Until I got to Jersey, I didnt realize a traditionally NY item was missing from the environment.

Clotheslines!



The prop of choice of many a Warner Bros cartoon and tenement-style Gotham films.. I dont think Ive seen any in Brooklyn or Manhattan in all the time Ive been here.

Until I started seeing the traditional pulley clotheslines high-up and behind apartment houses (especially behind my own) in Bayonne and Jersey City, I forgot those things even existed.

I think the absence in New York can probably be explained simply, the hanging clothes would get pilfered....

But in secluded corners here, Im seeing them all over.

One of the things I swore I would try to fotograph as soon as I got a camera, clothes hanging in the sun behind apartments. Nothing sez New York like that. (I'll get around to it).

Man, I love sun-dried clothes.

I was thinking of getting one too.

(wait for it.. theres a point to all this sap..)

Mainly because it would also address one of my greatest peeves in life.

*%%#%% clothes, lingerie, underwear et al hanging in the &$%$% shower....

Jesus christ.. I HATE stepping into the shower and having to move clothes, panties, stockings and other unmentionables out of the way.

They CROWD my space and waste my time.

Grrr.

Today, I decided to hand wash some clothes... eh, why not.

(Stupid me... only after did I realize having a tub full of steaming water on a muggy day with 98 percent humidity already was NOT a particularly bright idea.... Guh.)

After seeing a satisfyingly amount of rich, soapy dirty water swirl away and a spectacularly clean rinse ensue (I was chuffed and proud at my effort, if I do say so myself), did I get ready to drip dry.

Uh, wait. I had no clothesline.

None in the bathroom (by design) and none outside. Doh.

*sigh* So now you know why I shudder every time I walk by my bathroom, seeing clothes hung all over, drip, drip, drip dripping.

Gahrrr.

I hate my life.

I WILL get an outside clothesline... as god is my witness.... (shakes fist futilely at the gods of drip dry)

Did I mention I love sun dried clothes?
------------------

Foo. I'm starting to miss New York and the subway.

Because of my poverty...oh wait...

Poo: poverty is a state of mind; what you are is broke
Poo: broke is temporary

..because of being broke,I cant afford to just head into the city without good reason.

Oh yeah, I miss the unlimited Metrocard too. Four bux for the day, 17 bux for the week, and I can go anywhere in the city, anytime. Man, what a deal.

Costs me over 6 bux just to get in and out of Jersey. No deals.

Actually, I could walk over the Bayonne Bridge to Staten Island, grab a bus and the Ferry into the city.. that would only be 3 bux back and forth.. but thats a lotta waiting.. and exercise..

Yeah, being IN the city is better.

So, I cant wander like I usually do. Take a train or bus in NY, and wherever you step off - you are in a different world.

Yeah, Im missing that. Specially my nocturnal wanderings.

Without a car or a transit pass.. Im feeling... ohh..trapped. I didnt get what the young Jersey folk were goin on about, moaning about feeling trapped sometimes. Now I do.

I demurred on seeing the guaranteed picture-rich spectacles of the Puerto Rican Day and Gay Pride Parades these last coupla weeks.

No, I didnt want the heatstroke (last year, even my BACKPACK was soaked), but the real reason.. no funds. No funds, no fun.

Although, if I had the funds, Id be patronizing Bayonne's excellent restaurants right now.. fuhgeddaboutit.

*sigh* Tell me why Im putting myself through this again?

Poo: a corporate whore you aint

Poo: to every thing, there is a season; this too, shall pass

Poo: just wait till they are begging for rides in yer limo!
JPennant: ho ho ho :-)

Hey, In all the years Ive known her.. Poo has nevah told me anything less than the truth, particularly of what is to be...

No lie.

Although

Poo: yeah, hon, its bettah for ya than those nasty assed donuts hehe

Heyyy now. Them are good donuts. :-)
-------
Random Pix driving over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn.







To avoid much of tolls driving in and out New York... its hard to do.

You will have to pay some kinda toll.

But, to get in and out of Bayonne, driving.. the cheapest way is to go over the Bayonne Bridge (6 bux), then go through Staten Island over the Verrazano (no bux going into Brooklyn, 7 bux coming from Brooklyn), over the Manhattan or Brooklyn Bridges (no tolls) thru the Holland Tunnel back into Jersey (no tolls going into Jersey, 6 bux otherwise).

