A shotgun update
Every year around here we get the minor migration of the turtles which is to say the lil' buggers start trying to cross roads, streets and highways. And it seems to come in two distinct waves: one week, one direction, the next week going back. It would be adorable and therefore one of the highlights of my year except for the fact that you see so many dead turtles on the road, most of them squashed. I realize not all animal road-kills can be avoided, but you can tell that a lot of these guys were willfully murdered by someone getting a thrill of some sort. This is always hard for me to see, seeing as I have a pretty large soft spot for reptiles.
The migration this year has been over for about two weeks (haven't spotted any stragglers), and my tally of turtle-rescues for this year is four. Not as much as I would have liked, but a personal best nonetheless. It helps that I'm driving a huge-ass delivery truck that can take up half a lane when you park on the side of the road. It helps other motorists slow down while I'm standing in the middle of the pavement either coaxing or lifting a turtle in order to hustle its shelled ass in the direction it was headed. I've been both yelled at and applauded, but the turtles always hate it. I'm interfering with their lives, I guess. Fuck 'em. I hope they live many years in which to hate me.
~*~
Thursday was a very bad head-space day. From time to time, I'll wake up in a negative funk and fail to decide to climb out of it. I started the day off with a bang by being a pissy little shit to Luka as I was leaving for work. I had to call once I'd got to the shop to apologize. She was wonderful, as always, and it should have lifted my spirits on the lone fact that I get to be with her every day. The outlook didn't improve, however, and I was morosely fixated on everything sad and hopeless in the world, both within and beyond my control. When I'm letting economics and politics drag me under, there's something very wrong going on. And it takes a major jolt to shock my system back to normality.
It wasn't until 1:00 and I was making a delivery to the County Probation office that I made the turn-around. A woman who, by appearance, would be very easy to categorize, stereotype and mock as a variation on the white trash theme, was at the counter signing a form. She had an open box with her, and it didn't take huge leaps of deduction to guess it was sensor console for home incarceration. A glance down at the tattooed ankle with the little black cube and strap was confirmation enough.
"Now what about the ankle thing?" she was asking the counter lady, putting her signed form on top of the box.
"Just cut it off."
The woman looked a little stunned. "Really?" And she kind of blinked, it seemed to me, when seemingly out of nowhere the counter lady produced what looked like gardening shears and offered them to her. She took them, then went to sit down and perform the deceptively simple operation.
I stepped up to deliver the boxes I had, make sure they didn't have any UAs to send back with me, and exchange the daily pleasantries. Heading back to the door, the woman was right back at the window, cut strap in hand, asking, "So that's it?"
It must have been. I was just out the second door to the outer world as I heard her behind me. I held the door and she thanked me. It was one of those few times in a day when someone thanks you and means it. Going to my truck, I saw her heading to a car with a few other people waiting inside. "WHOO-HOO!" was what I heard before the car door slammed and the car tore out of there.
If I hadn't been in the lobby, I wouldn't have known the details I've written down, but I think I would have recognized the "WHOO-HOO!" Remember the last day of school for the year, just as you pass out the door to the outside world and it just felt different than all those other days when you'd stepped outside? I'd made that noise then, I'm sure of it. The moment I turned in my last paper of the term where I had carried 24 credit hours I know I made that noise . . . then may have collapsed, I'm not sure. When I drove away from the seed farm I spent a Summer harvesting at, check in hand, having earned every cent, I let out a "WHOO-HOO!" And when I've walked out of bad jobs too, that thrill was there, knowing I never had to darken that door again. There are times when the very act of walking outside into the air are so damned significant that you breathe it in, deeply and fully. And once you've filled your chest with the cleanest, brightest life you've tasted in some time, you don't waste it with silence. You let your first taste of freedom out with a "WHOO-HOO!"
I'm being way too fucking melodramatic, I know, but that's freedom to me: a shout of relief and abandon. I heard it, I recognized it, and I let it effect me. It was the shock of memory that brought me out of miasma of anger and sullenness. It wasn't my freedom. It was some lady who'd paid her time and now had her own life back. My best to her. But I got to hear it, and you can bet I was grinning like a damned idiot.
Fuckers in ties know shit when they throw a word like freedom into their speeches. Makes me wonder if they've ever cut an ankle monitor off their leg, or if they're just talking out their ass again. Look at them and ask yourself, "Has this guy ever shouted for joy? And if so, for what?"
~*~
And now, the silly:
Burt Convey
If that name brings an immediate picture to mind, go flog yourself. Then you can join the rest of us old losers in the Banana Section.
~*~
Last night Luka was so beautiful I had to take her outside and take pictures of her. I was compelled. It's good to listen to your compulsions once in a while.
