kind of... vomited thoughts

i am eating a turkey sandwich.

ha! as i was writing that thing about the sandwich i realized that my shirt is inside-out... wow, that was awesome. and actually, here's something: as i was writing that i clearly understood why the phrase is "inside-out," which is great thing to understand! (especially if you're 23 years old.)

so, tonight i went on a run with my nephew tyson.

we went to a place known as "pirate park." it is called this because the playground has a big mast and sails and fun pirate ship knick-knacky things. it also has that weird black rubber stuff used instead of gravel/wood chips. i remember how the dust and dirt from the gravel would make my jeans gray at recess. and it felt weird on my hands. so yeah, maybe the black rubber is meant to preserve the washing of jeans, who knows? i don't. how could i possibly know?

if you are interested in experiencing life completely uninhibited, tyson is the ultimate guru. once i unleashed him at the park i said "go!" he bounded in three directions at once, then began sprinting all around, smelling things in a multitude of ways, sometimes with great care and other times in passing as he walked or trotted by, then would be walking a little bit then whoa there he goes he's running and wait! that smelled good what was it.... it's gone. pause. look into the distance at something for no reason. and go! run! run around! run in huuuuge circles that span the entire park and grass is freshly mowed and little clumps fly up behind as the running is so fast and lips are folding back threatening to cover the eyes but it's so worth it cause it's so fulfilling to be running!!! annnnd slowwwing down to find your auntie again and she is there... to pet you give you rubs scratch the ear oh man that was fun... panting is hard...

tyson doesn't like to run over the bridge because the boards move and it freaks him out and i don't blame him but tonight he crossed over like a champion. i wish i could communicate the thoughts and feelings and sights that come from overlooking that harbor because there isn't any hope of giving you a proper description with words.

i looked out and took it in - the boats docked and the boats coming in for the night, the gulls flying low and looking for dinner in the water, the water a steely blue-gray-green washing up over rocks, the wind sweeping over it making skittery patterns along the surface, the white railing on the bridge, the sky transitioning into dusk, the end of the harbor almost in sight... i really did smile. (i do that all the time here.) i ran a little faster. i inhaled a little deeper.

perspective? i guess? i'm trying to think. i just feel like there was too much beauty in that moment for any of it to be unseen, glanced over, or even looked at. i had to immerse myself in it. i had to function from its perspective. then i suddenly thought, felt, and saw in a way that has left me incapable of relaying the mental, emotional, visual impression. tonight on the bridge was an experience - my working definition of an experience.

self immersion into the present moment = experiencing the senses from the moment's perspective.

i need to remember this when my chin is resting in my hand tomorrow at work.

av

A scheme!

This post is brought to you by: Gee... Ah! Grow. Fee?

*SHOOP* Tired and music in your ears and out of breath... jog across a bridge over the harbor. Well done. Okay now think to yourself, What if we don't use airplanes in the future? (Wait, isn't this the future?) What if instead we just step into machines that are like elevators and then press a button that will deliver us to our destination once the doors open? This thought is completely disturbing to you as you're running over the bridge but it just smiles and scoots away... and the sun is setting. It yawns. Every shape and sound becomes a lazier version of itself.

So yeah, you're going to invent Travelators (c) 2011

Travelators may never actually come to fruition. Successful transference from one geographical location to another via Travelator not guaranteed. Fun not guaranteed. In fact, fun not encouraged nor tolerated. Any persons implying the use of fun or acting upon the feeling of fun will be detained and sentenced to instant death by panther. Fulfillment of dreams not included. Travelator is not responsible for the loss of hair, pet snakes, teeth, virginity, taste in music, limbs, winning lottery tickets, wedding rings, left shoes, and/or car keys. Travelator advises any persons with missing left shoes to ask their mother for the whereabouts and/or check under the bed. Should Travelators enjoy creation and success all dog-lovers will be given priority when booking travel in an attempt to mold a more dog-friendly planet and to offer the canine his deserved chance to travel - NOT a cage in a cold dark pit surrounded by luggage. Travelator not responsible for any missing dogs. Especially cute lovable ones.

Shout out to the FDA

Who decided to make packaged foods so embarrassingly impossible to open? Was it the FDA? Well here's the thing, Mr. "I'm the FDA and therefore a big bad cool pants mcgee" : This must STOP! I am giving fair warning to all: Do not attempt to open a package of Tillamook Sharp Cheddar Cheese (sliced, 50 squares separated by little papers) with your BARE HANDS unless you are prepared to exert the amount of effort it would take to win a battle with a zebra... well, actually, it's either that OR you have to forfeit your sacredly-cherished-but-not-usually-necessary ego by using a pair of scissors. You've been warned... the choice is yours. Think twice before you engage in turkey-sandwich-making. Freakin ridiculous.

