The thought occurred to me today that I should write this handy guide. Yelling at, and holding imaginary lectures with the people driving around me is pointless. If I'm not a part of the solution, then I must be a part of the problem. So here it is...
The Idiot's Guide to Driving in DC
First and foremost, don't drive a vehicle with out of state tags (exception: MD and VA). Everybody is going to assume you can't drive. When you see four cars lined up in the right lane just to avoid being behind the guy with Arkansas tags in the left, then you know that what I'm saying is legit.
Diplomatic tags mean that something stupid is about to happen. Keep a safe distance if you're behind one of those cars because they're likely to just stop for no reason whatsoever...or keep going through red lights, crosswalks, schoolbus stops, buildings, etc.
Cab drivers are mentally challenged. Not all, but most. They act like they're playing a game of Mario Kart and have those three red turtle shells floating around them. I can't tell you how many times I've had to slam on my brakes thanks to a cab driver who spotted a fare. They're so crazy that the city put up signs that exempt them from normal rules. "NO LEFT TURN...except taxicabs because y'all are gonna do it anyway!"
Expect at least one tourist to try to lay down his life in front of your car in the name of taking a picture. I don't know what land these people come from where that bright orange "Don't Walk" hand means "Hey, if you think you can make it..." They're worse than deer on a dark road. They just dart out in the middle of the street with their Decepticon-looking strollers and then stare at you as they cross the street as slow as humanly possible.
If you don't hit a tourist then you're probably about to hit a person on a bike. There's a bitter civil war brewing between cyclists and motorists. I ride my bike as much as I drive so I'm neutral. I can understand the motorist's beef. You're still paying the note on that Elantra and you wanna get to work on time. The guy ahead of you pedaling up the hill at 3 miles an hour on a Huffy is probably gonna make you late. At the same time, however, the cyclist probably pays taxes too and is entitled to ride his bike. It's not like the sidewalks are clear during rush hour. Until every street gets a bike lane, no one is gonna be happy.
For the love of God, please pull forward into the intersection to make your left turn. If the light turns red, you can turn if you've already advanced into the intersection. If you pull up far enough, the person behind you can go too. If you have DC tags and are one of those people who just sit there hoping the opposing traffic will all stop and wait for you...you need to be slapped.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Give Credit Where Credit Is Due
I was riding around with someone a while ago who pointed out some of the changes in DC and said, "They're fixing this shit up for white people." I was with a different person the other day who said, "Yeah, that's a good school now. Ever since those white people moved over there, they been fixing that school up."
Why is it that in DC, white=money? I understand how gentrification works, and, having studied poverty for several years at the undergraduate and graduate level, I know enough about income disparity between races to understand this point of view. Still, I lived in NC, and down in Durham my neighbors were black, white and latino in both good and bad areas. It seems to be only up here where I can't seem to find a predominantly white neighborhood that's below the poverty line.
It's not racially motivated that someone put in a street light or built a playground. I think it comes down to just getting enough signatures (that matter) to get the stuff done. Still, I feel the effects of gentrification like everyone else. I was over my grandmother's house a lot this week and Lord knows I got some mean stares from the new neighbors. My grandmother seems hell bent on being the last person standing from the old neighborhood. Most of the families I grew up around are long gone. These new people don't know me. They see me walking around and immediately assume I'm out of place.
While I don't care what they think per se, it is a little bit of a downer to have to go through that. I feel like I paid my dues and deserve to be treated with respect when I sit out on my grandmother's porch, not stared at through curtains. This isn't my usual "Black man's saga" post. When I say "respect" I don't mean as a human being. I mean I deserve to be respected (revered, even) like some kind of folk hero. Do you know the shit I had to put up with?
I remember them sending me to the liquor store with a note and a ten dollar bill and the Korean lady at the liquor store handing me a brown paper bag and peering over the counter and into my soul as she said, "You take this and you run straight home. Don't open it and whatever you do, don't drop it." I ran home like I was carrying launch codes for a missile or something while the winos in front of the store stared at me like I was carrying the last bottle of hope.
I remember when Maury Elementary wasn't the nice pristine little school that it is now. I see children's bikes parked in front now and they have a website and PTA support. I remember they used to pimp us to sell gift wrap like the lights and water were gonna get cut off if we didn't raise enough money. Grown men used to hang out on the basketball court in the evenings so you couldn't go over there to play, because they'd be over there drinking and smoking.
