Cockeyed and Curious

Spotify provides a Discover Weekly playlist, which includes tracks from artists to which I’ve listened as well as similar artists of whom I may not be aware. It’s an eclectic mix filled with songs new to me, as well as covers of songs by bands that I haven’t before heard. I do not often check out the offerings when they refresh; and, when I do, I find the next track function to be my friend.

Today, I did not feel like listening to an audio book. I could sense that my mind wished to wander, thus it would pointless to try to play the current book on queue for I’d end up needing to repeat whatever played. Oftentimes, I’ll meander through thoughts and find myself hitting rewind, and, today, seemed like the entire venture of attempting to listen to an audio book would prove pointless.

A few successive tracks tucked about ten or so tracks into the mix pleased me. I had heard of one of the bands, though know not much about their music. One of the songs that followed has played many times for me, including versions by multiple artists, but never by the particular group, of whom I am not familiar. Onward went my journey through the playlist, with liberal use of the next button included.

Then I recognized another song: These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ by Parquet Courts. Again, though knowledgably of the song, the artist’s name meant nothing to me. The cover isn’t all that great, but it struck me. My brain started to fire quickly, meandering through related thoughts. My pace quickened. I had never before heard a male sing this song. Entwined in my consciousness as a female voice, the lyrics felt foreign and odd. Askew.

Then it struck me, I had imbued some social constructs into the song. The narrator, to me, needed to be female. It was a female perspective. I had gendered this particular tough persona in response to a wandering partner. How strange the male voice felt revealed to me assumptions I had imbued into the speaker of the song. Exposed perspectives, such as the femme fatale, that dwelled within concepts I understood, all related to this song. That a male singer had flipped the narrative, prompted me to question why I had certain viewpoints, felt beautiful Art does this, even if the rendition itself was not all that spectacle, it as a prodder to get me to adjust some aspects of this life thing justified me allowing it to play to conclusion.

Google informs me that Billy Ray Cyrus covered this song in 1992. Looks like this epiphany could have occurred years ago, had I only listened to popular country at the time. Though, I probably wasn’t receptive to this sort of pondering and reassessment back then.

Walk on out of me, societal beliefs built upon nothing more than the air of past voices.

Songbirds migrate at night to avoid predators. That’s something I learned today, though this fact did not arrive during trivia. Rare does something arise during trivia that’s notable. Though, now I can tell you who was the first actor to grace Time (the magazine), and Spielberg made a comedic war film early in his career (titled 1941). Neither of these facts interest me all that much, not as much as the one about songbirds. It’s one A.M (which is a film starring the first actor to appear on Time). I suppose warblers, cardinals, buntings, and others of their ilk travel the night skyways as I type these words. Kelly has migrated toward sleep. There, I should join her before long.

Speaking of movies, we watched Vast of Night over at a friend’s backyard. Projector. Five people in chairs, bellies full of shitty pizza, and a touch of dessert and alcohol describe the scene. As does an overgrown yard. Imagine someone had taken a box and pushed down the grass where we’d be sitting. Everywhere else, thigh high. I should have checked myself for ticks afterward. Fun, though, sitting outside as the sun vanished to send the temperature toward perfection. It was a fun film; good for the milieu. Not creepy or scary, but well filmed. Thoughtfully put together. Decent acting. Reminiscent of the Twilight Zone. Tension, build up, and aliens.

Prior to the film, dusk brought marvels. Bats swooped in, buzzing unnervingly near. Chaotic fluttering. Zipping and zooming. Diving. Erratic. Eaters of mosquitoes, I thank them. A raccoon also meandered into our zone, and by zone I do mean nearby. It was a touch alarming how close this critter desired itself to be. We chased it off – bright lights, loud words. The neighbor had a motion-sensor floodlight. The racoon, and or other night creatures, had its way with the sensor throughout the evening. A festive night for all, it seemed. Meanwhile, vireos, orioles, and other avians flit toward their destinations.

Not a bad weekend overall. We played with the camera, taking some silly photos and recording some videos that I’ll try to splice into short films. Ample gaming, with us exploring Sagrada and Barenpark, mostly. Simple games, though fun. Exercise and walking around outside also passed the time, as did cooking. Next weekend we may try to head somewhere to climb. It’ll be wild to climb again. It’s been months. I foresee struggling up easy routes. I’m quite excited! It’s going to be a lot of fun. Weather, please be kind.

I never want to go to bed as the weekend closes. The longer the time away from work, the harder it becomes for me to submit to slumber. Don’t misunderstand. My job is fine. True, it comes with equal parts absurdities and fulfillments, and the balance between these two aspects varies week-by-week, but—regardless of whether I view my vocation as a vacuous endeavor or a mental puzzle that evokes purpose or some variation in-between—the pleasure that owning your time and being able to flow down whatever streams float your boat shall always rise above the hours spent toiling within a job’s structure. To go from successive days of defining your hours freely to another bout of eight or nine hours spent emailing coworkers, meeting to discuss whatever or whatever, and generally navigating the bureaucratic aspects of employment inevitably reminds me that casting oneself from the rigidity of employment to the adventurous world of friends, play, and explorations shall forever be the honey that shall sweeten the sustenance that fuels me.

