Tag: habit

Saturday Morning. Walking with Lucy.

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4:30 am.

I shake off the cob webs from Tylenol PM.

Read morning papers, blog posts, skim social media.

Read another chapter of Christopher Beha’s “The Index of Self-Destructive Acts.”

Think about my index, and yesterday’s destructive acts. Guzzled two (or was it three?) bottles of Diet Snapple Peach Tea. Sugar Free. No preservatives. Turn the bottle to read the label. Aspartame, sodium, citric acid, potassium citrate, malic acid. Natural, my a**.

And then Nachos. Potato Chips. Three donuts. And, a large (large) number of Hershey’s Nuggets…like on a conveyor belt, I love Lucy and the Chocolate Factory. Oh, that milk chocolate sugar high.

C.S. Lewis said “Life (or Sugar), is as habit forming as cocaine. What then?” What then? What now?

I pause before weigh-in. Regret the Self-Destructive Acts. Inhale. Hope. I ease onto the scale, like tip-toeing is going to pare back a pound or two. A**holes believe that it will move down after yesterday’s performance. Disgusting. Disgusted.

I check the weather app. Think about how many layers I need. Should be one less with the extra layer of glazed donuts. Whale blubber is said to taste like arrowroot biscuits or Stop & Shop Cake donuts.

57° F, but breezy. No jacket. Tee-shirt. Long sleeved sweater. Camera gear. I walk by the island in the kitchen. 3 donuts left. Don’t you dare. Don’t even think about it. My mouth waters. My God, I have issues.

5:30 am.

I’m out the door.

152 consecutive days.

5 mile loop to Cove Island Park and back.

~10,000 steps…

600 calories…

Or approx 3 glazed donuts.

Oh, I need it! Oh, I need your help!

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VOLUME UP! (I SO LOVE THIS!)

Thank you Sue W.

Driving I-95 South. With Jazzman.

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5:38 a.m. T.G.I.F.

68 F. Glorious Summer Day. And, yet for some reason you’re dragging. 

I-95 S traffic is smooth.

7 1/2 hours of sleep. Yet, groggy. Eyes blink to clear.  Makes no sense, you’re so damn tired. 

Exit 8, one-half mile ahead. Get off, go home, go back to bed. Call in Sick.

I slide into the right (slow) lane. A foreign place to me. 

I reduce speed to 55. A walk at a pace uncomfortable for me.

I pass Exit 8.

I trail a Semi. “If you can’t see my mirrors, I can’t see you.” I can’t see much of anything right now Friend.

Waze signals 17 minutes to destination.

Exit 5, one mile ahead. Get off, go home, go back to bed. Call in Sick.

I pass Exit 5.

I reach for the radio.  Spin knob to find Sirius 7 on 70’s. Carole King with Jazzman

Lift me, won’t you lift me
Above the old routine;
Make it nice, play it clean, jazzman
He can sing you into paradise
Or bring you to your knees
Jazzman, take my blues away…

I shift in my seat. Snap out of it. 

Exit 2, last exit. Get off, go home, go back to bed. Call in Sick. Call in Sick? When you really aren’t Sick? Light calendar, handful of appointments. Martyr. Moron. 

I pass Exit 2.

I swing into the center lane and then again over to the left lane. I accelerate. Sigh. I’m home.

I pull into the parking garage. Near empty but for the cars parked overnight.  I walk down the empty hallway. I set my briefcase on my desk.

Lift me, won’t you lift me
Right back into my old routine
Sing me into paradise
Or bring me to my knees

Photo: Jamie Schafer

Flight AA2632 to DFW. And Dreamin’ of Just One Time.

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5:15 A.M. Monday Morning.

Terminal B LaGuardia Airport. Not America’s finest example of its greatness or its Might. Dark. Dingy. Beyond Stale. Earning its status as the Worst Airport in the Country. Dead last in surveys. Sad, really.

Lines are backing up at Security, including TSA pre-check.

One hour and 5 minutes to boarding: Flight AA2632 to DFW.

I clear security.

And I walk.

  • AA2126. Boston. 6:00 a.m. Sit in the stands at a Red Sox game.
  • AA4752. Washington. 6:00 a.m. Sit on the steps at Lincoln Memorial.
  • AA4527. Atlanta. 6:05 a.m. Lounge in the Georgia Aquarium.

What if. Just what if. Just one time. You call it in sick. A Sick Day. What’s that? You walk back out of the terminal, stroll up to the American Airlines ticket counter, pull out your credit card, pay full price for a ticket and…take off…to…anywhere else. Like take a day trip. By yourself. To anywhere else. Turn off your cellphone(s). And disappear, for one day. Off Grid. Just one time. Continue reading “Flight AA2632 to DFW. And Dreamin’ of Just One Time.” →

Flying Over I-40 N. Moments, Sparkling. Moments, Not.

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2006. July. (I think.) Barcelona. I’m sitting in a conference room in the basement level of an aging hotel. You know the hotel – the one where all of the investment was poured into the lobby, and you don’t need to search to find disappointment, it finds you, at every turn. This Barcelona could have been anywhere – a Days Inn within a cab ride of O’Hare in Chicago, or a budget hotel in Newark, or a refurbished hotel in downtown Philadelphia serving small, short tenor business meetings. Yet, it wasn’t. The room was windowless, the walls were free of art. There was dim overhead lighting, the florescent tubes emitting a low sizzle. There was a whiff of fresh blue paint, cheap plastic surgery fooling no one. Beneath its blue skin, the bones of the room emit traces of hand rolled tobacco from 50 years ago.  It’s an hour after the working lunch, Hour Six of a day long meeting, and stupor is settling in. There was no audio visual equipment. There were no extra notepads or pens. There was no coffee. No bottled water. In the center of the table, stood a one quart jug, fingerprints visible on its belly, and a slice of lemon, not dressed in its distinctive canary yellow, but a dull yellow mustard clinging to the wall of the jug as if it were licked and pressed like a postage stamp, desperately seeking escape. The jug sweats, the air is thick, the overhead aluminum ducts rattle with the firing and re-firing of the AC system that was built for a building half the size. Hard back chairs surround the table and line the walls, with the butt cheeks of thousands of prior occupants having grooved and flattened the frayed cushions. Butt to cushion to metal, do-over and over and over.  I can see the blue palette. I can smell the decaying Gyprock. I can feel the heaviness of the air. Yet, I can’t extract a single shred of why I was there and what was accomplished, not on this day, not on Day 2 which ran ten hours.  The Blue Room returns and returns and returns and returns. The question is: Why?

~ DK

Notes:

  • Inspired by: Saabye Christensen: “You store everything inside yourself and then one day, wherever you are, whatever the time, it appears just like that, just like I could smell wet lilac now, lilac after the rain, even though we were well into autumn.”
  • Image Credit: Marius Tamosauskas with Blue Room 1
  • Related Posts: Commuting Series.