"And Ajax by mad passion borne stern had replied, fierce scorn enhancing scorn to fell extremes…"
Hemingway’s boat, Pilar.
If you read any short biographical blurb on him, it might mention how his World War II service consisted of patrolling the Straits of Florida looking for German submarines.
I read a book about what he was actually up to and that’s all bullshit.
That may have been what he said he was doing, but in actuality, he was getting drunk, fishing for marlin, and shooting sharks with a .45 Thompson submachine gun.
He weighed himself every morning and recorded the results on the wall.
I do the same thing, though I was not directly inspired by him.
After about a year of living in Havana, we finally made the trek to Ernest Hemingway’s home, Finca Vigía (Lookout Farm) that he lived in after leaving Key West.
This was his man cave. It looks an awful lot like the one in his previous home.
I started my first blog around 2004. I got a bit obsessed with it to the point it was interfering with living my life so I stopped writing it, deleted it, and then kindly asked The Way Back Machine to destroy any evidence it ever existed. They surprisingly complied.
But while writing that blog, I met three very interesting people: Travis (a former VT undergrad working in admissions at Georgetown), Paully (a former Marine working in public relations), and Kathryn (a UVA grad working in marketing in DC).
I’m still in touch with all three of them on a regular basis, though I’ve only met them in person on a handful of occasions.
The modern world is a strange and interesting place.
From FB:
“What’s Wrong With America – Part XII In A Continuing Series
Today I was teleworking from home. When it got a little too crazy at the house with the kids, I went to my local library.
I went into a quiet room with my laptop and noted that there was only one power socket and a guy was already sitting at the table closest to it. I tried to sit with him at the table, but every time I started typing, the table shook. So I went to the next table, and carefully laid my power cord in a neat, straight line from the power socket to my table, making sure it was perfectly flat with no snags or anything that could possibly be an obstruction.
So I’m minding my own business and happily plucking away at the keyboard for almost two hours when a very concerned Asian female gets in my grill. I take off my headphones and she tells me, “You can’t have your computer plugged into this. It’s stretched across this area where people could walk and somebody could trip.”
I looked down at the power cord and noted it was approximately 1/4″ tall. “Well,” I said, “Do you see any other power sockets in this room that I can plug into?” She was very flustered and said, “No, but you can’t leave have your computer plugged in here. It’s against the rules.”
I was starting to get a bit peeved so I asked, “And where exactly are these rules located? Is there a rule book somewhere that I can see?”
She obviously wasn’t used to being challenged, and before I could finish my sentence she was darting away with a cry of, “I’m going to have to go get my manager!”
Now I was really pissed. My hands were shaking with adreneline from this unexpected interruption and I couldn’t concentrate on what I was writing. I’m OK if I know a brawl is coming, but when you come out of nowhere and pick a fight with me, I tend to go from Condition White to Condition Red in about .25 nanoseconds.
So I’m sitting there pretending I’m not bugged by her little antics and trying to continue working when she comes back to me again about 10 minutes later.
“We don’t have a rule book,” she begins, “but you can’t have your cord here. People could trip on it.”
I’ve had just about enough of this nonesense so I tell her, “Listen, I’ve been here for almost two hours and not a single person has walked over that cord during that entire time period.”
Now she started to get indignant in the way that only overly officious busybodies can. “Well,” she harrumphed, “EX-CUSE us for trying to look out for the safety of our patrons.”
“You’re not looking out for anybody’s safety,” I blurted, annoyed to the very fiber of my being. “If you were so concerned with the safety of the people who use this library,” I said as I began to pat the sharp corner of a brick column located directly beside the table I was using, “you would make every single person who walked into this library wear a helmet!”
Again, before I could complete my sentence she had turned her back on me and was running away.
As with most confrontations I get into, I always expect that there’s a 75% chance that someone in a position of authority is going to tell me I have to leave. The fact that no one ever did tells me that the Asian librarian either:
a. Realized what a colossal waste of time she had just engaged in.
b. Found someone else to harangue.
or
c. Went to find someone with more juice to tell me to leave the library and either couldn’t find someone or was told to mind her own business and go help some other customer check out some books.
I wish it was c. but I’m pretty sure it was b.
This country’s going to Hell.
Pretty typical day for me back then.
Solo parenting with three kids and a dog.
Song Of Ajax 