Strangeness and Whales

You know your day is not going well when your whale runs away.
At least that is what I hear.
The boy was distraught. His whale had gone missing the night before. It had thunder-stormed and the whale was afraid of the lightning and the dark (though he liked the rain). I was certain the boy was playing a simple silly game.
I was driving along the same path that I normally took. There an old truck with a faded "For Sale" time. Here a house with so many add-ons you couldn't tell where the original house ended and where the wings began. To the left a the remnants of a barn and to the left...
The apple orchard was the same. The trees were gnarled, like clawed hands. The grass was tall around the trunks, though someone had taken the time to mow uneven paths between the rows. What was different about the field and the trees was the large black and white blow-up whale tethered with a white string to the trunk of one of the trees.

Noted things of interest: Jelly is not so hard to make, but apples are.

the Order of Things

I met a man who was like me; but unlike me in the regard he was happy and content. He has been on earth for seventeen arduous years. He has learned to love and has learned to live with his humanity. He has a wife and three children. I would have never known him for nothing more than a human had he not been joking about how silly humans were to his children.
"I still find it strange," said he, "That children here would go to extremes to make them and their animals look silly just to win a ribbon. Where I am from animals were used for what they were intended and not for fun and games."
His daughter, the one with the animal in question, laughed. It eased the tension she was feeling over the show she was about to enter in.
I asked him if what he said was true about where he came from. He passed this off as silliness and laughed at what he had told his little girl.
When he saw how serious I was he nodded and said it was true.
I asked if it got easier. If, in time, one could truly learn not just to act but to be Human.
The man told me that he had stopped acting eleven years ago when he fell in love. Though, he went on to say, it was still difficult to figure some things out. He still didn't fully understand the religious aspects of humanity. He couldn't grasp why so many people brought plants indoors, especially in the wintertime when plants she be resting for the coming spring. He also couldn't fathom, based on the religious principles of those that he cared for, why death tormented them.
I had never considered death. I believe I shall.
I asked him about the headaches I have been experiencing and the pain in my sides that go along with them now but he had no explanation and said he had adapted well. Even the atmosphere, thin as it was, had not been a problem for him. He did warn me against visiting high altitude areas such as the states of Colorado and Washington saying the mountain air was enough to slice open your lungs and leave you without means of acquiring enough oxygen to stay alive. I shall keep that information in mind when I set for travel.

Noted Things of Interest: Laundry is softer from a dryer, but sweeter from a line.

Note on Being Human: Laughter is the best healer. It can cure ailments and sicknesses and take away anxiety, tension, stress, anger, fear and any other faulty emotion.

Flighting Fancy

The fog this morning hovered five feet above the ground, separating the earth from the sky. It slowly moved away from the trees, twisting and unfurling above me like a wave of flags carried on the wind. The sunlight shone agonizingly bright through the fog, the mist strengthening it and blurring it and spreading its rays.

The headaches are getting more regular and sharper. I seem to have on between ten o'clock in the morning and one o'clock in the afternoon and another between eleven o'clock at night and three o'clock in the morning. This has been the case for nearly a week (five days. Six counting today). The headaches are standable, but unpleasant and they put a damper on the hours that they occur. The headaches (and other aches that come attached) make me feel tangible and more real than when I am merely existing here. Somehow I prefer not having those feelings.

Noted Things of Interest: Meteor showers are not as sensational here as where I am from. I counted three stars that lost their place in the Skies (Heavens, some call it. Outer Space. The Long Road Home. The Gap Between Here and There). Still, the meteors have a tendency to make me feel small. The glory of them fills me with awe and longings and... insignificance.

Notes on Being Human: Humans enjoy flaunting themselves for the world to see. They do so on television, in plays and even on the street. They make jokes about themselves and other at everyone's expenses. They talk jovially and congenially and nonchalantly with one another about things that should not be discussed with your neighbour but somehow are. It's all rather confusing.

Only Absence... Nothing But Silence

Note on Being Human:
Sometimes you simply have to stay inside yourself for a while to tolerate what is going on around you.

Reasons Enough

I heard a lovely song that was not sung by the writer. Apparently it was a "cover" of the writer's song. Covering his vocals with their own, perhaps? It was a deliciously lovely song. Then I heard the original. I was displeased and could not listen to the entirety of said song for it made my head ache.

I was indoors when I heard the plane this evening. It was flying close and there are no airports around. It passed quickly and I thought nothing of it until I heard it again a minute later. It flew over a few times and I decided it would keep doing so, therefore I went outside and stood upon my lawn by my garden fence and watched.

