Loops in the Park
Today was another cold and clear day. Mr. Rainer (that’s Mt. Rainer to you) was hazy but visible from the lake. I took a long, cold walk around Seward Park, and on my way back, after getting lost and wandering the neighborhood for an addition thirty minutes, I realized that if my house were a bit higher or further into the street, I would have a view of Mr. Rainer. As it is now, I have to settle for the peaks of other not-so-big mountains in the distance. The visibility of the surrounding mountains has greatly improved with the colder weather, as have the stars. I didn’t even know Seattle had stars until this past week.
To survive the freezing temperatures (I’m not sure the exact temperature, but many of the puddles had a thin coatings of ice—very unusual for these parts), I dressed in layers. I wore a long-sleeve black shirt, a sweater over the shirt, my blue zipper-up work sweatshirt, hat, gloves, and scarf. While most of my body was quite snug—almost too much so, I attempted to regulate my temperature by taking off and putting back on my gloves many times during the loop around the park—my corduroy pants, which I assumed from my previous experience with corduroy in the 1980s would be warm, were the weak point. Halfway around the park, the backs of my legs started to itch, which is never a good sign. Except for the incessant itching, the walk was nice. I like to say that I spent much of it planning new stories or NEQID, but my mind was full of the rewrite for the website. When I’m stuck on a project, it’s hard to get my mind onto other things.
I set what I thought was a good pace for the walk, but I was behind a couple that would have none of it. They must have been a newer couple since when they entered the park, he, the guy that is, said, “And over here we have the northwestern ducks, better known in these part as the Seattlian-doe ducks, which are well known in this lake-front habitats,” and on, and on, in his most look at me, over here, hey, down here, damn it, I’m funny, very funny, now look at me, voice to impress his girl. She laughed and I somehow managed to swallow my bile. But no matter how much I increased my walking speed, I never caught up to them or got close enough to eavesdrop for additional not-clever clever remarks. They must have been super walkers or something. Halfway through the loop, when it became apparent that I wouldn’t catch them, I stopped for a bit to rub the backs of my legs. Looking back, I feel it’s now safe to admit that I stopped more to put the couple out of view than to relieve the coldness from my legs. I thought about running to pass them, until I realized that (a) I wasn’t wearing the right type of shoes, and (b) running makes me tired and I don’t like being tired. You’ll be happy to hear that with all the getting lost and freezing my legs off, I did manage to return to the warm Castle, and as far as I’ve been able to ascertain, I sustained no permanent damage.
When I first sat down to write this evening, I attempted to light a fire to ward the cold and fragrance the living room. The fireplace, like the couple before it, fought me. I stuffed wads of newspaper and junk mail under three well-placed logs, but there must have been something in the air because after the kindling burnt through, the wood didn’t catch. I let the embers sit for a while, hoping that something would catch, but it never did. With no fire, I gave up on writing, cooked a delicious dinner of lamb and steamed string beams, and washed all the dishes that had been piling up in the sink. I know that none of this is in the least bit interesting, but I needed to provide background for how I got through my funk. That’s right. I’m now funk-free. The funk gave me lots of time to work on the redesign of the website. In another week, I should be able to hit the switch and share with you all the fancy new whistles and bells. Besides the stylistic changes, I did go back to my original idea of redesigning the website from the ground up. The redesign reuses a lot of slightly rewritten code but I’m happy I did it. As I tried to explain before, it’s now more aesthetically pleasing to me, and isn’t that the important thing?
Continuing on my week of firsts—if you remember, yesterday I managed to break the first item in the Castle—last night (early this morning is more accurate, since Julie hasn’t been getting home until after midnight), I fought with Julie for the first time. We’ve had minor squabbles in the past, but they never amounted to much. When my doctor last week asked about girlfriend-produced stress, I told him that I didn’t have any, thanks to my long-distance relationship. That has all since changed. We fought for a few hours on the phone, which is not the best of places to fight. It’s easier to argue when you’re face to face and your facial expressions can portray the evil thoughts that are going through your head. Suffice to say I was wrong, selfish, and pig headed. I’d like to blame the late hour, the funk, the moon moving through Jupiter, the cold weather, but the truth is, it was all me. I wanted something my way, and I was angry when I didn’t get it. I’m like a petulant child at times, and even when I’m like that, it’s hard to break it. I get into a bad mood after something doesn’t go my way, and that mood permeates everything I do. We’ve gotten over it after cooler heads prevailed, but there’s a lesson in all of this. I’m not sure what it is, but something along the lines of Trust in Julie (TIJ). Now, before you ask if I’m writing this so I don’t have to sleep on the proverbial (not sure why I’ve been using this word so often) couch—forgetting even that we don’t live together or that my couch is very comfortable and in easy access to my movie collection and Netflix—I’m not. That’s why I write fiction: so I can lie freely.
And, moving past my week of firsts, I broke my second item in the Castle. My beautifully self-installed, perfectly centered and caulked, garbage disposal, which was my second house project—come to think of it, there hasn’t been a real third project, I am a lazy man—stopped working. I could understand if I jammed it—by all rights, it should have been jammed with all the crap that I throw down there—but when I turned it on today, it just buzzed. It worked the last time I used it a few days ago. I turned off the electricity and spun the grinding thingy with a fork. It moved freely, which moved my diagnosis from jammed to engine trouble. I’m planning to recheck the electrical connection I made when I installed it, and then I’m going to call in the garbage disposal folks and invoke my right of warranty. Either that or I’m going to not use it anymore and pretend it’s not even there. That’s probably more likely.