“Oh good, you’re just in time,” the crazed thirty year old in a turban said as she answered the door for her mother.
To my credit, I’d had a long day and it wasn’t a turban – but a giant towel ‘do completing my freshly washed coif look on evenings such as these. And on this particular evening, I’d almost forgotten to complete my #30daysofnewthings task. So, naturally, I was about to drag my mom into it. You see, as promised a couple moons ago – one of which was a super one I couldn’t easily see through the clouds – I’d been lamenting my own stupidity and lack of lunar-solar research when I got my Christmas in March disappointing news that: “No, Virginia, there’s not a solar ‘clipse.” So, having seen this cool Pinterest concept of home-made cosmic bowling, I’d decided to rise like a Phoenix from the ashes of my own self pity of missed celestial events, and paint the heavens (my shih-tzu piss stained rug in this case) with my own array of electric astral children to wallop all at once with my own rolling moon (oversized cheat ball.) Granted, I’d planned to do this with the whole family, but it’d been one’a those days.
So, now I was handing the ball to my mother from a darkened room.
To play a round with me before my soup was done reheating.
This was fine – ’cause as you can see…
…we’re still sorting out the logistics and running the beta tests for turning this into a point keeping game.
I feel like once the weather warms up, it’ll be more fun.
Much like this other #30daysofnewthings social experiment I set up this week:
The concept?
Take an old sketch pad to the park, set it up with a sign somewhere along a trail, and ask people to draw in it. Then, come pick it up hours later and see if anyone’s left anything – and what. The reason I chose a park? I’m told people are more empathetic and less asshole-y when they get out around nature. That made me think they’d be more likely to leave an etching and less likely to nick it as a dick move. But if they did, I reasoned, it’d probably be done by a kid – and that made me happy in a “well at least that’s more time they’re spending being creative and less time they’re spending on their iphone..” Admittedly, there’re a few more flaws in this design than just that – ones which’ll make me need to rock a repeat in mayhaps a week or two. The first is when I did it: on a Thursday when mostly only retirees traipse the trails of the area. And we all know old people are afraid of trying new things. In fact, that’s how they get old to begin with; they let their brains freeze into one strained snowflake perpetually terrified of neuroplastic activity in any form.
So, any’a them who walked by that book, probably read the message as this:
Ya know, instead of the friendly message it was meant to be.
(Though maybe I should employ a Jigsaw drawing instead…)
Also: the weather, I feel, was a huge variable. Sunny, but cool-ish, the temp wasn’t as conducive to paths crowded with peeps as it might’ve been on any other day. In fact, on non-holiday weekdays, I manage to see at least one million percent more dirt decorated SUVs loaded up with bike racks at the local river, marsh, and park around noonish. (Are they playing hookey? Or just crazed writers working from home like myself?) And they all seem super pleasant if you run into ’em. Hell, even the hardcore ones who come there every day – rain or shine (#hi), are sweeter when the sun shines. For this reason, I tend to think that if I plant my pad in the park on a warmer afternoon – right after school’s out – that art book’ll be filled from end to end.
Just like when I read this book from end to end last night, which was also on my list:
What? I didn’t say it wasn’t gonna be from my end to my other end.
(That was actually a failed yoga pose my core wasn’t strong enough to hold into an arm balance… Yet.)
And that’s the whole point here with this #30days feat. Some of what I try ends up just highlighting my lack of planning, consideration, foresight, or strength. Whether it’s celestial events, social experimentation, or the abdominal sodomy of an asana – I learn some shortcoming about myself most days. Were I to stop or skip a day of different-stuff-ness, that might generate a defeatist attitude. That’s why there’s no skipping. However small, I opt for some sorta break off the habit path each day. And I think that’s a big part of the idea behind the challenge. Not every one’a them’s gonna be some monumental peak experience of permanently inking myself or base jumping (#haventdoneityet). It’s not about that. It’s more of a mental investment. ’cause a big pie-piece of eating up a new experience – of being willing to – is to crack through fear and feed the mind’s need to feast on neural novelty noms. The other part, I’m realizing, is to accrue an awareness of yourself – and others. Empathy grows from the seed of self betterment in the form of yoga poses, then it evolves to “Well, if I were a rando on a walk, when would I be willing to draw in a rando Strathmore pad?”
Then, before you know it, you’re volunteering at the local retirement home in hopes of keeping their brains young too.
Shoot, maybe I should start popping out some progeny.
So they’ll bring me some novel Saw-esque game by the time I’m living a mimicked itinerary daily at the Westminster.