It's been a while since the last time I posted something that wasn't a poem of some sort- or at least it really feels that way. I can't say for sure if that trend will end in the next couple of weeks, but I can assure you that there will be plenty of storytelling in the summer once I've come back home. The nostalgia will be far too rich and the different traces of memorable foolishness are spread far and wide. Inescapable. I couldn't possibly expect to not end up writing about all these things, so I'll take a moment to say my well-acquainted, faceless friends, that great tales of folly and blunder are coming!
As for the present, I guess I'll begin the transition back into storytelling/doing typical blog things by getting you up to speed on my life.
So the weekend before last, I went hiking with some friends (without all too much planning) and it was probably 12 hours of the happiest I've been in a very long time... It's weird how nature has that affect on some, such as myself, and it's completely repulsive to others. It would seem evolution has a bell curve, and we are past the peak onto the declining end. Sad little humans all around opting for tv dinners and life-long hibernation's from the suns reaches... Out there the greens were so lush, and the Oklahoma red dirt was so blood red. The world was so alive and we were but small cells moving within it. The waters, as a song I love once said (I Wish You Were Here by Incubus), looked like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket. The sun was smiling widely above with few clouds to block out its rays, and the air was thick. You could almost feel the moisture on your skin as you walked about (not sweat, I'm saying it was so humid the air almost had a texture/feel to it) just like home. Or I guess more home than home, considering not once have I ever been walking about in Texas and stumbled over a nice shin-high cactus (all the cartoons lied to you) which made me both scream internally and double-take as I walked off the pain... I mean I know it's nature and what not so it's not really supposed to be so surprising as a southerner, but hearing "I tripped on a cactus today" isn't as common a thing to hear down in Texas as one might assume. Times have changed you uncultured swine. You just don't see those in hood-rat Richardson/Dallas or the good ol' suburbia we moved into once my old elementary school went to crap and a guy died a few houses down the street from our duplex (though not going to lie, I still miss that duplex). So I guess it would suffice to say that all the dams, rock formations, lizards, prairie dogs, gnats and storms that rolled in as the day went on were beautiful and oddly endearing... As was everything else about that little skirmish into the great outdoors. From the hour and a half long trip to the wildlife refuge/nature reserve filled with youthful music, to the pictures we took on top of Mount Scott, to the wildness of my good friends sitting outside of the car on the windows as we barreled down the road that snaked its way around the mountain, to the warm pb&strawberry jam/beef jerky/funyon/cracker lunch break we took, it was all so movie-like and enjoyable.
Quick note: I know that throughout this blog's life I've used "movie-like" or something like it as if it's supposed to be a really powerful, big adjective and I will explain why that is. So think about this, why are movies even the least bit entertaining or enjoyable? Because they present a side or piece of life that you might not have otherwise seen or had the chance to experience. Or maybe because they allow you to believe and feel things colorfully, even if only for ninety-or-so minutes. Maybe they even provide lives and stories, like books, that you are then allowed to live vicariously through as an escape... The point is, I feel like to say something is movie-like as dumb as it sounds IS powerful because it is to say that everything just worked out like it should like in the movies... That it had emotion that others watching could feel or would like to live vicariously through us to feel. That it was worth it and happy and memorable and worth re-watching in the one-seat theater that is our minds when wrinkles begin to form and joints begin to ache.
Once we got our hands on a trail map (which we honestly didn't need) we got right to it and hiked our tails off. We stuck to the trail for all of five minutes before "off-roading" and it was so much fun. All around we spotted exotic flowers and radiantly colored lizards basking on the tips of large rocks and carcasses rotting alongside small, glistening rivulets that were straddled by hoof prints and unruly greenery. There was beauty to be seen in every rocky underbelly or every crack in tree bark. Even in the torturous thistles, which are honestly like the Lego's of nature... Like if I were to explain to a caveman what a Lego was, I'd snap a thistle vine off and toss it on the ground and just shift back and forth from pointing at a Lego to the thistle on the ground and the simpleton would understand...They just suck a lot man.
