Monday, October 15, 2007

Make me laugh, please!

Is it just me or is nothing very funny any more? Or maybe not nothing, but not much. I find that very few things make me really laugh any more. I know, I know...the world is going to hell. Yes. But the world is always going to hell somewhere. And usually when the world is going to hell, great humor and comedy abounds. I don't get it.

The Onion can sometimes do it and the current issue has two real winners. There's the lead story, "Conceptual Terrorists Encase Sears Tower in Jell-O" and "Reaganomics Finally Trickles Down to Area Man." According to the terrorists (and you have to see the image from their "video"), true terror lies in the futility of human existence. Gotta love it.

But I would just love to come across something that made me laugh until my sides hurt. That hasn't happened since, well, I don't know when. Then again, maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just not funny any more. I don't know what the answer is.

Monday, October 08, 2007

What season is this anyway?

It feels weird and wrong that it's dark so early when it still feels like summer outside. It's producing a strange sense of disconnection in me. I'm not quite hooked into the season. I felt the need to go buy some clothes to wear to work since my summer stuff isn't appropriate any more. But it was nearly impossible to get into the correct frame of mind. Everything looked drab and unappealing. I did buy a couple of things, mostly because I felt like I should. And of course when you do that, it always ends up wrong. I got them home, looked at them again and cringed. Now I have to make another trip downtown to the store and return them. I should have listened to that little inner voice that said DON'T DO IT!.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

...or are you just happy to see me?


So...what I did on my summer, uh, fall vacation:
I hiked every day. I climbed and scrambled up steep, rocky trails with frustratingly unsteady footing. I hiked along the ridgelines, high up where I could see in all directions. Not that there was really much to see. I trudged along the rocky canyon floors and sandy dry washes. I immersed myself in the amazing silence. Of everything, that was the most wonderful.

I took some pictures but not a lot. After the first 20 or so, I realized that pretty much everything looked the same, so taking more pictures was really unnecessary.

I got wet in the pool. It was quite small so actual swimming was really not possible. But it felt great to cool down after a couple hours of sweating in the desert sun.

I wrote. Yes, every day I wrote. Sometimes I had to force myself but I did it.

I napped. I took siestas. Under normal circumstances, I don't take naps. I can't. It doesn't work for me. But there, in the heat and the silence I was able to. Interesting thing about the heat - even though it got up into the high 90s every afternoon, I never once had to turn on the air conditioning. The place had ceiling fans in every room and there were doors onto my little veranda which I kept open. It was warm but totally comfortable. And the nights were wonderfully cool.

So that's what I did. I hiked, I wrote, I slept. I spoke to almost no one for the whole week. The checkout girl at the Safeway, the checkout girl at the Walgreens. Two rotund ladies by the pool. That was about it.

It may sound pathetically lonely and boring, but I loved it. I wasn't lonely or bored. I was totally enveloped by the place.

Oh yes, I also heard coyotes on a couple of evenings. They kind of sounded like squeaky doors.

Another thing about Arizona: they have great highway signage.