brainsnorts inc >.<

I love my street. It’s a very active place. Every morning and through most of the day people are running, biking, even roller blading. I didn’t know anyone still did that. I also see a lot of cars or trucks with surfboards on the roof. They count for something. During one ten-minute stretch yesterday I counted 23 people moving by. Of those 23, one bicyclist doesn’t count.

Every street has a nut. Here’s mine. I don’t know his name, not yet. He first comes by at about 7am and wraps up about 8:30am. See the diagram below: 

He starts from the right, or what is actually south, comes north up past my house, then makes a right and goes up a few houses to the left side of that curved street.

There’s a white house up on the left side of that street. He parks his bike in front of the house, sometimes walks it up the driveway to the side. He sometimes goes to the front door and knocks or tries to open it, but nobody ever answers.

 I have only seen a woman around there, but she’s too far away for me to know her age. Sometimes he checks the mailbox. If the lawn sprinklers are on, he seems to inspect them to make sure they’re watering correctly, I guess.

He has a very deliberate stance. He usually stands with his arms behind his very straight back and his head slightly up in a very supervisory pose. He strolls back and forth on the sidewalk and brings in the trash cans should they be out.

After spending about five minutes around that house, he’ll hop back on his bike and head towards my house again. He will usually turn right, or north, go a ways up, then turn back south again across the front of my house. If I’m outside, as I often am with a cup of coffee, he greets me by waving a middle finger. I’m not special, as he does this to anyone who happens to be walking, biking, or just standing around like me.

I haven’t talked to anyone yet about him, not the police or any neighbors, but I don’t think I’m crossing any lines by saying that I want to find out more about him. He might be harmless, and that might be his mother’s house.  And his name might be Norman, and his mom might be Mrs. Bates.  Or, he might be a bit unstable and, therefore, dangerous.

Look at what this idiot did at the Home Depot in Mantua, NJ.  How do you leave a shopping cart there?  How can you  be that lazy?  Not only might it roll into the car next to it, but another car might not see it while pulling into that space, smack into it, and then send it into another car.  Someone smack this person.  ** It wasn’t until after I finished this post that I noticed the people in the car on the left.  It must have been their shopping cart.

Two weeks ago I was at another store and watched a woman take bags from her cart and put them into the trunk of her car.  She then moved the shopping cart away from the back of her car and pushed it across the parking lot, just letting it go.  It drifted into the middle of another space.  As she turned, she caught my eye and hesitated.  I could tell she was thinking, “Oh, I shouldn’t have done that, and that guy is now looking at me.”  She paused, then continued to her car and left.  She needs a smack too.

the following was copied from the person who gave me the award…

award…

BTW if you received the award, please copy and paste the image and put it somewhere in your blog.

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back to me. as for the actual award, which is a picture that has a curse in it, i can’t include it because my kids read my blog, and i don’t want them to read that. i think it’s very cool, however.
five people to whom i pass along the award -

http://kjlong-teacherwriter.blogspot.com/ – someone who knows more about writing than me

http://publishkestrel.blogspot.com/ – a woman tougher than me, although i’m not a woman

http://canabalisticmonkey1.blogspot.com/ – a student with more guts than me

http://consciousearth.blogspot.com/ – someone who is smarter than me, as impossible as that may seem

and it seems redundant because she gave the award to me, however…

http://hrix.blogspot.com/ – a woman whose thoughts are ahead of her time

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10 facts about myself:

1. i’m jealous of those people who have sooo many more people reading and commenting on their blog entries. perhaps they just know a lot more people, or maybe they’re just better writers.

2. i’ve been teaching for about 22 years, and i’m tired of it. i know i should just shut up and be thankful i even have a job at this point in the world’s economic woes, but truth is truth. i don’t want to teach anymore. i want to work for a newspaper or magazine.

3. there is no doubt that nobody has children who can possibly be more happy, fun, friendly, polite, intelligent, funny, thoughtful, or looney than my two children.

4. i know that i have several excellent novels in my head and begun on my computer, but i haven’t yet figured out how to get them all written. last year i made great progress on one, finished the whole 300 or so pages, and found an editor to help me re-write it. she worked with me on a little more than half of it and made great changes for me. but then i actually started putting more effort into my real job, and i’ve greatly slacked on the novel. if i ever get things really going, i know it’ll be fabulous. i’m positive that if a publisher ever sat and talked to me about my story ideas, it would be a week before they’d leave. aren’t i modest?

5. i would like to be married again.

6. i love disneyworld.

7. i struggle between believing that i am sometimes the most intelligent human in the room or the most complete idiot in the room. more often it’s the former.

8. i feel very inadequate because i don’t know my mother’s birthday.

9. there is someone against whom i will always carry a grudge because they lied to the police about me, resulting in my being arrested my mistake, and thus resulting in some very hurtful, irreversible effects on my life. because of what that person did, i occasionally find ways to hurt them back. however, if they would apologize, then i would stop. i’ve given that person several chances, but that person always denies what was done. i know two things: first, it’s indisputable what was done. second, i know that person is too dumb to have thought of it and was coached and influenced to do it. i still want the apology.

10. i know how to save the world.

meaninful quote:

just because you CAN, doesn’t mean that you SHOULD.

What’s not up with the flag?

With all due respect for President Ford, why is the flag still at half-staff? He was buried on January 3, and today is January 24, three weeks later. I was under the impression that the flag is supposed to be lowered for one week following the death of such an esteemed person. Actually, I thought it was supposed to be three days, but then someone told me it’s a week. I still think it is supposed to be lowered for three days, but I’m willing to accept that I’m wrong about that. What I know I’m not wrong about is three weeks. Did everyone else forget the rule? Are they waiting for some kind of signal, something in the mail, or a siren to blow before putting the flag back up again? Is this happening everywhere across the country or just my fabulous corner of New Jersey?