on june 1st i got high from a pen
and walked along the harbor
while it rained
i'm getting fatter
i'm dozing off at work
and dreaming about stalking
a coyote down a gravelly roadside
on june 1st i got high from a pen
and walked along the harbor
while it rained
i'm getting fatter
i'm dozing off at work
and dreaming about stalking
a coyote down a gravelly roadside
Tuesday January the 19th-22nd I took five bike trips to Teaneck, NJ, chasing the Townsend’s Warbler. On that Friday at about 3:15pm I found the warbler in the vine scramble on the creek bank. Nice feeling. On Saturday I walked Inwood Hill Park in the morning after dropping off compost and picking up coffee at Buunni CafĂ©. Danny and I walked through the Clove and then bumped into each other on the ridge. He said, “You still want that Merlin?” I laughed. “Are you joking me?” He showed me the Merlin he spotted on the north ridge just earlier on his way up. Later on the south end Danny introduced me to an old Asian man dressed in a red track suit. His name is Yuki or something and is an out of work jazz and Latin music drummer. I went home, showered and walked up to Marble Hill MTA station. I stepped in poop on “shit street” and saw a Peregrine swooping from the Broadway Bridge. Pete and I walked out to the point at Croton Point Park and then we went to Grandmas. We had coffee and Panatone. Pete changed out a set of Venetian blinds in Grandma’s bedroom. That night me, Anna and Pete went to the Gramercy. Pete and I had two beers each. I had mushroom ravioli. Anna had prime rib. Pete had lobster ravioli. Then we went to Michael and Craig’s and drank French Martinis while watching Moving Art on Netflix. Michael rolled me a joint. He double papered it. Then we watched SNL. It was a repeat episode from around the holidays. Michael and Craig talked about their Safari experiences. I fell asleep around 2am maybe and woke up around 7am. Anna and I went to have coffee at Grandma’s. Tony and Pete showed up later. Pete dropped me off at Croton Point Park. I walked the landfill for a while and ended up getting a few pictures of America Tree Sparrows and a Short-Eared Owl.
Lunch was delicious today. Three bean vegetarian chili, Spanish rice and grilled broccoli. I submitted a $691 expense report. I overheard one of the older crew members appeal to a manager for an ergonomic chair for a different crew member who recently had knee surgery. These two crew members don’t particularly see eye-to-eye on things, I’ve learned. But what do I know they have a long history there together. My driver on the way home had very fat hands. When I opened the car door, he asked, “What’s the name on the account?” I let him know I was going to Manhattan. He joked, “I don’t go above 96th Street.” Then he said he had a friend on 86th and Broadway who was a leading pedophile detective, number two in the country. I suggested after he dropped me off he could get some coffee with his friend. He asked what my favorite subject was in high school. I didn’t have a real answer. He said he was a Social Studies teacher for 10 years. He was a bad student like me who somehow managed to score a 98 on his regents exam. Could I imagine teaching history in high school with everything that has gone on in this country over the last four years? It’s sick world we live in. I changed and left for the park as soon as I got home. The Cooper’s Hawk was active on Dyckman Street near the pier. I saw it take down a pigeon but the pigeon escaped somehow. A lot of Waxwings flew over, a House Finch foraged in the grass mixed in with the House Sparrows. A Bald Eagle flew over. I walked around the North Point and up over the ridge to the Overlook Meadow. A couple of Chickadees were still buzzing around. I dispersed the heart-shaped branch arrangement near the Straus Pines and pulled some flagging off a side trail. Some old white lady in a long coat stopped and told me she saw a winter wren and that last night there was a big owl in The Clove. I didn’t like her. I walked towards The Clove and heard the Great Horned Owl hooting. When I made it to the Clove trail I saw the owl fly south. I thought I saw someone with a flashlight in the Clove. This upset me too. I followed the owl south and found it perched above the Inwood stairs, southeast of Whale Back Rock. It swooped down to a few more perches and I followed by taking the stairs down towards Dyckman. It perched above the Payson Avenue nature building and swooped across Dyckman to one of the Riverside Drive buildings, where it perched again before nabbing a pigeon and flying back into Inwood Hill Park.