Hell, half of my childhood is filled with memories of learning which streets I could walk down and which ones required me to take the long way around the block. Now I see the liquor stores have been demolished and apartments and townhomes put up in their place. There's a Capital Bikeshare up near Lincoln Park. Constitution Avenue is now punctuated with Stop signs whereas back when I was growing up it was a freeway that turned into a one-way rush hour road during the morning. Even when a little girl got hit so hard by a car that her shoes were thrown down the block, they didn't bother repainting the crosswalk.
I'm not saying that I grew up in some ravaged African nation where I had to become a child soldier, but I deserve a little more respect than just a perturbed glance as you pass by the house that I grew up in. To be honest, the only reason you got to live in the house you're going into is because I was up late one night and happened to notice smoke coming out of the house that you now call home. The previous owner was out of town, so I called 911 and saved the little place from burning to the ground.
Show a little respect.
Why is it that in DC, white=money? I understand how gentrification works, and, having studied poverty for several years at the undergraduate and graduate level, I know enough about income disparity between races to understand this point of view. Still, I lived in NC, and down in Durham my neighbors were black, white and latino in both good and bad areas. It seems to be only up here where I can't seem to find a predominantly white neighborhood that's below the poverty line.
It's not racially motivated that someone put in a street light or built a playground. I think it comes down to just getting enough signatures (that matter) to get the stuff done. Still, I feel the effects of gentrification like everyone else. I was over my grandmother's house a lot this week and Lord knows I got some mean stares from the new neighbors. My grandmother seems hell bent on being the last person standing from the old neighborhood. Most of the families I grew up around are long gone. These new people don't know me. They see me walking around and immediately assume I'm out of place.
While I don't care what they think per se, it is a little bit of a downer to have to go through that. I feel like I paid my dues and deserve to be treated with respect when I sit out on my grandmother's porch, not stared at through curtains. This isn't my usual "Black man's saga" post. When I say "respect" I don't mean as a human being. I mean I deserve to be respected (revered, even) like some kind of folk hero. Do you know the shit I had to put up with?
I remember them sending me to the liquor store with a note and a ten dollar bill and the Korean lady at the liquor store handing me a brown paper bag and peering over the counter and into my soul as she said, "You take this and you run straight home. Don't open it and whatever you do, don't drop it." I ran home like I was carrying launch codes for a missile or something while the winos in front of the store stared at me like I was carrying the last bottle of hope.
I remember when Maury Elementary wasn't the nice pristine little school that it is now. I see children's bikes parked in front now and they have a website and PTA support. I remember they used to pimp us to sell gift wrap like the lights and water were gonna get cut off if we didn't raise enough money. Grown men used to hang out on the basketball court in the evenings so you couldn't go over there to play, because they'd be over there drinking and smoking.
Hell, half of my childhood is filled with memories of learning which streets I could walk down and which ones required me to take the long way around the block. Now I see the liquor stores have been demolished and apartments and townhomes put up in their place. There's a Capital Bikeshare up near Lincoln Park. Constitution Avenue is now punctuated with Stop signs whereas back when I was growing up it was a freeway that turned into a one-way rush hour road during the morning. Even when a little girl got hit so hard by a car that her shoes were thrown down the block, they didn't bother repainting the crosswalk.
I'm not saying that I grew up in some ravaged African nation where I had to become a child soldier, but I deserve a little more respect than just a perturbed glance as you pass by the house that I grew up in. To be honest, the only reason you got to live in the house you're going into is because I was up late one night and happened to notice smoke coming out of the house that you now call home. The previous owner was out of town, so I called 911 and saved the little place from burning to the ground.
Show a little respect.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Revelations
So the reason I've been so stressed lately and these posts have been kinda shitty is because my grandmother was in the hospital. Frequent readers should know just how important she is to me and understand why I kinda put this on the back burner. I've spent the last (I don't know how many) days going to the hospital. My wife thinks I was devoid of all emotion and she basically just stood back waiting for me to explode. In the Men of Brewster Place (Yes, there was a male version), Gloria Naylor wrote something along the lines of: Men cry on the inside. It's only after every single space has been filled that the tears rise up and over the lids of their eyes and stream down their faces.
