DC August Summer
I almost feel like summer 2017 never began. I'm waiting for Memorial Day and for the 4th of July and for bbqs, burgers and picnics and mosquito bites. Nevermind! I have had at least 30 mosquito bites so summer was definitely here. It has just been a very strange year. One of those years that you think will taste like tea but is a coke. So many things have happened this year and it feel like each minute flies by and then goes into a dark hole of nothingness in time. I feel like it is like that much more now that I work in Downtown DC.
The abyss of time is there on Massachusetts Ave. I arrive to work and time flies and before I know it the clock says "Go home!" and I exit the doors and walk past throngs of rich business people intermixed with not so rich business people who spend too much money on their clothes and have massive credit cards to pay off, and smelly homeless people. If you lay on a low cloud watching them all, the rich, the competitive middle managers, the cubicle people in sneakers and the homeless you would see some level of aggression and loneliness in each.
The Top: the top people are also in two categories the very wealthy who dress like Sneaker wearing employees and have a hypocritical sense of humility shuffling around in wrinkled clothes and looking "like everyone else!" Be not fooled, be not fooled. They are deceiving and have the power to ruin lives. Then there are the top who are more accepting of what they are: the top. They dress in clothes the price of my car, don't deign to look at anyone with a net worth under 10 million, and feel offended when you compliment their shoes. "Nice shoes!" how dare you speak to them, hush Serf and go back to gleaning the wheat in the fields!
The Top Middle: The top middle people are the most competitive and wild. They absorb everyone and everything around them. They know they are not the top but want to know all the Top people by name and some intimate fact to have ready to use in a conversation with another Top Middle so they can compete on who knows most about some of the True Top.
The Cubicle People in Sneakers: 70% of people in cubicles wear sneakers in DC, wear clothes that are ill fitting and carry too many bags to work. They want to go to work wearing both pijamas and their couch. With the torture it takes anyone to get to the office I can see why there is the appeal. I no longer judge the sneaker wearers because wearing sneakers with office clothes also gives you other freedoms in the office world. You have the freedom to eat more, drink more coffee and not get tense around a Top Top. You wear sneakers and are ok with your existence as a mere human. The Top Top wouldn't be caught dead in sneakers and the Top Middle would rather blister their feet standing naming the famous Top Top till their voices went sore. But the Sneaker wearers care about neither Tops nor Names. Perhaps this is why some of the true Top wear sneakers and chinos. It is so obvious though because their tone of voice is velvety smooth and has an edge to it like a sharpened spoon.
The Homeless: most of the homeless around my work have mental health issues mixed with dependency issues. Some scream for no reason. Some ask for money. Some sleep. They are all a little too smelly. But if I didn't bathe for months I'm sure I would be smelly too. They each have names, nice names that their mom picked for them when they were fresh little fat babies. They also have good days and bad days and it doesn't depend on the change they get from people passing by. Really it could be anyone of us reading this. If we lost our mind, job, health insurance and house with no job or mind....where would you go without your mind or money? What would happen to you? Who would take care of you or take advantage of you? Some of these people have beautiful smiles and love fruit. Others don't understand when I talk to them but are happy anyway to get a fruit or be asked about their day. "Eve" is my favorite and I haven't seen her in a while. She is very old, has a tumor coming out of her chin, and sleeps by the bakery. Most don't remember me but it's ok. It's nice to have someone not remember you. If a Top Top or a Top Middle remembered me I would feel like a deer being hunted.
In summary, that has been my summer. Drifting to work and being surrounded by very different socio-economic types of people. The most frequent words floated around me this summer have also been very charged: Trump, comfortable, concerned (meaning angry, "I am concerned" really means "I highly dislike this") "much" (why is the word "Much" being overused?), transgender, shamed (fat-shamed, skinny-shamed, body-shamed). It is a strange world we are in where everything is a shame. Much shamed. Much appreciated. Thanks much. Trump shamed. You can see where I am going with this. I'm curious to see what the Oxford English Dictionary will pick as its most over-used word of the year.
