Jetlag
I got another little crappy detail delivered to me by mail and it went a pretty good way towards harshing the mellow I had arrived at by a day of sustained manual labor and three budweisers. Put in its proper perspective it is a harmless detail and I will try to treat it is as such. And even though Lorina warned me of frost I chose to accept Weatherbug’s incorrect version of the morning temp and got light frost on my baby plants and so today am also expecting some disappointed news from Mother Nature in an enveloped marked “attrition,” with the body of the contents beginning—“Dear Sir, due to your abject carelessness with prescience, your flower account is being reduced by twenty percent.” I hope my surviving plants don’t hold against me my occasional ignorance and negligence towards them.
I still check up on New Orleans crime news and let me tell you people still living there that if you fear your sense of what it really looks like is being dulled by the relentless repetition of bad then I am here to tell you that from afar it looks really bad still and with no hint of cessation. And, as always, I only bring this up, I think, so as to offer a little contrast to the concept of New Orleans as an affected cutout called N’awlins, a happy happy party town. As for the children I used to know in those New Orleans killing fields, I don’t hear of them specifically anymore. I only hear of, through news reports, the continuing murders happening around them while they play in the streets (I feel certain the recent outlawing of street hoops in New Orleans will not be enough to make all the children disappear from those streets). I still aspire to and at the same time suffer from the desire to create in words a moderately accurate portrayal of a New Orleans youth from, for example, the Sixth Ward.
And this while I live as caretaker in relative opulence on 40 acres on the edge of a quaint and historic Virginia village populated by 186 people, where crime is only on TV, and not even there if you got a proper handle on your child rearin’.
Next thing you know I’ll be jumping on private jets to bop down to Texas to visit my mom for a day. How can anyone ever know what’s going to happen? And how do you keep from being perpetually dumbfounded?
It was actually easier to ignore the crime statistics before my husband was part of law enforcement. It's harder on him than it is me. He seems to struggle with the cycles of violence and abuse in cases involving minors. The kids in custody may be horrible what what has happened to them during their life time?
You're right, the crime isn't getting better here but I hold tight to my little block and smile at the kids as they play in the street.
|
I got another little crappy detail delivered to me by mail and it went a pretty good way towards harshing the mellow I had arrived at by a day of sustained manual labor and three budweisers. Put in its proper perspective it is a harmless detail and I will try to treat it is as such. And even though Lorina warned me of frost I chose to accept Weatherbug’s incorrect version of the morning temp and got light frost on my baby plants and so today am also expecting some disappointed news from Mother Nature in an enveloped marked “attrition,” with the body of the contents beginning—“Dear Sir, due to your abject carelessness with prescience, your flower account is being reduced by twenty percent.” I hope my surviving plants don’t hold against me my occasional ignorance and negligence towards them.
I still check up on New Orleans crime news and let me tell you people still living there that if you fear your sense of what it really looks like is being dulled by the relentless repetition of bad then I am here to tell you that from afar it looks really bad still and with no hint of cessation. And, as always, I only bring this up, I think, so as to offer a little contrast to the concept of New Orleans as an affected cutout called N’awlins, a happy happy party town. As for the children I used to know in those New Orleans killing fields, I don’t hear of them specifically anymore. I only hear of, through news reports, the continuing murders happening around them while they play in the streets (I feel certain the recent outlawing of street hoops in New Orleans will not be enough to make all the children disappear from those streets). I still aspire to and at the same time suffer from the desire to create in words a moderately accurate portrayal of a New Orleans youth from, for example, the Sixth Ward.
And this while I live as caretaker in relative opulence on 40 acres on the edge of a quaint and historic Virginia village populated by 186 people, where crime is only on TV, and not even there if you got a proper handle on your child rearin’.
Next thing you know I’ll be jumping on private jets to bop down to Texas to visit my mom for a day. How can anyone ever know what’s going to happen? And how do you keep from being perpetually dumbfounded?
- jimlouis 5-03-2005 6:06 pm
It was actually easier to ignore the crime statistics before my husband was part of law enforcement. It's harder on him than it is me. He seems to struggle with the cycles of violence and abuse in cases involving minors. The kids in custody may be horrible what what has happened to them during their life time?
You're right, the crime isn't getting better here but I hold tight to my little block and smile at the kids as they play in the street.
- Kelly (guest) 5-18-2005 7:08 pm [add a comment]