I entered the statewide contest to make realistic and appealing marketing for our tourism department. Here’s my submission:
Visit Arkansas. The “Natural” State.
This gentleman is avidly enjoying nature adjacent to the nudist colony near Lonoke.
Arkansas has something for everybody.
Even if you have “nothing” on your mind.
X
PS I have no idea whatsoever if there is indeed a nudist colony near Lonoke. Accuracy is for crazy people. Plus, I enjoy the idea of someone Googling, “nudist colony near Lonoke” just to clog up their search history with questionable inquiries.
I was wading through Scull Creek, standing in the natural sluices created by falls and narrowing rocks. The water moved with such speed that the resulting splashes against my legs created a spray that hit my face. Though it was lightly raining when I started, the rain faded, leaving an odd, somber pallor in the air. Walking barefoot in such water where I couldn’t see the stone under the water was hilariously precarious. At some point, I heard chattering above me. It took me a minute to find the source: a squirrel about six feet above me, leaning down and watching me. I talked back to it a few times as I made my way back and forth and up and down the creek. It dawned on me that the squirrel was moving in a pattern following me. When I was done in the creek, I carefully climbed the rocks back up onto the bank and picked up my sandals. The squirrel came down out of the trees and scampered ahead of me as I walked on the greenway trail. I walked past it as it sat about ten feet from the trails edge. When I turned off the trail to head to my car, I looked back to see that the squirrel had moved to be relatively close to me. By the time I made it to the parking lot edge, the squirrel ascended a tree and watched me through the corner of its eye. I chattered back at it. There was no doubt It had followed me from the creek. As I opened my car door, I looked back one more time to see that the squirrel was sitting facing me. An unusual squirrel, one probably wanting to have a polite conversation.
I got a thought-provoking message a little bit ago. Telling me what I already know. I was sitting in the creek in the cool water, so I took a moment. Here’s what I wrote back:
“You’re right. Expecting easy money is stupidity. But I will counter with the fact that unless you own the output, you’ll most likely ruin your body and sell your soul to make a fabulous living. Even with hard work. Even when you do everything right, you can fail. And as much as I love this country, it fundamentally frustrates me that we’re the only modern country without universal health care. People can have whatever opinion they want about it. But until you have a medical catastrophe, especially one through no fault of your own, you simply don’t understand how it can financially ruin you. Even with private insurance. It’s undeniably a fact that universal health care cost less per person then we’re currently paying now for our hodgepodge system. We’re supposed to be the country of individual liberty and freedom. Yet, unlike the rest of the world, we can’t even get our act together enough to provide healthcare without restrictions. For me, universal healthcare also comes with universal mental health care. All of us who are observant can’t help but notice that too many of us suffer with mental health issues, depression, or relationship issues. Failing to provide universal access is a guaranteed way to sit back and observe our societal problems worsen. Regarding education, it should not be fundamentally looked at as a way to fuel a production economy. Education has earned its own birthright. Yet, our system tends to reward those already rewarded. About half of our adult population reads at a sixth grade level or lower. That is staggering. It also explains a great deal of the issues we’re dealing with regarding the divides we suffer while trying to make compromises and decisions regarding social policy. People with means live in a different world than those of us who don’t have money. As for the rest, I’m different than the rest of y’all. I do not expect to get up and find that everybody I loved the day before will still be alive. It’s another one of those things that until you experience it, simply can’t be communicated. And when that happens to you, every cent you’ve accumulated in lieu of enjoying life and being with the people you love might as well be sand in your boot. You can’t practically live every day as if it’s your last. I know in my heart that we’re not put here to be means of production and efficiency. That’s the system we have, but it’s one with which I disagree. Everything and everyone can vanish, no matter who you are and how hard you work. Unlike most Americans, I do not believe in an interventionist God. It doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the creator, but observation reinforces that we’re supposed to be using our brains to solve our problems. I believe that no matter who you worship, we’re expected to use our reason and collective ability in the furtherance of improving the quality of human beings as they live their lives. We’re definitely not doing that.”
