One of my fellow crazy people who works at an inconvenience store asked me again why I haven’t followed through on my prank. I didn’t have a good excuse now that my eyesight is restored.
What could possibly go wrong if I run up and down Poplar Street or along the trail near my apartment?
Most of the FPD I’ve encountered have been great. Executing this prank will determine with great certainty whether they appreciate the joke.
Even though I have much better necessities to spend my money on, I ordered an orange prison jumpsuit this morning.
I’ll keep you posted. 🙂
PS The excursion train runs in front of my apartment. Maybe they’ll see me soon, waving and running. .
Restless interminable night, but a beautifully still morning. Overcoming my unusual reluctance, I hit the streets early, wandering aimlessly. At its darkest, the night held an unusual number people driving, probably due to ill-advised post graduation celebrations.
On Greenvalley Avenue, I accidentally threw my phone as a large deer ran right past me as I stood taking a picture. It ran down to the intersection and stopped there to watch me. I usually spot them at least a street over near the bottom of what I call dead man’s hill.
Birdsong echoed flatly in the absence of any breeze or wind, creating the perfect introspective atmosphere for anyone out enjoying it.
I walked barefoot for an hour, meandering. Two little chipmunks came out from some fallen trees to say hello. They were camera shy because they hadn’t had time to go to the beauty salon this week. Deep back into the brush and trees, there were some Northern Parulas. (Sounds like a salad topping.) The males were brilliant green and yellow.
It could not have possibly been more beautiful back there. 65°, sunlight breaking through the trees intermittently, and all manner of birds almost entirely hidden -but singing and chirping like 8-year-old girls at their first church recital.
And I can’t write about it without mentioning how brilliant the colors are again for me. Even the 12 different nuances of green.
The creeks are of course colder than an accountant’s heart but the numbness afterward was refreshing.
About 1 in 10 drivers in Arkansas don’t have a valid driver’s license. Those 10% are responsible for 25% of accidents.
After rewatching my video yesterday of the highly trained police officer getting seriously injured outside of my apartment, I realized it’s time to once again remind everyone that nothing protects us from the chaos of random circumstance. All those years of training and becoming a masterful motorcyclist amounted to nothing when confronted with an idiot without a driver’s license and in too much of a hurry to yield to traffic.
You can be the smartest, healthiest, most careful person in the world. You can do everything right.
There’s always going to be an idiot without a driver’s license or someone in too much of a hurry to remember that it’s not worth it to be in a hurry, to be angry, or to remember how precarious it is to be encased in a biological body.
You can work yourself to the bone, being loyal, diligent and doing your job. And that job can be swept out from under your feet without warning. Often by people who are callous to the fact that money fails to compare to the impact on human beings.
We can dedicate ourselves to being compassionate citizens, only to wake up one morning and realize that the people in charge have lost touch with their intended purpose.
The balancing act never ends. We have to find a way to keep moving no matter what craziness happens to us. Even when we’re bitter, pissed off, or unsure whether anything we do really matters.
I try to keep an eye out for the people who seem to be positive even when they’re getting slapped. It’s a rare attitude and probably more important than intelligence or hard work.
PS You don’t have to wave at the grim reaper. He already sees you.
We all use shorthand to communicate, even if it’s technically incorrect. That’s what fascinates me about language. Whether it’s the grammar police or people who have a pet peeve about things they perceive to be an accurate or wrong, the reality is that usage prevails over perceived correctness. Even if it makes your heart palpitate or your left eye twitch.
Lately, I’ve been biding my time and waiting. The other day, a self-appointed guardian of the imaginary rules of English stepped in it.
“F.B.I. is not an acronym. We describe it as an acronym but that’s not actually correct.”
“What? Of course it is. What are you talking about?”
“An acronym is pronounced as a word in and of itself, like ‘I.C.E.’ If you don’t pronounce the first letters in totality as a word, it is an initialism.”
Silence and confusion.
“That’s a technicality. Everyone knows what we mean when we call it an acronym.”
I smiled, a tiger trap of acknowledgment.