So basically after hiking a few miles over the mountain and through the woods, across a sketchy-as-heck-ten-foot-tall dam we took a nice break and then go up onto this very nice rocky ledge via climbing fingers and slipping bare feet. I'd say it was somewhere in the twenty to thirty foot range above some very jagged looking rocks and calmly undulating waters. But despite my hate for heights I was uncharacteristically calm about dangling my feet over the edge. I guess you'd call that progress, but quite honestly it was all just too picturesque for me to not finish out the inevitable scene- I and some other youthful buddies swinging dirty toes and flinging quarter-sized rocks above the green-blue shapeless mass sloshing bellow.
Of course, because we're in college, some of my homies sat a little further back from the ledge and puffed a few times on some cancer sticks while music was played softly from one of their phones, but I thought it was funny in a "wow this is so cliche" kind of way. But you know, even as a writer, I must admit that cliches aren't always a bad thing. Sometimes they're just cliche by consequence, it is not their fault that they are so universally liked or sought out. You wouldn't be mad at a person for liking the taste of apple juice or that moment when you run-out-of-dip-at-the-same-time-that-you-run-out-of-chips would you? Maybe the cliche isn't profound objectively, or worth a gasp but none the less, man is it so satisfying.
A few hours pass, and as nice-guy Helios sees his ex coming around the corner, tears begin to fall and the rays of light that once licked and kissed red our fair-skinned bodies got in-toe with their master whose leashes never seem quite long enough (yes, to clarify, I did just compare the sun and its rays to a deity walking his dogs as his emotional-wreck ex follows not far behind). We worked slowly but surely (and for the others, relatively soberly) back to the other side of the dam where we left our things. I remember standing there just watching everybody quietly as they shook out their socks and laced up their boots. Snacking on crackers and tucking fly-away hairs behind red-tipped ears here while backpack straps regained tension with groans and hands patted full pockets. Checking and double-checking that nothing was left behind. I was so caught up in all the quiet commotion that it was only after they were standing antsy-ly in a circle back on the trail that I began to "re-boot" myself.
Once the storm and lightning began rolling in a good, smart half of our troop stayed behind with the car, while we took a first-aid kid and hiked up to a mountain top. We had pulled up to it off the side of the road. Normally I would've been a part of that pack that stayed back, but that day I was feeling pretty tired of making all the safe choices (something only crazy people and soon-to-be-dead people ever say) so I spearheaded the climb. Going up slick, very steep inclines and pulling ourselves up over others and through crevices, getting dings along the way, we worked our way up. At specifically difficult areas, or more honestly areas I worried for the safety of the others (not quite as strong up top or athletic as myself and one of the others) I would station myself and pull them up. I remember vividly at one point snatching my friend Madison's hand and yanking her up over the lip of an incline right as she lost her footing and looking over her shoulder to a twenty foot fall onto unforgiving rock and cactus that she surely would've had the pleasure of experiencing had I not grabbed her.
My buddies who stayed back hollered up to us this advice as they shook their heads, watching us climb: "If at any point you begin to get the taste of metal in your mouth, or see anyone's hair start to get static-y and stand up-> find cover immediately. Because [sciencesciencsciencescience] it polarizes ions [sciencesciencescience] and if you don't find cover immediately you will become the key that was on Ben Franklin's kite some four centuries ago"... And it's a good thing they did.
About three quarters of the way up the mountain I began to get the ever-so-ominous and foreboding taste of metal in my mouth and sudden uneasiness. I kept this to myself, but for precaution scoped out where I should aim to be if it gets any more intense and cover is not an option. You know, so if I get fried and tumble down the side of the mountain something will stop me/catch me before I suffer massive brain trauma or something... That is, if the bolt of lightning didn't kill me first. But like a movie, before the metal taste got too strong, or the lightning strikes too close, we both reached the top of a multiple hundred foot mountain in terrible conditions where we could look out for miles until the mountains and sky met at a fine line (*inhales to catch breath after long run-on sentence*) and also found a nice cozy "cave" to sit in quietly as we let nature dominate the land like a catwalk. Flaunting its beauty with every light-encasing rain drop and grey-white, cloud-puff curve with camera-flash white lightning. Not quite strutting, but sauntering high over head. Coming and going as far as the fragile lens and shutter of the eye could capture.