It sounded better when she said it, but you get the point. It bothered me a great deal, but my grandmother doesn't make it easy to feel bad. Don't misinterpret that as her being exceptionally jovial and good natured. Far from that. This is the same woman who saw me being chased by a dog and told me to run the other way so that it wouldn't chase her too. She spent most of the time cursing each of her children out. It was when she started telling me not to worry about her and listing possessions that she wanted me to give to different people that I found myself sitting in the parking lot crying the hardest. But after five minutes in the room and hearing her say:
"I've been laying up here looking at you and I just don't understand how it is that you can be as old as you are and aint gotten no taller than you were when you were a little boy. It just don't make no sense. Why the hell are you so short? And then for you to go out and find someone to marry that's even shorter than you. It just seems silly. At least if you married somebody tall, you might have a chance of your child being regular height."
And people wonder where my "sparkling" personality comes from. Suffice to say, she's getting closer to being her regular self. And that's a scary thought. Now she'll probably slice my throat for saying this, but...she had a kidney infection that sent her into septic shock during the operation and, while recovering from that, she got pneumonia in the hospital and a day later had a heart attack. A day and a half later they discharged her from the hospital. My grandmother is immortal.
And she isn't one of those wimpy ass Twilight vampires either. She is the thing that goes bump in the night. (She is the one who knocks) When she found out that she had to spend the night in the hospital after the first surgery (because her kind are totally fine having surgery and going home the same day) she cursed every nurse out and said (Direct quote here) "I'm not staying in this hospital. I don't care if there's police watching the door or not. They gonna have to put bullets in me and shoot me down dead, because that's the only way I'm staying in this hospital tonight. These people keep treating me like I'm some kind of trash off the street. Call down to my church and ask about me, then you'll know who you're dealing with."
In my head I'm thinking, "Just open a bible. There's a whole book about her at the end."
It sounded better when she said it, but you get the point. It bothered me a great deal, but my grandmother doesn't make it easy to feel bad. Don't misinterpret that as her being exceptionally jovial and good natured. Far from that. This is the same woman who saw me being chased by a dog and told me to run the other way so that it wouldn't chase her too. She spent most of the time cursing each of her children out. It was when she started telling me not to worry about her and listing possessions that she wanted me to give to different people that I found myself sitting in the parking lot crying the hardest. But after five minutes in the room and hearing her say:
"I've been laying up here looking at you and I just don't understand how it is that you can be as old as you are and aint gotten no taller than you were when you were a little boy. It just don't make no sense. Why the hell are you so short? And then for you to go out and find someone to marry that's even shorter than you. It just seems silly. At least if you married somebody tall, you might have a chance of your child being regular height."
And people wonder where my "sparkling" personality comes from. Suffice to say, she's getting closer to being her regular self. And that's a scary thought. Now she'll probably slice my throat for saying this, but...she had a kidney infection that sent her into septic shock during the operation and, while recovering from that, she got pneumonia in the hospital and a day later had a heart attack. A day and a half later they discharged her from the hospital. My grandmother is immortal.
And she isn't one of those wimpy ass Twilight vampires either. She is the thing that goes bump in the night. (She is the one who knocks) When she found out that she had to spend the night in the hospital after the first surgery (because her kind are totally fine having surgery and going home the same day) she cursed every nurse out and said (Direct quote here) "I'm not staying in this hospital. I don't care if there's police watching the door or not. They gonna have to put bullets in me and shoot me down dead, because that's the only way I'm staying in this hospital tonight. These people keep treating me like I'm some kind of trash off the street. Call down to my church and ask about me, then you'll know who you're dealing with."
In my head I'm thinking, "Just open a bible. There's a whole book about her at the end."
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Vote!
The first debate was last night, so ladies and gentlemen it is officially election season! For the next month, everyone and their mother will be reminding you to vote. I'm gonna take it a step further and encourage you to look up who else is running BEFORE you get to the polls. Half the time you get so caught up in the main event that you don't pay attention to the lightweight fights before the fight. Okay, let's be real...the MAJORITY of the time you don't even know you're supposed to vote for those other positions until you get in front and someone hands you a flyer.