The plane was a deep yellow and it was the kind used for the "dusting" of crops. It flew so terribly close to the field across the road that it is a wonder it had time to clear the trees. The field is not large, but even so the plane dived again and again into it. It would start dusting before even crossing the road into the field so I discarded the idea of riding my bicycle closer. I did, however, watch until it had finished the field and moved on.

The sun was setting behind the dark clouds which had oppressed the sky all day. It was a deep golden-red that tinged the surrounding clouds with its brightness, smudging together the light and dark as if they were being mixed on a painter's palette. The plane, dark yellow and terribly close as it was, flew again and again past the sun. Its wingtips would light as if ablaze each time it passed below the sun.

The garden is awash in a sea of lush grass (a term I did not understand until the plant all but took over my garden) and squash which does not seem to mind the grass. The flowers around the outside of the white fence - marigold, zinnia, cosmos, morning glory, queen Ann's lace and sunflowers - tilted lazily in the stiff breeze blowing from the south. The dog, stupid animal that he is, chased the plane each time it passed overhead.

I rarely encounter such an alarming beauty created by nature and man alike, but here it was and I was awed.

Finding Things Once Lost (and other tidbits)

I sat inside a church. It was empty and the lights were dim. The church was large, not overly ornate, and the rows upon rows of benches ("pews") looked like train track rails lined up side-by-side-by-side-by-side from front to back; enough to fit hundreds of people. After a time people began to drift in. Each person seemed to know where they sat, as if they had been sitting in the same seat every Sunday at the exact hour and nothing would ever change. A woman knelt, her hands folded beneath her chin. She was in the center partway towards the front, the shining wood of the pew backs shining off around her. Her hair was long and blonde-streaked-with-grey. From where I sat in the back she looked young. Her face was full of wrinkles and signs of a long life.
When time is passing people seize it and rush to avoid being crushed by it. They began to swarm through the doors and I was struck with how much they look like ants as they filed in, one after another, along the narrow aisle-ways and towards their personally assigned seats.

I met a fellow who had the whitest set of teeth I have seen. His bottom set were braced and the braces had pale blue bands on them. His hair was what you would expect to find sported by a less suave Clark Gable (who, as you would know better than I, was a film actor from the early 1920s through the early 1960s). He had an intriguing accent and some of his words were hard to understand. Apparently he is Mexican. Mexico is in South America. His teeth were very white.

There was a man. He flew in a rocket ship. He cannot tell what ship. He cannot tell what year. He cannot tell with whom. He was fixed into an 800 pound suit and made the 18 minute fall from orbit to earth. He was badly burned due to a failed plan in the heat shield. I cannot tell you this man's last name. No one speaks of him. To him, this does not matter. He knows who he is and what he has done and what the world remembers of him and thinks of him is trivial. He is proud of all he has done. He loves his life. He regrets little or nothing. Everything has a meaning to him. Everything he has done has led him to where he is.
This is the man that defines everything Human.

Noted things of interest:
Getting along without a camera, though I really only had one that wasn't really mine for less than a year, is quite tiresome. I think I enjoyed taking photos. I should really learn to be more careful with things expensive and try hard to be less destructive.

Notes on Being Human:
People respect you more when they do not know you for who you are but for who they perceive you.
It is easier to be who you are not than to be who you truly are.

Lyrics

Noted Things of Interest:
Frequently, I have discovered, though they may have been the one to write a song, upon singing the song the singer may not sing what they have written. Too, it is more often than not the case that each version of the song, regardless of who sings it, is a tad different from all the other versions. I may sing "ara", you may sing "oh".

Note on Being Human:
Humans do not forgive one another and hold grudges throughout ages. Group A enslaved Group B over a century ago but group B (though none were alive in that time) still blames Group A for any of their current problems.
Group C, meantime, despises group D even though D (in modern times) has done nothing to C. C, however, finds D to be the scum of the earth and therefore will abuse A as well as B because they really want to get at D but have no way of doing so without jeopardizing what they have.
This explanation is wanting, but it's curious nonetheless.

Journal Day Unknown

Times have been too distracting.

Before I left home they gave me an age (twenty. Quite young. Or old) and a date of birth (the twentieth day of the month of July). According to this calendar I turned twenty-one yesterday. It was my first birthday celebration. There was chicken, pie and a wee model of a horse. It was stated that the twenty-first birthday is a day to celebrate with alcohol, but I avoided it. Alcoholic beverages make my head tiddly.

Noted things of interest:
I believe eggs are the most versatile food; second, perhaps, to grain. They are most delicious.

