I got some shots at Lafayette Yard today. Since it’s been a month and a half since the last blog article, since it has been a month-and-a-half since I got any presentable SLR-camera images, I have plenty to say!
In March, I was reading Confucius Lives Next Door, partly in preparation for the “April 2004 Images” article and the “April 2014 Sampler” essay.
Friday, March 29th – Good Friday
This morning, Good Friday, something finally happened, which was that those dogs at a certain house were out while I was walking, as I was approaching. They saw me and charged after me, or, at least, one of them did. The man was out this time, and he heard it and said “come on” to the dogs.
And I said, “Put’em on a leash!”
And the man was like, “what?”
I said, “Put’em on a leash!” And I didn’t say it as loud as I should have, because it’s 06:30, I just woke up, and I am not really forceful, and I kept walking. It’s kind of dark, but I tried to demonstrate to him that I was pissed off. That’s the way that you treat – that he treats – people; that’s really messed up.
I was just thinking yesterday, it’s like, you know, I’ve been exercising less and losing weight. It’s crazy. It’s really crazy.
Maybe I don’t need to walk nearly as much as I have been walking, and it’s also been a few weeks since I have run, and I am not starting to do that today. In fact, maybe I will never again do it, not deliberately, for exercise purposes. Actually, it probably would be good to do it once every few days.
Saturday, The 30th – Holy Saturday
Yeeah, I am thinking about trains and my Rock Island San Diego line, and I have been thinking about that workshop that I want to do!
I was just thinking that I am kind of no longer worried about the time of these walks, and it’s not just that I am saving time by not walking as much; I am saving executive functioning capacity.
I stop when I feel like stopping. Now, I am counting the laps, which I didn’t do before. I think that most of the walkers in this neighborhood do that. For me, until now, that was too complicated, because I did so much walking that it would be plenty of laps to keep track of.
It’s just a beautiful irony that I am exercising less and losing weight.
Because I am not walking for cardiovascular reasons or weight-loss reasons as much anymore, I can break my stride to do things like urinate, take a picture, talk to someone, or pet a cat.
While I was washing my hands today, I thought of something, and the reason that I thought of it is that I had just sat down to write the “April 2004 Images” essay in which I was reflecting on the April 17 event in New Orleans with Paul Alimia, Mike Palmieri, Shawn Levy, and others, and how I really got to know Paul that day and began to entertain the idea of living in New Orleans. And, so, what am I going to write since then as a follow-up since the 17 April 2014 essay, which was a decennial retrospective essay about the effects of the events of 17 April 2004? and part of me feels that I don’t have much to say now that it’s 20 years later and I am reflecting on it.
So, I just thought of that, and that’s kind of why I am nihilistic or jaded at this point, although reading Confucius Lives Next Door was more meaningful for me now because so much really has changed in 10 years for me, and the three specific things that have changed, besides being 10 years older and being forced to come live out here, which I guess should be a fourth thing, really, but that’s not a change about worldview or about learning about the self.
Okay, so, the three things are the realization that I am autistic, plus the Trump Phenomenon, and what the Trump Phenomenon taught me about myself and the world and people around me, and what the Trump Phenomenon taught me about people around me is what it taught me about myself and the world. It’s just weird that the Trump Phenomenon coincided with me learning that I am autistic and what all of that means, because, just as with the Trump Phenomenon, learning that I am autistic is learning about myself, learning about the world, learning about people, learning about why I have struggled and why I don’t relate to certain people, and, then, on top of that, why so many Trump haters are themselves weird and ableist and all of that, and, then, the third thing, which is stuff that I can’t really discuss on Jimbaux’s Journal, because it’s work that I am doing under my own name, which really does fit into autism and Trumpism. It’s political. It’s very political. It even fits into Confucianism and Confucius Lives Next Door. I want to read about Confucianism now, and I may have said that after the last two times that I read that book.
My time in New Orleans came to an unceremonious end, which is why, as it is depicted, it’s not quite as unceremonious [or, maybe, ceremonious?] as I am portraying it on social media; by that, I don’t mean that I am saying on social media that it was ceremonious in real life. It wasn’t; it’s just being ceremonious only on social media, not in a fake way to imply that real life was that way.
Sunday, March 31st – Easter Sunday
On my morning walk just after 06:20, it felt great out there, the temperature in the upper 60s, so serene and quiet. I heard birds chirping by the Bayou. Life is cruel. Life is nasty, brutish, and short.