Scene: Urgent Message

You're late, you're well-dressed, and you're a liar. Pay the taxi driver and give him a good tip, for heaven's sakes. (It's absurd how poorly taxi drivers are tipped.) Leave your coat and hat with the hostess then find a table and try to get the attention of the waitress. She's attractively stressed while taking orders in this claustrophobic space. She hasn't seen you yet.

Scene: Priorities

"There are so many people I want to meet you."

Scene: The Meeting

Here are two gentleman. I picture them as old men with years of friendship and memories between them. You ought to imagine them however you like.

A: Where is truth?

B: Right here. It's happening now.

A: Goes quiet, nods.

B: You and I are not exceptional. Everything about us is quite regular, really.

A: Your top hat. My folding map.

B: Exactly.

They sense that they are about to part.

A: Where will you go?

B: I am undecided... but once I arrive there I suppose I will have found truth. Tips hat in jest.

A: Hands over folding map.

B: Takes the map, looks down at it.

A: Smiles.

B: Looks up. I suppose that now... we're not so regular.

AV

A Kind Gesture

Her hands were freezing. So was her nose... and her general face area... and any place that was sweaty was also cold because of the bicycle ride. Cold and good and cold. The sun was setting but it wasn't pretty yet- It was the "pre-sunset-sunset sort of half-orange-mostly-grayish" color. For the first time in (perhaps) ever the air was coming into her lungs with supreme ease.

Apartment building doors often require a key, and hers did, which she produced. It was a glass door, and as she began to unlock it her eyes (with the help of peripheral vision) absorbed a human getting into the elevator on the other side of the door. The human was a woman and it was wearing cotton stretchy pants wherein tiny fibers cried for help and tried to run from the fatty tree stumps they clothed, otherwise referred to as "legs" in the human culture. Below a limp lion's mane of extensively color-treated hair there should have been a neck, but instead a baby blue top somehow divided her massive carriage into 5 layered rolls of flesh.

The elevator had arrived to level L. The fat human woman was getting in. She turned around. She saw the cold bicyclist slowly opening the door.

Here is the truth: the cold bicyclist had a runny nose.

She also had been strategically opening the door slowly with every intention of missing the elevator and carrying her bicycle up the stairs.

But then something happened and this is what it is:

The woman pushed the button which makes the elevator door abruptly reverse its direction and it opened and it was a kind gesture and the cold bicyclist had just gotten her bicycle through the apartment building door and she was now positively devastated.

"Oh! Thank you, that was nice." (She was entering the elevator in this moment, distraught and sniffling from the runny nose.)

"I'm on 3."

The bicycle was awkward, which it would have been even in the largest and loneliest of elevators, but now it was sharing with a cow and a fluorescent light and two red buttons and the cold bicyclist, whom it pressed against.

Here is the next thing that happened:

The bicycle drunkenly lost its footing and the front wheel turned which caused it to roll sideways (toward the cold bicyclist) and thus its rear wheel rolled in front of the closing elevator door, which in turn caused the same abrupt reversal which the woman had previously activated on purpose.

Here is what the cow lady said:

"Woops."

Here is what the cold bicyclist said:

"Ope, sorry," and she moved the drunk bicycle.

The door closed successfully. And then something happened inside the cold bicyclist. The elevator was rising to level 1 now where the apartment building stored its livestock. The whir of electricity and magnets and fairy dust and all the things that make elevators ascend was pressurizing her existence -GAH!

"Do you have children?" the cold bicyclist blurted out. (But not in a panicked way, just in a "this-came-out-and-I-meant-it-please-don't-crush-me-you're-big!" sort of way.)

"No."

At this moment the cold bicyclist realized the human woman fatty was wearing sunglasses. What the-? Strange. Also, she realized why she asked the question about having children, and this is why: because the way the sunglasses weird-but-nice-elevator-holder-fat-fat had said "woops" induced a series of mental images and feelings (some were not even her own) related to treatment of children.

Spilled milk: "woops."

Ball hit over neighbor's fence: "woops."

Stalled car when learning to drive: "woops."

Bicycle tire intercepts elevator door...

Level 1 had arrived, which meant they had arrived at level 1. The door was still closed. Woops? Woops!

"That's something my mom would have said."

The door opened and the human woman shuffled past the bicycle in silence. (Except for the sound of her cotton fibers screaming for help.) Maybe the cold bicyclist ought to have taken the stairs and ignored the woman's act of holding the door... but then she wouldn't have had that experience... and wouldn't have heard the way the woman said "woops" and wouldn't have thought about or felt anything about it. And what is the point of anything if it doesn't happen?

Anyways... what kind of person wears sunglasses in an elevator...

AV