I hope everyone else had a more interesting summer. I guess my summer has been interesting. I work in DC, have seen Trump, see the White House everyday and have the honor of knowing some Top Top people but also the honor of knowing some Homeless people. Both ends of the spectrum have nice colors to them, just like a prism.
The abyss of time is there on Massachusetts Ave. I arrive to work and time flies and before I know it the clock says "Go home!" and I exit the doors and walk past throngs of rich business people intermixed with not so rich business people who spend too much money on their clothes and have massive credit cards to pay off, and smelly homeless people. If you lay on a low cloud watching them all, the rich, the competitive middle managers, the cubicle people in sneakers and the homeless you would see some level of aggression and loneliness in each.
The Top: the top people are also in two categories the very wealthy who dress like Sneaker wearing employees and have a hypocritical sense of humility shuffling around in wrinkled clothes and looking "like everyone else!" Be not fooled, be not fooled. They are deceiving and have the power to ruin lives. Then there are the top who are more accepting of what they are: the top. They dress in clothes the price of my car, don't deign to look at anyone with a net worth under 10 million, and feel offended when you compliment their shoes. "Nice shoes!" how dare you speak to them, hush Serf and go back to gleaning the wheat in the fields!
The Top Middle: The top middle people are the most competitive and wild. They absorb everyone and everything around them. They know they are not the top but want to know all the Top people by name and some intimate fact to have ready to use in a conversation with another Top Middle so they can compete on who knows most about some of the True Top.
The Cubicle People in Sneakers: 70% of people in cubicles wear sneakers in DC, wear clothes that are ill fitting and carry too many bags to work. They want to go to work wearing both pijamas and their couch. With the torture it takes anyone to get to the office I can see why there is the appeal. I no longer judge the sneaker wearers because wearing sneakers with office clothes also gives you other freedoms in the office world. You have the freedom to eat more, drink more coffee and not get tense around a Top Top. You wear sneakers and are ok with your existence as a mere human. The Top Top wouldn't be caught dead in sneakers and the Top Middle would rather blister their feet standing naming the famous Top Top till their voices went sore. But the Sneaker wearers care about neither Tops nor Names. Perhaps this is why some of the true Top wear sneakers and chinos. It is so obvious though because their tone of voice is velvety smooth and has an edge to it like a sharpened spoon.
The Homeless: most of the homeless around my work have mental health issues mixed with dependency issues. Some scream for no reason. Some ask for money. Some sleep. They are all a little too smelly. But if I didn't bathe for months I'm sure I would be smelly too. They each have names, nice names that their mom picked for them when they were fresh little fat babies. They also have good days and bad days and it doesn't depend on the change they get from people passing by. Really it could be anyone of us reading this. If we lost our mind, job, health insurance and house with no job or mind....where would you go without your mind or money? What would happen to you? Who would take care of you or take advantage of you? Some of these people have beautiful smiles and love fruit. Others don't understand when I talk to them but are happy anyway to get a fruit or be asked about their day. "Eve" is my favorite and I haven't seen her in a while. She is very old, has a tumor coming out of her chin, and sleeps by the bakery. Most don't remember me but it's ok. It's nice to have someone not remember you. If a Top Top or a Top Middle remembered me I would feel like a deer being hunted.
In summary, that has been my summer. Drifting to work and being surrounded by very different socio-economic types of people. The most frequent words floated around me this summer have also been very charged: Trump, comfortable, concerned (meaning angry, "I am concerned" really means "I highly dislike this") "much" (why is the word "Much" being overused?), transgender, shamed (fat-shamed, skinny-shamed, body-shamed). It is a strange world we are in where everything is a shame. Much shamed. Much appreciated. Thanks much. Trump shamed. You can see where I am going with this. I'm curious to see what the Oxford English Dictionary will pick as its most over-used word of the year.
I hope everyone else had a more interesting summer. I guess my summer has been interesting. I work in DC, have seen Trump, see the White House everyday and have the honor of knowing some Top Top people but also the honor of knowing some Homeless people. Both ends of the spectrum have nice colors to them, just like a prism.
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