Today I ran down to the park by the bay and practiced some fire-dancing. I found out that it's a good way to meet children. They are mesmerized by the whirling balls. One girl ran all the way across the park chasing me before I realized she was coming and stopped. She asked me what I was twirling and I told her they were tennis balls. I told her that if she wanted to, she could make her own by putting something heavy in the ends of a pair of long socks. I should have told her that once she gets good enough, she can use balls of FIRE on the ends of chains! But one step at a time. I showed her the trick they call "The Butterfly" because it looks like a butterfly's flapping wings. Finally her boldness wore off and she became very shy and then said that she was going to run back to her mother now and I told her that it was nice to meet her. I continued strolling along the bay, twirling my neon orbs in the setting sun.

I think I should plant some watermelons there.
Down by the bay, I mean.

Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

On my way home I passed under I-195, past the eastbound entrance which has been closed since I moved here almost a year ago. It doesn't seem like any work has been done on it since then, even though the closure is by all appearances supposed to be temporary. Right now it makes the perfect setting for a fight scene. There are two perpendicular sets of arches, one that holds up the highway and another that forms the bridge that goes across the mouth of the Pawtucket river as it meets the bay. You'll see the crew team out there as often as not, rowing under their shady watch. Pieces of construction equipment lie here and there amid piles of dust, concrete pieces, and sand. Each of these materials finds its own angle of repose. Abandoned port-o-johns, random timbers, a highway entrance that ends jaggedly, with nowhere to go but down the embankment and into the river. A huge fight, a fight to the death could take place there, and the whole while the cars would go by above, their passengers completely oblivious to the dreadful requiem playing out beneath their tires, with movements composed of hate and fear and human lives as instruments.

Especially if they were ninjas. Because ninjas are very stealthy. Some daydreaming teenager might see one of the bodies as it fell from the arches and made a splash in the bay, but no one would believe him or her, because nobody believes teenagers, especially when they're daydreaming. No, the first anyone would know of the fight was when one of the combatants took control of one of the sleeping beasts of construction, like the backhoe, and then through the amazing strategery of our hero, the whole thing would get out of control and the backhoe would go right up the highway entrance ramp and not be able to stop and then it would plummet down the slope and with a huge crash and splash... and EXPLOSION, it would meet the surface of the bay! A whole boat full of the Brown University crew team would be overturned into the slightly unappetizing and extremely cold water!!

Then everyone on I-195 would pay attention.

And because of the damage caused by the fight, the increase in traffic caused by curious onlookers, the expense of having the backhoe removed from the bay with a crane, the number of protesters showing up with "Save the Bay" t-shirts and demanding complete removal from any spilled industrial liquids/dead bodies from the bay... it all means that I will be finished with my degree and long gone from Providence before that freaking entrance ever gets re-opened.

Freaking ninjas.

Comment! (4) | Recommend!

Today I am going to the beach.

But I'd kind of rather go to work, actually.


I don't know if this is a good thing, because it means that I'm getting to really like my job...


...or a bad thing because it means without a doubt that I am going completely insane.

Comment! (2) | Recommend!

My sister is now officially married!

When are we going to tie the knot, Dilated?

Comment! (8) | Recommend! (1)

So apparently there is a conference coming up at Brown... "The National Conference on Vitamin D"



what?

That's... kinda random.

Comment! (4) | Recommend!

Danger - if you meet it promptly and without flinching - you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

--Winston Churchill

Comment! (3) | Recommend!

Goin' to Texas, yeeeeeeHAW! Sorry Texas people, I will only be there for the weekend.

Then I'm going to my home, homeward bound, goin' home to Denver.

CAUSE.... If I had a wagon I would go to Colorado,
go to Colorado,
go to Colorado

If I had a wagon I would go to the state
where a man can walk a mile high!

Comment! (7) | Recommend!

This is the message my roommate left for me:




He also put both items in the cake box and wrote in black marker on the top: "EAT" Geez, that guy is so demanding! But, you know, I'm an obliging person, so I went ahead and finished his tasks. :D

Comment! (4) | Recommend!

The three of us moved slowly though the field, our feet feeling for purchase in the dewy grass and soft mud. It was very dark; the summer moon had not yet risen above the horizon. I was between the two boys. My sandals lit up if I tread on them hard enough, an other-worldly series of green flashes that glowed through the nearby grass enough to plan another step. The air was cool and the darkness stretched around us as we moved into it, passing us ever closer to the sound of running water.

We reached the bridge, this bridge that the boys had made with their own hands; it was solid and sturdy and the extra traction coupled with excitement quickened the one pace it required to cross it. There was a small hill of thick, black mud. They took off their rubber boots and I slipped off my sandals, and the cool mud squished between our toes as we scrambled up the hill to the sauna. This exercise set us to laughing; the sound was hemmed in by the dark night and the shady trees that just now began to appear in my adjusted vision.

We entered the sauna and perched ourselves on its shelves like merchandise in a store. There was a light inside and it leaked into the darkness, providing less of a shine than a flickering glow. The older boy went to work pouring water onto the coals in the corner of the sauna, filling the already sweltering room with hot steam. It was filling up the sauna, this sauna, that the boys had built with their own hands.

Hardly any time had passed before the heat became unbearable. Surely that had to be steam condensing on my skin: it was impossible to sweat that much. The younger boy was looking at his watch. He kept shaking his head. It was not time yet. Wait a little longer. With a mischevious smirk he took the water cup and emptied it over the coals. Steam filled the sauna so fully we could hardly see one another. The air was heavy and scorching in my lungs.

It was time! We went to the door and spilled out onto the slippery hill. Sweet cool air on my skin! What bliss! But that was not enough. Come, they said. We slid down the mud to the edge of the brook. Here, they said, take a hold of the side of the bridge and go into the water. It was cold, my toes reported... oooh it was so cold. The water was higher than either of them had ever seen it- there was no space under the bridge, it was like a roughened pathway through the river itself. I dropped into the water. My nerves went haywire. In a loose crouch it came up to my neck. My breath, just a moment ago languid with humidity, became sharp, shallow, and quick. Following instructions, I ducked my head swiftly under the water. Electricity!

I leapt from the rippling darkness and onto the slope. There was another instruction. Look up! I threw my head back to the sky, the sky of midnight black, peppered with a million stars like an inverse of cinnamon on toast. The Milky Way used to be there, and the summer constellations. Now they were completely unintelligible for their bobbing and weaving and pulsing with my madly beating heart.

We city kids have drugs for this kind of stuff, I joked.

Comment! (0) | Recommend!