  5:30 PM I really do need a hurricane. There have been threats of a couple this summer, but so far Savannah has been basically untouched. Then again, there is a torrential downpour here every day. There was one today, around 3 o'clock, when suddenly the sun disappeared and an imposter night arrived with the usual intense thunder, lightning and almost-zero-visibility downpour of rain. Absolute hell. Then it was gone. The sun came back out. The roads dried. This hurricane Frances ... I am waiting for it. I am trying to organize a Hurricane Party this weekend in which we can get a whole bunch of people to get together, get drunk, and do some sort of rain dance to ensure that Frances hit us, and hits us hard. Don't get me wrong. I'm not hoping that a bunch of people get hurt and lose their homes. After all, if a good-sized hurricane hit Savannah, the city would be devastated. The amount of people displaced would reach record numbers. The damage would be incredible. Supposedly, the city is below sea-level. Add that to the awful, awful drainage problems in the city whenever it rains, and the fact that thousands of people live in homes that already look like they've been hit by every natural disaster you can think of. But, yeah, whatever ... I say BRING IT ON, FRANCES. I'm waiting for you. Having spent a good deal of time this past week in the company of both a 5-time convicted felon and a police sergeant, I have formed many opinions about crime ... one of them being that I am sick of hearing about it. Coming down here, the one thing I never looked forward to was throwing myself deep into the world of Savannah crime. You can say that it's easy for me to turn a blind eye to it in apathy since I am neither a victim nor a perpetrator (yet), but I can't help admitting that I look forward to the day when I can appreciate this city without analyzing its most serious problems. And, unfortunately, that day will most likely never come. Anyway, yes, I spent four hours with an officer on patrol last night, which was ... interesting, to say the least. As I'll be writing a 2000-word article on this in coming weeks, I'll wait until then to share the experience with you.  In sober, daytime thought, I decided I would erase my last post about wanting to compete against a bum inside an abandoned building on the grounds that the post was entirely too ridiculous. For the bored:  Or ... even better. Though I didn't realize it until just the other day, my organizer seems to represent the chaos of my brain, and the stress that results. I mean, look at this. What's the point of having an organizer if the notes inside look like the work of a maniac? MANIAC!  Meanwhile, things have been fairly hectic lately. My trip home this weekend felt like it lasted about an hour. The amount of sleep I've had in the past four days feels like even less. But now I'm back in Savannah again, enjoying it, but realizing more than ever that I should have done everything possible to be with my girlfriend in Boston this year. Cheesy? Perhaps. But I have to admit this mistake ... because it was a big one. By the way, did you know that Savannah smells? There's a paper mill somewhere in town, or somewhere right outside of it, that produces the most foul, yet unique, almost intoxicating odor that can be smelled miles away. When you come to the city for the first time, you think, "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SMELL?" because it is almost enough to knock you off your feet. It's that bad. Apparently years ago there was some lawsuit or something against the paper mill, and then they said it was all fixed. No. It still smells. In fact, it doesn't just smell. It debilitates. It's no wonder why there's so much crime down here. While every new publication usually takes a few years to make a profit, the one I work for is struggling slightly in comparison to others in the growing franchise around the nation. Although I don't know the exact numbers, I believe we're in debt almost $100,000 and our ad sales are not improving. Because of this, while I sat and surfed the internet at work today, our circulation guy decided he would call up one of our advertisers pretending to be a reader. Not just any reader, in fact. An Alabama native who had just recently moved to Savannah and had come across the ad for new homes and rentals. Simply calling and lying about finding the ad was not enough apparently. In order to prove that our newspaper was effectively reaching some sort of audience, he had to come up with an entire false identity, with Southern accent and all. If it means saving the business (and his job), he's willing to take such drastic measures. Personally, I find it all very amusing. 