The first time I ever voted was in the 2000 Presidential Election. I was so excited to be grown that I walked in the booth like I was hot shit. "Bush or Gore, Bush or Gore?" For P.C.'s sake (and to help get a job one day in the future) let's just pretend I was torn between the two. I got in that little booth and was taken aback, "Hold up, you can vote for the NC Commissioner of Insurance? There's a Secretary of State...for the state?" I did what I later learned that a lot of people do in that situation...."Bartholomew Winchester III or Leroy Johnson? Leroy sounds Black. Imma go with him. Becky Ryan or Lakeisha Williams? Keisha sounds ghetto. I don't trust her to be Treasurer. I think I did see a poster for a guy named Terrence. He looked crooked in those pictures, so Imma vote for the Cedric." So with all that said...do your homework ahead of time.
I won't lie and say that this election doesn't slightly depress me. You see, I'm getting closer to 35, the minimum age to be President. I think it's safe to say that judging by my credit history and some of the things I can't possibly write about on this blog and still hope to get a job one day, I don't think I'm gonna grow up to be President after all. I feel so bad letting down all those people from high school who voted me "Most Likely to be President." I know you guys had your little seventeen year old hearts set on it. A handful of people still refer to me as Mr President on Facebook. They'll probably take it the hardest. Lotta suicide risks floating around now. Sigh.
Confidence is a hell of a thing, but so is chance. I was nervous as hell to go to high school. A nerd of the highest order, I just knew I was gonna end up at one of DC's many versions of East Side High (Lean on Me) where I'd promptly have to pull a Sophia from The Color Purple ("All my life I had to fight!). As fate would have it, I ended up at the nerd school. It was like the X-Men school but for nerds. In this place I was class president 11th and 12th grade as well as school president 12th grade as well.
The funny thing is that I never planned to do any of that. They dragged us all to the cafeteria in 11th grade and told us we were gonna hold elections, so line up if you want to give a speech. I wanted something to put on my college application, so I got up for treasurer. Fifty people ran for that ahead of me so I changed it to secretary. Another fifty people. By the time I got to the front the only thing left was VP and President. There was a girl that I liked running for VP and she really wanted it, so I figured I'd run for President just for kicks. Plus I was this close to hooking up with another girl who happened to be in the cafeteria and you know nerd girls love a man in power.
I jotted down some points on a paper towel that I thought were BS in someone else's speech. I got up and said that I was the unlikely candidate because I had a horrible GPA and I lived in the office because I kept cursing teachers out. "That's what makes me the right choice! Do you want someone who's afraid to speak their mind because it'll show up on their report card or do you want a guy with a proven track record for speaking up? You know my track record. I have nothing to lose, so I'm willing to fight for you. And by the way, all that stuff the other people said was BS. This is class president not school superintendent. You can't change the lunches or shorten the school day."
I won by over 70 percent...and I got the girl! (Hell yeah!) The next year I was ready to give a similar speech for school president, but I ran unopposed. The moral of the story...Don't forget to vote...but pick someone not in it for the money, fame or women. Good luck with that.
The first time I ever voted was in the 2000 Presidential Election. I was so excited to be grown that I walked in the booth like I was hot shit. "Bush or Gore, Bush or Gore?" For P.C.'s sake (and to help get a job one day in the future) let's just pretend I was torn between the two. I got in that little booth and was taken aback, "Hold up, you can vote for the NC Commissioner of Insurance? There's a Secretary of State...for the state?" I did what I later learned that a lot of people do in that situation...."Bartholomew Winchester III or Leroy Johnson? Leroy sounds Black. Imma go with him. Becky Ryan or Lakeisha Williams? Keisha sounds ghetto. I don't trust her to be Treasurer. I think I did see a poster for a guy named Terrence. He looked crooked in those pictures, so Imma vote for the Cedric." So with all that said...do your homework ahead of time.
I won't lie and say that this election doesn't slightly depress me. You see, I'm getting closer to 35, the minimum age to be President. I think it's safe to say that judging by my credit history and some of the things I can't possibly write about on this blog and still hope to get a job one day, I don't think I'm gonna grow up to be President after all. I feel so bad letting down all those people from high school who voted me "Most Likely to be President." I know you guys had your little seventeen year old hearts set on it. A handful of people still refer to me as Mr President on Facebook. They'll probably take it the hardest. Lotta suicide risks floating around now. Sigh.
Confidence is a hell of a thing, but so is chance. I was nervous as hell to go to high school. A nerd of the highest order, I just knew I was gonna end up at one of DC's many versions of East Side High (Lean on Me) where I'd promptly have to pull a Sophia from The Color Purple ("All my life I had to fight!). As fate would have it, I ended up at the nerd school. It was like the X-Men school but for nerds. In this place I was class president 11th and 12th grade as well as school president 12th grade as well.
