Monday

Today I walked instead of ate during lunch. There were a lot of people doing the same thing, down and around on the rail trail. I passed by the guy who straps a big radio on the back of his bike again. Only this time, I looked right at him and I'm pretty sure he was a different guy than the usual radio-strapping biker I see just about every time I go. Maybe it was the same guy, but without hat. Maybe it was a different guy, but the first guy made the radio thing cool and he started a trend. I realized I've spent much more time focusing on the radio than on the bicyclist.
I traded some good stories with my walkin' partner. The weather was perfect for walking, but when we got back under roof the sky darkened ominously and then the rain poured down.
Thoughts of the worn-out phrase, "life is short," occurred to me today. Not just thoughts -- feelings, too. As much as I hate worn-out phrases, I felt the truth of it and I don't want to look back with regret any more than I already do. On the other hand, regrets can be transformed into life lessons and maybe every life needs them in order to grow. Along with some other stuff, like water, sunlight and food.

Saturday to Sunday

The family took a trip to our homeland today, a short drive down and back. River, swimming, family bonding, married event, and driving and running in the rain on a Saturday night with old friends. Always peaceful and therapeutic to go to the river, fight off the bugs, watch the kids run and laugh and make full use of the grass, the trees, the fire, the water, the swing and the swinging ladder. No movies this weekend. I thought I'd fit in some time for Incredible Hulk, but there were no takers.
I partook in some festivities to honor the end of a life on one day and the beginning of a new life for others the next day. Now I'm tired. I'm not sure why.

Thursday

No real tragedies tangential to, or touching upon, my life have happened in a few days, so I feel giddy and carefree today. I exaggerate. But I do feel things are starting to get back to normal. Normal is great. I got a lot of sleep last night, and getting a lot of sleep in almost any given night means I have vivid dreams. Early this morning it so happened that my mind took me to a Halloween party, at which a convoluted but entertaining story unfolded that involved costumes, talking to people, having some sort of unusual adventure, and character development of people I have never met. In the subconscious mind of mine, a strange recurrence is spending quality time with the likable, gentle, intelligent, patient, funny and charming people I meet in my dreams.

What I Think About When I Drive

News of two more deaths this morning. George Carlin and a co-worker's brother. I don't believe in fate, destiny or supernatural coincidences, but I do believe in negative energy. I believe that, sometimes, negative energy begets negative energy. It's starting to creep in all around me and weave its long, shadowy tentacles onto every path I take lately. Not really. But it feels that way. I like my life and there are a lot of good things in it that work very well. It doesn't always feel that way, but it is true. I'm trying to be as careful as possible. I think about my grandmother being 96, thinking I'll get a call any day now with the message that she's not ... not ... I don't want to write the words. Not OK. Just because other people are dying all around me doesn't make it any more likely that her time is about to come. It should already be obvious. Every once in a while I think how fortunate I am that I haven't experienced a lot of (or, really, any) tragic, premature deaths of people who are very close to me. But, alas, I know that won't last very long, because every living thing must die.
I wonder if the universe is preparing me for the worst. I know the universe doesn't work like that.
Intuitively, I do know it. I think that every single experience, from the smallest experience lasting the most fractional second of time, to the length of any given relationship with another living being, form to combine the person each of us is today, like your own personal micro-universe. All the things that have ever happened to me are there, in my micro-universe, and they make up who I am, what decisions I make, and how I process information. And that would include those gene-type DNA things that happened to me way early on, I guess.
Thank you for joining me for my own personal science revelation today.

Saturday, June 21

The weekend started off with a garage sale, at which we were able to yield $18.00. It wasn't my idea. Our house is difficult to find. Our fine merchandise was mostly marked at rock-bottom prices, and our highest-priced item was a coat tree for $5. Nobody bought it. We sold one cup of lemonade but we forgot to charge for it. A fun day. The garage sale was blanketed between a trip to the farmer's market, where we purchased cheese, coffee and lettuce, and the arts/music river festival, where the weather was perfect and the arts/music was the same as ever, but did make me glad to live where I live. The day ended by watching The Love Guru, which was as bad as the reviewers said it is. I can sum it up with one description: one-dimensional. The characters were all one-dimensional, as was the plot. There were two one-dimensional plots: guru wanted to be on Oprah and be the number-one guru in the world; and he was hired to make a husband and wife get back together. Those plots were strung together by one-dimensional jokes that kept centering on stuff that really wasn't funny. Comments coming out of the theater included "weird," "bad," and "not that funny."