Note on Being Human:
I was in a park with a fellow and we were watching the sparrows chase a rather large hawk when a family walked past. I have encountered many foreigners (myself being one I suppose it could be said everyone I have encountered has been a foreigner), but never before have I realized what this family showed me.
There was a dark-skinned man and a black-haired woman and their yellow-frocked daughter and the mother and daughter were speaking together in their quick tongue, all sounding gibberish to me and my friend. Something the mother said made the girl laugh and her laughter was so ordinary, so natural that I forgot for a moment that there was a language barrier at all between us and them.
Regardless of how different a person is from another, every human laughs and laughter is quite simple to translate.

Journal Day 59

I saw a woman today who was the very essence of radiance. I only saw her from behind as I drove past, she was walking up her black driveway with a handful of letters from the box. There were gardens full of flowers and overhanging trees flanking the drive and her house was well-cared for, small and surrounded by flowers. The woman was dark-skinned and wore a white bikini with red polka dots. Her hair was long, black and shining and hung in banded waves to her mid-back. She had broad shoulders and walked with confidence and with a slight sway in her steps. She knew she was beautiful.



I hunted a hot air balloon the other night. It was brightly coloured and soared languidly above pastures and crops without a care, the mild breeze pushing it hither and yon, but steadily east and a little south. I followed it for a time and thought how much I would like to be so high above the earth with nothing between me and the earth but wicker and clouds.

There has been a strange buzzing in my head that I cannot identify. I think it might just be the remnants of a day spent mowing a lawn (something quite exciting, indeed! The way the blade cuts the grass so deftly, so evenly...)

Note things of interest: Dried bones sound lovely striking one another. Bones can also be used for many things: buttons, decorations, accessories, etc.

Note on Being Human: There is such a thing as an overly-friendly individual: someone who cannot stand silence and feels lonely unless surrounded by people with whom they can speak. These types of people make friends easily, but make enemies just as quickly and should be regarded in a kindly manner, but not a close manner.

Journal Day 58

Today is a salmony type day.

I leaned upon a fence and watched as three farmers turned rows of dried grass into squares (bales). The machinery they used was simplistic, yet terribly functional and awe-some. The way the baler fed the grasses into itself, compacted it and finally tied the entire bale with twine before pushing it up into the waiting hands of one of the men to be stacked upon the trailer with the rest was most assuredly impressive. It is something I shall never forget.

Noted things of interest: Jell-o is simply fantastic in all its cartilage-y glory. Jell-o Jiggler Gnomes... they are something to be sung of in children's legends.

Note on being human: Humans more often than not despise one another whether they show it on the surface or keep it to themselves.

Journal Day 56 (Being Today)

Shins are bruisable and breakable and do not take well to meeting porch steps violently.
I was driving back from many hours of perusing cemeteries (incidentally, most people believe this act to be strange and morbid and a bit macabre) when I passed a man. He was an elderly man, perhaps mid-sixties given his hair and demeanor. He wore a black half circle over his left eye and carried a red and black gym bag over his shoulder. When the man driving in front of me passed the man raised his thumb into the air and turned towards us. I nodded and waved to him and drove on.
Later, upon returning home, I learned that the man was "hitch-hiking". I do not know the reason and I do not know the circumstances, but I felt poorly for a time knowing that I could have assisted him (and learned if and why he was missing an eye). I think the feeling is called remorse. Perhaps it is some sympathy as well.

Note of Interest: F'noodles can be used in place of (or along with) garden hoses.

Note on Being Human:
Sometimes the body does not seem to fit. All the pieces are connected, but they don't seem natural to one another. I wonder if this is common to feel this way on occasion.

Journal Day 56 (Being Yesterday)

The Internet doesn't always work the way it is supposed to.

I struck a tiny sparrow today with my vehicle. I could see it fluttering on the ground in mortal agony so I turned back. It's eyes were moving and its beak opening and closing in tiny gasps. I picked it up and cupped it in my hand. I could feel its heart pitta-patting above my fingers. It's eyes were watery and it finally stopped breathing. Seconds later its heart was still and not even a vibration went through its tiny body. It was so fragile in my hands. I stroked its soft chest and touched its head and felt a twinge of sorrow for the bird. I realized that creatures of this world are the same as anywhere. They live, breathe and die just as anyone.

