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Feb. 23rd, 2004 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clayhornikI couldn't sleep. Got up, got out and started walking.
Downtown Norfolk at 0-dark-thirty is a lovely place to be. The disenfranchised are still asleep at the Mission and haven't begun to shuffle the streets in their usual, Romero-esque manner.
The crossing of Brambleton Ave. was easier than normal, owing to the lack of traffic. It was sufficiently early that the sky was still nightdark, not a hit of dawn on the horizon.
Through Freemason, the suits and schoolkids not even up for breakfast yet.
Down Granby St., almost the backbone of Norfolk, and the only soul I saw was someone in the 250-block, parking his car. The Downtown Gymn opens at 5:30, never too early to start working out, and I suppose he was there to open it.
Past the Federal Building and across to Plume St. Yorgo's isn't open yet, they don't even post their hours. Even if they had, I'd still be too early.
So it's a cut through the BB&T parking lot to Main St.
I pass Starbucks- not open til six- and walk further, past Scholtzkeys, to the Chesapeake Bageldashery. Not open yet. THey don't post their hours either.
I check the time, quater til, so I walk backk up to the Selden Arcade, where the barsita's have put out the patio table and chairs. Pop open the laptop and I begin to read.
I met a extremly clever fellow this weekend, and I'd come across his thesis online. Being the curious sort, I downloaded it and I began to read. It's rare that I'll encounter something that makes me feel less than intelligent. But a graduate's thesis on Quantum Monte Carlo Calculations of Three and Six-Quark States makes me feel as if I'd be better painting myself blue and howling at the moon while leaping around a bonfire. So last night I fired up Kazaa and did a search for 'quantum'. While I wasn't lucky enough to find "An absoulte fucking moron's guide to quantum physics", I did finjd a couple of papers that made what a was reading seem a little less like Linear-B and a little more like Homer. That said, it's still Greek to me.
At six, Starbucks opened, and I got a hot tea with an apple turnover. I finished this quickly and returned to my wanderings.
Down Montecello, past the backside of the Federal Building. There are a couple of trees there, and as the sun had begun to rise, the birds dwelling there had begun to stir. Twittering and Chriping, they sounded less like a flock of birds and more like a blaster battle in a Star Destroyer. Zap Zap, then silence, Zap Zap then silence again, until driven off by the low moan of an approaching street cleaner.
As I'm writing this, I'm leaching electricity off a streetlamp at the park across from the community college library. The city's awake. People are walking around, the silence disappated by footsteps and voices, the growls of cars, the electric hum of the city trolly.
And I think maybe now, since I'm off today, I can go home and back to sleep.
--
(obviously I didn't)
Downtown Norfolk at 0-dark-thirty is a lovely place to be. The disenfranchised are still asleep at the Mission and haven't begun to shuffle the streets in their usual, Romero-esque manner.
The crossing of Brambleton Ave. was easier than normal, owing to the lack of traffic. It was sufficiently early that the sky was still nightdark, not a hit of dawn on the horizon.
Through Freemason, the suits and schoolkids not even up for breakfast yet.
Down Granby St., almost the backbone of Norfolk, and the only soul I saw was someone in the 250-block, parking his car. The Downtown Gymn opens at 5:30, never too early to start working out, and I suppose he was there to open it.
Past the Federal Building and across to Plume St. Yorgo's isn't open yet, they don't even post their hours. Even if they had, I'd still be too early.
So it's a cut through the BB&T parking lot to Main St.
I pass Starbucks- not open til six- and walk further, past Scholtzkeys, to the Chesapeake Bageldashery. Not open yet. THey don't post their hours either.
I check the time, quater til, so I walk backk up to the Selden Arcade, where the barsita's have put out the patio table and chairs. Pop open the laptop and I begin to read.
I met a extremly clever fellow this weekend, and I'd come across his thesis online. Being the curious sort, I downloaded it and I began to read. It's rare that I'll encounter something that makes me feel less than intelligent. But a graduate's thesis on Quantum Monte Carlo Calculations of Three and Six-Quark States makes me feel as if I'd be better painting myself blue and howling at the moon while leaping around a bonfire. So last night I fired up Kazaa and did a search for 'quantum'. While I wasn't lucky enough to find "An absoulte fucking moron's guide to quantum physics", I did finjd a couple of papers that made what a was reading seem a little less like Linear-B and a little more like Homer. That said, it's still Greek to me.
At six, Starbucks opened, and I got a hot tea with an apple turnover. I finished this quickly and returned to my wanderings.
Down Montecello, past the backside of the Federal Building. There are a couple of trees there, and as the sun had begun to rise, the birds dwelling there had begun to stir. Twittering and Chriping, they sounded less like a flock of birds and more like a blaster battle in a Star Destroyer. Zap Zap, then silence, Zap Zap then silence again, until driven off by the low moan of an approaching street cleaner.
As I'm writing this, I'm leaching electricity off a streetlamp at the park across from the community college library. The city's awake. People are walking around, the silence disappated by footsteps and voices, the growls of cars, the electric hum of the city trolly.
And I think maybe now, since I'm off today, I can go home and back to sleep.
--
(obviously I didn't)
