One of my favorite blog concepts that I came up with (one of the few good ones), was the idea of Field Notes. Field notes are the realm of the ethnographer, documenting the human primate in their natural habitat, whether it be their home, the grocery store or yelling at their kids in the car.
I love people-watching, which made this topic much more viable than my music mashup blog concept (fun fact: I recently learned how to count to music). I began my Field Notes concept when I first moved to California, while job searching (aka funemployment) provided me with lots of spare time to sit and watch the world go by at the local Manteca, CA, Target parking lot. I kid you not, this is something I did for fun. (Please don't report me.)
Geography lesson! Manteca is decidedly not in the Bay Area, but in California's Central Valley. Their claim to fame was the water park that shut down a few years back. Now there is a Target, an In-n-Out, and also another Target.
It was one of those mega-mall-sized parking lots, where shoppers only park in the first five rows. The remaining sea of concrete is filled with cars scattered here and there, with people going about their business they, for one reason or another, can't do anywhere else.
I observed quite a few people this particular afternoon, and loved trying to piece together their stories. There were the two cars of teenagers who stopped in the parking lot to smoke weed after school and before their parents were home. They did typical teenager things: listened to loud music, were fashionable, flirted. I recognized the awkwardness of high school dating, where you stand next to each other and try not to look uncomfortable; they have phones now to mitigate the awkwardness, at least. But compared to that, sitting in my car drinking a Diet Coke on a Tuesday afternoon was looking like a pretty decent life choice.
My favorite observation though was of this one mid-40's man, who drove into the parking lot at 1:41pm on Tuesday, February 25. I was hoping for something untoward to happen perhaps, maybe some real life Walter White action?
Not my own image - again, the most exciting thing about Manteca is the water park (that closed). But I do think it represents the 'parking lot midlife crisis' theme fairly well. (Source)
I'll let my field notes speak for themselves:
"Man parked car in Target lot. On an unordinarily hot day for February, he puts on a heavy Carhartt jacket.
-Maybe he has car trouble and doesn't want to get his suit dirty while he checks the engine? Maybe he has to go under the car? A real jack of all trades? [He was wearing a suit after all. I was hoping to see some surprise mechanical genius at work.]
-No, he is just here to smoke a secret cigarette.
He stands next to his completely closed car in the bright, hot, parking lot, smoking his cig vigorously. But all too soon, he throws it to the ground and tosses his secret smoking jacket back into the trunk of his upper middle class silver SUV. Probably an Acura.
Then, he sits in the car another 5-8 minutes on his smartphone, most likely avoiding his home/work during his lunch hour.
The irony of it. He's got the job, the car, the family, the house [undoubtedly] but he still has to smoke his cigarette in a hot jacket on the asphalt of a Target parking lot."
His story wasn't shocking and is likely common - boring, most would probably say. But it was fascinating to watch him nonetheless, in this habitat he'd created for himself. Who was he hiding his smoking from? Who must be pressuring him to quit? Is he a success in his own eyes - by most measurements, obviously he is doing well. But if the only moment of peace he has to smoke less than half a cig is in the middle of the Manteca Target parking lot, maybe not.
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Anyway, that's the field notes concept. Creeping on people in parking lots. More to come on this front.