“Duh. That’s exactly how the rest of the world feels when you correct them. They’re communicating, not writing a thesis.”
“If I was interested…”
I cut them off, making a slashing motion with my hand. “That’s a violation. Improper use of the subjunctive.”
I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye as the person walked away.
I should have axed them if they wanted to go get an expresso with me. I could of, but I didn’t feel like being pacific about it.
Lost in color is the best way to describe my early morning. 1000 birds, all of them singing, and two I had never seen before. Waiting for the sunrise and watching the clouds race over me, revealing blues, purples, and infinite variations between. Even my little car, a half-mile away, looked like it had been forged from the blue of a Caribbean Sea.
I wandered down through a culvert that I probably should have left unattended. Once I reached the creek bottom, at least a dozen gray catbirds chirped a symphony for me. Going through the brush that didn’t want to be penetrated, I ran into Pine and Palm warblers. Yellow looked freakishly novel to me.
Suddenly having crystal clear vision has been a knock in the head. I catch myself staring not only at my prisms with new eyes, but shadows and variations that have been lost to me. And yes, I can see the dirt and dust that inevitably accumulates. But who has time for that? You can dust and de-dust without pause, never reaching the end of it. But you can also go out and wander.
Occasionally, there have been sirens wailing in the background, because where there are people, there is turmoil. Even if you do everything right, that same turmoil will frequent your life at random intervals. It shouldn’t push your eyes and ears away from enjoying the stupidly simple things all around you.
But what do I know? I’m just a guy wandering around with soaked feet and a smile on my face.
As the sky darkened and the wind blew, I walked barefoot along the new connecting trail spur that runs north of Lakeside.
It was once an oasis and almost unpassable. It’s a modern convenience. It still holds a sliver of the natural magic it once did, but I can’t appreciate it yet.
The expanse of exotic cattails is fighting back. You can see it on the north side of the paved trail, a boggy mess. When I went through today, I smiled because a few dozen of these alien cattails are growing back fast, after being destroyed.
I watched a giant of a skateboarder roll down the long hill, his lanky arms held horizontal to the ground as if he were flying.
I saw dozens of errant golf balls from the course surrounding the small lake. They look like perfect little eggs, scattered in the grass, rocks, and mud.
As beautiful and relaxing as it was, I still hold a grudge that the unusable natural habitat has been traversed surgically with concrete.
I woke up momentarily confused at 12:21 a.m. Rain was hitting the side of my leg. The tornado siren was going off and the power was out. Even though I woke up 33 times last night because of the clear plastic shield over my eye, that confused me even more.
It was completely surreal and disorienting.
I made cheesecake out of the buttermilk of the situation. I’ve spent a couple of hours out on my landing enjoying the smell, look, and feel of a completely dark neighborhood, experimenting with my newly renewed eyesight.
I hate that my eyes, although blessed with incredibly youthful nerves and venous structure, fell prey to rapid-onset milkiness. I got a new lens in my right eye yesterday. My vision already feels like I’m looking out a recently and perfectly cleaned window, after staring out through dirty glass.
I took a lot of pictures, experimenting with color and perspective. The power is still out but it feels like the last few hours passed in a few seconds.
I’m appreciative of the science that has renewed my eyesight. I’m going to miss the kaleidoscopic rainbows that the defect gave me in the last few weeks.
The wind was my redeemer this morning. This should be the last morning I get to enjoy the deeper colors caused by the juxtaposition of darkness, lights, and the defect in my eyes.
It was a little symphony. The insects, the wind in the trees, even the distant wind chimes crescendoing and fading.
The thousands of steps weren’t enough. I didn’t want it to end. Time always gets the last word.
Which weirdo has all the magenta light coming out of the window? Additionally, how did I not know that the word ‘gulab’ is a synonym for rose?
The thunder of the birds started early this morning as the moon drifted down.
As I walked this morning, I listened to an amazing article in Spanish this morning regarding the new unified universal health care system for Mexico. There’s no reason we don’t have the same here except for ignorance and profit motive. Maybe one day after enough people have suffered we’ll tear down what’s obviously not working here. Probably not.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 