Summer Vacation: Day 2

The day is, in some ways, just beginning and it's already been really cool!

I sort of pre-woke up, meaning that I became conscious, but was nowhere near ready to begin my day, around 2:30 pm. To ease myself into consciousness, I listened to the first episode (of 52 or so) of HORATIO HORNBLOWER. Not as powerful as the A&E movies, but not a bad listen at all!

Then Brian & I did the road-trip thing w/Mom. We found the outlet mall she was looking for, then decided to just go straight back home and get food there. Sonic! Very summer-y :) Brian ordered a double cheeseburger and a foot-long Coney, and it sounded so good I copied him! Talk about "summer-y"!!! For some reason that meal just screamed SUMMER for me.

AND... I'm STILL full! I have a case of cool, refreshing beer in the fridge, and I can't even think of popping one because I know it'll just make me feel heaviER. (I learned never to drink when I'm stuffed... Bad juju!)

But here's the cool part...

My car's Check Engine light is on, so I dropped it off at the autoshop that has fixed this car since my Dad first bought it. It's maybe a quarter of a mile from the apartment. It's right around dusk. And I WALKED HOME.

Okay, maybe that statement doesn't convey the sensations I'm trying to communicate, so let me try another tack...

It's a warm, but mild, 80+ degrees outside. Slight breeze. Just enough to soften the air and prevent me from breaking a sweat as I walk.

I've got my ZVUE in my pocket and my earphones in. (Not those silly earbuds; I'm talking crystal clear sound.)

It's Sunday night. Everything in North Austin is buzzing in that sort of suburban way: Plenty of movement, but not too much, just enough to make your surroundings feel ALIVE... but not oppressive. I wouldn't say North Austin has a buzz, but sort of a gentle, unobtrusive hum about it. I am by no means the only cat cruising around this evening, but everyone else is so far away from each other that none of us intrudes on each other's private little stories.

The sky is dark blue above and purple nearer the horizon, and orange right at the horizon.

Also, the North Austin sky is BIG. Much bigger than the Central or Downtown Austin sky. But not as big as, say, the Odessa sky. North Austin has few buildings over 3 stories, and in my little neck of the woods the buildings are nicely far apart. So you can see the whole sky around in many areas, and still enjoy the plentiful trees.

The first song I listen to is Red Hot Chili Peppers' cover of "Roller Coaster", the extended and unedited version. This is such a joyful tune that it not only matches what's in my soul right now, but nurishes it, feeds it, grows the feeling to the next stage.

I rarely ever hike, but hiking is in my nature. Despite the fact I have the tummy of an inactive person, my legs are built for power and distance. Despite the fact that I was asthmatic for the first 12 years of my life, and the fact that I am a smoker, my lungs keep my oxegen levels plentiful. I seriously seem to have been constructed for the purpose of walking A LOT. (Not running, mind you; running hurts and is annoying, unless I'm being chased... or am chasing ;D)

Moreover, I SO enjoy feeling tiny! That is to say, I'm a biggish dude. My drivers liscence says I'm 5' 9" but everyone tells me I must be 6 feet. And my wieght never seems to get below 200 lbs, and my heaviest seems to be about 230 lbs. So I'm not a little dude. But when I'm hiking around an environment with tall buildings and tall trees and the distances between them and me are such that they look small -- though I know they are not -- I just feel GREAT PLEASURE in that. No idea why, but I do! It's actually not that I feel tiny AT ALL, but I get a sense of how much BIGGER everything else is than I am. And somehow, I enjoy that feeling :)

So Red Hot Chili Peppers' extended and unedited version of "Roller Coaster gets me across the highway and under the overpass, past the Starbucks and some sandwich shop and past the Chase Bank drive-thru island. And as I enterthe parking lot of what used to be the Showpalace 6 -- the building has still not been rased or leased by someone else after a decade, at least -- Dido's "Take My Hand" begins its slow pulse through my brain and veins.

I cross this vast, empty parking lot where trees break the asphault here and there (as they've always done), past a couple of cop cars parked next to each other for whatever reason. I walk past a high school Track track which encircles a football field to my right, while a small fire station hoses off one of its engines to my left.

Dido builds and builds and BUILDS to an orgasmic cresendo which levels out and continues cruising along for a while longer, and the skys grow so subtly darker -- but not nearly oppressively so :)

I pass the high school tennis courts and it's VAST parking lot (this is a physically LARGE high school) and "Take My Hand" finally eases to a close a couple of yards before I get to my street, where I'll be turning right. As Dido fades away I hear the crickets chirping and decide I'll enjoy the natural ambience for the last leg of my hike.

The last leg was the shortest, but it was still immensely pleasurable!

I wish EVERY Sunday night could be like this!!! I mean, I'm sure it could be, but knwoing I'm going back to work the next day tends to make other activities seem more pressing.

Although... When I do get back to work I'll have a new schedule... Wherein I'm off Sunday through Tuesday...

So a Sunday walk would be the BEGINNING of my weekend...

Hmm...

Anyway, what I've described is just a flash of a glimpse of the wonderful experience I had. Never the less, I wanted to capture it for you, and for myself sometime later.

I SINCERELY hope your Sunday was as pleasant and fulfilling as mine is so far :D