The funny thing is that I never planned to do any of that. They dragged us all to the cafeteria in 11th grade and told us we were gonna hold elections, so line up if you want to give a speech. I wanted something to put on my college application, so I got up for treasurer. Fifty people ran for that ahead of me so I changed it to secretary. Another fifty people. By the time I got to the front the only thing left was VP and President. There was a girl that I liked running for VP and she really wanted it, so I figured I'd run for President just for kicks. Plus I was this close to hooking up with another girl who happened to be in the cafeteria and you know nerd girls love a man in power.
I jotted down some points on a paper towel that I thought were BS in someone else's speech. I got up and said that I was the unlikely candidate because I had a horrible GPA and I lived in the office because I kept cursing teachers out. "That's what makes me the right choice! Do you want someone who's afraid to speak their mind because it'll show up on their report card or do you want a guy with a proven track record for speaking up? You know my track record. I have nothing to lose, so I'm willing to fight for you. And by the way, all that stuff the other people said was BS. This is class president not school superintendent. You can't change the lunches or shorten the school day."
I won by over 70 percent...and I got the girl! (Hell yeah!) The next year I was ready to give a similar speech for school president, but I ran unopposed. The moral of the story...Don't forget to vote...but pick someone not in it for the money, fame or women. Good luck with that.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Three Years Later...Still Alive!
Well, it's October and thus time for me to do my annual "I'm Still Alive" celebration. I've written about this many times before, but that's the whole point. You don't really appreciate life until you have a near-death experience. The problem is that gradually over time that appreciation begins to fade. So that's the whole point of writing the same story every year. I don't ever wanna forget.
The weird thing is that I've had several near-death experiences. Most of them were my own fault. Electrocuting myself once a week as a kid while trying to create a flux capacitor is just one example. Then the time I got that chemistry set from a yard sale without any instructions. Fun times...waking up twenty minutes later on the floor of the basement after mixing random chemicals together and then smelling the smoke coming out of the tube. And don't even get me started on the time I got hit by the same van twice in one week during two really intense games of roller skate tag (on a hill, no less).
But no, today's story is different. This one had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with a doctor who had the absolute worst bedside manner in the history of medicine. It's a simple story. I applied to be a cop. Figuring that I'd need to be in top physical condition if I was gonna catch bullets with my teeth like Bruce Leeroy, I got in shape. I lost 50 lbs in about five to six weeks. No weight loss pills, just a lot of running, bike riding and my patented Unemployment Diet. Can't eat what you ain't got! (That's copyrighted, too)
The cop physical revealed a heart defect which was quickly remedied by an 8 hour surgery during which my heart rate shot up to about 200 beats a minute. I woke up unable to breathe because they accidentally burned a little of my lung during the surgery, but that didn't stop me from taking advantage of the painkillers and singing to the nurses in between quoting The Godfather and eventually getting up and doing the Thriller dance...until the meds wore off and I fell back to the bed.
Not even getting turned down by every cab outside the hospital could kill my mood. I was just happy to be alive. I caught the Metro home after heart surgery and walked two miles to my house from the train with a little pep in my limp. But I'll tell you what did kill my mood: Getting a call saying that the blood work from the physical revealed abnormalities with my liver function. What sucked even more was the world's worst doctor calling me and leaving a message that said:
"Hey Mr Allen, this is ____ from the hospital. I looked over the scan and your liver is fine, but there appears to be a fairly large mass on your pancreas. I don't want to alarm you. It could be cancerous or it could be nothing, but we really won't know until we get you in for a CT Scan. I think you should get one of those right away so that we can get to the bottom of this. It's 4:55 Friday and I won't be back in until Monday, so call me Monday morning and we can discuss setting up a scan. Have a good weekend!"
That's kinda hard to shake off. I decided to just keep that one to myself. The wife cried enough before and after the heart surgery that you'd think I died on the table. So for the next week I just walked around wondering if I was gonna die. It was around the beginning of October that I got the news that I was fine. (knock on wood)
I just like to bring it up every once in a while to remind myself that half of this stuff really doesn't matter.
