(no subject)
I have to drive up to Danbury, CT, tonight for a story I'm doing on speedskating. (Every month I profile a person/people who are into "unconventional exercise." It's called "Getting out of the Gym.") Anyway, so Danbury is 47 miles north of here, which means it's about 70 miles away from my home in Harlem.
By the time I'm done, I'll have worked a 12-hour day and driven 150+ miles, so I am taking "half" of tomorrow off. When I get home tonight, there will be no available street parking, which makes me pissed off when I'm tired and just want to get in my apartment. But I'll have to search and search until I find something that's hopefully not 10 blocks from my apartment and full of drug dealers.
Do I get to sleep in? Hell no. First, I have to leave by 9 a.m. the next morning, or else I'll get ticketed for parking during street cleaning hours. Then, I have to participate in our newspaper's audit of the Freedom of Information Law. I have to drive all the way up here again, and go to two police stations in the morning and request their arrest record for the previous 72 hours. I can't admit I'm a reporter unless I'm directly asked. I have to remember the entire encounter, then fill out a form, which will be in my car.
Then I can go home.
What's annoying me is to get to Danbury, I have to jump right on the freeway from my giant corporate office park, and then switch to another freeway and drive a billion desolate miles. None of the exits are located near towns nor do they have "truck stops." If you exit, you have to weave and wind and finally come upon some "hamlet" or "village" (note: just a fancy name for a "quaint" downtown area that has a train station stop for rich shmucks who commute from their model home mega-McMansion to the city each day).
I have to eat, though. And I hate eating alone in commuter villages. It's entirely families -- there are no single chicks who eat alone at night in any of these places, which close up by 8 p.m. anyway. And there are no fast food places -- rich families abhor chains. So, with any luck, when I get to Danbury I can find a pizza/pasta shop that has seating, so I can eat a slice and sip on Diet Snapple and generally feel lonely.
By the time I'm done, I'll have worked a 12-hour day and driven 150+ miles, so I am taking "half" of tomorrow off. When I get home tonight, there will be no available street parking, which makes me pissed off when I'm tired and just want to get in my apartment. But I'll have to search and search until I find something that's hopefully not 10 blocks from my apartment and full of drug dealers.
Do I get to sleep in? Hell no. First, I have to leave by 9 a.m. the next morning, or else I'll get ticketed for parking during street cleaning hours. Then, I have to participate in our newspaper's audit of the Freedom of Information Law. I have to drive all the way up here again, and go to two police stations in the morning and request their arrest record for the previous 72 hours. I can't admit I'm a reporter unless I'm directly asked. I have to remember the entire encounter, then fill out a form, which will be in my car.
Then I can go home.
What's annoying me is to get to Danbury, I have to jump right on the freeway from my giant corporate office park, and then switch to another freeway and drive a billion desolate miles. None of the exits are located near towns nor do they have "truck stops." If you exit, you have to weave and wind and finally come upon some "hamlet" or "village" (note: just a fancy name for a "quaint" downtown area that has a train station stop for rich shmucks who commute from their model home mega-McMansion to the city each day).
I have to eat, though. And I hate eating alone in commuter villages. It's entirely families -- there are no single chicks who eat alone at night in any of these places, which close up by 8 p.m. anyway. And there are no fast food places -- rich families abhor chains. So, with any luck, when I get to Danbury I can find a pizza/pasta shop that has seating, so I can eat a slice and sip on Diet Snapple and generally feel lonely.