City boy, country boy

Baltimore June 2007

Gunpowder Falls

Education Today

At the aquarium today, the following, between a middle-aged man and a boy, about 10:

Man: "Y'see? fish spend their whole lives in school...so, stay in school."
[pause]
Boy: "Yeah. I'm not a fish."

It's a Hot One Today

Pretend you are naked. Not completely naked, but almost, and very weirdly so, and you are walking on a city sidewalk around noon while traffic is backed up because a bunch of guys are repaving the street. Now pretend that a guy in a Saturn with a baby in the back seat is looking at you, confused. What is the proper facial expression for you to have? Your choices are cliche, but so is walking around Baltimore airing out your buns, hon:
a) sheepish
b) proud
c) what the f*** are you lookin' at?

And of course, the answer is cliche, also. Is it always true that someone can be more menacing while semi- nude or nude than while fully clothed?

Yeah, so there he was, walking in front of my car as I waited to pull out of the Family Dollar parking lot (little baby swimming pool, 3 dollars). He was dark-skinned and "wearing" all black clothes, so at first I was confused. Went like this:
Hmm, a guy.
In a hood.
It's hot, though.
Wait. What's his hand doing?
Weird.
Is he wearing pantyhose?
Is that skin?
Is that like some kind of dark brown boxer brief? Like Marky-Mark?
No. Skin.
He's holding up his pants, with one hand, in front.
Barely. Those are definitely individual cheeks, there.
Not even a thong.
Don't look too closely.
He's looking at me.
He's still looking at me.

I realize that some of you will question my thought of a thong, but I challenge anyone, when faced with a bare bottom in broad daylight under circumstances like these, not to look for even a shred of fabric.

Today I learned that this same gentleman was at the same very busy intersection as my wife and a work compatriot of hers rode the #19 up Harford Road. You will understand my confusion when I heard this, because I saw our friend at about noon. My wife's bus passed the hot spot at about 5:15. Was he out, in the heat, showin' us sumpin', for five hours? Without drawing the attention of the local constabulary? Probably.

Thank you for waiting

I had a few things to take care of there.
Where do I start? Any requests?
To judge both your seriousness and my relevance, I will not be posting any pictures of Theodore until I hear from 5 people on these pages.
What do you want to hear about?

I could write paragraph after paragraph about my war against the passionflowers, but that's a short hop from extended riffs on why I like kitties. I could rip off Beth and begin a new feature called "Streets That I Hate," but that would be stealing. I could list for you all the items in my collection of junk I confiscated from fourth graders this year--but shouldn't I have given that stuff back? I could write about the guy on Harford Road earlier today with a fur hood and a bare ass, and I probably will, but someone has to ask for it first--and I've got a pretty good idea who that's going to be. Instead of outright theft of my wife's ideas, I could add a new feature where I retell her bus stories (which are better than mine, anyway) in my own words. That way I could make stuff up and it wouldn't really be lying. But, since this is Baltimore (see also: fur hood; bare ass), I won't need to make a single thing up.

I am, as you have noticed, stalling for time. I have a feeling that I will have time to think of something...