It's been about six months now since I've moved up here on the North Hill.It's now mid winter, 2006. I live in a rooming house at 43rd Avenue,just west of Center Street. It's a rough and grubby part of Calgary, but then, to my eyes,many parts are. It's brown and yellow in winter,without a lot of snow,so the tall grass sticks up and blows wildly whenever the wind blows.Here at home, we are in the lee of Nose Hill Park,so it's less windy here than in some other places. It's not been a dreadful winter to this point anyway.
I wake early,just past three, as it's my custom to walk to work when I can.It's about three miles,along McKnight Boulevard, a good portion of the distance skirting the southern edge of McCall Field-Calgary International Airport. I've been diagnosed with gout and Plantar's Faschitis,and it's sometimes a chore to walk that far,then put in a full day's work.At times I take the bus.But when I'm able I enjoy the rather long,solitary walk.
Lately my body aches a lot. Not anything that's getting the better of me. I still think I should be able to do what I could when I was twenty.I take pride in being able to work the twenty somethings under the table at work, then get home and realize that I've worked myself under the table too.I guess I'm getting old. So I get home in the evening,cook a steak for three minutes on either side,burn the mushrooms that go with it, then slip off early into an Ikea bed that came with the furnished room.It kills my back.Sleep is rarely ever comfortable anymore.Sometimes I just give up and put out a blanket on the hardwood floor instead.Out my window, to the Northeast I can watch the planes landing and taking off.
The door to my room is always closed,against the slightly too loud hard rock music that one of my room mates likes to play until well after midnight. We come and we go, from the front door to the doors of our rooms.Sometimes we say hi,sometimes we don't. In the early morning,the light comes on in the hall.I can see a crack of it underneath the door,and I know it's time to leave. Aaron is up, in the bathroom,loudly pissing into the toilet bowl.It never occurs to him to close the door.Aaron was intended to be a tall man,but a forklift accident has left him a stooped old man at something slightly less than forty.He looks something like Mick Jagger.When he's finished shaking the water off himself,he grabs a can of Bow Valley beer that he's left sitting on the toilet tank, and takes a long drink. Then he heads out the door to have a smoke.At the curb sits an old GMC truck that is just about as world worn as Aaron is. It's the only real thing he owns, and sometimes he takes long drives at all hours. I've seen his truck circling the stroll,downtown.
Today we've made more noise than I like to make.If I don't get out of the house soon,we'll wake up Ronnie, who works from dawn until whatever time they are through on some construction site, then comes home to sleep a few hours. In the other room,Abu has already started to stir. Abu the Eritrean,Abu the psych nurse. He'll soon be up, because before he is off to work, he sometimes has a couple of overly starched Mormon missionaries over for prayer and "Bible study." Neither Ronnie or I appreciate the proselytizing, but nothing will be said.
I grab a dish that I've put in the refrigerator.Ground pork from the night before.Green Onions and mushrooms.I sprinkle it with some sage and pour out a generous sprinkle of salt and black pepper. I throw a grapefruit into my backpack, then I'm gone out the door.It's cold, but not bitterly so.There is the slight odor of skunk.It was warm enough overnight for them to be out foraging. I start diagonally across the field, over a slightly icy cow path through the tall grass.Have to keep an eye open for the skunk. And, it's a steep decent to where the path meets McKnight, so I'll have to take care to keep my steps short and steady. Haven't fallen this winter yet.
I love the airport.If work was in some other part of town, I'm not sure I'd walk there as often.But the coming and going of planes fascinate me. The biggest thrill is to manage to be right at the end of the runway when a Jumbo Jet passes over,only a hundred or so feet above my head. I've come to notice how unreliable my eye is too.Or maybe it's just that the very idea of flight is peculiar. Trying to inhabit a realm where we were really not intended to be. I can see far off planes as they approach, and I know how it is that people can convince themselves that they see things that they really don't. Sometimes planes seem to just sit there in the sky, appearing to hover.But it's really because on the prairies you can see a plane from a long way off and it seems to take forever to get there.But suddenly it's there, touching down,and the thrust reversers blow up large clouds of snow. At times, I see coyotes near the airport too, and I wonder if I will today.
I cross 19th Street, into an area of mega warehouses, then I cross through the parking lot of a cell phone company,where a sign announces the time as 4:23. It's just another half mile to work now.Across Barlow Trail and down 39th Ave. Lot's of time.I never like to get to work just on time.I need to sit for a while and absorb the place before my day begins. Maybe Kimberly will be around and I can sit with her for a bit over coffee. Maybe I'll get to work with Tracy, my favorite. I don't really see either of them as girlfriend material, but I enjoy the company of both. I've rather sworn off women, but that' s a story I'll get to in due time. I get along passably well with all of the people I could be partnered with today, but I'd really prefer to work with Tracy.
