Eyes Wide Shut
Late night shopping excursions seem to loosen my tongue and lead to my publicly commenting on my inner thoughts. This ramble is brought to you courtesy of another one of my late night cravings for Jelly Belly candies.
Sidenote #1: Whenever a woman makes a comment about having a peculiar food craving, I always make the joke “Heh. Maybe you're pregnant!” This joke is never well received.
Sidenote #2: A funny thing about the twenty-four hour grocery store that I frequent - it has a salsa dance club in it on the weekends... kind of. You see, this grocery store was recently built on the first level of a mini-mall. Almost all of the stores on the ground level were vacated to accommodate the new supermarket. The second level, which runs around the outer edge of the first level - like any typical mall - is home to a Mexican cantina. On the weekends this cantina becomes a salsa club, with the accompanying requisite loud music. So anyone in the supermarket can look up and see the flashing lights and such. The music is blasted down onto the supermarket. It's an odd atmosphere, to be shopping for food past midnight while booming latin music is playing. Odd is good.
So... guess what I've been doing a lot of lately?
I've been walking around with my eyes closed.
At work I'll close my eyes and try to make it to a particular destination. Walking around outside I'll see how many steps I can take before I feel the need to open my eyes. Sidewalks, along and across streets. Up and down hills. Whatever. I do, of course, make sure that my path is relatively clear before closing my eyes and proceeding. I mean, walking around with your eyes closed in public without checking first... that would just by stupid!
I... I really can't explain why I do this. It started about a month ago. I think I just wanted to see how many steps I could take without seeing where I was going before I got scared and had to open my eyes. It was about six steps. Now I can (almost) comfortably go for about twenty paces before opening my eyes, depending on the terrain and obstacles.
Later on I had a thought that if I could comfortably walk around without seeing that I would somehow become more “attuned to the world” and my other senses would become more perceptive. Probably not going to happen. Any sense of tranquility brought on by shutting out the visual world is immediately negated by an inner monologue that screams “HOLY SHIT I'M GONNA CRASH INTO SOMETHING AND SMASH MY FUCKING FACE AND KNOCK MY TEETH OUT!” or “I'LL BUMP INTO SOME MURDEROUS JUNKIE!” or something along those lines.
The route from my house to the grocery store is inhabited by many a scumbag. I had it in my mind tonight to close my eyes while walking past them, to just walk without seeing what they looked like up close or what they're doing. I lost my nerve though, not so much because I feared that by not seeing them they would take the opportunity to, I don't know, jump on me or something, but because I thought that it might have looked weird and I'd have to put up with some stupid comments.
I would deserve those comments, but still...
Sidenote #1: Whenever a woman makes a comment about having a peculiar food craving, I always make the joke “Heh. Maybe you're pregnant!” This joke is never well received.
Sidenote #2: A funny thing about the twenty-four hour grocery store that I frequent - it has a salsa dance club in it on the weekends... kind of. You see, this grocery store was recently built on the first level of a mini-mall. Almost all of the stores on the ground level were vacated to accommodate the new supermarket. The second level, which runs around the outer edge of the first level - like any typical mall - is home to a Mexican cantina. On the weekends this cantina becomes a salsa club, with the accompanying requisite loud music. So anyone in the supermarket can look up and see the flashing lights and such. The music is blasted down onto the supermarket. It's an odd atmosphere, to be shopping for food past midnight while booming latin music is playing. Odd is good.
So... guess what I've been doing a lot of lately?
I've been walking around with my eyes closed.
At work I'll close my eyes and try to make it to a particular destination. Walking around outside I'll see how many steps I can take before I feel the need to open my eyes. Sidewalks, along and across streets. Up and down hills. Whatever. I do, of course, make sure that my path is relatively clear before closing my eyes and proceeding. I mean, walking around with your eyes closed in public without checking first... that would just by stupid!
I... I really can't explain why I do this. It started about a month ago. I think I just wanted to see how many steps I could take without seeing where I was going before I got scared and had to open my eyes. It was about six steps. Now I can (almost) comfortably go for about twenty paces before opening my eyes, depending on the terrain and obstacles.
Later on I had a thought that if I could comfortably walk around without seeing that I would somehow become more “attuned to the world” and my other senses would become more perceptive. Probably not going to happen. Any sense of tranquility brought on by shutting out the visual world is immediately negated by an inner monologue that screams “HOLY SHIT I'M GONNA CRASH INTO SOMETHING AND SMASH MY FUCKING FACE AND KNOCK MY TEETH OUT!” or “I'LL BUMP INTO SOME MURDEROUS JUNKIE!” or something along those lines.
The route from my house to the grocery store is inhabited by many a scumbag. I had it in my mind tonight to close my eyes while walking past them, to just walk without seeing what they looked like up close or what they're doing. I lost my nerve though, not so much because I feared that by not seeing them they would take the opportunity to, I don't know, jump on me or something, but because I thought that it might have looked weird and I'd have to put up with some stupid comments.
I would deserve those comments, but still...