Oy. You always gotta have a system.
-------
Fireflies.

No big whoop. Just noticed them flying around at dusk these last few days.

Havent seen firefies in.. years.

Urban living.

Kinda nice on a muggy evening....

Even tho I knew she hated IM's - I had left her IM name on my buddylists, just in case.

I knew things had been rough, but shit.
But after nearly two years of having not been able to find hide or hair of her...

3:45pm

JPennant: LILY
JPennant: That you honey?
tigerlil: My lovable buddy !!!!!!!!
JPennant: hey sweetheart :-)
JPennant: how are ya?
JPennant: Man, Ive been worried sick about you.
tigerlil: God, I've been looking for you for so long and I forgot what you called yourself online and I ....
tigerlil: I've even emailed Susan Miller the astrologer for your address and lots of stuff has happened ...
tigerlil: I searched on switchboard. com for you but all I get was your old phone number and no current anything else .... how you been , my buddy??  
JPennant: Heh. A lot :-)
tigerlil: Sure do miss talking to ya .... what's you doing now and what is your home phone so I can find you?
JPennant: i dont have a fone yet
JPennant: I havent worked since November, just moved here.
tigerlil: Move here where?
JPennant: Im using my friends DSL connection.
JPennant: Bayonne, NJ
JPennant: Outside of NY
tigerlil: Why did you move?
JPennant: I had moved to Manhattan and lost the sublease back in December
JPennant: and since I wasnt working, had to stay at a friends house until this place got ready.
tigerlil: So what's you living on then?
JPennant: Right now.. all funds are gone :-)
JPennant: AND Im trying to start a business
JPennant: stupid eh?
tigerlil: Man, I know it's got to be real ruff. What kind of business?
JPennant: Publishing
tigerlil: Publishing is really competitive and really demanding and a shot in the dark. Publishing what? Like websites you mean?
JPennant: yes.. to start
tigerlil: You want to manage a website for me?
JPennant: anything for you dear. :-)
tigerlil: You're my bosom buddy!!
JPennant: heh. and dont you fergit it :-)
tigerlil: I wish you had a phone so I can call you.
JPennant: did you start the site?
tigerlil: No way. I was thinking about it for the last couple of days, but .... I need to verbally talk with you, buddy. You're so ingenious communicatively.
JPennant: Oh, pshahh :-)
tigerlil: :-) yes, really.
JPennant: anyway
JPennant: enough of the business stuff
JPennant: I was WORRIED about you
tigerlil: I knew you were ... bosom buddies do that kind of thing.
JPennant: I am so glad to see ya tho. :-)
JPennant: Missed yer fried rice. :-)

Heheh. She was a chef.. and she basically fed me back in the day. :-)

We've been tight ever since we started working together at AT&T.
Its odd that we had such a hard time finding each other. Maybe its the right time again.

She's mah buddy.

We used to make the most incongruous of pairs, this tall, big black guy and this very petite chinese woman, almost always havin'a good ol' time together.

I miss her broad southern accent. Its down home.

One thing I do miss is that, when we hung out, we hung. We found time. And we were busy people.
Not like here in NY where you have to make appointments weeks ahead for 15 minutes of people's time.

God, I really do miss that.
--------
Nancy had gotten me a free pass to PC Expo...

but eh.

MacWorld, PC Expo.. basically a big ol trade show.

A huge cavernous warehouse with ...eh. Not much of substance.

Lotta walking around, staring at bored attendees.

Same reason I dont get excited about the auto shows anymore.

Sans the pretty models.

And not much in the way of cool free stuff at those things anymore.

What's the point of goin' then?

Feh. Screw it.

As she put it later on today after she came back.. it was pretty lame.

Yeah, I kinda figured.

Feh.
---

Yeah, Im still very grumpy.

Even with the support of friends.. trying to get your life somewhere oft feels like a lonely, lonely task.

Trying to start a business, and trying to turn vague concepts into hard reality, feels like the old joke of "man with many hats, chief cook and busboy."

Ha ha.

Jeez... the Awful Truth of it slams home hard when youre actually living those cliches.

Daily, I alternate between thinking "Ive GOTTA do this" to feeling "Fuckit. I dont need to suffer like this."