I walked into the E-Z Mart store with very few collected small winning lottery tickets from swinging for the fences with the impossible Megamillions and Powerball.
Instead of taking the cash, I told the clerk, “No, I’d like them back in $1 fast-play lottery tickets. I’m feeling very lucky today. I know I’m going to win.”
She laughed and smiled.
“No, I’m serious. It’s time. Remember? A plane will fall on you on a long enough timeline, and you might win the lottery.”
“Well, remember who sold them to you when you win.”
She printed off the tickets. I was shorted 3. While I was standing to the left of the register, I looked at the very first printed ticket.
Though you think I’m joking, the first line of the first ticket was a winner. Had I bought a higher denomination ticket, the amount would have been five times what I won. To think I’d have to work almost ninety hours to net that much money is preposterous.
The clerk is a believer now.
I’ve never had to file a claim form with the lottery. What I won won’t be enough to make much of a dent in my debt. But there’s no better feeling than to waste a tiny bit of money to get such a return. I haven’t gone to a casino or wasted my money gambling on anything substantive since very early 2021. Living single without a roommate and having emergency surgery tends to take the money out of your pocket.
Do you want to hear something even crazier?
I’m going to win something even bigger. I hope the work crew I throw in each week will win, just like everyone else buying tickets foolishly. I can’t imagine a better, more satisfying irony than to work like a mule for 18 years being eclipsed by something as impractical and impossible as a lottery. I’d love to look around at people and just experience the moment of incredulity. If such an impossible outcome ever happens, I’m going to need to block the work doors to prevent them from stampeding out of there.
Today, I won “a” lottery. A small one. It didn’t hurt my afternoon feelings at all.
I included a screenshot of an email I sent myself on Sept. 18th.
Another coincidence for my Saturday back in September 1991. Each year, I hold my breath, expecting another wrinkle to reach me. Most years, it’s silent. But I’ve had a few that bring new information or entirely another perspective. It’s been 32 years. I’ve abandoned the idea that the coincidences will ever stop coming. The first true website came out in August 1991. Prior to that, only nerds used the nascent internet to connect via forums and text-based interaction. This year, someone linked a previously hidden Google directory of discussions related to my memorable Saturday September morning. I read all of it that was available to me this morning at 1 a.m.
Because of the way my labyrinth brain works, it made me want to sit and read “Juan Salvador Gaviota” (Jonathan Livingston Seagull) in Spanish. Every time I get another copy, someone who hasn’t read it pops into my life, and I give it to them, knowing they will experience something wonderful when they read it for the first time. When I was learning Spanish proficiently, it was one of the few books that ignited the possibility of thinking in another language. “Prince of Tides” was another one. (“El Principe de Las Mareas,” which sounds much more exotic to me.) Another one was “Your Erroneous Zones,” by Wayne Dyer, a book that fell into my hands by fortuitous accident after another house fire while I was in junior high school. Though not directly connected, Dyer’s book connected me to the same metaphysical ideas that Richard Bach wrote about in “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.”
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an allegory about flying – and about life’s hidden meaning, one usually reserved for the outliers.
Maybe Joe Frasca is spending his eternity doing acrobatics. I hope so. If so, I’m envious of the fact that he is up there, looking down on the topography we experience mostly in two dimensions.
I walked at least quarter of a mile down the middle of the creek barefoot. It wasn’t until I hit the second thick spider web at eye level that I broke a branch off above me to wave as I walked. I felt bad for a second as soon as I hit one of the tangled webs in front of me with a stick. Two feet to one side was a lovely, thick, multicolored spider minding its own business. I broke off another leafy branch and rescued the spider to place it on the bank. Had I encountered it with my face, all thoughts of potential rescue would have been abandoned in a wild windmill of frenetic arm waving.
