Skip to main content

No shit, Sherlock.

The man's name was Scott Alan McDowell. He offered a choice between a handful of change or two cigarettes. I gave him two more cigarettes instead. He told me not to forget him, so I won't. I mean, how easily can you forget a reasonably crazy dude you talk to on the street for, like, an hour? He said a lot of bizarre things, and maybe all he wanted was to buy another drink, but there was something else that drove him to where he was. "My brother graduated when he was 19," he said. "And I wasn't there to see it." He seemed genuinely upset by the statement. "Where were you?" I asked. He looked at me sideways.

"I wasn't there."

The lesson I ended up taking away from the experience is that we just don't appreciate what we have. Even when it's gone. Scott Alan McDowell from Maryland seemed to have made a few mistakes that lost him things that were dear to him and never fixed them. Maybe that's a dramatic interpretation, but he gave me a feeling of remorse which made me think about everything I'm lucky enough to have. I mean, this guy said LSD doesn't actually do anything.

I don't really know the words to put the emotions into coherent thoughts. It's just one of those things that makes you think about stuff.

Comments

Carolynn said…
So when are we going to the Bahamas?

As I said yesterday, I was really humbled by how calm you were about the whole thing. I'm not a big fan of strangers, particularly homeless ones, but you kept such a cool head about it, even when he had you gripped in an embrace. Way to go, bro. Really.
January 24, 2010 at 9:08 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pseudo-science (like psych).

I consider myself a man of science. I try to approach problems and deal with them logically, using observations previously recorded to handle new problems. So of course my interest was piqued when someone I knew posited that men are needier and more complicated than women. An interesting theory. But to properly examine it, one must understand the concept of sexual selection and its two aspects: male competition and female choice. Which brings us to point one: men are needier [in relationships] than women. This is true. In a natural/primal setting, the males are generally love-'em-leave-'em kinds of guys. Their main objective is to reproduce as much as they can. Humans, in their infinite wisdom, have decreased the emphasis on this to the point where it has become a footnote in male purpose. Civilization dictates that, instead of finding a partner for the sole purpose of reproduction, males find females for life companionship. With the effective removal of their natur...
5 comments
Read more

Just the stirring in my soul.

I, really, kind of don't want to be here anymore. Not in the sense that I am dissatisfied with my life or my present situation--which isn't to say that I'm not , because I am in a way--but in the sense that I am dissatisfied with the lack of things happening. I keep looking around. Out the window of my room. Out the window of my car. Out the window of the living room. I want to be on the other side of that glass. That's where the action is. I need, desperately, an adventure. I need to go somewhere. See something. Anywhere, anything. I don't care where or what as long as it's happening. I want to travel so badly. Grab my backpack and my camera and walk away. I'd settle for going to the same state park I've been to a hundred times over. It's this routine I'm stuck in. Seeing the same shit every day, going through the same motions. I need to change it up, break things. I need some vitality--being cooped up is killing me. What I re...
1 comment
Read more

No, Holmes, no!

All I ever think about these days is how much I have to/want to study. I hope that's not how I have a good time, now. Would I rather go hang out with peeps or would I rather sit in and study? It is a difficult question to answer. Just a couple more days and then I can focus all my energy on the next greatest idea I've ever had: iconic detectives and sharks.
5 comments
Read more