It's payday today.Friday of the Family Day weekend. I'll need to go downtown to the office to get my paycheck, then I think I'll go get something to eat.Maybe some chicken.And maybe a movie alone.i'll see how tired this day leaves me first.Have to work tomorrow too, but it should be a short day.
I wake early,just past three, as it's my custom to walk to work when I can.It's about three miles,along McKnight Boulevard, a good portion of the distance skirting the southern edge of McCall Field-Calgary International Airport. I've been diagnosed with gout and Plantar's Faschitis,and it's sometimes a chore to walk that far,then put in a full day's work.At times I take the bus.But when I'm able I enjoy the rather long,solitary walk.
Lately my body aches a lot. Not anything that's getting the better of me. I still think I should be able to do what I could when I was twenty.I take pride in being able to work the twenty somethings under the table at work, then get home and realize that I've worked myself under the table too.I guess I'm getting old. So I get home in the evening,cook a steak for three minutes on either side,burn the mushrooms that go with it, then slip off early into an Ikea bed that came with the furnished room.It kills my back.Sleep is rarely ever comfortable anymore.Sometimes I just give up and put out a blanket on the hardwood floor instead.Out my window, to the Northeast I can watch the planes landing and taking off.
The door to my room is always closed,against the slightly too loud hard rock music that one of my room mates likes to play until well after midnight. We come and we go, from the front door to the doors of our rooms.Sometimes we say hi,sometimes we don't. In the early morning,the light comes on in the hall.I can see a crack of it underneath the door,and I know it's time to leave. Aaron is up, in the bathroom,loudly pissing into the toilet bowl.It never occurs to him to close the door.Aaron was intended to be a tall man,but a forklift accident has left him a stooped old man at something slightly less than forty.He looks something like Mick Jagger.When he's finished shaking the water off himself,he grabs a can of Bow Valley beer that he's left sitting on the toilet tank, and takes a long drink. Then he heads out the door to have a smoke.At the curb sits an old GMC truck that is just about as world worn as Aaron is. It's the only real thing he owns, and sometimes he takes long drives at all hours. I've seen his truck circling the stroll,downtown.
Today we've made more noise than I like to make.If I don't get out of the house soon,we'll wake up Ronnie, who works from dawn until whatever time they are through on some construction site, then comes home to sleep a few hours. In the other room,Abu has already started to stir. Abu the Eritrean,Abu the psych nurse. He'll soon be up, because before he is off to work, he sometimes has a couple of overly starched Mormon missionaries over for prayer and "Bible study." Neither Ronnie or I appreciate the proselytizing, but nothing will be said.
I grab a dish that I've put in the refrigerator.Ground pork from the night before.Green Onions and mushrooms.I sprinkle it with some sage and pour out a generous sprinkle of salt and black pepper. I throw a grapefruit into my backpack, then I'm gone out the door.It's cold, but not bitterly so.There is the slight odor of skunk.It was warm enough overnight for them to be out foraging. I start diagonally across the field, over a slightly icy cow path through the tall grass.Have to keep an eye open for the skunk. And, it's a steep decent to where the path meets McKnight, so I'll have to take care to keep my steps short and steady. Haven't fallen this winter yet.
I love the airport.If work was in some other part of town, I'm not sure I'd walk there as often.But the coming and going of planes fascinate me. The biggest thrill is to manage to be right at the end of the runway when a Jumbo Jet passes over,only a hundred or so feet above my head. I've come to notice how unreliable my eye is too.Or maybe it's just that the very idea of flight is peculiar. Trying to inhabit a realm where we were really not intended to be. I can see far off planes as they approach, and I know how it is that people can convince themselves that they see things that they really don't. Sometimes planes seem to just sit there in the sky, appearing to hover.But it's really because on the prairies you can see a plane from a long way off and it seems to take forever to get there.But suddenly it's there, touching down,and the thrust reversers blow up large clouds of snow. At times, I see coyotes near the airport too, and I wonder if I will today.
I cross 19th Street, into an area of mega warehouses, then I cross through the parking lot of a cell phone company,where a sign announces the time as 4:23. It's just another half mile to work now.Across Barlow Trail and down 39th Ave. Lot's of time.I never like to get to work just on time.I need to sit for a while and absorb the place before my day begins. Maybe Kimberly will be around and I can sit with her for a bit over coffee. Maybe I'll get to work with Tracy, my favorite. I don't really see either of them as girlfriend material, but I enjoy the company of both. I've rather sworn off women, but that' s a story I'll get to in due time. I get along passably well with all of the people I could be partnered with today, but I'd really prefer to work with Tracy.
It's payday today.Friday of the Family Day weekend. I'll need to go downtown to the office to get my paycheck, then I think I'll go get something to eat.Maybe some chicken.And maybe a movie alone.i'll see how tired this day leaves me first.Have to work tomorrow too, but it should be a short day.
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