I was thinking about the confrontation with the dude with the aggressive, unleashed dogs, and I realized why I struggle with conflict resolution like that and that it’s mostly not my fault. People can point to almost everyone else and say “no one else has a problem with it.” So, I have to act or seem hyperbolic, saying that the other person is a jerk, because no one else is saying anything. Almost everyone else puts up with it, probably because most of those who do put up with it can put up with it.
I haven’t run in a while. I figure that I don’t really need to. I was running to lose weight, and, then, I found a way to do that that actually worked. That’s not to say that I would not run again in the future, but there are risks to my knees and my back, and I am not doing it now.
The condition in which I might start running again is the condition in which, in a few months or a few weeks, really, is, if I go out for a walk of 20-25 minutes, I will get sweaty anyway; so, I might as well run. Today is not that day. I will be quite clean once this walk is done. So, I am not going to run, not today.
I feel comfortable stopping my walk to take pictures of things, because I don’t need to do it for like intense cardio reasons anymore.
I wish that my cell phone took RAW pictures, .cr2 images, but it doesn’t.
Wednesday, April 3rd
At 05:33, when I had been awake for two and a half hours already, I was walking outside while wearing jeans, a T shirt, sweater, gloves, and a thick jacket. It’s crazy. It was quite cold out there, quite windy, and the wind was what was making it cold.
So, I have not really significantly lost weight in about a week. I don’t think that I have lost any. Both the fasting routine and my normal diet were interrupted by holidays, visitors, and sickness in the last week.
It was four years ago today that I photographed a late-afternoon, early-evening train to the rice mill in Abbeville when we knew that it would close.
It’s a damn shame that those neat Ontario Northland refrigerator cars already are graffitied. I really hate people, and they earned it.
Sunday, April 7th
It was a nice, very quiet morning. I had a decent night of sleep, unlike the morning.
It was a little cool out this morning. Yesterday afternoon, I was standing on the driveway after I took a shower, and I felt mosquitos biting me, and that’s the first time that I have felt that in a while. I was like, oh, man, I’m going to need bug spray for my morning walks soon. Well, not today; it’s kind of cool, with temperatures in the mid-60s
I did leg stretches this morning. I haven’t really done that much lately, but I was thinking that maybe I should start running again.
I have been imagining what we can do on our railroad with haulage rights, maybe Arkansas & Missouri Railroad haulage rights on the Missouri & North Arkansas Railroad, and an intermodal facility at Pleasant Hill, Missouri, and maybe a joint service with CN from New Orleans and Mobile and Gulfport, and, then, maybe something with CPKC to Minneapolis-StPaul if it would get that overhead trackage rights for that more-nearly-direct route between Kansas City and the Twin Cities.
I did 185 pounds on the incline bench press yesterday, which is good. It’s especially good when I haven’t been lifting weights as much lately. I did 205 pounds on incline bench press for the first time in my life summer before last, and I was surprised.
Wednesday, April 10th
I was thinking that 15-bean soup might be a decent breakfast, because it’s beany, proteiny, and also spicy and peppery. So, cool, and I might need to look into that given the price of eggs.
Thursday, April 18th
It was five years ago today that I chased, in a torrential rainfall, the train to Abbeville, serving the rice mill.
I had strep throat for the last few days. I may still have it, but I don’t feel any symptoms anymore.
Because I had strep throat, I wasn’t doing my morning walks.
Saturday, April 20th
As I was driving to the gym in the afternoon, I was thinking about how I just saw a comment left on a post that Jimbaux made about how Shawn Levy is a humble guy, and I once again thought to myself – and this is not a new observation – that I am not a humble person, but then I try to think about why, and at least one of the reasons, and I think that it’s a major reason, is that I have been kind of humbled. So, I am wondering if it is a perceived lack of humility stemming from having been humbled, humbled due to the neurotypical oppression that has resulted in autistic trauma, which means that, at so many points in my life, I have been humble, in many situations, I have been humble.
Now, there are, I think, some other reasons that I am not humble and that are at least a little bit less innocent than the reason that I just described, some of them having to do with upbringing, but I think that that is a big one right there. There are so many situations, even now, in which I am humble, sometimes just because the situation calls for anyone in my position to be humble but other times because I have been humbled by the awful way that people treat us, and here I am going to a gym, where I have experienced trauma and bullying. So, that’s that.
Tuesday, April 23rd
The best part of today was getting some new clothes at Target now that I have lost 35 pounds; so, back to a size 32 waist I am. I got one new pair of cargo shorts and three new shirts, two of them being medium-sized shirts, just all very different than what I have already. That was all right.