Once properly soaked we regrouped with our friends, sun rays sneaking through holes in the thick gray that once stretched out so indefinitely. Cuts were bandaged and without any further ado, we ripped our way back home ice cream in-hand and on-mouth (because of course we got ice cream on the way home). The wet clothes grew lighter and the friendships grew fonder as the hum of the road hummed on.
Then Sunday we just slept.
As for the present, I guess I'll begin the transition back into storytelling/doing typical blog things by getting you up to speed on my life.
So the weekend before last, I went hiking with some friends (without all too much planning) and it was probably 12 hours of the happiest I've been in a very long time... It's weird how nature has that affect on some, such as myself, and it's completely repulsive to others. It would seem evolution has a bell curve, and we are past the peak onto the declining end. Sad little humans all around opting for tv dinners and life-long hibernation's from the suns reaches... Out there the greens were so lush, and the Oklahoma red dirt was so blood red. The world was so alive and we were but small cells moving within it. The waters, as a song I love once said (I Wish You Were Here by Incubus), looked like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket. The sun was smiling widely above with few clouds to block out its rays, and the air was thick. You could almost feel the moisture on your skin as you walked about (not sweat, I'm saying it was so humid the air almost had a texture/feel to it) just like home. Or I guess more home than home, considering not once have I ever been walking about in Texas and stumbled over a nice shin-high cactus (all the cartoons lied to you) which made me both scream internally and double-take as I walked off the pain... I mean I know it's nature and what not so it's not really supposed to be so surprising as a southerner, but hearing "I tripped on a cactus today" isn't as common a thing to hear down in Texas as one might assume. Times have changed you uncultured swine. You just don't see those in hood-rat Richardson/Dallas or the good ol' suburbia we moved into once my old elementary school went to crap and a guy died a few houses down the street from our duplex (though not going to lie, I still miss that duplex). So I guess it would suffice to say that all the dams, rock formations, lizards, prairie dogs, gnats and storms that rolled in as the day went on were beautiful and oddly endearing... As was everything else about that little skirmish into the great outdoors. From the hour and a half long trip to the wildlife refuge/nature reserve filled with youthful music, to the pictures we took on top of Mount Scott, to the wildness of my good friends sitting outside of the car on the windows as we barreled down the road that snaked its way around the mountain, to the warm pb&strawberry jam/beef jerky/funyon/cracker lunch break we took, it was all so movie-like and enjoyable.
Quick note: I know that throughout this blog's life I've used "movie-like" or something like it as if it's supposed to be a really powerful, big adjective and I will explain why that is. So think about this, why are movies even the least bit entertaining or enjoyable? Because they present a side or piece of life that you might not have otherwise seen or had the chance to experience. Or maybe because they allow you to believe and feel things colorfully, even if only for ninety-or-so minutes. Maybe they even provide lives and stories, like books, that you are then allowed to live vicariously through as an escape... The point is, I feel like to say something is movie-like as dumb as it sounds IS powerful because it is to say that everything just worked out like it should like in the movies... That it had emotion that others watching could feel or would like to live vicariously through us to feel. That it was worth it and happy and memorable and worth re-watching in the one-seat theater that is our minds when wrinkles begin to form and joints begin to ache.
Once we got our hands on a trail map (which we honestly didn't need) we got right to it and hiked our tails off. We stuck to the trail for all of five minutes before "off-roading" and it was so much fun. All around we spotted exotic flowers and radiantly colored lizards basking on the tips of large rocks and carcasses rotting alongside small, glistening rivulets that were straddled by hoof prints and unruly greenery. There was beauty to be seen in every rocky underbelly or every crack in tree bark. Even in the torturous thistles, which are honestly like the Lego's of nature... Like if I were to explain to a caveman what a Lego was, I'd snap a thistle vine off and toss it on the ground and just shift back and forth from pointing at a Lego to the thistle on the ground and the simpleton would understand...They just suck a lot man.
So basically after hiking a few miles over the mountain and through the woods, across a sketchy-as-heck-ten-foot-tall dam we took a nice break and then go up onto this very nice rocky ledge via climbing fingers and slipping bare feet. I'd say it was somewhere in the twenty to thirty foot range above some very jagged looking rocks and calmly undulating waters. But despite my hate for heights I was uncharacteristically calm about dangling my feet over the edge. I guess you'd call that progress, but quite honestly it was all just too picturesque for me to not finish out the inevitable scene- I and some other youthful buddies swinging dirty toes and flinging quarter-sized rocks above the green-blue shapeless mass sloshing bellow.
