At the typewriter

Sitting at the clanger this a.m. Didn't get much sleep last night. The accountant wants to meet at 4 today so instead of gathering my tax docs for the audit I thought it would be fiscally prudent to bang out a few lines.

Yesterday, a woman from Tennessee came in. She was about my age (which means that I looked at her and thought she was a semi-attractive MILF, then realized she reminded me of my high school girlfriend.)

Anyhoo, seems she is staying in town for a writing workshop for the spring. "Honey, you should plan on seeing A LOT of me!"

She wanted to know where to get a decent sweet tea. No idea. I am goin to have to become a better tour guide for this town. Guess that means I need to leave the hovel now and then.

Anyone know where to get a decent sweet tea? 

I Really Do Not Like Small Talk

In fact I am quite miserable at it.

This is a problem with self-awareness, friends. You COULD be having a perfectly lovely time, but then you are in a car with your friend on the way to a Venezuelan restaurant, and your friend is talking and you are mmm-hmmmming when you suddenly have one of this out of body moments and you think:

Crap-daggity dog, brother. SAY SOMETHING! 

What happens then, of course, is I can't think of ANYTHING to say, and I'm also distracted  from the listening as well.

I don't think my friend noticed. He was driving and the GPS was talking to him and there was some kind of parking involved, and the awkward empty speech bubble dissolved.

But small talk. Yeah. Not. So. Much.

I have friends, but since I'm new around here, they aren't that close to me. So the result is that we end up just blabbing about basketball or work (no not too many people in the shop today) or tourists and other non-things.

This is not something I am interested in doing. I have "Angst and Political Unrest" as my default setting.

However. As I'm 42 now, I've found you've got to figure out who can handle that shit.

Well, tomorrow I've got a new project going. Got to start it anyway. Angst etc.

A Map of Walden Pond

A Map of Walden Pond

What would possess a parent to name their child after a famous person?

Dad... as I am now in my 40s, and I know "life is hard" I accept your foibles and your delusions.

But really... what was wrong with "Marcus David Schmidt?"

Nothing of course, but that wasn't the point.

I arrived here, finally, in Concord, because I guess I expect it was my destiny.

If there is such a thing. My plan is to hang this old map of Walden Pond Dad left me in the left display window.

Dad always said it was his destiny... to leave the rat race and his life in the robotics lab. He did to take up farming.

A parent's destiny becomes a child's identity, however.

No longer simply Marcus. I'm Henry.

When I saw the shop was for sale, I thought, well, might as well. I'm not going to save the world from the wreckage of digital anarchy, anyway. But if a few artists are encouraged, at the very least that is something.

I'll put the two typewriters in cozy places -- one near the front window, with that little wooden table the previous owner had piled with receipts and tax documents and a wooden roll desk chair.

The other I want closer to me, here in the back, should I need it. I'll have it out front of the counter, though, to share.

It's a gimmick, and a sad one it's true, to name a shop in Concord "Henry David's Art and Paper," I know. But it is true anyway, and what other name should I choose?