I see these every week in hotels. Why couldn't they have just said "Please Don't Be Wasteful"? Not that I am, but I could respect that message a bit more. The hyperbole of "Save Our Planet" is almost insulting. At a so-so hotel in France, I once saw a sign that roughly translated to: "Your towel will dry better if it is draped over the metal bar".
The summer is disappearing like the final gurgles of a swirling bathtub drain, and with the same fanfare. The summer suits and coastal materials are all sulking, and there is one last black tie event for the tropical dinner jacket this week. If you saw a man in a seersucker suit scrubbing some spray paint off of an old city wall last weekend, it was me, and you will understand why I don't recognize the term "graffiti artist". I only use the term "vandal".
A humid morning, where a stroll to the office gets the inner-elbows swampy and perma-creases the shirt. Men know what I'm talking about. Feet steam inside leather shoes and dress socks, and the air-conditioning billows from an open shop door as I pass, making me consider doubling back and fake-browsing inside. Not hot, just humid and stuffy in the city. A text arrives from a friend with good news about her husband's prognosis. A block later, I exchange half-nods with someone I regularly pass in the mornings and wonder how many more before I should introduce myself. If I pass him on the way home, I'll give it a shot. I think about the summer and all of things I wasn't able to do, and then I get a flash of a concept or image or feeling that must have been a fragment of a dream from the previous night. Retracing those images is pointless, because you can never piece it together.
Autumn soon. I used to just philosophize about endings. Now, I'm foolishly philosophizing about anticipating endings. No matter how many times you consciously make a point to enjoy a season, a mood, or a moment, it's never enough. With a bitter-sweet ending, don't fooled by the ratio. It's still 50% bitter. Snap out of it.
There is hope. The new juniors at the office all pack their lunches as I mostly do, and they use the coffee maker instead of buying the burnt $4 cupfulls nearby from the chain. Best of all, they're early. Maybe this handbasket and its contents are not en route to where I thought they were.
Dear YWP,
ReplyDeletePerhaps the humidity has me extra cranky today. BUT you have just illustrated one big difference between our two cities. In Boston public spirited folks like you clean up vandalism. In Philadelphia we pay ransom to vandals by subsidizing with tax dollars thousands of ineptly rendered "murals" which we are told provide a positive means of re-entry into society for former criminals.Oy.
I have developed a theory about public murals:
DeleteThe more murals an area has, the less likely you will want to be there after sundown. This has stood up to the rigors of analysis so far.
Humidity like that removes the bitter from the end for me.
ReplyDeleteHumidity like that removes all bitter from this ending, for me.
ReplyDeleteCurious. What would be your thoughts on Lord Disick who is now featured on so many preppy blogs. Your wit?
ReplyDeleteI just looked up that name. I can happily (and honestly) report that before just now, I had never heard of him. I am also sad to report that from this moment forward, I now know who he is.
DeleteAs for your question, I suggest ignoring all sources featuring that person.