I was standing next to my pickup putting gas in it. A red Chevy pickup at the little mini-mart backed out of a parking spot to drive off; nothing weird about it, I’m still kind of a car dork and pay attention to makes and models of the vehicles around me. There were two locals inside, and they slowed down as they were driving by me, I couldn’t tell what they were looking at, so I just kind of stared into the distance. I figured they were looking at people behind me or something, if even that, it’s not weird for people to drive slowly out of a gas station or to pause for a second after they’ve backed out of a spot.

They started to drive away. Then they stopped, and backed up and paused directly in front of my pickup. They were both looking straight at me with the window down and my eyes snapped to theirs when I realized they were looking at me and not someone behind me. The driver had a bandana on and he was smiling, the passenger had a goatee and a crew cut and tattoos all the way up his face and he wasn’t smiling at all. The driver leaned forward and said, “Hey, white boy - it’s not polite to not say ‘hi’ back to someone.” (more…)

Once a week, I try to take my dogs out for The Big Walk. The circumtances change based on the season and the weather and the window of time I have to put into it, sometimes it’s hiking trails, sometimes it’s just neighborhood stuff. I’ve recently started exploring the system of greenbelts right around me and it’s a great combination of being new enough to feel like we’re getting away, undeveloped enough that there are cactus flowers and weird plants and rocks, and it’s close enough that we don’t have to build in any commute time. It’s been a great way to maximize our Big Walking. (more…)

I was out for my normal run 2 nights ago. My routine is to do a quick jog after dark at some point, nothing fancy, just the 2.5 mile loop around my “block.” The moon is just now starting to wax, and after about 10:00, it’s still just about pitch black during this lunar phase. There are no street lights where I live so if there’s no moon, there’s no light. The first half of my loop is next to a “busy” road where there’s a nice path; it’s relatively safe even with all the DWI enthusiasts out here, and the only pain in the ass is that when my eyes are used to absolute darkness, car hi-beams are more or less like the searing light of a thousand suns, and depending on how soon after dark I’m out, I’m flat out blinded every 10-200 seconds.

Even that’s usually not a problem, I’ll just slow down for a couple seconds and stumble around until the giant glowing orbs in front of my bleary eyes burn off and I can see again for a little while. So Tuesday night I was out later than usual and there was almost no traffic, pretty welcome. The halfway point is a main street I have to cross, there were no cars coming so I just kept truckin’ right along. The far side of the street is blocked off by a wooden fence with a narrow opening at the crosswalk, and I was aimed toward it and puffing along just fine. (more…)

I had to drive to Albuquerque last night to pick up a guest from the airport. Wife is always a madwoman before we have guests, and my charge was to occupy our daughter. There wasn’t anything on TV, it was getting too dark to play outside, we were both tired of the ball and were done with reading. I jumped onto my computer to check the flight status and it occurred to me to check Youtube for something kid friendly. (more…)

I was picking my daughter up at daycare yesterday and all the kids gave her a hug except the new kid, George. George is a good guy, just kind of shy with the ladies. Krista the Daycare Person said, “Well, just blow her a kiss, then,” and she demonstrated. George demurred and pressed up against Krista, but there was something weird about it I’d never noticed before, and I had one of my weird contextual leaps.

I realized that the only expression that you can blow someone is a kiss. (Is a kiss an expression? What the hell is a kiss, anyway?) If you can only blow positive things at someone, why not a smile or a wink? And why confine yourself to the positive. Haven’t you ever felt like blowing someone a punch while you were driving - you’d smack your fist in your palm while gazing malevolently at the cretin who just nearly sideswiped you and then sneer like Billy Idol in the “Eyes Without a Face” video while you blew the punch his direction. Or her direction. (more…)