Logorrhea

Call me Pedro

I've had a couple nicknames in my day, but none so unexpected as "Pedro." My supervisor, Jose, gave me this name. It has stuck, i imagine because its so out of character its funny. I'm probably the last person anyone would think is named Pedro. Hans sure, but Pedro?...

I'm a high-rise window washer. I enjoy the work; its tremendously satisfying. I work with my hands and see the clear results of my labor. Its good for the body and spirit. I work for a company that has a lot of work in downtown Baltimore. Everything has been going well since i started two months ago. That is until yesterday.... It all started as usual, but after lunch things began to go wrong. A fellow worker and i were assigned to work at a downtown hotel (i won't say which one)... This included the outside lower windows (1st and 2nd floors). To reach the 2nd floor we use a sectional ladder. (this type, unlike an extension ladder does not have a locking mechanism)... while i was moving the ladder to the next window the top section got caught on the molding and separated itself from the rest of the ladder. We could do nothing but watch, and move out of the way, as the top part came crashing to the street, bounced and hit a parked car... This is not good. Then, my pole was stolen... Once hired, i was issued some equipment that i was entrusted to take of.... i will have to replace it... but if you see a guy walking around Balto holding a pole with my name on it, let me know (or just kick his ass and get my pole back).... Then, after we finished the job i began to take the ladder apart. While two sections were remaining, the top part falls again. Luckily my comrade caught it, just as some people where leaving a store we were near... Then, about ten feet from where we are dropped off after work in the van, we were stopped by a cop at light st. because i wasn't wearing a seat belt (i was in the passenger seat). So, i got a ticket. It was not a good day... but despite all these misfortunes, at the end of the day, i wasn't that upset. I just drove, carefully, to the liquor store, bought a lottery ticket, some wine, and went to bed early... and was happy to go to work the next day.

A list of self-indulgence

I find my writing (blogging or otherwise) often to be an exercise in self-indulgence. Recently, i decided to make a list; a basic component of many blogs out there. I decided to make one of some books that are important/influential to me. I thought that because i wouldn't be expressing any ideas directly it would be exempted of self-indulgence... that was until after i finished. Its really the most self-indulgent thing i've done.... Lists tell us so much about the people that make them.

This is a short list of authors that moved me (or stories or characters that have stuck in my head). It is by no means a list of all the authors i like or that are good. I've also limited the list to one work by a single author. (The choice of just one work was at times arbitrary, or i would choose the first book i read of a particular author; with others that one work is greater than others or perhaps it was the only work i read). The list is also fairly eclectic. You will find canon literature (Homer) along with pulp fiction (Spilane), history (Heer) with theatre (Pirandello), the short story (Poe) with the novel (Tolstoy)...
If you like me perhaps you'll like these books. (or should i say that if you like me you will like these books?)
Take it or leave it. Here it is (in alphabetical order)

Anderson, Sherwood Winesburg Ohio
Auster, Paul The New York Trilogy
Baldwin, James Another Country
Barth, John The Sot Weed Factor
Blake, William The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Butler, Samuel The Way of All Flesh
Camus, Albert The Myth of Sisyphus
Conrad, Joseph The Secret Agent
Chabon, Michael The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Crime and Punishment
Eco, Umberto The Name of the Rose
Eliot, George Middlemarch
Ellison, Ralph Invisible Man
Goethe The Sorrows of Young Werther
Gogol, Nikolay "The Overcoat"
Grass, Günter The Tin Drum
Hammett, Dashiell The Maltese Falcon
Hardy, Thomas Jude the Obscure
Heer, Friedrich The Medieval World
Hesse, Herman Narcissus and Goldmund
Homer Odyssey
James, Henry Ambassadors
Joyce, James A Protrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz Metamorphosis
Kundera, Milan The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Lermontov A Hero of our Time
Mann, Thomas "Death in Vience"
Maugham, W. Somerset Of Human Bondage
Morrison, Toni Beloved
Murakami, Haruki Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir Lolita
Nietzche The Birth of Tragedy
Okri, Ben The Famished Road
Orwell, George Down and Out in Paris and London
Pirandello, Luigi Six Characters in Search of an Author
Pirsig, Robert Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Plath, Sylvia The Bell Jar
Plato Symposium
Poe, Edgar "Ligeia"
Rushdie, Salman Midnight's Children
Spillane, Mickey I, the Jury
Stoker, Bram Dracula
Süskind, Patrick Perfume
Tolstoy, Leo Anna Karenina
Wilde, Oscar The Picture of Dorian Gray
Woolf, Virginia Mrs. Dalloway

photo of the month

Here's a photo Nate sent me of us in New York. Sorry for not writing in awhile. I will try to keep up.... work is keeping me busy. I will write more later...