Hot air

Ah, it's so nice to finally have a chance to let in some cool air. It's been ninety thousand degrees in DC for what seems like eternity. Naturally it is now apparent that a certain neighbor's dog has taken up barking as an intense night sporting event. And, oh wait, was that a gunshot I heard? Oh well. At least we're getting some nice cool air. Note: It probably was not a gunshot but as a person who grew up in a small college town, any noise at night is obviously a gunshot.

Highlights on the way home from work:

As I pulled into the gas station, (BP mind you. I don't blame them for the spill, and I'm pretty excited that they gave it such an awesome name, Deep Horizon=bad ass). Though yes, I am sad for all of the devastation wreaked by the spill. Sorry, it's hard to focus over all the police sirens. Note: the station is within two blocks of us. Anyhow, as I began pumping my gas two loud voices started to call out from the distance.

Voice: Hey you. You.

Luckily it was far enough away for me to realize that it wasn't intended for me. And even if it was intended for me I probably shouldn't look up right away as it would make me seem arrogant. Not every random holler is intended for me.

Hey you. You.

I wonder who this jackass is that they're yelling at. He should really speak up.

Voice: Hey blue shirt. Blue shirt

Luckily I was wearing something that was more of a capris. Certainly they couldn't mean me. It would be a gross misunderstanding of my beautiful new shirt.

Voice: Guy pumping gas in the blue shirt.

I wonder who else is pumping gas in a blue shirt. Wait, am I wearing my blue shirt. No, this is at least cerulean. It's definitely not blue. I continue to pump gas while smiling lightly.

Voice: Blue shirt! Blue shirt!

Okay, I look up on the off chance that the voice has misidentified capris. Perhaps I can direct them to the color wheel. I try and see if they are up in the apartments above, but I don't see anyone. It must not be for me.

Voice: Blue shirt! Hey you. White boy.

And we have lift off. I do appear to be the only visible white boy on the block. And, I'm a little flattered because I've just been called a boy. I almost yell across the street, "I'm thirty, but thanks. I try my best to keep in shape." Instead, I look across the street and give a brief wave. Yes, that's me. I am white. Just pumping my gas. My half-assed wave seems to say.

Voice: Blue shirt!

Okay, now I actually smile, despite the color wheel mix up. I suppose that a person could actually call my shirt blue, and if I hadn't painted within the last six months I would only know of two blue colors, blue and navy blue, which I often mistake for black in dim light. The voices finally stop, and I get in the car and drive away. Except that I turn down a side street and there are the two women who have been yelling at me from across the street, one of them is pushing a stroller.

Voice: Hey!

This time, I know that I'm being talked to, so I wave out the window. Hello, I'm glad to have had this little chance encounter my wave seems to say.

Voice: Hey cutie!

When I get home I tell S that some people were yelling at me from across the street at the gas station. I say, post thirty, I'll just take it is a compliment.

Kind of a bad ass song.




The beginning to a DFW fragment that is also bad ass.

It is this boy who dons the bright-orange bandolier and shepherds the really small ones through the crosswalk outside school. This is after finishing the meals-on-wheels breakfast tour of the hospice downtown, whose administrator lunges to bolt her office door when she hears his cart’s wheels in the hall. He has paid out-of-pocket for the steel whistle and the white gloves held palm-out at cars while children who did not dress themselves cross behind him, some trying to run despite WALK DON’T RUN, the happyfaced sandwich board he also made himself. The autos whose drivers he knows he waves at and gives an extra-big smile and tosses some words of good cheer as the crosswalk clears and the cars peel out and move through, some joshing around a little by swerving to miss him only by inches as he laughs and dances aside and makes faces of pretended terror at the flank and rear bumper. The one time that station wagon didn’t miss him really was an accident and he sent the lady several notes to make absolutely sure she knew he understood that and asked a whole lot of people he hadn’t yet gotten the opportunity to make friends with to sign his cast and decorated the crutches very carefully with bits of colored ribbon and tinsel and adhesive sparkles and even before the six weeks the doctor sternly prescribed, he’d given them away to the children’s wing to brighten up some other less lucky and happy kid’s convalescence and by the end of the whole thing he’d been inspired to write a very long theme to enter into the annual Social Studies theme competition about how a positive attitude can make even an accidental injury into an occasion for new friends and bright new opportunities for reaching out to others and while the theme didn’t even get honorable mention he honestly didn’t care because he felt like writing the theme had been its own reward and he’d gotten a lot out of the whole nine-draft process and was honestly happy for the kids whose themes did win awards and told them he was 100-plus percent sure they deserved it and that if they wanted to preserve their prize themes and maybe even
make displayed items out of them for their parents, he’d be happy to type them up and laminate them and even fix any spelling errors he found if they’d like him to and at home his father puts his hand on Leonard’s shoulder and says he’s really proud that his son’s such a good sport and offers to take him to Dairy Queen as a kind of reward and Leonard tells his father he’s grateful and that the gesture means a lot to him but that in all honesty he’d like it even more if they took the money his father would have spent on the ice cream and instead donated it either to Easter Seals or, better yet, to UNICEF to go toward the needs of famine-ravaged Biafrican kids who he knew for a fact had probably never even heard of ice cream and says that he bets it’ll end up giving both of them a better feeling even then the DQ would and as the father slips the coins in the coin-slot at the special bright-orange UNICEF volunteer cardboard pumpkin bank, Leonard takes a moment to express concern about the father’s facial tick again and to gently rib him about his reluctance to go in and have the family’s MD look at it, noting again that according to the chart on the back of his bedroom door the father is four months overdue for his annual physical and that it’s almost eight months past the
date of his recommended tetanus and T.B. boosters.