Window.

Letters.

I was just helping clean out my mom’s basement, and found some old letters. I received them 18 years ago from a couple of friends who I haven’t seen in about as many years. The themes were generally; lack of sleep, going to school on no sleep, writing me a letter instead of doing homework, crying from getting yelled at by dad, stress, field hockey, and hanging out on Neil Young’s tour bus. Typical high school stuff, I guess. Then we grew up. I guess. Apparently we all grew out of letter writing as well. I still love letters, so if anyone wants to mail me one:

Josh Wertheimer
P O Box 110330
Brooklyn NY 11211

And if anyone knows where Anya or Angela are, tell them I miss them, and I hope they’ve gotten some sleep. If I’d known then what I know now, which still isn’t very much, I would have never lost yous guys.

Lou gets me home.

I get overwhelmed sometimes. Do I walk to the store before getting in a cab to go home? I had a good night. Good tips. Does that mean I should be extra careful? It would be a shame if something happened to me between work and my front door, and a tragedy if it happened on a night I made more money than usual. That’s how the headlines would read, but I don’t see the difference. Still, I think of all the possibilities. Going to the store or not determines which cab I get into. Even standing there watching all the lighted medallion numbers coast by, which one will give off a good enough feeling to cause me to raise my hand in hail? It’s the one with an older, smaller back seat. Not the one with the hundred dollar bill on the floor, but it’s the driver that takes Houston instead of Delancey. Lot’s of traffic on Houston. He turns on the radio, and it’s Lou Rawls! “You’ll never find...” He nods his head in time and turns it up a little. No, he changed stations by mistake. Back to Lou. “...another love like mine...” This guy’s a maniac, weaving in and out, leaning on the horn while passing on the right. “You’re gonna miss my loving...” I can’t see the speedometer as I’m sitting back, pressed into the vinyl, relaxed with the comforting thought of flying off the bridge listening to Lou Rawls. “You’re gonna miss... You’re gonna miss...” I try to cross the street to my building, but some guy in a Honda decides to floor it down the block in reverse before making a U-turn. I‘m home now, thinking of the decisions that got me here. I’ll limit my thoughts to decisions of tonight.

New York tourist shot.

Place I'd rather be - intro.

I'm at work, there's a band that's way too loud for this room, and I think to myself, "there's no place on earth I'd rather be." Then I think a little harder, and think of a whole lot of places I'd rather be. I think I should start keeping a list of those places. I think they could come in handy one of these days.

up

Health.

I ran into a friend today. Needs a $5000 Skin Cancer operation. No health insurance.

Crash.

Three years ago today, I woke up, turned on the radio, and heard that all bridges and tunnels in and out of the city were closed. It was the same condition imposed on the city that took place two months earlier after the towers came down. I’m not sure, but my next step may have been to look out my kitchen window to see if the Empire State Building was still where I remembered it.

It turned out it was just a regular old plane crash out in Brooklyn. A regular old plane crash. Did any of us ever think we would be looking at a plane crash that way? It was the second worst plane disaster in US history. Right now, people are standing out in the rain, on the spot of the crash, in remembrance.

Kids.

Plans, etc.

Okay, I’m gonna need places to stay around the country. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. I may as well start looking into this idea of searching the countryside for Bush supporters now. They shouldn’t be that hard to find. I’ll be having Thanksgiving dinner with at least five of them. I’m not quite sure of my goals. Maybe this quest will be more about the journey than the destination, as most worthwhile undertakings are.

As one would expect, everyone I know with some space for me to rest is in a “left leaning” zone. That thought brings up another problem that I’ve come across; leaving to go live where there are more people like yourself. I hear that kind of talk now more than ever. Wouldn’t it be more helpful to move where there are less people like you? Here’s where I start to have some conflicting thoughts. My first instinct is to move into these areas of closed-minded populations to maybe spread some ideas that may be new to them. Ideas like maybe how good morals can include, among other things, NOT killing innocent people in the crossfire of an unjustified war. But then I start to think of a parallel between spreading the ideas of half of the country to the other half, and spreading the ideas of democracy from one country to another culturally different one. Who is to say which way is the right way to live? For some, the answer to that last question is, “God.” How can you argue with blind faith?

Fireworks.

Ahhhhhh!

evolution in schools link

Fireworks?

Why is there a big fireworks show going on right now off in the distance toward Manhattan? The city might want to think about informing the public a little better if they’re going to permeate the sound of bombs going off at random times.

Pink.

Last time I saw Arwen, she was uncharacteristically wearing all pink.

What now?

At 2am, the press was too scared to give Ohio to Bush, but we all knew it was over. I don’t understand what happened. I don’t understand most of the people I share a country with. I’m not talking about not understanding why they like the music they like, why they watch so much TV, or the faith in whichever God they’ve chosen. I’m talking about a very basic understanding. A core understanding of what is good, and what is bad.

I made a choice of who to vote for before knowing any issues. Before knowing any party agendas or campaign promises. I felt there was a clear delineation between two candidates, and that line fell between right, and wrong. Well the people have spoken, and they tell me I’m wrong. The people I share a country with say my core beliefs of right and wrong ARE wrong. Right now, while my friends and family are still in shock, all I want to do is find those people. Find the ones who say I’m wrong, and give them a chance to show me how I may have strayed. I’m talking about people who looked at a man who got less votes than the opponent he defeated in the 2000 election, and decided that he did such a great job in the last four years that he deserved to keep up the good work. There are millions of people out there who didn’t vote for the president four years ago, but somehow were convinced to vote for him this time. Millions! They’re out there somewhere, and I have to find them.

All I keep saying to myself, saying out loud to the walls, is “what more could I have done?” It seemed like so many citizens were moved to work harder than ever on an election felt to be crucial to our future, and the future of people all over the world, and that damn map looks exactly the same as it did four years ago. I want to find those people. That’s really the most I can think of doing. I must get to know my enemy. I only have four years to do it.

First post.

For some reason, on the night of that election, I decided to start an online journal. Here it is. My first post. I’ll write more after I’m sure it works.