Chair as Art. Art as Chair.

So, the air conditioner and the second chair disappeared and this little piece of art work showed up one day…

 

Document This Phenomenon

And this arrived…how seasonal.

Assumptive Things

On my block in Bloomingdale there are two entrances to the alley where some of us have garages.  The alley is a bombed out looking space, but I’m not going to get into that right now–just to say there are tons of alley cats in the alley, which I don’t mind because they keep the RATS away (a problem in DC), but apparently, because I saw one run across my front patio area literally 3 days after moving in, like some sort of deleterious opposite-day welcome party, the cats do not keep the possums away, and, can you blame them?  Possums are soulless creatures that you do not want to mess with, you just walk away, just walk away.

In the west entrance to the alley is a repository for lots of things.  Being new to the block I have no idea how long the curb has been a things-repository.  At first I thought the house immediately to the right of the alley entrance must be the culprit.  I realized I was making assumptions about my neighbors.  I’d like to think I came to this realization due to my Coro “What Is Going On” training–a training that helps individuals derive facts, not feelings about a situation.  But no.  No.  I just thought any one house, without being the home of a hoarder would not have so many things to toss out…and hoarders don’t get rid of things.  I assumed it was this house, these neighbors because the “first” thing tossed out was a tv–a really old wooden framed tv.  My immediate bougie* thought?  “They should get that recycled.”  It seemed normal enough–it seemed like a thing the people who lived closest to the tv on the curb would do.

The tv disappeared and then awhile later, another tv appeared, and then there were two tvs, and then those disappeared.  I would like to think I realized those neighbors couldn’t have that many tvs.  My assumptive conclusions about my neighbors held strong for quite awhile, and what I thought was, “how could they have that  many tvs?”

Since then, lots of things have come and gone.  I’m talking** mattresses, bed frames, vacuum cleaners–the list goes on.  And, a light bulb (that I picked up from the trash heap on this curb) went off: ohhhh, it’s probably not the work of just those neighbors…probably lots of people bring their stuff to this curb…

I don’t completely understand what’s happening: is this spot a communal dumping ground?  Where does the stuff go?  Often, the items will be on the curb for a few days to, annoyingly*** a couple weeks.  Clearly this cannot be coming from one house.

I then decided I should document this phenomenon.  Why?  Well, a) it’s apparently what “we” do****; b) my books read in 2012 documentation project is off to a s l o w start and I need to document something, because…see point a.

So, this chair happened.  Actually, a couple days later someone topped it with a vacuum cleaner but since this new documentation idea***** was nascent, someone snagged the vacuum.  Or, to not make assumptions, I can safely say the vacuum cleaner was gone one day.

 

 

A couple days later, this second chair arrived…somehow.

It’s nice to know that someone or someones (maybe not the person or persons dropping off all these things) has a sense of humor.

 

 

 

 

*I wax bougie.

** “I’m talking” said in the same tone as Kim and Cookie in the Outkast interlude. Yes, a trigger.

*** see *

**** You know, we, as in all of us. We blog, we tweet, we point things out.

***** So, I says to the workout buddy, “You know, as soon as I get excited about documenting this, ‘it’s’ gonna stop…”

Why we think to our highest ability and work hard

Here’s the thing:

You just never know

And nobody’s perfect.

I also wanted to add this little section I just read from Pandora about Bill Withers because to me, this is in a simple form, what “it’s” all about: “Withers wrote ‘Lean on Me’ based on his experiences growing up in a West Virginia coal mining town. Times were hard and when a neighbor needed something beyond their means, the rest of the community would chip in and help.”

Tossing hats into mixes

It’s 2012, I’ve read a lot of blog posts about resolutions and non-resolutions–more resets of behavior change, and the idea of “why not start with 2012?”

I fall into the camp of being not a resolution-type person.  If I were to have one, I guess I would want to Be Nice to Andy. (#BeNicetoAndy to follow my progress*.)

I am doing two things in 2012 that are dependent on the projects starting 1.1.12.

The first is a book project–that technically I could start at any time, but, you get the point.  Last year when my Workout Buddy and I lived in Pittsburgh (what what!) at some point we started stacking the books we’d finished reading on top of a bookshelf.  I think it was out of lack of space to put our books (I’ve made the quip before, our need for book space comes from the result of a literary cultural head combining with a philosophy lawyer head.)  I thought I’d start 2012 off by intentionally doing this same thing.

Here’s our space for the books:

I currently have to finish one last essay in DFW’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.  I’ve been reading this for a long time.  I highly recommend it.  I talk about it all the time…all the time.  Ask anyone that has had a conversation with me in the last 3 months and that person will probably tell you I mentioned this reading…or they’ll say, she was babbling about David Lynch, tennis, and luxury cruises…a lot.  So, until I finish DFW, and unless I take on Infinite Jest I’ll be highlighting our reading throughout 2012.****

The second project is to run 1,400 miles in 2012, or roughly 25 miles a week.  My marathon training friends have told me, “Wow, that’s ambitious.  I only run that many miles when I’m–” you guessed it: “training for a marathon.”

The Workout Buddy and I got a pooch, so now I can be outrun by both of them.

Anytime upon hearing this, I mentally smack my forehead for not thinking this challenge through a bit more, and assuming the Workout Buddy will complete this challenge with me, to which, most days he replies to my whining that we need to go for a run, “hey, it’s your challenge,” and outwardly say, “yeah…it will be okay.  It’s a challenge, it’s supposed to be hard.” I mean, it’s only one year, right?  Only one glorious 2012.

* I guess I like to wax neurotic.  So, to complicate this [feigned] brain issue, I’ve added a list of new triggers.  Not music, but questioning whether something I say or do could be construed at snobby or self-centered.  So, when I write, “follow my progress” I say this in an air of eye-rolling ridiculousness, BUT, my fear is that people might read that and think, “wow, what a jerk. ‘Follow my progress?’” And so, hence the DFW** obsession with asterisks and explaining myself more than is needed***.

**Not comparing myself with that guy. Not at all.

***I’ve said before, I do have a partiality for pointing things out that make people roll their eyes…I just can’t find the blog post where I mention this before to prove my track record. Trust me though.

****I’m currently also reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, so be warned that soon I’ll probably start mentioning System 1 and System 2 brain functions.  I’m reading Paris Spleen by Baudelaire (more poetry in 2012 and beyond), and I’ve come back to my book on Cuba–I’m still in the process of learning about the indigenous peoples of the region.

On the Jumbotron

 You handle things well or not

Two kinds of people

Bad situation mitigated.                                                   Fodder for poems and other such suches, sure. Steinbeckian relief served in a tin cup, by the fire drawing in the sand, figuring next figures:                     At least I have coffee.