by ·0 Comments

Julia had a few people over her new house in the wake of The Firing of the Temps and Mike and I joined. Her new place was reasonably large and largely devoid of dead bodies despite her concerns. The house had ample space for both books and secrets. On top of this, it had a trampoline and a pool, things I both very much enjoyed at past points in my life.

The trampoline was enticing and was rimmed with rust as salt rims a margarita glass. Some of the springs were broken and it wasn’t quite level but I was bouncing happily soon enough and, by the end of the evening, almost able to do a 360 in the air. Mike also took to the trampoline but beyond him, no one else. Trampolines normally have maximum weight limits and these are functional limits. I remember using a trampoline rated at 250 lbs at a time when I was. My butt hit the ground with each bounce. This one was a 325 lb trampoline and with practice I’d be able to do somersaults.

The pool was a pond of disappointment. I had loved pools as my ponderous size wasn’t held against me in them and the amount of exertion I could put forth was infinitely variable from a deadman’s float to swimming laps. But this joy was now gone. Apparently, I no longer float. I had to tread water just to keep my head up and even when inhaling fully, my head would still go under. Walking around on the bottom was novel but now I needed floatation to simply tool about.

Sure, I had regained the trampoline, but at what cost?

by ·0 Comments

The filigree of the R3 West Trenton line was incised into the flesh of Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia County in the 1960s and the growing burbs have turned their back to it. Buildings have fewer windows on its side, houses have higher fences along its lines and the bodies of stray cats create jolly and morbid sprinkles to the aerial or otherwise aloof observer. There are exceptions, and today a moment of light: While being drug along this line in the big dumb iron and steel horse I’ve called Transit Mistress for three years I saw two kids of about 8 to 10 jumping on a trampoline giggling with no reason to do so. My heart was lifted for a moment at a spectacle of childish wonderment but knew this couldn’t be the end of this piece of Americana. Just then, one of the kids picked up, what I believe was a water ski, and swung wildly hitting the other kid in the head/neck.

But there was something about that hydropod blow, normally when you hit someone, the recipient object absorbs the blow nearly stopping the bludgeoning and causing the victim to lose balance and fall. In this case, the water ski held such momentum that not only did the ski not stop when hitting the child, but the victim didn’t fall so much as rotate about the axis of his belly button. I started laughing in humor and horror.  God bless America.

by ·0 Comments

The filigree of the R3 West Trenton line was incised into the flesh of Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia County in the 1960s and the growing burbs have turned their back to it. Buildings have fewer windows on its side, houses have higher fences along its lines and the bodies of stray cats create jolly and morbid sprinkles to the aerial or otherwise aloof observer. There are exceptions, and today a moment of light: While being drug along this line in the big dumb iron and steel horse I’ve called Transit Mistress for three years I saw two kids of about 8 to 10 jumping on a trampoline giggling with no reason to do so. My heart was lifted for a moment at a spectacle of childish wonderment but knew this couldn’t be the end of this piece of Americana. Just then, one of the kids picked up, what I believe was a water ski, and swung wildly hitting the other kid in the head/neck.

But there was something about that hydropod blow, normally when you hit someone, the recipient object absorbs the blow nearly stopping the bludgeoning and causing the victim to lose balance and fall. In this case, the water ski held such momentum that not only did the ski not stop when hitting the child, but the victim didn’t fall so much as rotate about the axis of his belly button. I started laughing in humor and horror.  God bless America.