Keeping da faith is hard sometimes.

Doesnt help when most folk, my friends dont see it, or regard the exercise as quixotic and misquided.

But Im on the path already, so...*shrug*

Im a solitary soul by nature, but Im just finding it even harder to deal with the irritations that friends and acquaintances often inflict(on top of the other neato crap of being flat broke AND trying to be in business).

It makes me want to be even MORE of a solitary soul.

Whats wrong is that I know that most of it isnt intentional. Theyre being who they are, and I should take it into account and treat them lightly.

I shouldnt take 'em so seriously. I should fake levity, even.

It aint easy.

And right now I dont feel like apologising to a soul, when I know I should.

Thats why I usually leave people alone when Im like this.

I know people do it and deal with it every day.. but all this shytte aint easy.

On all sorts of levels.
------------

These guys took a picture of me and the Cappy the other night by the Hoboken waterfront.

(By the way, just to clarify... the Cappy is my BUSINESS partner, not a love interest.)

So, as is my custom.. I take pictures of people who take pictures of me or ask me to take pictures of them with their cameras.







These "sons of hoboken" (that was for google's benefit) said they rilly WANTED the pictures.. and gave me the wrong effing email address to send it to.

Jeez. That is ever so irritating.

Ah well.

In case they happen to stumble across 'em....
----------------
My father is a sociable man with a sensitive soul.

He is also a grumpy asshole.

I say this only because I am slowly starting to appreciate why he got that way.

Ive always known the 'how'. He did 20 years as a police officer and ended up in Jamaica's toughest police district during a time of vicious internicine warfare and tough martial law.

Did his 20 years, turned down the promotion to Deputy Inspector, took his pension and got out.

He's earned his right to be a grumpy asshole, several times over.

My father told me when I was barely a teen:

"You would be a good police officer. I'll shoot you if you become one."

He was only half joking.

His soul had been tried, and he changed forever.

He will always be a grumpy asshole.

Im starting to see why.

Now that Im becoming a grumpy asshole...
------------
Random pix of Hoboken NJ








===========

9:15 AM

Mcclint: hey
------------------
Auto response from JPennant: Its nice outside. Gone walkabout.
Leave a message if you'd like.

Ta. ;-)
------------------

Mcclint: the Jacksonville Suns (minor league baseball team here) is having a game this weekend and the promo is "mini Bat night". nothing odd about that....
Mcclint: they are also having (on that same night) a special guest...
Mcclint: Tonya Harding! on Mini Bat night! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

McClint signed off at 9:19:30 AM.

Nuttin deep here...

In the prescient dream I had in 1992, which is still coming true in unexpected ways....

I asked the question at the end

"I dont seem happy. Am I happy?"

The voice answered: "That's not the point."

And the ways it keeps coming true keeps proving the point..

Happiness is not the point.
-----------
Is it because it happens anyway?

Sometimes.

If you let it.

And give thanks for what you do have.
----------------
Why isnt it the point?

Because there are greater things along the way.

?

The question isnt "Like what, for instance."

Heh.

The last coupla nights, I hung out with good people and beautiful women.

Over the years, I seem to take that for granted.

I often take that for granted because I want more.

Heh. I want bounteous sex and cash in the bank.

But is that the point?

Every night it concludes with "I had a great time."

Am I missing happiness by missing the point?

I dunno.. there is a lot going on even if it sometimes feels like there is nothing going on.

Am I missing the point?
-----------
What is the point?

I can only speculate.

Maybe it all is the point once youre in the flow and not worrying about the uncertainties.

And not dwelling on what seems to be the certainties.

I dunno.
------------
Eh. Right now...

Happiness is a coffee and a donut. :-)
-----------
Maybe, that is the point.


------------

11:15pm

CGirl: hey bud
JPennant: howzit goin?
CGirl: ah ok
CGirl: tired
CGirl: going to bed soon. How 'bout you?
JPennant: dunno yet. i go when my body does.
CGirl: no silly goose, I meant, how are you
JPennant: oh. heh. fine :-)
JPennant: indulgin in emotion control today
CGirl: and what exactly does emotional control entail?
JPennant: its ruff widout alcohol
JPennant: but its trying to keep anger and frustration at bay with loud music and applied thinking
CGirl: wait, so emotion control is NOT drinking?
JPennant: nah, then we're in the area of likker abuse
CGirl: ok I"m clear now
JPennant: depending on the customs of the area of the country yer in....
JPennant: abuse is either too much or too little likker
CGirl: LOL

Glad somebody got that one. :-)
-----------

Pix of the Bayonne Bridge linking the Bayonne Peninsula and Staten Island..

