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why I was late to work today
Nov. 7th, 2002 11:17 amThere are two routes that I take to work. There's the scenic route, where I glide through the brownstones and back roads of Brookline, across the urban frenzy of Kenmore Square and down to the one mile stretch of the Esplanade with its tree lined bike paths that border the river. Then there's the oh-shit-I-got-up-late route that cuts through Cambridge and Central Square, along streets still empty with morning's wakening.
Today's route was the latter,1 and it was somewhere near the point where I crossed over the BU Bridge and past the gracious riverfront homes of Cambridgeport that I saw a garbage bag, empty and forgotten, dancing in the street, the wind carrying it up to eye level and causing it to fold and flip like it was waving at the cars passing by. A tail wind had caught it as I passed by and for a brief second it paced my bike, like a dog wanting to play, and so I slowed down, stopped and pulled off to the side of the road, watching it weave between oncoming traffic, and play peek-a-boo beneath parked car tires.
For five minutes it was a spectral child floating in a Halloween ghost costume, it was a bored angel playing hackey sack with wings and winds, it was an inadvertent movie quotation, and a moment that would distract me for the rest of my morning. It ended when the bag hooked itself on a tree branch and seemed fixed there, watching over the trucks and cars passing below. I hope it'll still be there when I go home tonight.
1 note to self -- if you get up after LittleSister calls dibs on the shower, do not kill time by listening to that audio anthology2 that OlderSister gave you when you crashed at her place last weekend. You'll inadvertently spend too much time listening to Dave Eggers wax wistfully about skinny dipping and not enough time shaving.
2 note to Amazon.com -- what the hell does Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea have to do with The Best American Nonrequired Reading? Perhaps there is a relationship between impoverished French fishermen and disenchanted Silicon Alley project managers? Or not ...
Today's route was the latter,1 and it was somewhere near the point where I crossed over the BU Bridge and past the gracious riverfront homes of Cambridgeport that I saw a garbage bag, empty and forgotten, dancing in the street, the wind carrying it up to eye level and causing it to fold and flip like it was waving at the cars passing by. A tail wind had caught it as I passed by and for a brief second it paced my bike, like a dog wanting to play, and so I slowed down, stopped and pulled off to the side of the road, watching it weave between oncoming traffic, and play peek-a-boo beneath parked car tires.
For five minutes it was a spectral child floating in a Halloween ghost costume, it was a bored angel playing hackey sack with wings and winds, it was an inadvertent movie quotation, and a moment that would distract me for the rest of my morning. It ended when the bag hooked itself on a tree branch and seemed fixed there, watching over the trucks and cars passing below. I hope it'll still be there when I go home tonight.
1 note to self -- if you get up after LittleSister calls dibs on the shower, do not kill time by listening to that audio anthology2 that OlderSister gave you when you crashed at her place last weekend. You'll inadvertently spend too much time listening to Dave Eggers wax wistfully about skinny dipping and not enough time shaving.
2 note to Amazon.com -- what the hell does Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea have to do with The Best American Nonrequired Reading? Perhaps there is a relationship between impoverished French fishermen and disenchanted Silicon Alley project managers? Or not ...
