only i can save the lives that blink within this canyon

the commuters make their way to and from the capital of pennsylvania, like blood too and from your beating heart. i watch from my 3rd floor window as the color of each motor vehicle, bounding across the market street bridge, blends into a brownish-gray. i think it's time to start riding my bike to work, it's a haul but i could use the exercise.

the cold is a vacuum, chilly morning air extracts the breath right out of your chest. my red and black lumberjack (with a hat to match - - thanks biggie) makes the 20 mile an hour wind gusts from the susquehanna seem like a 1200 btu air conditioning unit on low. it's not by any means cold it happens to be chest tightening-ly frigid.

i make up my own words, like tightening-ly. i feel like the added "-" makes the quote, unquote word more believable. my posts are becoming to get shorter, maybe there really is nothing going in my life to write about other than work, commuting, and relationship issues (minus the relationship, ha).

either way, i'm happy where i am at. i hope that you are too.

the quiet things

it's bright outside this afternoon. my view is of the northeast's greatest theme park. the line of trees, that runs along the perimeter of the grounds separates the working from the vacation-enjoying american's and tourists alike, is swaying in the windiness that has defined this entire winter.

the window blinds spin shut in the director's office. my view is cutoff from me and the day is now highlighted by the hum of florescent lights and the clicking, tapping, hesitation between strokes and eventual pounding of keyboards and clicking of the left mouse button (i only include the left mouse button because currently there would be three of us who know what the right mouse button does, it's interesting how many differences there are between 20 year olds and 40+ year olds). let's not forget the array of various voices that i can identify without even looking at the exclaimer's face.

shit, it's time to get back to work.

morning commute

i watch as the white cloud of steam exits my mouth and fogs the tempered glass window separating me from the thirteen degree weather i stretched my joints to early this morning. my alarm woke me three times: 6:24am, 6:31am, and finally for good at 6:39am. i stretch every morning to get the blood flowing and to meditate about the day ahead; i like to plan, i'm a planner. it snowed the night before last and then we had a day of freezing rain, new snowfall accumulation of five inches and about one inch of ice from the seven hours of freezing rain we had throughout the gloomy day. let's hope that the sun stays out most of today and melts away the white, i hate how bright in the whiteness that everything is when the snow falls...loathe really.

it takes three tries to pull out of my tight parallel parking space, without hitting the 2004 honda civic behind me or the 90's era ford crown vic' (former cop car turned taxi) in front. i'm actually really proud of myself for being able to squeeze my 1991 oldsmobile cutlass calais into a spot for a mini cooper while i was on my cell phone with my father. each of us trying to bore the other to death while we converse about our days and our up coming weekend plans. i exhale in relief, fogging up the glass my defrosters are waging war with. i maneuver my vehicle down the remaining road to my first right hand turn towards front street. eventually i turn left towards the interstate and it's officially time for me to wake up.

i got cut-off going the speed limit with another vehicle no more then two car lengths ahead of me. the progress infringing driver who i am now pursuing merely out of spite, happens to be heading my way. at the i-83 split she goes south, as i stay north towards my destination, oh i almost forgot, i work in telecommunications, it's my first desk job since i worked for montgomery county's leading circular advertisement and classified newspaper, the progress newspaper (this desk job consisted mostly of cleaning desks, inside and out). i vigorously apply original chapstick to my lips as i merge onto the longest length of road on my commute (sidenote: if i stay in the left most lane the entire trek i will never have to change lanes). the sun is trying it's damnedest to break through the clouds just east of me, no accidents thus far.

i get stopped at the first traffic light on the second half of my journey. the motor-vehicle-ist next to me looks like a nice man, he probably works for a corporation off of the old highway or he owns a business in middletown. he's biting into a jelly donut, and the confectionery sugar sticks to the mustache he sports, it looks like a cocaine dusting under the nose of an 80's porn star.

green light means go.

my olds fights the cold air as the engine rumbles up-hill, struggling like a marathon runner who smokes two packs a day. it's thursday, and i went to bed thinking it was friday, dreaming it was my last day this week. saturday, i am trying to go see my third favorite hockey team the hershey bears. i just need to keep my conversion rate up at work, and i'll be in the company club-box that night, padded suites, free food and drinks, even brews. then i'll play a hockey game of my own with some friends, first time on the ice since the "incident" where i knocked someone unconscious. i just got new skates, and i've been dying to test them out.

i finally arrive to work. later then normal but i am early non-the-less. recently i found out about a fellow co-worker's father and his struggle to survive. death rarely phases me, it's a part of life and possibly the longest and best adventure left. i am more concerned about staying out of debt and consolidating my school loans. i'm selfish but kind.

my desk is accented in a gray-yellow light from the florescent bulbs that hum at a frequency that only i am trained to hear. the hum gives me headaches in the middle of the day, my managers are sending last minute emails, before leading us through ten hours of verbal battles in the war to succeed in a failing economy. luckily for me, no one is willing to give up their vacations this year.

'i can't seem to find my touch anymore. i've completely lost it.'

'when did you realize we were not meant to be? did it come to you in a dream? because i cannot see how someone can turn veracities into lies overnight so easily?'

'she doesn't understand that my decisions are based on personal experience, personal doubts, it's like pulling teeth to get that point accross.'

'i'm not asking you, i'm telling you that i need these answers. if you can't help me i'll find someone else.'

'why can't you just lower your sights? is it that you just can't stand not knowing? it's like having a the skin of an apple stuck in your teeth...you try and try to get it out, but in the end you never actually do any removal, naturally it dissolves and you forget about it. just forget about me.'

'i'll take your advice.'

'you should have started doing that months ago, why wait until it's all over?'

'that's how girls work.'

'i don't even want to ask, nor do i want to know how you work or what you do on your days off. girls are forever supposed to be a mystery. we as men are always trying to accomplish something to impress them, seriously. any musician, artist, physicist, statician, author, webmaster, etcetera. we all have the same goal - get the girl.'

'if you aren't going to learn what works for us, then you will never "get the girl."'

'then it's over.'

'is this the end?'

'it's a perfect ending to a horrible story, no one could write us this terribly.'

'then it must be the end.'