The weird thing is that I've had several near-death experiences. Most of them were my own fault. Electrocuting myself once a week as a kid while trying to create a flux capacitor is just one example. Then the time I got that chemistry set from a yard sale without any instructions. Fun times...waking up twenty minutes later on the floor of the basement after mixing random chemicals together and then smelling the smoke coming out of the tube. And don't even get me started on the time I got hit by the same van twice in one week during two really intense games of roller skate tag (on a hill, no less).
But no, today's story is different. This one had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with a doctor who had the absolute worst bedside manner in the history of medicine. It's a simple story. I applied to be a cop. Figuring that I'd need to be in top physical condition if I was gonna catch bullets with my teeth like Bruce Leeroy, I got in shape. I lost 50 lbs in about five to six weeks. No weight loss pills, just a lot of running, bike riding and my patented Unemployment Diet. Can't eat what you ain't got! (That's copyrighted, too)
The cop physical revealed a heart defect which was quickly remedied by an 8 hour surgery during which my heart rate shot up to about 200 beats a minute. I woke up unable to breathe because they accidentally burned a little of my lung during the surgery, but that didn't stop me from taking advantage of the painkillers and singing to the nurses in between quoting The Godfather and eventually getting up and doing the Thriller dance...until the meds wore off and I fell back to the bed.
Not even getting turned down by every cab outside the hospital could kill my mood. I was just happy to be alive. I caught the Metro home after heart surgery and walked two miles to my house from the train with a little pep in my limp. But I'll tell you what did kill my mood: Getting a call saying that the blood work from the physical revealed abnormalities with my liver function. What sucked even more was the world's worst doctor calling me and leaving a message that said:
"Hey Mr Allen, this is ____ from the hospital. I looked over the scan and your liver is fine, but there appears to be a fairly large mass on your pancreas. I don't want to alarm you. It could be cancerous or it could be nothing, but we really won't know until we get you in for a CT Scan. I think you should get one of those right away so that we can get to the bottom of this. It's 4:55 Friday and I won't be back in until Monday, so call me Monday morning and we can discuss setting up a scan. Have a good weekend!"
That's kinda hard to shake off. I decided to just keep that one to myself. The wife cried enough before and after the heart surgery that you'd think I died on the table. So for the next week I just walked around wondering if I was gonna die. It was around the beginning of October that I got the news that I was fine. (knock on wood)
I just like to bring it up every once in a while to remind myself that half of this stuff really doesn't matter.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Cat and Mouse
A long time ago I wrote a post about my worst nightmare as a Black man…a White woman walking alone at night. Well, here it is again. We've come full circle. If you haven't figured out by now, I write these posts the night before, so it's actually 10PM. I had to run to the computer and jot this down while the situation is still fresh in my mind.
About twenty minutes ago I decided to run to CVS before they closed. I left my apartment and threw on my jacket. I like my little Weatherproof coat. It has what I call the Batman compartment. It's a little hidden zipper in the front of the jacket. That's where I keep my phone. I walked out the front door and headed toward the store, just then I remembered that I had a CVS Extrabuck ($1 coupon) in my car. I'm parked around the corner on a poorly lit, dark, "rob me" street.
CVS was about ten minutes away from closing, so I was trying to hurry. I was walking fast and I turned the corner onto the dark street where I saw a White lady coming my way. She immediately clutched her purse (which I'm used to and have learned to ignore) and she did that thing that some women do when they walk alone at night where they speed toward the curb as if they're a rocket ship trying to avoid being sucked into an approaching planet's orbit. It's hard to explain, but imagine that you're walking down the street and notice someone walking toward you. For the majority of their time on that block they've been walking in a straight line, then they see you and all of a sudden they are compelled to not only speed up, but walk in an arc as they go near you. It's a survival thing, so whatever. I don't blame them, but being an extra foot away from someone isn't gonna do jack-shit if they really wanna get to you.
So anyway, she does her dark side of the moon thing and I purposely pull out my keys and hold them in a really awkward and completely nonfunctional way so that she can see them and I even unlock my car so that the cabin lights will cut on and she can see that I'm going to the car. I reach in the glove compartment and grab the coupon and then scurry along to get to CVS. What's the first thing I see? Xena, warrior chick, is meandering about like a lost gazelle and looking over her shoulder back at me.