This weekend was especially wonderful. Though, thankfully I attribute such words to most of my free days. I had ample time to film scenes for various videos and dabble in Final Cut Pro to learn its intricacies, of which I remain a novice. Some board games—such as Too Many Bones, Raiders of the North Sea, Hanabi, Dominion—swept along the hours. A couple episodes of Rick and Morty disturbed and delighted me, as is their tendency. Friends socialized via Zoom and played some games, such as Wavelength, which invariably amuses everyone with the outlandish clues and discussions to target where along a continuum the given clue sought our focus. A park housed a group of us as we lounged and played on a slack line, and some friends threw a Frisbee as I attempted to capture some photos of the dramatics, for frozen frames of catches create amusing visual splendor. Kitchen pursuits brought delectable delights to my tongue. Time spent meandering about this world with Kelly produced smiles as well.

Though, I do recognize that these wondrous events accrue during the workweek. We tuck play into the evenings, whether through group exercises conducted via video or in the kitchen as Kelly and I dice onions, fire up the range, and then sit at the table to decompress as vittles collect in our gullets. Games get played, both in person with Kelly and across the series of tubes that we call the internet. Words from books materialize along screens and in the air as audio snippets. Jogs take me through nearby neighborhoods. These things occur, and the world keeps spinning. Remember the joys we bring. Cultivate the sparks of life. Recognize darkness, yet never let it suffocate you. Hold all the dear things close. Let them fill you with their light.

Watch the flowers grow as spring transforms into summer. Let the electric of being alive tingle your fingertips and infuse your toes. Step as if you’re on the moon. Bound. Notice the sunlight tickle your flesh. The wind, it seeks to massage you. Voices call out to remind you that we’re connected. String theory, whatever its merit, gets some things right. Tendrils do connect us.

With a heating pad on my back, I stare back at the days that have passed. Last night a nightmare awoke me. I started in response, thrusting myself upward. Somehow, in this process, for it was a whiplash of sorts, I spasmed some muscles. It was impossible to look behind me, to turn about my torso. A pull-up would be infeasible. Spasms of pain such a motion would produce. Amusing, to have injured my body while asleep. An impressive feat. Some ibuprofen, stretches, and hours of the day ameliorated most of the discomfort. Tomorrow the recovery shall continue. Though, I confess that sleep scares me, for what if this self-destructive lurching repeats?

So, now I have work and the theatrics of being asleep ahead. Yet, beyond these hours, for that’s all that they are, hours atop hours, comes more freedom. Only four days this workweek. That’s not bad. Not bad at all. With eyes open, I’ll struggle against sleep for another hour, and then work will come and go. I’ll enjoy aspects. I’ll suffer through others. I’ll laugh with coworkers. I’ll smile at the witty things people say and do. I’ll appreciate that we’re all trying together to accomplish outcomes. And, and, and, and, and, then comes the weekend again. Toward that, I can swim, whether it feels like salmon heading out to the ocean or returning, beating against currents and rocks and perhaps even manmade constructs. For, in the end, most everything is a construct, whether physical or conceptual, and we can assemble our stories even if the chapter titles or subject matters are not always of our choosing.

Addled. Exhausted. Yet, somehow ready to surge into the next activity. For, you do what the universe instructs you to do. Flip a card, follow its lead despite how crushed you felt by the relentless mandates that the deck had decreed earlier. You knew that what would follow would consist of more of the same. It’s a pattern, even if its exact shape remains a mystery. The construct, as a whole, as a structure has boundaries. Rules. Terms. Within this framework, you navigate. An endpoint sat ahead. You could glimpse it. The beauty of toil is that it terminates. You endure.

At this snapshot moment in time, that spell that followed the near-consecutive jokers, was unlike the span of time that had come before them. Stunned. Hexed. Clueless. That’s what happens when a magician summons lightning to throttle you. Prior to the jokers, things had been going smoothly enough. Then the jokers arrived. They broke me. We had been flipping through a deck of cards. Royals indicated specific minute-long exercises. Non-face cards required us to complete reps equal to their value, each suit a different exercise. Aces are effectively royals. Jokers, they’re where you lose touch with thought; life becomes reminiscent of a non-lucid dream, in that things happen and then afterward you look back with a hazy memory.

The word “fluid” served as an apt descriptor of how my muscles felt. Water might feel more solid than I considered myself to be following the second joker. A desire to flow along the floor to the nearest corner leg of my bed arose. Along that pillar, I could reach the mattress by leveraging some manner of capillary action reliant on physical laws rather than anything a kinesiologist might label as human motion. Not sure that I had worked myself this thoroughly in some time. The front stretches of my shoulders ached. My hips creaked. I hungered for a salt lick. I fantasized about coconut water or some permutation of liquid that could replenish me beyond the capabilities of water. My lungs through diaphragmatic gasps informed me that breathes alone could not supply the oxygen that my blood flow desperately required so as to transport nutrients to refill my depleting reserves. My brain failed to retain much of what followed.

