May 13, 2017

The Georgia Aquarium had early opening today, so I took advantage of it. I walked from the hotel. It was farther than the web page suggested, but last night’s trek got me in the footing it mood. Under the bridges of 85 is the bedroom of the homeless. They were stirring as I passed, rising up out of clusters of old cloth, either gathering or scattering the meager accouterments of the night before. One was putting on a blue dress shirt and a necktie. Maybe he had a job, or an interview. He looked around, as I would have done, for something to serve as a mirror.

Under the fish-tunnel of the Aquarium, I watched a man propose to a woman, kneeling and handing her a ring as the sharks passed over. They stopped here and there while a friend took artful shots of them against a backdrop of sea creatures. A man asked his daughter–maybe 3 years old– what color the beluga was. She said “aquamarine,” which was absolutely right, though everyone over the age of 3 would have said “white,” which is what the answer is supposed to be. The cabdriver on the way home remarked on how far I had walked to get to the Aquarium.  “You have your exercise for the whole weekend,” he said. I agreed, His amazement may explain something else I’ve noted: Atlanta is run by seriously obese black women.

What did I like most at the Aquarium? They jellies, I guess, blundering into each other like chandeliers set loose in the wind.