Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Haven't been writing much (here or email) the past couple of days; barely keeping up (maybe not quite keeping up) with reading (even got behind on the few webcomics I'm currently following -- am waaaaaay behind on email). Got a lot to do, trying to get it done, not doing very well at it; sleeping very poorly and spending the rest of the time feeling sleepy; eyestrain and headaches have been a problem for about the past week. ( Troubleshooting my body and complaining )

The Post Awful left me a "Sorry We Missed You" notice on Monday. Now I did crash pretty hard Monday afternoon, so it's possible that I slept through the doorbell, but not bloody likely. Yeah, I can be hard to wake up sometimes, but that doorbell is loud. I mean, "jolt me painfully out of sleep" loud. Put the slip back in the mailslot Tuesday and asked for the package to be redelivered Wednesday. Was only sleeping lightly the brief part of Wednesday afternoon that I napped, so there's no fscking way I slept through the doorbell Wednesday -- the mail carrier didn't bother to ring; just put another "Sorry We Missed You" note, incompletely filled out, like the first one (left off the "Sender's Name" part, so I've got no idea where this package is coming from -- I wasn't expecting anything), and wrote (instead of what's supposed to go in the "Article Number(s)" space), "2:00 PM, 2nd Notice, Must Pick Up." ( Further ranting and some history on this subject )

Busy the next few weekends: ( Details )

Actually got a very small work assignment this week, after a couple months of nothing. Hope it's the start of a trend.

Sirens.

[Goes to look.]

Oh my. Big thick black billowing mass of smoke. Looks like about three blocks East and about a block North, as far as I can tell from my window. Flames visible over the rooftops between here and there. (Correction 04:50 -- more like seven blocks East and two blocks North)

IIRC, that's an inhabited part of the neighbourhood, not one of the parts with lots of vacant houses. :-(

UPDATE 04:50 -- Bystanders were a little vague/uncertain as to what was in the building that burned -- someone thought it was a warehouse and somebody else thought some classrooms or offices of some organization were there. An apartment building across the street had apparently been evacuated for a while for fear of the fire spreading from rooftop to rooftop via embers, but folks had been let back in when I got there. The folks watching from the front steps said it got Really Hot there for a while. There was speculation as to whether terminal patients on the top floor of a health care facility nearby (across an alley from the burning building) would have to be moved. All of this is from neighbours, not from authorities.

There were large (more than twice the size of a loaf of bread) chunks of burnt-something on the sidewalk and on top of parked cars. There were also many more much smaller chunks and particles.

There were lots of fire trucks and a few ambulances and police cars present when I got there. I missed the sky-full-of-embers show, but there were still flames jetting out from windows. Plenty to see, but poor camera angles due to trees and fire trucks blocking my sight lines. I had a good angle briefly, but then a police officer said the firefighters needed access to the corner I was standing on and moved us back. (Not complaining -- their job's a Hell of a lot more important than my photography.)

Note that this is not the five-alarm apartment fire, also in West Baltimore, that they're currently talking about on the Channel 11 (WBAL) television news.

As I was leaving, two firefighers were talking about what a busy night it was -- this was their second fire of the night, and that five-alarm apartment fire makes number three. WTF? The big surge in fire frequency usually comes in Winter, not Spring, I thought. Tuesday night there was a fire on Fulton Ave., a few blocks North of my house.

For folks who were up early enough to read it before I edited it and want to be informed of updates to entries: I just added a bunch more info to my 03:20 post about the fire, now that I've been out to see it and back.

holzman wrote (about a month ago):

"George W. Bush and his war have awakened in my a will to political action that I had in college, but which became dormant afterwards because other things in life took more priority. While the changes I've made in my life over the last five years have cleared many of the obstacles to marching-in-the-streets activism, it took a threat of this magnitude to bring to my attention that I need to be in the streets."

Other folks have been enthusiastic about spreading the Cheese Weasel Day meme, so I figure I ought to do my part to spread a holiday I only just heard about: No Pants Day, the first Friday in May (which means this year it's today). "When large groups of people parade around in public without their pants, amazing things are bound to happen. At the very least, you'll take your drab, wretched life a little less seriously, at least for one day." (From the "What is it?" page, which also clarifies that they mean the North American meaning of "pants" (trousers), not the British meaning.)