Josh W

I’ve started a new morning routine. It’s been about a month and I’ve kept it up pretty consistently. 

At 5:00am, I lurch across my bedroom to shut off all three alarms. I do the Wordle first thing to force my brain awake—the word is SHELL. Then I do the Cardle, which is a game that shows zoomed-in images of cars and you have five tries to guess the correct car. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. 

In the third-story hallway I’m greeted by my roommates’ cat, Keanu. Every morning she waits for me in the hall and meows with gusto, then she hops into the basket that I keep in the windowsill for her. I pet her while she sits in the basket and I stare out the window with bleary eyes. I can see the Bok Building from here. 

I listen to KYW News Radio in the morning while I shower. Some of the ads irritate me. For the days I have to commute to the office, their Traffic on the Two’s report comes in handy. After my shower, I head back upstairs to my room. I get dressed quietly so I don’t wake Audrey, my girlfriend. She’s very supportive of my new routine but nobody likes to be woken up by a dumbass fumbling around to put boots on at 5:45 in the morning. I put on a pair of vintage Levi’s that I bought last week and head downstairs. 

For breakfast, I make an everything bagel with an avocado spread. I’m careful cutting the bagel because yesterday I sliced the shit out of my hand with the bread knife. Why is our bread knife so goddamn sharp? I wash the bagel down with some probiotic yogurt drink that’s supposed to be good for gut health. 

I’m out the door and standing in line at Herman’s Coffee by 6:30. On the days I work remote, I like to come down here and sit outside for a little before I start working. There’s no sunrise today—it’s been cloudy for a week straight—but it’s nice to listen to the people walking and the SEPTA busses beep and hiss. 

I work on a checklist for this weekend. I get to drive a brand new Ford Mustang down to the bottom of Virginia and back for work. I’m going to crash at my uncle’s down there on Saturday night and turn around the next morning. I need my camera, tripod, and maybe some lighting to get some good content of the car. I’ll want to bring my toolbox in case I need to make any quick repairs. My uncle told me to bring a pillow because he doesn’t have any spare ones. I still haven’t decided what route I’m taking down, but I know I’m coming back up the coast so I can stop at Assateague Island on the way home.

An old beagle coughs at the table next to me and I check my watch. It’s 7:00. I was wrong, there is a bit of a sunrise today. God, I want a dog. 

I walk past the Historic Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church on Moyamensing. There’s a bunch of flowers on the steps but I don’t know what kind. Maybe there’ll be a wedding today, or maybe it was yesterday. Maybe it was a funeral and not a wedding. In any case, something must’ve happened or will happen because there’s not usually flowers on the church steps. 

I pass all the cars I know in the neighborhood. An old blue Corvair. A slammed Chevy pickup. A beat-up Ford F150 that hasn’t moved in two years. The BMW wagon whose owner gifted me a giant Holiday Inn ashtray after I lent him some tools one night a few years back. 

I check on my car, a 2001 Jeep Cherokee. It has 239,000 miles. The distance from the earth to the moon is roughly 238,900. It was stolen in 2022. I stole it back with a Leatherman multitool a few days later after a buddy spotted it up at 5th and Spring Garden. When I called the police to report that I’d found it, I got a dead line. Thankfully, it’s still sitting where I parked it yesterday. 

I’m back home and at my desk by 7:15. Keanu is still in her basket. My office is a bit of a mess at the moment. Tools strewn about on my workbench, automotive magazines lying around, empty coffee cups I keep meaning to throw out. I turn on the radio and get to work. 

Keanu in her basket

After an hour or so of being an absolute corporate weapon, I walk Audrey downstairs and wait with her until her Lyft arrives. I smoke one of the unfiltered Lucky Strikes I have left over from a day trip to Higbee Beach. Somebody has been stealing the little pot for cigarette butts on our stoop and then returning it a day later, still full of cigarette butts, which is, frankly, pretty funny. I have no explanation for this. I say good morning to my neighbors who have just returned from a coffee run to Grindcore House.

