.*.*.*

Today I woke and found a bird on my bed post.
He was singing, but not like a bird. In fact when I looked again it was no longer a bird but a crystal ball.
Inside the ball was an ocean.
Except the ocean wasn't blue water - it was golden light, flowing like liquid.

I reached up to take hold of this enchanting thing and no sooner had my finger tips touched it that it turned into a phone. I put the phone to my ear and the bird was singing again. Only this time his voice was softer. I got up to move to the window and as I got closer his voice got louder and clearer.

He was singing a chorus and as it rose to the climax I opened the blinds and light came pouring in. It knocked me down and lifted me up all at once.

I guess I had closed my eyes, because when I was opening them again I found myself on the edge of a canyon. I wasn't facing the drop-off, but I knew it was behind me. I knew that there are sharp rocks and whispering vultures in caves. But the more I thought about what was behind me, I realized that I probably haven't even woken up yet, but was sleep-walking. And behind me was nothing more than my soft bed, still warm. I could just relax and lay back and be received back into slumber.

As I start to feel my weight shift to the rear the bird flies by. The wind from his wings rights my posture. He then disappeared within the branches of a tree in front of me.

I feel sweat beading on my face and only then do I see that I am standing on coals burning read and white. I pick up one and put it in my pocket.

The shade of the bird tree is exactly what I need. I move to attain it. Right as I get to the edge I hear the bird's voice. I look to the sky and to the left and to the right, but the sound's ambiguity gives no indication of the source. I look at the shade again.
It is just out of reach. If I concentrate hard it feels like I can get to it. I focus and try.

Again, just as I reach the edge the voice comes again. This time a little louder. But I don't want to take my eyes from the shade. I don't want it to go away when I loose sight of it.

head down and fists clenched I press toward the edge of the shadow....

I hit my head. It felt like the tree trunk, but I couldn't look up. I still had no shade.

The bird stopped singing. I didn't notice that he had been singing all the while, until the silence deafened me. I start to look around to see if he had left the tree. The tree which I was now directly beneath. As my eyes take in my new surroundings I see that there is shade all around me, but I still feel so hot and tired. My side aches and stings, I reach down to locate the cause and find that my pocket is hotter than anything I have felt. It's burning me, but I cannot lose my grip on it. I remove the ember and hold it up for inspection.
All along, it was this glowing coal that was giving off the light. As I gaze at the light source I feel the gentle pressure of birdfeed on my shoulder.

He whispers to me. I nod my head in agreeance and humble shame.

With a deep breath I wind up and throw the coal as hard and as far as I can muster the strength to do so.

Immediately after I loosened my grip to release the stone it disappeared. I was in total darkness. I could see only black.

The birds feet had left their perch on my shoulder.

I can hear him, though. He sounds distant, but crisper and clearer than ever before.
He is singing again.
The words to his melody urge me to take steps from where I stood.
As I moved, my legs and feet seemed to be carrying me to the rhythm of this new song.

The more I moved the closer the song seemed. The more real the words became and more refreshed my soul felt.

I was spinning around, arms spread wide. sand beneath my feet... wait, sand?

I open my eyes and see the surf of liquid light crashing on the shore. The sky was light, the sand was light, my flowing robe was light. My soul was light.

phenomininanana

The avacodo seed phenomina:

I carried a cutting board that had scraps of verious food items on it to the trash can. one of the items was the large pit of an avacado. An inch away from the trash can, and the seed rolls off the board and vanishes. I go to find it so that a roach won't eat it and grow five times it's deceased brother's size (which would be human size). But, alas, it is no where to be seen. I look for about ten minutes in every possible direction it could have rolled.

About an hour later I was walking through my living room and what do I step on?
An avacado seed.
It had to have rolled about seven feet (not a downhill slope either) turned a corner, ramped up from the tile to the carpet, rolled another foot or so, veard right and came to a hault on the other side of the kitchen wall.
It's the little avacado seed that could! I think he was trying to make a break for it because he didn't want to get assaulted by the overly aggressive, trash rummeging raccoon.

OUT TO GET ME

I'm pretty sure the custodian of the building is out to get me.
Just because 8 times out of 10 I happen to need to use the bathroom right when he's making his mid-day cleaning rounds... What? I drink a lot, no big deal.
Anywho.

I think he has schemed against me from day one.
I have reason to believe that he has set the air freshener in the bathroom to be remote controlled so it will spray me in the face when I come in. yes this has happened more than once, and why the heck is a spray-style air freshener face-level anyways? I am pretty sure he took note of my hieght and then adjusted it to be so.

