Comments | saanen: My alley

saanen

My alley

Jan 14, 2006 10:25

I've started a new temp job at an office in downtown Knoxville. It's a rotten, stressful job (well, not too bad, but not any fun either) but I can't afford to be picky. And it has the benefit of windows looking out onto an alley ( Read more... )

Comments 14

Knoxville mizannie January 14 2006, 08:00:11 UTC

Isn't it a great gift to be able to
relieve the dullness by imagining?
For an instant, you can be anywhere
you want to be, transport yourself
and dust off the flat grey that life
can be sometimes.

My aunt was a sister of mercy and was
the hospital administrator at St. Mary's
I think it is called. I spent many holidays
in Knoxville, sitting on the lawn of the
hospital grounds, imagining. I know that
it's the portal to Paris, London and other
wonderful places.

Re: Knoxville saanen January 14 2006, 10:07:32 UTC

I lived in Knoxville for ten years, so I definitely know that the city's greatest virtue is its complete lack of character. It's so bland, it's easy to imagine that you're actually in a grand and exciting city instead of blah old Knoxville.

I may be a little biased, though.

barbarakelley January 14 2006, 11:55:56 UTC

sounds like an exciting mystery room. I think law office is too prosaic; maybe an elderly, exiled princess lives there... hiding in the business district so enemies can't find her.

saanen January 16 2006, 11:36:54 UTC

Ooh, yes! Maybe I'll see her at the window one day, looking sadly out into the distance at her homeland...

halfmoon_mollie January 14 2006, 12:37:19 UTC

I vote for the crusty old lawyer as a former resident/buidling owner. He was well known in Knoxville, and had a reputation as someone who helped families that needed his help, and did not always accept payment in coin. He married, after he graduated law school, but in the process of building his practice AND his reputation, he and his wife grew apart and she eventually drifted away. (Probably relocated to Nashville or maybe even met some rich Corporate type, married him and now has homes in Miami, Aspen and Philadelphia.) Since the lawyer had no children to whom he could leave the business, it was sold upon his death to someone who knew that a few luxuriously appointed reading rooms would not be out of place in downtown Knoxville - a place where people who work in (for example) busy sales offices or telemarkers could go and find some quiet.

??????

saanen January 16 2006, 11:38:13 UTC

That's wonderful, too--of course the place must have a sad past. I wonder if they'd hire me there? It can't be worse than where I'm working now. Of course the view wouldn't be as good. :)

kevin251 January 15 2006, 06:42:38 UTC

I remember alleys holding some interest for me as a kid -- and I think I know why: Top Cat cartoons. I liked how TC and his gang had their own secret base of operations in that alley. Not that there was much to it: the fence, the garbage can, the telepone pole with the box where TC kept his toothbrush...

I grew up in a suburban area that didn't really have alleys. These days, if I'm in Boston, I'll sometimes notice a street sign marking an alley. They don't bother giving the alleys individual names like real streets, so these street signs have generic names and numbers: "Public Alley 251" or whatever. (I wonder if there is a Public Alley 251 in Boston...) And when I pass an alley, I can't help taking a moment to peek down this dark, narrow space, and wonder what, if anything, is going on down there. Then I keep moving -- if there is something down there, it's probably not a friendly gang of cartoon cats...

saanen January 16 2006, 11:39:31 UTC

Wow! Alleys with street signs! That's high living! The alleys in Knoxville (and there are frankly very few) aren't posted or anything--they're just there.

You never know, Public Alley 251 (or whatever) might very well be home to a friendly gang of cartoon cats. Cartoon cats have to live somewhere. Now you'll never know!

seaslug_of_doom January 15 2006, 10:11:48 UTC

I was in Philadelphia yesterday doing the same thing you were doing, in my case looking up through windows from street level ( ... )

saanen January 16 2006, 11:42:08 UTC

"Diamond merchants and silversmiths" may very well be the most romantic phrase I have ever seen you type. My God, the possibilities of visiting a city that not only has diamond merchants and silversmiths, they have their own area of town! I've got to get out of Knoxville. All is has is a Kay Jeweler's out west.