Saw James at the Dyckman pier this morning, he had a Cooper's. Then I saw Joe and Danny at the point. There was an adult Bald Eagle perched in the Riverdale forest above the train tracks. Didn't talk to driver on the way to Englewood. Got my covid test right behind Scott. Christina took my sample. She didn't have her long lashes on today. Relieved Mac at flashcam. He called Geoff for an issue witht eh telos. Geoff was at the hospital with his ill father. He said Rich had a baby and last week he called Rich with an issue when Rich was at home on paternity leave. Diaz asked me to go into PCR2 and put black online. It was only the second time I've been in PCR2. Kyle relieved me at 11 as Greg was getting involved with the telos troubleshoot. Mike has to come in 4am on Friday. I called the dental office in midtown. The paperwork was good and I wasn't able to reschedule. Left the building and walked to Witte Field. A male and female house finch flushed from behind a sedan in the parking lot and perched in a bare tree. Only Juncos and White-throated sparrows in the fields. Ate beyond meat chili with rice and corn for lunch. Rahel was at flash2 for the 1 o'clock and Mike flash1. Brian showed up around 1:40p to relieve me. I stayed for the promo and left the building in unison with Tom. Brushed teeth quickly in the big west end bathroom. Uber driver played reggeatone to midtown. He almost hit a coupled being cute in a time square crosswalk. i was early so i went into bookoff. there were a lot of people changing in stuff for cash. every few minutes they would make an announcement for customers to come and claim the value of their sales. A girl organizing the dvds was very cute, i walked passed her unnecessarily twice. the assistant x-rayed my teeth. dentists said i need a root canal. i might not need a root canal. he's going to see what he can do. might use porcelain or something. his wife is also a dentist in the same office. she started a water leak while he was cleaning my teeth. then she took a picture of me and the dentist and sent it to my mom. the dentist gave me a baggy of teeth cleaning supplies. i went back to bookoff and bought an italian language copy of the decamaron, $14.50. whipped out the binoculars in throwback fountain park. counted about a dozen white-throated sparrows and walked down to Bryant Park. a couple catbirds and a bunch more white-throated sparrows. saw one overnbird strutting around a person's dirty sneaker feet. I was on the platform waiting for an A by 4:55p. had to buy a single ride metro car pass. a younger man approached a man wearing veterans branded stuff and started talking about being in the service. the younger man said he made a huge mistake smoking pot during training camp and being kicked out of the army. somehow that decision was influenced by his parents, so it was his parents' fault he wasn't still in the army and now a veteran and able to retire at an early age. the actual veteran, who was a small dark skinned man who looked pretty tired, seemed unsympathetic, reserved. did laundry, called anna, called chris, bought some hummus and guaco and fine and fare. some man was in really bad shape in the store. he paid for an open can of coke while accusing someone of stealing his cigarettes. no one made an effort to move him out of the store. he was filthy and not wearing his mask. watched some jeopardy, wheel, mandalorian and part of salem's lot. david dinkens died today. they found some shiny monolith in utah and biden introduced his cabinet members. the dow hit 30k. two decent sized bugs in kitchen earlier. killed one with my travel tumbler.
