The Newtown Pentacle

Tuesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Continuing with shots from a longish walk around Pittsburgh, captured on a winter’s day….All the leaves were brown, and the sky was gray…. That song was right.

Pictured above is the 16th street Bridge, over the Allegheny River.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The trail I was walking upon led to the 31st street bridge, where I’d be turning south and reattaining access to the peninsular landform which Pittsburgh refers to as ‘the Golden Triangle.’

So far, my attempt at speeding up my gait had been successful, but the amount of force I was focusing into the pursuit had angered the noisome joint in my left leg. It was singing, the ankle, in a manner reminiscent of Elmer Fudd singing Wagnerian Opera with ‘Kill the Wabbit.’

Pain is just another thing you feel, like love or hate, so just get past it like you do those other things.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Many people have told me, after having met me in real life, that it can be overwhelming. It’s like trying to interact with ocean waves, or a fire.

I tend to ‘come atcha,’ in numbing sense impacts of verbosity. Try getting a word in edgewise, I dare’s ya! When this behavior is pointed out to me as a chide, my response is always ‘yeah… I know… I’m stuck dealing with this asshole in my head all the freaking time, you have no idea what it’s like.’ At least the rest of you don’t have to deal with the bullshit 24/7, rather it’s in delimited doses and gets published five days a week at 11 a.m. right here.

I’m all ‘effed up.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I usually have three or four versions of myself ready for deployment, as situations may require. One or two of them speak in a slightly slower, louder, and more basso voice, so if you think I’m being reasonable – you’ve probably met those versions of me.

The manic asshole version? Yup, he’s useful too, but in certain circumstance, and that’s usually the part of my brain that gets me both in and out of trouble.

There’s also that part of me that gives people exactly three chances and no more, who doesn’t make threats but does offer promises, and acts like an egomaniacal jerk. I don’t like that side of me at all terribly much, but it’s useful to be able to abandon polity when you need to so there you are.

I’m like the Kiwi, a fuzzy little fruit with a lot of personalities.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This shot looks southerly, towards Polish Hill. Behind me is Rialto Street.

The neighborhood that the bridge drops you into on the southerly side is a bit of what I used to call ‘an angle between neighborhoods.’ It’s not ‘Lower Lawrenceville’, nor is it ‘the Strip.’ There’s a big blob of municipal properties in this zone, including an enormous structure wherein Pittsburgh stores cars and trucks from its fleets while they’re awaiting servicing.

Apparently, there’s a huge backlog and budget criss regarding the scheduling for this maintenance, which has created an expensive crisis for the bureaucrats who caused it to solve, by spending more tax money.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This was about the four mile/turnaround point for the walk. The plan from here would be to scuttle along the edges of man’s world through the Strip District and then shlep over to the one of the T light rail stations downtown.

Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit…

More tomorrow.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

Buy a book!

“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.