Journal Day 55 (Entry 54)

Apparently there is a thing as "too much" sleep. I missed all of Sun's Day due to not waking up for it.
Independence Day.
I asked a couple of people what it meant. I was given two reasons, though I only choose to believe the first. I was told that it was the day this country became independent from another. I was also told it was the day Earth declared its dependence from the terrible slimy Space Lords who had the entire human race enslaved and were using them as ant farms for their children. I don't know what an ant farm is or why you would want one or why the Slime Lords' children would want human farms, but I do know the person who told me this knows nothing.
I went on a walk in the afternoon. I passed many hand-decorated signs declaring the location was "where the party was" and the ilk. There were garlands and ribbons and flags strung up everywhere and the whole town seemed to be arrayed in gaiety. I turned onto a small street that wound down into a ravine, over a river and up a steep hill. The houses were all small - trailers - and most were worse than dilapidated. At the bottom of the hill was a rusted, holey home with a sagging garage crudely constructed beside it. Outside this garage was a man in grey overalls and big goggles. He was leaning over the engine of a sleek white car. There were pieces and bits and tools strewn everywhere.
I asked the man why he was not celebrating his freedom like the rest of the country.
"Freedom?" he had laughed at me. It was not a kind laugh. "I live in a house that is too expensive and feed a family that is too large. I work a job that pays too little and fix cars in every waking moment of spare time so I can make ends meet; but only if I stretch and strain and struggle to do so.
"I cannot afford the gasoline to drive to a church who will not help support me in my need, though I help them when I am able. I haven't seen my parents in eight years because they believe I am living poorly and they are disappointed in me. My children have holes in their shoes and cannot get enough to eat and our government is so concerned with giving money to businesses they feel the need to jack up my taxes until I can barely afford to keep this trash heap."
I did not know what to say to this. I realized that not everyone is equal and there are those who are less fortunate than others. I also realized that not everyone who is not well off is as bitter as this man.
Later, when it had grown dark, I put a loaf of bread into his mail box.

The fourth of July. My senses tingle thinking of it. Pie and cake and barbecue and bread pudding and corn o' the cob and ice cream and fresh peas from the garden and baked beans and onions sautéed in white wine and cole slaw and tomato-onion salad.
After the sun grudgingly set there were fireworks to be seen. We sat on the front porch and watched as the horizon lit up with explosions. Bomb burst after bomb burst in a rainbow symphony of colour delighted and amazed us. The earth trembled beneath our feet with each torrent of thunder brought on by the rockets. Every now and again would be a lull and you could see the stars far overheard, bright and shining. The air was nippy and smelled of bonfires and cooking fires and grills cooling. I destinguished three different types of music playing in the distances around us. Far across the fields could be seen a fire, small as a speck, but I knew it would be a raging inferno had we been close.
I returned home, surrounded by fireworks lighting up the skies and drowning out the stars. Late in the night when the moon had already crested its peak and had begun to fall slowly towards its bed again I sat upon my roof and looked out into the woods. The fireflies were having their own celebration, as diamonds glittering beneath a flickering light. In the end, their's was a more marvelous celebration and felt more realistic than all the fireworks I had seen.

Journal Day 53

They say today is "Independence Day", better classified as the "fourth of July" (this month being July and today being the fourth). I am not certain what they are independent from or why, but I shall find out before the day is done. All I do know is I was kept up last night by the explosions. I sat on the roof with a bottle of apple juice and watched the sky as it was torn and shredded millions of times over by the brightest colours. Interesting that these same type of rockets used to kill people bring others so much joy. I was enamored by the "works of fire" and now am sleepy (meaning I am picking up slowly on sleep and sleeping). Independence Day is, perhaps, the day we are independent to make fire in the sky.
The other thing I know about the day is I am invited to go eat "barbecue" and swim in a pool today which is exciting.

Noted things of interest: The sun is a glorious back drop for anything! I have found a few more instances of alien life on an in-alien planet. that would be the tree and the poor tato.
Note on Being Human: It's not all bad.

Journal Day 52

I went to see a movie today. I am overwhelmed and sleep is in order.

Journal day 51

I was speaking to someone today. He was a man who worked in a library, an interesting man and clever man. He said the best way to raise a human was through this manner: Graeme Base, Lloyd Alexander, Neil Gaiman. I did not understand him entirely.

The sky today held some interest - as with most days. It was a fretful sky, a mistrusting sky. Throughout the day there was one patch of honest blue sky, changing with the clouds and promising clearer days ahead. The patch reminded me that the entire sky is a luscious azure above all the grey. It was a heartening thought, but one that made me the smallest bit homesick.

Journal Entry Day 50

Half a century gone.
Wait...
Time. Hm.
Time is not always as it seems, but sometimes is meant to be pondered.
They say it is strange to be cutting watermelon at midnight, but there was a certain peace to it.
I knocked my knuckles last night and the smallest right most one is purple and puffy, the discoloration spreading out to the knuckle beside it and partially up both fingers towards the middle knuckle. Bruising is a strange thing.

