I did a shopping run a few nights ago—something that I almost, just now, described as “final”—waiting until around 11PM to hit the local ShopRite. The scene felt surreal: empty shelves; palettes of unpacked products everywhere; signs declaring shortages and rations. Through all this, the syrupy 80s pop music trickling down through the grimy little ceiling speakers…an eerily mundane backdrop to a situation that is looking more and more like anything but.
Continue reading “Let the good times roll”Here
About a mile east of where I took this photo—a little beyond where the farthest set of headlights is—there is a dented guardrail with a half-foot streak of blue paint on it. Honda calls that shade Aegean Blue, for reasons probably more related to market research than geography, but I didn’t care about the fancy name; I just liked the color itself.
Decades from now, the paint—and maybe that particular section of guardrail—will be gone. No matter; I’ll always know where that place is. I will think of it every time I drive by.
Continue reading “Here”John Hancock
Signatures are important. Maybe a little too important.
I have two: an ornate, professional one I put on important documents, and a lazy squiggle I put on receipts. Just a quick swoosh: that’s what’s worked its way into my muscle memory whenever someone asks me to sign a receipt or tablet. Nobody looks at these things, anyway—I could sign John Hancock’s signature, and 96% of the time, no one would notice.
Except, of course, when they do. Tonight at my polling location—a church, on a street named “Liberty”, of all places—I was asked to sign my name on a tablet instead of the usual paper book. I slapped down my lazy signature without thinking. The tablet flashed a confirmation screen comparing the signature on file to the one I’d just entered. They did not match.
Continue reading “John Hancock”