8:47 AM Today was the first time I've been in bad enough flooding that water actually came inside the car. Thank goodness it wasn't my car. Waiting at an unfamiliar bus stop in a not-so-nice part of town Friday around dinnertime, I found myself having a friendly conversation with a skinny little white man who sat next to me on the bench. I say conversation, but really that means I just listened to him while he talked, remaining wary of his motives and somewhat taken aback by his hospitality as we Yankess are wont to be in such situations. By the end of the conversation I had learned much about him. Dressed in work pants spotted with paint, and a slightly ripped white t-shirt, he had taken the bus to this part of town just 20 minutes previous so that he could let a co-worker know what time to come in next week. His boss, a window manufacturer, had given him the fare to do this because the co-worker does not have a phone. Among things that co-worker does have, however, is a heinous heroin addiction. Repeatedly walking into the middle of the four-lane road to see if the bus was coming, the man continued to talk. He was married with children and he lived in a brick house in the southern part of town. Because of the brick home, he did not have to worry about the impending Hurricane Charley, which forced many in Savannah to board their windows in fear of the 70-100 mph winds that were supposedly coming. He had a modest house, but he was happy there. If he had a million dollars, or even five million, he would not quit his job or buy a new house, he said. He would fix up the one he owns now and save the rest for retirement. For ten million, he would think about quitting his job. He doesn't like his boss, but he admits, "He pays me well." During his stories, a teenaged boy suddenly sprinted from behind a house and leaped over fences through nearby backyards. Then he was gone. The man next to me laughed and said he liked watching "the brothers" scatter whenever a police car drove by. The surrounding area wasn't so bad, he said, but only a block or two down were dilapidated houses where drugs were rampant among the extremely poor families lived in them in them (up to six families in each house). A few blocks further down from that, however, were some of the nicest houses in Savannah. Most of the drug dealers were rich by age 25, he said, but they would spend every penny as soon as they earned it. Later, they would become poor. He had a friend that started out as a drug dealer but saved his money wisely. He only sold to people he knew, and he eventually used the money to start his own auto body shop, "completely legit." In comparing Savannah weather with that in Detroit, where he once lived for 15 years, he said people down here grow up not knowing what COLD really feels like. One time in the middle of a Detroit snowstorm he walked to the nearby convenience store to by some beer. When he returned, he went to brush the snow from his mustache (which, at the time, "was this real long, bushy thing") and the bulk of the mustache broke off in his hand. Didn't hurt, he said. In fact, it was the highlight of his week as he saved his new prize and continued to show it to people for days. Everyone thought he was insane and called him "a crazy redneck." When my cell phone rang at one point during our "conversation," he said, if he had a cell phone, he would want it to play the theme song to The Munsters. He then tried to whistle the melody but admitted he couldn't remember how it went. Then the bus came and the conversation was over without even a goodbye. The most he learned about me, as I had sat there mostly silent in my button-down shirt and dress pants, was that I worked for a newspaper ... and that I was most certainly a Yankee. My apologies, folks. In all the excitement lately, I forgot that I never fully explained how my car came to be totaled. So, let me quickly recreate the episode for you ... 
 So, as you can see, blame for this little accident can be laid on nothing else besides my own stupidity. To defend the reasoning for this stupidity, I must say that I hadn't realized I was driving on a 2-lane one-way street ... until it was too late. Therefore, I would never have expected a car to be coming from behind me on my left side. Two totaled cars and a $116 traffic citation later ... here I am, without a vehicle and feeling like a moron still. Intricacies Basically, I've had something fairly significant to worry about since the days before I moved down here, and it's really tiring me out. First there were the worries about finding an apartment once I got down here. I had been told by a real estate agent it would be "virtually impossible" to come down here and move in within the first few days. Then there were the worries about the U-Haul trailer. What would happen to it if I didn't find a place by the day I was supposed to return it. And if I needed to keep it for more days, would I be able to afford it? Then I had to drive 14 hours with the thing attached to the back of my Jeep, rocking back and forth (enough that I often couldn't control the back of my Jeep as I traveled down I-95.) Worrisome. Very worrisome. When I got