Noted Things of Interest: Clouds. Peanut Butter and chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven with a glass of hot chocolate turned cold. The colours in the clouds around the moon last night (though they could not properly be captured on card. Speaking of, few people capture things on film any longer (I have yet to see film). This means that saying you capture something on film makes little sense since the photos are saved to cards. Ergo: the clouds' colours last night could not be properly captured on card; neither the intensity of the moon nor the severity of the clouds - purple and blue and sulpher in the moon's light were they.



Note on Being Human:
When someone has a selfish idea in mind they do not always realize it.
Humans grow differently than I might have thought.

Journal Entry Day 49

There are things, then there are things.
These are the things, the objects that we hold so dear.
These are the things which determine our humanity.
These things can be tossed aside like so much dishwater on a rainy day (which is hard to fathom since there are those here as well which would give up their own offspring for a sip of the greasy dishwater).
These things cannot and should not be discarded. Things such as life, liberty and... religion.

Noted things of interest:
A small bird with a striped tail (though the stripes are faint on its little brown body) keeps coming to my windows. It does not like my Vagabond cat and scolds her mercilessly. Today I discovered why this bird has taken such a particular shine to my house. Flying in and out of the old propane grill with tidbits in its beak I have learned there is a nest either built or being built beneath the old ashes and coals. Fortunately this is not the grill we utilize, but the one that came with the house. I should name this bird, but I simply call it "Wren". Perhaps that is enough.
Cameras are lovely things. I stole one from someone (it is now broken in my care) and cannot stop myself from finding things to photograph. Why do people tire of this world when there is so much - so much alien - to be seen in it?

Crosswords are not easy.
Stealing signs from bathrooms, grocery stores and gas stations is not allowable no matter how interesting they might be.

Note on Being Human:
Love is something that is taken for granted and abused. It is much like a goldfish in an office bowl.

Journal Day 48 (Today)

Before I arrived I was told sleep was a good and natural thing, but I cannot figure out how to attain it in the proper ways and at the proper times. It is dark out, but they claim it is today though I will classify this night as still part of yesterday. The timing and dating is confusing, but so is the nightime.
I find myself incorrigibly intrigued by the moon. Having a sun (though one larger or closer than this one) the days are not so different. The moon, though, adds splendor to the night and creates a new sort of longing that I had never felt before fifty days ago. It is also an inspirational object. The fact that it is such a dead thing with so much power is fascinating. Though, without the sun, it is as useless as humans without their world.
The moon makes the nights sometimes unbearably bright which doesn't aid in my sleeplessness. I am used to nights so black you are best to stay indoors rather than risk falling in the dark. I am told there are caverns beneath the ground - ones safe to walk in - that are as dark as my nights. I would like to see them sometime and see if it is so.
It would also appear the moon has strange magnetic principles used to draw people from their homes at night. It makes me wish to be outside beneath it; though, I will have to suppress my terrors of the woodland creatures. The cloaked birds and the masked cats give me great anxiety at times.
I like normal cats. Mistress Vagabond is a good cat. She is soft and prickly at once.

Noted things of interest:
The hard rain is called "hail" and is not meant to be eaten even though it is a form of ice and ice is delicious. Hail is like snow and, though appearing harmless and pure, can be deadly and filled with grit and bacteria like everything else.

Note on Being Human:
Sometimes there are days when you like yourself quite well. These are good days. These are days to be remembered. These are the days that you are empowered and so proud of being who and what you are that you can go about your day with self-confidence and without a care as to what others think of you. As long as you think well of yourself, you are invincible!
There are other days altogether when you wake up and feel that you are not as you should be. You look in the mirror and you do not like what you see. You feel you should be different, that something should be different, or that something is different and it has ruined you. These are the days that you walk around, head low, angry, not caring about others and the way they are and not caring to treat them well because you feel as though no one treats you well though it is all an illusion brought on by self-loathing. These are the days that cares should be taken to avoid. These are the troubling days that make you miserable. These are the self-pitying days that should be scoffed at and shunned, but are sometimes embraced and accepted.
Wouldn't it be easier to always have the former days and to never have the latter?
Being Human can be confusing.

Journal Day 47 (being Yesterday)

Noted things of interest:
Apparently the invention of putting together sausages, noodles, cheeses and tomatoes isn't as brilliant as I first thought and is known here as "lasagna" and has been around for quite some time. Also, they tell me, it is not meant to be eaten for the breakfasting meal but that isn't stopping me! I made an entire pan of it this morning and will make more tomorrow! I believe I will never tire of this meal.

Furthermore: swimming pool skimmers are not a force to be taken lightly and should be dealt with in a cautious manner (and boogie boards and diving boards do not mix). A sea of Lasagna