quotes out of context

from Jeremiah 30:12-13 to OWCP
 
"Your wound is incurable,
And your injury is serious.
"There is no one to plead your cause;
No healing for your sore,
No recovery for you."

Yep.  My sense of melodrama is still doing just fine though, thanks for asking.  Reading Jeremiah makes me lean toward drama.  Being a prophet was never precisely easy, but wow, did he have a crappy time of it . . .

The trouble with nature

So.  Bugs.  Summer.  I understand that the poor things don't get to move much for about half of the year, so I understand why they would just want to crawl all over the place when they can, but why do they like crawling all over me so much? 

When I can, I bike to a park with my blanket, notebook, and books.  I spread out the blanket and plop myself down and immediately become the Most Engrossing Thing Ever to the insects and arachnids in the area.  These guys love me.  They can't get enough of me.  It's kind of crazymaking.

I imagine this is what would happen if I went to a cat show.  I am very allergic to cats, and they just love me!  I don't make eye contact and, a cat-lover explained that I am mysterious and interesting to them. 

Perhaps I need to practice making eye contact with insects and arachnids.  Do I have to make contact with all their eyes?  That could be . . . difficult. 

I just want to enjoy nature, listen to the wind and the birds, read my book, be a sun camel, try not to smell the nearly stagnant river water, avoid getting hit in the head by those kids and their soccer ball, and relax.  I want to commune with nature, dagnabbit! 

Unfortunately, nature feels the same way.  And so we commune: nature walking all over me, me swatting nature or brushing it off without killing it.  It is not exactly relaxing, but there is definitely communing.  Sigh . . . 

Sometimes, when the book is really good, I don't even notice.

After the latest hearing

Is it good
I didn't cry?

A sign of maturity
and self-possession

or just a sign of
giving up?

Toad Herding for Fun and Profit

Yesterday night, my flimsy building key stopped working, and I was locked out of my apartment.  This was a bummer because I live alone and had no one to call and let me in at 10 pm. 

This morning, I called to arrange for a new key, and we agreed it could be shoved under my garage door, though the trauma of smashing the crap out of my finger in said door on Saturday was fresh in my mind. 

I got home and opened the garage door, looking for my ticket into the building, and a mid-sized toad hopped in and promptly got itself stuck thinking there was No Escape even though three directions were open to it.  It kept hopping further and further along the wall when it wasn't playing the If I Don't Move the Large Thing Menacing Me Will Forget I'm Here and Go Away and Leave Me in Peace game.   

I suspect that toads are not one of the brightest species in the ecosystem. 

There was no way I was going to just close the door and let the thing die and stink up my garage.  I tried to gently herd it out, and it just wasn't working until a lady walked by and, attracted by the sound of a possibly crazy person waving her hands and cell phone at the ground and trying to be some sort of toad whisperer, stopped to get a better look. 

I explained my problem.  She laughed at me as I kept trying to humanely get rid of my newly acquired amphibian, but she eventually got fed up and whacked that sucker back out into the driveway with a hand like a trowel. 

I was horrified as I watched it tumble and come to a dusty and very final stop, sure she'd killed the silly thing whose only crime was being stupid and confused.  After heart-stopping seconds of being stunned, it rolled over.

"It's alive!" I thought and rejoiced until it hopped toward my garage.  I stomped and waved it away and closed the door before any more drama or trauma ensued.  The woman walked away laughing as I thanked her.

I watched the toad as, at a loss, it headed back out into the middle of the parking lot where it hopped in strange, possibly concussed polyhedrons for a while, despite my encouragement to get out of the place where cars go.  I washed my hands of him eventually, as he seemed destined to end up flattened by someone's tire.

Good night, sweet toad.  May flights of angels sing thee to they rest.  One way or another.

A socking development

Why do all my socks die in batches?  It's like they all just decide they've had enough at the same time, and suddenly, I have a lot of new rags. 

I hate getting new socks because they're like new towels: they're all fluffy and have all this excess cottony energy.  I hate wads of cotton collecting in weird places in my shoes.  And it takes forever to get all the excess worn away.  And then, soon after that, they die.  Sad.

I wonder if the socks would last longer if I didn't just buy the cheapest socks I can find?