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6-18-03 // 10.11 am my crew laughs at your rhubarb and custard verses NP: The Streets - "Original Pirate Material" I spent a couple of hours with my grandparents (dad's side) yesterday evening. I like hearing them tell stories about being young, about living in a St. Louis from a seemingly forgotten time, one of streetcars and lavish movie houses, of Sportsman's Park and downtown department stores. I like listening to these stories and thinking about my grandparents as young adults -- it's interesting to picture them as people not much older than myself, newlyweds, my grandpa just back fro the Korean War, living in a tiny four family flat in a city center that hadn't yet began to crumble. I dunno, it just fascinates me. I only know them as seasoned adults living in a small town across the river, people with children and grandchildren, not to mention the widsom and experience of a lifetime. It would have been interesting to meet them before all that. Sometimes I think of my odd interest in civic and urban preservation and laugh. I'm very much a proponent of progress, but the older I get, the more I become baffled by the lack of thought that goes into demolishing architectural heritage. Architecture was a career I considered in high school but never pursued further after taking some courses. I simply wasn't very good at it. Perhaps I would have improved over time, but it didn't feel quite "right", if that makes any sense. I am, however, still proud of myself in that it was something I had little natural talent for, but through hard work and perserverance I managed to do a decent job. I'll bet I even still have the old blueprints from the house I designed. Man was it weird and ugly. I apparently broke some cardinal rule of design, as I had the front door on an angle. There was also a laughably long hallway, suitable for secondary use as a makeshift bowling alley. But it was mine, and much as I imagine a parent loves a kid who's always screwing up, I loved it. Odd thing to say about a bunch of architectural drawings, but it was something I'd created from nothing. That's a big thing for me, considering I usualy work in numbers and code. True, these are creative exploits of their own kind, but it doesn't quite match up to the feeling of creating a painting, a poem, an essay, a drawing. I still say that someday, I would love to be a small business owner. I realize such things are often pursuits doomed to fail, but I still think I'd like to give it a go. Nothing big, mind you, just a small record shop or a neighborhood pub. I think I'd make a good guy behind the counter, marking new releases or pouring pints. Or maybe not. But it remains an enjoyable fantasy. Tonight I would very much like to eat a curry. Don't think the bank account can handle it today, though, so perhaps that's something for the weekend.
Hugh: Mmm, I can't believe how much we have in common. We're both studying the environment, we're both utterly humorless about our vegetarianism, and we both love the Rolling Stones.
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