What happened on Friday? I might have biked up to Alpine. It was a warm and foggy day. At Gray Crag I saw a big brown bird perched below in a tree on the river bank. The nape of its neck was white. Between Ruckman Point and Bombay Hook I saw and heard two Pileated Woodpeckers in the trees below. The Ravens were there again but less numbers than the previous day. The previous day I got good pictures of a Black Vulture. The reason I came back on Friday was to try and read the wing tag on the Black Vulture. No Black Vulture on Friday though. I saw the pre-adult Eagle flying low over the river for about sixty seconds before it disappeared in the trees. There was a flock of small birds murmurating, rapidly changing direction and landing in the treetops below and above the cliff edge. I'm thinking Juncos or Siskins? A man stopped to talk to me. He had a weird way of speaking that included a lot of long pauses. He spoke well though. His wife was into the birding scene. When I told him I biked there from the city, he mentioned the new bike lane on the George Washington Bridge. I didn't know they were building one. I was back at my bike by 5:40 pm and it was dark by the time I was in Manhattan. I lost my front light somewhere on Thursday. I drank two beers at home and went back out for a walk around 10:05 pm. I walked north on Broadway passed this bar, Tubby Hook. There two men sitting outside who looked sad and a small group of people inside. I walked down to Ft Tryon Public House. They wouldn't seat me outside and last call was 11:30 pm. I saw at a table near pushed up against the bar and ordered a Flower Power and the green bowl. Two people at the corner of the bar were on a first date. The man was an employee of Columbia Hospital. The restaurant had about 30 people in it. Standard pop-music jams were playing loudly. The TV most easily viewable from my seat was showing Smackdown. A tag team appeared on the entrance stage as red Solo cups rained down on them. The bar was decorated for Halloween. There was a two-foot tall scarecrow on the bar behind me and a pumpkin on the high table across the room where a group of people were singing along to the music and drinking White Claw. A group of three older women entered the restaurant and complained the music was too loud. The hostess checked their temperatures and signed in anyway. I drank a second beer and left. I woke up pretty hungover the next day and met my cousin in the park around 1pm. We walked from the pedestrian bridge to Dyckman Fields up to Muscota Marsh and then to Buuni Cafe. After she left I got a few shots of a Blackpoll Warbler and a Pine Siskin. I talked to Bill, the guy who I always see with the 500mm lens. The way he says warbles make me think he's from Boston or somewhere else than NYC. On my way home I had a beer and pad thai with scallops at Yummy Thai. A young couple sat near me in the dining space setup on the sidewalk. I watched some college football when I got home and drank another beer. I started watching Dead Zone with Christopher Walken and realized I had seen it before. I forget what I watched after that. The temperature dropped into the 40s overnight and stayed cold and crisp on Sunday. I left at 7:05 am on bike for EC and arrived around 7:43 am. There was no one checking temperatures on the west side of the building so I had to walk around the south wing to the east (main entrance). We turned on all the monitors and put on our headsets. I drank some coffee and ate a chocolate croissant from the buffet set up in the western hallway. Andy asked us not to touch the telestrator. We wanted to interact with the touchscreen function to familiarize ourselves. Jim broke us around 11 am. My rear tire needed air when I got to the bike rack. I used the pump bolted to the cement outside the rack enclosure. The tire held air for the ride home. I got my camera and went back to the marsh and fields. The Marsh Wren, a rarely sighted bird, made a brief appearance as I was looking for sparrows. My pictures came out just okay. When I was napping on the couch later that afternoon Anna called me. She wanted to see if I needed my stock certificates for AT&T shares Florence gifted me back in the 90s. Pete applied a substance on the floors in the background and said he needed to be institutionalized. I ate a small cold burrito and a single ramen pack and watched Unsolved Mysteries before bed.
Used the entrance up on Payson. Someone was standing on the long stairs rolling a tobacco leaf. Turned left at the first junction on the east ridge and headed south on the narrow path towards the big Horse Chestnut. Two Black-Throated Greens came low down in the young cherry branches. At Whale Back had a Black-and-White, a magnolia and a scraggly looking Wood-Thrush. Three young people took a seat on Whale Back, off the path, and talked politics. I headed for the Overlook. Sat on outcropping above the northbound HH traffic lanes. Hazy and cool with southerly winds. Only gulls, distant Ospreys and low flying Cormorants. Might have seen a Kestrel. Kinglets, maybe (ruby crowned, if so) arrived in Straus Site Pines. Hard to ID kinglets visually. Pretty certain on their whistle calls. Tried to ID warbler high in pines. No luck. Eastern Wood Pee-Wees (4 or 5) in dead tree on west ridge. Around 6:30pm on red trail near Dyckman had a Magnolia come down low along the trail. Looked for Flying Squirrel. Saturating orange color from sunset.
By Chester Himes
Obvious connections to Native Son, which is referenced in this work twice I think. More “voice” in narrative than Native Son. My comprehension intuitively drifts against the flow of the sentences. A lot of the sentences feel like they run-on. Compared to Native Son the main character has more perceived innocence, more autonomy. Robert "Bob" Jones. Imagery inside the shipyard is good. Bob is chastised for not appreciating the opportunity he was giving to be an advanced African American. He resents white power. His dreams are fearful and violent. I tried to find the film adaptation and I couldn’t. I still want to watch it. Interest in read Himes’s Harlem Detective novels.