I accidentally pocket-dialed April a little while I was at the Amtrak station. I talked to her and confirmed that I’d see her this afternoon for the class. There are some jerks with cigarettes coming this way.
I don’t know. I wasn’t feeling good. I ate nachos at this place called Borden’s. I thought that it was a restaurant, but it really is an ice-cream-and-coffee place. Nachos was the only non-ice-cream food that it had. I was feeling quite weak in the early afternoon.
I am just getting anxious with the days getting brighter, warmer, and longer. I just really don’t like that. Walking through downtown Lafayette, I ended up going to this place called Gary’s. I ate there. I am glad that I know about that now, and, then, Freetown by the track, but, other than that, I just felt really, really, really out of place. It made me feel like life is hopeless, because I want to be back home right now.
This town is gearing up for Festival International, whatever it is, and it’s just neurotypical hell.
I didn’t really like what I saw walking downtown. I don’t really want to live here; it’s just that every other place is worse.
While I was at the transportation center, a freight train passed, a boring train, a fairly short eastbound BNSF Railway manifest train, a Heritage 3 E?44 thing leading, and then a modern EMD after it, two locomotives, a fairly short train. Except for the last four cars on the train, every car was a lease hopper car or tank car. The last four cars were coil cars. One or two of them were lease cars, too, but one of them that was a lease car had Norfolk Southern hood. It just looked like the four cars were Norfolk Southern cars.
I don’t know. I just felt bad walking around downtown. Everything is loud and bright and neurotypical. It’s just hell, and I have to stop hating myself for not fitting in. People are people, and they can be so terrible.
I changed my clothes at the Rosa Parks place, and I felt better once I got into the dressier clothes that I wore to the class, a black Polo shirt tucked into some blue jeans. I look better; so, it kind of made me feel a little better, but then I stopped at the Starbucks at Pinhook at Kaliste Saloom, and it was just like sensory hell, this bassy music just pounding, and, then, standing in the queue at the counter to make my order, the light in my face. It was painful, just a hellish experience.
Embarrassingly, I was late for the class, because my brain confused what time it started. I felt horrible about that. My brain thought that the class started at 3:30pm, even though I knew it was 3:00pm. I kept thinking that it was 3:30 for some reason. So, I got there kind of late, which was terrible. I feel terrible about that, like, bad impression, but, then again, I felt like I did good in the class, and I helped the guys around me figure out some stuff; so, that was good. That helps me think about my future in the organization.
After class, I went to Whataburger, the one on the corner of Pinhook and Kaliste Saloom Road, and I got a burger, like just to go, in the drive thru. I was going to sit out in my truck and eat it, and I did, but the thing happened again where I say that I want this sweet-and-spicy bacon burger to go, that’s all, and she’s like “do you want the combo or the sandwich?” It’s so rude that they do this. I said, “I said that I wanted the sweet-and-spicy bacon burger.”
I got told a few days before by the lady at a Burger King in why they do this, and it’s like, “I told you what I wanted,” and the Burger King woman said that they are instructed to do that. She told me that it’s because of customers not specifying what they want and then complaining that they didn’t get what they wanted.
Okay, make THEM be the ones to pay the price for that! You’re making ME pay the price for THEIR lack of specificity and their being inconsiderate. No, Burger King, tell them to go back in the queue or go park in a parking space.
You’re making me pay the price, like, no, I am sorry, I am not the jerk here, I am not; I have tried to convince myself that I am, and I can’t, because what they are saying is that words don’t mean anything anymore, because what they are saying is that a “burger” means something other than a burger, like if I say that I am cooking burgers, come over, and I give them a burger and they expect fries and a drink. It’s just a burger.
So, after that, I went to Walmart on Pinhook Road, and I tried to get gasoline there at the Murphy USA thing, but it was basically being remodeled or redone. So, that was closed. So, I had to go to this nearby Chevron gasoline station by Verot School Road that looked bad and had a bunch of beat-up automobiles outside of it and a, shall we say, vagrant person out in the front drinking possibly an alcoholic beverage and just saying stuff out into the world, and I am thinking about how different I am but also how close I am to someone like him.
We need housing as a right, man.
Wednesday, April 24th
I had kind of a sensory-anxiety headache on this morning, because the prior day was just a crazy day. It had some bright spots, but it was rough on me. This morning, I saw on KATC a news story, very brief, about like a sensory tent at Festival International for people to recover from being overstimulated by all of the noise and the crowds or whatever, and, so, that’s very interesting, and I had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I don’t see how that could really work, at least not for me, because I will be anxious by the time I even show up there, plus you have vibrations all around; I will need to be in there for a while. On the other hand, I am quite pleased that that issue is being taken seriously.