What We Don't See

West Virginia Day, June 20, is a holiday for some. In honor of that holiday, instead of writing about what West Virginia has going for it, I will comment about how someone who has spent most of her life in West Virginia might feel when she leaves, and what she notices is different about being away from home.
Outside of West Virginia, strangers don't smile at each other and say "hello."
Outside of West Virginia, there aren't that many mountains. Much of the land is flat, so the scenery is extremely limited in scope. I would compare it to the view of one's hand, turned flat so that all you see is your thumb, compared to holding your hand up sideways, so that you see all your fingers.
Outside of West Virginia, it is not so humid, snowy, green, or ablaze with red, orange and yellow (depending on the season) (see above sideways vs. flat hand comparison).
Outside of West Virginia, people can be generally rude, unfeeling, detached and in a hurry.
Outside of West Virginia, drivers cut quickly, abruptly, and dangerously in front of other cars in traffic.
Outside of West Virginia, people habitually shout and gesture at drivers who irritate them.
Outside of West Virginia, there are actually lots and lots of people of non-Caucasian nationalities and non-Caucasian ethnicities.
Outside of West Virginia, there are an uncanny number of luxury vehicles being driven around by people who can afford them.
Outside of West Virginia, especially in big cities, there are countless homeless people.
Outside of West Virginia, there are certain areas where it would seem unsafe and scary to stop and ask for directions.
Outside of West Virginia, especially in big cities, there is a huge gap between the haves and the have-nots.
Outside of West Virginia, cities and communities invest millions in arts, aesthetics, zoos, museums, and cultural attractions.
Outside of West Virginia, when you tell some people you are from West Virginia, they are surprised you don't sound or look or seem like you're from West Virginia. Whatever that means.
Outside of West Virginia, if you go to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, odds are very good that you will run into someone you know who is from West Virginia.
Outside of West Virginia, there are a lot of really, really, really tall buildings, and few, if any, mountains or hills.
Outside of West Virginia, outside many of the small, small towns, when in a restaurant, it doesn't feel as much as if you're in a 1950s time warp. You don't see so many diners that offer fried chicken, french fries from freezer to deep fryer, country-fried "steak," bacon, sausage, sunny-side up eggs and bad coffee.
Outside of West Virginia, cigarette smoking in public is an oddity.

Theme of Death, Part 2

About 24 hours after I lamented the four losses, due to the four deaths tangential to my own personal sphere last week, Mother Nature added one more classmate to the list, within just a few days of the other classmate dying. He was 11 days older than me. I had known him since first or second grade, and maybe before that. I believe the one and only time we had a whole conversation was in the third grade. The last time I saw him was several years ago, at a bar, and he was wearing plastic glasses that were lit up with lights, and maybe a message saying, "Merry Christmas," or "Happy New Year," or something like that. I said hi --- he was standing right in front of me --- and either he didn't see or hear me or he just didn't feel like acknowledging my existence. At the time I believed the latter. He may have given me a quick, insincere nod; I can't be sure. But I am from a small town, and sometimes it feels like the people who grew up there with me are in a big extended family. Our grandmothers were good friends. In the third grade, I spent an afternoon with him at the senior center, painting ceramics in the art department with him. Hence our only existing conversation. Every so often, I would hear bits and pieces about his life from my grandmother, but she didn't gossip, so I didn't hear that much. She would just hint. He has a My Space page. I wonder what will happen to it.
While we are young, life seems to be a permanent situation, but all the sudden, without warning, the light goes out, and we are all left to be reminded by the randomness of tragedy and that life can be violently transitory. What is the point of the word permanent? There is no such thing. Permanent record. Permanent marker. Permanent doesn't mean what it purports to mean.
I went by a car accident today on the interstate near Sutton. I meant to leave Charleston earlier, but I didn't. I wonder how much closer I would have been to becoming part of the accident if I had left when I had meant to leave. I passed by the wreckage before the rescue and police vehicles arrived. About eight cars were stopped, lots of people were on their cell phones, people were on the grass, and a little yellow car was upside down, with its roof totally crushed. There was no room left in there for survivors, I am sure of it. I saw an ambulance and police car going to the accident about five minutes later, driving in the direction of the crash. Right before I went by the crash, a man in a pink shirt and tie sped by in a BMW and smiled at me while he was driving at about 85 miles an hour. It was a funny moment, because we both looked at each other at exactly the same time and had the same expression on our faces. Curiosity first, not expecting that the other would be looking, and then amusement. And then the accident. He slowed down for a few miles, but then resumed the high-tailing up north. Life goes on.