It’s 9:00am and I’m back at my desk. I change out of my boots and into an old beat-up pair of Sambas. Time to lock in. 

At 10:07am I take a quick break and solve the New York Times mini crossword puzzle in 34 seconds. I go downstairs to eat an apple and smoke a cigarette out back. I talk to Carley, my roommate, and we watch her dog, Dog Simpson 2, run around like a gremlin. Carley and I discuss apples for a few minutes. I text my friend Kelly and make plans to get dinner after work. She sends me pictures of a dog named Kevin from her new dog walking job. Kevin appears to be quite anxious. I head back up to my desk and grab a Topo Chico on the way. 

Dog Simpson 2

I call in my lunch order to Cosmi’s Deli around 11:30. Dog Simpson 2 is napping on the new reclining leather couch we got over the weekend on Facebook Marketplace. Andrew, my other roommate, and I crammed it in the back of my Jeep with the hatch open and drove it back from Point Breeze like that. But I digress—back to today. 

I walk to Cosmi’s. I pass the Mazda Miata NB Mazdaspeed I see all the time. I pass the Mexican market where I get groceries sometimes. It’s cavernous inside and the people are very friendly. I pass Termini Brothers and hear soft jazz and smell fresh baked goods. There are so many smells in South Philly, both incredible and foul. I get my hoagie and thumbs react to a Teams message from my manager on my phone.

Cosmi’s. Cue angelic choir music

Back at my house by noon. Andrew gets home for his lunch break. He talks with Carley in the kitchen about the costumes and decorations they’re making for our Halloween party. After I finish my lunch, I dart over to Rebel & Wolf to grab a mid-day coffee. I receive word that Pinto will be joining Kelly and I for dinner at Royal Tavern. The sun is finally out. I get back to the house and, with some more caffeine and nicotine in my bloodstream, I resume being an absolute corporate weapon. 

I dread the day I move out and have to pack this office up.

At 4:30, I’m done work for the day. I decompress for a few minutes and proceed to get changed for dinner. Since it’s October now, I’m in a fall mood and have opted for a nice sweater. I will surely regret this decision once I start sweating three blocks from my house and realize it’s not actually cold enough yet for sweaters. I kill a little time by watching an old rerun of Top Gear. By 5:00, I’m out the door. 

Dinner is at 6:00, so I pop into Friendly Lounge for a quick beer. Friendly Lounge is one of the last smoking bars left in Philly. Their sign was used in The Irishman. Sinatra used to eat racks of ribs here, supposedly. It’s been a few months since I’ve last popped in so it’s a welcome change of pace. I listen to the regulars have an incredibly well-informed conversation on the opioid epidemic. The Tigers and Astros game is on. I smoke some Camels and sip on a Miller High Life. I’m very tired and thinking about if I should adjust my wake-up time to 6:00am instead of 5:00am. One of the patrons is a cop and now he’s talking about how a 9-year-old kid asked him what kind of gun he carries. A Glock 19, he says. 

The door to the street is open and from my seat at the bar I can watch traffic and pedestrians go by in the reflection of a large Miller-branded mirror hanging next to the old-school cash register. The baseball game ended and the TV moves on to coverage of Hurricane Helene. The death count is 182 and counting. The regulars shift to discussing last night’s vice presidential debate. Another regular walks in with a dog and a cigarette hanging from his lip and asks the bartender if she’s eaten because he has some stuffed peppers in the oven and can bring her one. She declines. Another customer walks in, trying to pay with card, and is promptly informed that Friendly Lounge is cash only. 

I leave the bar and immediately hear the anthem of my enemy—Mr. Softee. There’s one that parks by my house several times a day blaring that jingle at full volume. He comes by at all hours of the day and into season’s that don’t make sense. He’s posted up at 10pm on a Tuesday in March before. I don’t know how he even hears peoples’ orders over the music. There must be a volume knob for that thing but it’s either broken or he’s too stupid to operate it. I suspect he must hear that jingle in his dreams. He is my greatest nemesis in the city.

