Laird’s Lists

You probably maybe shouldn’t. For me this is a thumb twiddling exercise. Times when I can’t write yet still remember I’m old and have done things not many have done. So I come here and start listing, listing all kinds of things. In part it’s a great ducking exercise. My best list would be all the books I have read. A phenomenal list. But I’ve never figured out how to organize it. I keep wanting to illustrate it. I have pictures. But the more material I have, the less I do with it. So I’m hoping I can creep up on it somehow. In the meantime I’ll be listing other stuff. Countries, cities, celebrities, blah blah. There will be labeled posts. Feel free to skip around. No list is ever complete. My impulse is always to fill in names with content. But you have to start somewhere, I’m starting here. The great advantage? I can begin without thinking. Just names, no pictures, no descriptions. But I know me. I’ll want to add all of those. I can keep coming back if the mood takes me. This might be...

I’m from New Jersey. But I was also Corporate Ronin. Meaning I spent years on planes flying everywhere for business. Lot of cities. A * is a state capital. San Francisco, CA Dallas, TX Miami, FL Chicago, IL St. Louis, MO Detroit, MI Houston, TX Cleveland, OH Seattle, WA Dayton, OH Orlando, FL Columbia*, SC Nashville, TN Boston*, MA South Bend, IN San Jose, CA Wilkes Barre, PA Portland, OR Salt Lake City, UT Cincinnati, OH Washington, DC Providence*, RI Minneapolis, MN Atlanta*, GA Trenton*, NJ Columbus*, OH Philadelphia, PA Indianapolis, IN Denver*, CO New York City, NY Ann Arbor, MI New Haven, CT Wilmington, DE Newark, NJ Baltimore*, MD Cambridge, MA Pittsburgh, PA Evansville, IN Annapolis*, MD Newark, NJ

 Been here and there over the years. Hardly everywhere. Never wanted to go everywhere. Twice to Paris, now that Paris is a suppurating sore, no thank you. Saw it at its height, thank you. London once, when I was ten. Still the smog I couldn’t breathe and still the rubble of the blitz my dad showed off to me, while they dragged us to the Tower and Parliament and the British Museum, and we, my sister and me, could both see that it was great and big and lost. It stank and it was done, Since then I have been to many nations. As a businessman, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, Milan, Zurich, Paris, and only Paris was glamorous, yet stricken in its heart. Couldn’t wait to get home to my unfaithful wife at the time. At least she had an Ohio hug and didn’t hate men as a philosophical proposition,. So we divorced. Nietzsche conquered Ohio too and I wound up alone. Bogota, Colombia. Red tiles upon awakening, as far as the eye can see. Three million Colombians, all scared of cartels. I was dum...