peculiar fascination
It's not a matter of getting older, it's been a thing with me as far back as I can remember. I can't easily place past events to specific years... no matter how good a memory is or bad. The memory itself is largely crystal clear but the timeframe often eludes me. Not such a big deal.
Though it vexes me occasionally.
Roundabout 2007 (or possibly 2006ish) I read an article about a boy who was effectively born without thumbs. On my way to work and it was in the local paper, which I only read once in a great while due to getting most news off the internet (barely even read the comics in print anymore) and this hit me because the kid was being moved to San Francisco. There was a procedure where they were going to take his pointing finger, from both hands, and use them to replace his thumbs. It was amazing to me for that it could be done and trying to think what it must be like to live that way.
Shoot forward to about a year ago... when I ride Muni's subway line I don't face the tracks like most folks. Truth, I rarely do things like everyone around me... though in this instance it was based more on the view is boring. After reading the advertisements on the wall (which takes all of about ½ a minute) it's boring.
So I face the platform. People watching, something I never get tired of, keeps me fixated and allows me to occupy my mind while I wait for... well, anything I could be waiting for depending on circumstances.
Fairly often I'm one to say I'm a virtual cavalcade of largely trivial information. What brings any of that info up depends on circumstances; I'm not one to look up something I think I know... prefer to let it percolate through my grey matter until the memory comes to the surface. Truth is, I find the internet and it's readily available source of info makes most brains lazy.
While on this particularly murky day about a year back, I'm watching the crowd when I saw something weird. Took me a second to realize I'd seen it, most everything my eyes pass over I see but I don't recognize I saw something immediately (fun little thang my brain) but I get there eventually. What I saw was long brown sleeves with an iPad hanging between them and oddly positioned fingers peeking out the edge of them. Taking another look, and several over the course of the 20 or so minutes I was waiting (not staring, there's a lot of other people to watch) I couldn't figure what it was I was seeing... because the thumbs were elongated and things weren't lining up quite right.
Memory didn't immediately bring up the kid from the newspaper... given the elongated fingers and the amazingly thin but flexible thumbs (most people have stumpy thumbs in contrast to the rest of their fingers) I was thinking alien. Literally, minus gray skin and huge black eyes... the hands I was looking at were identical to the literature's descriptions of alien digits.
Kicking back and processing and theorizing, the article came to mind again. Guesstimating the timeframe from when that article was written, how old the kid in it was said to be, and judging how old the young man in front of me was... it's the same guy.
Seen him a few times, mostly my concentration goes to his hands, and it's amazing. I've seen him in short sleeves when the weather is warmer, though mostly he keeps his hands as covered as possible. Though he seems very adept with the arrangement I think on some level the initial look of them (3 fingers on each hand with very versatile thumbs) might be off-putting enough he'd rather avoid the stares.
Rarely does his eyes leave the screen of whatever he's working on, only seems to notice others around him so as not to bump into anybody... so I don't think he's aware of my fascination with his hands. Even if he did look up more often I doubt he'd see me.
I'm generally good at not being seen by who I'm watching, under most circumstances.
Though it vexes me occasionally.
Roundabout 2007 (or possibly 2006ish) I read an article about a boy who was effectively born without thumbs. On my way to work and it was in the local paper, which I only read once in a great while due to getting most news off the internet (barely even read the comics in print anymore) and this hit me because the kid was being moved to San Francisco. There was a procedure where they were going to take his pointing finger, from both hands, and use them to replace his thumbs. It was amazing to me for that it could be done and trying to think what it must be like to live that way.
Shoot forward to about a year ago... when I ride Muni's subway line I don't face the tracks like most folks. Truth, I rarely do things like everyone around me... though in this instance it was based more on the view is boring. After reading the advertisements on the wall (which takes all of about ½ a minute) it's boring.
So I face the platform. People watching, something I never get tired of, keeps me fixated and allows me to occupy my mind while I wait for... well, anything I could be waiting for depending on circumstances.
Fairly often I'm one to say I'm a virtual cavalcade of largely trivial information. What brings any of that info up depends on circumstances; I'm not one to look up something I think I know... prefer to let it percolate through my grey matter until the memory comes to the surface. Truth is, I find the internet and it's readily available source of info makes most brains lazy.
While on this particularly murky day about a year back, I'm watching the crowd when I saw something weird. Took me a second to realize I'd seen it, most everything my eyes pass over I see but I don't recognize I saw something immediately (fun little thang my brain) but I get there eventually. What I saw was long brown sleeves with an iPad hanging between them and oddly positioned fingers peeking out the edge of them. Taking another look, and several over the course of the 20 or so minutes I was waiting (not staring, there's a lot of other people to watch) I couldn't figure what it was I was seeing... because the thumbs were elongated and things weren't lining up quite right.
Memory didn't immediately bring up the kid from the newspaper... given the elongated fingers and the amazingly thin but flexible thumbs (most people have stumpy thumbs in contrast to the rest of their fingers) I was thinking alien. Literally, minus gray skin and huge black eyes... the hands I was looking at were identical to the literature's descriptions of alien digits.
Kicking back and processing and theorizing, the article came to mind again. Guesstimating the timeframe from when that article was written, how old the kid in it was said to be, and judging how old the young man in front of me was... it's the same guy.
Seen him a few times, mostly my concentration goes to his hands, and it's amazing. I've seen him in short sleeves when the weather is warmer, though mostly he keeps his hands as covered as possible. Though he seems very adept with the arrangement I think on some level the initial look of them (3 fingers on each hand with very versatile thumbs) might be off-putting enough he'd rather avoid the stares.
Rarely does his eyes leave the screen of whatever he's working on, only seems to notice others around him so as not to bump into anybody... so I don't think he's aware of my fascination with his hands. Even if he did look up more often I doubt he'd see me.
I'm generally good at not being seen by who I'm watching, under most circumstances.