To say that it’s gorgeous down here in the cool water is an understatement.
“The world won’t treat you better just because you’re a good person.”
It’s a nice reminder. The corollary to this is also true:
“Just because you’re a bad person doesn’t mean you will ever suffer the consequences for it.”
Even if you do everything right, you might still fail.
And if you do a buffet of stupid things, the odds grow increasingly against you.
Then there’s fate, luck, or whatever you might label it. Despite it all, I’m lucky.
On the anniversary day of my emergency surgery, I changed my desktop monitor wallpaper to the first picture I snapped once I realized I was not in purgatory. (Admittedly, my presence in the hospital bed might qualify. Both for me and the people supposed to be caring for me.) I’m not sure how many times over the intervening days I’ve stopped and looked at the picture.
Oddly, it mostly stopped me from saying, “Time is short,” with such frequency. It definitely has not abated the mental recitation. It had to have been in my subconscious the other day when I sprinted past a safety point for my body. It didn’t occur to me that perhaps my explanation for why I had several 200+ floor days on my Fitbit should be attributed to it.
I spent too much time thinking about September 28th, 1991 as well. And about the two terrible head traumas I had as a child. I’m not including the punches from hands that should not have inflicted such anger. Those hands grew silent, as happens to all of us.
What’s my point? I don’t have one. There may well not be one, and I’m okay with that.
Evidently, today is the day for feline revolution.
I got up super early as I always do and went into Erika’s living room in darkness to fetch my clothes from the back of the couch. As I put on layers, something seemed off. By the time I threw my shirt on, I realized in horror that I felt wet. I stood there about 30 seconds, my mind attempting to correlate the wetness. And then I realized that either Acorn or Meatball (or both?) had taken advantage of one of their night time perches to disgorge on my nearby clothes. I evaluated my options and finally stripped down. Skulking around in the dark, I retrieved my haircut towel from the laundry hamper, loosely held it around my waist, and retrieved the ball of wet clothing. I scurried across to my apartment feeling like the cats were laughing at me.
It gets better! Once inside my apartment, I dropped the towel and my clothes. Because my cat Güino has me trained, I walked over to give him treats before anything else. And realized I had walked through clear cat vomit in the darkness of my kitchen apartment. I put down paper towels temporarily. As I attempted to walk away, the paper towels stuck to the bottom of my left foot like industrial glue. Extricating myself from that, I threw my clothes in my laundry and walked back to the living room. I bet you can guess what happened next? Going in front of the cat tower, I stepped in my cat’s other offering in the middle of the living room floor. And then repeated the same stupid fly trap dance with more paper towels. No need for stretching this morning. The paper towel dance limbered me up nicely.
The cats sometimes occasionally vomit. How in the world they all aligned perfectly for my early Monday morning is anyone’s guess.
Before I left for work, I asked my cat if he had any other surprises for me or if perhaps he got my extra car keys and threw up in the driver seat.
Since the cat revolution has already started, It will be too late for you by the time you read this. I apologize on behalf of all the cats for your sticky feet. We’re lucky they do not have opposable thumbs.
I modified this affirmational meme with just one slash across the letter “L.”
I love attempting to mess with informational memes. After I made this one on a lark, I couldn’t escape the idea that there was another hidden meaning to my humor.
This is exactly how negativity or a negative person can affect the big picture. One small act or word transforms your state of mind, your day, and your ability to focus on what matters.
Negative people are consumed by an external validation that things aren’t okay. Of course they aren’t – in multiple ways. The world is a terror for many people.
But for the rest of us, the obstacles and messes don’t make us lose focus or become embittered.
Studies have repeatedly shown that if you want to improve your life, you should reduce negative thoughts and people more frequently than you tell yourself positive ones. Negativity is stronger than positivity. You can surround yourself with sixteen positive, engaging people; one spoiled one will literally corrupt your bushel.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 