I think to myself, "Please turn and go into that apartment building. The last thing I need is for you to be going the same direction as me." What does she do? Keep walking straight. FUCK! Now I have to figure out a way to get to CVS on time without scaring the hell out of her. I can't speed up or start running because she's now clutching her little keychain of mace and I will beat the hell out of her if she sprays me for no reason. I can't walk slow because then it looks like I'm following her and I am NOT gonna miss this store.
I decide to just hang back far enough to make her feel like she could outrun me if she needed to (she probably couldn't). She gets caught at a light, so I end up catching up to her. She spends about ten seconds looking at me out of the corner of her eye while switching her purse to the opposite shoulder and trying to act like she's not afraid. I went ahead and jaywalked to get away from her. I went to CVS, bought my stuff and, just as the guy is handing me my receipt, who do I see?
My new friend is walking out the front door with a bag from the pharmacy. She turns around and sees me walking out and now she's freaked. I didn't feel like playing her game anymore, so I walked my normal pace and after two blocks I realized where she was going. Apparently she lives in my building.
I feel for this woman. I really do. I found it annoying initially, but when I saw how relieved she looked when she made it to "her building" without being attacked and then saw the sheer terror on her face when she saw me walking right behind her toward the building…I know she lost some years off her life. It didn't help that the guy working the front desk buzzed her in without her having to use her key fob and then did the same to me. Without seeing me actually pull out keys to get in she couldn't tell if I lived here or the guy downstairs had just condemned her to death.
She pretended to look for something in her purse and I got on the elevator. She's probably still downstairs wondering if I'm lurking on her floor.
About twenty minutes ago I decided to run to CVS before they closed. I left my apartment and threw on my jacket. I like my little Weatherproof coat. It has what I call the Batman compartment. It's a little hidden zipper in the front of the jacket. That's where I keep my phone. I walked out the front door and headed toward the store, just then I remembered that I had a CVS Extrabuck ($1 coupon) in my car. I'm parked around the corner on a poorly lit, dark, "rob me" street.
CVS was about ten minutes away from closing, so I was trying to hurry. I was walking fast and I turned the corner onto the dark street where I saw a White lady coming my way. She immediately clutched her purse (which I'm used to and have learned to ignore) and she did that thing that some women do when they walk alone at night where they speed toward the curb as if they're a rocket ship trying to avoid being sucked into an approaching planet's orbit. It's hard to explain, but imagine that you're walking down the street and notice someone walking toward you. For the majority of their time on that block they've been walking in a straight line, then they see you and all of a sudden they are compelled to not only speed up, but walk in an arc as they go near you. It's a survival thing, so whatever. I don't blame them, but being an extra foot away from someone isn't gonna do jack-shit if they really wanna get to you.
So anyway, she does her dark side of the moon thing and I purposely pull out my keys and hold them in a really awkward and completely nonfunctional way so that she can see them and I even unlock my car so that the cabin lights will cut on and she can see that I'm going to the car. I reach in the glove compartment and grab the coupon and then scurry along to get to CVS. What's the first thing I see? Xena, warrior chick, is meandering about like a lost gazelle and looking over her shoulder back at me.
I think to myself, "Please turn and go into that apartment building. The last thing I need is for you to be going the same direction as me." What does she do? Keep walking straight. FUCK! Now I have to figure out a way to get to CVS on time without scaring the hell out of her. I can't speed up or start running because she's now clutching her little keychain of mace and I will beat the hell out of her if she sprays me for no reason. I can't walk slow because then it looks like I'm following her and I am NOT gonna miss this store.
I decide to just hang back far enough to make her feel like she could outrun me if she needed to (she probably couldn't). She gets caught at a light, so I end up catching up to her. She spends about ten seconds looking at me out of the corner of her eye while switching her purse to the opposite shoulder and trying to act like she's not afraid. I went ahead and jaywalked to get away from her. I went to CVS, bought my stuff and, just as the guy is handing me my receipt, who do I see?
My new friend is walking out the front door with a bag from the pharmacy. She turns around and sees me walking out and now she's freaked. I didn't feel like playing her game anymore, so I walked my normal pace and after two blocks I realized where she was going. Apparently she lives in my building.
I feel for this woman. I really do. I found it annoying initially, but when I saw how relieved she looked when she made it to "her building" without being attacked and then saw the sheer terror on her face when she saw me walking right behind her toward the building…I know she lost some years off her life. It didn't help that the guy working the front desk buzzed her in without her having to use her key fob and then did the same to me. Without seeing me actually pull out keys to get in she couldn't tell if I lived here or the guy downstairs had just condemned her to death.
