Category: walking

Hot

The heat wasn’t that bad. He thought that people were exaggerating, the way they gasped, shrieked, and ran, sweat running down their faces, eyes bulging and mouth gaping like they were imitating fish out of the water, as their clothes ignited.

A Volvo, BMW, and Jeep exploded as they passed him. Street lights drooped like limp noodles. Flames sprang from nothing to consume trees as the grass turned into black ash and a yellow fire hydrant lost its shape, issuing arcing geysers of water that turned into steam and blew away. Buildings began melting and crumbling.

Smiling, he shook his head and looked at the black-smoke inferno spreading behind him. If they thought this was bad, they should experience what he’d just been there.

Now that had been hot.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Today’s choice is a walking song. Rain hammered everything as I strode along. Into this streamed George Ezra’s song, “Shotgun” (2018). “Shotgun”‘s beat is conducive to keeping a good energetic song, and I enjoy his voice, especially in the chorus when he sings, “I’ll be riding shotgun underneath the hot sun feeling like a someone.” As always, I feel a need to mention that I’m always surprised when I see Ezra because his voice makes me imagine he looks differently.

Good song to help you feel amused, and feel like someone. Hope you enjoy it.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

Waiting for my wife the other day in Trader Joe’s, I started streaming “Sex and Candy”.

Hanging around, downtown by myself
And I had so much time to sit and think about myself
Then there she was, like double cherry pie
Yeah, there she was, like disco super-fly

h/t to Genius.com

Marcy Playground’s 1997 song has so little to do with waiting for my wife that I laughed. It’s a song I enjoy the song’s lyrics and John Wozniak’s delivery. I used to stream it often while walking around. It might have returned to the infinite organic playlist.

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I was streaming this song this morning as I walked through the damp early day. Weather, like many things in life, is on a spectrum of several sliding scales. Weak sunshine was trying to warm us up but had a long way to go, and the wind was being coy about which way it’d blow.

Love and relationships are other spectrums of existence. When you meet someone who attracts you sexually or stimulates you mentally, where will it go? It’s not usually a steady movement. Sometimes it all works, and it comes together, and then…their spectrum shifts. Suddenly, you find that they’re no longer in love with you. They’re having an affair. Although they haven’t told you, they’re moving on.

And you find it out in an unplanned way that sears your heart and numbs your senses.

This song tells a story of one such slide along the spectrum, the part of the spectrum after discovering the betrayal, the part where you’re trying to find a way to go on.

Dean Lewis, “Be Alright”, 2018.

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Walking through the town that’s my home, the many vacant faces I encountered coaxed “1979” by the Smashing Pumpkins (1996) into my stream.

So many people use vacant, unwilling or unable to look at others. Their faces are often empty and sad. Wealthy, poor, homeless, students, male and female, I wonder what’s going on with them? Does life have them distracted, or are they hollow people?

Always something to think about when you’re walking, you know? Distractions from the dreams, they often end up as additions to the writing in progress.

Cheers

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Interruption

He came across a disaster. Dead ants were spread everywhere. Most were smashed into small, curled bodies. Some were obliterated. Ant parts were everywhere.

He couldn’t imagine what’d happened. Down on his hands and knees, he ignored the traffic in the street beside him and mourned their losses, watching as the bodies were collected and carried away. After the final body was gone, he went to rise when he saw the ants come out and face him. All were still for several moments. When he felt an appropriate amount of time had passed, he bowed his head and said, “I’m sorry.”

The ants retreated to resume their lives, and he went on his way.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Watching the travelers and tourists around Ashland, I often wonder about back stories. I want to know what’s going on in their minds.

For example, a group of three girls and a boy were encountered as I was walking. They appeared to be sixteen, seventeen years old. All were white and brunette. The guy was dressed in white pants, white activity shoes, and a tee shirt with an unbuttoned green, blue, and yellow plaid shirt. One hand in his pocket, sunglasses on, the other hand held a Starbucks Grande cup with a straw sticking up. He sucked on that straw the entire time that I saw him.

One of the girls wore denim shorts with a white and green athletic shirt tucked into the waist with white knee-high socks and running shoes. The second was in jeans with a red shirt tucked into the waist and brown shoes. The third wore a sleeveless black chiffon dress with black spike heeled shoes, the kind of dress you’d expect to see at a cocktail party, or on Fox News. All the females wore heavy make-up.

This was eleven in the morning. I wanted to know what was going on with this group. The girl in the shorts, who was shortest, had a map that she was following, and talking about where they were and what street they were supposed to take, but the others – except the guy – chattered like birds.

I encountered them at a street corner. After assessing them and having my curiosity rise, Everlast’s song, “What It’s Like” (1998) began streaming.

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

This one came from yesterday’s walk. The song, “Iris”, by the Goo Goo Dolls came out in 1998. I was walking past a bed of gorgeous bearded irises. My brain said, irises, and the stream, like some weird Siri/Alexa, said, “Playing “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls.” I finished the walk with that last bit thrashing through my head.

And I don’t want the world to see me.
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand.
When everything’s made to be broken,
I just want you to know who I am.

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Floofdude

Floofdude (floofinition) – animal lover.

In use: “The floofdude kept food and treats in his bag so that he could feed any cats and dogs that he met, and carried nuts and seeds for crows and squirrels. They all started looking for him. It was like Mr. Doolittle was walking down the street on some days.”

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