here, I had to worry about my apartment being "ready" within a relatively short amount of time so that I could move in and not have to worry about spending money I didn't have on hotels and pizza. Then there was the accident, a simple little roadway error that has since caused an entire subsystem of worries, relating to my job, my transportation, my insurance, my social life, and my overall money situation. Factor in separate worries about editing a start-up newspaper, being able to afford rent ... and now a sickness that has literally begun to scrape away at my throat, and you have one worried little bastard. Yes ... I do worry a hell of a lot ... despite the fact that I also consider myself a fairly laid back person. But I assure you these worries are at least somewhat justified. For the past month, every little thing I've done has somehow affected the events that followed, and I needed to know how these events were going to affect each other several days ahead of time. My brain ... it hurts. That said, the complex system of events that have taken place are forcing me to retreat back to Pennsylvania next weekend to buy my mother's car for a relatively inexpensive cost. I will then drive back down to Savannah. Assuming I don't break down or crash on the way back, the days that follow SHOULD, PLEASE GOD, be relatively worry-free for the first time since I've moved down here. Don't worry. I've probably already jinxed myself months ago. --- Keep jamming, James Brown. Keep on jamming. And all that remains ...  --- On another note, last Friday night I found myself at 309 West, a dive bar slightly away from the main night scene downtown. Ala Coyote Ugly's, girls in tight shorts dance on the bar tops for the amusement of some of the more sketchy characters in Savannah. The backroom at 309, however, houses a good mix of people on a somewhat cramped dance floor. After buying a beer, I stepped away from the bar for a minute and stood up against a nearby wall as I put my money away and prepared to return to my drunken acquaintances in the other room. It was then that a black man wearing a baseball cap came up to me with a smile that was a little too big for my own comfort. The music drowned out his greeting and so I returned a slightly annoyed and questioning glare, which is my usual response to strangers who I think are about to ask me for money. "You live at Edgewater, right?" My apartment complex. Now I was slightly curious, slightly frightened. "Yeah?" I said. "I'm Billy, the maintenance guy!" The maintenance guy. Billy. Oh, right. "I thought you were the stay-at-home type," he continued. Well, actually ... "Nope, not me," I replied. "You're in trouble now!" "Hell yeah," I said back to him as he walked away. Awkward, somewhat relieving, the situation left me feeling somewhat important in a drunken kind of way, that is, until I realized later that he probably thought I was just another sketchy character alone at 309 West on a Saturday night. 8:13 AM I do not have much of a connection with my apartment, other than that I like coming home to it every day. But without much decoration or furniture, it doesn't really feel like ... me. I have, however, started one tradition already. It's quite simple actually. You open a bottle of beer and instead of throwing the cap away, you just toss it somewhere. Preferably, you should aim for something to test your skills. But, other than that, you just chuck it. Over time, the floor becomes littered with bottle caps, which is all right because then you can usually continue to throw them even when you're not drinking. On some days I'll go around to pick up all the caps, and I love the way they jingle in my hand almost like gold coins. I feel accomplished as I dump that handful of caps in the trashcan, but then I am sad because there are no more to throw. That is ... until I drink more beer. --- Have I mentioned my car was totaled? You bastards just didn't pray hard enough. Starting tomorrow, I take the bus. GRAND! Sometimes I receive emails from people I don't know. Here's one of them, in my inbox this afternoon, that I figured I should share: (I have erased the top of the email, which tells readers to erase answers and forward to others.) 1. WHAT ARE YOU WEARING NOW? grey o' neills(as usual), blue strappy top and purple socks. 2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? nothing!! 3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? dell 4. WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE BOARD GAME? frustration 5. FAVOURITE MAGAZINE? sugar 6. FAVOURITE SMELLS? whatever that luvly smell is that fills the house when mum cooks spaghetti bolognaise! 7. FAVOURITE SOUND? i'll get bak 2 ya on that 1! 8. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD? 1. regret 2. wen i need 2 coff and tryin soo hard no 2 coz evry1 wud b pissd off wit me 4 coffin in der ears! 9. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP? Shit! I'm late for school! 