2001-02-09
21:08:57

There are days at work when you just want to work through lunch. There are days when you want to go out with friends and waste the afternoon laughing and gossiping and eating blooming onions or whatever treat culinary corporate america tells us is the in thing. Then there are days when you need to get out of your office but still want relative quiet.

These are the days I drive to the park.

A few months after I started working here at GeneriCo I got lost leaving for home. (OK - so my normally ironclad sense of direction took the evening off: shoot me) I'm wandering around the back end of BWI airport looking for the highway when I come across this park that looks like it was just plopped at the end of the runway. Go fig. Well, it didn't take me long to adopt this place as my mid-day fortress of solitude. I normally go there after having a rough morning. I'll bring my lunch and read the paper and just peoplewatch for an hour. If its nice I'll sit on a bench, if not, my car works fine too. You can watch planes take off and land...its generally pretty relaxing.

I wonder about the others there though. I go there a few times a week and I thnk I'm starting to notice the regulars. There's StressedMom who always leaves in a worse mood than when she and her kids got there. There's ImportantSuitGuy who just talks on his celly the whole time. Business deals too secret for the office? Affair? 900 number? There's LonleyLady. Ok, not sure she's lonely - she just looks really depressed. There's HyperactiveGuyWhoTalksToHisRadio. I thought he was sketchy and talking to himself at first, but one day his windows were down and I could hear him yelling at Rush Limbaugh. I'm thinking about trying to set him up with LonelyLady. (Hyperactive - not Rush) I mean he's obviously got alot to say and she could probably use the company.

I wonder if they notice me? I wonder what they think about me? Do I have a snazzy little name too? Can they see the stress and tension on my face. Can they sense my guilt about having just hit up the wendy's drive through? I hope so - on all accounts.

We are all active participants in communties we don't even realize exist.

******

My friend Hendrix's mom died Wednesday. I know you don't know who she is or who her mom was, but if its something you do, please say a prayer for her and for Hendrix's family. Cancer Kills. And we pick up and move on.


downtown----uptown
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