Of course, because we're in college, some of my homies sat a little further back from the ledge and puffed a few times on some cancer sticks while music was played softly from one of their phones, but I thought it was funny in a "wow this is so cliche" kind of way. But you know, even as a writer, I must admit that cliches aren't always a bad thing. Sometimes they're just cliche by consequence, it is not their fault that they are so universally liked or sought out. You wouldn't be mad at a person for liking the taste of apple juice or that moment when you run-out-of-dip-at-the-same-time-that-you-run-out-of-chips would you? Maybe the cliche isn't profound objectively, or worth a gasp but none the less, man is it so satisfying.
A few hours pass, and as nice-guy Helios sees his ex coming around the corner, tears begin to fall and the rays of light that once licked and kissed red our fair-skinned bodies got in-toe with their master whose leashes never seem quite long enough (yes, to clarify, I did just compare the sun and its rays to a deity walking his dogs as his emotional-wreck ex follows not far behind). We worked slowly but surely (and for the others, relatively soberly) back to the other side of the dam where we left our things. I remember standing there just watching everybody quietly as they shook out their socks and laced up their boots. Snacking on crackers and tucking fly-away hairs behind red-tipped ears here while backpack straps regained tension with groans and hands patted full pockets. Checking and double-checking that nothing was left behind. I was so caught up in all the quiet commotion that it was only after they were standing antsy-ly in a circle back on the trail that I began to "re-boot" myself.
Once the storm and lightning began rolling in a good, smart half of our troop stayed behind with the car, while we took a first-aid kid and hiked up to a mountain top. We had pulled up to it off the side of the road. Normally I would've been a part of that pack that stayed back, but that day I was feeling pretty tired of making all the safe choices (something only crazy people and soon-to-be-dead people ever say) so I spearheaded the climb. Going up slick, very steep inclines and pulling ourselves up over others and through crevices, getting dings along the way, we worked our way up. At specifically difficult areas, or more honestly areas I worried for the safety of the others (not quite as strong up top or athletic as myself and one of the others) I would station myself and pull them up. I remember vividly at one point snatching my friend Madison's hand and yanking her up over the lip of an incline right as she lost her footing and looking over her shoulder to a twenty foot fall onto unforgiving rock and cactus that she surely would've had the pleasure of experiencing had I not grabbed her.
My buddies who stayed back hollered up to us this advice as they shook their heads, watching us climb: "If at any point you begin to get the taste of metal in your mouth, or see anyone's hair start to get static-y and stand up-> find cover immediately. Because [sciencesciencsciencescience] it polarizes ions [sciencesciencescience] and if you don't find cover immediately you will become the key that was on Ben Franklin's kite some four centuries ago"... And it's a good thing they did.
About three quarters of the way up the mountain I began to get the ever-so-ominous and foreboding taste of metal in my mouth and sudden uneasiness. I kept this to myself, but for precaution scoped out where I should aim to be if it gets any more intense and cover is not an option. You know, so if I get fried and tumble down the side of the mountain something will stop me/catch me before I suffer massive brain trauma or something... That is, if the bolt of lightning didn't kill me first. But like a movie, before the metal taste got too strong, or the lightning strikes too close, we both reached the top of a multiple hundred foot mountain in terrible conditions where we could look out for miles until the mountains and sky met at a fine line (*inhales to catch breath after long run-on sentence*) and also found a nice cozy "cave" to sit in quietly as we let nature dominate the land like a catwalk. Flaunting its beauty with every light-encasing rain drop and grey-white, cloud-puff curve with camera-flash white lightning. Not quite strutting, but sauntering high over head. Coming and going as far as the fragile lens and shutter of the eye could capture.
Once properly soaked we regrouped with our friends, sun rays sneaking through holes in the thick gray that once stretched out so indefinitely. Cuts were bandaged and without any further ado, we ripped our way back home ice cream in-hand and on-mouth (because of course we got ice cream on the way home). The wet clothes grew lighter and the friendships grew fonder as the hum of the road hummed on.
Then Sunday we just slept.
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