11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE? i never answer fone coz i av a habit of keepin my fon on silent so i just ring dem bak wen i see '3 MISSED CALLS'! 13. MOST IMPORTANT THING IN LIFE? Originality 14. FAVOURITE FOOD? Walkers Prawn Cocktail crisps! 15. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? vanilla 16. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST? i don't av a car (duuuhr!) but I HATE IT wen my mum drives fast! i dont mind mind if its sum1 who CAN drive! 17. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED TEDDY? not really, i av a big 1 in my room just 4 decoration tho! 18. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY? my 2nd biggest fear is gettin electocuted! but its nice when u snuugle down in a nice warm bed and listen to da storm outside! 19. WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? a pink volkswagon polo 20. YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE, WHO WOULD IT BE? My guardian angel 21. FAVOURITE DRINK? APPLE JUICE! (or black sambuca) 22. WHEN IS YOUR BIRTHDAY? 22nd of February (helloooooooooo people! dont forget!) 23. WHAT WOULD YOUR DREAM JOB BE? not to b workin 4 George Bush and reeeeeeeeeeally well paid 25. EVER BEEN IN LOVE? 26. GLASS HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL? depends wot i'm drinkin. 27. LAST MUSIC VIDEO YOU WATCHED? Lloyd Banks On Fire 28.DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? no 29. WHAT IS UNDER YOUR BED? a whole pile of useless shit stuff thats covered in dust?(i never look under there!) 30. FAVOURITE NUMBER? 17 31. FAVOURITE SPORT TO WATCH? gaelic,tennis 32.SAY ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? she as a really GSOH(and she has thin legs-bitch!)! 33. NAME A PERSON YOU SENT THIS TO, WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? niamh?(I'm counting on you!!!) 34. NAME A PERSON YOU SENT THIS TO, WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Daddy 35. TYPE YOUR NAME AS IT APPEARS ON YOUR BIRTH CERTIFICATE? Hannah (Stephenson McLaughlin) Pray for Mr. Bucky. He needs our help.  I walk out of the office to use the bathroom down the hall ... (speaking as if on speed) "Hey man, how you doing, look what I have here, low prices, these are marked down 90 percent from retail, what do you think, here, take a smell of this one..." Opens small pouch tied around his neck. A dozen opened perfume and cologne bottles are inside, one of which he shoves in my face. "What do you think, smell it, good huh, today's a special day, if you like it you can have a spray, what do you think?" -It's very nice, but I don't thing I need-- "Are you sure, take a look at this prices ... cash, check, credit card, we take anything. What do you say?" -No, I don't-- "Okay brother, alright, (sees someone down the hall) Hey man how's it going, look what I have here ..." --- Never a dull moment, even at work. The thunderstorms down here have yet to disappoint. When it rains, it pours. The thunder comes in waves, crashing several times in a row like cannon-fire or fireworks. It's really quite unlike the storms at home. The downside? The storms last about an hour, maybe two ... and that's it. For two days in a row we've been hit by some of the most intense evening storms I've ever seen, and just when I think they will last all night and put me to sleep comfortably, the storms are completely gone in time for the sun to reappear just as it sets. This, too, is a beautiful site, but frankly, I'd rather have the rain. Describing the effect that weather has on my mood isn't tough. When it rains or snows, I am about 90 percent more relaxed. The return of the sun is a powerful depressant. On a somewhat different note ... I remember going to Sesame Place one time when I was very little. For whatever reason (this seems very strange to me today) I remember being so blinded by the sun that I could barely open my eyes. It stung. I remember my mom taking me to some sort of first-aid hut, where a lady tried to put some type of fluid in my eye. "Don't blink," she said. But of course, being about 3 or 4 years old, I did not have that much will power on the reflexes of my eyelids. "Don't blink I said!" she shouted. "You can't blink!" That's all I remember about that trip to Sesame Place, but I'm sure I had a wonderful time. |
Late night snacks. Bite-sized ramblings. Old-fashioned eats, served fresh daily. Open 24-7.  Other blogs Fireballs and Tsunami JeffreyDavis.net Mismatched Parentheses NimbleSixpence One Tortured Soul Palpably Inadequate Picnic, Lightning Pony Legs, Temporarily Supernouveau Wander Lust In my DVD player Archives June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 Other stuff Homestarrunner One Slime DeepDiscountDVD Olde English Sketch Comedy Live Music Archive Copy Army Copywriting Service Love & Radio This One Time Email me mmjunior / at / hotmail   
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