She pretended to look for something in her purse and I got on the elevator. She's probably still downstairs wondering if I'm lurking on her floor.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Hospitals
To Whom It May Concern,
Please add Washington Hospital Center to the list of hospitals that I gave you a while back. I'm not sure of the exact date that I gave you that list, but I remember writing in bold letters "Under No Circumstances Shall You Take Me To The Following Hospitals!"
I've been going up to WHC all week and I think I've seen enough to put them on the list. Please remember that the list is not ranked. The now closed Greater Southeast Community Hospital was at the top, but that doesn't mean that Howard Hospital (#2 on the list) was any safer. That list is like a terror watch list. All of them are not cleared for flying. What does that mean?
First let me say that this is not an indictment of any one particular doctor or nurse at those hospitals. If you work there, please don't get offended because I may not be talking about you. It's the collective synergy of those people that scares me. So now that I've gotten that out of the way...what do I mean by "under no circumstance?"
Let's say I'm standing in front of Washington Hospital Center when all of a sudden I get shot (A possibility in DC just about everywhere you go). I'm now laying on the ground bleeding heavily. Two feet away from me is a herd of doctors standing there with stretchers and surgical equipment and someone holding the Emergency Room doors open. In that completely plausible situation I expect you to run over to me and slip a Smarttrip card in between my teeth and cheer me on as I army crawl down Michigan Avenue to Brookland Metro Station. Bloodied and bruised, I'll crawl up the broken escalators and lie there on the platform, slowly bleeding to death, as I wait for the single-tracking red line train to finally show up.
I'll roll myself into the crowded car where zero people will offer me a seat. One day the train will make it to Metro Center and I'll continue my slow crawl toward the white lights of the Blue/Orange Line and when I've finally arrived at Foggy Bottom, I'll ascend the also-broken escalator up to the front door of GW Hospital where they seem to actually want people to survive.
If for whatever reason you think that's too unrealistic and you're good nature gets the best of you, then just hand me a plastic knife from the cafeteria and squeeze into a cup some of that hand sanitizer that they have on all the walls. I'll do the rest. I don't need a doctor, but I will take an Advil if you have one, because removing my own bullets will probably give me a cramp in my hands or wrists.
Please add Washington Hospital Center to the list of hospitals that I gave you a while back. I'm not sure of the exact date that I gave you that list, but I remember writing in bold letters "Under No Circumstances Shall You Take Me To The Following Hospitals!"
I've been going up to WHC all week and I think I've seen enough to put them on the list. Please remember that the list is not ranked. The now closed Greater Southeast Community Hospital was at the top, but that doesn't mean that Howard Hospital (#2 on the list) was any safer. That list is like a terror watch list. All of them are not cleared for flying. What does that mean?
First let me say that this is not an indictment of any one particular doctor or nurse at those hospitals. If you work there, please don't get offended because I may not be talking about you. It's the collective synergy of those people that scares me. So now that I've gotten that out of the way...what do I mean by "under no circumstance?"
Let's say I'm standing in front of Washington Hospital Center when all of a sudden I get shot (A possibility in DC just about everywhere you go). I'm now laying on the ground bleeding heavily. Two feet away from me is a herd of doctors standing there with stretchers and surgical equipment and someone holding the Emergency Room doors open. In that completely plausible situation I expect you to run over to me and slip a Smarttrip card in between my teeth and cheer me on as I army crawl down Michigan Avenue to Brookland Metro Station. Bloodied and bruised, I'll crawl up the broken escalators and lie there on the platform, slowly bleeding to death, as I wait for the single-tracking red line train to finally show up.
I'll roll myself into the crowded car where zero people will offer me a seat. One day the train will make it to Metro Center and I'll continue my slow crawl toward the white lights of the Blue/Orange Line and when I've finally arrived at Foggy Bottom, I'll ascend the also-broken escalator up to the front door of GW Hospital where they seem to actually want people to survive.
If for whatever reason you think that's too unrealistic and you're good nature gets the best of you, then just hand me a plastic knife from the cafeteria and squeeze into a cup some of that hand sanitizer that they have on all the walls. I'll do the rest. I don't need a doctor, but I will take an Advil if you have one, because removing my own bullets will probably give me a cramp in my hands or wrists.
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