About Alexandra Heep

About Alexandra Heep: The internet has allowed allowed Alexandra to maintain a semblance of life when encountering an unexpected, lingering health crisis. The Internet is a lifeline which not only allows her to remain connected to friends, but also survive, via writing.While Alexandra Heep is her pen name, she does not hide behind it. Instead, she used it to brand herself on the Internet and to create opportunities.

Alexandra published her first book, a collection of her best poems, on July 11, 2012. You can buy it at Lulu.com

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Saturday, October 8, 2011

What I Found in the Concrete Jungle

As you may know, the last few days have seen the sun appear vigorously in lots of parts of the U.S., especially on the East Coast where I live. In my search to capture a slice of the accompanying blue sky a couple of days ago, I loaded my dying digital camera up with fresh batteries and went for a short walk.

See, blue sky here is at a premium. How can that be, with triple-digit heat in the summer? I have no idea, but heat does not equal blue sky here. This summer it has been overcast a lot, stormy with dark clouds, or simply what they would call hazy. Plus, we supposedly have one of the most polluted cities in the U.S. as far as air quality is concerned. Boy, did I move to the wrong spot.

Of course I did not just want to stick the camera out the window to take a picture of the sky with boring buildings in the way. So, this is the best picture I found to show the sky how it truly looked.

I have no idea what this white plant is, but I can see it from my second story hotel room window and it's the only thing I have noticed that is somewhat unique. So, I had to take a picture of it close up.


If you put it all together, this is what you get. If you look closely, you will see the building in the background, it's either another hotel or some kind of office building. The water in the middle is not a pond. I thought so at first too, earlier in the year, but it just seems to be some kind of sewer run off. Not very attractive sounding, but it is what it is. Regardless, some ducks have been swimming on it all year, but the water is shrinking despite all the rains we have had.

Where exactly is this? Well, what you do not see is equally as important as what you do. I was taking the pictures from the edge of the parking lot, there is a big old sewer pipe to the right and to the left, and all around really, are commercial buildings. Wouldn't it be nice if, in life, we could only take snap shots of the pretty pictures and happy events while cropping the rest?

4 comments:

Diane said...

Alex, I doubt that there is any sewage,per se, going in there. It looks like a water run-off retention area. Certainly crappy stuff comes out the drainage pipe though To answer your question, the white plumes are handsome pampas grass. They are often grown around lakes and ponds--even here in the desert. This is actually a pretty spot. I didn't think you had any close to the hotel.

Alexandra Heep said...

It does not look that pretty in person haha. Plus, it is steep and hilly, so it was kind of cumbersome to take these pics. I thought the plumes were pampas grass, thanks for confirming!

Anonymous said...

I do that a lot with cropping photos and then wondering how "honest" that is. I actually posted a blog post on just weeds cause I felt guilty that I kept cropping them out (making my self look like some weed-free gardening guru)! I still crop out the ugly things, though and enjoy what I'm looking at!

Laura said...

Yeah... but at least you spotted a little bit of beauty there... sometimes you have to force yourself to do that mentally a few times a day!
Lx