HOLES

Holes in my Street

Verizon is digging thousands of holes into Walnut. My knowledge of this hole digging all began with a rude jack hammer outside my window one warm morning, months ago. Since then, I dodge orange cones wherever I go. Sometimes I get lazy and drive over the holes that have been patched up by soft black gravel that aren't blocked off by cones. The little rocks spit up into my wheels sounding off a mini brigade beneath my ruby vehicle. They're bisecting the roads that take me to work, the store, and other's houses, off with these orange cones. Whenever I am forced to drive on the wrong side of the street, I imagine smashing into someone I know and how meting out the damage would fair. The other day I was taking a jog down Walnut Canyon and this man who I've seen several times over the span of 20 years, but never heard, started cussing to high heaven about the new box that had been implanted into his coveted green lawn. I've never heard so few words sum up such bloody rage.

Why are they digging these holes, you ask?

To make our phone/ Internet system better of course. As if it's not just fine as it is, of course they're going to spend millions of dollars to install the latest technology because otherwise, we'd be stuck with roads that don't have holes in them.

I'm not really that mad about the holes. Sure, they may have chipped off some of my car paint, or bolstered my propensity towards morbid thoughts, but I'm definitely not as mad as the neighbor dude who seemed on the verge of wanting to shoot the guy who cut out the big rectangle of his green property to install some corporate box. But I can't help thinking that these holes do stand for something.

I saw Salman Rushdie speak a few weeks ago and he said something that I'll never forget. He said the purpose of the novel is to open up one's universe. I loved this idea, but to understand it, I think it's essential to know what a little sliver of universe really looks like. How many people get so holed up in their own lives that the universe surrounding them can't even be seen? How many people stand face to face with someone they've known for decades, and still don't know what it takes to communicate with them? How many people relate more with a media-contrived image than with the depths of their own soul?

Rushdie said people in the 21st century don't know how to define themselves anymore, except by what irritates them. Count how many times a day words come out of your mouth; words that are the expressions of your irritations with something. If you weren't talking about your daily dramas and agitations, what would you have to say? What positive examples do we live by when the media constantly makes a commodity out of those that have issues. Having issues has risen above compassion on the "What Makes You Have Character" scale.