Random Walks

Some things that have occurred to me, in no particular order:

I find that walking, or running, unleashes the chatterbox in me. It may be the endorphins. (In fact, after making some truly hideous judgement calls after running, I've given up on any decision making then. The endorphins make the absolute worst decisions look good). I think it may be that the run shuts the talkie-talk part of the brain off for awhile. When all you can think about is drawing the next breath, you don't have much to talk about.

My mother had cataract surgery this past week. The surgeon put an intraocular lens in her bad eye. She is amazed at how well she can see, and can't wait to get the other eye done. This after me and the family hectoring and berating her to get the surgery done.

At one point, she mentioned to me how she could see a traffic sign "Right...about...now", which, by that point, we were past it (I was driving). "For fuck's sake, Mom!" (yes, I said that, because I was mad), "Get the cataract surgery!".

At another point, she asked me to look at a picture attachment on her email. She had received pics of her grandson at an elementary school function up in Wisconsin. My nephew is seated on a tractor. "Look at that!" she asked me. "Is that Josh's penis showing?" "...that's a fold in his pants", I replied "But if it was his penis, the boy is being taken care of. Jesus H Christ, get the cataract surgery, will ya, please?"

We got a new gas kiln at the college. It's a Geil kiln, with venturi gas jets, so it is super quiet. We fired it the first time to cure the bricks and mortar and drive the moisture out. I walked into the room and said "Smells like pool shock in here. Kind of like chlorine". The ceramics professor couldn't smell anything. I pulled out the fiberfrax plug stuffed into the stinghole (the peep hole) and let him sniff it. "Wow, you got a good nose!". Actually I do. Even when I was smoking, I had a good sense of smell. Now, since I quit, I'm smelling stuff that, well, I'd rather not smell.

Speaking of which, I succumbed to temptation at a party last weekend. Heavy drinking will do that. Make you want a smoke, that is. Rather than bum a smoke, I snagged a drag off someone. They were smoking those American Spirit cigarettes. The taste was delicious. But the buzz (from one short drag), was awful. I was dizzy and nauseous, and regretted it. I think I'm done smoking.
I'm gearing up to see a movie. I only go to movies if they merit a big screen experience. I haven't found one yet, but feel the need to just get the hell out of the house. These working seven days a week schedules with twelve hour weekdays are starting to be a drag - after only ten years! But coming home at 9pm and slumping down in front of the TVis getting old for some reason.

However, I am reading. I won't bother to put down a reading list, as I go through 2-3 books every two weeks. Right now, at this exact moment? I'm reading "Crow Planet" by Lyanda Haupt", "Deliver Us from Evil, The Slavery Question in the Old South" by Lacy K. Ford. I'm reading the crow book because I really like crows and ravens. And they seem to like me. Remind me to tell you my animal stories sometime. I'm reading the slavery book because I ran into a complete and total butthead (a Teabagger, naturally) from Georgia who insists that the Civil War was about State's Rights, not slavery.

On a different note, since he thinks government is the enemy, but for some reason wants us to kick the rest of the world's asses with our military, I asked him how he manages to keep that cognitive dissonance partitioned. I mean, if government sucks, and the military is part of the government, how does the military not suck? Why don't private companies take care of all that?And how can you have limited government with a military that has a budget equal to the rest of the world's combined? The boy can't seem to reason it out.

But honestly, I'm really starting to get worried about conservatives. I think they've just completely given up on thinking. If they go any further to the right, they might as well start learning German - 1930s German.

Conservatives look like their letting those frontal lobes rot into cheese from lack of use, and emote with their scared little animal brains. You know, thinking with their gut. And when you think with your gut, all you manage to do is stain your undies when you voice a liquid brown opinion.

Alright, enough. I'll save political talk for another time.