...for a paddler's soul. I spent the better of a half-hour today contemplating the best way to find/make open water on Lake Shamineau: chainsaw? axe? flamethrower? Despite the desert of ice on the lake, i dragged out my boat and acted like nothing was out of the ordinary for a relaxing paddle- mother nature was suspicious but she humored me. For about ten minutes. Then my feet went numb.
My shoulders hurt today. I was innoculated three times on Thursday, to catch up on tetanus, hepatitis A and B. Three stabs, but I got a sticker that said I was a good boy at the doctor's office. Worth knowing that now when I sever my toe on a rusty, shattered Christmas ornament at the folks's household at least the bloodstains'll be the worst of my worries.
Wednesday the move from Bloomington to...er...Bloomington went swimmingly. I am now happily a tenant owing $200 less per month in rent than I was a week ago. I moved exactly 1/5 mile from my old place, but the new place has a lot more cool, elderly retired folk outdoor kitsch...gnomes and ceramic squirrels and shiny glass orbs like bowling balls come to mind, as does the smell of my grandmother's basement in South St. Paul. I miss that place.
Tonight during solstice dinner with my wonderful, nuclear family I was lost in thought and my finger happened to just barely come into contact with my glass of ice-cold Mountain Dew. What snapped me out of my daze was the sudden manner in which my hand jerked from the glass as my synapses snapped at the white-hot sensation. Funny how temperature can fiddle with our neuroses...I wonder what schizophrenia is like. Reality and the invisible friend are just two extreme temps, and our mind, like my fingertip, knows not which to call real.
This Christmas, remember to continue to buy things you don't need, and buy things your loved ones don't need, too. Without consumerism, where'd we be? ...thank goodness for Saint Nick.
