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sorabji.com: What does it look like where you are?: empty
By eri on Friday, March 21, 2003 - 03:06 pm:

    It's gorgeous outside. Sunny, clear, in the lower 70's. The parking lot is FULL and even the curbs are filled with parked cars, but what is there outside......NO ONE.

    Usually all of the neighborhood kids are outside our patio playing on the grass. The teenage boys play football and get in trouble for breaking the windows. The elementary school kids ride their bikes with the training wheels on. The preschool kids play with barbie dolls and remote controlled cars.

    They usually run up to my windows and ask for food or candy or drinks or to be able to use the toilets. They usually come up to my windows to tell me all about their families or the trouble and fights they got into in school, or their new puppy, or whatever.

    They watch my every move and ask me questions that are none of their business constantly. They follow my lead on what they decide to do. If I take the girls swimming, half of those kids go to the pool while I am there or report to me later about when they went to the pool.

    NO ONE is out there. Not a single child is outdoors playing in the spring sunny weather. The birds are chirping and the yard is empty.

    This is just sad.


By kazoo on Friday, March 21, 2003 - 03:12 pm:

    That is sad. I remember when I lived in Boston and moved from the BC-college neighborhood to a residential one that had a little playground across the street.

    The first weekend I slept there I awoke to the loud, shrill voices of children running around...it was sweet, and much better than the green-line train which went by my apartment every evening and morning.

    It's beautiful here. It's warming up, but it's still cool enough for a sweater. I have short cargo pants on today.

    Yael and I are leaving this awful computer lab to get iced beverages of some kind.


By eri on Friday, March 21, 2003 - 03:16 pm:

    Have a couple of "beverages" for me too!


By eri on Friday, March 21, 2003 - 03:19 pm:

    I forgot. I let the kids go outside to play for a little bit. The cop that works for the apartment complex (otherwise known as beefcake by the local gay male population) was on his way up to his apartment (upstairs and across from us) and he looked at the girls and asked "What are you doing?" I almost opened the door and said "WTF does it look like they're doing? They are doing the same thing they always do, play outside."