2008

Yum Yum is this ice cream and hot dog joint in Greensboro. I grew up snacking there. In fact, most of Greensboro grew up snacking there; I think the place opened in 1906. Since it’s also located pretty much in the middle of UNCG, it draws a large and loyal crowd of varying ages.

Lately, my schedule has taken me there in the late afternoon, when the crowd tends to be older.  I was watching a couple this afternoon, a man of about 70, and his wife or girlfriend, who looked older but was probably about the same age. She looked very much like the stereotypical retired librarian, rather plain and shy and conservatively-dressed. I got the feeling she didn’t smile very often, and that she felt a little embarrassed about it any time she did. I got the impression that she didn’t get an awful lot of joy out of life anymore, but that going to Yum Yum and having a hot dog and a Cheerwine, followed by some ice cream, was probably one of the few things that completely filled her with happiness, even if only briefly.

I rather liked her, and I felt strangely protective of her, too. It struck me that if anyone were to do anything to cast any sort of shadow over her happy moment, I might have to hurt him. She deserved to enjoy every minute of her outing, and nothing was allowed to ruin it for her.

I’m not sure why I felt so attached to this woman. Maybe she made me think of my own mother, who really doesn’t resemble her in any way, but who seems increasingly sad and depressed herself lately. I wonder where or how (or if) she finds her own happy moments these days. I took her to Yum Yum one night a few weeks back, hoping I could help her find one.

I also wonder if I’ll be the same way later in life — if I’ll get to some dark point where my final days seem much closer than they do right now, and where I can’t find much to look forward to or get excited about myself. I really hope that if I do, Mark will occasionally take me out to Yum Yum and feed me ice cream and hot dogs. It makes the prospect of aging a lot less scary.

This one definitely gets the “coolest abandoned house we saw in a microscopic North Carolina town this weekend” award. I crave it. It’s sagging in many of the same places I am, so I feel a certain kinship. Mark was home for the weekend, which is an increasingly rare treat these days. Until you don’t have the opportunity to do it on a regular basis, you forget how nice it is just to sit around watching TV and sitting on the living room floor playing with your toys with the boy you love. This nightmare commute is going to have to end soon, because I won’t be able to stand to seeing him (or me) so miserable for very much longer. More random Monday stuff:

• Notice that the old journal entries are migrated into WordPress as far back as August 2002 now. I haven’t worked on this project for a week or so because life has been so hectic, but I envision a few free minutes on Tuesday in which I might tackle some of the older stuff.
• Spent a few hours in Asheville on Saturday. I was sort of surprised when Mark suggested it, seeing as how he’s not a fan of the place. Maybe he wanted to give it a second chance. If so, it didn’t work. He’s right, though. It’s a pretty place and all, but it’s annoying as hell.
• Sorry. We might have stopped by, but we thought you were still hurricane-watching in Houston.
• Just out of curiosity, has anyone out there used iWork? Any thoughts on the spreadsheet application?
• Off to one of my five jobs now. And that means off to Greensboro for the second time today.

Since there obviously will be no gas anywhere on the planet by the end of the weekend, the lines have started to form here in the Triad. The Texaco station on Silas Creek Parkway where I bought gas on the way home last night for $3.59 was up to $4.19 by tonight. I think I’ll probably skip that little road trip tomorrow.

I just heard some guy on CNN say that “the Gulf of Mexico has become very agitated”, which struck me as a rather odd turn of phrase. By the way, Larry King’s is not really the voice I want to hear leading live team coverage of a crisis. And isn’t it time CNN got some new dramatic hurricane music? They’re using the same stuff they used during Katrina, and frankly I’m ready for a change.

Randomly Friday:

• Since one of my primary professional passions is making old newspaper archives available online, this is pretty exciting to me. I’m a little disappointed that the demo suggests there will be no built-in mechanism either for printing or saving the content in question, but it’s still better than nothing. I assume the print and save restrictions are part of the copyright agreement wit ProQuest and (presumably) with the original publishers.
• Warning to candidates: don’t mess around with librarians. We will fuck you up. Or at least cause you mild embarrassment in a relatively polite and professional manner.
• Speaking of libraries (sort of), I ran across this interesting book in my local one the other night. It’s a good read; the author derides such modern “geniuses” as LeCorbusier, Sert, and Gehry among others not merely for having needlessly expensive and  ridiculous-looking buildings that don’t integrate with their surroundings, but also for designing buildings that don’t even serve their stated purposes well, either because of generally bad design or through astronomical maintenance requirements. It might be worth owning, methinks.
• The crazy week is over. I still have a lot of work hanging over my head, but I may be able to sneak out for a little drive this weekend, assuming gas prices don’t jump a dollar or so over the weekend like they did during Katrina.