Gloria Gaynor says “survive” in “I Will Survive” fewer times than I had anticipated. For the joker, we did bicycles (the ab workout) throughout the song. Whenever she said the word’ survive,” we’d launch into v-ups. V-ups are awful. They hurt. Say v-ups and the word cloud of responses to the exercise would include “Intense.” Yet, bicycles start to burn more quickly than you anticipate. That a v-up becomes a rest activity demonstrates how difficult it is to maintain bicycles for about four minutes. That Gloria sings “survive” about ten times during the song shocked me. I anticipated more talk of survival. I thought of Roxanne. So much “Roxanne” in Roxanne. Not nearly as much surviving in a song dedicated to keeping on keeping on. I longed for “survive.” I mentally begged for v-ups.

Two jokers. The second joker involved the same song. This time we maintained front plank as Gloria sang. On “survive,” we would do a push-up. I longed for the push-ups. They were an escape. A break. Before the song concluded, I could barely plank. This is the liquified moment. That line following when I had given it my all. When my face surely looked possessed. Demonic. Call a priest. That my head was not rotating fully must shock people more than my head would have had it so turned. Some terrible manner of grimace must have overtaken my expression.

And, that, is how you do a workout.

How terrified people become unnerves me. Their fears reveal how malleable they can become; they can cause absurd if not detrimental behavior. An image locked itself into my mind. When the minor earthquake struck several years ago, most of us had no idea what was happening. It was bizarre to feel the building heave, to see water in my glass resemble waves crashing at the shore. A coworker cried, “what’s happening.” Trembling of the earth let to perturbations of the mind. As I headed toward the stairwell, for we all went to leave the building, unaware of what else to do, I spied this guy head into the elevator. We made eye contact before he vanished from sight. Having seen the grim reaper come for him, would surely have invoked less fear than I saw emitting from his expression. I tried to tell him that he should take the stairs, but how inhuman he looked, how lost and astray he appeared, left me speechless.

When we first began to shutter ourselves to slow the spread of COVID-19, news articles circulated that ibuprofen may intensify the disease’s impact. The articles shared this perspective, apparently arising from some preliminary statements issued by certain French authorities Earlier, while also conveying that no one else of note understood what prompted the such a claim. That weekend while in Giant, I needed to grab some Advil. The OTC shelf for painkillers was emptied, that is, except for ibuprofen. Those pills were fully stocked. Perfect.

Returning from a run, I held the door for a person struggling to move her bike into the building. The side entrance requires a fob. The scanner sits to the left of the door. The door, which is somewhat heavy ,is hinged on the right side so that it swings toward you as you enter. Strong springs press to close the door, thus requiring you to apply some effort whenever you come or go. While ferrying goods, you must exhibit some finesse lest the door slams into you or what you’re carrying. She didn’t seem happy that I was helping.

Another person approached. I tried to do the thing where you hold the door open so that the person behind you can maintain the door’s position as you continue onward. She refused to touch the door. She also endeavored to maintain as much distance between herself and me as she could. That she didn’t simply say, “let it close, I’ll follow,” confuses me given how much effort she applied trying to sideway limbo herself through the opening as she forced me to prop open the passageway (or let the door slam into her) while also maximizing the distance between us. Fear – palpable anxiety that looking at her forced you to internalize and experience as well – widened her eyes, tightened her cheeks, and sucked all air from the room. She looked more of an addled beast than human.

When I was running, I passed by homes. Many are for sale. The idea of not renting appeals to me, though the desire to remain in the DC area doesn’t appeal to me. Mountains call to me. Rivers. Backpacking and climbing destinations that are not so far away that they are “destinations” in the big notion sense of the word. I long to renew those days spent in Portland, when I could escape to an alpine lake for a weekend, weekend after weekend. Not that I need Portland, for many locations provide such proximate splendor. Yet, if this region continues to serve as my nest, then to move to a house does appeal to me. A yard for a garden and bird houses. A larger kitchen. Space for various activities. An office, and a room for games. And so on.

Also, the way this nation seems to be heading, I foresee chaotic descents into societal madness, as seen in books like The Road or The Parable of the Sower. People with guns behaving horrendously. Distribution systems shuttered. Electricity perhaps lost as well. I picture lunatics sieging my apartment building for goods. They could post themselves at each of the exits to slaughter people as they seek to flee. Meanwhile, their crew could go door-to-door, taking on an apartment at a time. The fearful will let this happen to them. Sans ability to uprise together, we’ll die alone. These thoughts play out in my mind as I imagine opportunities to band together, to escape. I imagine such scenarios play out in the little suburban area where the houses are, through which I run. With such thoughts in play, I witness this strange, horrified person eschew anything close to contact, with anything or anyone. She disturbs me more than the nightmare scenarios that plague my mind, for her fears appear as actions whereas mine are fleeting visions of a world gone wrong. Her anxieties and concerns have transformed our world. Mine, remind me that we must sift the irrational from the actual, even if it’s not clear at times how to do so.