There were some pretty sadistic and ableist comments in the Facebook comments section. I will have to return to it and look at it later. I told one person on there to “go to hell, you sadistic jerk, you sadistic, ableist, arrogant, dishonest jerk.”
I liked being able to walk on campus, but I liked being able to walk on campus when there weren’t many people there, when I had the place largely to myself.
I want to build the Sunbelt Pacific railroad! rebuild the Rock Island Choctaw Route and make my connections.
Sunday, April 28th
At 05:45 CDT, I was out for a walk, and it was windy out there; this is our new climate-change reality, I guess. The temperatures were in the 70s, but, with the stiff winds, even though I was just wearing a T shirt and shorts, I was slightly cold due to the wind, but I felt like, if I put anything on, I’d be warm. That, plus the fact that I had a mild headache, was the situation.
Today is Sunday. Yesterday, I spent most of the day at Church, helping out with parking for Festival International. That was a good experience, though kind of warm and bright. I got to meet more new people and see some old people whom I knew from last time.
What made the day yesterday truly memorable, though, is that, when I got turned loose from parking duty, when it ended, I decided, you know, since I already am there, let me go and check out this festival. I can bug in and bug out if I can’t take the crowds, which I won’t be able to do for a long time. Okay, since I am already here, let me go and see what it’s like for as long as I can take it.
Well, I stayed only long enough that I didn’t have to deal with the complications of excretion, hydrating, and food, because I guess the excretion part would have been easy, because there was a bunch of portable toilets, but the eating and drinking parts would have been difficult because the vendors took tickets, and you have to go and wait in line to buy a ticket somewhere.
So, I didn’t buy any food or drink from the festival. So, I went walk around; it was interesting. I went look for Jenny and family, because she posted about being there, but they were leaving when I was getting there.
It was kind of hot out there, but there was a breeze, too, that made the heat a little tolerable. It was hot. I am kind of sunburned, not really, as I had sunscreen.
I saw some interesting musical acts. The most interesting one to me was the type of act that you wouldn’t associate with Festival International. It was a band of really young guys, looks like they are in high school, I heard them play only three songs, but it just totally rocked. I was so into it! It was just exciting and great. I came upon them as I was just walking through the street, I think Rue Jefferson, and I am hearing “One” by Metallica. This band is playing “One”; I was like, okay, let me go and check this out, and I did. Then, the next thing that they played was this tricked out, funked out, heavy-metal version of Miley Cyrus’s “Party In The USA”. It was great! It was so good!
And, then, they ended their set with “Them Bones” by Alice In Chains. It’s like, this is great! I have to find this band and follow them. The name of the band is Ultrasound. It’s so good. So, I will check them out.
And, so, I was like, WOW, and, after they got done, I was thinking that I should leave. I didn’t really stay for long. I took a few pictures and video. I went down to the fountain and took a few pictures of the people in the fountain; I did that before I found Ultrasound. I was on my way back from the fountain when I found Ultrasound. Man, listen to me; talking about a local rock band like I love it! It’s one of these things that makes me feel both old and young at once, like, these kids were not alive when Alice In Chains, well, at least when Layne Staley was alive. Wow. It is a very good band.
Then I went to Walmart on Ambassador Caffery and got some stuff, and then I went to Whataburger and got a Sweet And Spicy Bacon Burger. I went through the drive-thru. I ate the burger at the house, after I unloaded my groceries and before I took a shower. After I took a shower, I was still pretty hungry.
I feel like my ears are still ringing from the noise yesterday. Not really. It’s not that my ears are ringing. It’s that surrounding kind of head numbness; my ears are fine.
I want to talk to a lot of people so bad.
I want to build that house right there so bad.
I want to talk to a lot of people.
One thing about yesterday and being at that band was that it felt good that I could take it, like, all the noise. It was reassuring that, given my increased sensory issues as I get older, I could tolerate it, and, now, I am wondering if I am paying for it right now due to feeling kind of, I don’t know how to describe it. My ears don’t hurt, and I don’t think that I am having trouble hearing, because I am hearing birds chirping and wind blowing, and it’s all nice and lovely. I don’t know; it’s just kind of a tenderness in the part of the head behind the ears, but, then again, I don’t know if that is from the sound or from the terrible headache that I just had a few days ago. That was just three days ago that I went to the hospital. So, it’s good that I could do all that I did yesterday given that I was in the hospital, you know, two days before, because I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to even do that yesterday after my experience in the hospital.
