Runcible Blog

Methuen: Home of the Paranoid

What a sad, paranoid world we live in. As I was taking a few boring pictures of Route 93 from the overpass in Methuen, a police officer pulled up beside me and said that someone called in reporting that I was on the bridge with a gun. Obviously, the cop realized that I was not a gun-toting-terrorist but merely a camera-toting-Richard Reid-look-a-like. Seriously, how could someone mistake a camera with tripod for a gun? (luckily, the cop didn't notice that my tripod converts into a bazooka which uses my telephoto lens as a targeting system and fires miniature rockets that I store in my bum.) Afterall, I was wearing a Transformers T-Shirt, and everyone knows that Robots are dangerous.



I don't swing that way

Earlier today I was propositioned by a 37 year old guy from Methuen. He said he "likes them young". Apparently, this picture makes me look gay. Actually, this is not an isolated incident. An older man flirted with me when I was working as a cashier (at BJ's, of course). It's sad that guys hit on me more than girls do. Leave a comment regarding the gayness of the above photo.


will it be crap?

For my current photo assignment on motion, I'm working with fans. It probably won't come out as I expect, but we shall see.


can I ever describe anything?

I was just walking around my neighborhood, the place I've lived for 19 years. I felt as if this place I call home was at once intimately familiar and completely foreign to me. As I stood at the corner of my street and busy Haverhill St., my surroundings seemed so alien, but at the same time I knew exactly where I was -- nothing was different. I know every crack and bump on the sidewalks near my street. My experience reminded me of the time Jehae and I went to Dorchester on a whim -- only to find one depressing street lined with taverns. But what I felt today was not sadness but pride. It's hard to be proud to live in one of the poorest (if not THE poorest) cities in Massachusetts -- a city that consistently ranks lowest in education, highest in crime in the region, highest teenage birth rates, etc. But Lawrence still has a vitality that I didn't notice during my brief trip to Dorchester. Lawrence remains an immigrant city even though most of the jobs that initially attracted immigrants are long gone. For whatever reason, immigrants come here and bring their own culture and traditions. Without them, Lawrence would be a ghost town solely populated by the poorest of the poor who can't afford to move elsewhere. Do I want to live here for much longer? Certainly not. I don't want to live in a city where most people stay inside, lock their doors, and try to avoid interacting with everybody else. Of course, I'm not helping by sitting at this blasted computer........