I walk past a Saab. Saab doesn’t make cars anymore. They only make things for the military these days, like fighter jets. 

Audrey texts a massive group chat some updates about her birthday dinner at L’Angolos on Friday. We have enough folks to warrant a private room. I’m very excited because I love L’Angolos and I love Audrey. I took my mom there for Mother’s Day. 

I arrive at Royal Tavern a few minutes early and loiter across the street. I’m trying to decide ahead of time if I want to pay $15 for a hamburger. It’s a damn fine hamburger but that’s a lot of money for a hamburger. I paid $18 for a hamburger at Parc when I was nineteen running around with Andrew and a backpack full of beer. Sure, it’s been nine years since then and inflation is a thing, but at least the Parc burger came with fries. Fries are $6 at Royal Tavern. The Fountain Porter Burger is $6—am I supposed to believe this burger is $9 greater than Fountain Porter’s? There should be some sort of economic study about the chronological and geographical variance of hamburger pricing in this city. 

Anyway, I order the burger and it’s phenomenal. 

I just told them how much the hamburger costs

We wrap it up at Royal Tavern and Kelly departs. Pinto and I walk back to his house so I can grab some film prints he’s gotten for me. I offer to buy him a drink a Cherry Cocaine at Grace & Proper, an off-menu cocktail we both enjoy, for his troubles and he humbly accepts. 

We arrive and I order the drinks. We’re presented with two cocktails and grab a table outside. We talk about work, the hurricane, the longshoreman strike, and my trip to Virginia. I thank him for the prints and we go our separate ways. I walk home along 8th and pass the Capt. Jesse G., Inc Crabs sign that my friend Tyler is enamored with. I pass a tow trunk yanking a Nissan out of its parking spot with a line of cars honking at it. 

I walk past Cosmi’s and Termini Brothers for the second time today and make a left onto Tasker. I come across three guys working on a four-door Chevy Silverado on the street corner. I hear them turn the key and the starter protests before it finally gives way and the engine turns over. It runs for about thirty seconds before it conks out again, and they rapidly discuss the matter in Spanish.

I’m back at the house at 8:20. I head upstairs to wash up for bed. It’s a very new thing for me to get to bed this early. I used to be a champion of pulling long and productive days on very little sleep. I did this for years, from the beginning of college until fairly recently. When I was at school in Towson, I used to run for forty hours straight, going to classes and writing papers and working full time. But lately it’s felt like now is the time to finally catch up on all that sleep I’ve missed. It feels good. It feels right. I like getting up early. Mentally, I’ve always been a morning person, but only recently has my body decided to cooperate. 

I say goodnight to Carley and Andrew. They’re working on Halloween projects in their office. 

I head upstairs and turn off everything in my office. The lamps, the computer, the radio. I walk down the hall into my bedroom and climb into bed. My window has been open for a few days straight now and I love the fresh air. I’ll be yanking my AC unit out of the window in a few days and chucking it into hibernation. 

I catch up with Audrey a bit over text. She’s out at her parents’ house tonight. My uncle’s friend has included me in a group chat with the two of them and they’re discussing his favorite beer. I have all three of my fans running. The noise helps me fall asleep since I have tinnitus from years of doing dumb shit without hearing protection. I set all of my alarms for 5:00am and climb into bed. 

At 9:00pm, after sixteen hours of consciousness, I close my eyes. I fall asleep to the sounds of my fans and the folks in the park and the hum of cars passing by. I do not know what I will dream of, but I do know that Keanu will be meowing at me in the hallway in the morning. 

Josh is a writer and professional car guy living in South Philly. He’s obsessed with anything that has an engine. In his free time, he enjoys tinkering in his workshop and writing short fiction. He maintains that Philadelphia is the greatest city on earth.