Sometimes when I am in the backyard I accidentally startle a chipmunk who runs and hides in a long aluminum tube that is open only at one end. I've been known to grab the tube by the open end and slowly raise it up. I can hear the little feet scrambling to find hold, and hear him slide to the closed end. Realizing he has only one way out, he slowly works his way back up the tube, backwards until his rear end reaches the top, where he turns to see my smiling face, and dashes away, cartoon-like, and vanishes into the foliage. Mean, I know, but essentially harmless, and it amuses me.
I once took the dog for a walk one night and tripped over a couple having sex on the ground. True story. 2013 was a weird year.
It was around midnight and I was restless plus the sky was clear. So I took my dog to an open grassy area. I noticed he was sniffing around the overgrowth so in a weird fit of immaturity I began to run towards a small grassy mound in the middle of the field. Just as I got to the mound I looked over my shoulder. Dog didn't notice. Crucial for a good game of hide and seek. Next thing I know I've tripped and forward rolled and landed on my back. I gathered my marbles and lifted my head. My dog who was backed by the moon. I thought he was looking at me then noticed he wasn't. So i stood up dusted the grass from my trousers and turned around. And there they were. Both glued to eachother. Me and dog stared at them blankly and they stared back for what felt like a minute. I pulled the hood over my head pocketed my hands and walked off. After about 40 paces I noticed my dog wasn't with me so I looked behind me and he was still sitting there with his ears perked. They were still frozen in place staring at him. Weird night.
Confession: So after I had spent nearly all of my writing life (from 12 on), I finally decided to indulge in writing a short story based loosely on a period of my life as a child, after having avoided writing anything about my life, save for in diaries. It isn't my first time of writing an author avatar, but it would have to be the first time I wrote one without putting "me" in a position where I'd die or suffer horribly. This time, I wrote her as a child of around ten. And this time, I handed her a "game-breaking" weapon at a moment that had always haunted me: was my brother really trying to drown my cat? And why was it that Dad threatened ME with the belt? Well, I took those feelings from back then (Why isn't Brother here instead? You should be threatening HIM with the belt! What are you even rambling about? It doesn't have anything to do with the cat, just let me get her! Out of the way, out of the way, you ugly piece of shit!)... and I had the father figure be the one at the end of the violence this time. Then I had her kill the little psychopath. And the thing is, after writing a story about familicide... I have had less anger toward my father and brother since. It's like justice had been served. I know that I feel no inclination to talk to either of them, and I never will. But it feels good, knowing that there's a "version" of them that got snuffed out before they could get twenty years older.
I can be occasionally precious. I had bread, cheese and dates for breakfast on the upstairs terrace and imagined myself an Athenian circa 400 BCE.
I just said, "awwwww!" Confession: I can't say Jason Mimosa's name right for the life of me and when I see it spelled correctly, I am utterly baffled.