I have been thinking recently about how that Godsmack concert that I attended a little bit more than 12 years ago now was the last not only big concert but really even any small concert that I have attended, at least indoor concert, even in a bar, that I attended. Maybe some group out on a street somewhere, or maybe in a parade where they are riding on a float, but I haven’t been to an indoor concert in more than a decade.
Yesterday, I was on the corner of the UL Campus were this group of people with signs saying to pray and they were saying prayers, and they were saying prayers that sounded familiar to me, and sometimes doing it cantonically, I guess you could say. They were singing. They had signs talking about praying “for America”, but then one of them had a sign that said “Honk against socialism”. Okay, that tells you right there what kind of Christianity this is, and I sent a picture of it to Megan, because I took a picture of it, and she said that they were “Trad Cath” people, traditional Catholics, and I said that that explains why I like the songs that they are singing and nothing else about them. She said “yes, that tracks.”
Tuesday, April 30th
Ten years ago today, I was attending the funeral of the father of one of my best friends, and I got that good shot of the NOGC train doing the street running in Gretna right before, and I went eat at the Subway that is no longer there.
So, coincidentally or not coincidentally, coincidentally as in happening at the same time, I wrote an email last night to Rachel, just trying to reach out and connect, and, to my great delight, she replied last night and seemed thankful that I reached out to her and made me feel great. The only thing that made me feel weird, and I didn’t say this in my reply to her, is that she is actually teaching at a regular high school now and, apparently, has been for a while. I should ask. What I didn’t tell her is that that kind of disappoints me, because one of the reasons that I wanted to reach out to her is that I thought that she would be someone with whom I would be able to discuss the problems with factory-school education, because, last time I knew, she had burned out of the profession like I did and was working maybe at a restaurant or bar or something.
So, oh, well. I kind of feel like I can’t really talk to her. It’s like, how do I tell her that this thing is actually terrible when she is doing it right now? I couldn’t hear that, and, to me, this was almost like a prerequisite for disclosing to her that I am autistic.
I feel like I don’t know now. Maybe I could still tell her.
The other thing, and this is really complicated, is that I feel like I can’t really catch up with a person like that from my past, and I can’t really have a deep conversation with the person, without disclosing that I am autistic, because it explains everything, it explains all of my struggles since then and even my struggles back then, but, also, that means that I can’t have a deep conversation with anyone from my past whom I cannot trust with that information, and that is why I am like in this weird infinite loop of time wasting until I die.
But the news about Rachel presents a problem because what I really wanted to do is talk to somebody with whom I worked as a teacher but who also like me is kind of burned and sees the problem with the factory model and isn’t working in it anymore, and I cannot think of anybody else who meets that criteria. Cunningham kind of does, but he is actually also trying to get to work at a regular school and is married to someone who works at a regular, and he is like very slow to reply to emails.
I can’t think of anyone else. There is nobody else. It would have to be someone who was about my age or younger when I worked with the person, and there are very few people, pretty much none, that I can imagine that meet that criteria. I would limit it to people with whom I was somewhat close; there are coworkers with whom you never talk. I really can’t think of anybody. I am thinking through it, and there really is nobody.
April asked me during class to go and work with someone tomorrow. I had plans the next day, and the work wasn’t in the professional field anyway, but I agreed to show up for the guy the next day.
Wednesday, May 1st
This was a hell of a day, really, and really scary about the way that some people are. I worked. I did plenty of work. It was physically draining. That wasn’t the problem, though.
Thursday, May 2nd
It’s strange that I didn’t sleep much the previous night. It’s strange, because I was so exhausted last night. I didn’t have time to make a salad when I got here. So, on the way back, I stopped at Taco Bell and got $25 worth of food, and I still woke up really, really hungry on this day.
Today
I have had a traumatizing experience this week, something that really revealed the dark side of humanity and the dark side of someone whom I had trusted, who took the side of an abuser who told ugly lies about me because I didn’t want to bow to his demands, because he actually liked the work that I did and wanted more of it.
I won’t say any more about that here.
In unrelated reasons, I was by BNSF Lafayette Yard today. The story of why I was there is something that I can’t share here, but it’s also not interesting.
Yes, here are BNSF 2820 and BNSF 2891, yard power.
Check out that GP30 carbody!
Here is a view westward from the northern side of the yard.
That is all for now, and that’s fine. I hope to have more to share in the future.
Merci.
Jim
You must log in to post a comment.