Usually the sights are lot more spectacular, but I tried to catch the sunset that day and the clouds got there before me.





















I dunno tho. I think theye not used to seeing people there taking pictures.. so the next time I do it.. Im headed straight to Port Authority office there to tell them Im NOT a terrorist about to jump or blow up the thing...

Frikkin idjits.
---------

Playing

Left & Right

- D'Angelo, Voodoo.
---------

Reading an old interview in Salon with Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina.

She sez something about New York that Ive found to be true and can now relate to...

In order to justify how much exhilaration and adventure living in the evil city was, I destroyed my immune system with overwork and, let's get real, using drugs to keep maintaining.

I was basically doing huge amounts of coffee and other stimulants and drinking to get myself down enough to rest. And not sleeping. You can do yourself enormous damage. No, honey, it was going to readings. It was drink another cup of coffee because somebody is doing something interesting and I want to see it. And dating every piece of rough trade I could get my hands on.

Oh, land. I near killed myself.

But it was fun?

Enormous passion, even in the work. Even in the most grody, awful work.
I used to (do work in New York), which was deadly, deadly, but also an enormous joy.

I had so much guilt about being in a place where I was happy. Or almost happy. I'd ... feel, thank you, thank you, Jesus, for letting me get here.

And then the wave comes in of "I should be dead."

I don't think people ever talk about how strong that wave is.

Boy, it is a biggie.

Yes it is.

I was strong as a horse before I got here. Impervious to most ailments.

Then the stress, long hours and stressed people caught up with me in a hurry.

Oy.

Yep, I can definitely relate to what she went through.

She moved to San Francisco.

Now, its the donuts in Bayonne that's gonna do me in.. :-)
-------

Todays horrorscope....

Mercury, your ruler, appears to have been moving backward through the sky these past few weeks, which may account for your feeling that your life has been moving in the wrong direction.

You're about to discover that something you thought had gone wrong has worked out exactly the way it was supposed to.

Anything is possible for you now. If you want something enough, you'll find a way to get it.
Your dreams may seem unrealistic to some, but only because they lack your vision.

*grumpf* Still feels suspiciously like work....

------------------------------------
Heheh. Only in New York... "Help! Police! Theyre trying to rob me of my cocaine!"

Heeheehee

NY Post--
CARJACK TURNS INTO COCAINE BUST: COPS

June 24, 2001
--
A man who ran into a police station house screaming that someone was trying to hijack him at gunpoint ended up behind bars himself when cops say they found a cache of cocaine in his rented car.

"Hey! There's a guy with a gun, and he tried to hijack me!" a breathless William Valejos, 27, told Detectives John Dalessandro and Enrique Sanchez at the 34th Precinct station house in Manhattan's Washington Heights just before midnight Friday.

The two cops went out searching for the gun-toting thug and nabbed 32-year-old Moises Nina.

Valejos told the two veteran detectives he had been driving his rented Chevrolet Malibu on the Henry Hudson Parkway when a BMW tried to cut him off.

As the car pulled alongside, he said, a man in the car pointed a handgun at him and ordered him to pull over.

Instead, he sped to the station house. Outside, the two thugs tried to break into the rental car.

After Nina was nabbed, police say he told them he was after the valuable cargo in the trunk of the rental car.
When the cops opened the trunk, they say they found 17 kilos of cocaine, with a street value of $425,000.

Valejos, of Miami, played dumb - but was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance by the cops he had run to for help.

Nina was charged with attempted robbery.
Cops are still seeking his accomplice.

---------

Saturday in Bayonne.


It felt like a lazy sunday afternoon..

What with the rain, and then the musical bells pealing from local catholic church, not bad.

Relaxing.

So, I napped for the most part. I had intended to go into Brooklyn, get some CD's burned, pick up some networking gear...but nah.

It felt like a lazy sunday afternoon. Even if it wasnt.. why push?


Random Bayonne pix...
















--------------