A window.
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday that takes place on the first Monday in September. The holiday began in 1882, originating from a desire by the Central Labor Union to create a day off for the "working man". It is still celebrated mainly as a day of rest and marks the symbolic end of summer for many. -Wikipedia
Today was Labor Day. I guess that means summer's over and it is strange to not be going back to school. Makes me feel a little old. Both of my parents are teaching. Mom, fourth grade, dad at Dutchess Community College. Mom starts tomorrow and dad started last week. My dad's class was assigned to write a journal entry, one of many they'll write – an academic autobiography. I read a few as he was reading them tonight. Well, they were pretty bad. It made me feel like a genius.
It didn't necessarily make me think about my Hamilton or U of O writing education. It didn't really make me feel any superior, just particularly in tune to the way that language, as it comes out of people in written form, reflects our minds, our maturities. As I write now I'm mildly conscious of the fact that some people might read this, and that my word choice, punctuation and thematic flow is to be consumed and processed by friends and strangers. I might also try to keep my reader compelled by building tension and conflict. I'm not sure I feel like much of a journalist these days, even though I work at a newspaper.
I've been thinking that it would be fun to write about this particular stretch of River Road. River Road is a beautiful, scenic, but also very helpful driving route to my job in Kingston. It is a curvy, tree-lined, rustically picturesque and secluded spot that I find to be symbolic of the Hudson Valley. There's a house, an estate really, on a bend just beyond Poet's Walk and close to the road that takes you to the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge that I take to cross the Hudson River at least four times a week.
Poets' Walk is located in Red Hook, New York, USA on the scenic River Road (just north of the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge). It is a "romantic landscape", intended to celebrate the connection between landscape and poetry. The classic wooden vistas, sunlit fields and thick forest were the main focus of landscape architect Hans Jacob Ehlers' vision for the property in 1849.
The park's mown and gravel paths are variously lined with wooden hand-crafted benches, and provide access to the 120 acres of fields and forest, as well as spectacular river views. The park's walls of foliage and stone evoke outdoor "rooms" that reflect the 1849 landscape aims of Ehlers. -Wikipedia
I envision myself walking around the grounds of this estate that stretches across this bend of River Road with a mysterious owner. I have no idea who owns this entity; a person, a company, a strange public organization, I don't know but I'm very curious. There have always been whispers of mob connections in the area, but I've never really had them confirmed. There's a house on Rt. 199 beyond any resemblance of a town before Rock City that people say is mob-owned, but who knows? Even more reason to be curious about the ownership of a fucking gorgeous estate on River Road. I think a pretty cool story could be there somewhere; it must've been passed down or inherited. All you can see from the road appears to be a Barn-type building, an impressive gate/entrance and there's an additional entrance with a nice porched-house closer to the road. I can only assume there is a nicer, bigger and more radical house elsewhere on the property and I want to see it. I want a tour. I wonder if I had backing from a local publication that someone who works there would get me talking to the owner about a professionally-photographed feature. I wonder.
I also wonder about my strange impulses. I've been drinking. I'm on my second cocktail. And I'm not too terribly concerned with what people will actually think of my character if they read what will follow. Most people who'll read this know me fairly well and will know that I am not a malicious person. But I will admit to some weird fucking thoughts that pop into my head regularly throughout any given day. They usually are, frankly, quite violent. I will not admit to feeling actively compelled to follow through with them, and, strangely, these impulses sometimes make me shiver with amazement that I actually just thought them up. But, obviously, I never act on them.
Examples: when I'm driving to work in Kingston on said River Road, I'm often trying to sip something, or sometimes munch a Pop-tart or bagel. When I do this I try to control the steering wheel with my knee and naturally I try to do this on the straightest stretches of road. But my car's natural steering inclination, which I hope to have fixed some day, veers me off into the middle of the road, or off the side of the road. I wonder what it would be like to be in a head-on collision or to slam into a tree. I've heard stories of people doing this as a veiled suicide attempt; please do not get the wrong idea, I am nowhere near suicidal. But I wonder what my car would look like after the crash, what angles would just destroy my car and not me, what the impact would feel like if I were to emerge safe and sound. There's more. At work, at the restaurant, they pop into my head all the time. It could be because a lot of people just lament the workplace atmosphere and dream up aggressive, as opposed to passive-aggressive, behaviors that would be so satisfactory. But that's not necessarily true of these thoughts because I actually quite enjoy serving on many occasions. So why do I keep thinking about slapping, in an upward motion, trays that are full of glasses and plates that other servers have bussed, servers I care for and enjoy the company of, are carrying? Things like this haunt me. But I've been meaning to try to write this paragraph out for weeks now. It doesn't really disturb me; it kind of entertains me in a morbid way.
I'm watching "Heroes," a DVD box set my dad bought and it is quite intriguing. I'm on episode 3 and it is very intriguing. It's 1:32am and I have to be at the Journal at 8am tomorrow morning, which means a potentially 40-50 minute drive at 7am or slightly thereafter departure time. I'm not a morning person. I'm a night person. And it's really hard to transition into morning-ness which seems to be the professional and adult thing to do. But even after a long day at either job, getting up fairly early and everything, I can't seem to put myself to sleep before 1am. I've also been drinking and that disturbs me a bit, how much I too enjoy a nice alcoholic buzz or sleep-induced-bedtime boozeyness to put me to sleep. OK, that's enough. Goodnight.
Heroes is an American Emmy Award-nominated science fiction drama television series, created by Tim Kring,[1] which premiered on NBC on September 25, 2006. The show tells the story of several people who "thought they were like everyone else... until they realized they have incredible abilities" such as telepathy, time travel, flight and instantaneous regeneration. These people soon realize they have a role in preventing a catastrophe and saving mankind.[2] The series emulates the writing style of American comic books with short, multi-episode story arcs that build upon a larger, more encompassing arc. Kring said "we have talked about where the show goes up to five seasons." -Wikipedia
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