Since I have to sit at my desk all day smelling pine-fresh I needed some comfort candy. I found a weird jar in my desk when I moved in that I filled with a few of my favorites: jolly ranchers, creme savers (raspberry of coarse), and most definitely hershey's kisses. Anyways, the type of content really isn't the point. The fact is the amount has depleated faster than one human would be capable of doing. This leads me to believe that the custodian has recognized my cubicle (it's the only one with a beaded curtain over the "door") and is gradually depriving me of the only solace I have from being sprayed in the face by pine.
That tricky devil.

On top of that I'm pretty sure that he's the one that wedges my chair underneath my desk when he dumps my trash every night. When I get in in the mornings I start off by wrestling my chair away from the death grip of my desktop. It's like he lowers it down puts it under the edge of the desk and then pumps it up again.
Why, little janitor man, why?

At any rate, thanks for leaving me all the crappy blue jolly ranchers, that's real big of you.

If one were to get a henna tattoo across the width of one's shoulders. Would this design be approppriate?

so I go to the closet to get a new roll of tp. I take it out, unwrap it from it's plastic and go to put it on the spindel. Something falls from the center of the roll into my hand.
#$^& ^&**() !@#$%^
I drop everything and watch as a mammoth-sized roach falls to the floor. he lands on his back and sounds like a dried mesquite bean rattling around trying to right himself. No I am not positive that it was a male - but it's a pretty safe bet.
I stand there for a second frozen in disgust and fear. he flips over to his stomach and then walks around flexing his muscles.
I scream and jump around for a while and then run to get the death spray.
when i renter the room he his racing up the wall.
so ensues more screaming and jumping.
I spray him off the wall with Raid (that's how I spell relief)
He continues to run around and seak shelter from the bitter rain on what was his scarey parade.
finally he tries to climb the wall again and falls back. He then acts out a valiant death scene that would make any old western movie cowboy proud.

Dead and gone.

What is the deal with abnormally large creature encounters these days?

Why can't I run into an abnormally large marshmallow or an abnormally large carton of ice cream in my freezer. Why does it always have to be something that puts fear for my life in my body?

today is nearly yesterday

Well.
It's been decided. I, along with my dear sisters, will be running in the Nashville Country Music Marathon on the 28th of April.
Maybe I have just caught marathon fever. It seems every other person I meet is doing or has done a marathon. My middlest sister is gearing up for her second.
I don't claim to be a runner.
I actually have expressed passionate hate towards running. on many occasions.

It all started to turn when I was a waitress.
I would work many long hours with meals on the go consisting of breadsticks and salad dressing. I knew I would turn into a breadstick if I kept it up so I started working out. Then I started working more. I wouldn't get off until 11 pm or later and usually would have a surplus of energy and a hella lot of stress. And at this time of night the gym would be closed. Blah blah blah... all of this to say I took up running as a theropy of sorts. It made a dramatic difference in how I felt at work and about work.
So then I have this new bond with running on a more emotional level than before. Before it was an obligation - not a good reason to do ANYTHING, by the by.

But the idea of running for hours never has even crossed my mind.

So I have 33 weeks. The recommended time frame from nothing to marathon is about 18 or 20 weeks. so - surely I can do this, right?
The plan is to go for the half marathon. That's reasonable. But how sweet it would be to make it a whole. But I am not going to get too ambitious.
after all
I am not a runner.

beauty

not i

Most people would go on a run or do some aerobic activity in the morning to get that jump-start adrineline rush. Not me. I just take out my trash.
Before you judge let me tell you.
I don't get a rush because I run down all three flights of stairs. I don't get it because the dumpster is an up hill trek. It doesn't came from having to hold my breath super long because the smell is unbearable. Nor does it come from hoisting large bags of garbage from as far as possible because I don't want the stench to stick on me.

No

It comes from a hostile confrontation with a devil-coon.

I open the door to the dumpster building and a raccoon is in there making an appauling mess for which I used to blame my nieghbor below me. (The one that has had a vacuum box and various assorted trash items on her porch for nearly a month.)
Anyways, it turns around and jumps out of the dumpster and starts growling and hissing at me. I go forward thinking he'll run off and hide while I deposit my trash. Nope. He move forward too. What the heck?
So I make my best efforts to swing the bag into the hole from ten feet away. All the while the coon is closong the gap.
I think I yelled.
Then I slammed the door on his face with a satisfactory sense of power.

Goodday, mr. desease ridden coon.