something else must have. Perhaps it was the nagging question I kept asking myself, "Why the hell do you want to go out for a walk in the middle of the night?" Again, I honestly have no idea why I wanted to go out for a midnight stroll. I saw this story on my Yahoo page this morning, a story that's been making the round on the TV news about this nine year old who is the only male on a cheerleading squad.  OK, since when did THIS become news?! Meanwhile there was an article in today's NY Times about the Iraqi rebuilding effort being, "Hobbled from the outset by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting, secrecy and constantly increasing security costs." (Jan 24, 2006 NY Times) These silly fluff stories really irk me because they really do go to the heart of the argument that we are a nation of blockheads who are more concerned with the goings on of a nine year old cheerleader than the long range implications of fucking up the entire world because of a maverick president's whim. I'm pretty sick of the phone. Sometimes I wish I could just yank it out of the wall, because everytime I come home I see that there are a bunch of messages waiting. Course when I hit the play button all I hear are hang ups. Bitch please, why bother calling if you're not going to leave a message. I know who calls me, some punk Daily News newspaper bastard trying to get me to resubscribe. Bastards, I don't want to pay for your paper anymore... not since I can get it online for free. Today's picture of the day is entitled "Blurred Gallery."  (6:44 p.m.) I went for a little walk around my neighborhood today. I ended up walking to the location of our old apartment building (pictured below), where I lived the first 11 years of my life. I haven't been there in YEARS.  I drive by the sight of the my old apartment building all the time, seeing as I still live down the street, but I haven't actually walked around there since the move. The old apartment building has been replaced with a couple of different things. There's the condominiums (above) that sits where the old apartment building used to be. It's much bigger than the old building, and much nicer. Next to the condos are three houses on one lot that used to be the parking lot, and a garden (below).  The garden behind the apartment building was such a cool place. It was locked, so no one could get in. It wasn't until I kept asking my mother if I could go to the garden that she found who made the garden. One of the tenants of the building constructed the thing, and used to sit out there. It was such a cool place. That place was so cool. There were walkways, little paths that went here and there, and a center area that was like a patio. Oh man I wish I had pictures of that place now. I wish it still existed so I could have explored it. Alas it's all gone, replaced by ugly houses. The south side of the blvd. faired much better than my corner (pictured below).  Across the street there used to be a bank and a Travel Lodge Inn. Both of those were torn down too and replaced with a nice looking strip mall, unlike that replaced the gasoline station on my old block (below).  I liked living there, a lot. I was the only kid in the whole apartment complex. There was another kid for a short time, but he moved in and out in about a year's time. He was a bully too, so I didn't much care for him. I spent my formative years there, basically left to my own devices. The complex itself was a garden too, with little pathways that went from the main walkway to deep dark corridors. It was sometimes scary to walk around my old complex. My side of the complex seemed a lot more airy and bright that the other side. Who knows, it was probably my imagination. Man, I haven't thought of that place in a million years. Just writing about it makes me think of the little details that I've hidden away in my memory. Like the nice old man that was our neighbor for all those years, Pat. When we moved away I didn't go back to the old apartments by myself to visit him. A year later we, my cousins and I, went back to swim in the building�s pool. We had an open invitation from the owner. That day he told us that Pat had died. I remember how much that hurt, and how I wish that I knew where he was buried in order to visit his grave. He was a nice old man. That old saying is true; you can't go home again. You can only visit the past in your memories. I wish I had a camera back then because human memory is selective, fleeting. I think that's why I take so many pictures these days, in order to have a back up for my memories. I don't want to forget anything anymore. |