~*~
Sometimes I am tempted to drop cable TV altogether and use the money to buy boxed sets of anime. I watched two episodes of Ninja Nonsense and almost choked myself trying not to laugh so loud as to wake up Luka. I'll watch more Noir tonight.
I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so . . .
The migration this year has been over for about two weeks (haven't spotted any stragglers), and my tally of turtle-rescues for this year is four. Not as much as I would have liked, but a personal best nonetheless. It helps that I'm driving a huge-ass delivery truck that can take up half a lane when you park on the side of the road. It helps other motorists slow down while I'm standing in the middle of the pavement either coaxing or lifting a turtle in order to hustle its shelled ass in the direction it was headed. I've been both yelled at and applauded, but the turtles always hate it. I'm interfering with their lives, I guess. Fuck 'em. I hope they live many years in which to hate me.
~*~
Thursday was a very bad head-space day. From time to time, I'll wake up in a negative funk and fail to decide to climb out of it. I started the day off with a bang by being a pissy little shit to Luka as I was leaving for work. I had to call once I'd got to the shop to apologize. She was wonderful, as always, and it should have lifted my spirits on the lone fact that I get to be with her every day. The outlook didn't improve, however, and I was morosely fixated on everything sad and hopeless in the world, both within and beyond my control. When I'm letting economics and politics drag me under, there's something very wrong going on. And it takes a major jolt to shock my system back to normality.
It wasn't until 1:00 and I was making a delivery to the County Probation office that I made the turn-around. A woman who, by appearance, would be very easy to categorize, stereotype and mock as a variation on the white trash theme, was at the counter signing a form. She had an open box with her, and it didn't take huge leaps of deduction to guess it was sensor console for home incarceration. A glance down at the tattooed ankle with the little black cube and strap was confirmation enough.
"Now what about the ankle thing?" she was asking the counter lady, putting her signed form on top of the box.
"Just cut it off."
The woman looked a little stunned. "Really?" And she kind of blinked, it seemed to me, when seemingly out of nowhere the counter lady produced what looked like gardening shears and offered them to her. She took them, then went to sit down and perform the deceptively simple operation.
I stepped up to deliver the boxes I had, make sure they didn't have any UAs to send back with me, and exchange the daily pleasantries. Heading back to the door, the woman was right back at the window, cut strap in hand, asking, "So that's it?"
It must have been. I was just out the second door to the outer world as I heard her behind me. I held the door and she thanked me. It was one of those few times in a day when someone thanks you and means it. Going to my truck, I saw her heading to a car with a few other people waiting inside. "WHOO-HOO!" was what I heard before the car door slammed and the car tore out of there.
If I hadn't been in the lobby, I wouldn't have known the details I've written down, but I think I would have recognized the "WHOO-HOO!" Remember the last day of school for the year, just as you pass out the door to the outside world and it just felt different than all those other days when you'd stepped outside? I'd made that noise then, I'm sure of it. The moment I turned in my last paper of the term where I had carried 24 credit hours I know I made that noise . . . then may have collapsed, I'm not sure. When I drove away from the seed farm I spent a Summer harvesting at, check in hand, having earned every cent, I let out a "WHOO-HOO!" And when I've walked out of bad jobs too, that thrill was there, knowing I never had to darken that door again. There are times when the very act of walking outside into the air are so damned significant that you breathe it in, deeply and fully. And once you've filled your chest with the cleanest, brightest life you've tasted in some time, you don't waste it with silence. You let your first taste of freedom out with a "WHOO-HOO!"
I'm being way too fucking melodramatic, I know, but that's freedom to me: a shout of relief and abandon. I heard it, I recognized it, and I let it effect me. It was the shock of memory that brought me out of miasma of anger and sullenness. It wasn't my freedom. It was some lady who'd paid her time and now had her own life back. My best to her. But I got to hear it, and you can bet I was grinning like a damned idiot.
Fuckers in ties know shit when they throw a word like freedom into their speeches. Makes me wonder if they've ever cut an ankle monitor off their leg, or if they're just talking out their ass again. Look at them and ask yourself, "Has this guy ever shouted for joy? And if so, for what?"
~*~
And now, the silly:
Burt Convey
If that name brings an immediate picture to mind, go flog yourself. Then you can join the rest of us old losers in the Banana Section.
~*~
Last night Luka was so beautiful I had to take her outside and take pictures of her. I was compelled. It's good to listen to your compulsions once in a while.
~*~
Sometimes I am tempted to drop cable TV altogether and use the money to buy boxed sets of anime. I watched two episodes of Ninja Nonsense and almost choked myself trying not to laugh so loud as to wake up Luka. I'll watch more Noir tonight.
I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so . . .