Indecisive Peach

There is the same man on campus that walks around with a shorts, Teva sandals, and a bag. He’s old, with a salt and pepper beard, a little pony tail, and a baseball cap. I assume he’s a student for some reason. He doesn’t quite seem to have the air about him that the homeless, who come into the library, seem to have. They use our computer and their possessions lean against columns – camping bags, sleeping bags, dirty bags.

At the beginning when I started at this school, it seemed I would see him around campus at steady intervals. I don’t know what really struck me except that he would walk around with a white, plastic, bookstore bag. Every time I saw him, he carried nothing but that bag and as time passed, the bag slowly fading and growing more decrepit with wear, I would wonder, ‘Why no backpack? Why this bag?’

From one sighting to another, he abruptly transitioned to another crisp and clean bag, still from the bookstore, and that struck me as well.  Why always these plastic bags?

It’s been several years. About a year ago, I noticed him walking into a coffee shop with an actual bag. It was a beige, canvas shopping bag. I remember staring at it and remarking to myself that he finally had made the step up. I felt silly to notice that. He carried that for a while. But when I left work today, I noticed him walking into the library, with a sturdy, padded, black and green handbag clutched in his left hand.

I wonder if I strike other people the way that certain people strike me. I wonder that I notice this. I thought about this as I walked to the car. I wonder if other people notice the same things and have the same thoughts about them as I do.

I see cars coming to the intersection. A mini van hits a bump just right, the front wheels dipping it deeply forward and slanting the top of the car. It becomes animated to me, seemingly bowing toward the intersection. I wonder how the person inside reflects all my connotations of the bow.

I see a young man in front of me, mid stride, reach up to rub an orange-reddish leaf between his fingers. I hear the rustling of his touch and his laugh from it. I wonder why he laughs. I rather hope he laughs in wonder.

As we sat at a light late last night:

“I do think he’ll become rotund in the future,” I mused.
“What?” J replied.
I reflected that mused means mumbled in my world.
“I think he’ll become rotund in the future.”
“He’ll what?” J fidgeted with the clutch and gear shifter.
“He’ll become portly.”
“Quit answering to a word I don’t know with another word I don’t know!”
“I was hoping you’d know portly! I’m trying to be discreet.”
“Do you mean fat? Because, just say FAT.”

I’ve been asked by Silent K to tell the world seven more tidbits of IP random. I do well with random.

There are rules too: Link to the person that tagged [Check.] Tag 7 random people participating in NaBloPoMo at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. [Ooh, I get to use the NaBlogPoMo randomizer!] Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. [Score! Procrastination!]

1. It’s the point of the semester that Red Bull makes a good bit of money of me. I get all pent up with energy so that I can do my string of all nighter’s that could have been easily avoided. It can get very bad. For example, this morning (note the procrastination blogging), I got so jazzed on RB that I try to turn down my music, wonder where the hell my Winamp program went on my desktop, wonder why it’s not on, quickly debate that I’m losing my mind and hearing music in my head very vibrantly today, and then remember that under the random stacks of paper it’s my iPod that’s plugged into my stereo instead of my computer.

2. I used to dislike web comics, but now, I’ve rather grown to like random ones. Here are two:

3. I have noted that there are similar traits in the men I date beyond the physical. They all have the salient ability to trust the world so implicitly that they can be, and repeatedly are, taken advantage of. This makes me worry about where I am in this equation.

4. I still say I speak fluent German, but I debate that my years of inactivity are making me more and more rusty in it. I can still understand everything, that never has gone away even though I go through stages of speaking very well and very poorly depending on my exposure to the language. This fact of understanding it makes me unable to fake a German accident for a humorous effect because I’ve never been able to really clearly distinguish the key wrong intonations that would make the delivery recognizable. In other words, I’ve never heard German as the harsh, guttural language that people always claim it to be and thus find it nearly impossible to imitate.

5. I love the university’s Inter Library Loan dearly; sadly, they’ve managed to employ the most curmudgeon, stereotypical “SHHHH” librarians they could find.

6. If there were a massive, end world scenario, and we figured out that we could survive by eating lotion, me and mine would be in the butter. Rephrased: I have accumulated a lot of lotion for some strange reason. [And it's not for Those Reasons people.]

7. I have to write a bio for myself for a mock conference a class of mine is staging. I remember that in high school that I was put in the local newspaper as Student of the Week and writing down as a hobby on my bio that I “cultivated peaches”. I thought this was hysterical, especially when I got asked by a classmate if I really did grown my own peaches. Guess I look the part too.

I’m only going with two honest to goodness random NaBloPoMoer’s. This was a little strange doing in itself. I got a porn link, the closed LiveJournal community, a private Myspace blog, a bunch of people that were presently already doing tags (I can see the whole community running on empty), and then I gave up. Need more Red Bull for this endeavor.

Outposts in My Head
Chasing Twilight

It was one of those things that looks so deseperately anti-After School Special (and quite possibly Blair Witch wannabe) that it made me naturally want to wander down there. 

Um, after someone else did first. I’m the reporter, not the Marine.

Let it be simple. Let it be that I see you wave to me from across the room, across the tables and the bobbing heads. Let it be that I walk over calmly and let it be that I just smile.

Let it be that we keep it simple. Let it be that we keep an image in our minds that negates blame or claim to injury. Let it be that we delete the need for reoccurance. Let it be that there is no need for future forgiveness, for we’ve let it be that there is nothing wrong about what we have chosen.

Let it be that we make our own lives and that we wish each other well on this strange journey. Let it be that we look back with no regret because the additional pinpricks of weight aren’t needed for our trip. Let it be known that there was love through looks. Let it be that the words aren’t needed today. Let it be for a change that postive strains of imagination take over from negative impulses of worry.

Let it be that there will be silence. Let it be that the silence carries the undercurrent of our conversation and that so for the banter we invoke the gods that are intellectual and not the gods of emotion. Let it be that we carry the silence well and without obsession.

Let it be simply done for love and let that be the only thing that really mattered.

I left a sad comment about not getting tagged from one of my friends and boom, Erik from Electronic Replicant sent me a pity tag. It’s most excellent since I’m spending most of today in the car with a disgruntled cat. And since I’ve had someone complain to me that I’m not blogging on Myspace, for her I decided to add a little Myspace spice.

…I feel dirty.  And it’s not a good type of dirty.

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I saw this over at Silent K’s blog and had to steal it for here. Gave me chills; but then, I’m a nerd.

I’m not slouching on the blogging today. I just really wanted to put this up so that maybe I’ll provoke an interesting discussion with someone. Maybe with someone tall, dark, and handsome who writes a nicely crafted blog? One can hope.

Instead of stereotypical Pilgrims and Indians,
we have stereotypical Cat and Dog.

Cat: You’re an uncivilized beast.
Dog: I’ll share my rawhide with you?
Cat: How about not?
Dog: Well let me smell your butt; it’s how we say hello.
Cat: Heathen.

Today has been still. It hasn’t been a wooded retreat type of still, but a still filled with ghosts and misplaced thoughts. The cold seeped into the windows and the overcast skies reminding us of another country filled with family.

I made a turkey. I’m a bit stiff with the preparation, never having made one by myself before, noting only that a turkey handles a bit like a very lethargic baby.

I have been scouring the Internet for interesting blog posts to read and they’re all filled with schmaltzy giving of thanks. Pesky holiday. I’m thankful too, don’t get me wrong. I’m thankful for my health, the health of my friends and family, love given to me seemingly undeservedly from said friends and family, and the fact that my turkey wasn’t dry.